Tubbo stands on the walls of the outpost, staring out at the twinkling lights of Las Nevadas in the not-too-distant distance. His binoculars are ramshackle, but they are more for the aesthetic than function at this point. It is not exactly hard to see out that far from across the river.
The outpost was almost therapeutic for Tubbo. It gave him something to do, to work on the walls, to raise them higher - or to spy out into the snow-covered sand. Las Nevadas was a threat; something to keep an eye on, a problem to try to solve.
He needed a problem to solve. Things had been going too good for Tubbo, for too long.
It is a strange thought, and yet it is true - there has not been a long period of peace for Tubbo in a very, very long time. It was not the way of his life to have things go well.
—
Tubbo was brought into the early days of the Disc Wars, and in the short era of relative chaotic peace, he often found himself losing every pet he’d had.
The country he was trying to help build was betrayed, and he was the first to die. And then his best friend lost another life, and was standing on Death’s door.
Things settled with the founding of the country, but there was work to do yet. People to welcome, courts to build, leverage to gain with swords and leather.
And then the elections came, and things once again spiraled. Tommy and Wilbur were ripped away from him, and he was pulled close against Schlatt’s side - forced into a life of double agency; one side, the country he’d worked so hard to build, and the other, the people to whom he was closest and the spirit of his nation. The tightrope he walked was thin, and shaken on both sides.
The Festival was work, but it was peace, and it was hope. Until yellow concrete closed in around him, and Techno’s promise of a quick death was not quick enough.
Now he stood on Death’s door himself, but there was no time to mourn himself. Wilbur’s madness had put Techno and Tommy against each other for HIS sake, and Tubbo had to shut down his pain to keep them all from falling apart.
Movement across the river. Tubbo raised the binoculars again.
Quackity. The man himself, standing on the peak, staring back. Binoculars wouldn’t have worked for the man, but the sleek handheld telescope did, and Tubbo and Quackity stared through their lenses at each other.
Daring the other to make the first move.
The revolution had taken so much planning, and brought only more pain. Schlatt died of his own accord. Neither Wilbur nor Tommy wanted to rule the land they’d just fought for, and suddenly Tubbo found himself President.
And the first thing to happen under his rule was an assassination by an ally, and an explosion of TNT, set off by the very man who’d handed him that first jacket, so long ago. And then Wilbur died to Philza’s hand, and they never could ask him why.
He had no time to himself. He had a country to run - a crater to fill, a nation to rebuild from the ashes.
And then Tommy (and Ranboo) set fire to the home of the king of the Dream SMP, and Tubbo was faced with an impossible choice. Torn between morals, and loyalty.
Tubbo made the impossible choice, the only one he could have made, and no one supported him in it.
He held Tommy’s compass close to his heart at all times - but even that small comfort was denied him, the world itself moving to destroy the tie to his dearest friend.
And then the Butcher Army moved - Quackity’s brainchild, but Tubbo’s order. They faced the Blade, and they failed, in ways Tubbo still cannot explain. It cost Quackity a life, and Tubbo respect as President.
He goes to find his friend, fed up with all of this, and finds only a ruin and a tower. There is not even anything left to mourn.
Finally, they seemed to reach an agreement. The viewfinders lowered at the same time, and it was just eyes. One clear and one damaged eye, each - fireworks and pickaxes both left their marks.
Quackity had once been an ally. A dear friend, even.
But Tubbo is no stranger to betrayal. It is almost easier to face a foe than a friend, at this point.
And then Tommy was alive, and was standing at Technoblade’s side. Tubbo once again had to choose between morals and loyalty, and the choice was as impossible as the first was.
They tried a festival. After all, Tubbo knew how deadly they can be. He wanted to use his own pain to advantage, for once.
It went almost as wrong as it can. He gained back his friend, but lost everyone, and then they all lost everything. Doomsday came, and the people abandoned him. He was worse than the men who destroyed his country, in their eyes.
So Tubbo must leave, and build home anew. There was one last battle to fight, for the discs yet. One last stand with his friend. They both stared Death in the face.
He should have died. He was supposed to die. It was supposed to be his turn to rest. But even that was taken from him by a flaring Nether portal, and an army. They stood by him, now, when they would not before.
Quackity offers a sarcastic salute before turning on his heel, marching back down the hill. Tubbo watches him leave before he, too, turns away from the wall.
The field spreads out below him. The wheat and cocoa beans for cookies. Ranboo making this place actually function as its cover story.
Ranboo. The one thing to go right in Tubbo’s life. He is still waiting for the other shoe to fall with him.
Tubbo threw himself into the building of weapons so strong, he might finally feel safe in mutually assured destruction. (Even unknown, his pain continued - his weapon was nearly the end of his friend, right under his nose.)
And then Tommy diddie, in the prison, at the hands of the man who was supposed to kill Tubbo. Everything they did, everything Tubbo did, was not enough to save him.
A weapon went missing. Paranoia flared in Tubbo, but at least the only way to activate it is a dead man’s switch. Something only a man as ready for death as Tubbo would install.
He was still learning to mourn Tommy when he emerged, alive. Elation was tempered in pain, tempered in logic.
Things had been quiet for too long. Even Wilbur’s return, the shock that it was, has not yet caused trouble besides the act itself. And Tubbo….doesn’t like that.
So he spies on Las Nevadas. So he stands up to Quackity, his old friend, and threatens him with nuclear weapons. So he puffs himself up and throws himself at problems.
Tubbo visits his son, and his husband, and they are his anchors. But an itch at the back of his brain pulls him back into danger.
The young man has forgotten how to live a quiet life. He does not know what it means to be at peace. Tubbo will not be caught off guard again.
Peace is too good to be true.