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Michael has only been in the overworld for a week. It’s much, much colder than the Nether, and while the little house Boo and Bo put him in provides a bit of shelter from the harsh wind, it doesn’t do much. Boo and Bo are kind, though, kinder than most back home. They tuck him under soft, fuzzy blankets, they promise him that they’ll build him a warmer room, they give him more potatoes than he can eat and give his chicken seeds. Even when the snow piles up at the door and the house feels like a freezer, Boo and Bo keep him warm.
But now, he’s shivering again, and it has nothing to do with the cold.
There is a stranger in the house.
There are a couple of other people who live around, Michael’s seen them through the gaps in the windows. They pass to and fro, and they don’t come inside unless either Boo or Bo are with them.
This man is different. He towers over Michael kind of in the same way Boo does, except that he seems proud of his height instead of hunching over slightly to try and stay on the same level as other people. He’s covered head to toe in dark, tough armor that shimmers when he moves, and Michael doesn’t remember much from the start of his life in the Nether, but he remembers enough to recognize netherite. The man’s face is a patchwork of different shades of green, and there’s something strange about his features. Something distinctly dangerous.
He carries a sword in his hand, the same color as his armor, and light glints off the edge of the blade that is far too sharp for Michael’s liking. Michael backs up until his back presses against the wall, and clutches his chicken close to him.
“Hey there, little guy.” The man says, and doesn’t make any effort to get down to Michael’s level the way Boo and Bo do. “You’re Michael, aren’t you? I’m Sam.”
Michael does not like Sam. Michael wants Sam to leave. Michael wants Boo and Bo to run to, to hide behind, to cling to and know it’ll be alright.
“Here’s the thing.” Sam continues. “See, Tubbo made a big mistake. And you’re going to help me teach him a lesson.”
Michael doesn’t want to help Sam, but by backing into the corner, he’s effectively cornered him. Michael lets out a panicked squeal, but it doesn’t do much to defend himself as Sam takes a single step forward and scoops him up into his arms.
Boo and Bo pick him up sometimes. They always wait for him to come to them, unless he’s getting into a chest full of dangerous things. They hold him gently but securely, they pet the back of his head to calm him down, their arms are warm and safe, and feel like something from the past that Michael can’t quite put a name to.
Sam’s arms are cold, with nothing gentle about them. He holds Michael tightly enough to be sure he won’t drop him, but it feels suffocating rather than secure. Michael tries to thrash in his hold, but it doesn’t get him anywhere.
“Primes, sit still.” Sam grunts, and adjusts his hold on Michael again as he carries Michael out of the house. Michael lets out another cry, but as his eyes adjust to the sun reflecting off the blinding white snow outside, Boo and Bo are still nowhere to be seen.
In their place stands another stranger. This one is distinctly smaller than Sam, but he matches him in his full set of netherite and the sword hanging at his hip. The smirk on his face as he watches Sam carry Michael out of the house stands out more to Michael than the whiskers or the cat ears do.
“You told me they had a pet.” The other stranger says. “You didn’t say it was practically feral .”
“I wasn’t exactly expecting it to be.” Sam says, and before Michael knows what’s happening, he’s being shoved into the new stranger’s arms. “Hide him over there. Somewhere they won’t see.”
The stranger's hold isn’t as harsh as Sam’s, but Michael stills as he realizes where they’re standing. They’re on ice. A thin layer of ice is the only thing separating them from standing upright to flailing in freezing cold water, and the thought of being dropped into the ocean is enough to paralyze Michael. The wind through the house is enough to put him out of sorts for days, he’s certain that long enough in an ocean that cold will be enough to do irreversible damage.
“What are you gonna’ do?” The stranger asks.
“Easy.” Sam shrugs, and the smile that comes across his face looks all wrong. “I’m gonna’ tell them I killed it.”
Panic surges through Michael, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was staring the ocean down and in danger of falling in, he would lash out. He wants to. His instincts are screaming to fight, to bite and kick until they let him go and he can run, run, run to safety.
He wants to, but he doesn’t.
Sam pulls something from his pocket, a small device that Michael can vaguely recognize. Bo and Boo each have one, and they’ll occasionally pull them out to tap some buttons before putting it back away. Bo let Michael look at his once, and Michael could see a long series of messages typed out in Common. He couldn’t quite read them yet, but Bo had assured him they’d get around to teaching him.
That assurance feels less likely as the stranger starts to walk away from Sam, back to the little corner of the Snowchester docks. It’s past the houses and right beside a steep cliff that rises sharply up. A place that people aren’t likely to look.
The cold is beginning to set in now, and Michael tries to pull his arms closer to his chest and squeezes his eye shut. Maybe he’s dreaming. Maybe this is all a bad dream and he’ll wake up to find Boo and Bo waiting for him, there to calm him down and surround him with warm blankets again.
But the stranger holding him doesn’t seem to care what he wants. Not even when he whimpers as he’s set down on frozen ice, and opens his eyes to find himself surrounded by hastily built walls. The stranger’s placing the last few as Michael pushes himself up on shaky legs. The ice underneath him is slippery, too slippery, and he ends up sprawled out across it again before he can take another step.
It makes a cracking noise underneath him that almost makes his heart stop.
“Sam!” The stranger calls. “I got him! What now--”
The stranger’s voice is cut off as he places the last block of Michael’s newfound prison, and the light disappears alongside his voice.
A panicked squeak escapes Michael, and he skitters blind across the frozen floor until he slams into one of the walls. He reaches up, presses his small hands against it, and feels around to try and find a place, any place that’s weak, that could be pulled away, that could free him.
There is nothing. The walls are built from sandstone and cobble and dirt. His saving grace could have been the dirt, but the cold temperatures of Snowchester have hardened it, and all Michael can do is scratch helplessly at it.
It’s too dark, it’s too cold, it’s too much of everything Michael hates. He wants out , he wants to be back in the little house, he wants Bo, he wants Boo--
He wails, and the noise reverberates in his ear. If anyone can hear him, they do nothing to let him out as he screams and cries, tears filling his good eye and spilling down his cheeks. His tears are hot as they roll down his cheek, but even that is taken away as they quickly chill in the frozen air.
He sinks to the floor, his sobs bouncing off the walls as he curls into a tight ball, trying to keep as much warmth as possible. The cold was a biting kind, made worse by the ice. It felt like it was pulling the heat out of him, leeching every drop of warmth until he was left just as frozen as the rest of the place.
Maybe that would happen. Sam had said he was going to tell Boo and Bo he killed him, maybe this was the plan. Trap him in a box where Boo and Bo couldn’t find him and wait until the cold took him away.
Michael buries his face in his arms and squeezes his eye tightly shut. It doesn't make much of a difference in the dark.
He doesn’t know how long he sits like that, curled up with his eye tightly closed, waiting for everything to stop as tears still found a way to escape, but it feels like forever. His eye opens slowly once he registers the light, and every bone in his body snaps back to attention when he hears Sam’s voice again.
“Tubbo, you’re putting something in the chair one hundred percent?”
Michael scrambles backwards from the hole in the wall when he sees Sam standing there, but for the second time that day, his back hits a wall. Sam continues to break down the wall, and light pours back into Michael’s makeshift prison.
“Uh...no, not a hundred percent.”
Michael’s eye widens as he hears Bo’s voice. It’s a little scratchy, and it takes Michael a few seconds to realize that Bo isn’t actually there. His voice is coming from Sam’s little box, the same way it does with Boo’s box when Boo comes to see Michael alone.
“Alright, well, I’ve got something for the chair.” Sam says, and once again, Michael is scooped up into his arms.
He doesn’t try to fight this time. He has nowhere to go, and he’s so very, very cold. He shivers in Sam’s arms, and just quietly hopes that wherever Sam’s taking him, it’ll be warmer than here.
Sam’s carrying him back across the frozen lake, stepping carefully along the patches of ice, and Michael blinks as a chorus of voices suddenly come from the box, overlapping with Sam’s as he occasionally responds.
“I’ve got the perfect thing for the chair, don’t you worry.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not putting anything in the chair other than you--”
“I will actually, I will actually kill. I don’t kill, but I will.”
The last voice catches Michael’s attention -- it’s Boo. He squirms a bit in Sam’s hold, looking around to see if he can spot him. He looks just ahead, and if he squints he can spy a couple people waiting on the shoreline. As soon as they see Sam, they begin to cross the ice. There’s the stranger from before, and--
Bo.
Everything in Michael’s mind seems to shift all at once. Bo is there. Bo is right there, and he’s coming. He’s coming across the ice, he’s right there, and Michael needs him. Michael needs to get back to Bo, he needs Bo to hold him and bring him back to the house and make the cold go away, and--
He thrashes in Sam’s hold with a sudden urgency, and apparently, it wasn’t what Sam was expecting. Michael breaks free, and the last thing he hears before he plunges into the icy cold water below is Sam’s surprised and now panicked yell, and Bo screaming Sam’s name right alongside it.
Michael thought the little prison with the ice floor was cold, but it was nothing compared to this. The water sends a shock through his system as he sinks, and for a brief moment, he’s paralyzed again.
He can hear voices. They’re muffled and distorted in the water, but there’s no mistaking the panic behind them. All three of them, Sam, the stranger, and Bo dive into the water after him, but Sam gets to him first. Seeing Sam swim towards him sends a whole different kind of shock through Michael, and he does his best to thrash around in the water to evade Sam’s hold.
No. No, no, no, he doesn’t want Sam. He wants Sam to go far away. He wants Bo, he wants Boo, he wants his family.
The word ricochets through his brain. Family. He can’t quite remember exactly what it’s supposed to mean, but he’s certain that it’s what Boo and Bo are.
Michael can’t evade Sam forever. It’s clear he’s got practice with swimming, and Michael’s barely ever even seen water, much less be dropped in it. Sam grabs him, and even though Michael thrashes against his hold again, this time he’s prepared for it.
Michael expects him to hold him there. To fight Bo off and hold him under the surface until his already burning lungs finally give out.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he drags Michael back to the surface, and throws him up onto the sand of the shoreline with a gasp for breath. Michael cries out as he hits the sand, which is just as cold as everything else in Snowchester, and his instincts kick in before he can even think about it.
He bolts . Back towards the little house that sits not too far off. That’s where he belongs. That’s where it’s warm, that’s where it’s safe, that’s where he needs to be.
He cries out in alarm as yet another pair of arms suddenly wrap around him and pull him back, and he writhes around to try to get out of their hold once again. Not again. No more, no more, no more --
“Hey, hey, hey, calm down! Calm down, Michael, it’s okay, it’s alright. It’s me. It’s just me.”
Michael stops thrashing as he suddenly realizes who the voice belongs to, and the way the arms are holding him. They are secure, but gentle. They are warm. They feel like home.
It’s Bo.
Michael immediately shifts around to bury his face in Bo’s fluffy brown jacket, and curls his little fingers tightly into the fabric. Bo holds him tightly and rubs little calming circles into his back, the same way he and Boo always do whenever a nightmare wakes him up.
“It’s alright.” Bo repeats, his voice softer than Michael’s ever heard it. “I’m right here. You’re okay. You’re safe now.”
“Bo.” Michael whimpers, and Bo presses a kiss to the top of his head.
“Yeah, buddy. It’s me.” He says. “There’s no more water. You’re alright.”
“Wait, why was Michael in the water?” Boo’s voice comes in through the little box in Bo’s pocket, and Bo’s arms around Michael tighten ever so slightly.
“Sam tried to drown him.” Bo says, and the gentle tone is now gone from his voice. Michael looks up to see Bo glaring daggers at Sam, who’s still standing on the shoreline, shaking water out of his boots.
“Sam tried to drown him -- okay.” Boo says, and the little box makes a clicking noise as Boo’s voice stops. There’s a practiced sort of calm to Boo’s voice, like he’s holding back a tidal wave of anger, but it doesn’t make Michael nervous. If Boo’s angry at Sam, maybe he’ll make Sam leave. Maybe Sam will have to leave and Boo will make sure he never comes back.
“I was trying to bring him back!” Sam insists, and pulls his boots back on. “He’s the one who scrambled around and made me drop him!”
Sam starts back towards them, and Michael can’t help it. He lets out a small whine as he approaches, and hides his face back in Bo’s shirt. Bo stands, picking Michael up as he does and cradling him close. To Michael’s relief, he takes a step back.
“Don’t.” Bo says, and Michael can hear Sam sigh. “Don’t touch him.”
“Look, Tubbo--” Sam starts, but Bo cuts him off again.
“See, you didn’t really understand quite the gravity Michael has, did you, Sam?”
“Well, no.” Sam admits. “But I didn’t actually kill it, obviously.”
That doesn’t make Michael feel better. Sam didn’t kill him, no, but now he’s shivering and cold and so very, very frightened. It’s a bit better now that Bo’s here and holding him, but he wants Boo, too. He wants Boo to be here and he wants Boo and Bo to make Sam leave.
“But, but secondly,” Sam continues. “When it almost died just now, I almost peed a bit.”
There’s a pause, and Bo snorts.
“Good.”
Michael lets his eye close. He still doesn’t like that Sam’s here, but Bo’s arms are warm, and he wants to pretend like he never left them, like the three of them are back in the house and Michael had never met Sam in the first place. Bo and Sam keep talking, but Michael’s not listening. Instead, he rubs his face against the fluff that lines Bo’s jacket and pretends.
He snaps out of it when he feels a new hand on his back, and looks up to see Boo. He’s crouching beside Bo, getting right at Michael’s eye level, the same way he usually does whenever he talks to him.
A lot of the tension saps out of Michael almost immediately. They’re both here. It’s going to be okay.
“Hey, Michael.” Boo says, and reaches up to gently scratch behind Michael’s ear. It’s nice, and Michael leans into it. “You alright?”
Michael thinks about it for a moment, and then he nods, and reaches up towards Boo.
“Up?”
Boo smiles, but it’s tight and pained. Still holding back a thunderstorm of anger, but Michael’s not afraid of Boo. He never has been, not even when he was in the Nether. Boo wouldn’t hurt him. Not for anything.
Not even when he comes into the cabin late at night with blank, glowing eyes and no words.
“Sure.” Boo says, and Bo shifts his arms to pass Michael over to Boo. Boo doesn’t wear the same fluffy jacket that Bo wears, and the jacket of his suit isn’t exactly soft, but it brings Michael comfort anyway. It’s familiar. It smells like safety, and Michael cuddles close to him without a moment’s hesitation.
“Y’know what would be funny?” Sam speaks up, and Michael’s fingers tighten in Boo’s jacket. “If Michael agro’d on Ant and then Ant’s thorns killed him.”
Michael isn’t sure what “agro’d” means, but it doesn’t seem like anything good. He can feel Boo straighten up to his full height, and Michael glances up at his face. Boo’s eyes have gone cold, as harsh as the landscape around them as he stares down at Sam.
Michael’s never seen Boo stare quite like that before.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if I agro’d on you right now?” Boo asks, his voice simmering with thinly veiled rage.
“I’m feeling pretty agro’d myself right now.” Bo agrees, and pulls a bow off his back. Sam’s smart enough to back away a step as Bo nocks an arrow, and so does the other stranger, who Michael can guess is Ant. Bo doesn’t aim quite yet, but Michael gets the feeling it won’t take much.
“Alright, alright, Primes.” Sam sighs, and holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry for playing a prank and then saving your weird piglin from drowning. Don’t build on my prison again, understand?”
“You’re not in much of a position to be giving orders right now.” Boo says. “If you come anywhere near Michael again, I can promise you that you won’t like where it goes.”
The look of slight exasperation on Sam’s face turns into a frown.
“Watch what you start, Ranboo. Tubbo.” Sam says, and finally, finally , he turns around. Ant follows him to the hyper tunnel, and just like that, the two of them are gone.
Boo’s anger disappears almost immediately, temporarily blocked by a sudden wall of concern that Michael can practically feel radiating off him. He pulls back just slightly, just enough to look Michael over.
“Primes above -- are you hurt?” He asks, and he sounds breathless with worry. “Did he hurt you at all? We’ve got potions inside, Tubbo, maybe we should grab him a potion--”
“Woah, woah, breathe, Ranboo, breathe.” Bo says, and reaches up to ruffle Michael’s hair. “I don’t think he’s actually hurt. Just cold and shaken up.”
Michael nods. His heart stopped racing a mile a minute when Sam left, but the adrenaline rush is still coursing through him, leaving behind a strange buzzing feeling, a leftover fear that Michael doesn’t like very much. He’s still cold, too, and the little droplets of water that stuck to him after being dropped in the ocean are starting to freeze to his skin. But he’s not in pain. Nothing feels the same as all the times he tripped and fell and scraped his knee on netherrack.
“Okay. Alright. You’re right.” Boo says, and it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than anything else. Boo hugs him tightly to his chest again. “Let’s get you back inside, yeah? We’ll go back inside where it’s nice and warm, and we can dry you off and get you under so many blankets you’ll turn around and get heat stroke instead.”
Bo snorts.
“Pretty sure piglins are immune to heat stroke, boss man.”
Michael doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but heat sounds like the best thing in the entire world at the moment. He snuggles close to Boo as he carries him back towards the house, and lets his eye close, vaguely listening as their voices bounce back and forth.
The cold wind is still biting, but Boo’s arms are secure. Boo and Bo’s voices are soft and familiar. Bo and Boo being there means safety. It means home. It means family.
And Michael has never been warmer.