Chapter Text
It was loud. Everything was so loud.
Wander didn’t know what was up or down anymore. He was flailing and fighting through a dizzying flurry of rapids. Infinite cold black water and glimpses of white sky flashed across his vision in disorienting leaps, and rocks snagged his fur and scraped against his skin. The frigid water was numbing and heavy, and dragged him further into its depths with every torrential wave. He occasionally burst through the surface and violently gasped down gulps of air before the freezing water crashed over him again and the world spun back under into a tumultuous tumble. But those gaps of relief were becoming fewer and farther between, leaving longer stretches of being trapped between violent cycles of currents, left sputtering, gasping, and grabbing desperately at anything.
His body would occasionally slam into a massive rock, leaving him briefly paralyzed with shock and exploding pain, and when he opened his mouth to scream, water came rushing in. It was so freezing though, that eventually he just went numb. The spinning ice cold water dragged out every last bit of warmth in his body and let it seep into the surroundings, filling back in with bitter frigid cold that gnawed at his core as he tumbled.
Wander knew somewhere in the back of his mind that he would most likely come out of this alive; he'd survived a lot throughout the many, many centuries of his life, and he knew what he could physically withstand, but it still didn’t make it any less terrifying whenever something like this did happen. And it didn’t stop the vivid cold and agony from biting and numbing his shaken battered body.
and it was becoming harder and harder to struggle as the tides tore on, and eventually, Wander succumbed to the exhaustion. It was bleeding into confusion and discoordination. The loud roaring in his ears eventually began to fade into the background and became dull to the pressing dizzy darkness.
But just as his body was about ready to completely give out, everything stopped, and some strange pressure slid beneath him and hauled him up to hit the stinging air. The force dragged
him out of the water’s icy claws and up into the violent winds that whacked his dripping fur. He still saw the river dazzle below him for a few dizzying moments, water still lapping at his feet, then the familiar grit of stable dry land underneath him. He was so numb now that he’d stopped shivering. His movements were slow and dis-coordinated. He drank the air greedily, letting oxygen fill his lungs.
There was heaviness as water clung under his fur. A few moments of gasping led into coughing and gagging as all the water he’d swallowed came spilling out full force. When he was done, he was too weak and exhausted and cold to hold himself up any longer, and thumped against the floor. Spots swam in his vision.
A few moments later, The bulk of a looming shadow from behind swallowed everything up, and a pair of hands fell around his side to pick him up into their warm embrace.
Still a little disoriented and confused and forgetting where he was, Wander managed to get out a small weak whisper,
“Sylvia….?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cold didn’t affect Hater in the way it would a typical living species with skin and flesh. He couldn’t accurately feel temperature changes, or really much of any sensation on the hard exterior of his bones, but on the inside, he still had something mimicking a nervous system, an inner lacing of magic and marrow running through his bones, and it was vaguely susceptible to sensations such as temperature or pain. But it was really only a dulled simulation of what it was actually meant to feel like.
And so the fact that he could vividly feel the coldness of the water was a testament to just how bone-chillingly freezing it was. And on top of that, it was violent and rapid. Even his strong sturdy, heavy-boned self was struggling not to topple over here and get sucked up into the currents. It wasn’t even all that deep, but it was easy to see how one could get dragged into its clutches and become unable to escape. But driven by wild adrenaline, Hater was somehow able to stumble through it and remain in control against the current.
When he finally dragged himself and the limp body of Wander out of the water, he could feel its cold weight making his bones feel heavy.
He couldn’t comprehend the fact that he’d just done that.
He’d just dove into violent rapid currents to save Wander.
Why???
What was he doing?!?
Hater stared down at the little fluffball who was curled up on his side, unresponsive and sopping wet. When he looked down at him, he didn’t see the usual smug, cheerful, taunting little sunshine-banjo-face thorn in his side that he knew as Wander.
He saw some creature, defenseless and vulnerable, something living, something that could be hurt. It was a wild concept for Hater to grasp, Wander? Hurt??? That little wandering weirdo was a furry freak of nature, an unstoppable force, an immortal being of sunshine and smiles. Hater’d fantasized about seeing his stupid little face in fear and pain for so long, yet seeing that very sight in front of him, It didn’t feel like it was supposed to. He had his most hated enemy weak and at his mercy, so easy now to destroy, no possible way to run.
Yet all he could wonder as he reached down to scoop up the little nomad was,
Is he okay??
He didn’t look okay. Hater doubted for a second that Wander was even alive before feeling the steady shallow rhythm of his breathing. When Hater touched him, his body was much too cold. Warmth! He needed warmth…
Hater glanced around frantically. There were no visible sources of warmth to be seen anywhere, just more stupid rocks and dead trees!!
But Wander needed warmth now or he was gonna-
COME ON, THERE HAD TO BE SOMETHING!!! Moments went by with Hater scanning the horizon and running around with Wander in his arms to try and find something- anything- and he was growing increasingly more frustrated with this barren wasteland he was responsible for.
It was making him so worked up he just wanted to zap something into-
WAIT! ZAPPING!! HIS ELECTRIC POWERS!!! That’s it!!
It was sorta easy to just casually forget you were a large powerful skeleton man with lighting powers sometimes, y’know? Silly things everyone forgets.
He grabbed Wander’s green hat that’d been sitting patiently at the riverside, and placed him inside like how he’d seen him sleep in it a couple times. He went around gathering sticks, then compiled and zapped them to start a small fire. Perfect. He was a genius.
Then after that….
Hater wasn’t sure what more to do really. Just wait for Wander to be responsive again so they could go back to being enemies and stuff?
…
He held the little orange spoon as close as comfortably possible to the fire and determined that there really wasn’t much else to do but…
…wait.
…
Everything now was strangely quiet.
Where had all those other guys from earlier gone? Hater glanced around, but didn’t see a sign of anyone. Had the two of them really wandered that far out?
…
It was becoming dark now. Rocky silhouettes in the distance blurred into a sky of stars.
…
The wind from earlier had died down, leaving everything eerily still.
Hater was so used to the constant background thrum of the Skullship’s engine and the footsteps of the Watchdogs marching up and down the halls, that he almost forgot what it was like for it all to just be-
Quiet.
He glanced down at Wander again, who was buried into his hat to where only the top floofs of his head were visible.
He was also quiet.
Uncomfortably so. It was awkward.
Everything suddenly felt just a slight bit wrong.
…
Then there was a chattering noise.
Hater shot to attention and glanced around, mentally preparing for any number of possibilities in this place, before finally realizing where the noise was coming from. He shifted closer to make sure he wasn’t mishearing it, and nope, he was correct.
It was Wander.
His teeth had begun chattering, and it was clear as Hater got closer that he was shivering violently inside his hat. What? But- but how? Hater thought he did what he was supposed to, he made a whole fire and everything, isn’t that how you’re supposed to get rid of hypothermia? Why wasn’t Wander warm enough yet?
Did he need to be thrown in the fire??
Grop, these organisms made of flesh and blood who had stupid flimsy organs and biological requirements were so needy and confusing. Hater pulled Wander from out of the hat and began brainstorming what else to do with him. He realized that the star nomad did actually feel a bit less freezing than before. still much too cold, but the fire had at least done something. He was still pretty wet though. Maybe that was why he was still shivering?
Hater scanned around for something to dry him off with, but was unable to locate anything immediately. It took him searching a bit further to realize that it was starting to get dark, as now he had to get a lot closer to see anything past the fire. The open wide sky was bleeding from orange to pink to deep blue, and a nighttime chill was beginning to set in. Still no sign of any drying tools. Hater began to panic for a second before his gaze landed on something right below him, in the spot where he’d just picked up Wander.
The Hat.
Oh no.
Oh nonononono, not the Hat.
Hater recalled abhorrently what that thing had done last time. Never again,
NEVER AGAIN!
…
But did he really have much else of an option? He glanced back and forth again at the quickly darkening landscape, and then back down to the vivid yellow glow along the illuminated side of the sagging green headpiece.
Hater sighed.
He at least had to try it once.
And ONLY ONCE.
With a frustrated grunt, he stepped down and placed a hand inside, apprehensive to draw out whatever useless enraging trinket this thing decided to spit out. A few moments later, there was a towel in his hand.
Hater blinked in disbelief. The hat had actually given him something useful. Sure he knew it was meant to give you what you need, but back when he’d asked it to give him stuff for Dominator, it only spat out useless garbage until he tortured it into obligation.
Maybe it only decided to be smart when it was trying to help its wear-er.
Whatever, Hater decided not to ruminate on that any longer, as he had what he needed now.
He kneeled down closer to the fire, still carrying Wander, and began towel drying the little fuzzball to the best of his ability. It was… very awkward to say the least. Not a situation Hater ever expected to be in, not in a million years, and yet somehow, he’d ended up here anyways. And it wasn’t because he cared about Wander or anything, He just needed him to be alive so that he could make it out of this place unscathed and then destroy him later.
So even if this felt like a “good deed” he reminded himself, it ultimately had evil intentions. He was still Hater, the #1 Galactic Conqueror and Greatest in the Galaxy. He was still evil. The fact that he was holding his greatest enemy tenderly in a warm towel and drying him off gently changed none of that.
He noticed halfway through this process that Wander had feet.
Well, of course he had feet (or, well, they appeared to be more like paws,), but what he meant was his shoes were missing. They must’ve gotten caught in the current and lost forever in the river.
It was just strange seeing him without his signature clothing items, was all. At that moment, he was hatless, shoeless, sockless, just whittled down to a bare, helpless, vulnerable Wander, shivering under his claws.
As the two sat alone, Hater felt a sense of possessiveness. This was his enemy and only his to destroy.
That notion made Hater’s chest flutter in a weird way he couldn’t explain.
He rationalized this feeling as hate.
He also noticed the many scrapes and bruises hiding under the fur from being dragged away and battered in the river. There were areas where he dabbed the towel and came back with splotches of faded red.
He eventually realized that towards the end of the drying process, Wander’s shivers had died out gradually, and his breathing that had once came in slow shallow gasps, was now at a more normal pace as his fluffy orange chest rose and fell gently. He was still shivering a little, but his skin no longer felt deathly cold. He hadn’t regained consciousness yet this entire time, but he seemed to be slumbering a bit more peacefully now.
Hater felt a sense of contentment in this, and decided he’d done enough.
He was beginning to grow tired, and the fire was dwindling down. He chucked in a few more logs, and then curled up awkwardly to let sleep find him.
He felt very open and exposed out here, laying under the stars. Hater couldn’t imagine how Wander and Sylvia did this every night.
He wasn’t scared of course, because that would be ridiculous. Just… uneasy. He shifted closer to the sleeping bundle of fur in a hat. Eventually, he began to forget about his surroundings and drift off to sleep.
He dreamed that tomorrow, he would make it back to the main area, successfully avoid the wrath of all the prisoners trapped down here, and then, eventually– hopefully— get saved by Peepers, and then everything could go back to normal.
That was the plan.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next day, Hater was fully expecting to be woken up to the full blast of an obnoxious song from Wander, and was pleasantly surprised (and a bit confused) to be met with silence at the crack of dawn. He didn’t actually know how long that had been, as days seemed to speed and slow at random here, but it was enough time that he felt decently rested.
He still remembered the events of yesterday, of course, but he’d been expecting Wander to be completely back to himself by now and ready to pester Hater with infuriating tunes and delusional declarations of friendship (eugh).
But instead- blissful silence.
Sadly this couldn’t last long though, as the two of them had to get going. Every second Hater spent here was a second he wasn’t in Peeper’s visible range from up above. He knew there was a circular range from where the initial portal could beam people down and suck them back up. He didn’t know exactly what its perimeters were, but it was certainly not out here.
Why’d he let Wander drag him out here anyways?
Hater glanced at the grayed out sky, then got up and shuffled over to where Wander was still sleeping and bent down to whisper,
“Ppppppsssstss!! Pspspspspps Sunshine Banjo faaace~…”
No response. Stupid stubborn little-
“Wake up. Wake up! PLEASE!!!”
Nothing.
“WANDER!! I DEMAND YOU TO WAKE UP!!”
Hater wouldn’t hesitate to grab Wander and shake him awake.
Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to though, as the nomad finally, (grop, finally) stirred and peeled his eyes open. They looked a bit dazed. He murmured,
“S-Syl…?”
“NO it’s me, idiot! Your worst enemy? The Greatest in the Galaxy?”
“Hateyyy?” Wander smiled with a sugary sweet grin that made Hater recoil. But there was still something about his energy that was a bit off.
It clicked when he staggered out of his hat and winced at every moment.
He was hurt-
In what way, Hater wasn’t sure, but it was obvious the nomad was in some type of pain from the way he moved and the subtle scrunch of his brow. His smile twitched at the edges. And yet, for several long moments, neither of them acknowledged anything. Wander looked up at him and whispered,
“...Ya saved me…you do care!”
His eyes were wide and full of warmth. Gross.
“I don’t care!,” Hater grumbled, “I only saved you so I could totally destroy you later!”
“Okay Hateyyy~.”
“....Stop calling me ‘Hatey!!’” he barked. Hater was fuming, and It would’ve kept escalating, but he stopped upon seeing Wander flinch with pain again. The nomad was breathing heavily and swaying a bit.
Though he really didn’t want to, Hater had to say something about it.
“so…. Are you… like, hurt or something dumb like that…?” he grumbled.
Flarp, he regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He regretted it even more as Wander smiled softly.
“A lil’, but I’ll be fiiiine,” he said with the shaky flick of a wrist. Everything about his demeanor suggested otherwise, but as mentioned previously, Hater remembered that did not care. If the little do-gooder wanted to be stubborn and injure himself further, then by all Grop he was allowed to. As long as it didn’t slow the two of them down.
But when Hater began walking away without hearing little footsteps scurrying up behind him, he got a sinking feeling in his gut.
He glanced back to see Wander on the ground, face in a grimace, letting out a soft painful whimper when he tried to stagger to his feet again and fell in a dis-coordinated heap. When he spotted Hater glancing back at him, he stared up with large wet eyes.
“Nononono, I am NOT carrying you-”
Hater ended up carrying him.
And Wander apologized profusely for it the whole way back, which only made Hater even more astronomically annoyed.
Apologizing!? For being injured!! What a lunatic!!
It was this very naivety and niceness that Hater despised about him in the first place. Nothing about him was logical. Nothing Wander did lined up with how anyone in the Grop-darn universe was meant to behave. It never made sense to Hater. Wander never cowered and begged for mercy like he was supposed to. He never treated Hater with the fear and reverence he was meant to. He just treated him like a friend, like an equal.
They were not equals. Hater was the bad guy, the villain, and Wander was supposed to be the good guy trying to stop him, but he never acted like it. Wander had a way of writing the script in his own way, one that Hater could never fully prepare for. It drove him insane the way Wander tried to shove his own nonsensical ideas of “love and friendship” into just about everything. And it annoyed him even more that it always worked. There was nothing Hater could do to avoid it.
Hater didn’t want or need friends. He was a galactic overlord, a powerful skeleton man,
Evil is all he could be. Wander was the stupid one for not knowing that.
The longer Hater simmered in his thoughts, the worse it made him feel, and he had to take a step away from his mind for a second. He could hear the tiny voice of Peepers in the back of his head telling him to ignore his concerns about Wander and focus on the mission. And right now, his mission was getting out of this place.
Wander may still have the power of goofy friendship words on his side, but he was injured.
Hater was the one who had all the power here. And that was a notion that made him feel good. He liked it when things were in his control.
It still felt like far too long before they made it back to the central area. At this point, Wander had fallen asleep again. Hater had placed him inside of his hat and dragged it behind him the whole way like a sack of potatoes. The sky remained dreary and dark the entire way.
Hater knew he was back to where he should be when he spotted that one large cyborg man from a few days earlier coming up towards him.
Thrax, Wander had mentioned his name was. Hater didn’t know why he remembered or even paid any attention in the first place to the nomad's obnoxious rambling, but somehow he remembered at least that much.
It was clear in Thrax’s eyes that he had several questions, none of which Hater really wanted to answer.
Then his eyes quickly fell to the bundle of Wander in a hat that Hater had behind him. He seemed to know immediately that something was wrong. Anyone who knew Wander would know that he was a perpetual ball of energy and sunshine, and him just being asleep and carried like this was somewhat unusual-- though not concerning on its own. But when they got closer, some of the injuries were visible. Hater was hoping that Thrax wouldn’t notice.
He noticed.
The question seemed to roll off Thrax's tongue hesitantly.
“...What happened?...
…. Was this your doing?”
Of course the first thing Hater came back to was accusations.
He immediately jumped to defend himself,
‘What?! I- me?!? No, no…I would never hurt my best bud…” He put on the most convincing fake wide smile that he could muster and stared at Thrax dead in the eyes.
See? I’m not afraid of you,
And he was actually telling the truth this time. But then the Cyborg unexpectedly grabbed Hater’s cloak and yanked him up by the neck. Dread squirmed inside of him. The two were so close now that their faces nearly touched and Hater could feel the huff of his warm reeking breath. Thrax’s voice dropped to a low growl.
“Listen here, pal. I think we both know what you’re doing.”
Hater gulped.
“I, as with the rest of us, have been playing along with it for Wanders sake, but don’t mistake me for a fool, I know what you’ve been tryna do, and if you think you can go out and cause harm to the one and only person who believed in me and helped my kickstart my book store dream, then you’ve got another thing coming, pal.”
“No, no no, I swear! Seriously! I didn’t lay a hand on him!”
Thrax’s eyes narrowed. Hater wasn’t released.
“NO!! Really!! He can tell you himself!! Just PUT ME DOWN PLEASE!!!”
The man begrudgingly obliged.
“Okay listen, I don’t like you in the slightest, But I’ll give you a chance. We should probably get back to the other guys, and give both of you a chance to explain, alright? Whenever Wander wakes up. Do we have a deal?”
At this, Hater was hesitant. This guy may have been fooled enough by his charismatic charm to decide not to beat him to a pulp, but that was not a guarantee with everyone. And if they found out what happened with the river, that would be suspicious for sure, even though Hater hadn’t even done anything! Okay, sure, maybe he’d briefly considered pushing Wander into the river, but he’s not the one who made it happen!
He’d quite literally saved Wander for Grop’s sake! These guys weren’t allowed to be mean to him now!!
But of course they didn’t know that.
Hater didn’t doubt that Wander would undeniably defend him, but that notion still didn’t ease his apprehensiveness.
Hater tightened his grip around the brim of Wander’s hat. His heart beat quicker. What was he doing, What was he doing?
Thrax’s eyes flicked up to him, noticing the subtle shift in his demeanor. “What are you-”
“GET AWAY, THIS IS MY ENEMY NOT YOURS!!” Hater smacked him and bolted off.
Somehow not even the stupidest thing he’d done that day.
The chase that followed was a chaotic blur scudding feet, sharp turns, and poor decisions as he dashed around spires and scrambled over rocks.
Hater’d been in chases many times, but rarely was he the one running away.
And, miraculously, it worked.
Some pattern of running and dodging on his feet, and Thrax was nowhere in sight.
Hater’s heart was hammering in his ribcage, eyes darting at every rock and every flare of dust kicked up into the wind.
Then it hit him,
GROP, WHAT HAD HE JUST DONE?!?
It seemed he was stuck in an endless domino effect of making one horrible, terrible decision after another. And it was all Wander's fault. He pulled the sleeping nomad up in front of his face and shook him vigorously awake.
“WANDER!! WANDER!!! WAKE UP RIGHT NOW!!!”
“H-Huh?” The nomad shot up, “Oh hi, Hater! Sorry I fell asleep… didn’t even realize.” He looked a lot more exhausted than he should’ve, which almost made Hater feel a bit bad for handling him so roughly- almost. It was still Wander.
“WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!!” Hater shook him again, causing Wander to cringe and whimper. Okay okay fine, he’d stop shaking him, but he couldn’t help but to continue yelling.
“WHAT DO WE DO WHAT DO WE DO?? HOW DO WE GET OUT?!?!”
Wander opened his mouth to respond, but didn’t even have a chance before Hater spilled, “THEY’RE GONNA KILL ME!!! THESE GUYS PROBABLY WANT ME DEAD!! DO SOMETHING!!!
Flarpflarpflarpflarp he hadn’t meant to say that much oh GROP why why why why-
Hater was aware he was spiraling, but he couldn’t control it. His breath was coming out in quicker and quicker gasps. It was so unlike him to just break like this but usually he had the safety of his ship, and the watchdogs, and Peepers, and just some sense of security to grasp on to, down here he had nothing, absolutely nothing, he was stranded and alone and exposed to the mercy of whatever this torturous place wanted to inflict on him, he had NO BACKUP, NO CONTROL, and there were people out for him, they wanted to KILL HIM and EVERYTHING WAS GOING SO HORRIBLY WRONG AND-
There was a small orange paw to Hater’s chest that broke him out of the rapid slipping slope of his emotions. He blinked and stared at it dumbfounded. Time froze. The soft warm weight was grounding in a way. So jarring that it put his shaken mind on pause. He hated the fact that he didn’t hate it. Still the instinct that he should drove him to pull away.
That, of course, didn’t stop Wander from leaning in closer. His voice was oddly gentle. Not the usual overly-cheery high pitch that it should be.
“Hey, chill out big guy, Everythin’ll turn out jus’ fine.”
It was annoying just how easy it was for him to say that. Wander always seemed to know that things would turn out okay for him. And they always did. Nothing ever turned out right for Hater. And it was usually Wander’s fault. He was still hyperventilating, but found a way to say,
“Oh yeah? Show me a way out then, will you? YOU CANT!!! WE’RE TRAPPED!! PROBABLY FOREVER!!”
He repeated that in his mind. Turn the word over, back and forth. Forever….
Something in Hater broke when he tried to picture that. Stuck in this place… forever… It made a wave of panic surge up and his breathing faltered again. He didn’t even notice when he was being locked into a tight warm hug. He was dizzy and terrified. He didn’t move.
“I assure you friend, we’ll make it outta here.”
They weren’t friends, but Hater couldn’t be bothered to correct him like he usually did. He could only stare, trembling, out at the barren distance. He just wanted to pretend that none of this was happening.