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"Tommy," Ranboo sobs out, chest heaving, "kill me, Tommy."
It is both the end and the culmination of Ranboo's story. The truth has been revealed, to him and to everyone else: they now know about the community house, the disc, the destruction of Tommy's home, the reason behind the prison getting locked down. Dream told them everything, using the shocking information to redirect everyone's attention to his servant, so that Dream himself could escape. They know that Ranboo has been helping the villain all along, Tommy knows he is the one responsible for the week of torture he had endured at the hands of Dream in prison.
The effect of Dream's abuse is obvious in Tommy. The boy is even worse than he was in exile: his eyes are dull, even though a spark of defiance still flickers in his gaze, he looks frail, malnourished, his stance is closed-off, defensive, vulnerable. The boy has been through so much already, he was just starting to heal, to learn to let go of his past, but happiness was denied to him. Tommy spent a week locked in with his tormentor, stuck in a tiny room with nothing to occupy his time but listening to Dream's voice.
And it was all because of Ranboo. Because Ranboo was too weak to fight off Dream, because like a fool, he ignored the SOS signals his mind had been sending him, begging him to realize what's been going on. His ignorance is the reason why Tommy almost broke again.
The guilt is all-encompassing, it tears Ranboo's chest from the inside, coiling around his every thought like vines, smothering him. It stings, it burns, it cuts in a way he's never felt before. It hurts so bad that Ranboo doesn't think he can live with the pain.
So he begs the one he's wronged the most for salvation.
"Kill me, Tommy."
Maybe it's selfish of him to ask this, to beg for this one favor, because Tommy owes him nothing, and he owes Tommy everything. But at the end of the day, Ranboo is a coward, a coward with no moral backbone and shaky hands and blurry vision. He doesn't think he's capable of doing the deed himself, yet he can't bear the thought of living long enough to hurt someone else either.
Tommy stares at Ranboo with wide, petrified eyes, his mouth gaping, a diamond sword held in a trembling hand. He steps back as Ranboo approaches, raising his sword defensively. The enderman hybrid looms before him, purple particles sparkling off his body. His gaze is wild, tearful, lost as he nears Tommy, his long legs bringing him closer and closer.
"Stay away, Ranboo!" shouts Tommy, his voice cracking mid-sentence, but Ranboo doesn't let up.
"Tommy, please…" The blond gulps as Ranboo finally reaches him, but neither attacks. The hybrid puts one black, gloved hand on Tommy's shoulder, and moves his other hand to the sword, wrapping his fingers around the wrist holding the weapon. He pulls it towards himself, pushing the tip of the blade against his stomach, and begs. "Please just end me."
Tommy’s eyes fly rapidly up and down between the sword and Ranboo’s face. He just stutters, lost as to what to do, how to react.
"I- I can’t do this anymore, Tommy. I'm tired of hurting everyone, tired of doubting everything, tired of not knowing- I'm tired. Just end me." He pulls the blade towards himself, enough for the cloth of his suit to tear, but he can't make himself use enough force to pierce his gut. "Please!"
Ranboo's knees buckle, and Tommy reacts just in time to pull the sword back before it can slice up through the hybrid's stomach. Ranboo drops to his knees and grabs at Tommy’s shirt with both hands, face falling onto the kid's chest.
"Please…" he sobs, tears soaking into the old red-and-white shirt.
As Tommy stands there with a sword pressed to Ranboo’s gut, his mind flashes to a very similar situation from the past: to hearing Wilbur shouting, begging for death, to seeing a diamond sword pierce through the body of the man he considered his brother.
Tommy looks down. Here was the one responsible for so much of his pain, for Doomsday, for the hellish week alone with Dream and for who knows what else. He feels angry. Finally, he has someone responsible for his pain at his mercy. Killing Dream felt cathartic, so did seeing him in the prison, the first time. Tommy wonders how taking his anger out on Ranboo would feel.
But that’s all this is about. Taking his anger, his frustrations out on someone, because Ranboo isn’t at fault, not like Dream is. Ranboo has suffered too, as is clear from his current state. What was it like, Tommy wondered, learning that you’ve been used by the server’s villain to do such horrid things.
Tommy doesn’t want to succumb to the cycle of history, he doesn’t want anyone else to die.
“No,” Tommy says, his voice firm. He tries to pull the sword away, but Ranboo grabs at it again.
“Please, I am going to slip. I am going to enderwalk again and then- and then- … and then-!”
Tommy slides his free hand into Ranboo’s hair, scratching at his scalp in gentle, calming motions, and the care inherent in the actions wrings a pained whine out of the enderman hybrid.
"Tommy p- please!"
"No," Tommy says again, gentler this time.
Ranboo flinches at the rejection, burying his face further into Tommy’s shirt. His breaths grow quicker, until he’s hyperventilating. Then, air catches in his throat and his breathing slowly returns to its normal pace, his arms going limp. When Ranboo looks up, his pupils are dilated and his gaze is absent. He’s enderwalking.
A shiver runs up Tommy’s back as he meets eyes with the shell of Ranboo. He can’t move, looking at those eyes. What will the sleepwalker do, how will he react, Tommy wonders. He was under Dream’s influence, after all.
But the hypnotized boy just rises slowly to his feet. He looks around, confused, before stepping away and just… going in a random direction, picking up a grass block along the way. There is no sign of his recent distress but for the burned tear tracks and the shallow gash in his suit, as if nothing at all happened, as if he wasn’t begging for death mere seconds ago. Who knows where he’d go in a state like that, what he’ll do when he wakes up.
Tommy looks around, eyes searching for somebody to order to look after Ranboo, but there is no one near. Everyone has run off after Dream.
It’s just him.
So he takes a deep breath, lets it out, and sets out after Ranboo. It would do no good to let the enderman get into trouble. Again.