Dungeons and Dreams

Tubbo

Tinkering around with some random junk in a shady alley in the middle of the night, admittedly, was not Tubbo’s brightest idea. But while that might be the case, he did have his reasons.

The main reason, of course, being that he simply was used to doing his tinkering outside in the dark. Tinkering had always been a hobby of his, but the temple didn’t exactly approve, so he usually kept it hidden by sneaking out in the middle of the night when no one would hear or see.

He wasn’t in the temple anymore, but he also wasn’t out of the habit yet, which led to where he was now.

It hadn’t gone wrong for him yet, at least.

Tubbo liked tinkering, for a lot of reasons. He liked to try to come up with ideas for different machines and contraptions he could make, liked to come up with potential solutions to problems he saw. He liked finding ways to make the piece fit together the way he wanted too, liked making the machines actually work. He liked the excitement of having a finished product that actually did something.

And, most importantly, he liked the distraction it gave him. Back in the temple, he had a lot of unsavory and resentful thoughts that he didn’t like lingering on, since they never did any good for him, so the distraction was great for him. Even now that he was a runaway, he felt angry and upset when he thought about what had happened there.

So he wasn’t going to think about that, and instead think about his current project, which… Well, he wasn’t actually sure what this thing was supposed to do quite yet, he had just gotten his hands on parts much larger than what he was used to and sort of went wild with it.

Tubbo hummed to himself as he messed around with his tools, trying to find a way to fit the piece in his hand into the rest of the contraption.

At some point while he was working, he got a feeling of being watched. Usually when that happened it was nothing, just him being paranoid of getting caught and punished, but he looked around regardless just to check. When he saw nothing, he went back to his work, though he stopped humming. Just in case.

Only a few minutes after, he heard a voice calling out, “Hey there,”

Startled, Tubbo whipped around to look at the source of the voice, watching as a figure walked out of the shadows. “You a runaway too?” Questioned the figure.

From what Tubbo could tell, they were a decently tall human, wearing dark clothes meant to blend into the darkness. Well, apart from the red and white t-shirt hidden under the cloaks, anyways. The human looked like they were around Tubbo’s age, and they were giving a friendly sort of smile, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were trustworthy.

“Do you do that to everyone you find in alleys?” Tubbo retorted instead of answering the question, “And if you’re looking to rob me, I don’t have anything you’ll want.” The pouch of gold hidden within Tubbo’s clothes said otherwise, but this person didn’t need to know that.

The human only continued smiling, “I’ll take that as a yes, and don’t worry - if I wanted to steal from you, ya wouldn’t even notice I was there until your shit was gone!” Yes, that was very comforting to know and not at all worry inducing. The human might be bluffing, but they looked like they were a rogue, so Tubbo would rather not take his chances, thanks.

The human was either oblivious to his reaction, or didn’t care much, because they gave a toothy grin and said, “I’m Thomas Careful Danger Kraken Innit, Biggest Man and Sneakiest Rogue, but you can call me Tommy. I use he/him, by the way.”

Tubbo was tempted to not introduce himself in return. He didn’t really know this Tommy guy, and the dude had just snuck up on him in the middle of an alleyway! And Tubbo didn’t know how long he had been watching beforehand.

But… Well, the guy seemed like he was friendly enough, and while he was probably exaggerating his skill it definitely would be a good idea to have a rogue who didn’t want to take all his stuff around.

“You can call me Tubbo, I use he/him too.” Tubbo replied. The temple had taught him to introduce himself as Tuberculosis Score, Monk from the Temple of Foolish, but that wasn’t something he wanted to introduce himself as. The less he was associated with that temple, the better.

Tommy nodded, “Nice to meet you, Tubbo! Hey, if you don’t mind me asking.. What is that thing?” he asked, gesturing to Tubbo’s contraption.

He shrugged in response, starting to put his tools and parts away - it was about time for him to head back to the spot he’d claimed, before someone else found it and took it. “It’s just a project I’ve been tinkering with.” Tubbo said, and Tommy gave a strange sound in response.

“That tells me nothing,” Tommy mumbled, which Tubbo chose to ignore.

“Hey, you said you’re a runaway too, right? D’you need someplace to stay?” 

------------------------

Tubbo stopped in front of the creaky door to the old wooden shack, looking over at the human behind him. Tommy had been making conversation with him the whole walk, but he had fallen silent now that they were here at the door. He was surprisingly easy to talk to, though none of it really went anywhere productive, apart from a bit of getting to know each other.

He opened the door, revealing the insides of the shack to Tommy. “Welcome to my humble abode!”

It wasn’t much, honestly. The shack was mostly held together despite its age, but it was small, and lacked sources of outside light apart from the cracks in the wood. There was an oil lantern in the middle of the shack, and a largish pile of blankets on one side of the room where Tubbo usually slept. The other side was bare wooden floor. 

Tommy didn’t seem to mind the state of the place, probably used to sleeping in similar situations himself. They both stepped inside, Tubbo shutting the door behind them and going over to his ‘bed’ to grab some blankets for Tommy. He needed something to sleep on too, after all.

As Tubbo set up Tommy’s blanket pile, the human shed the majority of his dark clothes, leaving only the red and white t-shirt and dark green pants covered in pockets. Tubbo kicked off his shoes once he had finished as well, though he didn’t have any layers to take off like Tommy did.

They both went to their respective sides after that, Tubbo putting out the lamp as he walked by it. 

“Thanks for letting me crash here, Tubbo,” Tommy said, and he could practically hear the smile in his voice.

“No problem, bossman,” Tubbo responded, looking over at the other as he got settled into the blankets to fall asleep.

In the dark, Tubbo could make out Tommy sitting on the blankets, legs in a butterfly position and hands folded in prayer in front of his chest. He could hear mumbles coming from the other, but he couldn’t make out what.

He looked away, a feeling he didn’t want to elaborate on filling his chest.

Tommy was religious. Tubbo could only hope that him being a regular worshiper meant that he wouldn’t end up like how the leaders at his temple were.