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“Those things’ll kill you, y’know?” Wilbur mutters, voice muffled by the cigarette between his teeth. He leans his head down over Tubbo’s shoulder, and Tubbo acquisces to the unspoken request by pulling out his lighter and holding it to the tip. He takes a drag of his own cigarette as he does so.
“At least they’re honest about it,” he grumbles in response. “Though they could stand to hurry up.” It’s a poor attempt at a joke. Wilbur snorts anyway.
He doesn’t normally talk like this. He doesn’t normally smoke in front of other people either. But something about Wilbur’s presence on these nights makes him feel free to indulge in the worst of his cynicism, to dip into the well of bitter melancholy at his center without hesitation. Maybe it is just the lack of judgement. Maybe it’s the knowledge that Wilbur feels the same. Either way, it is a relief to have at least one person he can share his darker thoughts with, who will spare him no glares or looks of pity.
“Fair,” Wilbur replies, rocking back on his heels and staring out at the forest around them.
Tubbo pulls in the last bit of smoke his cig has to offer, then puts it out on the rock next to them, next to the three other remains the night has left him with.
After a moment of quietly working through the rest of the cig, Wilbur drops it to the ground, grinding the butt with his heel and then sweeping some dirt over it with his shoe.
“Some animal is gonna choke on that,” Tubbo remarks, but it’s dispassionate. His mind is so cluttered, and these nights so peaceful, that he can’t really bring himself to care all that much. “You’re gonna give the squirrels a nicotine habit.”
Wilbur snorts, and pulls out another cigarette, wedging it between his lips once more. He leans down, and Tubbo sighs, lighting it for him. The small orange flame casts his face in harsh light and shadow, creating a small halo around them, a flicker of protection against the dark blue ocean of the night.
A blink, and it’s gone. They are back in darkness again.
“I’d train them to fetch my packs for me. Then you’d be out of a job.”
Tubbo rolls his eyes. “Can’t say I’d miss it. People think I run through a pack a day buying all your extras.”
“Sorry to ruin your good reputation,” Wilbur apologizes through his smirk. They both know Tubbo doesn’t have much of a reputation left to ruin anymore. Everyone with an opinion worth a shit either thinks he’s a Soot loyalist or a traitorous bootlicker. The more he tries to ward away suspicions of one, the more it indulges the other. He’s had to lean fully into bootlicker lately — it makes his skin feels slimy and smarts his pride something awful, but it’s less likely to get him hanged.
“Piss off,” he replies with a snort, bringing another cig to his lips. If he’s honest, the pack a day suspicion isn’t even that far off, at least when he’s stressed. Every tense negotiation eventually seems to lead him back to the white house steps, chainsmoking himself into an early grave.
Today was especially horrid, having to talk tariffs and alliances with the Badlands only a week after Schlatt had publicly embarrassed himself at a political dinner there. Tubbo had tried valiantly to keep his cool, but every sideways glance said that Bad was still seeing a drunkard rambling about music and tax cuts. He’d burned through six smokes on his bathroom break alone, sat on top of the toilet seat and trying to work up the willpower to go back to the gauntlet of humiliation that was the meeting.
Eventually, Quackity had walked in, and though Tubbo had flushed his cigarette down the toilet and left the stall, it was obvious what he’d been doing. The other man had given him this look, confused, disappointed and, achingly sad all at once. He’d started to ask a question, but Tubbo had been quick to wash his hands and leave. He’s been avoiding the man ever since.
Lost in the thought, he inhales too much, and ends up coughing while the smoke is on it’s way out. Wilbur laughs, although it doesn’t sound very happy at all.
“Careful there,” he cautions, a condescending smile on his lips. There’s a pause, a brief hesitation. “Why are you up this late? Thought you would need your beauty sleep, with everything you’re doing for Schlatt.”
Tubbo hears the hidden barb, forces himself not to flinch at it. “I don’t get much sleep at all. Y’know, given everything I’m doing for you.” Maybe not subtle, but a reminder, that Tubbo is risking his life for Wilbur everyday, and he doesn’t need to be told the man thinks he’s a traitor for it.
Wilbur pushes a breath out of his nose, and Tubbo can’t tell if it’s meant to be a sigh, a scoff, or acknowledgement of his point. It almost doesn’t feel like it matters. “I’ve been making vodka with the potatoes,” Wilbur offers unexpectedly.
Tubbo raises an eyebrow, stubbing out his cigarette against the rock. “You gonna share?”
“You’re too young to drink,” Wilbur jokes, but passes him the metal flask at his side anyways.
“Law got changed,” Tubbo says while unscrewing the cap. “Or, well, got officialised. Age of majority means of age for everything now. So, my alcohol enjoyment is perfectly legal.” He pauses. “Or, well, if I’m getting it from you, I guess it’s consorting with the enemy. So, all alcohol is legal for me, except this alcohol, which carries the death penalty.”
Wilbur barks out a laugh. “Well, make sure your boss thinks it’s non-enemy vodka then. Can’t have you getting executed. Then I’d actually have to train the squirrels to get my cigarettes, and that sounds like it would be a hassle.”
Tubbo lets himself really smile for the first time in weeks, and takes a swig. It makes him cringe, but lights a match in his chest, warming him from the inside out. “Wouldn’t want to put you through the trouble.” He takes another before the taste has left his mouth, so it doesn’t feel like as much, and then passes the flask to Wilbur.
Wilbur passes it back. “Should help you sleep,” he mutters. “Y’know, since you’re having trouble.” He sounds awkward, almost unsure of himself, a clumsiness to him that Tubbo has never seen before. He looks like he wants to help, but he doesn’t know how — like gentleness is a language he’s forgotten how to speak.
Tubbo does not think he has ever felt as close to Wilbur as he does in that moment. He doesn’t know what to do with it.
Tubbo feels something tight and wounded in his chest at the care. “Thanks,” he murmurs, taking another drink, then one more, for good measure. He offers another cigarette, and Wilbur takes it happily, and for just a moment, the light illuminates every darkness in his face, every shadow in his eyes, and he is the exact same man Tubbo would have followed anywhere he went. For just that little moment in view of the lighter, Tubbo thinks they are the people they used to be. Or, at least, they’re closer than they’ve been in a long time.
He misses those people so fiercely it is as if they are already dead.
Then, as quick as it was there, it is gone, and the light is off. And exhaustion has begun to pull at his limbs, so Tubbo is saying goodnight, and stumbling down the steps, the vodka finally beginning to do it’s job. His mind is pleasantly fuzzy, and he thinks, if he had the choice, he would be exactly this drunk for the rest of his life, however long that ends up being.
Tommy doesn’t stir when Tubbo carefully settles himself back into the position he was in before he left, chest to Tommy’s back, arm looped around him. Just continues to breathe, slow and steady, reliable as ever.
Tubbo closes his eyes, and gets the best sleep he has had in a long time.