Chapter Text
"Why?!"
The panic room was quiet. Nothing was playing, no music. The only sounds were coming from a tall, black and white creature, huddled in the corner. Shuddering sobs echoed in the small place, Ranboo wringing his fingers through his hair.
"It's Dream, Dream is why, it's all Dream, it's all his fault..." Quiet muttering, insane and not thought out. Obsessive.
Obsessive.
Repetitive.
Over and over and over.
It's Dream, Dream is the reason, without him, everything would be fine...
God damn it.
Ranboo detached his hands from his head, breathing shakily and drawing his bottom lip between his teeth in an attempt to quiet himself.
His multicolored eyes opened blearily, sliding over the walls and the bits of paper pinned up to it, echoing his thoughts. The jukebox in the middle of the obsidian room was empty, occasionally filled with Mellohi. Dream’s voice was not here today- a relief. One less thing to worry about.
One less thing on top of all the others.
He hadn’t been to the original panic room in so long, he had been spending a lot of time with Michal and Tubbo in Snowchester, not to mention his time in the Arctic with Techo and Phil working alongside the Syndicate. The experiments were another matter entirely, and the particles that sometimes floated around him just added extra stress of keeping up for others.
Nothing could make this worse.
Nothing, he supposed, except for the stabbing pain in his hand as he went to stand.
“Shit.” Ranboo hissed a little, drawing his hand up to his face to examine the damage. A rather large shard of glass was lodged through his black hand, his fingers twitching a little. He brought his other hand up to it and carefully got a firm hold on it, pulling it out. More blood oozed from the wound, leaving him examining the shard between his fingers.
It was reflective on one side, Ranboo could see his green eye blinking back at itself. Blood was dripping slowly off the sharp edge, gathering in a small pool at his padded feet.
This is kinda neat.
The reflectiveness of the piece was beautiful- the part that had not been embedded in his hand was pristine, perfect. The glittering emerald and ruby that were his eyes glittered almost tauntingly in the reflection of the mirror.
I can show this to Tubbo later , Ranboo decided. With that matter made up, he pushed it into his pocket and nursed his bleeding hand to his chest.
Ranboo passed the piece over to Tubbo in the dying light of the sun hours later, after his hand had been properly bandaged by Phil. Tubbo raised it a little, bouncing the light off of it to make a small spot of light shining on their mansion wall. He wiggled the shard a little, making the dot vibrate. He turned a little to see Ranboo out of the corners of his eyes, a small smirk pulling at his mouth.
“What?” Ranboo glanced back at the slightly vibrating dot, raising his eyebrows. “I’m not a cat.”
“Oh? Your tail says otherwise.”
Ranboo smacked a hand down on his thin, whiplike tail, stilling it’s quivering movements that were disturbing the tuft of grayish fur protruding from the end. “Shut up,” Ranboo muttered.
“This is a really impressive shard, though.” Tubbo slid his eyes back to the small mirror in his hand. “It looks broken. Look, there are little runes here. They go around in an arch, like their going around something. The center, maybe?” Tubbo placed it in his palm, bottom up, and traced his fingers at the cracked sides. “But this side is dull, it’s dirty. It can’t be washed off now, it’s so old. But the way it perfectly reflects, on the other side, it’s… it’s unnatural, man.”
“I know,” Ranboo said, leaning over to see it better over Tubbo’s cracked horns. The boy was by no means old, only sixteen or so. But he had been through wars and fights and literally an execution, so much that he should never have went through in the first place.
But, can’t go back now.
“I didn’t notice that other side. If I had, I would have been a lot more worried about infection. Phil said it was fine, a clean puncture wound.”
“Mmm.” Tubbo sighed, turning it back over and staring down at his pristine reflection. “I don’t know what it is. But it’s really pretty.”
“I think I’m gonna just put it in my ender chest or something.” Ranboo held out his hand, palm up, to Tubbo. The smaller ignored it, tilting the shard left and right.
“Tubbo?”
“Hm?” Tubbo slid his eyes up to meet Ranboo’s, looking a little glossed over.
“Can I have the shard back?”
Tubbo held it over Ranboo’s waiting palm, but didn’t let it go.
“Tubbo.”
The smaller blinked quickly, clearing the fog behind his eyes and dropped the shard. Ranboo caught it and closed his fingers.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Tubbo looked a little confused, but his eyes were clear and alert. “It was just… it was really pretty.”
“Hoarding tendencies hit again,” Ranboo joked. Tubbo smiled and laughed a little.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
The orange of the dying sun splashed across the sky, deep purple merging with the light gray of the clouds. Fiery, black and white whorls. Mesmerizing.
Twilight fell, granting it’s full grace and beauty to the SMP as it faded into night.
---
There were more.
One lodged into the wood in Techno’s cabin, one glittering outside of Tommy’s now abandoned house. One was lying on the beach, one shining just outside of the abandoned Pogtopia.
Ranboo found them, placing them in his ender chest the more he gathered. Some pieces were much larger than others; the first one Ranboo had found was the second smallest. They all had the same features- tantalizing, perfect reflections on one side, and grime-coated on the other. Runes scattered around all of them, in an arch, just as Tubbo noticed on the first. Ranboo was able to slide one or two together- the runes joined together in pristine beauty, the crack barely visible when placed right.
It was the night Tommy was planning to kill Dream. Ghostbur was fidgeting a little, pulling at the hem of his yellow sweater. Friend was bleating lightly, nudging his opaque owner to try to cheer him up. The ghost smiled a little and ran his fingers through the blue wool.
Ranboo was worried, to say the least. Of all the things that can go wrong. The final planning phase passed quickly, Tommy swigging the invisibility potion and leading Ghostbur to the prison entrance.
Ranboo should have known something was wrong the second a large shard caught his eye as he nudged his foot slightly. He pushed it in his pocket before quickly following Tubbo’s path to wait for Tommy and Ghostbur to emerge, the viper killed.
They did not expect Tommy to emerge, shaking in a mixture of fear, rage, and sadness, tugging Friend behind him. The viper was still very much alive, the lamb slain; it’s blue blood splattered messily on obsidian.
Ranboo could have sworn that his heart stopped right then and there. The second Tommy announced, in shivering rage, that Wilbur was alive due to his ghost’s counterpart's sacrifice? Nothing could have made him walk faster to see if it was true.
The solid figure overlooking L’Manburg, running his fingers through his hair in sheer amazement and breathing deeply confirmed Tommy’s story.