Archive of Our Own ^beta

The day is a lovely one.

That awful, gaping wound in the Server’s side has finally begun to heal, healthily overgrown with grass and vines and even a few flowers (courtesy of the Server itself, of course). More importantly, the bedrock is finally hidden once more. A solid flood of water, teaming with aquatic life (Life! In this once-desolate place!) has covered the ancient rock, cool and soothing like a balm. The hole is a trauma that won’t ever quite scar over, the Server thinks, but that’s okay. It would rather have this lovely, lively living wound than boring, flat forest and field. 

Reckless and messy, but the Server can excuse that, so long as it’s interesting.

Speaking of which — TommyInnit sits on a bridge. The bridge, the one spanning across the near-Chunk Error. And there’s Tubbo sitting next to him.

The Server likes to keep tabs on Tubbo. It’s found, through its many years of experience, that adoring Tubbo is a natural side-effect of adoring Tommy. How do you dislike a boy like that? So the Server watches him and offers him his own little gifts, when it can.

(Bees and hives to house them. Sweeter-than-sweet honey, always. A home and the means to defend it, and forgiveness when he creates wounds that sting with radiation. A son, in need of parents. A friend, right in time for when the other is gone).

Yes, the Server likes to keep tabs on Tubbo. So it had worried, right along with Tommy, when they both found him sitting all alone on the bridge. Tommy had been enthusiastically talking to himself and gathering wheat seeds (without too much help from the Server, admittedly — it wanted to see how long it would take before Tommy just decided to scam someone into selling him what he wanted) when they stumbled upon the scene.

Tubbo, legs dangling over the edge of the bridge, staring at the water like he could see the reflection of something more than cattails and overgrown cliffside in its glassy surface. Tommy called out to him and when that got no response, forgot his seed-gathering task in favor of walking over and sitting down next to him. 

And now they’re just… here.

“Lovely day,” Tommy says. The Server wishes it could tell him it had been thinking that same thought just a few minutes earlier. Tubbo makes an agreeing sound, still staring down at the water. Tommy sighs, long-suffering. “How are you, Tubbo?” 

“I’m alright,” Tubbo replies, slowly. “Looking at this big fucking hole, I guess.”

“Yeah? Do you look into holes often?” Tommy snickers. He’s immature, sometimes. They both are. That’s fine. The Server has seen the times he’s been far too mature for a boy his age. It’s his right to make childish jokes, the same way it’s Tubbo’s right to laugh at them the way he does now.

“You’re so stupid.”

“You’re the one who started Hole Talk, Tubbo.” 

And so it goes. The Server spawns fish in the water below them to pass the time, delighted when Tubbo’s eyes go wide and he points out some particularly colorful, tropical thing, sounding more excited than he has all conversation. “I didn’t know those could spawn in lakes,” Tommy says, and Tubbo replies, bewildered, “They can’t!”. 

He goes on a tangent. Tommy groans and sighs and feins boredom the way he always does, during Tubbo Tangents, but it’s nice. Nicer than Tubbo staring endlessly into the once-void remains of a country he lived and died for. 

Eventually, Tommy asks about Tubburger . A new food place, apparently, in that awful cold desert. The Server tries to ignore that place. It doesn’t like false biomes, and it doesn’t like the glittery buildings sitting on that false sand. Admittedly, it doesn’t keep very good tabs on Tubbo when he’s there. Apparently, work is boring. 

“Nobody comes to Las Nevadas,” Tubbo shrugs. “And have you noticed Quackity is sort of weird?”

“Dunno. He yells a lot, I noticed that.”

“ You yell a lot.”

“That’s just part of my charm, Tubbo.”

The Server agrees, privately. 

“Debatable.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Anyway, I haven’t been to work in a few days. All I do there is make gross burgers nobody eats, and sometimes Quackity comes in and talks about, like, my potential, or something? But he doesn’t eat the burgers either. So I’m thinking, why go in? And he hasn’t fired me yet.”

“Do you think I should get a job?”

“Nah,” Tubbo replies. “Jobs tend to suck a lot, I think. Mine have.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Silence, again. 

“Well.” Tommy picks at some vines growing off the edge of the bridge. “Why are you out here, anyway?”

“Don’t have much to do,” Tubbo shrugs. 

“Oh. Want to help me start a farm?”

“Not really.” 

“Oh.” Tommy stands. “Well. I’m going to go find wheat seeds.” He says. “To end the famine.” He hesitates, for a moment, waiting for Tubbo cave and come help him. He doesn’t. “Okay. I’ll see you around, Tubbso.” He waves, and Tubbo waves back, and then Tommy’s off to find someone who will give him wheat seeds. 

The Server lags behind, fixated on the boy still sitting on a bridge. 

He swings his legs slightly, still staring down, down, down. At the fish below, and the seagrass they swim through. At the life that’s come into this place again. At the wound that’s somehow managed to heal before he has. 

The Server cannot put a hand on his shoulder, cannot tell him that what he has managed to grow out of this wreckage is infinitely more important. 

What it can do is make sure there are flowers in the snow when he gets home. Alliums for his husband, golden dandelions for his son, and pink tulips for him. Fighting, like him, despite the cold. Miraculous, and resilient, and alive.