DreamSMP one-shots ||

// Too much to carry. //

Everything is too overwhelming, and Tubbo finally breaks.

TW/CW: Ptsd, panic attacks, mentions of abuse and death, dissociation/derealization
~

     "I need one of you to hit me."
     .Tubbo and Ranboo stood there in shock, staring at their blonde best friend who stood his ground in front of them, sure and determined and stubborn as always.
     "Wh— I don't—" The enderman hybrid stuttered as Tubbo cut in.
     "Tommy— what? Are you crazy? We can't just—"
     "Tubbo listen—" Tommy started.
     "Tommy we can't hit you, it'll only make you feel worse, I don't see how this—" Tubbo was cut off again. He didn't understand how all this exposure to such harmful things could ever help Tommy recover, it all only seemed to panic him more. Sure, it was brave and made Tommy looks stronger, made him feel stronger, but was this all really worth it?
     "Listen!" Tommy said, causing Tubbo and Ranboo's eyes to go wide. "You guys can mess around— can playfully punch and shove eachother and hold hands and hug and— and—" he paused, trying to gain his composure. "And I can barely be touched without feeling like my fucking skin is on fire! It's not fucking fair!" he shouted. Tubbo stood dangerously still. He still didn't understand. This all felt a little too fucked up, and Tubbo wasn't sure he'd be able to get out of it.
     .Tommy sighed, looking embarrassed. "I— I know I've asked a lot of you guys, but just do this for me okay? I'll be fine, I'll be okay I just need to— I need to feel it so I can get over it. Just slap me— punch me across the face, I don't care which, just... please." Tommy begged. It made Tubbo feel sick to his stomach.
     .Tubbo swallowed thick saliva. He knew Tommy wouldn't let up, and it made him hate the world. Ranboo whispered aloud: unsure if this was the right thing to do but never got to finish, when suddenly Tubbo had stepped forward. It all happened in a flash and in slow motion at the same time, he didn't know what came over him. His hand had raised, then swung in one fluid motion, hitting Tommy across the face with a slap.
     .When Tubbo came back to himself, his head snapped to his left where Ranboo had his hands over his mouth in shock. He looked back to Tommy who was still looking to the side from the impact, a hand raised up to lightly graze his now stinging cheek. A trembling sigh escaped his lips, and Tubbo was surprised he hadn't puked everywhere by now.
     "I— I'm...."
     "Thank you." was what Tommy said when he finally looked back. Surely this isn't how a person heals, Tubbo thinks to himself. His stomach churned and threatened to rise into his throat. Surely it isn't.
     He laid awake now, the clock on his bedside table read '3:04 a.m.' He couldn't rest again.
     Ranboo laid sound asleep behind him, and Tubbo couldn't help but feel envy. Despite the mansion not being finished yet, Ranboo insisted on staying after the day they had with Tommy. He'd ask Tubbo if he was okay and Tubbo would brush him off, saying he was doing good as usual with a plastic smile.
     "He killed me too—" Tubbo went to say.
     "Well, yeah but you've got thicker skin than I do." Tommy dismissed.
     He had thicker skin. He didn't need to talk about his feelings. He didn't need to sleep, he didn't need to give a real reason other than he 'was tired' when he'd stay in bed all day sometimes. He didn't stare at himself in the mirror, grazing his fingertips over the ginormous scar practically taking up half his face that was a never-ending reminder of that day. He didn't, he didn't, he didn't.
     "Sometimes.. sometimes I wish I would've just stayed dead."
     How could Tommy have said that to him? How could he, after everything.
     No. This wasn't Tommy's fault, none of this was. He wasn't self-centered for putting himself first, or expecting Tubbo to push down his trauma when it was all he had ever done anyway. Guilt swirled in his chest, tears threatened to build up in his eyes and Tubbo made himself numb. He was fine. He was always fine.
     Tubbo knew Ranboo noticed. He knew Ranboo noticed when he'd wake up with shakier hands than other days, or he'd be stuck in his mind as it kept him prisoner. He knew Ranboo knew even when Tubbo pushed him away because Ranboo would make him warm tea, gently guiding him to sit in front of the fireplace. He wouldn't touch him because of his tense frame, but would comfort him with kind and reassuring words when his eyes would dart around the room, paranoid.
     Tubbo would never admit he wasn't okay, because everyone around him expecting him to be; they needed him too much. He'd risk his life, hell, he'd give up his life for the people around him. People knew that, but they never questioned it. Was it normal to give your life up for a couple pieces of plastic? Was it normal to feel almost content when a man whose given you hell since you can remember practically holds an axe to your throat, telling you to 'say your goodbyes' to your best friend? He didn't know. He didn't want to think about it.
     His mind is becoming a mess, and cleaning it up feels like so much effort right now. It's 3 am, he thinks, nobody will notice and I pull myself together before morning.
     He just couldn't stop thinking about Tommy and all the things he'd made them do earlier. He knew Tommy wanted to heal, knew he deserved to heal, but it all scared Tubbo. He didn't know how to handle this and his own problems that were slowly more and more pushing and pushing him to his brink. He could handle it, he'd tell himself, he could. Tubbo was always able to handle his trauma alone, and he would continue to. He would, because what else could he do?
    At 3:45 Tubbo's body became restless again, and his limbs yelled at him to movemovemove when he'd force them still. Carefully, quietly, he made his way out of bed, out of the room. He slipped his shoes on, but didn't grab his coat before groggily stumbling his way out of the front door of his house.
     He needed a distraction.
     The cold air bit at his cheeks and the tip of his nose, ruffling his hair with an icy hand. It was still dark outside, there was still a few more hours to spare before the sun shined over the horizon, a few more hours to spare to get his head together again. He liked the cold and it's ability to forcefully ground him, part of him thinks it was one of the things that brought him here in the first place. He never got tired of it, and it could never get tired of him.
     Shivering slightly, he stepped down the steep stairs of the porch trying not to slip on the patches of ice frozen over them. Crickets chirped from the shadows, and torches lit up the area enough for mobs not to spawn. He felt safer here than in his bed, where outside he could focus on the nature and weather around him instead of the cotton stuffing his head and ears, making reality and imagination hard to distinguish. The cold was definite and sure, and the cabin was much too stifling sometimes.
     He walks a couple meters away from the dark, still house and turns back around. The snowfall was about three inches overnight, and snowflakes still fell sparsely from the sky to melt in his hair. When he looked up to the murky clouds, the feathery ice-crystals found purchase on his eyelashes and he had to blink them away. They reminded him that this is real. The snow would never leave him. The snow had taken him as it's own in a tight grip, and Tubbo is thankful.
In clothes thin enough to be useless he lets himself fall to his knees, unaware of the sudden calmness that had fallen over his entire being. His mind is foggy and clear at the same time, where everything around him blends together from sleepiness like different colored paints in a cup of water.
The pinching, stinging, burning of the biting snow on his legs and knees only barely registers somehow, and he knows he should be concerned. He knows he should be concerned because it's below 0 degrees and he's only wearing the thinest of fabrics and can barely feel it anymore. He knows he should be concerned. His husband is asleep, unaware, not even a few yards away and Tubbo is freezing without even feeling it. He knows he should get up and go back inside.
When he tries to move, he can't.
He doesn't realize he's crying until tears drip onto his thighs, and his heart momentarily skips a beat until he realized he's alone. It's okay. Nobody will see.
And so he cries. He cries and sobs and hiccups and chokes on his tears, loud and ugly and unconditional and inevitable. He scratches at his throat but his arms move in slow motion from the numbing temperature, as if he's under water. The snowflakes have melted, and his clothes are blotchy with wet spots, he realizes distantly. He can only barely feel it.
He doesn't know how long he cries for, he doesn't know at what point his body had given up on him and he'd fallen to the floor completely, laying on his side. He claws at the earth when all he wants to do is go inside because this was a horrible idea, and his body wont move. He can only be, and let the dying weeds of the ground wrap around himself and pull him under and take him captive. The cold stabs through his skin, making its way into his blood and nerves, cramping and twisting his muscles.
And then... there's something standing over him— no, someone. Tubbo recognized the slender figure anywhere. Ranboo. Ranboo, his beloved.
The hybrid is bending over him, eyes wide and saying something. But Tubbo is exhausted. His eyes can only flutter lazily, focusing and unfocusing, as sleep decides that it's taking him whether he likes it or not.
"—bo!.... Tubbo?" There are hands resting on his shoulders, shaking him slightly. The effort to keep him awake is futile.
He wants to say something, but his brain isn't working correctly and even opening his mouth feels like a challenge. How long have I been lying here?
He tries one more time, anyway.
He humms. "T— Tired." he thinks he says.
The last thing Tubbo sees is the red and green of panicked eyes, before the darkness eats him whole.