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The axe’s blade drags behind him along cracked stones and rotted ruins. His breathing is laboured thanks to the long journey, the beasts he slew along the way. The sky above him grows darker by the step, temporal divinity crackling on his tongue.
Before him, the ruins yield up an archway, crumbling and held together by something other than structural support. The air between its pillars isn’t from here, rather answers to a master not quite on this plane.
Tubbo sucks the red air through his teeth. He will not succumb to the bloody madness. He will not fail.
Beneath his feet, the red moss curls, mantled blood seeping out of crushed fronds. It makes his footsteps bloody, the tiny droplets splattering on his greaves. With each step, the stench blooms up anew.
He will not get used to it. It will not infect him. He will not fall to the madness.
He takes another breath, letting the rotting tang hit the back of his throat. He’s ready.
And with that thought, he heaves his body forward, dragging his red-stained weapon behind him as he steps through the archway.
There’s no indication he’s crossed into the realm of Gods, but Tubbo knows. The ground beneath him isn’t there, and neither is he. He knows. He has a flashing moment of terror as he thinks he’ll sink through the stones, but his feet stay steady and his grasp doesn’t falter on the handle of his axe.
Swallowing and ignoring how he can feel that tiny bit of rot settling in his stomach, he walks forward.
The platform he’s on is a circular floor of stone bricks, with each stone inscribed with all kinds of symbols and runes, none of which Tubbo recognises and all of which make his head spin when he looks at them for too long.
Above him is the sky, thick of boiling clouds so dark it’s like the night sky. Light rumbles across them like thunder, terrifying and beautiful. He swears with each flash he hears muttered prayers.
He reaches the centre and ignores the dread building in his limbs. “Show yourself!” He cries, voice cracking with misuse. It echoes, reverberates and when it reaches his ears again it sounds mocking.
Blood pools in his mouth, and he spits it onto the runes. To his horror, they shine underneath the dark sacrifice.
His teeth worry his torn and abused lip. “Schlatt, God of Man, I wish to make a deal!”
The air shifts, and suddenly Tubbo is falling onto his ass, his greataxe clanging to the floor. Lightning cracks, his ears pop and then Tubbo is acutely aware of another presence curling in the edges of his vision.
Hurriedly he stands, wobbling as the slice on his thigh screams at him, oozing blood once more. He whirls around, freezing as he catches sight of the God before him.
He towers over the boy, something like a man but with spiralling horns, cracked, scaled patches of skin. Fangs drip rot, and cloven hooves are overgrown. In clawed, smoking hands, there’s a barbed whip, bone recognisable as the sharp spikes.
Yellow eyes burn, the pupils shifting. Slits, bars, infinite galaxies, war, fire, the incomprehensible march of time, agony, greed, and back to slits.
”What mortal quivers before me?” It purrs, twisting so its face is low enough that Tubbo can feasibly talk to it. ”It dares address me? Dares to make a deal?”
“I am Tubbo,” He shouts, voice hoarse. “The deal I would make with you is for my brother’s soul.”
His eyes flicker, and without warning, he leans down closer, closer, until his face is close enough to touch. His mouth alone is big enough to swallow him whole with no worry, and Tubbo resists the mounting terror, the desperate urge to run for his life as he inhales.
”Curst?” His eyes burn fiercer. ”Wanderer? Empty and unclaimed? What rare feast.” He laughs, the sound the screams, the thunder, the dying breath, the endless. And before Tubbo’s eyes, the bones inside it snap, twist, the flesh stretches and then shrinks, until the God stands before him, only as tall as a man. Horns still twist around his head, glittering with chains dipped in viscera, and his eyes are still sickening to behold, but this is something Tubbo’s head doesn’t shy around comprehending.
“Yes, I am Curst.” He spits, the hated title weighing on his tongue. Curst. What foul fate he was dealt. Born with enough divine spirit to burn his own skin, destined to die in ash before he reaches adulthood. “But I have come to make a deal, not discuss my fortune.”
He laughs again, revealing those monstrous fangs. ”But fortune is the currency for every mortal, fool. To dismiss it is to dismiss your very worth.”
“The bargain I would strike is for my brother’s soul.” He grits his teeth.
The head tilts, too far to be natural. ”And what do you propose in return?”
“…You name your price.”
A hum, of flies and strings and the crunch of an apple beneath incisors, ”Name my price? A generous mortal, then. Relay to me the nature of your brother, and I shall decide if you are worth the bargain.”
He swallows. “My brother is Tommy, Curst like me. Another God tricked him into handing over his soul. I want him back.”
”You wish for his soul to be in your hands?” The God walks around him, footsteps like hammers on the anvil, ringing and encircling.
“No, I want him to be free. I want his soul to be his own.” The God's footprints leave the red moss behind, and it grows in a circle of rot, ensuring Tubbo to the very centre of the platform.
Schlatt finishes his circle, eyes trained unyieldingly on Tubbo. ”Which God do you bridle with blame?”
“Philza, God of Mortal. He took his soul—“
”Fool,” He barks gleefully, ”No God would take a soul by force. No God with the aeons behind them.”
“Why not?” Tubbo challenges, walking up to the sizzling line of rot. “What does it matter how you gain it? Does it not sustain you either way?”
Schlatt snaps forward and Tubbo scrambles backwards, heels hitting the other side of the circle with a hiss. ”Do not presume to know the ways of the Gods, mortal.” The words sink heavy into Tubbo’s muscles, and his legs shake with the effort of keeping him upright. ”Yes, a soul sustains us, no matter its condition. But loyalty and love taste most sweet, and let us swallow the stars. Philza is no young God. Your brother gave what was his to give willingly.”
“I don’t believe you,” Tubbo hisses. He can’t. Tommy was his, his bother, his friend, his tether to life. They were supposed to die together, they were supposed to live together. He wouldn’t give up, he wouldn’t leave.
They were all each other had. What was one without the other?
There’s something like a smile on Schlatt’s face, sharp and heavy and bright, it makes his head spin. ”Are you doubting your God?”
Madness tears at his mind, searing and inescapable. He sees inside his bones, he feels the depths of greed below him, his tongue floods with iron and sickness, he hears breaking wills and the unending shattering of happiness, smells rot.
“Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, sorry, sorry, no, no, no, sorry—“ He gasps, trying to scream but only apologies make it past his lips.
”Good.” And it passes, smoke dissolving into the sky above. Tubbo falls to his knees, gasping in the rot infested air easily. ”I would hate to show you the limits of your own mind.”
But… Tommy… he couldn’t have given himself up willingly. He couldn’t have. He promised himself to Tubbo, and Tubbo promised himself to him. They were inseparable.
Were.
”Why desire his freedom? As Curst, his death would have greeted him soon. As a Vessel, he will live to see the end of the century. The world, if fortune favours him, and knowing the Goddess Nihachu, she will.” His head is tilted again, focus purely on Tubbo. A ghost of the madness drifts over his back, and he shivers violently.
“Because—“ Tubbo tries to find the words, the meaning. “He’s— We’re brothers, and he didn’t— he couldn’t have—“
The God ignores him. ”If you dealt for his soul, you would have killed him.” He continues, and Tubbo can’t breathe. Why doesn’t— he came all this way, so sure of himself, and now nothing makes sense. Nothing makes sense. He can’t—
”Philza might be God of Mortal, but his preferred is love. Your brother won’t want for anything. He won’t want for you.” He sounds smug, as much as a God can display a human emotion, and Tubbo explodes.
“He’s mine!” He screams, feeling his throat tear itself into pieces. “I had him first! We’re brothers! We’ll die together, and I need him, just like he needs me!”
Silence rings and Tubbo can’t hear his own breathing. The God stands before him, too still, too tall, too corporeal, too there.
Is this it? Death?
”He isn’t yours anymore, plaything.” Schlatt whispers, voice booming. ”But you said one truth; He needs you. Philza is getting worried, if it’s possible.”
Tubbo holds his breath.
”Deal with me. Your soul, in exchange for eternity together.” He steps into the circle, and fear floods Tubbo’s body. His fingers twitch, but his greataxe is still drooling blood on the floor, meters away. He leans in, and all pretence of caring about anything else crumbles to dust. ”You’ll get your brother, if you be mine.”
It’s perfect. Forever together, an eternity to hold and fight and live.
It’s wretched. He’ll belong to another master, and so will Tubbo. No longer will they rely on each other and each other alone.
A hand grips his chin, skin warm and sharp enough to slice Tubbo open. ”Loyalty is easiest for me, but in recent millennia the urge has struck for love.” As he drags his thick thumb along Tubbo’s cheek, scales give way to flesh, blood smears over his skin. He steps even closer, so the heat radiates off him and onto Tubbo’s chilled body. ”How easy it would be for you to fall.”
And Tubbo knows he’s telling the truth. Because he isn’t cold as he shivers, he just wants those arms around him. He watches as the fur and hooves and rot evaporates, human arms that are anything but taking form, and it’s so easy to forget their eldritch appearance. He’s not leaning into his hand for support but rather for the way the fake palm cradles his face.
Is how they got Tommy? With a single sentence, a single gesture. The one thing Tubbo can never give him, not like this. Love between friends, brothers, is one thing. Between Gods and mortals, that’s another.
Between the boy and the thing he can pretend is the father it is impossible for him to have.
”Think of it,” The words bounce around Tubbo’s ears, so tantalising. He doesn’t feel the rot sinking into his cheek, climbing up his boots. ”An eternity of this. Of never leaving this place. Of never feeling pain.” It curls up this calf, following the thick trail of congealed and dried blood. It reaches his wound, and the soft moss begins to envelop the gash, drinking up the blood as it stitches his mortal body closed.
Tubbo finds he can’t move as Schlatt raises his other hand, lifting his head so he’s looking the God in his eyes. Warmth floods his body at the touch, and his muscles lose tension. Thankfully, Schlatt doesn’t blink at holding Tubbo’s entire weight in his palms.
”Forever, you’d be mine. Forever, you’d never starve, never thirst, never die. Forever, to love me.”
His legs are engulfed now, and he finally finds the awareness to realise it. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care anymore, can’t find the determination that kept him burning all this way, can only fathom Schlatt. Can only picture.
Fucking shit, he wants to be selfish. Wants to say yes just for himself. To not even think about the years he’d have with Tommy.
Why can’t he have this? What’s stopping him?
”I would love you. Keep you warm. Hold you. I’ll admit, love isn’t something I’m familiar with, but you are so easy. Look at you. I bet you’d deal if I told you to.”
Yes, yes I would, the affirmation sits heavy on his tongue, but he doesn’t say it. He smiles lazily instead as the rot creeps under his armour and up his ribs.
”And even if I needed to learn, which,” He chuckles darkly, briefly running a hand through Tubbo’s hair, which somehow makes him even more boneless, ”Clearly I don’t, we have all the time we need.”
It’s reached his shoulders, branching off as it travels down his arm and up his neck. It feels good, feels like Schlatt’s already got him, like he truly belongs to someone else. That’s all he’s ever wanted, isn’t it?
”Come now, it’s time. Your brother to be mine. Your brother for your love. What do you say?”
Finally, the moss has reached his face, curling around his mouth, his eyes. “You have me already, don’t you?”
The God smiles. ”Yes. I do.”
“I accept.”
They leave his tongue and instantly it’s flooded with rot, the madness covering his entire body. Schlatt grins, and with one smooth motion, tugs him close, slotting him completely against his own form.
Warmth bursts into Tubbo’s limbs, and he sighs. This feels right, like it was meant to be. He can feel Schlatt’s ownership sinking into him like blood skins into earth, wrapping around his bones, and then deeper, until it chains his soul to the God before him.
”There you go,” Tubbo feels the words inside his soul, cradled between palms as his mortal body disappears under rot and cracked stone and the abyss. It’ll be back later, he knows. ”Mine, all mine. A perfect little Vessel. Yes, I think love will be easy.”
They are travelling as his soul shifts and grows between Schlatt’s fingers. He expands, he compresses, he changes and breaks and snaps and twists and heals and settles and remembers.
”You got him?” A new voice speaks, across a different space. Its presence is ancient and encompassing, enough to make Tubbo’s raw soul cry in pain.
Schlatt’s hands shift to hold him tighter. The pain ebbs away. ”Yup. You can stop your damned fretting now.”
”Oh, you can’t blame me. He was shifting, I could feel it. I wasn’t about to lose a perfect Vessel.”
He snorts. ”Yeah, yeah. He’s mine now, and soon enough your brat can see him. And don’t think I don’t realise you owe me.”
”Of course not. I’ll see you soon?”
He doesn’t get a response, and Tubbo feels they’re moving once again. It isn’t long before they stop (or maybe it is, because time has snapped away from him, and he has no idea how it passes anymore).
It’s familiar, this place, and Tubbo quickly realises it’s the same circular platform as before. He can’t see it, but the air tastes the same.
”Sorry you had to wait.” The God whispers, before lifting him up to his mouth. He passes between fangs and then into his gullet, and down, down, down, down, down.
He doesn’t land, but he does stop falling. He’s alone, but he’s not. He’s warm, so warm, and it fills him with contentment. If he focuses, the sensations easily translate into steady arms around him, a chin in his hair.
”I’ll be a bit until your body’s ready, son.” He rumbles, the sound in him and around him. ”But don’t worry. I won’t let you forget that you love me.”
And as the decades pass, Tubbo doesn’t. He never forgets. How could he, when his father is always hugging him, pressing his lips against his hairline, caressing his cheek?
And when he finally sinks into his body, he just gets those feelings for real, gets to trade the memory for tangible motions and words and hands.
He forgets he wanted to see Tommy. Tommy forgets he wanted to see Tubbo.
They see each other once, drunk off their own love, before burying themselves back in the embraces of the Gods that fill them with life and purpose.