Work Text:
‘I don’t know.’
It’s the single thing on his mind as he sits on the stairs leading up to the Prime Path, looking out at the echoes of chaos that’ve shattered L’Manburg and left it smoldering. Yes, his heart aches for what had once been his home, but it matters little in comparison to the jumbled static in his brain. He’s unable to quell the sound with anything other than those three words.
‘I don’t know.’
There’s a beauty in ignorance - he sees that now. He’s spent so long trying to hold on and remember everything despite the black hole in the back of his head devouring his memories, but now he wants nothing more than to just let the time-warping gravity drag him past the event horizon. It would consume him like it does his thoughts, leaving someone else behind. A blank slate. A fresh start. A new beginning.
Reset, go back, try again.
He can’t, though. Despite all the discourse in his thoughts, there’s something inside him that says that willingly forgetting is wrong. It’s that same something that made him drop the flint and steel when he almost burned his notebook, the one that contained himself, Ranboo, as he is known now.
It’s that same something that says giving up is weak; and even if he is an unreliable, traitorous, terrible excuse of a person, he can at least say he’s not weak.
Part of him thinks that’s a lie, but at this point, he doesn’t know what to trust anymore.
He draws in a breath and tilts his weary gaze upwards. He sees the puppetmaster himself still roaming the obsidian grid looming in the sky, occasionally lighting another bundle of TNT just to watch it plummet into the crater below. With every hollow boom rumbling through the ruins, there’s an answering cackle skittering attop the devastation. By this point, everyone has fled the area, and there really isn’t anything else left to destroy. Dream is just having fun.
Ranboo thinks that he shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous, first of all, to be around the lost territories of L’Manburg with the remains still hot to the touch and with that maniac still going at it. It’s rainy, second of all, and while he thanks his lucky stars that he still has his helmet to protect him, he still hates wearing damp armor and despises the cold.
It’s wrong, third of all, for him to hang around and let himself mourn a place that he willingly watched crumble into dust.
There was no way that L’Manburg would’ve won that day. Technoblade and Dream working together? Yeah. The nation’s fate was sealed the moment the two warriors came into agreement. Ranboo jumping in to fight alongside Tubbo’s forces wouldn’t have changed a single thing.
But he thinks he might have felt a lot less pointless if he had. He thinks, as he stares down at the empty space below “Friends” , that he might have not been so alone as he is now.
Sides are bad: he knows that much. He’s seen it tear people apart time and time again, so when he decided to separate himself from Tubbo and keep his distance, he knew he was in the right.
Well. He thought he was in the right, at the time. Sitting all by himself on the steps to the Prime Path, he’s not so sure anymore.
Yes, the sides might have torn the others apart, might have made them so weak that they have no choice but to fold under Dream’s hand, but at least they aren’t lonely.
So are sides bad?
‘I don’t know.’
It doesn’t matter now anyway. He has no one and nothing. He betrayed the friends he could have gone to and betrayed the land that was once his home. He’s left with his Wither-ravaged armor, a couple of tools, and a sack of soggy bread; he’s left with bumps, bruises, and regret running down the pages of his mind in his hands; he’s left with no direction, no plan, and no anchor.
The weather is washing him away, the ink - which never had the chance to dry - dripping off into his lap, meaningless, pointless, lost.
‘I don’t know.’
And though he’s protected from the water, he thinks the rain might be melting him and the thunder might be shaking him and the lightning might be choking him.
He thinks he might be crying. (He doesn’t want to think anymore.)
His communicator buzzes. Expecting some sort of random comment or joke made on the global chat, he sighs and taps on the notification. The holographic screen pops up from the device on his arm, the glare causing him to wince. His ears are still ringing from all the explosives, and his head still aches from being thrown into a wall from a Wither’s attack. It doesn’t help the perpetual headache he’s been suffering from for the past twenty-four hours.
But he still opens the chat, despite the pain it causes him.
And it’s not what he’s expecting.
Ph1LzA whispers to you: vc3?
Ranboo is frozen for a moment, not sure how to reply, if he should reply. He stares at the screen for several seconds, maybe a whole minute, trying to come up with some sort of answer, but his head is all over the place and he can’t seem to string words together.
Ph1LzA whispers to you: you there?
Ph1LzA whispers to you: hello??
Finally, Ranboo manages something.
You whisper to Ph1LzA: i’m here. i'll join vc3.
He switches his screen over to the list of voice channels and finds that Philza is patiently waiting for him. He checks that his earpiece is still connected and working before finally joining the call.
“H-Hello?”
He inwardly cringes at his voice. He doesn’t sound good at all. He’s not really sure what he was expecting, though.
“‘Ey, mate,” Philza answers him. Though the greeting is casual, there’s something softer padding his words. “Where are you? You make it out of L’Manburg alright?”
He swallows, strangely feeling as though he’s been caught. “Uh, n...no, I’m still here.”
“Really? Where?”
“On the…” He sighs, wiping away the watery ink from his gloved hands on his netherite cuisses. “On the steps leading up to the Prime Path.”
“Oh.” There’s some shuffling on the other end of the line. “...You alright? You’re not sounding too great.”
“Just tired. It’s been a long day.”
Philza chuckles. “That’s one way of putting it.”
There’s a few beats of silence, then, and Ranboo simply doesn’t have the energy to try and fill them. He realizes it’s a bit awkward just sitting here on voice chat with Philza, but he can’t bring himself to care.
“Is there any reason you’re still in L’Manburg?” Philza asks him several uncomfortable seconds later. “You forget something at your house? Well, I...guess that doesn’t matter anymore since…”
Ranboo cringes again, clears his throat. “No, I didn’t forget anything. I moved important stuff into my enderchest yesterday, and my pets are safe for now.”
“Oh, good, good.” Another pause. More shuffling. “You’re not... stuck , are you? Like, hurt?”
Ranboo runs a hand up his bloodied arm, and he feels the dampness of the downpour starting to seep through his armor and nip at his skin. “I’m not hurt.”
“...But you’re stuck.”
“Mm.” It’s just a sound. The meaning of it is lost on even himself.
Philza seems to understand it regardless. “You don’t have anywhere to go, huh.”
He says it like a statement - which it is. Still, Ranboo takes a fortifying breath, grapples with the notion for a moment, and replies in a whisper, “No. I don’t.”
He isn’t sure if he should be admitting this to Philza. He isn’t sure why he’s admitting this to Philza. In a small rush of panic, he flips to the first page of his memory book and skims the waterlogged entries.
‘Philza also helped me so i let him escape with techno as a returned favor’.
So they’re even. There is no reason for Philza to be here, asking if he was alright, and there is no reason for him to be admitting things that he’d rather bury deep down inside him and ignore for as long as it took him to forget. So why is this happening? Why does Philza ask, and why does he answer?
He’s pulled from his thoughts by a hum in his ear, pensive and low. “One second, Ranboo.” The audio cuts off. According to the display, Philza has moved to a different voice call, one with Techno. Ranboo takes the moment of silence to close his notebook, then settles his elbows on his knees and rests the side of his helmeted head in his palm. He watches another round of TNT plunge into the smoldering depths and catches the laughter over the rumble of the explosion and the rolling thunder.
There’s a sting on his shoulder, and when he glances over, he realizes that his armor is really starting to get soaked through. He wonders if he should consider moving out of the rain. He decides that, for now, it’s not worth the effort.
There’s a ping, and Philza is back. “Hello?” There’s muted whistling on the other side of the line, and his words are muffled by it.
“Hi.”
“You said you’re at the stairs leading up to the Prime Path, right?”
“Uhm, yeah, I am.” He repeats the question in his head. “...Why?”
A pillowy thump - wingbeats. “I’m coming over to you.”
“I-I...” Ranboo doesn’t have any words, and he runs his hands over the top of his helm despite the fact that the water collected there soaks through his gloves and stings his hands. “You don’t have to do that.”
“But I’m choosing to. Besides, I’m not far. Just a couple minutes out. Stay put, alright?”
“O-Okay.” He isn’t one to say no to Philza Minecraft.
He stays on call with Philza while the man makes his way over, listening to the wind rush past the microphone. Whenever thunder bellows through the sky, he hears it first all around him, then it echoes faintly in his earpiece. After one particularly bright flash of lightning and a loud clap of thunder to follow, he hears a grunt on the other end and a muttered curse.
“Sh-should, uh, should you be flying in this weather?” he asks carefully.
Philza chuckles lightly at his concern. “Oh, probably not. It’s alright, though, I’ve flown through much worse. If you think this is bad, then you clearly haven’t seen an Arctic snow storm before.”
Ranboo winces at the thought. “Yeah, that...doesn’t sound fun.”
“Ah, I’m nearly there, so I’m gonna disconnect from the call.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“See you in a minute.”
“Yeah.”
Philza disconnects, and Ranboo shuts off his communicator. He lets his forearms rest on his knees and keeps his eyes to the sky, waiting for the winged man to come soaring into view. He’s careful in the way that he angles his head so his face doesn’t get pelted by the torrential downpour. His cheeks already burn from a dampness that he’s aware isn’t from the rain but refuses to place the source of. Still, it hurts, and he just barely stops himself from wiping it away with his soaked gloves and making it much, much worse.
A minute passes, and he doesn’t spot Philza. Instead, he hears the sound of boots thumping behind him, and he turns to see the man in question thumping down the oakwood stairs. He’s still fully decked out in his enchanted netherite gear with his sword resting on his hip beside the Totem that’s been chained there. He strikes an imposing figure, especially with his massive, storm-black wings framing him and making him look about two times bigger than he actually is. Ranboo can’t help but shift away an inch or two when Philza finally comes to a halt about three steps up from where he’s seated.
Philza, once he’s stopped, reaches up and fiddles with a strap around his neck, then pulls off his helm with what has to be a sigh of relief. “I didn’t think you were being literal when you said you were sitting on the stairs,” he says to Ranboo as he tucks the helm under one arm and uses the hand on his other to fix his helmet hair. “Thought you’d be hanging out in the tunnel. Weather’s terrible.”
“Yeah,” Ranboo mutters, glancing down at the water collecting in a puddle around his battle-scuffed boots.
Philza narrows his eyes at him. “You’re part enderman, aren’t you? Doesn’t water burn you?”
“It does.” He pats a cuisse with a gloved hand. “The armor helps, though.”
The man seems to consider this. Then, he walks down the last three steps to stand next to Ranboo, and one of those massive wings extends out to the side to form a canopy over his head. The feathers aren’t a perfect awning, and they’re dripping wet from the flight, but it’s definitely better than sitting directly in the downpour.
When Ranboo looks up to meet Philza’s gaze, he sees the worry there in those softened blue eyes. There’s something else there too, he thinks. He’s not entirely sure what it is, but it reminds him of the man’s laugh, light and warm, whenever Techno cracks one of his deadpan jokes or makes a show of ‘slaying’ a baby zombie for Philza.
“Thanks,” Ranboo says.
Philza’s lips twitch upwards. “Mm-hm.” The wing stretched over Ranboo’s head shifts slightly, like he’s getting it into a more comfortable position. “Anywho, I’m gonna get straight to the point. I was talking to Techno a minute ago, and he says that he’s okay with you coming over to our land and settling in with us - if you want to, that is.”
Ranboo congratulates himself on keeping his jaw from hitting the floor, but he couldn’t think to do anything else other than stare dumbly up at Philza because What? Is he serious? He looks serious. I mean, this could all be some sick joke but Philza wouldn’t do that. Would Philza do that? It doesn’t sound like something he would do, but -
“There’s no pressure, of course,” the man adds hurriedly. “If you’ve got any plans, then I’m not gonna stop you, or if you don’t want to be around us after all...all that - ” he gestures out at the results of the day - “then that’s fine too. We won’t hold it against you, promise.”
Philza crouches down on the step then, still holding out his extended wing. He meets Ranboo’s eyes, and a truer smile pulls around his lips. “You’re a good kid, Ranboo. You’ve got good intentions. You were kind to me and Techno and took the time to listen to us when no one else would. I’m sorry that you had to get tangled up in this mess. The least I can do is offer you someplace safe.”
Ranboo swallows, and he glances over to the ruins of L’Manburg, thinking of the chaos they waged and all the people they hurt. He’s not sure if he can side with them, because this is what it sounds like to him - choosing a side. And he still doesn’t know if sides are good or not, but he can say for certain that he doesn’t want any part in things like what Philza, Techno, and Dream did today.
Philza looks so open, though, so warm and welcoming, and Ranboo has to take a second to give the man’s armor a once-over and remind himself of what exactly Philza is capable of. “I-I don’t think I want to join you guys.”
Philza blinks at that. “Join us?” He laughs like he always does, a handful of gentle chuckles, like Ranboo’s told a halfhearted joke. “Oh, no, that’s not what I meant at all. I’m just offering a place to stay, a ‘no strings attached’ sort of deal - well, I suppose you could watch over the dogs, and we could always use an extra pair of hands with the farms. I don’t think we’re gonna be doing much else than that, to be honest with you.”
“What do you mean?” Ranboo asks.
“Oh, uh, Techno’s all done. I’m all done. We came here and did what we had to. We’ll probably just be living through retirement together now. But if, gods forbid, we have to head back in, you don’t have to join us.”
Philza knocks their shoulders together kindly. “I’m not asking you to team with us, Ranboo. I’m just helping out a friend in a rough patch.”
Ranboo draws in a breath, trying to wrap his mind around that one little phrase. All he can think of is that blank page staring up at him and the lonesome title sobbing down the soaked paper.
The phrase escapes his lips before he can stop it. “A friend?”
A hand settles on his shoulder, carefully placed on the netherite spaulder as to not add any more water to his already damp underclothes. “Yeah. I’d like to think you’re my friend.” He laughs, adding, “I hope you think the same of me, or this’ll be really awkward.”
Ranboo can’t help the huff of something vaguely like a chuckle that bubbles out of his chest, and he ducks his head as he feels a smile worm its way onto his face. “N-No, you’re a good guy too, Phil. We’re - we’re friends.”
“I’m glad,” Philza tells him honestly. At least, it sounds honest. He’s wholly smiling now, and Ranboo decides it’s a good look on him; he appears years younger with a grin on his face.
Philza pats his shoulder one last time and stands with a soft grunt, netherite joints clanking together as he does. “I don’t know about you,” he says, “but I’m completely soaked through and would very much like to change into something a little less cramped.”
The man extends a hand to him. “You coming? Again, no pressure either way.”
Ranboo considers the offering. Then, he considers the storm-stained entries, and worry-written walls, and that feeling of falling, falling, falling, washed away by the chaos, losing himself in the endless loop, spun around and around by uncertainty and sound.
He does not want to do that again. At least, he doesn’t want to be alone if he does.
So Ranboo accepts the hand Philza has extended to him, and he lets himself be pulled to his feet, and he ducks his head a little so he can more easily take shelter under Philza’s wing. He folds his arms with his notebook nestled against his chestplate, curls around it.
“Thank you,” he murmurs.
“Yeah, ‘course, mate.”
They don’t start walking immediately, and Ranboo takes the chance to steal one last look at the grave of a nation that he had once called home. He thinks that, if he concentrates hard enough, he can reach back into that faulty memory of his and pull up every last detail, remember the exact moment he fell in love with the country and the people who lived in it without needing the help of the tear-track records hugged to his heart.
He looks over to Philza, and he doesn’t know what Philza sees in him, but it’s enough to make the man answer him with a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
Then, he lightly drapes his arm over Ranboo’s shoulders. “Come on.”
They start up the steps. For the first time in a while, Ranboo feels no guilt in being at someone’s side. In fact, he leans into it, and Philza is happy to take his weight.
This is nice, he thinks. This is nice.