this world we have built is burning down around us | Dream SMP Time Travel Fic

we bury our bodies under earth and never think to let them to walk it again

There was dirt underneath his nails.

Tubbo's body still ached, his bandaged fingers, or what was left of them, still stung, but that mattered very little when Wilbur suggested something so heinous, ominous, and the young President—now more than likely a fugitive—could barely stop to grab a shovel on his way out, sinking to his knees beside Tommy's grave, the marker a cold headstone, especially from the snow, with a simple engraving on it, cliche and something Tommy would have scowled and spit on if he were there.

"When I die, Tubs, you get me, you have to farm primes for me, yeah? You have to capitalize off my death, which will be awesome and badass! I want my grave to be massive, no stupid grand bullshit or anything, but the stone has to have all my achievements on it, okay? All the awesome shit I did will be known by everyone in L'manberg and the SMP for generations! But you better not fucking cry, alright? Because that would be sad, ya' know? I don't want you to cry over me, because if I die, I'll die brave and happy and better than The Blade himself!"

Tubbo fought the urge not to burst into tears again, focusing more so on digging into the frozen soil with his bare, bloodied fingers and stumps. Tommy had told him that so long ago, just as the cusp of the first war, L'manberg's war for independence, had begun. At the time, naive as they were, Tommy's words were more for show, pretty and a fate that would never come to fruition because they were kids and they could not die, of course not! Tubbo had laughed at him and promised that he would do as requested, even if he wasn't sure he wouldn't cry, though he would try just for Tommy.

(Before betrayal and exiles and executions, before Tommy and Tubbo began lying to themselves, before they'd become something other than human, Tommy with a rotting heart that beat and Tubbo with sharp horns and goat ears.)

Now it felt bittersweet, making his gut swoop and sour sick tease the back of his throat. It was a happy memory, of better times and brighter hopes, but it was painted with the taint of the present and all of its horrid hindsight.

Tommy would never get his primes farmed, for Tubbo could not return to L'manberg to walk the Prime Path; his grave was no statue, as Tommy had preferred, but it was not large either, certainly not large enough to fit everything the blond had accomplished onto it (because he'd helped found L'manberg and led their troops for freedom and fought behind the scenes even after being exiled and gave his heart and loyalty and friendship to so many people who only continued to turn on him, and there was no way to fit everything Tommy had done simply by being who he was onto a simple slab of stone); and Tubbo could not keep himself from his tears, undeserved as they were after everything he'd done by being a coward scrabbling for peace in a land being tugged about by a mad tyrant, because Tommy had not died happy or brave (though if Tubbo told Techno, he had a feeling the hybrid would say the blond had certainly died a better man than himself). Tommy had died angry and sad and resigned, and despite being brave until the very end, he did not die bravely, only bitter threats on his lips as he swore to his very own abuser that he would die in that moment, be it by Dream's hand or his own.

"Tubbo," a voice muttered, and he was tugged away by the floating entity that was Wilbur, his remaining echo painting his voice as a tone immortally mournful; the brunet thought it apt, for he was sure Wilbur would never truly stop grieving. "The ground is frozen solid by now, and you can't dig with your hands, much less injured ones."

He was turned to face the ghost, translucent but solid hands grasping his own gently, essentially cradling them in his palms, mostly open and barely gripping. Tubbo's fingers twitched, and he lifted his head to stare at the dead man, taking careful note of the missing distant glaze in the ghost's eyes, the spark within that spoke of presence if not of life, the brighter glow, the hazy edge less like fog drifting away in wisps and more like a glitching buzz that fuzzed his outline.