Embers

Tubbo Underscore was only seven years old when his father died.

His mother struggled to raise him on her own, trying to hide her hardships behind her shining green eyes and bright smile. She'd tell him not to worry, give him a cookie the staff had made, and all would be well.

That was, until she decided to marry his stepfather.

Johnathan Schlatt was usually cheerful, always managing to make Tubbo laugh when he was upset, though most of his attention was on his sons, Quackity and George. George had been given a kitten, who he named Dream.

Then his mother passed.

She told Tubbo she left all her belongings to him in the will, but when Tubbo went to ask Schlatt about it, he said she had obviously made a mistake during the writing. According to law, he likes to say, the house went to him as the only legal adult in the household.

As years went by, Tubbo grew into a fit yet small boy with his mother's fluffy brown hair and bright green eyes always filled with joy. Schlatt figured he would make a fine stable boy and told him to help muck out the stables.

Only two months passed before Schlatt, in a drunken rage, became jealous of how happily his stepson went about his work and ordered his bedroom be moved into the basement.

Tubbo complied, finding some comfort in having the warm furnace near him every night.

Then one night, Tubbo was tending to the fire when he accidentally burned his hand on the metal rod he was prodding the logs with. Hissing, he dropped the rod into the fire, waving his hand around to dispel the pain.

That night, Schlatt came in. "Come here, little stepson. I want to show you something."

Tubbo was screaming, his face and arm and chest and back and neck burning, burning, burning, burning-

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Or, I watched Cinderella and decided to write a Bee Duo AU