Chapter Text
“So—”
Ranboo twisted his hands together, staring at the wood floor and all the scratches and dents, then looked up. Two sets of eyes were on him. Phil was leaning back in his chair, expression open and interested. Techno looked as if it was taking all his self-control to look at Ranboo and not over at the corner where one of the foxes was chewing on something.
He took a shaky breath.
“So, Dream’s dead,” Ranboo said.
Phil’s chair hit the ground with a light thump.
“What? No way.”
“Y’know, I gotta say. That prison has a really crappy survival rate,” said Techno and then immediately turned his attention to trying to wrest the scrap of leather from the fox. “Come on, that cannot taste good.”
The tip of Ranboo’s tail twitched back and forth. He had lost Phil’s attention as well, the older man now laughing as Techno had moved onto the bargaining phase. It would be easy enough to get them to listen again, he knew that much, but part of him was relieved. He sighed.
“Okay then.”
“I said let go, you little— HA.”
Triumphantly, Techno held the leather aloft.
“Oh.”
His face fell, shoulders dropping, as he noticed the holes that had been chewed into it.
“I had plans for this, y’know. You’re grounded. No, no, those puppy dog eyes aren’t gonna work on me,” said Techno, already reaching into his pockets for a treat as he sat down. “Besides, you’re a fox, entirely wrong animal.”
Phil finally dissolved into laughter.
“I can’t believe you’re getting fucking bullied by a fox, mate,” he said.
“Listen—” Techno sputtered for a moment before catching sight of Ranboo, still standing in the same spot, tail still twitching though slower now. “Uh, everything alright there, Ranboo?”
He knew that tone. It was Techno’s ‘I’m in a social situation and dying, help me, Phil’ but now it was being directed towards him. A warm sensation crept up in Ranboo’s chest.
“Oh, uh. It’s just—You know, it’s nothing.”
The laughter stopped almost instantly, both Phil and Techno raising an eyebrow in tandem.
“Wait, were you serious about Dream being dead?” asked Phil, sitting up straighter.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, that’s—That’s a thing that happened.”
“Heh? How? Did Sam get tired of baby-sittin’ or something?” Techno’s tone was deliberately casual, mirrored by the way he leaned back in the chair, the same way he had when he had heard the news about Tommy.
“Well—” Shifting on his feet, Ranboo winced in anticipation of what he imagined their reaction would be. “He killed himself, apparently.”
“Is that like, prison warden code for ‘whoops I killed my prisoner’? ‘Cause that’s what it sounds like,” said Techno.
“Yeah, are you sure this info is correct, Ranboo? I can’t imagine Dream fucking killing himself.”
“Yeah… No, I’m pretty sure it’s accurate. Sam was really upset. I tried to ask him about it but he said he couldn’t talk and he needed to find Quackity?” The pitch of Ranboo’s voice rose slightly in his confusion, remembering the rushed encounter with the warden.
“Huh.”
Silence settled on the cabin only broken by the sounds of the various animals and the wind outside.
“Alright,” said Techno, clapping his hands together. “I’m gonna go child-proof the basement because someone keeps gettin’ into my stuff.”
He glared at the fox. The fox ignored him.
“I—I should get going then,” Ranboo said.
“If you need anything,” Phil said, “you know where we are, mate.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Thanks, Phil.”
It was always an odd sensation, coming out of the Enderwalk.
There were times that Ranboo woke up some place he was familiar with and struck with fear – did he do something, did someone notice, would there be questions later. The times he woke up some place strange were unsettling but not as panic-inducing; ‘where am I’ was a much easier question than ‘what did I do’ to ask himself.
This time was different.
He knew where he was – the basement training room – but he didn’t know who he was with.
A man sat on the ground, limbs and shoulders stiff, eyes darting around. He was thin, face gaunt making the scars and bruises stand out, and his clothes were stained reddish brown. Even if Ranboo had managed to trick himself into thinking it was anything other than blood, the coppery scent in the air would have ruined the illusion. Ranboo shifted on his feet and cleared his throat quietly. The man looked up at him, dirty, matted blonde hair partially covering his eyes.
Something about him was familiar. Ranboo couldn’t place it but it wasn’t a bad feeling.
“Wow,” the man said. “I didn’t—I didn’t think that would work.”
“Oh.”
His voice was hoarse, as if his throat was raw, and the hint of laughter beneath the words was strained, desperately out of character, but Ranboo would have recognized Dream’s voice anywhere.
“Oh no.”
Dream blinked up at him.
“W-which one are you? Never—Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Do you have any water?” asked Dream, stumbling over the words.
The question – both questions, really – caught Ranboo off-guard.
“I guess I could go get some—Wait. No, I have to get someone. You can’t be here. I have to get Sam. I have to get Phil or Techno.”
“Get them and—and what? Get them and w-what, Ranboo? What are you going to tell them? That—That you brought me here?” Dream’s voice cracked with a strange panic. He curled his blood covered hands into fists. They were shaking badly. “That you revived me?”
“I didn’t know what I was doing. They’ll understand…”
“Are you sure about that?”
He wasn’t.
He wanted to be, he wanted to trust his friends even with this, but all the ways it could go horribly wrong kept him rooted to the spot.
That and the way Dream was looking at him.
Without the mask, he seemed smaller, tense and hunched in on himself, leaning against the rock wall and it was a surprise he was sitting. His eyes were blood shot and puffy and wide with fear. He reminded Ranboo of a rabbit cornered by a fox. This wasn’t the man that cast a shadow over him and his friends. This man looked as if he was on death’s door.
“Do you have any water?” Dream asked again.
“I—No. I said I’d have to go get some.” Ranboo spoke slowly, not able to keep the hint of confusion and concern out of his voice.
“Oh.” Dream looked around as if fully understanding his surroundings for the first time. “Could you—could you get some?”
A sigh escaped Ranboo.
“Yeah. Yeah, I can get some water. Just stay here, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”
Dream didn’t answer. A blank look had settled on his face and Ranboo was suddenly glad that he had agreed to bring the man some water. He turned towards the exit, half expecting Dream to attack him from behind despite knowing that the man was incapable of standing let alone launching an attack. The rest of his thoughts were a mess that boiled down to: what the hell do I do?
“Oh, this isn’t good. This isn’t good. This is really not good,” muttered Ranboo. He had almost spilled the water on himself as he filled the bottle but that wasn’t even the biggest of his concerns. Dream had said that he revived him, but how did he know how to do that? How had he gotten Dream into the basement, especially if people revived where they died, the way Tommy told it? Nothing made sense and Ranboo doubted that the one person who could give him answers, would.
“I’m so screwed,” he said as he put the cork into the bottle.
It felt like it took ages to return to underground training area, each step harder than the last one. Part of him hoped that when he got back, Dream would be gone and it would be someone else’s problem and Ranboo could forget that this ever happened.
Almost immediately, he felt guilty for thinking that. This was his problem, he had to deal with it.
Dream was sitting right where he had left him, slouched over slightly, and when Ranboo approached, he jerked back at the sound, green eyes wide, trembling. He didn’t relax when Ranboo held out the bottle of water.
“Uh, here.” Ranboo shifted from one foot to the other, stretching his arm out a little more, trying to give him space. “It’s just water.”
After a moment, Dream reached out and took the bottle, uncorking it on the third attempt and drinking.
A hiss escaped Ranboo as he drew a breath in between his teeth, eyes locked on Dream’s hands. The nails on each of his fingers had been removed, leaving the beds exposed and raw, and his left hand was missing a finger. He had tried so hard to ignore the state Dream was in, to not look at him, because seeing him without the mask felt wrong, but couldn’t.
The noise caused Dream to flinch slightly before he smiled, scarred mouth pulled tight, looking from Ranboo to the bottle of water.
“Oh, right. Water—water hurts you, right?” he asked, the smile still on his face, not reaching his eyes. He shook the half-empty bottle. “Maybe I’ll hold onto this, then. Just in case. Just in case you try anything.”
“Uh, okay… I don’t know what you think I’m going to try, but okay.”
“I—I know what people are like. I know.” The smile had vanished. There was no expression on Dream’s face, nothing in his eyes as he held the glass bottle to his chest. “I’m keeping this.”
“Yeah, sure, Dream,” said Ranboo, voice soft. “You can keep it.”
All the questions he had wanted to ask turned to dust; Ranboo had thought Dream wouldn’t answer them but now he wasn’t sure the man could answer them. He had been avoiding looking at Dream too closely and for good reason. It was clear, even with the blood soaked jumpsuit covering most of his exposed skin, that he had been tortured, not just by the bruises, scars, and other injuries, but by how he was acting. The implications of that were not something Ranboo wanted to think about, the feelings that bubbled up in his chest were not ones he wanted to have.
“Uh, well. I guess I should get you some food, maybe? And some clean clothes… Oh god, this is really happening. You’re supposed to be dead.”
Dream rubbed a hand over his wrist, looking somewhere beyond Ranboo.
“I am hungry,” he said.
“Right. Right, of course. I’ll bring you something.”
Ranboo started to turn, eager to get away from the blank way that Dream was staring.
“No potatoes.”
Stopping, Ranboo’s tail curled around his leg as he looked back, tongue flicking out over his eyes.
“—no potatoes?”
“Listen, if I—If I have to see one more potato, I’m going to—”
“Okay, okay. I get it,” said Ranboo, cutting him off. “No potatoes. I’ll be back.”
“Oh, and Ranboo?” That desperate edge had crept back into Dream’s voice. “If you tell anyone—If you tell, I’ll bring you down with me. You—You can’t get out of this, we’re in this together.”
A frown pulled at the corners of Ranboo’s mouth. He wanted to tell someone, wanted to share this burden with someone else, but what would they think of him? What would they do to him once they knew? How could he even begin to explain the situation in the first place? This was another secret that he needed to keep.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I don’t think I’m going to forget that anytime soon.”
Sneaking around came easily to Ranboo, a fact that grated on him because of the why, but right now it was working in his favor. Upstairs, Techno was sleeping, an occasional rumble sounding throughout the cabin that made Ranboo wince. He couldn’t shake the guilty feeling that had settled in his stomach. Techno and Phil probably wouldn’t care – they had worked with Dream once and didn’t seem to have a strong opinion either way – but there was no denying what Dream had done to Tubbo and Tommy.
He carefully opened a barrel and added a few carrots and an apple to the dried meat he had already shoved into the leather bag. There were plenty of potatoes, enough that Techno wouldn’t notice them missing, but the insistence that he never wanted to see another potato was the only time Dream had sounded like himself so Ranboo left them.
Food was easy; the clothes would be the difficult part.
Dream was tall but any weight and muscle he had before was gone, leaving behind skin and bone.
“Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy.”
That thought was uncomfortable and he pushed it away as he opened the door to Phil’s cabin. It was cluttered, much like Techno’s but without the lingering smell of animals. Ranboo had been here enough times, however, that he knew where he kept his extra clothing. Not wanting to risk being caught, he pulled out the first items that looked like they would fit and shoved them into the bag as well.
“Hey, Ranboo. What the hell are you doing here, mate?”
So much for not getting caught, Ranboo thought.
Phil was leaning against the door frame, hat tilted downwards, covering most of his face, though the easy smile was visible. A lump formed in Ranboo’s throat and for a moment he stuttered, trying to come up with a reason he was here, taking Phil’s clothes.
“Uh, I was just, uh, borrowing some clothes for, uh, Michael,” said Ranboo.
“You’re borrowing my clothes for Michael?”
The disbelief was clear but the smile was still in place.
“Uh, yeah. You know, just gonna try my hand at the whole sewing thing.” He laughed shakily. “If that’s okay.”
“Yeah, it’s fine. Fucking weird but fine,” Phil said, straightening up. “If you need help, mate, just ask. Techno knows how to sew.”
“Oh yeah?” That didn’t surprise him. The pigman had a lot of odd hobbies and talents. “I’ll think about it. I don’t want to bother him, you know?”
“Bother him all you damn want, he needs it. I’d help but I don’t know the first thing about sewing. Besides, can’t sleep so I’m heading out for a patrol. Just wanted to make sure you knew you could ask.”
Ranboo sighed, shoulders sagging a little.
“Yeah, I know, Phil. Thank you. And, uh, thank you for letting me borrow the clothes,” he said.
“No problem, mate.” Phil stepped aside to let Ranboo pass. “Anytime.”
The wind outside had picked up, bringing snow with it. Ranboo folded his ears back, nose scrunched up as he turned into the wind and trudged towards his home. It would raise too much suspicion, bring up too many questions, if he headed back towards the training grounds now. Phil would notice and either ask why or offer to go with him and then what? Dream would have to wait.
“What am I doing?” he asked the empty house. “What the hell am I doing?”
There was no answer except the rising howl of the wind.