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Tubbo will never understand how Tommy does it. He makes snap decisions as easy as breathing, barrelling into half-made plans with all the grace of a battering ram. “Tonight’s the night of war,” he vows, and suddenly he’s talking about recruiting Technoblade and going to the Badlands and a million other ideas that are going to end with L’Manberg in flames if they follow him into war tonight.
They’re being reckless. Tommy’s making everything up as he goes- Tubbo can see it in his eyes- and Quackity and Fundy are actually listening to him. They’re rushing into a fight that will end with a crater where the nation they put their blood, sweat, and tears into once stood. Again. Tommy says that Technoblade can stand for a small government like theirs, but that’s not true. That’s what Tommy and Wilbur thought the first time around, and look where that got them.
They’re not thinking things through. They’re not seeing the patterns unfolding right before their eyes. He wishes he could say that he doesn’t understand why, but if Tubbo learned anything from his time under Schlatt, it was how to see every angle and point of view.
Tommy is just trying to buy himself time. All his plans for taking the fight to Dream, all his apologies to Tubbo are just him trying to save his own hide. And he can’t blame him for that. He really, really can’t. But it’s not as easy as Tommy insists that it is. It never has been. He sees things in black and white. Good and evil. Us and them. Wilbur was supposed to be Tommy’s brother. The real Wilbur would never destroy L’Manberg. Tubbo is his best friend; his right hand man. Tubbo exiling him is a personal betrayal.
But it’s so much more complicated than that. Yes, Wilbur was Tommy’s brother, and he blew up L’Manberg. The two ideas can coexist. Tubbo is his friend, but right now he needs to understand that Tubbo can’t afford to be. He needs to see the forest for the trees, and L’Manberg is so much bigger than two teenagers and a pair of music discs.
But Tommy is Wilbur’s brother, through and through, and pride runs in the family. He refuses to see things Tubbo’s way, no matter how many times he tries to explain. Tubbo wonders how long it will be before Tommy forgets about the promise he makes in the heat of the moment. He says he’ll forget about the discs, and Tubbo wants to believe him. Desperately so. But Tommy has promised a lot of things over the years, and right now he’s barely thinking about the words before they spill out of his mouth.
Tommy has Wilbur’s pride, and that’s dangerous enough on it’s own. But Tommy has his charisma, too. Where Wilbur spoke with honeyed words like he was the most rational person in the room, Tommy is all passion. He believes everything he says so wholeheartedly that you want to believe it, too. He’s got Quackity and Fundy convinced with just half an improvised speech about how they can’t just bend to Dream, and no one listens when Tubbo tries to tell them that they need to think logically, that they can’t afford to go to war, and that Technoblade is never going to side with them.
But Tommy is just trying to keep from being exiled, and Quackity refuses to bend to another dictator, and Fundy is being swept up in the gravity of Quackity and Tommy on the warpath. Tubbo, however, isn’t as easily swayed. But they talk over him every time he voices his concerns, and they assure him over and over again that this plan they’ve been making for all of five minutes will actually work.
Tubbo agrees to the plan anyways, because he really, really doesn’t want to exile Tommy, and he promised Fundy and Quackity that it’s the cabinet that has the final say. All of them. Schlatt never listened to his cabinet, and Tubbo cannot be another Schlatt.
He agrees to the plan, because he wants to believe Tommy when he says that he’s putting the discs to the side. Because Tommy is his best friend, and he is begging Tubbo to let him stay.
And more than that, he does it because he trusts Quackity. Tubbo fought by Tommy’s side in the war for L’Manberg’s independence, but he and Quackity were stuck together under Schlatt’s thumb. They understand each other in a way that the original revolutionaries of L’Manberg never will- that not even Fundy can, because he may have been in the cabinet but he was spared most of Schlatt’s direct attention. On the tower, Quackity and Tubbo trusted each other implicitly. They don’t lie to each other. Not after facing their own respective hells side by side the way that they did. That’s just how they work . If Quackity says he’d rather die with honor than bow to Dream, then Tubbo has no choice but to trust that.
But he’s not sure if he can condone it, is the thing. He wants to listen to what they say. He trusts them and he loves them, but he’s not sure he can lead them into war.
He stares up at the obsidian wall, and he remembers that they never actually won the war for independence. Tommy challenged Dream to a one on one fight, and lost. He had to give up his discs- because everything always comes back to the discs, the only thing Tommy cares about, more than his nation, more than his friends, he’d said it himself- to earn their independence.
They couldn’t win then, and they won’t be able to win now. They’re so underprepared. They have maybe two full sets of armor between the four of them, and the only weapon Tubbo has to his name is a sword with the most basic enchantment he could get his hands on.
Dream could kill them all the second they tell him they’re not exiling Tommy, he realizes. There’s no way he came unarmed. And that’s all it would take. He could kill them all right there, right then, and Tommy wouldn’t come back.
Nor would Tubbo, but that’s less important. Because the second he’d slaughtered them, Dream would make good on his promise to keep building the walls and trap everyone Tubbo has ever cared about and sworn to protect inside. Dream had promised to kill them all if they so much as stepped a toe out of line, and-
(I want to see white flags! Dream had told a band of revolutionaries, a lifetime ago. I want to see white flags outside your base by tomorrow, or you are dead!)
Dream always, always makes good on a promise.
And when Tubbo stands on the wall, overlooking their patchwork nation, Dream has the audacity to say, “I trust that whatever decision you came to was the best one for L’Manberg.”
Tubbo can’t help the sound that comes from his throat. It’s supposed to be a laugh, he thinks. “You know, this is... that’s funny, actually,” he finally admits, and he turns to look at his friends. His cabinet.
They want a war, but that would lead them all to ruin. They’ve never won against Dream. Not in the revolution, and not with the entire population at their backs and Technoblade’s armory at their disposal.
But say they’re right, in the end. Say they actually beat the odds and do it. They would be so much safer without the threat of Dream’s wrath hanging over them like the blade of a guillotine.
The part that they’re forgetting, though, is that they would be safe for… all of five seconds before Technoblade and the Badlands inevitably turn on them. The Badlands want chaos. Technoblade wants anarchy. Neither of them will let L’Manberg remain in peace, and they’ll end up right back where they started. A crater in the ground.
He’s not sure if Tommy has thought that far ahead. He never does. But in the old days when it was just him and Tubbo, that was okay. The worst that Tommy led the two of them into was a few scrapes and bruises or a lecture from Phil.
But they’re on their last lives now, and it’s not just the two of them anymore. It’s Quackity, and Fundy, and Niki, and Puffy, and Ranboo, and Karl, and Phil, and the rest of L’Manberg.
This is bigger than just them. This isn’t some nice little story where four revolutionaries and a traitor challenge tyranny and live happily ever after (until the election, until the execution, until the war, until the crater, until the exile, until, until, until- ). This is four people with the weight of an entire nation on their shoulders.
They can’t be reckless. Not with so many lives on the line. His cabinet- his friends- want this war, and it will get all of them killed. That’s okay. Thinking things through was always Tubbo’s job, even before the crater. And as Quackity is always so quick to remind him, the president has the last say. That’s him now, at least until the next election. He just needs to hold this place together until then. He can do that. He can do that, so long as he doesn’t let Tommy lead them charging headfirst into a war they’ll never win.
Tommy just laughs nervously, his gaze shifting from Tubbo to the god standing further down the wall. Tommy's gaze hardens. Tubbo knows that look. He's about to do something stupid. “Dream-” he starts, and that’s when Tubbo’s finally had enough.
Quackity has been saying all day that they can’t keep negotiating here. That they’ll never get any power or respect if they keep bending over backwards every time someone looks their way. He’s right. But he’s not sure Quackity knew who Tubbo was really negotiating with, when push comes to shove. They’re his friends, but just sitting by and agreeing with what they want him to do will get all of them killed. They can’t see that, but Tubbo can.
So right now, he’s not their friend. He’s their president, and the president has the final word. “Tommy,” he finally forces himself to say. “I am so, so sorry.”
Tommy’s eyes widen, like he can’t quite comprehend what’s happening just yet, but knows that he hates it.
Tubbo breaks eye contact, and turns back to Dream. “I have come to the decision that will be best for the nation. The most logical thing to do is for Tommy to be... exiled from L’Manberg.”
Tubbo remembers when Schlatt first took to the podium, between the revolution and the festival. (When had he started measuring time in disasters?) Well, he had smiled. That was pretty easy.
Tubbo has no idea what the man was talking about. No part of this is easy. The world feels like it’s shaking beneath his feet, and every word tastes like ash in his mouth. But he pushes through, because Schlatt had Wilbur and Tommy banished to protect no one but himself and his authority.
Schlatt was selfish, and Tubbo cannot be Schlatt. He can’t put himself and his friends above an entire nation.
“What,” Quackity bites out, and Tubbo can feel his glare without looking for it. He can feel all of their eyes on him, actually. Their anger- their betrayal - is palpable, and it burns.
(For a moment, there is concrete at his back and a firework pointed between his eyes and right now! On this fucking stage! Schlatt is screaming. And make it hurt!)
Tubbo takes a deep breath. This is not the first time he has been crucified because he made a choice for the good of his country. And if he’s doing this right, it won’t be the last. Being the leader means making the hard decisions. At least he can say there’s nowhere to go but up from here.
Quackity and Fundy are shouting and Tommy looks so betrayed. He knew this would hurt, but he’s not sure he can handle the pain in his chest. It’s like the execution, times a hundredfold. He tries to justify himself, and tries to explain that teaming with Technoblade would never work, and that it’s about more than just the four of them, but they just keep shouting at him, angry and so, so irrational.
“Tubbo, we agreed on this!” Quackity yells, like they hadn’t been talking over him the whole time. Fundy’s agreement is vocal and scathing, and the hurt is starting to give way to fire in Tommy’s eyes.
Tubbo has to blink away the tears, and reminds himself that he cannot break down here. He’s not their friend right now, he’s President Tubbo and he needs to explain that their plan would never have worked, and that they need to just listen to him when he says that all-out war has never been what’s best for L’Manberg and you definitely do not have the best interests of this nation at heart! And you have made that more apparent than ever before today!
“You agreed with us!” Tommy repeats, shrill and upset.
Tubbo wishes he could’ve explained this before, but there just wasn’t time and it was either reduce L’Manberg to rubble, or hurt his cabinet’s pride. It wouldn’t have mattered how much time they had, though, because they never listened to him in the first place. Maybe next time they will. He prays to any god that isn’t Dream that they do, because he hates going against his cabinet like this. But right here, right now, this is how it has to be.
“You know what this looks like, Tubbo?” Fundy asks at some point, lip curled.
Tubbo is so, so tired, and the day isn’t even half-over. “What does this look like, Fundy?”
“You’re acting like Schlatt! You’re- you’re actually acting like Schlatt right now! This is exactly what he would do!”
It’s not. It’s really, really not, but Tubbo can’t explain himself because Quackity is already talking. “That’s exactly what Schlatt would do. And take it from me, I was his right hand man for the longest time. His vice president. That’s exactly the shit he would pull, Tubbo.” The anger is fading from Quackity’s eyes, replaced with something quiet and sad that reminds Tubbo of a night between the festival and the war that they spent talking in hushed whispers. That night, Quackity had said, I should have done something to help you. At the execution.
Tubbo hadn’t blamed him then, and he certainly doesn’t blame him now. He has every right to feel upset, even if comparing him to the man that had hurt them both just isn’t fair.
Fundy and Tommy pick up where Quackity left off, though. The two of them have always had anger to spare. But then Tommy’s talking about his discs again. He gave up so much for them, and Tubbo understands that. He really does. Tommy deserves to be able to go after this one thing that he wants, especially after losing everything over and over again. But if Tommy wanted to lead L’Manberg to war over his discs, he should have accepted the presidency when he had the chance.
“The discs don’t matter, Tommy!” he’s shouting before he can think better of it. “How can you not see that? They don’t matter!”
“Why… what?” For once in his sixteen years of life, Tommy is at a loss for words. “Well, if they don’t matter, Tubbo- if they don’t matter… if you have no attachment to things. If nothing matters, then why does any of this matter at all?”
Tubbo takes a breath to keep from snapping at him. An entire country isn’t the same as a pair of discs. The discs don’t matter, because they’re not full of people they have a duty of care for. If Tommy can’t get that through his head, then… “Dream, please detain and escort Tommy out of my country.”
“Tubbo…” Quackity sounds so disappointed in him, it nearly makes him reconsider everything right then and there. Almost.
“Tommy, you are hereby exiled.” He keeps his voice steady. It’s a struggle, but he manages it.
Fundy looks terrified. “This is happening?”
“Tubbo?” Tommy asks as Dream moves forward to grab him by the back of his shirt.
“This is how it has to be.” It’s so hard, keeping everything together right now. But he has to, because he’s the president. He’s the president of L’Manberg until the next election, and he just needs to hold this nation together until then. “You’re a liability. You need to leave now.”
Dream starts bodily hauling Tommy down the wall when it’s clear he’s not going to move of his own free will. “You’re my friend!” Tommy cries.
When Tubbo was younger, he never understood why anyone would struggle with the trolley problem. They'd talk about it like there was no correct answer, when there so clearly was. Save one life, or save five. Even when he heard about the interpretation where that one life was a friend or family, his answer never changed. It was always just numbers, in the end. One life for five. Limit the collateral damage as much as possible.
But now that it's come down to this- Tommy for L'Manberg, his friend for a nation- he finally understands.
He wants to be Tommy’s friend here. He wants it so badly that it’s a physical pain in his chest. But he can’t be. Not right now. Not when he has an entire country to look after. “Goodbye, Tommy.”
-
The argument kicks back up the second Dream leaves earshot, and just they keep talking past each other. Everything he says goes in one ear and out the other, no matter how many times Tubbo explains that it was either this or be destroyed.
Quackity’s anger flares up, and it only stokes Fundy’s fire. Tubbo is forced to accept that once again, he is going to have to be the bigger person. He lets them yell, lets them get all the anger and the spite and the betrayal out of their system. “You fucked up, Tubbo,” Quackity says, and Tubbo hopes that someday he’ll come around.
At some point in the argument, Quackity shouts that peace is not an option! and he lists off all the people that could take advantage of a perceived weakness now that they’ve bowed to Dream and kicked out Tommy. Dream might be taking down the walls, but Techno is still out there. Tubbo hates that he’s right. There was no correct answer on the top of that wall, but he wishes that they could at least be grateful that he bought them some time.
“Listen, listen, listen!” Fundy finally says. “Quackity, I do recall you saying, once, in a very desperate situation- let’s not think about what the fuck happened and why, let’s think about what’s going on right now. Tubbo made a fucking mistake, and I agree, but it happened, alright?” He waits, looking them each dead in the eyes. He doesn’t continue until they’ve each nodded their assent.
With their blessing, Fundy pulls out a book, and provides them a way forward. A hitlist is not what Tubbo expected, or even particularly wanted, but he made the choice to go against his cabinet. He bought them time, and now that they aren’t actively marching towards their own destruction, they can compromise on what to do with it.
Technoblade has retired, from what Tubbo understands, but there’s nothing to stop him from coming out of that retirement. No matter what they do, Technoblade will always be a threat. L’Manberg will always live in fear of the man that nearly destroyed their nation with a pair of withers, no matter how strong they become. That leaves the cabinet with itchy trigger fingers and ready to turn on their own at a moment’s notice. If L’Manberg is to live in peace, they can’t sit here waiting for the next disaster. They can’t sit here waiting for Dream’s judgement to come crashing down on their necks.
But they can’t do it in an all-out war. They don’t have the manpower or the resources for that. Not yet. But they have time to plan and prepare for it- properly, this time- with Dream’s attention directed elsewhere and Technoblade in the arctic.
“Don’t ever pull that shit again,” Quackity makes him swear. “Everything we do together, okay?”
“We plan as a team from now on. No one goes solo,” he promises.
Tubbo isn’t a fighter. Not like Tommy is. He’s not passionate and angry and chomping at the bit to challenge his god to pistols at dawn. He’s logical. He thinks ahead, and sees every angle. He’s not a fighter, but he had once been declared the right hand man of the same dictator he was aiming to help take down.
Tubbo wasn’t built for war. He was built for soothing ruffled feathers and assuring Schlatt in a too-chipper tone that he’s grateful for all the opportunities he’s been given as Secretary of State.
He was built for thanking Dream for recognizing L’Manberg as a nation and Tubbo as its president, and smiling and nodding as he talks about trade opportunities and relations between L’Manberg and his own lands-
(“Don’t buy his bullshit,” Quackity growls after Dream leaves earshot, low and bitter.
He smiles. “I never have, Big Q.”)
-No, President Tubbo was built to play the long game.
-
(That night, he has a mountain of work to tackle. There’s paperwork to sign for the transfer of the Vice Presidency to Quackity and the position of Secretary of State to Fundy and he really should at least consider finding a new Foreman, and he needs to check in with Karl about construction now that the walls are coming down, and there’s so much work to be done before they can even start to take on Technoblade, and-
Before he knows it, it’s nearly three in the morning, and he’s staring down the paperwork that will be formally exiling ex-Vice President Tommy from the nation of L’Manberg. He tries to pick up the pen, but his hands are shaking and there are tears in his eyes and for a moment he thinks he hears someone laughing, because holy shit, you actually did it! I can’t believe it! Little Tubbo, my right hand man, finally grew a fuckin’ spine.
Tubbo pushes himself up from the desk so fast his chair topples to the ground, and his door slams behind him as he runs from the office. Tears blur his vision, and he has no idea where he’s going. He just knows that he can’t be in that room, looking at that paper, hearing Schlatt laugh the same way he did up on that podium, the same way he did when he called Tubbo a traitor, and isn’t he right? Isn’t that exactly what Tubbo is? He did it for the good of his nation, but he betrayed his best friend. Tommy is all alone and he’s probably so scared, and it’s all Tubbo’s fault.
His feet pound on the wooden pathway as he makes a sharp left, and suddenly he’s here. He wishes his feet had taken him anywhere else. He would take the old podium over this, even with the bloodstains that would never come out of the stone from his execution. He would take anything over this.
He tries valiantly to hold himself together. To turn around and leave, and never come back. But his resolve only lasts a moment before he finds himself collapsing onto the bench that he and Tommy had sat together on, lifetimes ago.
I hope this turns out for the better, he’d said, before the election, before the festival, before the war, before the crater, before Tubbo betrayed the best friend he’s ever had. He was so naive back then. He hadn’t had a presidency he never asked for thrust on his shoulders yet. He hadn’t even been part of Schlatt’s cabinet. All that mattered to him was that no matter what happened, him and Tommy stayed friends.
He misses it. He misses Tommy, even if he hasn’t even been gone for a full twenty-four hours yet. He hopes he’s okay, wherever it was that Dream had taken him to.
He never did invest in that pillow Wilbur suggested. He wishes he had. Screaming into a pillow would feel so much better than desecrating Tommy’s bench with his self-depreciation and grief over what he destroyed.
The nation comes first. The nation always comes first, he tries to remind himself. Tries to inject some of that presidential authority into the thought, but it doesn’t work without anyone to perform for. He already made those excuses on the wall to his cabinet that had never listened to him, and right now he’s not the president. He’s Tubbo, and he misses his best friend.
“Got room for one more?” someone asks, and Tubbo startles so badly he almost kicks the jukebox over the edge of the cliff.
He sits straight up to look over the back of the bench, trying to wipe the tears out of his eyes. Standing just off the path, hands jammed awkwardly into his pockets, is… “Quackity?”
“Hey, Two-bo,” he says, his voice quiet and subdued. “You left pretty quickly back there.”
“I’m fine,” Tubbo lies.
Quackity almost laughs at that, before coming to sit next to Tubbo. Part of him wants Quackity to leave, because that’s Tommy’s spot- but the rest of him really, really doesn’t want to be alone right now.
Quackity sits with his arm thrown over the back of the bench, staring at the sky, while Tubbo has his knees pulled up to his chest. Neither of them speak. It reminds Tubbo of when Quackity first got to Pogtopia, almost. That relief that they are both here, that they are both alive and have made it to the other side. The understanding that neither of them did so unscathed. And finally, the tension that comes from the knowledge that they have hurt each other. Tubbo left Quackity alone with Schlatt. Quackity stood by and let Tubbo get executed.
Quackity hadn’t listened to him when he said the war wasn’t a good idea, and Tubbo went directly against the agreement that the cabinet thought they had.
“Why are you here? I thought you were mad at me,” Tubbo finally asks. He tries to keep his voice from shaking, but it’s late and he’s so, so tired.
“I am mad at you,” Quackity says. “You fucked up today. You fucked up bad. But you’re still my friend. You know that, right?”
“I wasn’t sure,” Tubbo confesses.
Quackity doesn’t respond at first. At least, not verbally. But the next thing Tubbo knows, there’s an arm around his shoulders, and he’s being pulled against Quackity’s side. “We both went left. That means we’re in this together, man. Don’t forget that.”
Tubbo can’t find the words to reply, so he just nods. They don’t talk, after that. Instead, they sit together, and watch the sky until the sun starts to rise behind them.
What’s done is done. They can’t change the choices they made. But it’s a new day in L’Manberg, and there’s work to be done.)