Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A sea nymph. Archaically known as either a nereid or a triton, however, no one uses those names anymore. They were titles used in the age of the old gods, the hated ones, and they were the same image the sea nymphs were created in likeness to. Molded from wet sand and adorned with the discarded scales of the First Fish by unknown hands, the nymphs were set to be the heritors of the sea if the old gods were to fall.

And fall they did. But the ocean rose against the tides of fate; the nymphs did not become the new gods. They were chased and hunted and killed by the entire sea, the face of the old gods haunting them wherever they went. Their merfolk brethren didn’t fare any better.

So the nymphs hid. They hid out in underwater caves, in kelp forests, some even dug under the ocean’s floor for safety. They couldn’t do anything but hide. The nymphs had relied on the old gods for protection before, but now they were by themselves, in a world where everything hated them. And this went on for many, many centuries.

“I don’t like this story.” Ranboo whined, looking up from his thread of beads and at Niki, who was working on her own thread across from him. “Can you tell me a gooder story, one that has a happy ending?”

“A ‘better’ story you mean,” she corrected, digging through the bowl of beads in between the two, “and it’s the only story I know. It’s the one Coral taught me.” She finally picks up two orange beads, sliding them into place on her thread. Both kids sat on the floor of an underwater cave, making necklaces from nylon strings stolen from a fisherman’s tackle box and beads their mothers had bartered for from a nearby sea witch. It was an odd scene really: two children clad in scales and woven kelp-clothing sitting, criss-cross applesauce on the floor of a cave that was at the bottom of a ravine, doing arts-and-crafts. But for them this was just another day in the life of a sea nymph.

“Of course it’s Coral’s story, all her stories are bad… '' Ranboo sets down his necklace and gently pushes himself off the ground, lazily floating up and stretching out his limbs.

“Don’t say that.” Niki looks up to slap his leg, sending Ranboo in a slow spin. “They’re not bad, they're just… um… ”

“They’re bad, Niki.” Ranboo waved his arms up and down, slowing down his spin and guiding him back down to the floor. “They always have a sad ending and tell us the same thing, that the outside isn't safe and to stay in the cave.”

“Yeah, but that’s the truth. Everything wants to kill us, Ranboo. We stay in the cave and we never go out of the cave. Ever.” The words hung in the air, dampening the mood more than Niki’s story. They sat in silence, Ranboo playing with his necklace while Niki continued on hers. It was a truth they danced around everyday, one that filled the cave with heaviness that could smother you if you dwelled on it for too long. So they rarely did, occupying themselves with things like stories and making necklaces. The truth was still there, but they covered it up and went about their day.

“But don’t you get bored,” Ranboo mumbled, lifting up the cover, “don’t you ever... wanna get out of here?” Niki’s fingers slowed down, the question bouncing in her head and looking for her answer. She'd be lying if she said that she never thought about it, but her answers always led to a no. At least, most of the time it did.

“No, I–” she began, but caught herself. She looked out of the cave, staring at the ravine's wall and the small beam of light that somehow managed to find it's way down here. How long had it been since they've actually felt sunlight? Almost never, really. She looked back at Ranboo, face awash with confliction. “I… I d—”

“We’re home!” Niki jolts and quickly stops what she’s saying, turning towards the cheery voice that called out. Ranboo frowns, the cover dropping once more. Their heads turn and see, at the mouth of the cave they called home, two women with the same silky scales and green kelp-clothing as the kids. One was dressed in a brilliant red and held two cages made of driftwood in her hands, something wriggling wildly for escape inside both of them. The other woman was covered in blue and had a bag, a large cloth one they found drifting near the waters of a human town, slung over her shoulders, bulging from it’s unknown contents.

“Pearl, Coral!” Niki springs up from her spot on the floor and barreled straight into the woman with the wooden cages, her arms wrapping tightly around her waist upon contact.

“Hi, baby!” The woman puts the cages down against the cave wall and hugs her back, playfully shaking her as Niki squeals. Ranboo finally lets out a small smile and gets up from his own place on the floor to join them, the woman opening up her arms to allow him inside their embrace. After planting a shower of kisses on both kids’ foreheads the woman looks down at them and flashes a pearly-white smile, reflective of her namesake. “We got a lot of stuff for you guys. But first," she leaned down once more and gave them one last kiss on their cheeks, "how was you day, my little guppies?”

“Good, we just stayed inside,” Niki replied, beaming back up at her.

“Like we do everyday…” Ranboo added quietly under his breath, but not quietly enough. The other woman sighed, swimming over to the trio and crouching down to Ranboo’s level. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

“We’ve been over this before, Ranboo.” She lightly turned Ranboo’s face towards her own, but he shook away her touch and swam back to where he was before, picking up his discarded necklace. The woman huffs, tired from the long day and her son’s attitude, and begins to make her way to him. She’s stopped by the gentle hand of her partner on her shoulder, who looks at her with understanding eyes.

“I’ll talk to him, you deal with dinner,” she says, giving her wife a soft smile.

“Pearl, I—”

“Please, honey.” She starts making her way towards Ranboo. “Go show Niki how to kill the crabs, okay?” Her wife opens her mouth to protest again, but closes it after Pearl gives her a stern look. She gives up and turns to Niki, taking her hand and the wooden cages in the other before guiding themselves out of the cave, leaving Pearl and Ranboo alone.

She takes a seat next to Ranboo, looking over his shoulder and at his necklace. “That looks amazing, sweetheart. Did you spell everything right?”

“Yeah, I’m already done,” he replied monotonously, stringing along a blue bead. He held it up for his mother to see, to which she gave him a small round of applause.

“Ooh, what does it say?” She scoots in closer, trying to decipher the letters that the beads spelled out. It was an old way of writing that the nymphs and merfolk had used back then, but it was abandoned when the old gods died and their successors were separated and scattered all over the world. You really didn’t need a writing system when there was nothing to write about and no one to write to. The only reason Ranboo’s family knew was because of the witch they traded with, who didn’t want the letters to be forgotten forever.

“Just my name, but it was hard to do.” Ranboo laced the necklace around his neck, fiddling with the ends in an attempt to tie them together. After giving up, his mother took over and secured the string, stepping back to look at her son’s handiwork.

“Well you did a great job, it looks wonderful.” She opened her arms and caught him in a hug, briefly squeezing him in her embrace. “You are so smart, Ranboo. And so very precious to us. To me, to Coral, and to Niki, we love you so much! And we don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“But if I go out with you and Coral nothing will happen to me!” Ranboo suddenly pulled away from her hug and looked at her with big eyes, stubbornness and defiance filling them to the brim.

Pearl met his gaze, not with challenge, but with sadness. Not the kind to make you cry, but the kind that was hurt and full of worry. Ranboo looked at her fully, and could see how drained she looked. The crimson color of her scales and fins were washed out of her, and her back bowed down with a weight that he couldn’t see. He could see the scars, both small and big, that adorned her limbs, from encounters with other sea dwellers and from the occasional human that got too close. Pearl looked tired.

“Of course we’d do our all to protect you, but, Ranboo, sweetheart,” she cups his face in her hands, her touch so tender you’d think she thought Ranboo would break, “the world is a dangerous place.”

“I know—”

“You know what you hear from the stories that Coral tells you, but hearing is very different from experiencing.”

“I– I know. I know it’s different.” Of course he knew it was, but he wanted to know. Know what it was like to swim out into the open sea that spanned past the walls of their cave, to see reef gardens the same color as the beads around his neck, to swim through the kelp forests where their clothes were harvested. He even wanted to get a little scar here or there, stories of how he escaped and outsmarted death. He wanted it all. But a little voice whispered to him, insistent at the back of his brain, that it could never happen. That the chances of swimming up and out of the ravine were... were 1 in 7.5 trillion. "I just, I don't... I don't want to die here..."

Pearl paled at his words, if that was even possible, and pulled him yet into another embrace. This one was different from the last one, however, she didn't squeeze him, didn't shake him, didn't shower him in a million kisses. She just held onto him, as if he could disappear in a flurry of bubbles if she let go. "You won't!" She reassured him, her voice sounding shaky. "You won't, don't worry, sweetheart. You... you won't..." Sniffling. Ranboo could here sniffling. He looked up and saw Pearl on the verge of crying.

"Uh— Pearl! Pearl, it's okay! It's okay, please don't cry. Please, I'm sorry." Ranboo quickly hugged her back, but it only pushed her to finally let out a wail. And it was loud. Coral and Niki soon came swimming back into the cave, swarming the two in alarm.

"Ranboo, wh— what happened?" Coral opened up her arms and Pearl let go of Ranboo, curling up against her wife as she patted her back.

"I-1 didn't mean to, I swear."

"Well, what did you say?" Niki looked at them both, worry furrowing her brows.

"I...I said, that... that..." he hesitated, looking at Coral with caution. He's had this conversation with her before, and it didn't end well, it never did, "... I said that I wanted to go outside..." He looked down, and without seeing her face he just knew that Coral looked exasperated. She always had, whenever they brought this up again. She was the one who told them the scary and sad stories about the outside, the one who showed them the many scars and bruises from whatever they encountered on the outside, and the one who reprimanded Ranboo the most when he talked about wanting to go outside. She was harsh and unbending, just like her namesake.

"Ranboo, what have we always said? About the outside?" Ranboo couldn't look at her, her even voice enough to send a shiver down his spine. He really didn't want to have this conversation again, especially with Coral. He open his mouth, an apology already forming on the tip of his tongue, but Pearl held up her hand to stop him. Rubbing her eyes as she pulled out of Coral's arms, she took Coral's and Ranboo's hand in each of her own.

"No, Ranboo's right, honey. It's..." Coral and Niki gave Pearl baffled look, but she paid them no mind. Instead she looked around the cave, at the walls with jagged edges and at the few belongings they had strewn all over the place, "this cave, it's suffocating. It's small, it's dark, and it's awful. I can, I can get why Ranboo would want to leave so much."

"Pearl, it's not safe-"

"Then we'll make it safe." Pearl looked at Coral with unwavering eyes, her face set with determination. For what, Ranboo didn't know.

"Pearl..." Coral squeezed her hand back, her voice low with warning, "We went over this alrea-"

"Kids," Pearl shook her grip off and pulled Niki and Ranboo closer to her. She smiled, her whole demeanor seemingly envigored, "we're going to a very special place tomorrow, so make sure you get enough sleep tonight, okay?"

"Pearl!" Coral exclaimed, but no one paid attention to it. At the word "going", Niki and Ranboo's minds started to race. They were finally going outside, out of the cave, and quite possibly, out of the ravine.

"Tomorrow?! Really?!" Ranboo's heart was beating so fast and loud he swore he could hear it echoing off the walls. Niki grabbed his hand, and when he looked at her he could see a smile spreading across her face. As much as she rebuked the idea of going outside, Ranboo knew she had the same curiosity as he did. But the outside. He'd only been outside a couple of times, all of them being to visit the sea witch his family traded with, but they lived in the same ravine as them. This time, he was really going outside. Out of the cave, out of the ravine, and into the big, blue sea. He quickly pinched himself, the pain short and sweet. This wasn't a dream.

"Where are we going, Pearl?" Niki asked excitedly. Ranboo nodded, and they both looked up at her in anticipation. Where would they go? A kelp forest? A submarine volcano? Or maybe even a human graveyard, like a shipwreck or something. The possibilities were endless.

"We're going..." she paused, letting the excitement sit and make the kids squirm with impatience, they wanted to know! "... to..."

"Tell us already, please!" Ranboo cried, his heart couldn't take the wait anymore.

Pearl smiled wider, taking a quick glance at Coral's displeased face before looking back at the kids. "We're going to visit Uncle Bad!"

Oh.

They were going to visit Bad, the sea witch.

The one that lived in the same ravine... as them.

Chapter Text

“C’mon, let’s keep it moving. We don’t have all day.” Coral led the family through the shadows of the ravine, motioning for them to keep up and stay close. They swam alongside the walls, so close that they were nearly brushing up against it, and followed a line of haphazardly placed lights embedded into the rock. The lights were crudely-shaped spheres that gave a dim white glow, and served as both markers and charms that helped ward off danger. Ranboo didn’t know how they worked, but it did its job, cause as far as he knew there hadn’t been a single intruder in the ravine since they were put there. They were set up by the sea witch and his family when they first moved into the ravine.

Ah right, the sea witch. They were on their way to see Uncle Bad, the aforementioned witch that Ranboo’s family befriended and frequently traded with. Ranboo sighed. He should’ve seen this coming.

He wasn’t mad or anything, not even disappointed! He liked visiting Uncle Bad, his cave was filled with so many gadgets and gizmos that Ranboo could never get bored, and his family was nothing short of family to Ranboo as well. Niki was also excited to visit, so how could he be negative about anything? It wasn’t like he was ready to get out of the ravine and explore the sea with his family, only for his bubble to be popped not even a second after it was blown. Not at all.

... Okay, maybe he was a little disappointed. But Ranboo made up his mind the moment he woke up that he wouldn’t mope about it. He hadn’t been out of the cave in a while, and the last time they’d gone to visit Bad was three months ago, so he made it his goal to make the most out of today. He didn’t know when it would come again.

“Are you guys excited?” Pearl called out behind them. They swam in a sort of wonky diamond formation, with Coral leading, Ranboo and Niki in the middle, and Pearl in the back. Ranboo looked to see that Pearl's jovial expression on her face. “Because I know I am!”

“Something might hear us, so be quiet for now, Pearl.” Although Coral kept her voice soft, her passive-aggressive warning wasn’t lost on Ranboo. It had been going on since last night, before Ranboo went to sleep. After he and Niki were sent to bed, Coral and Pearl went outside, and although he couldn’t catch what they were saying, he knew that they were arguing. It carried into the morning, with the awkward atmosphere and the complete silence they had been swimming in for the past three hours. If he had to guess, Ranboo thought it had to do with Pearl saying they’d make the ocean a safer place, whatever that meant.

…

What had she meant when she said that?

“We’re almost there, Coral. The guardian eyes get stronger the closer we get, so we’ll be safe.” They returned to the uncomfortable silence, the water heavy with an unseeable tension between the two wives. This wasn’t helping Ranboo keep positive.

“Pearl?” Ranboo slowed down to swim next to Pearl, her hand instinctively going up to his head. Ranboo leaned into her touch. “Are Sapnap and Quackity going to be there?”

“They should be, I don’t think they have anything to do for a while.”

Ranboo’s optimism shot up. Sapnap was Bad’s son while Quackity was his apprentice, and both were around the same age as him and Niki (they also had someone else living with them, but Ranboo couldn’t remember their name for the life of him). But unlike them, Sapnap and Quackity had been outside of the ravine before. Multiple times. They would tell him so many stories, like that one time they swam so close to a volcano that they could feel the heat of the magma bubbles right on top of their skin, or that other time when they accidentally entered a kelp forest filled with Drowned and managed to escape. Sapnap would show all the little trinkets he’d collected on his adventures, and when he did Ranboo couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.

But because they were always going out, either for fun or to help collect stuff for Bad’s craft, Ranboo didn’t see them often. The last time he’d seen them was seven months ago, when they came back all bruised up and limping from a fight with a bale of Kappas, big smiles plastered on their faces as Bad yelled at them. Even then, Ranboo was still envious of them.

“Ranboo,” Coral stopped in her tracks and turned to face him, halting everyone, “don’t even think about going out with Sapnap or Quackity when we—”

“I wasn’t even thinking about it!” he lied. Of course he was, and they knew it too. A terrible feeling started to grow in Ranboo’s chest, tightening and squeezing his heart as he looked to the side of Coral’s face. He didn’t know why or when it started, but she’d been starting to act harsher, mainly towards Ranboo. And the more she scolded him the more he found it difficult to look at her. Her intense eyes, her sharp words, her cold expression, everything about Coral made him nervous, made it hard to breathe properly, to feel calm in a place where he was supposed to call home.

“Coral.” Pearl swam to the front and was face-to-face with her, showing equal parts anger and disappointment as she stared her wife down. “I know how stressed you are, but you can’t take it out on him.”

“Stressed is putting it lightly.”

“Coral!”

“Ranboo.” Niki tugged at Ranboo’s arm, pulling him away from their mothers and into the direction the lights led. “Let’s go ahead, okay?” Ranboo nodded and Niki took his hand, leading him away from the growing shouts. They didn’t talk for a while as they swam away, but the farther they got the tighter the terrible feeling in Ranboo's chest became.

Niki broke the silence, “You know, Coral didn’t mean to say it the way she did.”

“I… yeah, I know,” he mumbled. Did he though?

“Yeah, you know she loves us,” she looked over at him and bumped his shoulder with his, mustering a smile that Ranboo could see was hiding her displeasure, “loves you.”

“Mhm, of course.” He… he did know. Of course Coral loved him, she wouldn’t be so worried if she wasn’t, right? But Ranboo couldn’t help but think of the tension, the uneasiness he felt when he knew Coral was irritated with something, mostly him. He hated it. He loved her, but a lot of Ranboo’s stress could lead back to Coral’s overbearingness.

Niki pulled him in by his shoulders and squeezed him tight. “Just remember that you got me and Pearl in your corner, okay? Especially me.”

“Weren’t you the one who said that we don’t leave the cave? Like, ever?” Ranboo smirked, and to that Niki shoved him out of her arms with a laugh, helping ease the heavy atmosphere.

“Ye– I did, I did.” She smiled, but this time it looked genuine. “Gods, Ranboo, I’m trying to be a good old sister here but you make it impossible sometimes.”

“Oh, you know you love me, Niki~”

“I love you too, Ranboo~” a voice sang out, but it was neither one of them. The siblings stopped in their tracks, staring into the darkness ahead of them. The guardian eyes’ faint light barely caught it, but in the shadows was a figure, floating just a few feet away from them. They didn’t move.

Niki stepped in front of Ranboo, "“Who are you?” Her voice was cold and firm, a stark contrast to just a second ago. She almost sounded like Coral.

“Oh c'mon Niki," the figure laughed, "you guys know who I am. You don't gotta be so guarded.” Ranboo in fact did not know who they were. Their voice was raspy and sounded like they were one stop away from dropping dead right then and there. He didn’t know anyone with that kind of voice—he didn’t know that many people in general—so the person before them was complete stranger, a weird and possibly dangerous one. Ranboo grabbed onto Niki’s wrist and slowly pulled her back. He could still hear Coral and Pearl arguing, albeit very faintly, so they weren’t that far. If they could just swim fast enough…

“I said," but Niki didn't budge, and instead puffed out her chest, voice getting louder, "who are—”

“RAHHHHHHHHHH!” an ear-piercing roar ripped through the water, and suddenly the siblings were tackled from behind. Ranboo was squished between Niki and their unknown assailant, the former kicking and struggling from underneath the weight of two people. Ranboo himself was also trying to wiggle his way out from underneath the sturdy chest that was pressed against him, slapping and clawing at their arms.

“BWAHAHAHA— HEY, OW!” their attacker swatted at Ranboo’s hands, and that was when he finally focused and got a good look at who was on him. Black and orange scales ran up and down their body and over toned arms. Said arms were covered in a sticky wrapping that reeked of herbs, and whatever skin that peeked out from under them was decorated with wounds of varying sizes and shapes. Ranboo's eyes were drawn to a particular scar located on the person’s inner forearm: branched out lashes that looked like you’d get from a fight but were actually just from tripping into a giant jellyfish’s tentacles and needing the help of three people to get out. Quackity could barely hold his laughter back when he was recounting it to Ranboo and Niki.

“S– sapnap?!” the boy smiled and ruffled the the fins on top of Ranboo’s head.

“You got smaller, how’s that even possible?” Ranboo shoved him off. Yup, that was Sapnap. Other than the black-and-orange dorsal fins that ran down his head being longer and few new scars that dotted his face, Sapnap looked exactly the same as Ranboo had last seen him. Same smile, same cockiness, same everything.

So if he was him, then the person in front of them had to be…

“HAHAHA!” The figure stepped out of the shadows, clutching his stomach as he gasped for a breath. “You– haha– you should’ve seen yourselves! You guys looked like you were gonna— HAHAHA!” He doubled over, leaning onto Sapnap for support. He wore a dark blue robe that puffed up all around him whenever he moved, and underneath it Ranboo could see the blue scales that patterned his slender body.

“Quackity, you absolute—!” Niki pushed Ranboo off of her and lunged at Quackity, catching him in a headlock and throwing him onto the floor. “You think that was funny, huh?!” She grinded her knuckles over the top of his head, a playfully angry expression on her face.

“Yes,” Quackity choked out, “I think… it was!” There was still that croakiness in his voice, very different from the high-pitched one that Ranboo remembered he had.

“Why does your voice sound so different, Quackity?” Ranboo asked, and Niki finally let him go.

“This dumbass thought it would be a good idea to drink an unfinished potion with seahorse bones in them.” Sapnap went over and pulled Quackity up to his feet. "It'll wear off in a few hours, so he'll be fine

“You could say it makes me sound,” Quackity looked up at the siblings and suppressed the smile spreading across his face, “... hoarse.” Sapnap smacked him upside the head, but that didn’t stop him from starting another fit of laughter. Ranboo couldn’t help but laugh, and soon Niki and Sapnap gave in and started to chuckle as well.

This was nice. Although it was dark and kind of creepy where they were right now, it was nice to just laugh like this. The terrible feeling in Ranboo’s stomach was almost gone.

“So, how come you're here?” Niki asked when the laughing died down.

Quackity gasped, putting a hand on his chest and put an exaggeratingly wounded expression on his face. "You don't want us to be here, Niki?! I thought we were friends— no, family! I thought we were family!"

"You know what I mean." Niki rolled her eyes and jabbed a finger into his side, Quackity yelping as he clumsily tried to dodge it.

“Dad doesn't have anything for us to do.” Sapnap swam in between the both of them and pulled them in by their shoulders, an impish smile on his face. “So we're stuck with you nerds for now.”

Niki elbowed him in the ribs, but there was no hostility in her actions. “Please, I should be the ones saying that.” She tugged Ranboo away from Sapnap’s grasp and held onto him tight, a teasing look on her face. “You’ll corrupt my little, baby Ranboo and turn him into an idiot like you guys.”

“Hey, don’t group me up with him!” Quackity swam over to Niki and pointed at himself. “I’m the one learning magic over here, so I’m the useful one. Sapnap’s just here cause he didn’t die yet.” Sapnap bonked him over the head one more time.

Ranboo smiled and looked at the three of them. In the place where the terrible feeling had been, a new feeling started bloom. It was a nice feeling, one he hadn't felt in a while. He liked it.

“I’m happy we get to see you guys again.” Yeah, he knew it was sappy (hehe, pun not intended), but it was the truth. They all stared at him, and slowly, Sapnap and Quackity’s faces broke out into a wide grin.

“Awww!” They crooned, and Ranboo immediately regretted saying it.

“Who knew you could be so cute!” Niki pinched both of his cheeks and cooed at him.

“I’m never talking about my feelings around you guys ever again.” Ranboo pulled out of Niki’s hands and started to make his way towards Bad’s house.

“Okay, okay.” All three of them easily caught up, and Sapnap put one of his hands on Ranboo’s shoulder. “But, for real though, we’re happy to see you guys too.”

“Yeah, we have so much planned!” Quackity shot up and swam over the group, landing right in front of them. He looked at Sapnap, his eyes full of excitement. “Do you wanna ask them or can I?”

“I’ll ask, I’ll ask them.” Niki and Ranboo turned their attention towards Sapnap, whose own eyes shone with glee. Ranboo had never seen either one so giddy before, but he suppressed the anticipation that was building up in his chest. Nope, he just started to feel better, and a repeat of last night would automatically kill the the good feeling.

“Ask what?” Niki leaned over and draped her arm over Ranboo’s shoulders, her interest piqued.

“Me, Quackity, and a friend of ours are planning to go out.” Did... did he hear that right?

“Out? Out as in…” he knew that they most likely meant what he thought they meant, but Ranboo couldn’t help but be skeptical. Pearl had started out saying the exact same thing, so surely this was a bait too, right?

“Out to the human town a few minutes from here. Do you guys wanna come?”

Chapter Text

Ranboo must’ve heard wrong. Or maybe they were just joking.

“Like, actually?” Yeah, they can’t be serious.

“Course!” Oh my gods they were.

“A human town… Overwater…” The smile on Niki’s face gradually disappeared. She didn’t look as amused as she did before.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be awesome! We have a friend up there and we’re gonna do all sorts of stuff, like go to this place called an arcade where you...,” Sapnap, either oblivious or ignoring the look of disapproval Niki had, continued on rambling, and the more he did the more Ranboo could feel the judgement radiating off of Niki.

She held up her hand, making Sapnap stop in his explanation of what an Injustice Arcade was. She didn’t speak for a while, letting the silence settle in, but when she did her words came out cold and deliberate. “All I heard was that you became friends… with a human.”

“No, he’s one of us!” Quackity rushed in, catching onto Niki’s change of mood. “Well, he’s… he’s like us, so you don’t have to worry about him saying something. We’ll only be there for one day too, so we’re not staying long.”

“Look, our friend’s a cool dude,” Sapnap added on, “we’ve known him for months now, he wouldn't do anything to fuck us over.”

“He’s from the Overwater.”

“Not originally.” Quackity countered, shrinking a little when Niki turned her attention back to him. “He’s… he’s a merboy…” He almost whispered the last part, but Ranboo heard it. A merboy? As in… merfolk? He’s heard of them, but never actually seen one before. Granted, that was because they were—

“The cursed ones?” Niki finishes his thoughts for him.

The merfolk, better known as the cursed ones. They were like the sea nymphs in that they were favored by the old gods, but not because of kinship but because of their merit: their gift of song. Their voices bewitched anyone who heard it, be it sailors, nymphs, other oceanic creatures, but it especially worked on the old gods. So when the old gods were slain, the merfolk felt the same wrath of the sea as the nymphs did, except, they weren’t able to hide fast enough.

Ranboo didn’t know how it happened, but they were cursed. Their tails shrunk, or tore apart depending on who was telling the story, and turned into legs. Their skin started to burn from the seawater, and those who weren’t fast enough to get out turned into seafoam. And like that, they were banished from the sea. If Ranboo was being honest he didn’t think they were real, he thought that they were just another story to scare him and Niki into staying in the cave. He kind of still didn’t believe in them, I mean, Sapnap and Quackity’s friend could be lying.

“That’s even worse, you know that right?” Niki continued, the criticism in her voice surprising even Ranboo. He looked at her, in confusion, in uneasiness. In both. Sapnap, on the other hand, kicked into gear. He swam up to her until they were face-to-face, his eyes focusing on hers with so much intensity it hurt Ranboo’s own eyes. He was getting a sense of deja vu.

“How? How’s it worse?” There was an edge in his voice, and although he knew neither Sapnap or Niki would do anything stupid, Ranboo braced for a fight. Well, maybe Sapnap would do something, but Ranboo had more faith in him not to. It was Niki after all, someone he’d grown up with and saw as family. At least, Ranboo hoped he did.

“Your friend’s cursed, Sapnap! By the sea itself!”

“His ancestors were cursed, get it right.”

“Why’s he still cursed then?”

“Because that’s just how it is! ‘Why’s he still cursed’, what do you want him to do, Niki? Un-curse himself?”

“The sea cursed him,” she repeated, her voice gone even with exasperation, “if your friend was any good then his curse would’ve been lifted.”

“W-what?” Sapnap laughed, but it came out bitter. “That doesn’t even make sense, do you hear yourself? If that was true, then what about us, huh? All this shit that happens to us, we deserve it?”

“We’re not cursed, Sapnap, there’s a difference.”

“Okay guys, let’s stop now.” Nervously, Quackity tried to push his way in between the two, but they didn’t move, both standing their ground. “Guys please, just let it go.”

“Quackity, she just called—”

“I know, I know, but let’s just calm down ok—”

“No, cause fuck you, Niki!”

“Sapnap!” but it wasn’t Quackity, not even Niki, who said that. All four of them turned around, and standing a few feet away in the shadows, was Pearl and Coral. Ranboo lost track of how much time passed between their argument and this argument, but he could see the exhaustion that lined their faces. They also looked very, very surprised.

Quackity took the opportunity to push Niki and Sapnap away from each other, which they allowed. “Auntie Pearl, Aunty Coral!”

“Hi, Quackity…” Pearl swam over and half-heartedly gave Quackity a hug, still looking confused. She looked between Sapnap and Niki, “what… what happened here?”

“Sap—”

“Just an argument, that’s all.” Quackity waved his hand, quickly cutting Niki off. He shot her a look, pleading with his eyes for her to not say anything before going back to talk to Pearl. She rolled her eyes, but Niki said nothing. “But it’s been so long since I’ve seen you, aunties! How’ve you been?”

“We’re doing… good,” Coral answered, but her body language said something else. While both her and Pearl looked tired, Coral looked tired tired. All the tension and rigidness in her was gone, replaced by fatigue weighing down her body. There was something else there, hiding in the recesses of her eyes, but Ranboo couldn’t put a finger on it. He just knew it made him feel sad.

“Great, actually.” Pearl tentatively reached down for Coral’s hand. She jumped at the contact, but when she saw it was only her wife’s hand she relaxed, taking it and giving her a small squeeze. “We started the day rough, but we feel so much better now that we’re here.”

“Yeah, that’s what I meant. What about you, Quackity?”

“My day’s been actually… pretty boring. We were just home helping Bad cook. All. Day. All day! You’d think he was inviting the entire sea, isn’t that right, Sapnap?” Quackity laughed and nudged him for an answer, but Sapnap only grunted a response. He continued on, “And his boyfriend didn’t help at all.”

“They’re not dating, Quackity” Sapnap said finally, pointing a finger at Quackity, “Skeppy’s just a freeloader—”

“Who clings to your dad 24/7. Hell, they even share a room, Sapnap. A room.” Quackity’s antics brings a much-needed laughter to the small group in the dark ravine. Ranboo lets out a chuckle and can feel the water become less tense.

“I don’t know, Sapnap, that kinda sounds like they’re dating,” Ranboo admits, earning a small slap from Pearl on his shoulder. But she’s holding back her own laugh behind her free hand, and besides her Coral lets the corners of her mouth turn up, only a little bit though, into a smile.

“Thank you, Ranboo!” Quackity exclaims, and turns back to Sapnap. “They’re definitely dating, and your dad is definitely bang—”

“LALALALALA!” Sapnap quickly covered his ears and yelled over Quackity, and started to swim away. “WE SHOULD GET GOING—LALALALALA!” From the corner of his eyes, Ranboo saw Niki chuckle a little bit. She was still guarded, but the tension in her shoulders began to loosen up.

“Sapnap’s right, we should get going.” Pearl looped her arm around Niki’s neck and pulled her in and nodded at Ranboo to follow close. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m star-ving! And Bad makes the best seaweed wraps I’ve ever had.” She pulled Coral and Niki along with her, following Sapnap’s trailing voice down the ravine. Ranboo looked at their backs as they swam away, and Quackity came to stand by his side.

“Hey, don’t worry about what Sapnap and I said,” he began, putting a hand on Ranboo’s shoulder, “you can forget about everything we said, if you want—”

“Nono, it’s fine. I–” What was he saying? “–I’m interested. About what you guys were talking about, I mean.”

“...Really?”

Really?

“I-I guess? I think so?” Ranboo shook his head. Going out of the ravine was one thing, but a human town? In the Overwater? Ranboo never thought that far, and didn’t know if he wanted to. “I… I don’t know.”

“Hey!” Quackity rubbed Ranboo’s shoulder reassuringly. “No pressure, honestly. You don’t have to come with us this time. Maybe when you’re older or something, but not now. We can have as much fun down here as we can up there, it’s no biggie.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ranboo could only respond, but his mind was still on it.

“Let’s get going, or else Sapnap will eat all the food. C’mon!” Quackity took Ranboo’s hand and dragged him in the direction of the guardian lights, and Ranboo pushed the human town to the back of his mind, focusing on the food that he could faintly smell in the distance.

Ranboo and Quackity quickly caught up with the group and entered the cave of the sea witch’s family. It was big, much bigger than Ranboo’s cave, and was cluttered with so many whozits and whatzits as far as the eye can see. Bags and nets filled with strange potions and ingredients dangled from nails and hooks, and shelves overstuffed with binders and boxes and other thingamabobs lined the walls. It was also bright, the light being casted from glass orbs floating inside the cave. Bad had explained it before and said that it was magma, and that a combination of rock salt and some other stuff is what kept it hot and glowing inside its glass sphere.

Coral was apprehensive about the idea of having one in their small cave, so they never got one, which was a shame since the ones Bad made were beautiful and lit up their cave in a soft, orange glow.

Said sea witch was hunched over a table in the middle of the cave, reading a big piece of paper filled with shapes and lines that Ranboo couldn’t read. Like Quackity, he was wrapped in a robe that billowed all around him, the main difference being the hood pulled over his head and the color. Bad’s robe was as dark as the shadows of the ravine, matching the black-red scales that decorated him. Taking in his appearance and the lighting of the cave, Bad looked pretty intimidating. But that thought was quickly thrown away when he looked up from the table, his face breaking out into a smile when he saw the group.

“Pearl! Coral!” Bad swam away from the table and engulfed them in a hug. “I was wondering when you bunch would arrive. Hi, kiddos!” Bad let go of them and gave the siblings their hug, wrapping them up and lifting them into the air with a squeeze. “Oh gosh, did both of you get taller since the last time I saw you?!”

“Hi, Uncle Bad. I don’t think we did.” Ranboo and Niki returned the hug. Bad let them down, and looked at the necklaces around their necks, face lighting up.

“You finished your necklaces!” He bent down and took the necklaces gently into each hand, turning the beads in his fingers. His eyebrows knitted together for a second before he smiled again. “You did wonderful! My goodness, you guys are so smart!” He pinched their cheeks, taking care not to hurt them with his long nails.

“Thank you, it took a long time to make them.” Niki smiled, and Ranboo could see that she finally relaxed. He quietly sighed.

“Talking about a long time…” Bad turned to Sapnap and Quackity, “the seaweed wraps should just be about ready. Can you two please clear the table for me? Please?” Both boys groaned, but nonetheless complied, Bad calling out an “I love you” as they swam away.

“Be careful with the papers, okay?! If you smudge the seal on them the—”

“—‘the enchantment will break’,” Quackity finished, gingerly rolling up the paper Bad was looking at, “we know, we know. Well, I know at least.” Sapnap elbowed him in the ribs.

“We’ll be careful, Dad.” Sapnap filled his arms with all the other miscellaneous stuff that littered the table and swam up the huge cave, putting all of them back in their respective places on the shelves by some arbitrary filing system.

“I knew you were making seaweed wraps, I just knew it!” Pearl exclaimed, rubbing her hands in anticipation. Ranboo’s stomach growled, the image of biting into Bad’s famous seaweed wraps taking over his mind, and his mouth started to water. He might fall into a food coma after tonight.

“Is it really a get-together if there aren't seaweed wraps?” Bad smiled, and Coral solemnly nodded in agreement. “You four just sit at the table while we get everything prepared.”

“Actually, me and Coral will help you.” Pearl swam up to Bad with Coral in tow. “Besides, we need to talk to you about…” she whispered the last part, but judging by Bad’s reaction Ranboo guessed it was something serious. He looked at her surprised, his face settling into a sober expression.

“Are you sure—”

“Not here! Not here.” Pearl intercepted, nodding over to Ranboo and Niki. Bad nodded and turned back to the siblings, a smile back on his face.

“Ranboo, Niki, you guys can just sit here for the time being. You can look around, but don’t touch anything that looks dangerous, okay?”

“Don’t touch anything at all.” Coral corrected, pointing at both of them. They nodded, and Coral nodded back. Bad gave a small wave before he led the women through a passageway that went deeper underground, disappearing and leaving the two siblings alone.

They swam over to the table and sat down on the mismatched chairs that surrounded it. About two of them were homemade, apparent by the messiness of it, while the others had been found, either discarded or stolen from humans. Ranboo sat on a circular seat that was held up by a silver stick, while Niki placed herself in a wooden chair that rocked back and forth. They sat in silence, Niki’s attention focused on Sapnap and Quackity, both of them still swimming around and putting the stuff away. Ranboo stared at her, contemplating on whether to bring up what had happened before. He didn’t want to spoil the mood, but then again, he’d never never seen her so riled up before.

“Are,” Niki looked over at him, making him waver for a second before he continued, “... are you okay?”

“Hm?” Niki tilted her head, and Ranboo mentally cringed at himself. Maybe she was already over it and he was overthinking it.

“Nothing, just— nothing. Nevermind.”

“Oh.” Niki thought for a second, and her brain clicked. “Oh. If you’re talking about—”

“Nono, just forget it. My bad, I was just—”

“No, it’s okay.” Niki placed her hand on Ranboo’s and squeezed it. She opened her mouth, but closed it as she began to think about what to say. Memories of the argument flashed in her brain, and she closed her eyes. “I… I don’t know what came over me.”

Yeah, I don’t know either. “It’s fine, maybe you just woke up cranky or something.”

“Still,” she looked up at Sapnap, who was reaching deep inside a box to get something, “That doesn’t excuse what I said, I should apologize.”

“Yeah, I think you should.”

“Yeah, I will. I just,” she thought some more, her words coming out slowly, “being… being the oldest out of the four of us, I can’t help but worry. For all three of you.”

“But you don’t mind when they go out the ravine on their adventures though.”

“I do, Ranboo, I do mind. I just don’t say anything because it’s normal for them. But Overwater,” she sighed, shaking her head, “that’s a whole different thing altogether. It’s a completely different world from ours, and that’s what I’m scared of.”

Ranboo never thought about the Overwater that much, his mind preoccupied with just going out of the ravine. But from the stories he was told, from Pearl, Coral, and Bad, it sounded terrifying. From sailors that snatched you up in nets and hung you from dirty hooks to being shriveled up by the sun, Ranboo shuddered whenever he thought of the Overwater. Again, they could all be lies, but it still gave him the shivers. But, after hearing Sapnap and Quackity talk about it, he was having second thoughts.

“I guess it’s pretty scary, thinking about it. But they said they had a friend up there, so it shouldn’t be too bad for them.”

“The merboy…” Niki’s eyebrows furrowed together in thought, her free hand going to absentmindedly rub her lips. “I still don’t know about him.”

Niki’s words from the argument echoed through Ranboo’s head. Did she really mean she said, about his curse and whatnot? Ranboo had to admit, what she said was kinda harsh, and seemed wrong. He didn’t think curses would just go away if you were a good person; you’d just be a good person with an unfortunate thing happening to you.

“Mm.” Ranboo could only agree, he didn’t want to start another argument.

Finally, Sapnap and Quackity came back from the top of the cave, with Sapnap carrying all the plates they were gonna use. At the same time the adults came out of the passageway, along with another person that Ranboo finally remembered as Skeppy, each one carrying huge bundles of seaweed wraps tied and hanging from a piece of string.

All eight of them settled into a seat around the table, Skeppy giving a little greeting to the kids, and dug into the fishwraps. They were huge, about the size of Ranboo’s head, and piping hot too. They were cooked using a small geyser situated near the witch’s cave, the one the passageway led too. Ranboo untied the string and, taking a second to prepare himself, took a big bite out of the wrap.

It.

It was. So. Good.

It was different from last time, but nevertheless it was amazing. The wrapping was made of crispy seaweed, salt and nutty sesame oil having been seared into the plant before being boiled by the geyser. Underneath that was the meat, filleted tilapia and shredded blue crab, all stuffed and seasoned to perfection. The sauce, a golden-orange in color, filled in the empty spaces between the crab and fish, and topped off the wrapping. It was spicy, it was salty, it was acidic.

It was heaven.

The wrap exploded his mouth with flavor, and when Ranboo looked up he could see he wasn’t alone in that opinion. No one talked, too caught up in the seaweed wrap to make conversation. Sapnap and Skeppy ate loudly as they wolfed down their wraps, while Quackity, Niki, and Coral munched on slowly, pacing themselves and savoring each chew. Pearl was practically crying.

“I’m glad you guys liked it, I tried something new today.” Bad looked content as the others ate his food, and took a bite himself. His eyes widened and he put his hand on his cheek, swallowing down his bite. “Wow, I really outdid myself.”

“You really did, Bad, because godsdamn this is so good.” Skeppy clapped a hand on Bad’s back, and Bad brightened at the appraisal. From across the table, Ranboo could see Sapnap hide his face behind his food, silently gagging at the scene.

“Aww, thank you Skeppy. And language.”

“I want this everyday,” Ranboo blurted out. Coral and Pearl looked at him, making him panic. “Not saying your cooking is bad, I love it!”

“No, I get what you mean.” Pearl set her wrap down on her plate. She looked in Ranboo and Niki’s direction, but not at them. She looked in between them, as if she were looking for something. “And… and I have good news for you both, actually.” Coral put down her wrap as well, sitting up straight and looking at her kids.

“Another surprise?” Niki asked.

“Yeah, and I think you’ll like this even more than last night’s.” Ranboo didn’t know about that.

“What is it?” he asked. Lately, he felt like he was asking this question a lot.

“You guys will be eating this kind of food everyday for a while!” Pearl smiled wide, but Ranboo didn’t quite follow what she said.

“We’re… taking some of the food home with us?” He guessed, but Pearl shook her head. She looked at Coral, who nodded and took over.

“The both of you are going to stay here for a while.” The table went quiet.

What?

Ranboo thought they were joking at first (why did he always think everyone was joking) but after a few seconds of silence, he came to the realization that they weren’t.

“What, they’re going to sleepover?” Sapnap asked, food still full with the seaweed wrap. Bad yelped at him to finish eating first, but Pearl smiled at his question.

“A sleepover… so that’s what they call it! Yes, they’re going to ‘sleepover’ with you two, isn’t that exciting?”

“Hell yeah!” Quackity jumped from his chair with both arms in the air, Bad languaging him as he swam over to Niki and Ranboo’s chair, draping his arms around their necks. “This. Is so. Awesome! We’re going to have so much fun—”

“What about you guys?” Niki asked, cutting Quackity’s rambling off.

“Me and Coral have to do something with Uncle Bad…” Ranboo heard Sapnap cut her off, but by then he had tuned all of them out, his mind processing what he just heard.

A sleepover? What was that? Where were they going? Why can’t they come too? How long will they be here for? Why was Bad going? Why are they being so secretive?

So many whats and whys zipped through his head, making his head hurt. He looked up and made eye contact with Coral. Her eyes were still unreadable as before, but Ranboo didn’t feel uncomfortable. Coral’s eyes scanned over him, looking for nothing and everything. For some reason, Ranboo didn’t mind it. Her eyes felt soft, for the first time in a long time. It helped Ranboo calm down a little bit.

He was still so lost though. Honestly, what the heck was going on?

Chapter Text

It’d been about four days—almost an entire week —since Pearl and Coral left with Bad. They left the same day they came to the cave, taking an hour or so after dinner to get ready before setting off. The trio didn’t say much about where they were going, or what they were going to do, but had assured Ranboo and the others that they’d be back faster than they could say “fish sticks”. But Ranboo’s said “fish sticks” about thirty times since they’ve left, frontwards and backwards and three-times fast, but his mothers were still gone.

Don’t get him wrong, “sleep overing” with Sapnap and Quackity wasn’t bad. It was actually pretty fun! Especially since Skeppy was in charge of watching them. Sure, Ranboo and Niki weren’t allowed to go out of the ravine on Coral’s orders, but under Skeppy’s lax supervision they were able to busy themselves with just about anything they could find in the cave. Such as on the second day they were there. Sapnap and Quackity pulled out a metal flower attached to a box that played warbled sounds when they placed a black disk on it. Though it was heavy-sounding, the rhythm was catchy, and soon all four kids were whizzing through the water, dancing on time with the beat. It was apparently called a “fun-o-graph” and was something precious to Skeppy, since he immediately came swooping in and collected the machine a few minutes after it started playing, stuttering about how it was a gift before putting it back where the kids had found it. Sapnap jabbed Quackity in his ribs before he could get a single joke in.

Or on the third day, when the boys took them down the passageway that led to the underwater geyser. The room it was in was just as huge as the cave above it, but the heat pumping out of the geyser made it feel so stuffy, nearly suffocating Ranboo with its hot spell. He’d never felt such intense heat before, but they had to leave a few minutes after arriving since Quackity was being an idiot and dared Sapnap to swim through the geyser’s jets. Niki practically dragged them up the passageway by the fins on their heads.

And on the fourth day, today, Quackity decided to show them the binders (which were actually called “books” ) that Bad had accumulated over the years, and attempted to teach them the little bit of human knowledge he knew that was written in them. Although Ranboo knew that this was just a ploy to divert him and Niki from thinking about the obvious elephant seal in the room, Ranboo took up the challenge. Niki gave up, saying that there's no point in learning something she’ll never use, so Ranboo sat alone at the cave’s only table while the others decided to look through more of the stuff that was littered throughout the cave.

Despite the obvious distractions that the boys were giving him, Ranboo’s mind always went back to his mothers. He liked it here, it was much better than their own cave, but Ranboo couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong. Like he should be doing something more than reading a book. And it really didn’t help that his mind replayed the goodbye he had with Coral.

Just before they left the cave Coral pulled Ranboo and Niki aside, but instead of the roughness they were used to she guided them with gentle tugs at their wrists, the kind of softness that was expected from Pearl. It was a pattern that Ranboo had recently started to see; the walls around her were eroding away, by what Ranboo didn’t know. This side of her, the one that only Pearl was able to see from time-to-time, was now in full view of her children. Something about it set off alarms in Ranboo’s mind.

“Kids,” her hands slipped down to hold each of their hands, rubbing them affectionately with her thumbs, “we’ll be gone for a while. Not too long, but long enough for you guys to have to stay with Uncle Skeppy. It’s… it’s nothing serious, but when we come back we’ll…” She didn’t finish her sentence, and in her eyes Ranboo could see something faltering. The little voice in the back of his brain was loud, whispering incoherent warnings in between his ears.

Niki’s hand shifted so that both of them were holding Coral’s hand. “We’ll be fine, don’t worry about us and just come back safely.” Ranboo nodded in agreement. Then, Coral did the unimaginable. She pulled them close to her and enveloped them in her arms, her fingers caressing the back of their heads as they rested against her shoulders.

She— 

She was hugging them. Or at least she was trying to.

Coral didn’t squeeze them like how Pearl or Bad did, she didn’t even hold them close enough where their bodies smushed against hers. It was kinda awkward, which was expected since, well, it was Coral. Ranboo didn’t know what to do, his arms floating between hugging back and just hanging at his sides. He decided to do the latter.

“I… I love both of you. Just remember that.” And with that she let them go, not giving a single glance back at her dumbfounded children as she followed Bad and Pearl out the cave.

And four days later, Ranboo was still dazed from the memory. Something was going on, something big. He didn’t know if it was good or bad, but if was able to get Coral to show some actual affection for her kids, then it was probably something to worry about.

“Hey.” He turned to the voice that called out, only to be met with something hitting him dead in the forehead, landing right on top of the page he was on. “Wha’cha reading?” Skeppy pulled out a chair and sat across from Ranboo, dumping the bundles of kelp-cloth in his arms onto the table.

“Oh, uh… something about the moon?” The book was thin and the words that were written in them were big, but that didn’t help Ranboo understand what they said one bit. The pictures were entertaining at least: a white animal Quackity called a “bunny” sat on what looked like the human version of a bed, surrounded by the color green and saying goodnight to the moon. It was nonsensical, but fun to look at. Ranboo’s focus shifted from the drawing to what Skeppy had thrown at him: a pink starfish-shaped bead. It reminded him of Niki’s scales.

“Hmm…” Skeppy put down the kelp-shirt he was weaving and peered at the book, “oh, I know that one. Bad used to read it to Sapnap and Quackity when they were younger. Helped them go to sleep.”

“Really? Do you know what it says?” Ranboo pushed the book towards Skeppy, but he shook his head.

“No, I didn’t learn how to read the words. Bad tried to teach me, but he gave up.” Skeppy laughed under his breath, thinking back to when the blue nymph had exhausted the witch’s patience to the point where he wouldn’t talk to him for a week. It had taken another week to make it up to him.

“Oh…” Ranboo slumped back into his chair, the wooden one that Niki sat in for dinner four days ago. He gave up for now and just rocked back and forth, staring at the starfish bead in his hand. “Uncle Skep, why’d you give this to me?” He held it up in the air for him to see, the lights from the surrounding orbs shining through the gloss and making it glow pink.

“To eat.” Skeppy produced another “bead” from the pocket of his shorts, a blue one that looked like a squid, and popped it into his mouth. Ranboo could hear the crunch of it from across the table.

“Gasp, cannibalism.”

“No, candy.” Skeppy rolled his eyes and motioned for him to eat his before going back to weaving. “Try it.” Ranboo turned the candy in his palm, and after thinking for a few more seconds he licked it. It was sweet. Very sweet. He popped the rest of it in his mouth and decided to let it dissolve on its own.

“It’s good, Uncle Bad’s got a lot of talent.” Ranboo commented, but Skeppy frowned.

“I made it.”

“Oh...” This was awkward. “Of course you made it, it’s really good! I-it’s great!—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Skeppy waved his hand dismissively. “Just eat the candy.” He pulled out a pouch from his pocket and tossed it over to Ranboo. Ranboo took it and, without even looking, knew that there was more of that candy inside.

“Thank you, Uncle Skep…” Ranboo sheepishly looked down and continued to try and read the book. There was a beat of silence, with Ranboo rereading the same sentence over and over again while Skeppy worked on the clothes. Ranboo felt the quiet become stifling, so when Skeppy spoke again he was kind of relieved.

“You okay, Ranboo?” He looked up and met Skeppy’s eyes, caution and concern mixed in them.

“Huh? Oh, I think so? Why?”

“Just… Sapnap and Quackity look the same whenever something’s bothering them. It’s bad for growing kids to get stressed, y’know?”

“Sure, I guess.” Was it that obvious?

“... Want to talk about it?” Skeppy prodded. Ranboo thought about it; his curiosity was eating away at him and gathering mass at the center of his chest. His imagination did its best to fill in the blank spaces in his mind, but that didn’t satisfy the hunger he had. And that hunger was turning into uneasiness. Ranboo felt like he was wasting his time somehow, that he needed to prepare. For what, Ranboo had no idea. All he knew was that it made him anxious.

“I just… I don’t know why, but I feel like something big’s going to happen.” He fiddled with his fingers, slowly thinking about what to say. “I feel… heavy, like my heart feels heavy, and I don’t know why. Does that make sense?” He looks over at Skeppy, and when he sees what looks to be blankness in the blue nymph’s eyes Ranboo starts to regret talking.

“Nevermind, I’m sorry. Forget what I said—”

“Nono it’s fine, it’s fine!” Skeppy put down the kelp cloth and waved his hands in the air, swatting away Ranboo’s apology. “I get what you mean, it’s okay. I understand.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. I— everything’s going to be okay, Ranboo. I know how you feel right now, but it'll all pass soon, I promise.”

“How do you know?” It came out harsher than he wanted it to, but Skeppy answers before Ranboo could rush out an apology.

“Let’s just say…. I can see the future.” His face lights up as he says this, propping his head on his hand and smiling wide in Ranboo’s direction. “Yeah, I can see the future, and in the future I see everything’s going to be just fine.”

“Can you really?” Ranboo can’t recall a time Skeppy ever said anything about being able to see the future, but if Bad and Quackity can do magic, is it really that far off for Skeppy to have that kind of ability?

“Of course! Bad isn’t the only one with powers, y’know.” Skeppy reaches into his pocket, but not realizing he already gave all of his candy to Ranboo, brings his hand to his mouth and chomps down on one of his fingers. Ranboo heard something crunch.

Okay, maybe he didn’t have powers.

“Fucking sea biscuits! Fuck!” Skeppy yowled, blasting out of his seat and leaving a hissing trail of curses that got fainter and fainter as he shot up the cave. Ranboo’s eyes followed him until he disappeared into a hole high up in the cave, leaving him alone once again.

Ordinarily, he would’ve thought that what just happened was funny, maybe laugh and think about telling the others later, but his mind wandered back to his worries; it just took up too much space in his brain to ignore. He mulled over Skeppy’s words in his mind. Ranboo definitely knew he couldn’t see the future, but it was possible that Bad and his moms told him something, so he could be telling the truth. Or maybe Skeppy knew just as much as he did and was just comforting him. The latter wasn’t likely though, since he knew Bad wouldn’t leave Skeppy in the dark like that. Unlike his mothers.

“Yo, Ranboo, what happened?” Sapnap enters from another passageway in the wall with Quackity in tow, swimming over to the table and sitting right next to Ranboo.

“He bit his finger, I think it started bleeding or something.”

“Prolly did, Skeppy’s got freakishly sharp teeth.” Quackity took the seat Skeppy was sitting at and picked up the clothes he left behind. “Aw man, he didn’t even finish making them. What’re we going to wear when we.. y’know…” He eyes the clothes and nods over to the opening of the cave to Sapnap.

“Oh, you don’t gotta worry about that.” Sapnap waved his hand dismissively and leans back in his chair. “Dream said he’s gonna give us human clothes the next time we come up. Remember the last we went around in just these? We almost freezed to fucking death.”

“Wait, you guys are actually going?” The conversation from four days ago had completely slipped his mind. Because they didn’t go after the first day they stayed, Ranboo had assumed that Sapnap and Quackity decided on not going to the Overwater. Guess he was wrong.

“Duh, why wouldn’t we?” Sapnap righted himself and scooted closer to Ranboo. “So, you coming with us or not?”

“I, uh-”

“Lay off, Sap. I think it’ll be too much for him.” Quackity pulled Sapnap away by the shoulders and gave Ranboo an understanding look.

“You think? We did just fine.”

“Yeah, but he’s not us. Maybe we should start small.” He gasps. “Sapnap, he should meet him. ” Quackity puts a lot of emphasis on the last word, and Sapnap’s face lights up like one of the magma orbs floating around the cave.

“He should! He should definitely meet him!”

“What? Who’s him ?”Quackity and Sapnap turn to Ranboo, their faces breaking into wide grins. Uh oh , he’s not sure he likes this. They get up from their seats and each grab onto one of Ranboo’s hands, dragging him to the entrance of the cave. Ranboo’s eyes widen and he instinctively pulls back. “Woahwoahwoah, hold on, hold on! Wait a minute!”

“We’re not going out of the ravine, so don’t worry,” Sapnap said, pulling back against Ranboo and unsurprisingly winning, “the guy we want you to meet also lives in the ravine, so we’ll be safe enough.”

There’s someone else in this ravine? “Wait! Niki’s gonna get mad when she—”

“She’s playing a tamagotchi, she’ll be busy for a while.” They led him outside, following the guardian lights down the part of the ravine he’s never been to. “Relax, Ranboo! We’ll be back before she notices we’re gone.”

Ranboo doesn’t know what a “ tamo-ga-chy” is, but mentally prays to it to not break. He really did not want to deal with an angry Niki. Again.

Ranboo relaxed his pull and allowed them to haul him down the ravine. They swam for a few more seconds before they started to careen towards the wall, finally stopping in front of a sizable hole situated at the bottom of it. It was pretty hidden thanks to the shadows and jaggedness of the ravine, but when you looked down the passageway you could see a teeny little bit of light shining at the end. Ranboo didn’t like the look of this.

Sapnap went in first, followed by Ranboo who was ushered by Quackity. Despite his protesting he followed Sapnap down the hall, carefully moving through it so he wouldn’t get cut on the pieces of rocks that jutted out.

“You guys aren’t going to like, kill me, right?” Ranboo jokes, mostly to calm his nerves but ultimately failing. He thought he was used to the darkness and tight spaces by now, but his heart beated fast as they continued down the passageway. Ranboo did not like this at all.

“Oh my gods, how’d you know?”

“Sap, come on. Don’t be a bully.” Quackity chuckles, breaking off a piece of rock on the wall and aiming for Sapnap’s head. He gets his shoulder and Sapnap swats at the rock a little too late, laughing.

“No, we’re not going to kill you. You’re just gonna meet a friend of ours.”

“Is… is he a nymph too?”

“Yup! Just like us!” They finally reached the end, the hall opening into a small cave lit up by a singular magma orb. It floated lazily up in the center of the room and illuminated all the little knick knacks that took over the small space, casting a million little shadows on the walls. It kinda looked like a smaller, messier version of Bad’s cave: shelves haphazardly nailed and way overstuffed, nets and bags hanging overhead and threatening to fall down and smack them, and the floor was strewn with a mess of other things. It was very chaotic, and very ominous.

“What is this pla—” Ranboo started to ask, but Sapnap's shouting cut him off.

“KARL? KARL!” Ranboo clapped his hands over his ears as Sapnap continued to shout, being joined by Quackity as they started to swim around the room.

“Karl? Karl, where are you?” Both boys prodded at everything, from the bags that hung in the air to the heaps on the floor. Ranboo looked around, taken aback from the amount of trinkets that crowded the small cave; if Bad’s collection was for his work, then this collection had to be for fun. There was no rhyme or reason to whatever was here. It kinda looked like the room from Ranboo’s book, all nonsensical except very, very real.

As he’s looking around his eyes land on a pile of cloth in the corner, the only part of the cave with no light touching it. He froze.

The pile was moving. It rose up and down, only slightly, but moving nonetheless.

“Uh, S… Sapnap…” Ranboo reached out for him, but the orange-and-black nymph was digging through a big basket on the other side of the cave. The pile’s rising stopped, and instead it started to expand, some of the cloth falling from the top as it rose. “Sapnap! Quackity!”

“Wha— woah!” Quackity looked up from the chest he was sifting through and followed Ranboo’s finger, pointing right at the pile of clothes that was swelling. It was half-way towards the ceiling. “Sapnap!”

Sapnap and Quackity rushed over and tackled the pile to the ground, yelling incoherently at each other and at the thing itself. It thrashed around, and Ranboo could hear a muffled hiss from underneath it. He backed away slowly from the scene, and as if on cue the pile lunged at him.

He screamed.

~~~

So the pile’s name is Karl. Or, more accurately, the nymph under the pile is Karl.

“I told you guys not to scare me like that!” The nymph in question huffed, crossing his arms as he glared at the three boys in front of him. He was surprisingly small, a stark contrast to the mass of cloth from before. He had purple scales all over him, with soft hues of green here and there. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but something about his scales made Ranboo stare; he was entranced.

“Well, don’t scare us like that too, then!” Sapnap reached over and smacked Karl on the back of the head. “You should know that it’s us by now.”

“Ranboo!” Quackity snaps him out of his reverie and he looks up, meeting Karl’s eyes. They’re blue, and like his scale, shine with an unknown element to them. “This is the person we wanted you to meet. Karl, Ranboo, Ranboo, Karl.”

“Hi!” Karl quickly slapped Sapnap’s arm before extending it to Ranboo, who took it in a daze. “Sap and Quackity told me a lot about you and your sister… Niki, right?”

“Huh? O-oh, yeah, her name’s Niki.” Ranboo blinks away the glaze forming over his eyes and musters a smile. “You know, you’re very scary when you do that, the whole ‘charging at me thing’, haha. ”

“I’m so sorry about that.” Karl chuckles and scratches his head sheepishly. “I woke up just now, so I wasn’t really thinking.”

"You never think." Karl smacks Sapnap again.

“How’d you do that by the way? The whole growing and hissing thing, I mean,” Ranboo asks.

“Oh, uh…” Karl looks over at Sapnap and Quackity, who just shrug at him, “magic! I’m a seawitch too, I’m studying under Bad with Quackity.”

“Oh! That’s cool, I didn’t know.” Ranboo wonders why he wasn’t living with Bad and the others in the big cave, but comes to the conclusion that Karl wanted his own place. Bad’s family, specifically Sapnap and Skeppy, had almost no concept of what privacy was. A memory of Bad scolding Sapnap for digging through Coral's bag the last time they visited flashed through his mind. Ranboo couldn’t blame Karl for wanting to live separately.

“Yeah, it happened recently and so suddenly… anyways!” Karl clapped his hands and swam to Ranboo’s side, slinging his arm over his shoulders and guiding him to sit on a long, cushioned seat pushed against the wall. “Since you’re here, I’m assuming that you’re coming with us to the human town?”

“I—”

“Nope,” Quackity answered for him, “he isn’t. We just wanted him to meet you.”

“Oh, well that’s a shame. I think it would’ve been fun.” Karl looks at him with a regretful expression before picking up his face in a smile. “But hey, at least we finally get to meet! 'The famous Ranboo', Quackity and Sapnap's told me a lot about you”

“Ha, I think Sapnap and Quackity hyped me up too much. There’s nothing interesting about me.” It was bitter admitting it, but Ranboo couldn’t think of anything that was extraordinary about him or his life, at least compared to Sapnap and Quackity that is.

“C’mon, don’t sell yourself short, Ranboo,” Sapnap chided, ruffling Ranboo’s head. “You’re really cool.”

“And funny. Don’t forget about funny.” Quackity sat himself right next to Ranboo and draped his arm behind Ranboo’s head on the backseat of the chair. “We love hanging out with you.”

“You seem like a swell guy, too.” Karl smiled. “I think we’ll get along just great.”

“Gee, thanks I guess.” Ranboo could feel his face get warm, from embarrassment or happiness, he didn’t know. Maybe both. “You seem like a good guy too, Karl.”

Karl smiled. His eyes suddenly widened and he snapped his finger, making Ranboo jump a bit. “Y’know, Ranboo reminds me of Dream a bit.”

“What? No way,” Sapnap said dubiously, and turned to Ranboo, “No offense, Ranboo.”

“None taken, who’s Dream by the way?”

“Our friend from up there.” Karl pointed up at the ceiling. “Our little mer prince.”

“Ew, don’t call him that.” Quackity shudders and pretends to gag, eliciting a small giggle from Karl and Sapnap. “But yeah, he was the other guy we were talking about before. The one that Niki…” He stopped himself, but Ranboo understood. So the merboy's name was Dream.

“Back to the point,” Sapnap cleared his throat, his posture getting a little straighter after Quackity brought up the argument again, “I don’t see how Ranboo’s like Dream.”

“I don’t know, I feel like Dream and Ranboo have the same vibe.” Karl turns to Ranboo again. “I think you two would get along.”

“But Ranboo’s not going with us, so we’ll never know.” Sapnap shrugs, but glances at Ranboo with a hopeful expression. “Unless…”

“He already said no, Sapnap, don’t pressure him.”

“I’m not! I’m not.” He puts his hands up in the air as Quackity bluntly glares at him. When he’s like this, Ranboo thinks Quackity looks like Bad. “I’m honestly not.”

Quackity and Sapnap continue talking, but Ranboo’s already tuned them out. Thoughts of going out the ravine have always been on his mind, but the Overwater? That was a leap, a very big leap from going out the ravine. The stories Coral drilled in his head still reminded him of the dangers of the outside, but when Sapnap, Quackity, and now Karl talked about it, it doesn’t seem as bad. Who’s judgement did he trust here? Who’s judgement did he want to trust?

“Actually,” Ranboo interrupts them, and all three boys look at him, “it… it doesn’t seem like a bad idea, going to the Overwater with you guys…”

“Really?!” Sapnap exclaimed. He rushed over and grabbed Ranboo’s shoulders. “You for real, like actually?”

“Sap, be gentle with him,” Quackity and Karl pull at his hands until he lets go of the boy, who had stiffened up from the sudden jolt.

“Are you sure though, Ranboo?” Quackity looks at him with concern written all over his face. “You’re not forcing yourself, are you?”

“Yeah— I mean, no, I’m not forcing myself. I’m actually curious about what the Overwater is like. And Dream too. I’m curious about him too.” He wasn’t lying; all this talk about Dream made the nymph wonder what that boy was like. He was also interested in meeting an actual “merfolk”, his belief in them still in the “they-might-be-fake” department.

“YES! This is going be so awesome!” Sapnap pumped his fist in the air.

“The more the merrier.” Karl slips a hand on Ranboo’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “I’m glad you’re coming, Ranboo.”

“As long as you feel comfortable, you can change your mind anytime.”

“Quackity. He already said yes, if you keep on talking he might actually change his mind!” Sapnap and Quackity went back to arguing, and Ranboo decided to zone out again. A million thoughts ran through his head, some of them happy and congratulating him while others were worried and basically screamed. His emotions weren’t any better. Anxiety took a majority of what he was feeling, twisting like a whirlpool in his stomach. He felt kind of queasy from it. But underneath that there was… serenity. A gentle wave pushed back against the swirling storm and washed over him. The nauseous feeling he had numbed a bit. It was still there, but it felt less intense.

He was doing this, he was finally going out. Giddiness started to bloom in his chest, and soon a small smile started to spread across his lips. Outside the ravine—no, outside the ocean! It wasn’t like how he imagined it, but he was going out nonetheless. Finally!

He just hoped Niki wouldn’t find out.

Chapter Text

“Just stick close to us and you’ll be fine!” Sapnap pulled Ranboo along as they swam near the surface of the water. The latter wasn’t listening, and instead focused all of his attention on everything else.

They’d done it. He’d done it.

Ranboo was out of the ravine. The tall, jagged rock walls were gone and replaced with miles upon miles of the open sea. There was nothingness for as far as Ranboo could see, which wasn’t a lot since he could only see a few feet ahead of him. All four of them left two days after Ranboo decided to go, when Niki and Skeppy were still asleep. It was exciting, sneaking out in the dead of night and finally seeing how big the ocean was, but along with the excitement came the anxiety.

Yeah, the thought of getting attacked by other sea monsters and also going to the Overwater was scary, but Niki’s temper was what he was really worried about. Ranboo could already picture her standing in front of the cave with her arms crossed, her face fixed like Coral’s would. Skeppy promised him before they left that he’d try to keep her busy before she’d notice, but that didn’t lessen the worry that was growing in the pit of his stomach.

They swam for about ten minutes, the surface of the sea so close that Ranboo could see the stars up above, swaying and moving with the ocean’s currents. For the whole ten minutes the boys told him about the tailless merboy he was about to meet, of Dream. Of how they met him, what he was like, the adventures they’d have, and of how he and Ranboo would totally hit it off once they met. Ranboo disagreed, of course in his head, only because Dream sounded like a cockier version of Sapnap. Ranboo loved the guy, but it took a lot of energy and patience to be around Sapnap. Still, he was looking forward to meeting him. Dream lived an entirely different life from Ranboo’s, and he wanted to know everything about it.

They swam for a few more minutes, the sea floor slowly sloping up until, finally, it disappeared above the water. It was the shoreline, and just beyond it, above the water, was a beach where the boys said their friend was waiting for them. He’ll be wearing something to protect himself, so it’s totally safe for him to be near the ocean.

They stopped, and in that moment Ranboo felt the entire weight of the present crash down on him. The past two days he thought of this moment just as it was: a thought. But that thought was right there, and in just a few more steps he’ll be in it.

“Here!” Before their heads could breach the surface, Quackity pulled out something from the pockets of his robe. Opening his hand he held out four weirdly-shaped pieces of something, each one about the size of a guppy fish. It looked like the candies Skeppy had given to him before, just less pretty-looking.

Karl and Sapnap each took one from Quackity’s hand and popped it into their mouths, their faces puckering up from what Ranboo assumed was the sourness. Seeing his confused look, Quackity took one of the last remaining candies and swallowed it as well, his face contorting the same way that Karl’s and Sapnap’s did.

“You’re gonna need this,” Quackit explained, his voice strained, “to breathe up there and other stuff. You’ll die if you come up like that.” And as if on cue, Karl and Sapnap raced towards the shore, their feet hitting the sand as they climbed up the slope and out of sight. As they did their colorful scales, the ones that every single nymph is born and stuck with for the rest of their lives, began falling off, leaving a shining trail behind.

“Wha– what just happened?!” Ranboo yelled, pointing at the scales. “Tha– am I going to bald?! ”

“Yes,” Quackity shoved the last candy into Ranboo’s hand, “but trust me, it’ll be fine!” With that Quackity swam up the shore, shedding his own scales as he disappeared and left Ranboo all alone. All alone with a very hard decision right in the palm of his hand.

He looked at the candy, the strangely-shaped one that, if Ranboo tilted his head, could see a dolphin in its figure. It was nowhere near the level of perfection that Bad’s and Skeppy’s candies looked like, and probably tasted terrible as well. Ranboo looked at the trio of boys’ scales they left behind and imagined himself as a scaleless nymph.

Ugh, the idea made him shudder in disgust.

What were his choices?

He could go and swim back to Bad’s house. He kinda knew his way back since there were landmarks along the way that were easy to remember. But he could get caught, by a drowned or a guardian or any other sea dweller, and die. There was also the added fact of Niki, who would absolutely kill him once he came back. So going home was out.

He could stay there, at the edge of the ocean, and wait for them to come back. He was used to waiting, and even though it was boring and he had nothing to keep him busy, he could stay put until they were done with their visit. But how long would he have to wait? Waiting without knowing when the waiting ends would surely be anxiety-inducing, and gods knew Ranboo hated feeling anxious. There was also the risk of being caught here too. He’d heard from Sapnap and Quackity of their close encounters near the shore with unsuspecting humans. Waiting was off the table too.

Ranboo looked at the scales, the moonlight streaming through the water bouncing off of them and lighting them up like guardian lights. They shone a path all the way up the sand’s slope and into the unknown, an unknown so close to being known simply by eating a piece of candy. An unknown where, according to Sapnap, everything was better and you didn’t have to hide in a dingy cave listening to bad stories.

An unknown with a story Ranboo wanted to learn so badly.

His eyes followed the scales’ trail up the sand, and where they led he could faintly see three figures just above the water. They were waving their arms, probably motioning for him to hurry up. Ranboo looked down at his candy, then back at the boys, then back to the candy, and before he could change his mind Ranboo slapped his hand over his mouth. The candy going down his throat in one gulp.

It was so sour and so disgusting, Ranboo didn’t know how the others managed to not throw up but he managed to do the same. As it went down, a warm sensation started to spread throughout his body, but as quickly as it came it was gone. A coldness he’d never felt before wrapped around him, seeping into his bones and pulling him into a fetal position. His hands rubbed all over his body, but something caught itself on his fingers, and when he pulled away, black-and-white scales drifted through the water. Not only that, but the stretched piece of skin that was in-between his fingers was disappearing, melting away into the water.

Oh.

Oh no.

Ranboo didn’t even have time to panic from the onset of molting, because in that same second his breathing stopped. Not necessarily all at once, but it got harder to breathe, each inhale and exhale having to be thought out. He clawed at his throat and, to his horror, couldn’t feel the slits in his flesh that made it possible for him to live. They were gone.

Now he started to panic.

He kicked and thrashed around in the water, his eyes now stinging and his vision getting blurry. His hands finally hit the sand and, through the fear and disorientation, started to climb up the slope. It was slow, slower than it’d usually be, but Ranboo grabbed at the sand and pulled himself up as fast as he could. The pain was increasing ten folds the more he climbed but he pushed on. He was beginning to regret ever saying yes now.

But before Ranboo’s vision could go completely dark, two pairs of arms looped around him and hauled him forward. They dragged him through sand and, to what Ranboo could lazily piece together, into the Overwater. It was colder than what he felt before and bit into his skin, the shock giving back some of his senses.

“...anboo! Ranboo, say something if you can hear me! Plea...” He was on his back now, and through a hazy fog saw Quackity standing over him, his hands cupping his face to face him. At least, he thought it was Quackity. He had his voice and the same blue cloak wrapped around him, but that was where the similarities ended. The boy had no blue scales or fins, and instead had a sand-colored face framed by fine, black seaweed on top of his head.

Wait, he was wrong. The boy had the same worried face Quackity would wear around Ranboo. Yup, this strange-looking boy was definitely him.

Ranboo went to reply, but just as he opened his mouth a spurt of water came out, reflectively lurching Ranboo up into a sitting position. Hands he couldn’t see helped him up and rubbed his back, and Quackity’s voice came back into focus.

“Just breathe, it’s okay. It’s okay, we’re right here,” he reassured him, taking both of Ranboo’s hands and squeezing them repeatedly until there was some feeling back in them. He took deep breaths, his body shuddering from both his breathing and the cold.

“We should’ve warned you about the changing, I don’t know how we forgot.” Karl’s voice came from besides him. Ranboo looked over and saw another non-nymph boy, this time with thin fins that reminded him of the outside of a conch and skin the color of its inside. “Are you okay?”

“M-mhm, y… yeah.” He felt something come up his throat, and he threw up again. “I… I lied…”

“Okay,” Ranboo heard Sapnap’s voice and felt a hand come off his back, “okay, um… lemme just, give me that—” something soft covered him. He looked up and saw a boy with tanned skin drape some sort of cloth over his shoulders. His new fins were just like Quackity’s, if not darker. “This should warm you up.”

“Tha- ank you…” he clutched the cloth closer to him, and just like Sapnap said he started to gain back some warmth. The cloth was soft, not like “kelp-cloth” soft or “seaweed wrap” soft, but the kind of soft that Ranboo never felt before. The feeling stimulated his hands and helped him focus on something else rather than the whole ordeal he just experienced. He looked at the fabric in his hands and his focus was almost broken.

His hands… they were scaless . They looked like Karl’s new skin in color, and felt super weird. It felt… lighter? He could flex his fingers in and out more without his scales pinching him at the joints. They also felt more sensitive, and now that Ranboo’s breathing became more normal he noticed all the textures around him: the cold air against his skin, the heaviness of his kelp-shorts, the sand in between his toes, the… the something sticking to his forehead…

He reached up, and in between his new fingers he felt something stringy. When he pulled it he found out it was attached to his head, where his fins would’ve been. He let go of his new “fins”, his hands finding themselves back to his arms.

Ah. He was shaking, but it wasn’t from the chill.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, Ranboo.” Quackity grabbed his hands again and squeezed them tightly. Scaless skin-on-skin contact felt even stranger, but he found comfort in the fact that it was Quackity. “This is completely normal.”

“It is? Is it really?” Ranboo squeezed back, and if he still had his nails they would’ve stabbed into Quackity’s skin with how tight he gripped him.

“Yeah, you’re fine! Look at us,” Sapnap came into view and hurriedly smiled, gesturing to himself, “we look the same, so you’re not alone.”

Ranboo nodded and let the words sink in. Right, he’s not alone. They’ve done this before, they know what they’re doing. I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m alri—”

“He needs dry up before he gets hypothermia,” a new voice chimed in from behind. Ranboo froze, and, ever so slightly, he turned around. Right behind him, kneeling on the sand and staring right into his face, was a one-eyed creature.

…

Whack!

Ranboo’s elbow flung straight at the creature’s head and he screamed.

This wasn’t at all what he imagined.

Chapter Text

Ranboo’s elbow hurt.

Like a lot. Maybe he shouldn’t have done that.

He sunk to the ground and cradled his arm, a tingling sensation shooting out from his funny bone like a blooming anemone. He decided that this in fact was not  funny, and was actually a very unenjoyable experience.

He really shouldn’t have done that.

“Oh barnacles, are you okay?” He heard Karl kneel down beside him, and felt his cold hands hold him by the shoulders as he peered down at Ranboo. “That looked pretty nasty.”

“It was…” Ranboo groaned. From the corner of his eye he saw Quackity and Sapnap each grab one of the one-eyed creature’s arms, seeing that they fell flat on their back courtesy of Ranboo’s elbow. They struggled for a while, the muscles in their arms and legs tensing up so much that Ranboo could see it from where he laid, but eventually gave up. All three boys laid defeated on the sand, their chests heaving up and down for big gulps of air.

“Ranboo,” Sapnap breathed out, “this… heavy bitch is… is Dream.” He lazily slaps Dream’s head, earning him a little annoyed “stop” and a swat from the boy. Dream gives a little wave from where he laid and Ranboo returns it with a little "hm" and a nod.

Karl patted his back and got up, “C’mon, let’s help them.”

“Do we have to?”

“No, but we’re good friends and this is what good friends do. It’s also really cold, and the faster we get out of here the better.”

Ranboo couldn’t disagree, so despite the throbbing pain he stood up, and joined Karl and the others surrounding Dream (the newfound weight on his body was weird , but he managed to walk over to them without falling over). The boy was spread out like a starfish, and when Ranboo walked closer he got a better look of him. The first thing he noticed was his head, his very, very round head. It reminded Ranboo of the guardian eyes floating in Bad’s cave with how spherical it was, and in the center of that sphere was his singular eye, the one that freaked him out at first. Four wires criss-crossed over it almost like a shield.

“I’m sorry for, uh , hitting you…” Ranboo hovered over the boy. What he also noticed was that Dream had really big hands and feet. Not only did they look heavy, but they also looked weird: his feet were all blocky and angular and he had zero fingers.

“It’s fine, didn’t hurt at all,” he replied, his voice sounding very echoey and muffled.

This is a weird guy, Ranboo thought. I wonder if all merfolk are like this.

“Me and Quackity will pull while you two push, got it?” Ranboo nodded and stood beside Dream’s head next to Karl, and once Sapnap and Quackity pulled Dream up enough to where his back lifted off the sand, Karl and Ranboo rushed in and began pushing him from behind.

Sapnap was right, this guy was heavy .

“I didn’t think… our first time meeting… would be like this!” Ranboo gasped, his entire body straining against Dream’s. His feet started to slip out from under him, so he pushed harder and dug his feet deeper into the sand.

“Me nei—”

“Dream, are you even trying?!” Sapnap cut Dream off with his yelling. “COME. ON!”

“I AM!” Dream yelled back, and with that the weight Ranboo was pushing became a little lighter. Finally, they got Dream standing straight with his feet planted firmly on the ground. All four of the other boys collapsed on the ground, and Ranboo felt the cold air bite the back of his throat as he took deep breaths.

“I knew… you weren’t trying.” Sapnap sighed.

“Shut up.” Dream walked over to a bag that Ranboo hadn’t noticed was there, his feet hitting the sand with a dense thump as he went. Ranboo was guilty for thinking about it, but he wondered how much this guy weighed.

Quackity was the first one to get up, dusting the sand off his body and walking over to Dream. “Why’re you wearing that heavy-ass suit? Literally anything would’ve been better than that.”

“I’m sorry, are you the one cursed here?” Dream tossed the bag, a large, cylinder-shaped one, to Quackity. “Let me live with my terrible decisions.”

“Meeting us was a terrible decision?” Sapnap got up and set his face in an exaggeratedly hurt expression. “How could you say that Dream? I thought we were besties.” He got up and ran towards Dream, who, thanks to the “suit” , didn’t get far. Sapnap caught the boy in a headlock and Ranboo could see that Dream was trying his best not to fall over again.

Dream shouted at him to knock it off, but Ranboo heard the fondness in his voice that made it clear that there was no real heat behind them. "Sapnap—fucking let go!" Quackity joined in and helped Sapnap overwhelm the poor merboy, careful not to tip him over when he climbed on his back and whooped out loud.

“Are they always like this?” Ranboo asked.

“Unfortunately.” Shaking his head Karl stood up and clapped his hands together loudly, and the boys stopped. “‘Kay guys, I know we’re all happy to be together again, but it’s colder than Davy Jones's Locker out here, so can we please  get going?” He nudged his head in the opposite direction of the sea and Ranboo’s eyes followed, landing on tiers of steps that led up and out the beach. At the top of those steps was… a box? It was a big box, even from afar Ranboo could see that, and light illuminated from its opening.

Dream shook the boys off of him and patted the bag slung over Quackity’s shoulder. “Right, we should get going. I bought clothes and shower stuff for you guys, so go use the showers in the public bathrooms over there.”

Sapnap wrinkled his nose. “What?! Why can’t we take them at your house, the public bathrooms are disgusting!”

“After last time? No way. Techno’s still taking money out of my allowance to pay for the hole you guys made.” Dream trudged his way towards the steps and waved his arm for them to follow. “From now on, all showers are at the beach.”

“That wasn’t even—”

“The beach!” The boys groaned, but they ultimately followed the puffy-bodied merboy, Ranboo absent-mindedly wondering what a “shower” was as he got up. The heaviness of his body almost dragged him back down, but he managed to stay up and plant a shaky step forward, and then another, then another.

“Woah , Ranboo you’re a natural!” He looked up and saw the awe on Quackity’s face, pride and embarrassment rushing in and heating up his face. And at that moment Ranboo’s foot gave out from under him and he fell face-first into the sand. “Aw shit, I think I jinxed you.”

“Yup, definitely. It was you and not me that made me trip.” The group chuckled softly, and Ranboo was glad. He still had little puddles of anxiety in the pits of his stomach, but they were slowly drying up as time passed by. This whole new world was still overwhelming, but he felt safe in the company of these four idiots.

Quackity rushed over to his side and helped him up, passing the bag to Karl and slinging Ranboo’s arm over his shoulders. “Still, you did better than all three of us on our first day, so there’s that.”

“Speak for yourself.” Sapnap said from up ahead. He turned and faced them, walking backwards with a smug look on his face. “I was a natural! These two were flopping around like a bunch of drunk fishes when we first came up, and me and Dream had to teach them for like an hour before we left the beach.”

“That is a flat-out lie.” Karl looked at Ranboo. “First off, I was the one who got it first. And second, Sapnap won't admit it, but he was actually crying cause his legs got too sore from trying too hard.”

“Don’t believe a word he’s saying, Ranboo. He’s ly—”

“Nono, that’s exactly what happened. You were whining like a baby.” Dream said, and Quackity cackled in agreement. "'Dream, I don't wanna do this anymore. Dream, my legs hurt. Wah wah wah, I wanna go home.'"

"Absolutely not! I don't— what the fuck?"  They continued on, Sapnap having a three-way war with the other three as they made their way to the stairs. Dream waved for them to go ahead, saying how the “suit” would slow him down and that they should start “showering” to save time. So, slowly and surely, Ranboo and the others made it up the stairs and a grumbling Sapnap led them into the box, the “bathroom” the boys called it.

It was dark at first, but Quackity flipped a little stick on the wall up and the room was bathed in light. It was narrow and long and bright, the lights overhead bouncing off the white that covered the room. There were white, hollowed out tables stuck onto the wall with mirrors hanging over them (Bad had a box full of them, but they were smaller than the ones Ranboo saw now). Opposite of the weird-looking tables were another set of boxes, a sheet of cloth on a pole hanging in front of it. Ranboo peered inside, and saw two metal cylinders jut out from the wall and a small, metal flower facing downs over them.

“What… what is this?” Ranboo tentatively pushed the cloth aside and poked his head into the box. To put it the only words Ranboo thought were appropriate to say, courtesy of Sapnap’s influence, it was dirty as fuck. “I don’t like it.”

“Me too, man. Me too.” Sapnap shook his head and took Dream’s bag from Karl, placing it on the hollow table and opening it up. It was like a magic act, with how much stuff he took out of it: more of those clothes that Ranboo had wrapped around him, bottles of something unknown, creamy-white bars that smelled really good, and what Ranboo assumed to be human versions of clothes. The boys fought over them, and Ranboo stood off to the side and decided to himself to take whatever was left.

“Okay, Ranboo.” After putting his set of clothes away, Sapnap came over and grabbed Ranboo's shoulders, shaking him as he stared into the box— the shower . It didn’t make sense to Ranboo, it was like calling the room you sleep in the Sleeper . “Today you’re gonna learn how to take a shower, one of the best and worst things in the entire universe. Are you ready?”

“I… yes?” Ranboo tentatively walked into the shower, and just as he steps under the flower Sapnap pushes the left button, and a stream of cold water from it rains down on him. He yelps and almost jumps out of the box, but Sapnap guides him back into water. He pushes the other button, and the water begins to warm up.

“I got you, don’t worry. Now close your eyes, you don’t want this stuff to get in your eyes.” And before he asks what that meant, Ranboo hears a little click and something cold starts oozing down his head. He tries to dodge the rest of it that comes down, but Sapnap’s hands hold him in place as he starts to spread it around. “This is gonna make your hair soft as fuck, and that’s a good thing, so we have to do it.”

This continues for a while, with Sapnap unclicking another bottle and instructing Ranboo to rub the good-smelling bars (of “soap” it was called) all over his body to get rid of the sea water. “It’s bad to keep it on human skin, which is what we have now” is what Sapnap said, but it didn’t make Ranboo dislike the whole thing any less.

Sapnap was half-right, showering is one of the worst things in the universe. Ranboo didn’t like how the water slapped him dead in the face, or how the mysterious liquid would drip down into his eyes and mouth, and he especially didn’t like how slippery the floor was and how he had to catch himself every five seconds. The feeling of the falling water was also a weird one. Ranboo was so accustomed to having water just being there, so the feeling of it rolling off of his skin made his nerves go on overdrive, like as if he'd been scrubbed so hard his raw skin was all that was left. Needless to say, when the water turned off and Sapnap didn’t go to press the buttons again, Ranboo was relieved. He was finally free of the shower, which he now dubbed “Davy Jones’s ugly twin: David Jonathan ”.

Wrapped in a the soft cloth once again (a "towel” ), Ranboo shakingly stepped out of the shower and found himself standing in front of a mirror. The heat from the others’ showers created a thin veil of fog, so Ranboo swiped it away, and what he saw staring back at him was… jarring, to say the least. His skin looked about the same as Karl’s, in color and spongeness, and his “ hair” stuck up in all different directions, almost imitating the fins that they replaced. He was weird-looking, Ranboo’ll say that, but he didn’t dislike it. It was interesting.

“Checking yourself out?” Ranboo turned and saw Karl step out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist as he used another one to ruffle out the water in his hair. Ranboo blushes and steps away from the mirror. “I won’t judge.”

“No, I wasn't! It’s just… I look so different.”

“I totally get you.” He walks over to his pile of clothes and picks out a small pair of shorts, putting them on from under his towel. “But Quackity’s spell doesn’t last forever, so don’t worry. You’ll be back in your old body in no time!” He puts on another pair of shorts, and then finally his shirt, twisting his hair into a little bundle on his head when he’s done. Ranboo copies, putting on the two shorts and shirt over himself, even doing the little twisty-wrap on his head. He looks up at Karl once he’s done.

He gives him a thumbs up. “Looking great.”

Sapnap and Quackity finally get out of the shower, changing and using their towels to whip each other (all four boys developed nasty welts the next day), and finally got outside. The air skimmed over Ranboo’s body like a gentle wave, cooling down his skin and setting it to a comfortable temperature. The feeling was nice, unlike the shower.

“Finally! I thought I had to drag you guys out.” Ranboo looked over to his right, and his mind folded in on itself.

Dream was… he was naked.

His puffy body was gone, his head wasn’t as round anymore, and his blocky hands and feet shrunk and grew fingers and toes.

… 

Okay, so he wasn’t naked naked, but that’s what he basically was in Ranboo’s mind.

Dream got up from the long, wooden chair he sat on and walked over to them. Ranboo took in the new boy in front of him, his shiny hair pulled into a ponytail and his sun-loved skin, and tried to imagine what he did to change his body.

Maybe he used magic candy too.

“Dream!” Sapnap rushed over and tackled the boy to the ground, Quackity and Karl piling on top of the two when they hit the ground. “You look so much better without that suit on.” Sapnap planted a kiss on Dream’s cheek, and Ranboo shuddered from how wet it sounded. Dream shouted and writhed from under them.

“Get—ugh, get off me!” After a few more of Sapnap’s sloppy kisses Dream shoved them all off, wiping the wet spot on his cheek. “You guys are so annoying.”

“Aww , but you still love us!” Quackity bumped his shoulder with Dream’s and batted his eyelashes.

He rolled his eyes and pushed Quackity’s head away. “Whatever.”

“Where’d you put the suit?” Karl asked, looping his arm and hanging off of Dream’s shoulder.

“Locked it in the utility shed, Senny gave me the key.”

What?

“Oh my gods, Senny! I haven’t seen her in a while, how is she?”

“She’s doing good, her fiance actually just came ba—”

“Wait, you took off your skin?” Ranboo interrupted, and all four boys looked at him.

Quackity looked back from him and Dream, and his face lit up once he understood. “Ohhh, the suit— it wasn’t his skin, Ranboo. It was like, extra clothes so he wouldn’t touch the seawater.

“So… merfolk don’t look like that?”

“Nope, they look just like humans.” Quackity ruffled Dream’s hair. “But they keep some stuff from the sea, like their—”

“Okay, guys!” Dream shrugged Quackity and Karl off him and began walking away. “We’re gonna sleep early if we want to do all the stuff we wanna do tomorrow. C’mon, let's go."

The mood shifted, not drastically, but enough to where Ranboo knew there was an unspoken agreement to move on, like when Ranboo would slyly talk about the outside in Coral’s presence. The three boys gave each other a brief look, a look that said something Ranboo couldn’t hear, before following the merboy.

Hm.

“Oh wait,” Dream stopped and turned around, looking right at Ranboo, “We didn’t properly say hi.” He walked over to him and held out his hand, a small smile on his face. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Ranboo.

Ranboo didn’t know why, but he felt at ease with this stranger. From his eyes to his smile to his outstretched hand, Ranboo didn’t feel at edge. He took his hand and firmly shook it. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

And with that, both of their fates were sealed.

Chapter Text

Ranboo came to find out that being human kind of sucked. At least, it did for him.

They boys walked along the wooden platform that ran perpendicular to the stairs, and soon it turned into a rocky one. It was a rough walk, with little bits of earth pushing themselves into Ranboo's bare feet and prickling his now extra-tender skin.

Jumping jellyfish , his skin. The soft breeze was alright at first, like a nice little, cool hug after a not-so-great-first-time-showering experience, but after a few minutes of walking the chill started make him shiver. It wasn’t as bad as it was when Ranboo was on the beach, but it still made his bones rattle.

“Are we there ye— ah!” He stepped on a rather sharp rock and yelped, stumbling forward and straight into Karl’s back. See, Karl wasn’t particularly strong or sturdy—he’s about the same weight as Ranboo and built like a coral branch—so when Ranboo knocked into him he also went down. He fell into Quackity who, like the other two, failed to stay up.

“Wha—!” Sapnap was the last one to fall, shouting when Quackity grabbed onto his arm as he went down. Dream looked back and stopped in his tracks, teetering between laughing and feeling disappointed upon looking at the pile of boys on the ground, their limbs looped and hooked with each other in a fleshy mess that Ranboo really did not like the feeling of.

“I don’t like being human that much.” Ranboo tried to free himself from the tangled mess, but didn’t get anywhere. Somehow, his legs managed to get sandwiched in between Karl and Quackity while his stomach pressed itself onto Sapnap’s head. He could feel the rising heat under his belly, and he wanted to get out of that pile as soon as possible before Sapnap erupted. Dream chuckled and walked over, and getting a firm grip on his arms he pulled Ranboo from underneath Karl. “Th-thank you.”

“No proble—”

“Get the fuck off of me!” Sapnap yelled, and he placed both hands on the ground and pushed up. Karl rolled off of him and Quackity easily, but Quackity stayed on and latched onto Sapnap’s back. “Quackity, I swear to whatever god is listening right now—” he was cut off with Quackity’s cackling, who latched on even tighter, “—Quackity!”

“Not so funny now, is it?” Dream said, still holding onto Ranboo.

“Shut up, Dream.” Sapnap finally got up, shaking the still-laughing Quackity off of him and dusting himself off. “What happened?”

“I, um, tripped, sorry…”

“It’s fine, do you want me to carry you?” Ranboo looked at Dream, who was already in the process of lifting the boy onto his back.

“Oh, no I’m okay, thank you though!” But Dream didn’t listen, and before he knew it Ranboo was being carried on Dream’s back for the rest of the walk. It was really  awkward, seeing that:

1) Ranboo was just about the same height as Dream, and

2) they barely knew each other.

Do strangers normally do this with each other? Is this an Overwater custom or something?, Ranboo thought, but after a few minutes of not feeling the little, jagged rocks stabbing into his feet, his discomfort waned. Despite struggling at first, Dream strode confidently with Ranboo on his back, and the young nymph felt secure the whole time. Wow, he's strong.

“Aww, you see that Sapnap? You should give me a piggyback ride too.” Ranboo couldn’t see them, but he could tell from the noise that Sapnap probably shoved Quackity off of him again. Or maybe slapped him, who knows.

“You never do that for us, Dream, what gives?” Karl ran up and walked next to them, the noises behind them turning into shouts and someone (some two?) falling; the three of them didn’t look back and continued walking.

“Well, Ranboo looked like he was tired. I hope you don’t mind actually.” Dream looked at Ranboo from his peripheral, and he saw him shake his head. “Okay that’s good, I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything.”

“No, it’s okay! The rocks were hurting my feet anyways.” He didn’t know why but both of them laughed at that, but he smiled anyways. Karl reached up and ruffled Ranboo’s hair, and even though it felt weird without his fins the little act was comforting. This is nice.

Ranboo leaned into Dream’s back, his mind leaving the conversation that he and Karl were having and looked around. They were still on the rocky path, but it had gotten a lot smoother at one point and had a long, yellow line painted right down the middle. Soon, the huge, wooden pillars that surrounded the pathway started to dwindle, replaced by big boxes, like the bathroom . There were a lot of them, and all in varying shapes and sizes: short ones, tall ones, ones with pointy hats, ones with drawings and words on them, and many, many more. Ranboo shuddered, what if they also had showers too?

Besides passing the many bathrooms that lined the path, Ranboo also saw big sticks that lit up at the top, a blue box with a really big mouth, a very long thingy with four round legs and a see-through head, and a four-legged animal that scurried away when it saw the boys coming. It was white, but it wasn’t a bunny, it looked way too ugly to be a cute bunny. The only other land creature Ranboo knew about was a rat . He didn’t even know what a rat looked like, so Ranboo decided to take a gamble and called the thing Rat. If it turned out that it wasn’t a rat, then oh well, at least he tried.

“And…. we’re here!” Dream exclaimed, and Ranboo looked up. They were in front of yet another bathroom, and this time it was huge . It might even be taller than the ravine’s walls. “Bless XD, I can’t wait to go to bed.”

“A- fucking -men!” Sapnap hurried inside with Karl and Quackity in tow. Ranboo tapped Dream’s shoulder and was let down, following the boys through the bathroom’s clear, glass openy-thingy (he really needed to ask them what everything was called). It didn’t look like the other bathroom, and didn’t feel like it either. The floor had some sort of fuzzy grass growing on it, and it led down a long, narrow, hall with many openy-thingies— doors! (thank you Quackity)— on the walls. Dream led them to one door halfway down the hall that opened differently than the one they walked into, sliding open and showing a pretty small room behind it. (Okay, so this one wasn’t a door but an elli-vator . W hy?)

“Ranboo, you’re going to love this!” Sapnap pushed him into the room, jumping once they were inside, and to Ranboo’s horror it bounced with him . “This thing’s going to take us all the way up to Dream’s house, he lives all the way up on the top of this building!”

“Near the top, and it’s an apartment so it’s going to be way smaller than the house.” Dream hit one of the top buttons that were on the wall, and the elli-vator closes. Ranboo wasn’t ready for what was going to happen next, the new words that Dream and Sapnap just threw at him swimming in his head as he held onto the metal pole on the wall. With a loud screech, Ranboo felt the room move even more, his grip on the pole getting even tighter. When that wasn’t enough he grabbed Quackity’s shoulder, who winced at the hook-like hold Ranboo had on him.

“Ranboo, you’re going to tear a chunk of me off.” He pried his hand off and elected to just hold it in his own hand, giving it an assuring squeeze. “We’re going to be fine, no one’s died riding the elevator before. At least, I don’t think…”

“Now why would you say that part?” Karl asked. Thankfully, just as he said that the door opened, and Ranboo rushed out of the elli-vator, practically kissing the grass as the others walked out calmly.

“Ew, don’t do that, there’re germs there.” Quackity pulled Ranboo up to his feet and guided him down another hall, which looked exactly the same save for the glass doors that were on the first one. They walked a few feet away from the elli-vator until they arrived at a door marked with bolded-out shapes in its center, just below a small, glass circle. Quackity let go of Ranboo’s hand and sagged against the wall next to the door, and sighed. “Finally, we’re here!”

“Kay, before we go in I’m going to tell you one last time,” Dream’s hand rested on the metal sphere that stuck out of the door as he looked at them, “do not. Break. Anything. ”

“Yeah yeah, just open the damn door!” Sapnap banged on the wall with each syllable, and the slaps echoed down the hall.

“Don’t do that, and Techno’s gonna get mad at me if the apartment’s a mess again. So... just promise me. A ll of you. ” Dream looked at each of the boys in their faces until all of them nodded. He took out a ring of keys (Ranboo remembered this one, Skeppy and Bad had matching ones around their necks) and put one inside the metal sphere and another in the metal circle above it. After turning them the door opened, and the three terrors rushed past Dream to get inside. “I swear, everything goes in one ear and out the other with them.” There was a crash, and Dream ran through the door, ushering Ranboo inside and speeding to where the sound came from. Ranboo looked in the direction Dream ran and saw yet another hallway (seriously, what was up with the humans’ obsession with hallways?), this one looking a lot shorter than the last two. Weird-looking shells that were somehow the shape of feet lined the wooden floor, which led down to a room just at the end of the hall.

“Sapnap!” The boys stood in the center of room and surrounded Sapnap, who clutched a very tall, pink bowl. “What did I just say?!”

“Chill bro, it didn’t break.” Sapnap got up and placed the bowl on a table nearby, plopping himself onto the long, white chair that was right next to it. The room was small, smaller than Bad’s cave, and didn’t have that much stuff in it. Smooth, white walls, a couple of chairs and tables here and there, a shelf neatly packed with books, and a big, fat rectangle hanging off the wall. It was a nice-looking place, far from the craziness of Bad’s home or the darkness of Ranboo’s cave, but it was empty. Kind of lifeless. Ranboo couldn’t imagine a boy like Dream living in such a place, and it woke up a fulsomely familiar feeling in his chest.

“Is Techno asleep or something?” Karl sat down and lifted his legs, draping them over Sapnap’s. “I remember him being up around this time the last time.”

“Please, I hope he is,” Quackity said. “That man creeps me the fuck out, no offense Dream—”

“None taken.”

“— but he sounds like if two turtles were having sex.” The boys groaned, Dream shoving him away while Sapnap and Karl cringed into their hands, and Ranboo could only wonder what Quackity just said. “It’s true, you have to agree with me. Like, their shells just rubbing—”

“Quackity stop, we have a child here.” Dream walked behind Ranboo and covered his ears.

“Okay okay, my bad.” Quackity went to the other side of Sapnap, lifting Karl’s feet up and putting them down on his own lap when he sat down. “But I’m right.” Karl kicked him in the stomach.

“Why would you put that in my head? Now I’m gonna have dreams of turtles…” Sapnap looked up at Ranboo, “... dancing tonight. Yeah, dancing to ‘Under the Sea’ or something…”

“What’s ‘Under the Sea’ ?” Ranboo asked, and all four boys sighed. “I live under the sea.”

“Yeah we do, but what Sapnap’s talking about is a song. It’s from a movie called, uh…. ‘Ariel’ ?”

“ ‘The Little Mermaid’ ,” Dream corrected, quickly adding, “and no, I’m not in it.” Karl put down his hand. Ranboo wanted to ask what a movie was, but exhaustion was already getting to him, his back just barely leaning against Dream’s chest.

"What's a movie?" Ranboo's eyelids were getting heavier, but he was already intrigued with this new word.

"It's like a moving picture." Karl sat up from his spot excitedly. "They're really cool, we should definitely watch one tomorrow!"

"If we have time." Dream took his hands off of Ranboo's head and leaned against him. Ranboo couldn't help but lean back, his body relaxing just a little bit from the support.

“You tired, Ranboo?” Through his drooping lids Ranboo looked up at Quackity.

“Yeah, a little bit,” He yawned. “I usually go to sleep at this time.”

“It’s only…” Dream looked off at the wall somewhere, “shit, it’s 1:45. We need to go to sleep right now if we want to do anything tomorrow.” Dream took Ranboo by the shoulders and guided him to a door with the others in tow. He took out his keys again and jiggled the door’s sphere, opening it to an even smaller room, but unlike the other room, this one looked lived into.

It was painted green and, much like Karl’s cave, was crammed with so many trinkets and treasures. There was a singular shelf, a smaller than the one in the other room, but it was packed to the brim with boxes of different shapes and sizes, and through some of the clear ones Ranboo could see just a fraction of what Dream had collected over his lifetime.

He really is from the sea, isn’t he?

There were other things that caught his attention as he and the others walked inside: big, colored drawings plastered all over the walls along with metal signs of different shapes and colors, pale shapes stuck onto the ceiling, columns of books stacked on the floor in one corner (why didn’t he put them on the shelf?), and a “ fun-o-graph” without the big flower attached. The room reminded him of the bunny book down in the ravine, down to the green room and everything. Dream could be the bunny, and he could say goodnight to them. Would that make them the moon?

Ranboo liked that thought.

“Dibs!” Sapnap and Quackity made a mad dash for the bed pushed into one of the room's corners, both crashing onto it and trying to shove each other off.

“Ranboo and Karl get the bed.” Dream grabbed them by the shoulders and dragged them off the bed. “The three of us are on the floor.” He pulled out a box and a cylinder from underneath his bed and threw it at them.

“What? No way.” Sapnap said, handing the box to Quackity.

“Ranboo and Karl are small enough to fit. Do you remember the last time we all tried to sleep together?”

“Me and Sapnap have lost a couple of pounds since then.” Quackity held out the box and cylinder to Dream, giving the best pouty face he could give.

“Not me, I’ve been bulking.” Sapnap flexed his arms and Quackity kicked him in the shins, but Dream shook his head and pushed his Quackity's hands back.

“It’s my house, so you guys listen to me. Get to pumping, the faster the better.” Quackity and Sapnap groaned, but they sat down on the ground anyways.

“Are you sure?” Ranboo asked. Sapnap pulled out a folded-up piece of cloth and began to unfurl it. “I could sleep with them if you want.” Quackity attached the wire that came with the cylinder into an opening in the cloth and started to push the cylinder’s handle up and down. The cloth started to expand.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. They move a lot in their sleep, so I don’t think you’d want to anyway.” Dream waved his hand and looked at the boys, who were already complaining about their arms. Well, Quackity was, Sapnap just sat there. “Oh, be right back, I’m going to turn off the lights outside. Do you guys want anything to drink or something?”

“A spot on the bed.” Quackity called out.

“No.” After checking one more time, Dream headed out of the room.

“This is aye-okay with me.” Karl jumped onto the bed and rolled over to the wall. He patted the empty spot next to him, and after offering Sapnap and Quackity his spot (and reluctantly refusing), Ranboo took it. And dang , was it soft, Ranboo couldn’t compare it to anything. “Oh my gods, we have so much room Ranboo.”

“Yeah.” Karl got the blanket at their feet and pulled it over them and, by the old gods  did that just make everything better. Ranboo was sandwiched in between softness beyond his comprehension. He’d never felt his body release this much tension before, and spots he didn’t know ached were instantly relieved. “It’s so soft, I love it!”

“That’s good to hear.” Down below, Quackity was done with… whatever he was doing. The wrinkled cloth expanded and turned into a big, puffy square, just about the same size as Dream’s bed but bigger. Sapnap flopped onto the puffy square, getting a little bounce as he made contact. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

“You can slee—”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“Okay guys!” Dream came back, an extra blanket in hand, and switched the lights off. “Sleep! Sleep now!” Quackity let out one more whine before finding his spot on the puffy square and Dream found his. He flung the blanket over the three’s bodies and snuggled under it.

“Dream, if you wanted to cuddle you could’ve just said so.” There was a slap.

“Fuck off, no.” A moment of silence, then Dream talked again. “Talking about cuddles, I want you guys to meet some people. Some friends I’ve made.”

“What the hell does that mean?!” Sapnap whisper-shouted.

Karl picked up his head and looked over. “You have friends?”

“You’ve been cuddling other people?! I thought we had something special!”

“Shut up, Sapnap. And fuck off, Karl.”

“Is that the only words you know, ‘fuck off’?”

“You can cuddle with me, Sapnap, Dream doesn’t love us.”

“No, you fucking sweat at night, Quackity, I don’t want your disgusting sweat on me. Karl, come over here.”

“I thought we were supposed to sleep.” Ranboo said. It might have come out harsher than he meant, but all the boys stopped talking for the moment.

“Yeah,” Dream agreed, “everyone shut up and go to sleep.”

“I don’t listen to cheaters.”

“Go the fuck to sleep, Sapnap.” And finally, finally, that was it. There was the occasional noise of someone moving, soft breathing, snoring, and this soft sound of air followed by a foul smell, but it was finally quiet for the most part. Ranboo’s mind drifted into sleep, but the events of today were replaying over and over in his mind, keeping him awake by just a little bit. 

The beginning hadn’t been promising, he’ll say that. The whole transformation thing and showering was the worst part of the whole trip, and he hasn’t seen anything that totally blew his mind away. Maybe he will tomorrow, but for now his brain is still intact. If he had to be honest, Ranboo was underwhelmed.

At first. But laying there, in a bed so soft and comfortable that he never wanted to leave, surrounded by people fueled by the same sense of adventure as him, Ranboo thought that this was okay. In this foreign home of a strange merboy where his sister and mothers didn’t know that he was at, he felt perfectly safe. This was fine.

The little shapes on the ceiling began to glow, and although it wasn’t the soft orange one of the magma lamps back down under, it made the room feel less dark. He listened to the quiet breathing of the boys around him, his own breath matching theirs, and soon he gave himself up to the night.

Maybe being human wasn’t all that bad after all.

Chapter Text

Ranboo was prepared to wake up that morning in Bad’s cave, last night’s adventures being nothing but a dream born from Sapnap and Quackity’s overzealous stories. It wouldn’t be the first time his imagination tricked him into doing that, his heart filling up with elation before harpooning itself when the truth slapped him back into reality. Much to his delight however, that didn’t happen, and he woke up in a soft bed in a room filled with unfamiliar-ly familiar knick-knacks.

In the Overwater.

Holy carp, I did it.

Under the safety of the blanket Ranboo freaked out. Something overflowed in his brain and rushed throughout his body like a great tsunami, but instead of drowning Ranboo was rising. He was riding that uncontrollable wave and straight to the golden shore.

Excitement . 

This must be what excitement felt like.

After giving himself a moment, Ranboo put a hand on his chest. It beated so fast, but that was okay. He pulled the blanket off of his head and sat up, taking in his new surroundings in the morning light. The walls were much greener and the room was much messier than it looked last night but that added to the charm—the Overwater Charm he decided to call it—of this new adventure. It was real , it was exciting , and it was new .

Ranboo also noticed that the boys weren’t sleeping and that he was all alone in the room. Karl’s spot next to him was empty and the blow-up bed to his left was as well, the sheets and pillows thrown aside. He looked up and saw the door was opened, and through it he heard the boys’ voices down the hall. He got up, wrapped himself in a blanket, and followed the sound.

The entirety of Dream’s home looked different in natural light as well. It looked much warmer than it did last night and actually liveable . The floor was still cold against his feet though.

Ranboo walked out of the hallway and back to the main room he was in last night, and to his surprise found out there was more to the room: it continued on ahead of him and was filled with cabinets and drawers and shiny machines, and was separated from the other room by a wall with a big hole in it. In that new room were the boys, standing or leaning against a tabletop, eating food and talking. There was also another person Ranboo didn’t recognize, who looked a lot older than all of them.

“Ranboo, you’re finally up!” Quackity put down his plate and walked over him, taking him by the shoulders and leading him to the others. “You sleep well? Looked like you did, we couldn’t wake you up when it was time to eat.”

“Yeah, the bed was super soft and everything!” Ranboo beamed, and Sapnap handed him a plate of… food? On his plate was a pile of something circular, patches of black and brown dotting their surface. Karl dug through one of the drawers and gave him a miniature version of a trident, and when Ranboo poked the “food” with it it cracked.

“They’re called pancakes .” Dream walked right next to him with a glass bottle of a golden-brown liquid in his hands. “They taste better with syrup.” He uncapped the bottle and the seer-up drizzled down slowly onto the pancakes . From across him Karl shook his head and mouthed “no it doesn’t” .

“I heard we were having a new guest today, so I thought it would be appropriate to have something that wasn’t cereal.” Ranboo jumped at the startlingly deep new voice and looked up, and the strange person looked straight at him and into his eyes. The man had light hair, almost as blonde as Dream’s but redder, and it was pulled up high onto his head. His shirt strained against his bulged-out arms crossed over his chest, and any skin that peaked out was littered with tiny scars. This man,to put it lightly, was terrifying . “But obviously, that seemed to be a mistake.”

“It’s not that bad, Tech.” Dream took a piece of the pancake from his own plate and put it in his mouth, and bits of crumbs falling out as he crunched on it. “...see?” He smiled, but everyone could see it was strained.

Tech sighed, and grabbed Ranboo’s plate, shoving the food down a plastic bin and placing the plate in a hole on the table. “I’ll just make him cereal.” Ranboo didn’t know what that was, but he was sure glad he didn’t have to eat that pancake .

“‘Kay, while you do that,” Dream wiped his mouth and pulled Sapnap and Karl by the collars of their shirts, “we’re going to get changed. Ranboo, when you’re done come to the room.” Wait, what? They’re going to leave him with a man he’s never met before, all alone ? Before Ranboo could say anything the boys filed out of the room and down the hall.

He was alone with a man named Tech .

“So, Ranboo,” Tech took a bowl out of one of the high cabinets and slid it to Ranboo, “Corn Pops or Creeper Crunch?”

“ Hm? ”

“It’s the only cereal I have.” Tech pulled out two boxes from atop a huge metal box against the wall and placed them in front of Ranboo. One was yellow and had a picture of a bowl with yellow balls flying out of it, and the other was green with a weird, sad face on the cover. “For milk, I have 1 percent, soy, and goat, but I suggest against goat milk with cereal. Dream and my nephew had to go to the emergency room because of that mistake.”

Ranboo blinked up at the man, the onslaught of words just bouncing around in his head. It didn’t help that his voice kept the same tone throughout his spiel, like a fish lazily swimming by in a straight line. “I, uh, don’t know. I’ve never had s… ‘ seer-ill ’?”

“Never?” Ranboo nodded. “ Hmmmmm … try the Creeper Crunch with 1 percent.” Tech turned around and opened the big metal box, a rush of cold coming from inside as he took out a jug of white liquid. He uncapped it and poured it into Ranboo’s bowl, then opened the green box and poured that as well, little brown and green pieces floating atop the liquid. “I think you’ll like it.”

He handed him a little stick with a bowl attached to the end, and after giving him a nod Ranboo dipped it into the seer-ill , getting a lot of the brown pieces and one green one. Very slowly, he brought the little bowl to his mouth and took a bite.

It, it wasn’t bad. It was crunchy, like how the name said it would be, and the won pursent milk was smooth and sweet. But the actual see-rill part felt like chewing mushy rope that pulled apart easily in the water (tasted like it too), and the green pieces were weird to bite through. The thing was too sweet, but oddly not sweet enough, and made Ranboo feel bad for eating so early in the morning.

“It’s good?”

“Yeah, it’s great.”

Ranboo powered on and continued to eat the thing, and as he did felt Tech’s eyes on him. He looked up and saw that indeed, the man was staring at him. He finished the last spoonful and burped, wiping the milk that dripped down his chin with the collar of his shirt.

“Where are you from, Ranboo?” Ranboo froze. Tech was leaned against the tabletop again, hands braced on the edge, and he didn’t know how but his muscles flexed even more . Ranboo leaned against the tabletop as well, but his arms didn’t flex like Tech’s. To be honest, they were as thin as the new hairs sprouting from his head.

“I-I’m from the same place as Sapnap, Quackity, and Karl.”

“From Netherfield?” Ranboo nodded. “How do you know them?”

“My moms, they’re, uh, they’re friends with Sapnap’s dads. I live next to them.” Tech nodded, and Ranboo didn’t know if that was good or bad. He got up from his spot and patted Ranboo on the shoulder and took his bowl, putting it in the same hole as his plate.

“Relax, there’s no wrong answer.” Tech walked out of the room and gestured for Ranboo to follow him, walking into the room from the night before and sitting on the long, white chair. “Just wanted to know who you are.”

“Oh, okay.” Ranboo sank onto the couch, which was much stiffer than it looked. From his spot he could hear the other boys down the hall talking—more like arguing, again—and it brought a sense of comfort to an otherwise tense situation. Tech said to relax, but that only made Ranboo be more on guard. “How do you know my name, Tech…”

“Technoblade, and Dream told me.” After his short answer they sat in silence. Ranboo pushed himself against one of the chair’s arms while Technoblade comfortably spread himself out on the other end. Ranboo had never met such an intimidating person before, but then again he didn’t know that many people either. He wondered if he was like Dream, a merman, but they didn’t look like they were related.

Not that that mattered when it came to family. Him and Niki weren’t blood related, but Ranboo wouldn’t think twice about calling her his sister.

Oh gods, Niki. What will she say when he gets back? What will Pearl and Coral say if she decides to tell them? What will ha—

“Ranboo.” He looked up and saw Quackity at the entrance of the hall, wearing different clothes than he was wearing a few minutes ago. He gave a weak wave when Technoblade turned to him as well and then looked back at Ranboo. “C’mon, change into something warmer, the weather looks like it’s going to be windy.”

Ranboo got up faster than he expected and nodded, giving Technoblade his own little wave before following Quackity back to Dream’s room.

Thank the gods. Ranboo thought he would suffocate to death.

They stepped through the glass doors and into the cool air. Quackity was right, it was windy. The older boys made Ranboo change out of the clothes he slept in and into new ones from Dream’s claw-zet . They gave him a new swet-shirt, pants, and a hudie that bunched up around his armpit and choked him a little bit. Some new things he got were these tubes of cloth called socks and two foot-shaped shells he saw the night before. Those were shoes, and the ones he had on lit up in bright lights when he walked. He liked them a lot.

“Okay!” Sapnap stretched his arms out and turned to the others. “What are we doing today? Arcade? Movie theatre? Ooh , what about the amusement park?”

“I’m broke, Sapnap. Bathroom hole, remember?” Dream took out a square from the pocket of his pants and waved it in the air. “I have only a little bit for some food and that’s it.”

“Aww, what? What’re we going to do then?”

“Just chill, walk around maybe?” Dream stuffed the square back into his shorts. “I still have those friends I want you to meet.”

“I’m actually excited to meet your new friends .” Karl echoed, looking at Dream with raised eyebrows. “I wanna see who you replaced us with.” Honestly, the more Ranboo was around him the more he saw Karl’s true self. If Dream was like Sapnap, then Karl was like Quackity, care and mischief and all of that.

“I didn’t replace you guys!” Dream exclaimed, but the boys didn’t listen and joined Karl on the teasing. Ranboo couldn’t help but laugh at the dramatics, he hadn’t been around a group like this before, and it was fun. “You guys are like clingy girlfriends.”

“Oh, like you’d know what that feels like.” Dream smacked him up the head while Sapnap and Quackity cackled. They continued walking down the smooth path and laughing, and along the way Ranboo pointed out all the stuff that interested him. The smooth path was called a road, and the four-legged box on it was a car and would drive along the length of it. The bathrooms weren’t bathrooms and were actually called buildings , and did more than just have showers. Stuff like stores, restaurants, and arcades were held in them, but because Dream had no money they couldn’t go inside most of them.

The farther they walked along the road the more humans they started to see. They looked like them— well, they looked like Dream, while Ranboo and the others looked like them. They had the same smooth-looking skin, four arms and four legs, but that was where the similarities ended. The color of their skins, their clothes, their height, even their hair was different. There was a person dressed in puffy pink and shoes that made them tower over everyone who walked by, while another was swathed in black and had dark markings gracing their face. It was like their scales, but human. It was pretty.

“Ranboo,” Quackity said in a hushed voice, “don’t tell anyone we’re from underwater okay?” They stood outside a building called a bodega , where they were going to get wraps. Ranboo was excited, wondering if they’re were going to be just as good as Bad’s, but before they went inside the boys pulled him aside. “We don’t know who else is like us, so we have to be careful, got it?”

So even here, we have to be careful. “Got it.”

They entered the bodega, where Dream greeted the human behind the table with a huge smile. “Danny!”

“Ayo, is that Dream?!” The boy looked up from what he was doing and smiled, reaching over the table and grabbing Dream's hand with excitement. He looked behind and his smile grew even wider. “Ayee! I haven’t seen you guys in a hot minute!” He jumped over the table and grabbed the other three in a huge hug. “How’ve you been, dudes?”

“Awesome since we haven’t seen you.” Danny laughed and punched Sapnap in the chest and turned to Ranboo.

“Who’s this little man? You’re brother?”

“Basically.” Sapnap pulled Ranboo in by the shoulders and beamed. “He’s my dad’s friend’s son. I’m taking him out to enjoy the world for once.”

“Well, you picked a bad time to do that. What’d you like?” Danny walked back to the table, lifting a piece of it up and going to where he was before.”

“Five fish wraps—whatchu mean?” Danny got to work on his order, taking five bundles of silver-wrapped food out of a box with warm-colored light, putting them in a brown paper bag.

“Things are weird right now.” He handed Dream the bag, who in turn handed him four pieces of green paper. “I don’t know how to, like, explain it, but it’s just weird.”

“I get it, I get it.” Ranboo was sure he didn’t, because Dream sounded just as confused as the rest of them. “Do you know why?”

“No idea, but if I find out I’ll let you know.” Danny pressed a few buttons on the machine on the table and a drawer popped out with a ding , and he put the four pieces of paper inside. He handed a few small circles and one piece of paper back to Dream, shutting the drawer shut. “By the way, Emilia’s on shift today, so she'll probably lose her… sugar honey ice tea if she sees you, so...”

“Good call.” Dream shook his hand one more time while the others waved goodbye at the door. “I’ll see you later!”

“‘Ight, and you four,” he points at them as they leave, “swing around the end of my shift next time you’re around, I wanna hang! It was nice meeting you, little man!”

“S-same!” They walked out the door of the bodega, and Ranboo was filled with a really nice feeling. “That man was nice.”

“Yeah, Danny’s really cool.” Dream swung the bag in his hand. “He likes making friends, so he’s naturally friendly.”

“Yeah, he rocks and all, but who’s Emilia?” Sapnap squeezed in between Ranboo and Dream and bumped shoulders with them. “You got a girlfriend too while we were gone? You’re really breaking our hearts here, Dream.”

“She’s not my girlfriend, fuck off.”

“Ex?” Karl tried.

“No!” They turned the corner, and the oohs and aahs from the boys got louder. “She’s just a girl who’s got it out for me. She’s…” Dream stopped and looked ahead.

“She’s what?” Quackity asked, and followed where he looked. They all did the same, and what Ranboo saw was a store with cars stopped in front of rectangular boxes, pipes hooked up to the small hole on their sides. Right in front of the store just standing around was a group of kids, all looking around their age.

“... merfolk…” Dream groaned. “Guys, let’s go the other way.”

“Merfolk? Are they merfolk too?” Ranboo asked. The kids looked like any other human they passed before, Ranboo wouldn’t have even known that they were merfolk if Dream hadn’t said. One of them looked up and made eye contact with Ranboo, and he looked away quickly. They moved on from Ranboo, their eyes scanning the group’s faces before landing on Dream’s. When Ranboo looked back, the person had a wide smile on their face and pointed in their direction. Soon, the entire group of probably seven kids were looking their way and were eventually walking towards them.

“Fuck!” Dream huffed under his breath. He turned to the others. “We need to go. Now.”

“What, they got a problem?” Sapnap eyed the oncoming kids, puffing out his chest and flexing his arms. “Cause if they do they can catch these fucking hands.”

“A-are they coming over here?” Ranboo stammered, tugging at Quackity’s shirt and backing away. The kids didn’t look particularly mean or dangerous, but with how Dream was acting they couldn’t be any good. “W-w-why are they coming over here?”

“Don’t worry, as long as we just walk away—”

“Is that my boy, Dream?” Dream was cut off by a voice so high in pitch and uppity in tone that Ranboo was immediately filled with a kind of anger that made him want to slap whoever it belonged to. Right in front of them was the group that was in front of the store, and at the head of it was a boy with orange hair, slicked back and wet-looking, and in an outfit that looked really tight. “Who would’ve thought we’d run into you here, out of all places?”

Ranboo didn’t consider himself a violent person, but the boy’s voice was really hurting his ears, so he hoped deep down that Sapnap would deliver on his promise and punch the guy.

He really didn’t like this guy already if you couldn’t tell.

“Billiam.” Really? His name is Billiam? “I want to say it’s nice to see you, but it isn’t.” Ranboo looked at Dream, whose face was fixed in a scrunch as he looked Billiam up and down. He was tense, and so was Sapnap next to him. Quackity put an arm up in front of Ranboo and stepped in front of him while Karl held the sides of his arms from behind. This didn’t feel like it was going to end well.

“Good to see you’re still a little brat.” His group laughed. “But I thought I made it clear to you last time,” Billiam stepped forward, almost chest-to-chest with Dream, “to not come over to this side of town ever again.” Dream stared down into Billiam’s eyes, two swirling pots of gold so rich that it made Ranboo’s stomach churn from looking at them

“Hey, back the fuck up.” Sapnap went to get in between, but Dream held him back.

“Since when did you ever call the shots around here?” Dream pushed the bag of food into Karl’s arms and moved forward, making Billiam step back a bit. His group faltered with him. “Cause last time I saw you I remember your ass being handed to you by the harpies.”

Then he swung. Billaim’s fist connected with Dream’s cheek in a sickeningly, fleshy BOFF , and both fell down with his swing. Everyone stood frozen, looking on as the two of them continued writhing on the ground, and then Sapnap joined in. That was when all hells broke loose.

Karl and Ranboo stepped back from the all-out brawl, as did a few of Billiam’s friends, and saw the absolute mess that it became. Sapnap was taking on two boys, one of them in a headlock while the other was pinned by the neck under his knee, and took turns delivering blows to their faces with as much power to break bones. Quackity was latched onto a huge guy’s back and choked him out before the man decided to flop on his back, and Ranboo could hear Quackity let out a wet wheeze. Billiam and Dream were still at it on the ground, hands tangled and grappling each other, blood staining their clothes and the ground beneath them. It was kind of pathetic but brutal at the same time.

“Cursed… piece… of shit!” Billiam screamed in between blows. His knuckles landed a few good punches in Dream’s stomach, and Ranboo could see that Dream was close to gone. “Never going to amount to anything but that, will you? Born and died a curse, just like your fucking parents!” Ranboo could see something click in Dream’s brain, because he suddenly lunged for Billaim’s abdomen and tackled him to the ground, wailing his face, neck, and anything else that was exposed to him.

“Don’t.” Wham. “ You.” Wham. “Ever.” Wham wham. “Talk about.” Wham. “My parents!” Each hit left a bruise and stained Dream’s fist with red, from either his skin getting raw or from Billiam’s blood Ranboo didn’t know. Billiam’s head lolled to the side and blood started oozing out of his mouth, spilling into a thick pool on the street. It was a sickening sight, and was nothing like the guy Ranboo met last night.

But just as Dream was able to give out the last blow, a huge crack pierced the air and made everyone stop. Sapnap looked up, Quackity’s grip on the man loosened, and Dream’s fist stopped just as it kissed the tip of Billiam’s nose. The others stopped too, and they waited. Ranboo looked around, and then he saw it.

A big, thick tree , growing right next to the shop and almost just as tall as it, started to lean—no, no it wasn’t leaning. 

It. It was falling .

Ranboo didn’t know much about trees, he’d just learned about them a few minutes ago, but he knew that something as big as that falling down wasn’t what it was supposed to do. He felt Karl grab him by the arm, and the next thing he knew he was running.

“Fucking scatter!” Someone yelled. There was a huge crash, but Ranboo didn’t look back, only hearing a duet of something blaring loudly to a steady rhythm. From the corner of his eye he saw Dream and Sapnap catch up and hoped Quackity was close behind them as well. Dream quickly overtook them and led them down a confusing maze of twisting streets, running pass and almost bumping into alarmed passersby and squeezing through the gaps in between buildings.

Ranboo didn’t know how he kept up, but he did. His legs were on fire and the cold was biting him from the inside of his throat. All that was in his mind was to keep running, to follow Dream. His rational thoughts were too slow to keep up, and feelings of fear and excitement mixed itself into his bloodstream, powering him forward. Was this good or bad? Ranboo doesn't know, but what he did know was that right now he needed to keep moving.

“I think… we...lost them.” Quackity huffed from the back. The group finally stopped running and took refuge in a small, unlit gap in between two shops. Ranboo finally caught his breath, sinking down to the ground and taking huge gulps of air. “Holy shit, Dream! What was that?!”

They all turned to Dream, who leaned against the wall with a hand over his heart, his jacket unzipped to show his sweaty shirt. He shrugged. “Snot-nosed elitist kids. Made my life hell when I lived on the other side of town.”

“What’s their deal?” Sapnap wiped the snot and blood from his face and sniffled. “I’ve never seen them the last times we were here.”

“Yeah, Dream this is serious.” Karl clutched the bag of fish wraps close to his chest. “You could’ve been hurt real bad if we weren’t with you. Does Technoblade know?”

“He doesn’t, and I want to keep it that way.”

“But—”

“Please, Karl.” Dream looked up. He looked tired . “Just drop it.” Karl closed his mouth, giving Dream one last look before turning away and leaning against the wall. They stayed in silence, the only sound being their heavy breathing.

Ranboo felt disgusting. He was cold but hot, and winded from the running. The others weren’t in better shape either, with Dream, Sapnap, and Quackity covered in dirt and blood (he hopes most of it is not their's), while Karl looked like he had just taken a quick run through a shower in his clothes. They all looked like hot messes, and if you asked Ranboo again if this is what he imagined his first adventure to be like, he’d… rather not answer you.

Just as Ranboo laid dying on the ground, he saw Sapnap perk up. He quickly got up, kickstarting everyone back into action. Ranboo groaned, he had hoped they would at least take a five minute break after all of that.

Sapnap inched close to the opening of the gap and held out his ear, and through his eyes Ranboo knew that they had to get ready to run again. Quackity pulled Ranboo aside and nodded his head down the other end of the gap, which opened to another street.

“Just Run.”

Got it.

On the ground just in front of the gap, two shadows came into view. They were walking straight into their direction, and Ranboo really prayed, to both dead and alive gods that were willing to hear him, that they were just strangers. He really didn’t want to run again.

“... think they ran this way…” one of the shadows said, and Ranboo knew that his prayer was pointless. At least he was making the most out of his legs before he had to go back.

“Wait Sapnap—” Dream’s body relaxed, but just as he started to speak, Sapnap lunged forward and tackled one of the shadows just as they passed by.

“RAHHHHHHH!” He flung himself at the person, and Ranboo didn’t know if it was because of the previous fight or the running, but it looked like Sapnap gave up half-way through his fall. He landed on the person, who definitely didn’t look strong enough to get Sapnap off, and just laid there. He shifted every now and then, but that was all he did.

“Now, this ,” the other person came into view and stared down at the bodies on the ground, “this is pathetic.” He had brown hair that stuck up in all different directions, almost like it was suspended in water, and skin so white it basically blinded Ranboo with the light hitting it. But what stood out the most was the boy’s voice: it was like he was talking with a mouthful of glass marbles (don’t ask), but clearly .

“Gods, it’s just you guys.” Dream sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He took the boy by the shoulders and turned to the others, who still didn’t know what was going on. “Guys, this is George and,” he gestured down, and the person underneath Sapnap who had just given up, “Callahan. These are the friends I wanted you to meet.”

George stared at them and smiled, but Ranboo saw that it didn’t reach his eyes. “A pleasure, Dream’s told me about you guys.”

This guy, ” Ranboo thought as they helped Sapnap get off of Callahan, something tells me it’s really not going to be a pleasure.

Oh, how right he was.

Chapter Text

Oh, this was not good. 

This was not good, like, at. All.  

Ranboo’s eyes darted around the crowded area, but none of the passing faces were any that he recognized. The people walking in and out of the buildings with multi-colored bags? Nope. The crowd surrounding the sculpted geyser with water pouring out of its fish statues? Nada. He even looks at the people sitting at the tables under the big downturned flowers, but still nothing.

And the more he looked, the scary little thought in Ranboo’s brain grew and grew until he couldn’t ignore it anymore: he was lost.

Lost and alone and very, very scared.

Awesome. (At least he had his food (a fish wrap that was slowly turning into fish mush in his very tight grip))

“Okay. Okay, don’t freak out,” he hisses to himself, “think— think! What happened before right now?” Ranboo’s brain takes him back into the morning, a little too far back in his opinion, but he races through his memories to get to what he needs.

Eating human breakfast (not that good). Getting fish wraps (excited). Meeting Billaim and his gang (nervous and annoyed). Getting into a fight and a tree falling on a car (scared). Running away and hiding in an alley (scared and tired). Meeting Dream’s friends after Sapnap attacks one of them (funny). Then…

Then they decided to walk to the east-side of town. Dream told the group that there was a play-ground and a four-rest that was big and fun enough to spend the rest of the day at.

“None of them go over there,” he explains, “it’s close to the ocean, so they don’t wanna risk it.”

“What? But it’s like, a mile away from the beach. Do they think the sea breeze is toxic or something?” Karl asks.

“Probably? I don’t know, the elders are super superstitious like that, want nothing to do with the sea. And before you ask: no. I don’t know why they’re still living in a coastal city. Your guess’s good as mine.” Sapnap and Quackity close their mouths, but Ranboo can almost hear them call the merfolk elders stupid for their ways of thinking. 

He looks over at George and Callahan, and wonders if they knew the truth about them. Dream didn’t look concerned about the two boys figuring them out, and the boys didn’t really seem confused about what he was talking about either. But Ranboo wasn’t too curious about that, so he asked something else. “What about you? You’re not scared?”

Dream just shakes his head, and gives Ranboo a small smile. “Na-ah, I got over my fear a long time ago,” is all he replies with. He sees the other boys stiffen a bit (even George and Callahan), but they say nothing, and he doesn’t bring it up.

“What happened after that?” He thinks harder, willing his mind to memories to fast-forward just a bit more.

“Woah, it’s starting to get busy,” Sapnap comments. He’s right; the relatively empty streets were starting to fill up with people, and Ranboo had to walk faster in order to keep up with the others.

“It is the weekend,” Dream says, and he grabs Sapnap and George’s hands. “C’mon, if we get there fast enough we can get the jungle gym all to ourselves!”

The boys picked up the pace, weaving through the throng of people as more of the town started to wake up. Ranboo holds on to the hem of Quackity’s shirt, but a sudden shove makes him let go.

“My bad,” the man hurriedly says, readjusting the agitated baby in his arms before walking the other way.

“Ah, it’s fine—” clack. Ranboo looks down and sees something on the ground, half obscured by his foot. He picks it up, and notes that it’s shaped like a tiny human, it’s body stiff and the face twisted in a harsh scowl.

Was it a land rock? It didn’t look like any type of rock he’s ever seen before, but it was on the ground, so it probably was a rock. 

“Hey guys, do you know…” he turned to ask the others, but they were nowhere to be seen.

“Okay, so that’s what happened…that literally doesn’t give me anything to work with!” He cries, making a few people jump as they walk by, which in turn makes him jump. Ranboo smacks a hand over his mouth and shrinks into himself, but that doesn’t stop from others bumping and jostling him as the crowd gets fuller. He squeezes the rock-thing and his food like a life buoy, and much like a buoy, he starts to get carried away in the human current.

“Ah, please…wait…e-excuse—wa oah!” Ranboo stumbles through the shoal, bumping and apologizing to passerby as he goes. He finally manages to jump into a small space against a building to escape the sea of people. He catches his breath and tries to will his heart to slow down. If it was beating from the rush or his anxiety, Ranboo doesn’t know, but it does eventually go back to normal after a good minute or so. He stands against the building’s wall and surveys his surroundings. The crowd thinned out a bit where he was, but still, no sign of Quackity or the others.

“Great, what do I do now?” Ranboo brings a nail to his mouth and starts to bite it, his nerves making him pace his little space. “Okay, don’t panic Ranboo, what’s the worst that can happen?”

Getting found out , he thinks automatically. The magic candy Quackity gave him could run out, and he’d turn back into a nymph in the middle of a human town. He doesn’t know how far the sea is from him, so he might dry up like a caught fish from Coral’s stories!

Wait.

I didn’t even…I might get caught!! A sailor or a fisherman could catch me and put me on a dirty hook! I’d get turned into a fish wrap, or get nailed to a wall! His head fills with all the horrible possibilities that could happen if the evil humans from Coral’s stories actually turned out to be real and they somehow found him.

Water! Ranboo looks around frantically for the stone geyser he saw earlier. I need to find—!

A jingle breaks him out of his spiraling, and two boys step out of the building he’s leaning against. One of them loudly burps as they pass Ranboo, and he gags as the boy’s lunch wafts up his nose.

“Bro, that’s so nasty.” His friend cringes as he swats at the air in front of his face. “You’re gonna vomit that up later.”

“Puh -lease,” Burp Boy burps again, “my stomach’s made of steel, that shit ain’t going nowhere, haha!” He dramatically smacks his stomach and stretches his body out. A woman ducks from his outstretched arm and glares at him, and he returns it zealously. “C’mon Tubs, the birds prolly left the playground by now.”

Play-ground?! Dream talked about that!

Ranboo’s heart jumped at the connection, and before he could think it over, he moved to follow the two boys. Thankfully the crowd wasn’t as crazy as before, and he was able to keep track of his human lifelines ahead of him.

“You sure, Tommy?” He hears Burp Boy’s friend—Tubs—ask. “They’ve been flocking the playground a lot more now. They can still be there.”

“I’ll kick their asses if they are!” Burp Boy—Tommy—barks. “The playground’s our territory! They’ve got the trees and shit, they can go there.”

“My hou—” Ranboo doesn’t catch the rest of Tub’s sentence, his voice dropping low. Very subtly, so subtle that Ranboo doesn’t notice it, the boy sneaks a glance behind him. He catches sight of the tall boy, and can’t help but feel that the stranger’s eyes are on him and his friend.

“Tommy…” he whispers to his friend, “...behind.”

Ranboo sees the boys incline their heads closer to each other, a sudden change from the loud chatter they were having before. He pushes the questions popping up in his brain and continues to close the distance between them.

Wait, do I have to ask them? Ranboo pauses. It’d be easier if I just quietly followed them, right? I’d have to talk to them before we get to the play-ground, but I don’t wanna do that…

He slows down his steps, just a few feet away from the boys.

Yeah, I’ll just follow them.

But the boys start walking faster, however, so despite Ranboo’s recent decision to just hang back, he picks up the pace once again so he doesn’t lose the boys. The boys weave through the crowd like it was water, and pop out into a side street to Ranboo’s left. He follows shortly afterwards.

But once he’s out of the main street and into a quieter, smaller one, the boys are nowhere to be seen. Ranboo’s panic-o-meter spikes up again.

Wha—they were just here?! The street was covered in the shadows of the buildings looming over it, and save for an old man sitting on a crate, there was nobody there. The boys simply…disappeared.

Ranboo speeds down the street, hoping that he was just being blind for a second and didn’t actually lose them. He passes the old man—who appears to be sleeping—and nearly falls onto his butt when the boys pop out from behind another crate halfway into the dark street.

“Wah!” Ranboo skids to a stop, almost tipping over before the Tubs boy grabs onto his wrist.

“Shh! You’ll wake the old man up,” He whispers loudly, holding onto his wrist until Ranboo rights himself. He slaps both hands over his mouth and looks back at the sleeping man, but he simply shifts in his position and continues snoring.

What does Ranboo say in this situation, thank you? Sorry? How’s your day? He goes with:

“I wasn’t following you.”

“…”

Whyyyy?! That’s exactly what a creeper would say!

“Yeah, and I’m the fucking king of England,” the Tommy boy quips back. “Who the fuck are you?” He’s surprisingly taller than Ranboo, and he has to look up a bit as the boy stares him down.

“You’re not from here,” Tubs adds, and Ranboo feels his blood run colder than it already does. “I’ve never seen you before.”

There’s no way…

“I, uh.” Quick, quick! Say something that isn’t stupid! “New.”

“New?” Tubs echoes. “New what? New in town?”

“Ye—”

“Bullshit.” He’s cut off by Tommy, who squints his eyes as he examines Ranboo with his pointed glare. “The only new people here are those stinkers squatting at the old motel, and you don't smell like one of them.”

“Tommy, that’s not nice," his friend admonishes. "And why do you know how they smell?"

“Who wouldn't?” He scrunches his nose. “They smell like they don’t know what a shower is— bleh!”

Tubs rolls his eyes. “Ignore him, he’s an idiot.” He looks less guarded, but still keeps his distance. “So, why were you really following us?” Tommy stops his grumbling about the new ‘stinkers’ in town, and continues his glare.

Okay, this time say a sentence Ranboo. A sentence.

He takes a deep breath.

“Igotseparatedfrommyfriendsandiwasfreakingoutandwantedtocryreallybadbutididnttheniheardyouguyssayyouweregoingtoaplaygroundandthatswheremyfriendssaidtheyweregoingsoiwantedtofollowyoubutnowthatithinkaboutitthatwasreallycreepyofmeishouldhaveaskedyouforyourhelp and I’m. So. Sorry .”

“...I, didn't understand anything.” Tommy massages the bridge of his nose. “What did he say, Tubbo?”

Tubs (Tubbo?) shrugs, “I only caught that you're lost.”

“Yes! Yes, I’m lost, and they said they were going to the park so—”

“You followed us,” Tubbo finishes, and laughs. “You could’ve asked, we would’ve helped you.”

“I wouldn’t’ve.” Tommy receives an elbow to his stomach and hisses as rubs away the pain.

Ranboo ignores the last statement and clasps his hands tightly in front of his chin. “You would…I-I mean, will?”

“Sure!” Tubbo beams, and Ranboo swears it warms up his cold-blooded body. 

He’s like a sea angel, but a land one. A land angel!

“Tha, thank y-you…” and before he knows it, Ranboo’s sniffling. The smile on Tubbo’s face drops and he and Tommy stand still with panicked faces as he starts to hiccup from the oncoming tears. “Thank y, you so mu-uch…”

“What the fuck,” he hears Tommy whispers, and furiously rubs at his eyes and nose in a pointless attempt to fix his face. “Oh my god Tubbo, you made him cry.”

“I, shut up! No I did not!” Tubbo hurriedly goes to Ranboo and tentatively pats his shoulder, and despite his claim, is giving a thousand apologies a second to the weeping boy. “I— did I actually make you cry? Oh my god, I think I did. I’m sorry—I’m so sorry . Please, uh, please don’t cry, uhm…”

“R, Ranboo…” Ranboo manages to answer in between sobs. He wants to tell them that it’s okay, that they didn’t make him cry. Well, technically they did…but these are happy tears! He didn’t think he’d have such an over-dramatic reaction like this, but he guesses that today’s earlier events were catching up to him emotionally, so the overflowing feelings in his chest were letting themselves out now.

“Ranboo? Stupid name.” And he doesn’t mean to, but Ranboo cries harder, and Tommy clamps his mouth shut.

“Tommy!” 

“I didn’t mean it!” He defends. “I mean I did, but—jeez, sorry! Please, just stop crying!”

“Yeah! We’re both sorry, I’m sorry. So please—” Tubbo’s words are cut off by a tremor. Like, a physical tremor, and all three boys wobble as the ground shakes. Through blurry vision, Ranboo can see both boys in front of him seize up, and he feels Tubbo’s hand on his shoulder tighten.

“Shit!”

“WHAT’RE YA DOIN’ IN MA STREET!” Ranboo jumps at the booming voice. When he turns to look, the sleeping man from before is on his feet, face contorted into a mean scowl. He starts marching over to them, and with each stomp Ranboo swears the earth shudders. “THIS IS MA STREET! MINE!”

“And that’s our cue to LEAVE!” And with that, Tommy books it the other way, Ranboo and Tubbo close behind.

“Why does this keep happening?!” Ranboo yells.

“I don’t know, but just. Keep. Running!”

And for the second time today, Ranboo ran for his life.

Chapter Text

Yes, it seems that I’m a liar. I’ve completely left the dsmp fandom, or whats left of it at least. I might recycle this concept for a future fic, but as of right now this work is completely dropped.

I’ll be deleting this soon. Thanks for sticking around if youre still here, and sorry for the empty promises 😔