Children of Death | Dream SMP AU (discontinued)

Things I didn't Tell you

This chapter contains descriptions of gore and decay and mentions of grief and child abuse.

He read the letter again.
I don't know if any of us will make it back.
You'll always be my beloved.
Keep going, and remember us.
It wasn't any easier to comprehend than before or before or before. This had all come out of nowhere - Tubbo had expected everything to be the way it was, but instead he'd come home to an empty house and a pile of letters with everything he'd ever feared written on them. Goodbyes from his best friends; gone like they were never there, with Tommy already dead and Wilbur and Ranboo well on their way.
Don't lose hope, you might still see us again too.
He opened the red, heart-shaped charm that hung around his neck and looked into Ranboo's tiny painted face as if it might look back at him, and at the words written neatly next to it: Ranboo my beloved.
My beloved. He'd started using the name not long after they started dating, as a way to poke fun at Ranboo's last name; but then Ranboo would call Tubbo the same thing, and it had become something between a joke and a real way they showed affection. And now it might be the last thing they ever said to him.
Maybe it's all a trick they're playing on me. His brain cycled back to whatever explanations he could grasp for what was really happening. Maybe they're trying to scare me, and they'll come back and laugh at me for falling for it.
But it didn't make sense. They wouldn't pretend to die like that, not after what happened still so recently... But it didn't make any less sense than anything Wilbur had told him in the letter, did it?
Vwoop.
Tubbo thought he had imagined the tiny noise - though he was already jumping out of bed to see if Ranboo had returned anyway - until he heard the clamour of shouting voices that followed it. As he got up the strewn pages flew in every direction, and at the bottom of the staircase he saw who the voices belonged to: sitting on the living room floor and falling silent when they saw him were Wilbur and Tommy... and Ranboo's still, limp body, lying incapacitated or worse with long limbs splayed out and eyes rolled back into his head.
Tubbo barely gave himself a moment to be relieved that Wilbur and Tommy were alive - he was already running to Ranboo. He felt their chest and tried to shake him awake at the same time, before Wilbur finally spoke.
"He's breathing." Sure enough, Ranboo's chest rose and fell gently under his hands. He let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding, and then he saw Tommy.
"Woah," he said in surprise, blinking a few times, but nothing changed. Tommy looked strange and hazy like a wavering hallucination. Not transparent exactly, more like he wasn't there at all... and maybe glowing a little? And when Tubbo looked closely, he saw shimmers of odd colours - faint watercolour red and pink and orange and gold mixed in with the shades of Tommy's skin, hair and clothes. There were dark spots dappling his forehead and part of his hair in ugly mottled black, purple and red, and stranger still he seemed to be hovering a few centimetres from the floor instead of sitting on it.
What's going on? Am I dreaming, or hallucinating? Is he really there?
"What happened to you?" Tubbo asked. "Why are you all..."
Tommy studied his own flesh anxiously. "Uh, I have no idea actua- AUGH!"
Tubbo poked Tommy's arm and watched his finger disappear through the ghostly flesh, with a weird fuzzy tingling sensation as it did. Tommy jumped back and examined his arm as if he'd expected it to disappear.
"Ah! What'd I do!?" Tubbo pulled his hands away quickly.
"I don't know what you did but stop doing it. OW! What is your problem?"
Tubbo poked him again and then realised he'd forgotten to be angry. "What's your problem!? 'Hey there Tubbo, I've been lying to you since we met, alright now we're off to another PLANE OF EXISTENCE and you might never see us again, hope that's all okay with you!'"
"How do you even know any of that?" Tommy's anger had partially been taken over by confusion.
"We left him a letter," Wilbur explained, still examining Tommy with nervous disbelief. "Me and Ranboo. We didn't want to leave him without an explanation."
"Did you miss out on the part where I DIED? Would you prefer if I'd just stayed dead?"
"No!" Tubbo cried guiltily. "I just don't understand any of this! Gods? The Afterlife? Murder plans? You guys are demigods - you're not even human?"
"What does it matter if we're human?" Tommy snapped.
"Calm down," said Wilbur sternly, and both boys were reluctantly silent. "Tommy, I think this happened because your soul was separated from your body. Your body should still be at home, hopefully we can get there without being noticed and get you back to normal." He turned to Tubbo. "Then we'll have to leave. I'm sorry Tubbo, my mother found us while we were rescuing Tommy, so all three of us have to go."
"Are we gonna go through with your plan?" Tommy asked hesitantly, with an anxious pause before he finished: "Are we gonna kill her?"
"I think we have to," Wilbur said with a nod, his voice low and solemn. "Our other option is to take all our things, move somewhere far away and start our lives over. But we don't have time for that, and they'd be bound to find us eventually."
"So you're all going?" Tubbo's heart was sinking like a stone. "You two, and Ranboo, you're all just leaving? When will you come back?"
"When we're safe," said Wilbur. "When the rest of our family is gone."
"What about Ranboo?" Tubbo cried. "They can't fight in a war! Have you met them!? Maybe we can convince your mum he isn't a threat. Or that they're already dead?"
He can't go, Tubbo thought. Ranboo was sweet and talented and more wonderful than they ever seemed to realise, but he wasn't a fighter. He'd never wanted to hurt anyone and didn't seem like they'd ever had a violent or malicious thought in their life. And they already worried so much without the constant threat of an all-powerful god who wanted to kill them, something as huge and life-threatening as this would tear him apart from the inside. Not to mention all the danger he'd be in.
"The God of Death is going to know if he's dead or not," said Tommy. "And it won't matter if he's a threat. He helped us, she's going to want revenge. If she thinks they're weak she'll just think it's easier for her to kill them."
Tubbo's anxiety was swallowed up by sheer, crushing hopelessness. His friends were leaving him and perhaps never coming back; his partner was being taken away to gods know where to hide from people who wanted them dead, to an impossible fight he knew they couldn't handle. They were all journeying off to die somewhere, and all he could do was watch them go.
Was it?
He breathed in all the words and cries that tempted him and steeled his gaze as he looked up. "Then I'm coming with you."
The expressions and silence from the other two were as if Tubbo had removed his own head in front of them. "No," Wilbur said firmly, and at the same time a shocked "Are you serious?" came from Tommy.
"He can't come," Wilbur said to his brother, and turned to Tubbo again. "It's too dangerous, and there are too many people getting dragged into this already. I didn't want Ranboo or Tommy to be involved and I don't want you to be either. Stay here where you're safe."
"But you're not safe!" Tubbo cried. "I don't wanna sit at home and live my peaceful little life if it means leaving all of you to die!"
"We'll be okay," Wilbur reassured him in a not very reassuring voice. "Ranboo will be okay. He won't have to do any of the fighting, and we'll make sure he's safe."
"He's not going to be safe, not as long as he's anywhere near your family," Tubbo protested.
"Maybe he has a point," Tommy chimed in hesitantly. "We'll need all the help we can get. Maybe he can be useful." But he still seemed pained looking at Tubbo and imagining letting him join an impossible mission like this.
"I can! I promise I can!" Tubbo pleaded. "I'll learn to fight, I'll find food- I can take care of Ranboo, can't I?" Even as he said it he could hear how ridiculous it was. A seventeen-year-old boy who barely had enough battle training to defend himself, attempting to fight a god with no plan and no knowledge of what he was doing. He shouldered his way through all his fear and told himself that Ranboo was facing that danger too, and so was Wilbur, and so was Tommy. He wasn't letting them face it alone.
But Wilbur still shook his head. "It's just too much of a risk. There's a small chance that any of us will survive. You're a kid and you shouldn't have to be involved in something like this, and Ranboo will just be more scared of you getting hurt if you're there."
"He'll be scared either way! I can help him!" Tubbo strained his voice and pretended tears weren't welling behind his eyes. He was defeated, he knew he couldn't convince Wilbur, but still he kept trying. "Please, I can't just stay here and let you die."
Or watch you all leave knowing I'll probably never see you again. Or lose Ranboo without ever having a chance to hear him laugh or tell him I love him again. Or spend the rest of my life waiting for you to come home, and never know if you're still out there fighting or you died ten years ago or you'll arrive on my doorstep tomorrow.
He held Ranboo tighter, who was still lying limp and unconscious in his arms. They looked so strangely peaceful amongst all the chaos and fear in such a haunting, uncanny way.
"Uh, guys?"
Tubbo and Wilbur both turned to Tommy, who was holding his arm out in front of him - though it took Tubbo a moment to realise he had an arm. Tommy's hand and forearm had turned transparent and seemed to waver in and out of existence. The sunset colours were clearer there, swirling and pulsating like living things under his see-through skin; in fact, it looked as if that's all there was inside of him, instead of flesh and bone.
Tubbo covered his mouth. "Gods, did I do that to you?"
"No, it isn't the same arm you kept poking me on," said Tommy. "But then what's happening? Am I disappearing?"
"We should get you back into your body, now," Wilbur dictated. He looked at Tommy's fading arm fearfully and then at Tubbo, whose heart immediately dropped. "Would you mind packing Ranboo's things? We'll come back to get them - and Ranboo himself - and say goodbye before we leave."
Before they leave forever.
Not forever. Hopefully not. Please, let them come back.
"Yeah. Sure, I can do that."