Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

RANBOO

Ranboo died on a relatively ordinary Saturday evening in early November. A few days after his seventeenth birthday, actually. There was something poetic about that.

Tommy had enthusiastically invited them over to see a demonstration of his adoptive dad’s latest invention. Apparently, Phil had made a new breakthrough in his chosen field, which was ghost science, for some ungodly reason. Had Ranboo known that seeing this new technology would involve sitting in a plastic folding chair while listening to Phil ramble about his thought process, they probably wouldn’t have agreed to come.

Actually, yes, he would. Tommy would have been devastated if he didn’t. He was one of Ranboo’s only friends, after all. Besides, it beat sitting in his tiny one-bedroom student apartment, procrastinating homework.

Absently, he wondered if his parents knew what they were getting him into when they sent him away to Essempy Park for high school.

In front of Ranboo sat the strangest machine they had ever laid eyes on. It was an octagonal tunnel at least ten feet high and running twice that far into the wall of the basement lab. A tangled mess of cables and wiring ran along the inside of the machine and spilled out into the main lab. Something was sparking. Ranboo wasn’t sure what to make of that.

They shifted awkwardly in their plastic folding chair. Their limbs were too long and lanky for any position to be entirely comfortable.

Tubbo snickered from the seat next to him. “Comfortable, boss man?”

“No,” Ranboo grumbled.

“This is your own fault for being so fucking tall.”

“At least I can reach the top shelf.”

“Fuck you.”

Tubbo wasn’t all that short, really. He was just under average height, stocky, built like a tank. Ranboo was the one that was tall enough to bonk his head on doorways.

Tubbo ran a hand through his messy brown hair. “What d’you think of the new machine? Is it gonna work?”

“No idea,” Ranboo answered honestly.

“Course it is, mate,” Phil chimed in from the other side of the machine. His blue eyes sparkled. “I spent way too long working on it for it to fail on me now.”

Something popped. Another shower of sparks cascaded down the inside of the machine.

Tubbo laughed. “Your calculations are good, sure, but a ghost portal? Not much math supporting you there.”

“Doubting the almighty Philza Minecraft’s knowledge, Tubbo?” Wilbur drawled from where he stood by the stairs, brown curls falling over his round glasses. “Trust me, more math has gone into this thing than I thought existed.”

“I did have to come up with a lot of the math myself,” Phil admitted. “Tubbo’s right about there not being much math about ghosts.”

Tubbo grinned vindictively. “Ha! I knew it!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Phil waved a black-gloved hand dismissively. “Pass me that jar there, Will. Where are the others?”

Wilbur handed him a jar full of toxic green slime. “Upstairs, I presume.”

Phil sighed and glanced at the stairwell. “Oi! Techno! Tommy! Hurry up!”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, dropping into the seat beside Ranboo. “You know full well they can’t hear you. Give them a minute. I’m pretty sure Techno only woke up, like, half an hour ago, and Tommy is Tommy.”

“If he was here,” Tubbo said, “he would cuss you out for that.”

Phil chuckled, turning back to his machine.

Ranboo glanced around the lab. It was always off-limits when he and Tubbo came to visit, and it was easy to see why. Haphazard stacks of boxes and machinery lined the walls. Scattered amongst them were many more jars of mysterious green slime. The only spot clear of mess was a small desk next to the machine, which held stacks of blueprints and a small but mighty laptop.

There were also a concerning number of gadgets that looked far too close to guns for Ranboo’s taste. They elected to ignore those.

The machine let out another shower of sparks. Phil gave a delighted whoop.

“I don’t know, Tommy,” came a gruff voice from the stairs. “Maybe you should ask the genius who built the thing.”

The voice that followed was higher and much more annoying. “No, but hear me out: ectoplasm powers the portal. Ectoplasm comes from ghosts. We’ve never seen a ghost. How the fuck do we get the ectoplasm for the portal?”

Techno strode into the lab, dragging a hand down his face in exasperation. His wire-rim reading glasses hung from the collar of his fencing team T-shirt, long pink hair pulled back in a series of Viking-style braids. Tommy trailed behind him, all bright blue eyes and wild blonde curls.

“It makes no fucking sense!” Tommy insisted.

Techno slumped in the chair next to Wilbur. “Phil, please answer the question before he asks it again.”

“Ambient ectoplasm, Tommy,” Phil explained. “Essempy Park is full of it. That's why we moved here.”

“I have no idea what the fuck that is,” Tommy complained.

“Lots and lots of science and math. Hand these out.” He pressed a box into Tommy’s hands.

If Tommy was known for using his brain, he may have realized that throwing things in a lab full of possibly deadly tech was probably a bad idea. Alas, he was Tommy, so Ranboo ended up getting a pair of goggles directly to the nose.

Ranboo gave Tommy an unimpressed glare. “Ow.”

Tommy cackled. “Try catching them next time, Ranboob.”

“I wouldn’t have had to catch them if you didn’t throw them at me.”

“Tommy, stop being a dick,” Phil chided.

“Yeah, Tommy,” Tubbo mocked, “stop being a dick.”

Tommy, maturely, stuck his tongue out.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Phil herded Tommy towards the chair beside Tubbo. “Goggles down, boys. Will, grab an ectogun from the shelf in case a ghost comes through when it opens.”

“If it opens, you mean,” Techno grumbled.

“Thank you for your optimism, Techno. Everyone ready?”

The group nodded the affirmative.

“Awesome.” Phil grinned. “Scientific breakthrough in three, two, one…”

He flipped a switch on the wall beside the machine.

Absolutely nothing happened.

Phil frowned. “Shit. Come on, this should be working.”

He flicked the switch a few more times. Still nothing.

Ranboo glanced at the other spectators. Tubbo seemed relaxed and unsurprised. Tommy and Wilbur were different shades of disappointed. Techno, oddly enough, looked pleased.

Phil frowned at his blueprints. “I’ll give it another once-over. Must have missed something. Gimme a minute.”

“Take your time, Mr. Minecraft,” Tubbo said, giving a mocking salute.

Tommy copied him. “You got it, Mr. Minecraft.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Phil ordered lightheartedly.

Tubbo and Tommy snickered.

“Well, this is just terrible,” Techno muttered.

Wilbur sighed. “I’m sure he’ll get it in a second.”

Techno rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah, definitely. Just give the giant machine a kick, and ta-dah, portal to the dimension of the undead, which definitely exists.”

Ranboo internally cringed at the tone.

“Hey, Tubbo,” Phil called from inside the machine, “come help me with this.”

Wilbur shook his head as Tubbo scampered over. “Too far, Techno. You can’t expect things like this to work on, what, the second try? Third?”

Techno huffed. “Forgive me for doubting the vast knowledge of the great and powerful Philza Minecraft. I’m sure he has excellent reasons for the amount of time he spends tinkering with this thing.”

The brothers stared at each other for a moment, an entire conversation passing between their eyes.

“It’s for science, Techno,” Phil said, leading Tubbo out of the machine. “Imagine if the ghosts decided they didn’t want to stay where they were. What would we do if they attacked us? How would we defend ourselves if we knew nothing about them?”

Techno huffed. “Yeah, because that’s totally what this is all about.”

Ranboo rubbed the back of his neck, feeling like an intruder on a family matter.

“We can talk more about this later,” Phil decided. “All good on your end, Tubbo?”

Tubbo nodded. “Nothing out of place, as far as I can tell.”

“Great. Take two, everyone. Goggles on, and three, two, one…”

This time, there was a shower of sparks, a thrum of electricity, and then… nothing.

Phil cursed. “Must have miscalculated something. Gimme another minute, I’ll try again.”

He ran a hand through his hair and grabbed a notebook from his stack of blueprints, muttering under his breath.

“Maybe we should call it for today,” Wilbur suggested gently, walking over and resting a hand on Phil’s shoulder. “Surely you can sleep on it and come back tomorrow.”

Phil hesitated for a moment, then sighed heavily. “Yeah, sure, alright. Tommy, can you, Ranboo, and Tubbo put the chairs away for me? I’m gonna go upstairs and order some ramen.”

Tommy saluted. “Sure thing, big man.”

“Remember, no touch-”

“Don’t touch your shit, yeah, we know. We’ll be up in a sec.”

Phil gave him a suspicious look before nodding and herding Techno and Wilbur out of the lab.

“Take too long and I order for you,” Techno called over his shoulder.

Tommy made a face at his retreating back.

The instant the lab doors slid closed, Tommy’s expression turned mischievous.

“You deal with the chairs, Ranboob,” he ordered. “Tubbo, get your shit. I’ll get the suits.”

Ranboo frowned. “Suits? What for?”

“We’re gonna have a look inside it,” Tubbo declared, digging through a pile of boxes.

Ranboo leaned the folding chairs against the wall by the desk. “Didn’t Phil say not to touch anything?”

“Phil doesn’t have to know,” Tommy said. “Besides, Tubbo and I agreed this morning that if it didn’t work, we’d have a look inside and see if we could fix it. Surprise him.”

Tubbo gave a triumphant shout and held up a box full of tools.

“Here you go, big man.” Tommy tossed Ranboo a black and white bundle of fabric.

Ranboo unfolded it, frowning. “What’s this supposed to be?”

“A jumpsuit,” Tommy said, handing Tubbo a green one and fishing out a red one for himself. “It’s like a cross between a hazmat suit and that shit superheroes wear.”

“Will it even fit me?”

“‘Course it will! I asked Phil to make one specifically for you. Told him you were interested in hunting ghosts and he got right to it.”

Ranboo rolled his eyes, tugging the suit on over his clothes. “Oh, yeah, of course. I’m the biggest ghost hunting fan there is.”

“You sure are, boss man.” Tubbo patted him on the back. “C’mon. We’ve got science shit to do.”

The suit was much more comfortable than Ranboo expected. The material was thin but protective, fitted but loose enough to allow a full range of motion. It fit perfectly, too, which was a testament to Phil’s dedication to his craft. It was even split half black and half white to match the mask Ranboo wore at school, with the gloves and boots being inverted.

Ranboo chuckled. At least it was on brand.

“Should I put the goggles back on?” They asked.

Tommy waved a hand dismissively. “Nah. Those were just in case a ghost came through. Phil was worried it’d try to fuckin’ gouge our eyes out or something.”

That sentence was far too casual for Ranboo’s liking. “Aren’t we opening it now? Couldn’t a ghost still come through and do some good ol’ eye-gouging?”

Tommy shrugged. “Probably not.”

Tubbo rolled his eyes. “We’re not actually gonna open it, boss man. Just look around and fix anything out of place. Relax.” He reached up to pat Ranboo’s shoulder. “Besides, if it opens while we’re in there, our eyes being gouged out will be the least of our worries!”

Ranboo gave him an unimpressed look. “You do realize this is a portal to the dimension of the undead, not some science fair project, right?”

Tubbo laughed. “We’ll be fine, boss man.”

Tommy hefted a large metal cylinder almost the same height as Tubbo over his shoulder. “But if anything does come through, we’ll have the Tomzooka to help us out, designed by yours truly.”

Tubbo gaped at him. “You made a gun? That is so not fair. I want a gun. That’s a shit name, though.”

“Excuse you, Bee Boy, the name is perfect, and this is not just any gun. This, my friends, is a ghost gun! Harmless to people, deadly to ghosts. Phil helped me make it.”

He cradled the Tomzooka like it was his first-born child. It took all of Ranboo’s effort not to laugh.

Tubbo cocked his head. “D’you think Phil would help me make one, too?”

“A hundred percent, man. Just tell him you’re interested in protecting yourself from ghosts. He’ll get right on it.”

Tubbo’s eyes glittered with many dangerous possibilities.

“Remind me not to come within ten feet of you ever again,” Ranboo said.

Tommy set the Tomzooka next to the machine within easy grabbing distance. “You boys ready?”

Tubbo shook his box of tools. “Got all my shit.”

Ranboo nodded tentatively.

Tommy grinned. “Into the machine we go!”

The inside of the machine was much more intimidating than the outside. The fluorescent light from the lab barely reached more than a few feet in. Ranboo could only see what little was illuminated by the beam of Tubbo’s flashlight and the various tiny running lights on the walls. In the shadows, the masses of cables looked like the bodies of millions of snakes, ready to drop onto Ranboo’s head and unleash several million volts of electricity into his brain. The air was crisp and smelled of ozone.

Ranboo gulped. Unease settled heavy and solid in his gut. Something was very, very wrong here.

Tubbo and Tommy were unmoved by Ranboo’s concern. They strolled along confidently, poking at cables and metal plates.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Tubbo knew what he was doing, and Tommy may be reckless, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. Everything would be fine.

Right?

There was a pop and a shower of sparks.

“Don’t touch that,” Tubbo said.

Great. That was reassuring.

“How did Phil even build this?” Ranboo asked to keep their mind off things. “It looks like something out of a movie.”

“He’s been working on it for years, apparently,” Tommy said. “Made a smaller prototype a while back. That one zapped a kid in the face. They were fine eventually, but it must have spooked Phil pretty bad because he only decided to try again recently. Said something about it working for a few seconds before the kid got zapped and the smaller size being more volatile or some shit like that.”

Tubbo whistled. “Damn. Any clue who the kid was?”

“No idea. It was before I got here. Phil said they were twelve-ish when it happened, so they’d be Techno’s age now. Unless they got, like, super-cancer or something. I don’t know what the side effects of getting zapped with a ghost portal are.”

Ranboo raised an eyebrow. “So you’re aware that what we’re doing is dangerous, then?”

Tommy grinned. “Only if we knock something, which we won’t.”

There was another shower of sparks.

“You knocked something,” Tubbo scolded.

“Fuck off, Bee Boy.”

“Thanks,” Ranboo drawled. “You guys are making me feel real safe in here.”

A few feet down the machine, there was a small control panel set into the opposite wall. Ranboo frowned and wandered over to it.

The panel was a fairly simple one. There was only a switch, a green ON light, and a red OFF light. Someone, probably Phil, had flicked the switch to ON, but the OFF button was lit up instead.

Ranboo glanced back at Tubbo. “Is it supposed to be like this?”

Tubbo came up beside him, squinting at the lights. “What’s up with that?”

“It, uh, it's switched on, but OFF light is lit up. Could that be why it doesn’t work?”

“Probably just a wiring issue with the lights.” He turned back to Tommy. “Anything funky back there?”

“All good, as far as I can see,” Tommy replied.

Tubbo hummed. He jabbed his thumb against the switch, turning it to OFF, and headed back over to Tommy. Ranboo followed.

Behind them, the ON light flickered to life.

“Oh, that did something,” Tommy noticed. “What did you do?”

Tubbo waved a hand at the switch. “Turned it off. Didn’t want it coming on while we’re in here.”

“Ah, good call. Anyway, when you did that, this little light came on here. See?”

Ranboo tuned out their discussion. Something in the machine felt… off. Different, somehow. There was a spark in the air, a buzzing, a pressure that wasn’t there before.

Something clicked. Tubbo and Tommy exchanged confused glances.

The buzzing grew to a roar.

Ranboo didn’t think. He grabbed Tommy and Tubbo by their shoulders and shoved them out of the machine. They yelped, landing harshly on the lab floor, but he didn’t have the mind to care.

To the world, it was a few seconds. To Ranboo, it was an eternity.

The portal crackled to life. Millions of volts cascaded through the walls, through his hand against the metal, through his skin and blood and brain. Every muscle in his body tensed rapidly, pulling him in a thousand different directions, white-hot with pain. His skull was ready to burst. Needles stabbed at his nerves. His bones cracked. His blood bubbled and boiled. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.

They screamed. It was involuntary and forceful, torn from ragged lungs, cut off just as abruptly as it had begun. It stole the last of their breath, leaving their chest to constrict around nothing. Their pulse fluttered weakly in their ears.

They were frozen. Burning. Numb. In agony.

Something pulsed in his chest. A burst of cold spread through his crackling nerves. It was relief, just for a moment, just a fraction of a second of something other than burning pain. As soon as it arrived, it was gone again.

Except it wasn’t. They could still feel it coiled up in their chest, buried and muted. It purred and hissed and screamed at them, whispering promises of relief, of an end, of something more. They just had to hold it.

He dug through the pain, clawing at his chest, grasping desperately for the comfort of the cold. Another pulse of frost raced through his body. Again, it withdrew back into his chest, and again he reached for it. It was easier to find this time, thrumming somewhere right beside his heart.

There was a tugging from the center of their being. It was strange, unnatural, but they were in pain and desperate for relief, so they pulled and stretched and clawed at it until it snapped and exploded outwards. Biting cold washed through their whole body. The ice encompassed them, welcomed them, and they embraced it readily.

With the cold came a new power, a deep-seated strength that ran through his veins. Suddenly, he was weightless, beyond gravity, beyond any connections to the world.

For the briefest second, he could think. Could see the roiling green space that surrounded him. Could see the floor at his feet and the wall against his hand. The space around him pulsed and wavered, swirling from a gateway before him, an exit.

They took a step towards it.

The pain was back, the electricity seizing their limbs, locking them in place. They nearly cried out, but there was no more breath in their lungs to do so.

There was another thrum from that cold place beside his heart.

His Core. That was his Core.

His Core would help him. It would protect him. It had to. It had made him.

It pulsed again, carrying with it a new wave of strength and a promise to get them out. They reached inwards, grabbed it, and pulled it forward with everything they had.

TOMMY

On the other side of the portal, Tommy didn’t know what to do.

What could he do, really? One minute the three of them were casually poking around a new invention, and the next he and Tubbo were on the lab floor while Ranboo screamed from inside.

Tubbo cradled his shoulder as he got up, staring at the portal with wide eyes.

Ranboo was inside of that.

The scream was a few seconds at most, but it was sharp and ear-piercing and filled with pain and torment. It rattled around Tommy’s skull. He flinched, covering his ears. It did little to block the sound.

Ranboo made that noise. Ranboo was the source of the smell of burning flesh. Ranboo was in there, trapped, in so much pain that all they could do was scream.

What the fuck was Tommy supposed to do?

The scream’s abrupt, strangled cut-off jolted Tommy to action. His ankle flared with pain as he stood, but he ignored it.

“Unplug it, Tubbo!” He yelled.

Tubbo didn’t move from where he was gaping at the portal.

“Tubbo, come on!” Tommy shook him by the shoulder. “We have to do something! Is there another off button somewhere?”

Tubbo’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly. “It’s… it’s self-sustaining…”

“What?”

“It won’t- we can’t just- Phil said he made it so once it was on, it would stay on, even if the power went out.”

Tommy’s heart raced. “Surely he heard the- the scream, right?” His voice broke. “They must be on their way down right now. We can get him out! There’s still time!”

Tubbo shook his head. “The lab’s soundproof, Tommy. They wouldn’t have heard anything. It’s too late.”

“But- we have to get Phil. He’ll know what to do, he… he can help us. He always helps us.” The words felt flimsy even to his own ears.

In that moment, standing in front of the portal, they were just kids again. Kids who had messed up so badly they had no idea how to fix it, no idea if they even could.

The portal was a swirling void of electric greens. There was nothing beyond it, as far as they could see, just ever-moving emerald blobs. It was a technological marvel, as beautiful and powerful as any god or deity, and it was the most terrifying thing Tommy had ever seen.

A blue-white light flashed from somewhere beyond the portal’s entrance.

Tommy’s grip on Tubbo’s arm tightened. “Holy shit. Tubbo, back up.”

The light flashed again, brighter this time. Closer.

“Tubbo, get back!”

One more flash, so bright it was blinding, then a swirl of purple, and silence.

Crumpled in front of them was a human-shaped creature, smoking, twitching, spasming on the floor. It was hunched in on itself, but clearly taller than both Tubbo and Tommy. Two small horns poked out from its black and white split hair. Its hands were clawed and leathery. Sparks of red and green ectoenergy crackled over its body.

A ghost.

Fuck.

Tubbo gasped. “Tommy, what the fuck is that?”

“Get back,” Tommy ordered. “You don’t know what it could do to you.”

The creature made a strangled coughing sound and clutched at its chest. Sharp teeth cut into its lips. Its eyes were screwed shut. It wore a black and white jumpsuit like Ran- like his. Like it knew what had just happened, that what Tommy wanted most in the world was for his friend to be okay.

Tommy clenched his jaw. How dare this- this thing try to mimic his best friend? How dare it wear Ranboo’s colours to garner sympathy?

Fuck that. Fuck everything about it.

Tommy snatched his Tomzooka from where it sat nearby, pointing it at the creature as steadily as his trembling hands would allow.

“H-hey, ghost.” He tried to sound forceful. He didn’t quite manage it. “What, what do you- if you don’t, I’ll…” He swallowed. “Why are you here, and what the fuck did you do with Ranboo?”

The ghost coughed again.

Tommy gritted his teeth. “This gun was designed to kill ghosts. If you don’t tell us where they are, I’ll shoot.”

The ghost’s eyes fluttered open. They were mismatched red and green, pupils long and sharp. They widened in fear when it saw the gun pointed at its head.

Tommy steeled himself. Ghosts were evil. They were mimics, not people. They didn’t have actual feelings. This thing wasn’t scared. It couldn’t be.

But why did those eyes look so damn familiar?

The ghost made another strangled sound, limbs twitching and spasming with shocks as it tried to scramble backwards away from the Tomzooka. One of its arms passed through the floor as if it simply wasn’t there. The ghost made a series of panicked rasping sounds as it yanked its arm out of the ground.

There was an odd echo in the ghost’s voice. It was staticky, like it was trying to speak from a distant radio channel. One of the rasping noises sounded very close to the word guys. The ghost’s tone was pleading.

It was just pretending for sympathy, Tommy knew, but he still found it unnerving. He kept his Tomzooka trained on the ghost. With a whirr, ectoenergy built in the barrel.

Tubbo shoved the gun upwards just as it discharged. The shot burned a black circle into the lab ceiling.

“Tommy, wait!” Tubbo shouted. “Just- just wait a second, alright?”

Tommy aimed the Tomzooka at the ghost again. Tubbo jumped in front of it.

“This isn’t the time, Tubbo,” Tommy hissed through gritted teeth. “Ghosts are slippery fuckers. We have to get this one before it gets away! Do you know what this bitch could do if it got loose in town? It could kill someone! Multiple someones! Have you listened to anything Phil said?”

He tried to step around Tubbo. Tubbo didn’t let him.

“Shut the fuck up, Tommy!” Tubbo snapped. “Look at him for a minute! Do you really think that thing has the energy to hurt anyone?”

“It’s just mimicking you. It’s not actually hurt or scared. It wants you to sympathize with it. Get out of the way!”

“No! I know what I’m doing. Give me two minutes to talk to him, okay? If that doesn’t work, then you can shoot him. Just let me try.”

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Tommy groaned. “Fuck. Fine. But if I think anything is gonna go sideways, I shoot. I already lost one friend-” His voice broke. “It’s wearing his colours, Tubbo.”

Tubbo’s expression softened. “I know. I just- I wanna ask.”

Tommy nodded. “Okay.”

The ghost watched warily as Tubbo approached.

“Hey,” Tubbo said gently, kneeling in front of it. “It’s okay. He’s not gonna shoot, I promise.”

The ghost gestured between its throat and the portal. Toxic green tears welled in its eyes.

“Our friend was in there,” Tubbo said. His voice was rough. “Ranboo. They- you’re wearing the same jumpsuit. Do you, uh, do you know what- what happened to them?”

The ghost tapped its chest, nodding frantically. “I- ‘e, Tub-” The rest of the sentence died in its throat. Tears of frustration dripped down its cheeks.

Tubbo’s eyes widened. “Holy shit, Ranboo. Fuck- Tommy, drop the gun. Now.”

Tommy stood frozen, arms locked with the Tomzooka pointed at the ghost’s face. Was it- that wasn’t- could it be-?

“Drop it!” Tubbo ordered.

The metal hit the ground with a clang, too loud in the heavy silence of the lab.

“Ranboo?” Tommy whispered, a rebellious glimmer of hope creeping into his voice.

The ghost nodded once more. “H-hey, Tommy.”

Tommy crumpled to his knees.

This wasn’t Ranboo. It couldn’t be. It was just an elaborate trick, a lie, a trap by a vengeful ghost. Any second now, it would attack.

But it didn’t. It didn’t lunge as Tubbo rested a hand on its shoulder. There were no blasts of energy as Tommy crawled closer. No snarling or mauling as he pulled his friend in and held on as tightly as he could.

Ranboo was ice cold to the touch. His hair floated around his head like he was underwater. His limbs twitched with aftershocks of electricity.

Tommy didn’t care, and neither, it seemed, did Tubbo. They hugged him close, fingers twisted in the black and white of his jumpsuit.

Tommy waited to wake up. He waited for his alarm to go off, to pull him from this horrible dream, to open his eyes and be back to this morning.

But he didn’t. This was reality. This was real.

He blew out a shaky breath. “Fuck, Ranboo, you’re… you’re actually-”

Ranboo shook their head, clutching him tighter.

Then, suddenly, a tingling cold passed over him, and he and Tubbo fell right through Ranboo like he wasn’t there at all. Tommy immediately leapt to his feet, stumbling as his injured ankle rolled painfully.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

Ranboo broke it with a staticky, echoing sob. “No. No, this isn’t- this isn’t happening.”

Their form flickered in and out of visibility.

“Did you just- was that intangibility?” Tubbo’s voice shook. “Phil said ghosts can do that but… I didn’t think-”

“It wasn’t- I’m not.” Ranboo ran his hands through his hair. “I’m not a ghost. I’m not dead.”

Tubbo placed a hesitant hand on their shoulder. Thankfully, it didn’t pass through this time. “Hey, hey, you’re alright. We’ll figure this out, boss man, we’ll- we can… I don’t know what we can do, but we’ll figure this out together, okay?”

“Figure this out?” Tommy spluttered. “What is there to figure out? He’s a ghost! He’s fuckin’ dead! How the fuck do we fix that?”

Tubbo’s hand slipped through Ranboo’s shoulder. Ranboo whimpered.

“We just will, Tommy,” Tubbo insisted.

Tommy scoffed. “They’re dead, Tubbo! You can’t fix that! They died and they're a ghost and there’s probably a b-” His voice broke. “He’s dead. That’s his ghost. He- his body… his fucking body is still in there. We have to get Phil. This… this is so fucked up.”

Ranboo’s hands clenched into fists in their hair.

Tubbo shook his head. “We can’t- we can’t get Phil, he’d… he’d kill- he’d shoot Ranboo. You know what he thinks about ghosts.”

Ripples of red and green energy rolled over Ranboo’s fingers.

Tommy glanced at the entrance to the lab. “They’re gonna wonder what’s taking so long… What do we do? How are we even supposed to get the body?”

Tubbo bit his lip. “What if we just… left it? A portal opened on it. Maybe it’s just… in there. Then we don’t- we can leave it, right?” He glanced at the portal. “We can’t- we can’t go in there. We don’t have anywhere else to put it. Maybe this is the best option.”

The air in the lab grew frosty.

Tommy shook his head. “Phil will find it once he starts his expeditions. Fuck- what the fuck do we do with a body?”

Ranboo yelled, rushing to his feet. A shockwave of red and green pushed Tubbo and Tommy away from him.

“There is no body!” Ranboo snapped. “I’m not dead! I’m not. I’m right here, aren’t I? I’m not dead. There’s no body because I’m not dead and I’m not a ghost.”

Their words echoed, distorted and staticky, in Tommy’s skull. He winced and rubbed his hands over his ears.

“Ranboo…” Tubbo began.

“I’m not a ghost,” Ranboo insisted. They curled in on themself, their feet drifting a few inches above the floor. They didn’t seem to notice. “I’m- I don’t want this. I’m not a ghost. I’m not! I’m a human!”

A blinding blue-white ring of light sparked to life around his stomach. The ring split in two, travelling over his body. The jumpsuit vanished, leaving him in his jeans and T-shirt, looking miraculously like his living self.

He dropped back to the floor, breathing harshly. It was only then that Tommy realized Ranboo hadn’t been breathing before.

Fuck. Ranboo hadn’t been breathing.

Tubbo took a tentative step forward. “Ranboo? Ranboo, what the fuck?”

Ranboo stared at their arms. They looked just as shocked as Tommy felt.

Tommy swallowed. “Ranboo, seriously, what the fuck was that? How did you-?”

Ranboo’s laugh verged on hysterical. “See? I’m human! No problem! I’m, uh, I’m gonna go home now. Thanks for having me.” He smiled, though it came off more like a grimace.

Tommy and Tubbo exchanged a look.

“Ranboo, no,” Tubbo said. “You’re not- we need to figure this out. You can’t just go home! You’re not…”

“You’re not human, Ranboo,” Tommy finished. “Look, I don’t- I have no idea what the fuck just happened, but, Ranboo, you aren’t- this isn’t something you can just fucking brush off!”

Ranboo’s eyes flashed red and green. Tommy flinched.

“I’m right here, aren’t I?” Ranboo spread his arms. “Flesh and, and bones, and breathing, and… I’m going home. That was just- just a hallucination. There’s probably a gas leak in here. You should, uh, should really get Phil to look at it. Anyway, I’m gonna… I’m heading out. I’ll see you at school on Monday.”

Tubbo stepped in front of them. “Ranboo, wait-”

Ranboo walked right through him. They froze for a moment, eyes welling with tears, but they blinked them away and kept going.

Tubbo turned around. “Ranboo, please, we’re worried about you. We just want to know what’s happening.”

“Nothing is happening, Tubbo,” Ranboo bit out. “There was a minor accident and you- we got a little shaken up, that’s it. Just… get some rest, and I- it’ll be fine. Everything’s totally… fine…”

He stumbled, eyelids fluttering, and collapsed to the ground.

Tommy rushed over. Hesitantly, he placed his fingers against Ranboo’s neck.

Ranboo’s skin was warm. A faint pulse thrummed beneath it. Slow, yes, but there.

“Fuck, he’s bleeding,” Tubbo muttered, hands hovering over the bite marks on Ranboo’s lips. “I can’t- this is too much. We need Phil. Will he- I mean, they look human enough, right? Phil won’t… hurt them?”

They exchanged conflicted glances.

“They have a pulse,” Tommy said. “Hopefully that should… be enough to convince him.”

Tubbo nodded. “I’ll get him. You, uh, you stay here, okay? Make sure they stay… corporeal.”

Tommy didn’t respond, watching Tubbo’s back as he raced up the stairs and out of the lab.

Chapter Text

WILBUR

“That’s great, Tommy,” Phil said from where he stood beside the couch, “but I need one of you to tell me what actually happened so I can figure out if we’re going to the hospital or not.”

“That is what happened,” Tommy insisted. “We were looking around, knocked something loose or some shit, and he pulled us out just as it started up. We fell, and he, like, passed out, and we couldn’t get him upstairs, so we got you. That’s all that happened. I swear. Back me up here, Tubbo.”

Tubbo nodded. “It’s true. We just wanted to have a look around, see if we could figure out what was fucking it up, y’know?” He stared at the floor. “Something made it work again, Ranboo noticed, and they got us out.”

Wilbur frowned, holding an ice pack against Tommy’s ankle. They were withholding something, he was certain, but he didn’t know what.

Phil sighed. “I still don’t believe you, but I’ll trust you for now. Will, how’s his ankle looking? Hospital-worthy?”

Wilbur adjusted the ice pack. “Doesn’t seem broken. I think he would be complaining a lot more if it was. Maybe worth an x-ray, but I’m betting it’s just a sprain. Tubbo’s shoulder is mostly fine, too, just a bit bruised.” His eyes flicked to the couch, where Techno was tending to Ranboo’s split lip. “Definitely hospital for that one, though. They've been out for a while. I’m worried about a concussion.”

“Me, too,” Phil agreed. “I’ll move some stuff around in the RV, see if we can make space for him.”

Tubbo’s eyes widened. “Wait, you’re actually gonna take him to a hospital?”

Wilbur raised his eyebrows at the panicked tone. Tommy’s pale face showed a similar level of worry.

“Yes?” Phil said incredulously. “Why wouldn’t we? They could have a concussion. We need to get them checked out.”

Tubbo and Tommy exchanged a tense look.

“Well,” Tubbo began, “they, uh, they-”

He was cut off by a yelp from Techno as Ranboo shot up and nearly smashed his forehead against Techno’s nose.

“Hey, hey!” Techno reached his hands out placatingly. “Ranboo, it’s alright. Calm down. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

Ranboo curled himself up in the corner of the couch, patting himself down with shaking hands. Wilbur could have sworn they passed right through the couch a few times, but that was impossible, so he chalked it up to perspective.

“Ranboo, come on, you’re okay,” Techno said, awkwardly trying to calm him down. It didn’t seem to be working. “Uh, Phil, some help here would be good.”

Tubbo was across the room and in front of Ranboo before Wilbur had time to blink. “Ranboo, look at me. You’re safe. You’re alive. We’re okay.”

Tommy wasn’t far behind, gripping Ranboo’s shoulder like he might float away. “It’s okay, Ranboo, calm down.”

Wilbur and Techno exchanged a glance. That was weird, right? Something was very wrong here.

Something bright and vibrant flashed in Ranboo’s eyes, but it was gone in an instant. He blinked, focussing on Tubbo, then Tommy, then everyone else in the room, then down at his own hands.

“What happened?” They mumbled.

Tommy’s grip tightened. “You passed out after getting us out of the portal. You bit your lip when you fell. Sorry about that, by the way. We had to get Techno to carry you upstairs.”

Ranboo frowned. “I didn’t… did that not…”

Tubbo whispered something unintelligible.

Ranboo’s frown deepened. “What- but I, uh-”

“Hey, Ranboo.” Phil walked over, a comforting smile on his face, and raised a hand. “How many fingers?”

Ranboo glanced up at him. “Two.”

“What’s your full name?”

“Ranboo Beloved.”

“Where do you live?”

“Essempy Park.”

Phil released a heavy breath. “Good. How’re you feeling? Any dizziness? Nausea?”

Ranboo shook his head, confusion written all over his face.

Phil hummed. “Well, you somehow don’t have a concussion. I think we can hold off on the hospital visit for the time being. But if you feel any sort of headache or nausea or something like that, you tell one of the boys to come get me, alright?” He placed a hand on Ranboo’s shoulder and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Wow, mate, you’re freezing. Why don’t the three of you head up to Tommy’s room? I’ll bring a blanket. Techno, can you help Tommy up the stairs?”

Techno stood, eyes flicking between Wilbur and the trio on the couch. “Uh, sure. What about dinner?”

“I can bring theirs up for them,” Wilbur volunteered. “I’ll grab a blanket on the way up, too.”

Phil nodded. “Alright. I’m gonna go check on things downstairs, then. Don’t wait for me.”

Wilbur pretended not to notice Techno’s glare at Phil’s retreating back.

RANBOO

Tommy, being Tommy, refused Techno’s offer to carry him upstairs, making the trip awkward and slow. He made it, though, after no minor struggle and doubtlessly more pain than was necessary.

“Should’ve let him carry you, boss man,” Tubbo laughed. “Would have been so much easier.”

“Fuck you,” Tommy mumbled from where he lay facedown on his bed. “I’m making it out of today with at least some dignity. ‘Sides, the bastard would have just tossed me over his shoulder. Not exactly less painful, if you ask me.”

Techno shrugged unapologetically. “It would’ve been faster.”

Tommy flipped him off.

Techno chuckled. “Enjoy your secret meetin’, then. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, arranging three bowls on the corner of Tommy’s desk. “It's up to you to decide who gets what. Techno ordered for you. If you want more, there are extras downstairs. One of us can bring it up for you.” He closed the door on his way out.

A heavy, stifling silence settled over the room.

Ranboo rubbed their chest. They could still feel their Core coiled up ice cold in their chest, but their heart was beating, too. They breathed. Their blood was warm. They were alive.

They were.

Tommy’s room was as messy as ever, grey bedsheets rumpled and piles of dirty laundry scattered across the floor. Various trinkets, trophies, and participation awards lined the shelves in the corner, along with a framed photo of Tommy on his first birthday after he’d been officially adopted.

The room usually felt homely and inviting. Now, though, Ranboo felt like an alien. An outsider. He didn’t belong here, didn’t fit. It wasn’t right.

But he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t . He couldn’t be.

After an eternity of silence, Tubbo coughed. “We have to talk about it, don’t we?”

Ranboo winced. “Do we really? I mean, maybe it was all just a hallucination. You said I passed out. Maybe you guys did, too.”

The words felt weak even to their own ears.

Tommy sighed, rolling over onto his back. “Honestly, I have no fuckin’ clue what even happened down there. But… it wasn’t a hallucination, Ranboo. You were- you fully- you were a ghost, man. You, like, walked through us like we weren’t even there. That isn’t something you can just gloss over.”

“I’m with Tommy on this one, boss man,” Tubbo agreed. “That was… I just- how do we even approach this? You were a ghost, glowing and floating and everything, and then you just… weren’t.” He frowned, glancing at Tommy. “Could that be some ghost power? The ability to blend in with people?”

Tommy shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. From what Phil’s told me, death is kinda just, like, once you’re dead, you’re either gone off to wherever you go, or your consciousness becomes a- an ectoplasmic entity. A ghost. I’d think Ranboo’s just a really human-looking ghost, but…” He turned to Ranboo. “Your heart is beating. I checked. Really slowly, yeah, but it’s still going. A ghost wouldn’t even have a heart to beat.”

Ranboo shrunk under the weight of Tommy’s gaze. They felt trapped, pinned against the wall behind them, being prodded for answers they didn’t have.

Their Core flared. Frost bristled along their skin. Tubbo and Tommy immediately stiffened, eyes flicking around the room.

“Ranboo?” Tubbo asked tentatively.

Ranboo frowned. “What?”

Neither of them met his eyes.

“Guys? What’s wrong?”

“Ranboo…” Tommy swallowed. “Ranboo, buddy, you’re invisible.”

Ice settled in his gut. He stared down at - or rather, through - his hands, right to the floor below his transparent feet.

Tears burned their eyes. Their breath caught in their throat.

Tubbo reached a hand in their general direction. He probably meant it to be comforting, but the way it came nowhere close to actually touching them just made them feel worse.

“It’s alright, Ranboo,” Tubbo soothed. “We’ll fix this. Just- just calm down, okay? You can control it.”

Ranboo shook his head. “No, I can’t- I don’t know…”

“You can. Just… you gotta focus. Remember how you changed back in the lab? Try, uh, try that again, I think. If you can.”

Ranboo squeezed his eyes shut, taking a deep breath. Warm. He needed to be warm. The cold slipped through his fingers as he tried to push it back, drifting around him like mist. His tears made little dark spots on the carpet.

They choked on a sob. “I can’t do it, it won’t- I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“It’s alright,” Tubbo reassured them. “Try again. You’ll get it. One more try, then we can think of something else, okay?”

Ranboo dug his fingers into his chest. There - right next to his heart - his Core hummed, feeding thin wisps of cold into his body. He reached for it and pulled, sucking the mist back into his chest, letting the warmth rush back over his skin.

“That’s it, boss man,” Tubbo encouraged. “You’re doing it.”

Ranboo opened their eyes and inspected their hands. They flickered slightly, like the signal on their existence was shot, but they were visible.

Tubbo grinned, reaching out. “There you go. See? You’ve got this completely-”

His hand went right through Ranboo’s shoulder. Tubbo winced. Ranboo whimpered.

“Fuckin’ shit,” Tommy muttered, sitting up on the bed. “Ranboo, you gotta calm down, man. Phil said ghosts are, like, driven by emotions or some shit. You being anxious is making it act up. I just- it’s alright. I know it’s scary, but you, uh, you gotta try.”

“I don’t want to try, Tommy!” Ranboo snapped. “I want to go home and sleep all of this off and go to school on Monday like I did yesterday. No ghosts. No- no dying. No passing through people. Just a normal teenager going to school.”

Tommy’s face contorted into a scowl. “You fuckin’ can’t, Ranboo! You died. Died . You can’t keep brushing this off. What if your human look is just a phase? What if it goes away? What if you fall through the ground in math class one day? Then what?” His voice broke. “What if Phil sees you with your fucked-up little ghost powers and shoots you in the face? Can’t fuckin’ sleep that off, Ranboo. Face it. You’re dead. You’re never gonna be normal again.”

Ranboo was at full height in an instant. His Core flared. His eyes flashed red and green. The temperature in the room plummeted.

“I’m going home,” he said tightly.

He was gone before either of them could respond.

Chapter Text

WILBUR

Wilbur glanced up from his ramen to see Ranboo standing in the kitchen doorway, hands shaking and tear tracks drying on his cheeks.

Wilbur set down his bowl. “Ranboo? Are you okay?”

Ranboo shuffled their feet. “Uh, can you give me a ride home? I… kinda want to leave. Like, now.”

Wilbur gave Ranboo a once-over. His shoulders slumped twice as much as they usually did. His skin was pale and sallow. He stared blankly at the floor, eyes dark and conflicted.

On one hand, they probably had a concussion and really shouldn’t be alone right now, just in case. On the other, they clearly needed space to process their emotional distress.

“Yeah, alright,” Wilbur said softly. “Go grab your stuff. I’ll meet you at the door in a minute.”

Ranboo nodded and left.

Wilbur’s first instinct was to let Phil know where he was going. Except Phil was in the basement, and God knows it’s impossible to get Phil’s full attention while he’s in the basement.

So Wilbur stuck his head into Techno’s room instead.

“I’m taking Ranboo home,” he said.

Techno gave him a long look over his reading glasses before grabbing his car keys and tossing them to Wilbur. “Alright. Sure.”

Wilbur frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Go play chauffeur.”

Wilbur sighed, leaning against the doorframe. “Look, I know they might have a head injury, and Phil should really look them over first, but-”

“But he’s in the basement. Like usual.”

“Yeah.”

Techno huffed, going back to his book.

Wilbur pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t like fighting with you, Techno, but can you at least pretend to hear him out? Look on the bright side. This is a huge scientific breakthrough.”

Techno scoffed. “Yeah, so dear old Dad can spend more time with his dead family than with his living one.”

Wilbur’s jaw clenched. “I’m taking Ranboo home. We can talk about this later.”

Techno waved him off. “Sure we will.”

Ranboo was waiting by the front door, fidgeting with the hem of the new black and white hoodie Tommy had gotten him for his birthday. His eyes were wide and glued to the lab stairs. He looked more like a tired, overgrown child than the seventeen-year-old he was.

“You ready to go?” Wilbur asked gently.

Ranboo blinked at him, startled, like Wilbur had caught them doing something they shouldn’t. “Huh? Oh. Uh, yeah, I’m ready.”

They didn’t look it, but Wilbur didn’t push. “Okay. Let’s head out, then.”

The brisk November air seemed colder than usual. Wilbur turned the heat up in the car.

They drove in silence for a while. Ranboo stared distantly out the window. Sluggish tears dripped down his face.

“Have you eaten anything?” Wilbur asked eventually. “You left pretty quickly.”

Ranboo’s eyes flicked to him, then down to their hands. “I, uh… well, we got a bit distracted, and then I just wanted to go home…”

Wilbur hummed. “Did you guys get in a fight? I heard shouting.”

Ranboo flinched. “No, no, nothing like that, just- I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No worries. Do you want to stop at a drive-thru and get a burger or something? You’re probably hungry.”

Ranboo visibly hesitated.

“I can pay,” Wilbur added.

“If it’s not too much trouble…”

“It isn’t.”

Ranboo nodded and turned back to the window. His eyes were distant, vacant, unfocussed. Whatever happened tonight was clearly affecting him more than he was letting on.

There were thin, barely-visible marks like lightning bolts travelling across their palm and under their jacket sleeve.  Had those always been there? Wilbur hadn’t noticed them before. But then, they were faint. Maybe Wilbur just hadn’t been looking very hard.

The drive-thru was surprisingly empty for dinner time on a Saturday. In no time at all, the worker was handing Wilbur a warm paper bag and wishing him a good evening.

Wilbur nudged Ranboo’s shoulder with the bag of food. “Hey, Ranboo, could you hold this, please?”

Ranboo blinked, nodded, and reached out to take it. The bag slipped right through his fingers and landed on its side on the center console with a crinkly crashing sound. He stared at it for a moment, then his eyes screwed up and he punched the car door in bitter frustration.

Okay. They needed to have this conversation while Wilbur wasn’t focussed on driving.

Wilbur pulled into a parking spot at the back of the lot while Ranboo gingerly picked up their food and set it on their lap.

For a while, they ate in silence, Wilbur munching on fries and Ranboo taking halfhearted bites of his burger like it tasted like ash.

“So,” Wilbur began, voice soft and unthreatening, “do you want to tell me what’s going on with you?”

Ranboo’s head whipped around so fast Wilbur thought they might get whiplash, eyes wide with panicked shock.

“I don’t need to know the details,” Wilbur hurriedly reassured them. “But it’s not good to keep everything bottled up all the time. Techno does that, and look where it landed him.”

The joke did little to ease the tension in the air.

Wilbur set down his fries. “Look, you don’t have to talk, and you certainly don’t have to tell me everything, but if you want to, I’m happy to listen.”

Ranboo stared intently at his burger for a long moment.

“Wilbur,” he finally asked, “how do you feel about ghosts?”

Wilbur blinked. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it hadn’t been that. “I’m not sure. Why?”

Ranboo shifted in their seat. “I mean, well, Phil made that- y’know, and then it didn’t work, and I was just, uh, just wondering… what you thought.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Wilbur soothed. “Ghosts are… a bit of a touchy subject in the Minecraft household at the moment, especially with Techno. Phil’s dedicated pretty much his entire life to proving that they’re real. We get laughed at all the time. You’ve seen it. The power bill is through the roof. And Techno and Tommy and I… we miss him. We want our dad back.

“I don’t know how much Tommy’s told you about Kristin - Phil’s wife, our mom - but she died in a car crash a few years after he was adopted. She was the best, y’know? Sweet, kind, supportive. Phil’s ghost obsession was way more manageable before the accident, but after… I think Phil just threw himself into his work. I can’t blame him, really. It was hard on all of us. Techno, though, somehow got it in his head that Phil wants ghosts to be real so he can get Kristin back.”

Ranboo frowned. “But he keeps talking about- about fighting ghosts. He makes guns.”

“Exactly. I can’t say Techno’s entirely wrong, but he’s definitely not entirely right, either.” Wilbur drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “Phil’s never even seen a ghost. Techno and I have been talking to him, trying to get him to dial it back a little. It’s kinda been working. Now that the portal’s open, though, things are gonna take a sharp turn for the worse.”

Ranboo bit his lip. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Wilbur shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen one. Techno definitely doesn’t believe in them. We know ectoplasm is real, though, and I’m not sure how to explain that. Maybe there’s just something we’re missing.”

Ranboo stared at his hands. “What if… what would you do if ghosts were real?”

“That would depend on what the ghosts were doing, I guess. If they were fighting us, like Phil claims they would, then I’d probably put that ectogun training Phil made us do to good use. If he really is looking for Kristin… I don’t know. She’s been dead for a long time. Techno would be livid. I- yeah. I don’t know. Why?”

Ranboo polished off the last of their burger. They fidgeted with a napkin for a long moment.

“We, uh… we had a fight,” he said eventually. “Me and Tommy and Tubbo. It wasn’t anything too serious, I don’t think, they just- we’re looking at what happened in the lab differently, and we had a bit of a falling out, I guess. I’m just hoping nothing too big has changed.”

Wilbur smiled sympathetically. “Yeah, I get that. Give it some time. Rest. Recover. You’re all pretty shaken up right now, after whatever happened in the lab, and it’s making you feel things more intensely than you normally would. Cool off for a bit. Everything will feel better after a good night’s sleep.”

Ranboo nodded, leaning against the car window. The weight on their shoulders didn’t seem any lighter than it had before. If anything, they looked worse, eyes slipping shut like there were weights attached to their eyelids.

Wilbur turned the keys in the ignition. “Let’s get you home, okay?”

Ranboo hummed absently in response.

Wilbur let him doze for the last few minutes of the drive. He looked oddly pale and gaunt under the fluorescent streetlights, almost translucent.

Wilbur nudged him gently when they arrived. “Hey. We’re here.”

Ranboo blinked sluggishly. There was a brief moment where their eyes looked almost neon.

“Would you like me to walk you in?” Wilbur offered.

Ranboo rubbed his eyes. “No, I’m good. Thanks for the ride, though. And the burger.”

“No problem. Call me if you start feeling dizzy or nauseous or anything like that. I’ll come get you, no questions asked, even if it’s the middle of the night.”

Ranboo nodded. “Yeah. Thanks, Will.” He climbed out of the car and vanished into the apartment building with a wave.

Wilbur hoped they slept well. God knew the kid deserved it.

RANBOO

Ranboo’s one-bedroom apartment was cold when he entered, though it might have just been him. It was barren compared to Tommy’s room. Cardboard boxes full of bubble wrap still sat against the wall where he had stacked them a few months ago when he first moved in. The only furniture was his bed, a wobbly desk, and that uncomfortable plastic chair Tubbo had found on the side of the road and fixed with duct tape.

With a heavy sigh, Ranboo emptied their pockets onto a nearby table and flopped into bed.

At least, that was the plan.

A swell of frost spread from his Core, and they phased right through the bed, hitting the floor with a loud thump.

He scrambled to stand. Looked down. His legs disappeared into the inviting softness of his bed.

They screwed their eyes shut. Frustrated tears welled behind them. They tugged at their hair in a white-knuckled grip, curling in on themself as they stepped out of the bed. Frantic muttering filled the room. A chant of denial.

This wasn’t fair. He just wanted to go to sleep like a normal teenager and wake up from this horrible nightmare. Not dead. Not a ghost. Just a normal teenager doing normal teenager things.

They stuck their knuckles in their mouth to muffle the sound and screamed as loud as they dared.

Their Core sparked. The rings from earlier in the day flashed to life again around their stomach, washing over them with that same comforting cold.

He stood in a daze, staring at the jumpsuit they left behind. His hands were ever so slightly transparent. His fingers had turned black on one hand and white on the other, the ends tapered into claws. Tiny black and white scales dotted the backs of his hands. He clenched them into fists, feeling the sharp points pressing into his palms.

Those were their hands. There was no denying it.

He made his way to the bathroom with heavy steps. He stumbled once, his foot clipping through the floor, icy like he’d plunged it into a frozen lake, but he gritted his teeth and forced warmth into it, bringing it back to corporeality.

The creature in the mirror was beyond anything they’d ever seen before. Its skin glowed faintly in the dark room. Its hair was split black and white to match the jumpsuit, flowing in a breeze that didn’t exist. More black and white scales littered its cheeks like freckles. One eye was a vibrant crimson, the other a neon emerald. Its mouth hung open slightly, baring its pointed teeth.

He blinked. Squinted. Tilted his head.

The creature in the mirror copied his movements.

They took a steadying breath. Air rushed into their lungs, filling their chest, but it brought no relief. It was like they didn’t need it at all.

And he didn’t. Because he was dead, wasn’t he?

They shook the thought away and inspected their hands again. Their left palm, the white one, had a glowing red lightning scar in the center, travelling up their arm. They hastily unzipped the suit and let it fall around their hips. The scar traced the full length of their arm, over their shoulder, and curled into an oblong spiral right over their heart. It faded from red to green when it crossed over to the black side of their body. The edges of it were raised and angry. The spiral over their heart pulsed in rhythm with his Core.

His arm twitched sharply, aftershocks from the portal jolting his muscles.

He rubbed his eyes. Tears stung his cheeks.

This thing - this pale, pitiful, glowing ghost in the mirror - this was him.

Their back slid down the wall. Their chest heaved in a cruel mockery of ragged breaths. The tiled floor didn’t make contact with their legs. The humming in their Core flared, swelling in time to the beating of a heart with no blood to pump.

The room was still as he sat there, curled in a ball in the bathroom, gasping for air he didn’t need.

The night was as silent as the ghost boy’s cries.

Chapter Text

WILBUR

The patisserie on the corner had always been one of Wilbur’s favourites. The soft, warm, friendly pink of the Rosebush’s walls never failed to make him feel welcome. He made a point of visiting at least once a week. The owner, a short, fluffy-haired woman named Puffy, was eternally kind to him, often throwing an extra pastry into his to-go bag for free. Wilbur greatly appreciated it. Her apricot danishes were to die for.

She also never looked at him the way the rest of the town did, which was a plus.

Everyone knew who Phil was, which meant everyone knew who Wilbur was. Most places greeted him with poorly-hidden stares and open gawking. Trying to get Techno a coffee while the barista threw concerned glances over the counter always made it taste that much more bitter.

Puffy wasn’t like that.

He’d been nervous after the ownership change, scared that it would shift things, that he would lose his little flower bed, but it hadn’t. Puffy had welcomed him with a soft smile, wonderful new pastries, and somewhere to sit when he needed it. No comments, no whispers, no glances snuck when she thought he wasn’t looking. She hadn’t even blinked when he casually mentioned that Phil was his father.

If Wilbur made an effort to come around more often after that, that was no one’s business but his own.

Even after the reconstructions, the patisserie had stuck with soft pastels for the interior. Lavender lace curtains held back the sunlight, giving it a soft, dreamlike quality. White-framed photos lined the wall beside the register, pictures of the old building, particularly appetizing pastries, and a young woman with pink hair.

Wilbur sat at his usual little table in the corner, phone in hand. He didn’t normally come here on Sundays, but after the stress of last night, he figured he deserved it.

Puffy set a plate and a warm cup of tea on the table in front of him with a flourish.

He smiled up at her. “Table service? What’s the occasion?”

“You look like ass, Will,” Puffy said, not unkindly. “Thought it might do you some good.”

Wilbur took a sip of tea. Chamomile. “I appreciate that. Don’t worry, just some family drama. Nothing big. Thought I’d just enjoy the town’s best for today, as a treat.”

Puffy laughed as she walked back to the register, greeting the next customer with her usual kindness. There were no other employees around, Wilbur noted. Hannah must have the day off.

The tea went a long way to soothe his frayed nerves. He took a deep breath over the cup, enjoying the scent. He’d been meaning to get a box of teabags to drink at home, but had never gotten around to it.

He let his mind wander to the previous night.

Barely fifteen minutes after he’d gotten home from dropping off Ranboo, Phil had come racing up the stairs, shouting and cheering. The sound alone had pulled Wilbur from his room into the kitchen, where Phil immediately dragged him down to the lab.

Apparently, Tommy was right. The portal had miraculously started working.

Phil had been ecstatic, rambling to Wilbur for hours. He’d had no idea how they could have gotten it working, said he’d test it out later, but Wilbur couldn’t let it go.

He’d gone upstairs, under the pretense of talking to Techno, and straight to Tommy’s room. Whatever whispered conversation he and Tubbo had been having was cut off the second Wilbur opened the door, which was admittedly a tad suspicious, but he didn’t want to pry.

They’d repeated the same story they’d told Phil. They had been walking around in the portal, which must have knocked something into gear, and Ranboo had dragged them out just before it roared to life.

Because that made perfect sense. Tommy and his mates were alone downstairs for fifteen minutes, during which time they didn’t intentionally touch anything, and as soon as they entered the portal, it just randomly started working on its own? Was that what they expected him to believe?

But what other options did he have? If Tubbo had fixed it, he wouldn’t be trying to hide it. Tommy was more likely to break it than fix it. Ranboo was still a bit of a mystery, to be honest, but they weren’t known for being technologically inclined.

Was it possible they were telling the truth?

Maybe. Except Tommy was doing that rambling thing he did when he was lying out his ass, and he and Tubbo had both looked so damn uncomfortable the entire time.

Wilbur sighed into his tea.

He didn’t know enough about Phil’s tech to figure this out. Maybe it did just work like that. Maybe Tommy and his mates had been in there at the wrong time and been lucky to get out. They were uneasy, yeah, but maybe they were scared shitless and trying to act tough. Tommy was known to do that.

But Phil would have known if the portal needed time to charge before opening, so he wouldn’t have been surprised when it turned on later.

Wilbur grumbled, taking a bite of his pastry. He was missing something. He had to be.

Techno had expectedly soured when Phil brought up the functioning portal. He’d always endured the worst of Essempy Park’s ire. If he had gotten involved, he would have deliberately broken the portal, not fixed it.

Wilbur was back at square one. Tommy and his mates apparently didn’t touch it, but also they had to have touched it, unless they hadn’t, and Techno and Phil definitely didn’t.

It didn’t help that there had been this looming presence over his shoulder ever since he saw the portal last night. He’d been talking to Phil when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. There was nothing there when he turned to look, though, and Phil brushed it off, so Wilbur did, too.

The car had smelled oddly like baked goods when he drove it to the patisserie that morning. It felt colder than usual, too, a bone-deep chill that crawled under his skin even when he turned the heat on full blast, the same way it had when he drove Ranboo home.

He didn’t have an explanation for that, either.

“This is stupid,” he muttered, downing the last of his tea and standing up from the table.

“Hey, Will,” Puffy called from the register, holding out a small cardboard takeout box. “On the house. My treat. Take care of yourself, alright? You look like shit.”

Wilbur laughed, taking the box from her. “Thank you, Puffy, that’s very kind of you. Have a good day.”

“You too.”

He rested his fingertips against the framed picture of the pink-haired woman.

“You have a good day, too, Niki,” he whispered.

The picture smiled at him, a rose-scented candle casting golden light over the plaque beside it.

Niki Nihachu. Our beloved rose. May you rest easy in your garden bed.

Chapter Text

TOMMY

“Hey, Bee Boy.” Tommy waved across the school hallway. “Is Ranboo around? I haven’t seen him since Saturday.”

Tubbo shook his head. “D’you think they're avoiding us?”

Tommy shrugged as they headed down the hall. Classes didn’t start for another ten minutes, leaving Tommy and Tubbo free to head outside to the tree where they usually ate lunch and have awkward conversations about potentially dead friends.

God. Life was fucked.

“They shouldn’t be,” Tommy said. “What reason would they have? They already avoided us all of yesterday. Maybe they're waiting by our tree.”

Tubbo stared at him incredulously. “The fuck do you mean, what reason would they have? Do you not remember how mad he was on Saturday? He’s probably still pissed at you. Or, y’know, dealing with everything.”

Tommy spluttered. “I said what needed to be said. Not my fault he didn’t want to hear it. He’s probably just sulking.”

“Can you blame them? I still don’t know what to think about their- about what happened. Let the guy sulk for a while.”

Tommy sighed. “I don’t know if we have time for that, man. What if he does some ghost shit in class today? We’ve gotta get this sorted out before something worse happens.”

Their tree was deserted as they approached.

Tommy groaned, pulling out his phone. “Of fuckin’ course they're not here. I’m gonna call them again.”

Tubbo circled the tree. “Ranboo? You here? If you’re stuck invisible again, just, uh, try to make a sound or something so we can find you.”

No response.

Tommy threw his phone back into his bag in frustration. “Nothing. I don’t think he’s here today. D’you think he missed the bus, maybe?”

Tubbo frowned. “But then why wouldn’t they answer their phone? Something’s not right here.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Tommy agreed. “Should we try going to their apartment later? See if we can find them?”

“Probably a good idea. I’ve still got the spare key.” Tubbo scuffed his feet in the dirt. “I just- what if how he was on Saturday wasn’t permanent? He could have, like, died in his sleep for all we know. I don’t want to go over to his apartment if all we’ll find is…” He trailed off.

Tommy slumped against the tree. “I get what you mean, Tubbo, but- we gotta face whatever it is that’s happened. We already practically killed him. I don’t- we can’t ignore it. If he is a proper ghost, it’s our job to get him to, like, move on.”

Tubbo’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, get him to move on? You didn’t bring that up yesterday. Or on Saturday.”

“I talked to Phil after you went home yesterday afternoon,” Tommy explained. “I asked him why ghosts exist, and, like, what he knows about them. He said they’re ectoplasmic imprints or some shit made when someone dies a violent death. Ranboo… Ranboo definitely fits that description.

“Phil also said if you damage a ghost enough, it’ll just kinda melt into ectoplasm, or it can properly move on if it thinks it’s fulfilled its purpose. I figure that if Ranboo’s a ghost now, which I’m pretty sure they are, we have a duty to help them move on, ‘cause obviously we aren’t gonna damage them until he turns to goo. Though, to be fair, Phil also said that ghosts can’t feel pain, so maybe that wouldn’t be too bad.”

Tubbo’s eyes hardened.

“I still don’t get how he manages to look so human,” Tommy continued, oblivious to Tubbo’s mounting ire. “Like, with a heartbeat and shit. Phil said it could be a mimicry thing for ghosts. Trying to blend in and garner sympathy so it can attack you when you least expect it. Like a camouflage-type deal. That still doesn’t explain the heartbeat, though, because Phil said ghosts don’t have organs. I think-”

“Do you even hear yourself?” Tubbo snapped. “We aren’t gonna help them move on or- or damage them until they fucking melt. What the fuck, Tommy? No wonder he’s pissed at you, you fucking- we aren’t gonna do anything until he tells us what he wants, because he’s not actually dead yet. Fucking hell.”

Tommy swallowed, taken aback. “What else can we do, Tubbo? He can’t go about his business as usual, and neither can I.”

“Piss off.”

They didn’t talk for the rest of the day.

TUBBO

“Dammit, Tommy,” Tubbo grumbled under his breath, kicking a pebble into a nearby bush. “Stupid my-dad’s-a-ghost-expert-so-I-know-everything bullshit. What the fuck do we do now?”

He kicked another rock. It landed in the gutter with a clunk.

He’d missed his bus, too busy angrily muttering at his locker to notice the time, leading to a cold walk down a boring street that would take twice as long. As one can imagine, this did nothing to help his already foul mood.

A small patisserie sat pleasantly on the corner. The Rosebush, the sign proclaimed. One of those quaint, out-of-the-way places that Tubbo had always wanted to visit but never had the time.

Well. If Tubbo was going to be stuck walking home in the cold anyway, he might as well stop by and warm up. He dug through his pockets for spare change and pushed open the door.

The smell of sweets and bread washed over him. A lone employee whose name tag read Puffy was bussing tables in the corner. She smiled when she noticed him.

“Welcome to the Rosebush,” she greeted. “What can I do for you, kid?”

Tubbo scanned the array of baked goods displayed by the register. “Do you make hot chocolate?”

“Of course. What size?”

“Large, please. Oh- can I also get a sausage roll?”

“We’ve got plain, vegan, or spinach and feta. I can also warm it up for you at no extra cost.”

“Plain, and yes, please. That sounds lovely.”

Puffy gave him a thumbs up. “Your total is $7.50. Feel free to have a seat, I can bring it out to you when it’s ready.”

Tubbo gave her a handful of change. “Thank you.”

The cluster of photos next to the register caught his eye. He wandered over.

Wilbur was in one of them. He looked a few years younger than he did now, arm slung around the shoulders of a young woman with bright pink hair. Another photo showed just the woman, her eyes crinkled and smile warm and wide. A small plaque and a nearly burnt-out pink candle sat beneath it.

“Her name was Niki,” Puffy said, setting Tubbo’s hot chocolate and sausage roll on the table nearby. She smiled sadly. “She used to own this place, back before… you know.”

Tubbo took a sip of hot chocolate. “What happened to her?”

Puffy pursed her lips. “Remember the fire? She loved candles, see, and one got knocked over, caught a curtain. She didn’t notice until it was too late, and she- she didn’t make it out.”

Tubbo’s eyes widened. The fire had been a little over a year ago. Everyone knew about it. The thick column of black smoke had been visible from everywhere in town.

Wilbur hadn’t come out of his room for weeks after.

“I took over what was left,” Puffy continued. “I was her right-hand woman back then. I knew the most about how the business worked, knew all the little tricks she used, all her special recipes…” She trailed off.

Tubbo frowned. “You alright?”

She blinked at him for a moment, then sighed and shook her head. “Business is booming, of course, but I’m not the businesswoman Niki was. The renovations cost more than I thought they would. We’re earning enough right now, luckily, but I just don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to keep our heads above water. I’ve already had to let go of most of my employees. They’re wanting to up the interest, too, and we can’t handle that.”

Tubbo grimaced. “I’m, uh, sorry to hear that.”

Puffy grinned ruefully. “Ah, it’s not your problem. You didn’t come here to listen to me ramble about how we might have to shut down for good.”

All at once, as if cued by Puffy’s words, the lights above them flickered out. The candle under Niki’s picture was snuffed out by a gust of wind that shouldn’t have existed inside.

Tubbo and Puffy shared a confused look.

Puffy flicked the light switch behind the register a few times. Nothing happened.

“Strange,” Puffy muttered. “I should check the fuses.”

“Does this happen often?” Tubbo asked, concerned.

Puffy shook her head. “Not in my experience. We’ve got a generator for the fridges, though, just in case. The power should flicker back on in a second.” She glanced back at him. “You can leave if you want to. You’re under no obligation to stay while our power is out.”

Tubbo’s reply was cut off by the front door bursting open, a blast of chilled air nearly knocking him off of his feet. He cursed, raising his arms in front of his face. Puffy did the same.

An unnatural neon pink light pulsed through his fingers, hovering above the street outside.

Papers and tablecloths flew off of tables, swirling about the room.

The light outside moved, its blurred shape shifting.

Tubbo’s hair stood on end. His mind raced. The pink light felt far too similar to the acidic green glow of the portal in the lab for his liking.

Whatever the light was, it seemed to be looking directly at him.

Tubbo shoved at the door. It didn’t move.

"Help me, Puffy," he yelled over his shoulder. The wind carried his voice away.

Puffy heard him, stumbling forwards leaning all of her weight against the door. The two of them pushed and shoved as hard as they physically could.

Still nothing.

Tubbo’s eyes flicked around the room, looking for something that could help them. The wind bit into his skin like a thousand tiny, ice-cold needles.

And then it stopped.

Tubbo blinked. He shoved at the door again, but it remained stubbornly immobile.

Puffy gaped. “What-”

A blast of hot air raced through the shop. Tubbo’s fingers burned as feeling returned to them.

The door slammed closed.

Tubbo and Puffy collapsed on the ground. The temperature spiked sharply. Sweat began beading on the back of Tubbo’s neck. He wriggled himself out of his jacket and backpack, but it brought little relief.

Puffy stumbled to her feet. “What- what is happening?”

Tubbo swallowed. His throat burned. “I have no idea.”

Puffy touched the door handle and immediately flinched back, hand red with burns. “Shit, that’s hot. Fuck.”

The neon pink light flared outside. Tubbo ran to the window.

The previously empty street was now filled with people, muttering and gawking at the light. They didn’t seem to be feeling the heat. They didn’t even look uncomfortable.

He followed their gaze and gasped.

Floating above the middle of the street was a woman.  Her feet hung a clear ten feet above the pavement, apparently unbothered by the laws of gravity. She wore a floral-print dress and a light pink apron. Both were singed and blackened at the edges. Tendrils of radiant pink swirled around her body like locks of hair.

She turned to stare directly at Tubbo.

The edges of her body were hazy in a way that was oddly familiar. Her pink hair floated around her head. Rose petals bloomed from her dress at random, flaking off and twirling to the ground below.

She drifted closer, allowing Tubbo to get a better look at her electric pink eyes. Her form flickered, like the signal on her existence was shot.

He’d seen this before. It was almost like when Ranboo was- when Ranboo…

He gulped. “Puffy, I think you need to look at this.”

Puffy crept to the window. Her eyes widened in recognition.

“Niki?”

Chapter Text

TOMMY

“I didn’t think this through,” Tommy said, staring at the locked apartment door.

Techno glared at him.

“Tubbo may or may not have the spare key,” Tommy mumbled.

Techno raised an eyebrow. “Would that be the same Tubbo that we drove past on the way here?”

“Yup.”

“Of course.” Techno sighed. “Dream sent me a lesson plan to look over, so I’m gonna go sit in the car and do that. You, uh, you can text me if Ranboo lets you in, and I’ll text you if Tubbo shows up. Take too long and I’m just gonna leave.”

Tommy nodded at Techno’s retreating back. The past few minutes of knocking hadn’t yielded any results, but maybe now…

“Techno’s gone, Ranboo,” Tommy called, knocking again. “I’m- I just wanna see if you’re okay, man.”

No response.

Tommy sighed. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry about Saturday, if that’s why… I shouldn’t have yelled at you. It was a dick move, to you and Tubbo, and- and I’m sorry.” He swallowed. “But still- we can’t just brush this off, okay? It’s a big thing and we have to face it. That’s what I was trying to say. I just didn’t phrase it very well.”

There was shuffling from behind the door. Then-

“Uh, hey, Tommy.” Ranboo’s voice was raspy, like they’d been crying. Or screaming, Tommy’s brain supplied. “Fancy meeting you here. What, uh, what brings you around?”

“Hey, big man.” Tommy cleared his throat. “Are you… alright?”

“Who, me? Oh, yep, totally fine. Completely, 100% okay. How are you?”

That, Tommy thought, was the largest load of bullshit to ever grace his ears. “Can I come in?”

Ranboo hesitated. “Uh, I don’t know if that’s-”

“I’m just here to check up on you, alright?” Tommy drummed his fingers against the door. “Tubbo’s on his way, too, just a bit slower. We’re worried about you, man. Just wanna see how you’re, y’know, holding up.”

The hinges on the door creaked. Tommy waited impatiently.

“Okay,” Ranboo said finally. “You can come in. Just- well, I’ve been, uh… struggling, I guess you could say. With, y’know, things, so could you, like, not freak out?”

Tommy frowned. “Sure, I guess.”

The door opened to complete darkness. The lights had all been turned off and the lone window on the far wall had blinds drawn tight across it.

Tommy turned, fumbling for a light switch, and yelped when glowing red and green eyes blinked at him from the corner.

“Fucking hell, Ranboo,” he cursed, placing a hand over his chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”

The eyes glanced downwards. “You said you wouldn’t freak out.”

“I’m not freaking out,” Tommy denied immediately. “You just- you caught me off-guard, that’s all. Why are you in the dark?”

There was a sigh, and then the lights came back on.

Tommy blinked.

Ranboo’s room was, for lack of a better term, a complete mess.

Most of his things were still in boxes because he never bothered to unpack, but what little was on display had been tossed haphazardly on the floor. Packing trash that was once in semi-controllable piles was strewn about the space, bubble wrap and cardboard and packing tape hanging off of various surfaces. The ceiling was decorated with scuff marks and footprints.

Ranboo themself didn’t look much better. Their hair was less fluffy and more like a rat’s nest. They hadn’t changed their clothes since they had- since Saturday, and they were dusty and ripped in places. Their eyes were dark and heavy. The slump in their shoulders had tripled.

Also, he was floating several inches above the floor.

Tommy’s gaze flicked rapidly between Ranboo’s floating feet and his face. He seemed unbothered by his blatant disregard for the laws of physics.

“What the fuck?” Tommy said eloquently.

Ranboo rubbed the back of their neck. “I’ve been, uh, having some issues.”

Gravity abruptly decided to start working again, sending Ranboo tumbling to the hardwood floor with a groan.

Tommy held out a hand to help him up. “Are you not freaked out about this? Like, you seen pretty calm right now, which is fuckin’ weird because there is no reason for you to be calm right now.”

Ranboo accepted Tommy’s hand up. “I’ve, well, I’ve had some time to think. About- about me, and what happened in the lab, and…” He took a deep breath. “After I got home Saturday night, I got really mad and… and transformed again. Got a good look at myself in the bathroom mirror. I can see why you guys were so scared.”

They laughed bitterly.

“But it- I was terrified, y’know? I kinda broke down for a while. I tried to sleep, but I kept falling through the bed by accident. My arm went through the floor once. I sure hope my neighbours didn’t notice, because I really don’t want to explain that. I tried playing video games, too, but the same thing happened. Couldn’t pick up anything when I tried to cook…”

He took a shaky breath.

“It wouldn’t stop. So I decided to face it, I guess. Control it. Understand it. Obviously not doing too great at that, but- but I've been trying. Even got it to work a few times.” He turned his arm invisible as proof. “The whole transformation thing is mostly under control. Still barely know what’s going on, though.”

Tommy, being Tommy, replied rather succinctly, “Well, shit.”

Ranboo chuckled humourlessly.

“How do you feel, though?” Tommy asked.

Ranboo shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t know.”

“Does it ever hurt when you pass through shit?”

“No.”

“Uh… what about temperature? You get hot or cold randomly?”

“Cold, yeah. Every time something… happens, I feel cold. Not a bad cold, more like putting your head in the freezer on a really hot day or something. Like a relieving kind of cold.”

“What about-”

“Tommy,” Ranboo interrupted, “I’m really dead, aren’t I?”

Tommy swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah, I think you are.”

They stood in silence for a moment.

Tommy cleared his throat. “So, uh, I was talking to Phil while he was working on the portal and shit - portal’s stable right now, by the way, and he’s baffled by it - and trying to figure out if he knew anything that could help us out here. He just- he says that ghosts stick around for a reason, and if they, like, finish that, they can move on or whatever.”

Ranboo nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“So… what’s your reason?”

Ranboo frowned. “I don’t think I have one. Honestly, I don’t feel all that different from when I was… y’know. Like, when I’m a ghost- my Core isn’t really telling me to do anything. I assume if I had a reason, it would let me know.”

Tommy frowned. “Your Core? The fuck is that?”

“Oh, it’s, uh - did Phil not tell you? - it’s like my ghost heart, I guess. But it’s more than that, it’s where all of this-” they waved their invisible arm vaguely- “comes from. It’s- I don’t- it’s hard to explain. It’s like a heart, but it’s also where I come from, like, as a being.”

“Huh.” Tommy nodded like that made sense to him, which it didn’t. “Yeah, Phil has never mentioned anything like that to me. Maybe he just doesn’t know…? I should talk to him more. Won’t mention you, though, don’t worry.” He chuckled. “What if we’re the first ones to learn about this? We could, like, write a paper on it. Become famous ghost scientists. Core is a pretty boring name, though, should work on that- Ranboo?”

Ranboo winced, his arm flickering back into view. “No, I don’t think we should.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

Ranboo rubbed their chest with one hand. “It just… I don’t know. It feels really personal, I guess. Like, this is me, man. I don’t wanna be someone’s science project.”

Tommy could respect that. “Alright, no paper, then. All good.”

Ranboo nodded, relaxing slightly. “Cool. We still don’t know what’s happening, though, or what to do.” He sighed. “Like, I don’t think I have a reason, or at least I have no idea what it is, which is probably an important thing to know. So what do we… what am I supposed to do now?” He bit his lip. “Does Phil maybe have some ghost tech that could help? It made me… like this. Maybe it could fix me.”

Tommy made a face. “Don’t think so, big man. He’s got plenty of ectoweapons, but I don’t think they’d help in the way you want them to. My Tomzooka won’t help, either.” He hummed thoughtfully. “I know he’s talked about some thermos thingy that’s supposed to catch and contain ghosts, but he also said that it doesn’t really work, and I’m not sure it would help, either.”

Ranboo groaned, running a hand over their face.

Tommy sighed. “To be honest, Ranboo, I think-”

His words were cut off by a massive boom that seemed to shake the entire building.

“What the fuck?” Tommy was out the door in an instant, looking for the source of the noise.

Ranboo remained frozen behind him.

Tommy glanced over his shoulder. “Ranboo? You good?”

Ranboo’s next exhale misted in front of his face, despite the warmth in the room. He coughed, resting a hand against his chest. A myriad of emotions danced across his face. None of them were good.

“Tommy,” they said. “Tommy, there’s-”

Techno appeared in the doorway, cutting off whatever they’d been about to say. “There’s somethin’ goin’ on. Smoke down the road. I’m gonna look for Tubbo. You wanna come with, I’m leaving now.”

Tommy hesitated, glancing at Ranboo.

Ranboo’s eyes were sharp, glinting with a spark of something electric and dangerous. His hand rested on Tommy’s shoulder. It felt like ice.

“We’re coming with you,” Ranboo said.

TUBBO

Puffy’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly. “Niki? But how…”

Tubbo wiped his hands on his jeans, fumbling frantically with his phone.

A ghost. There was a ghost outside, floating in the air and staring at him.

Phil. He needed Phil. Phil knew things about ghosts. Phil could help.

“Niki, what’s going on?” Puffy asked.

“Puffy!” The ghost's voice drifted clearly through the glass like it was standing right next to them. It smiled in a way that was probably meant to be warm but came off as more unsettling than anything. “It’s our bakery, Puffy. I’m back at our bakery.”

Puffy flinched. “How are you- what do you mean you’re back? How can you be back? You died!”

The ghost’s eyes hardened, but her smile remained the same. “That doesn’t matter. I’m back now, and I’m going to save our bakery! You don’t have to worry anymore.”

“Niki, please, I don’t- I don’t understand. How are you doing this? What’s going on?”

Sweat dripped down Tubbo’s brow. His breath came in short gasps.

No one was answering his texts. Not Phil, not Tommy, not even Techno. No one.

Fuck.

He tucked his phone back into his pocket.

The ghost - Niki - seemed to be focused solely on Puffy. He took the opportunity to creep towards the door. His steps were light, tentative, eyes never leaving Niki’s face.

This wasn’t like it was with Ranboo. They’d been scared, had no idea what was happening.

Niki’s eyes were sharp. She had a plan.

God, he hoped someone would answer his texts.

He reached the door without incident. He brushed the door handle with a fingertip and immediately flinched back, stifling a shout of pain.

Still too hot to get out, then. Great.

Niki’s eyes bored into him from the window. Her expression was unreadable. He gulped, frozen in place.

“Niki, seriously,” Puffy said, drawing her attention away from Tubbo. “I have no idea what’s going on right now. How is this possible? Is this some kind of a joke, or…?”

Niki smiled again. “Puffy, no, I’m back! I saw this swirly green doorway. It was so beautiful. It called to me, said I should see what was on the other side, so I went through.”

She drifted forward, passing right through the window like it didn’t exist.

“I saw Will!” She exclaimed. “He was right there, with Phil, in some underground room on the other side of the door. I was so happy, Puffy, so happy. I went to him right away, but he couldn’t see me, so I followed him, and he brought me here! To you! To my little Rosebush! Oh, it’s just as beautiful as I remember it being.”

Her voice echoed, rattling around in Tubbo’s skull. He winced.

Niki hovered a few inches from Puffy’s face. “I’ve been here since yesterday. Watching. You took over so well, sunflower. I tried to talk to you, you know, but I couldn’t do anything. Then you mentioned losing our Rosebush and I…”

The glowing rings around Niki flared with heat. Puffy’s skin blistered when they drew too close. The wood on the nearby tables charred and blackened. Tubbo stumbled backwards, shirt soaked through with sweat.

“I won’t let it happen.” Niki’s voice was staticky. “I’ll protect our Rosebush. I won't let them take it away from me, not after I just got it back. I won’t!”

Electric pink light filled the room. Tubbo raised a hand to shield his eyes. Another wave of heat blasted outwards, fire crawling over his skin. He opened his mouth - to scream, maybe - but the heat dried it out instantly, leaving him coughing.

“I WON’T LET THEM!” Niki roared.

Everything exploded.

Chapter Text

TOMMY

“Hurry, Techno!” Tommy urged.

Techno huffed. “I’m already going way faster than I should be. Sit down, Tommy.”

Tommy slumped in his seat, scanning the street for any sign of Tubbo.

Beside him, Ranboo was sitting ramrod straight, eyes trained on the nearing smoke and burning with a ferocity Tommy had never felt from them before. Their muscles were taut and ready to spring into action the second the need arose.

Tommy turned back to the window. He had yet to get a glimpse of Tubbo.

He should have arrived at Ranboo’s apartment a long time ago. Granted, it wasn’t a quick walk from school, but it wasn’t a marathon, either. They should have seen him by now.

“Has Tubbo texted either of you?” Techno asked, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Maybe he decided to just go home.”

Ranboo didn’t respond.

Tommy rifled through his pockets. “Shit. My phone’s dead. I don’t think he went home, though. He- he was worried about Ranboo. He would have wanted to check up on them.”

Tommy glanced at them. They still said nothing.

Techno turned the corner and cursed as he was met with bumper-to-bumper traffic. “We aren’t getting through this. We can- hey, Ranboo, wait!”

Ranboo leapt out of the car the instant it stopped and sprinted down the street.

“We’re gonna run ahead,” Tommy decided. “We’ll wait on the corner if we find him.”

He took off after Ranboo. This proved to be a fruitless venture, as Ranboo’s legs were significantly longer than Tommy’s were and Tommy’s ankle jolted in pain with every step he took.

He cursed. “Ranboo! Wait up!”

Ranboo didn’t stop running, but he slowed his pace to match Tommy’s. “We need to go. It’s near the bakery. We have to get to it.”

“What do you mean, it? What about Tubbo?”

Ranboo clenched his jaw. “There’s a ghost around here somewhere. I can feel it. That’s why my breath fogged earlier, I think. There’s a ghost loose in the town, and Tubbo is probably fine, but a loose ghost definitely won’t be.”

Tommy’s eyes widened. “A ghost? How did- what? Where-?”

He stumbled slightly. His words were caught up in strangled pants. He slowed his pace, desperate to catch his breath.

Ranboo grabbed his wrist and dragged him forward. They didn’t seem fazed by the sprint.

An odd chill settled over Tommy. He was still touching the ground, but his steps felt lighter, ankle no longer jolting when it made contact with the sidewalk. Each stride seemed to push him farther than it should.

He glanced up at Ranboo.

They stood taller and more determined than Tommy had ever seen them. There was a new swiftness to their movements. Their eyes blazed red and green.

“Holy shit,” Tommy whispered.

Ranboo looked like a goddamn ghost superhero.

They turned the corner and came to an abrupt halt. Tommy flailed for a moment, stumbling. Ranboo caught him with a hand on his chest.

A crowd had gathered in the street. They were gaping and pointing at the Rosebush, Wilbur’s favourite patisserie, which stood untouched on the corner between two completely ruined storefronts. Neon pink rose petals drifted through the air. One settled on a small chunk of rubble, immediately bursting into flames.

In the middle of all of this, floating above the shops, was a woman with neon pink hair. Her clothes were patterned with roses and singed around the edges. She held another, smaller woman in her arms.

“Please, Niki!” The smaller woman yelled. “It hurts!”

Tommy’s eyes widened. That must be Puffy. Wilbur had taken him to meet her once, back before the fire.

He tugged on Ranboo’s arm. “Ranboo- Ranboo, you have to do something.”

Ranboo stood frozen, taking in the scene with wide, fearful eyes. The determination from earlier had flickered out, replaced with a terrified expression worryingly similar to the loom he’d worn when he tumbled out of the portal on Saturday.

Tommy shook him by the shoulders. “Ranboo, come on, man. That’s a ghost! You’re a ghost! Can’t you, I dunno, talk to it or something?”

Ranboo’s eyes focused on something behind him. “Tubbo,” they breathed.

Tommy whipped around.

Tubbo stood behind ruined lavender curtains in the window of the Rosebush. His mouth was open in a shout, hands pounding on the glass. Relief was clear on his face as his eyes locked onto Tommy and Ranboo.

Tommy let out a breath. “Tubbo. Thank god.”

His smile melted when Tubbo stumbled, knocking over a table. It hit the floor with a crunch. Decorations scattered across the tiled floor.

The rose petals drifting about the shop froze in place.

Tubbo gave Tommy a panicked look. Help me, he mouthed.

A handful of rose petals shot towards Tubbo. One landed on his cheek, bursting into flames. He screamed. Another burned against his shoulder. He crumpled to his knees.

There was a burst of light in the corner of Tommy’s eye.

Ranboo was a ghost again, black and white and floating a few inches above the sidewalk. His hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides. His eyes blazed ruby and emerald, bright with determined, knife-sharp rage. The edges of his body flickered.

In all the time Tommy had known Ranboo, he’d never seen them anywhere near this pissed off.

Ranboo was gone before Tommy had time to react, racing through the crowd in a black and white blur, heading straight for Tubbo’s crumpled body in the Rosebush’s window.

RANBOO

Ranboo had no idea what they were doing.

His Core had been screaming at him ever since the initial explosion. He’d tamped it down with relative ease before, but after seeing Tubbo burning in the window, something inside him had snapped. The urge to help had become a scream to protect, protect, protect.

The cold washed over them before their brain could process what was happening.

Getting to Tubbo was easy. He let the cold settle deeper in his body and passed through the crowd and walls as if they weren’t even there.

Once they were kneeling next to him, they floundered.

Tubbo was curled up on the ground. Patches of burned skin and ash from his T-shirt littered his arms and torso. He clutched the wound on his cheek, blood and tears streaming between his fingers. He didn’t seem to have noticed Ranboo.

Ranboo hesitantly set a hand on his shoulder. Tubbo flinched violently, whimpering.

“No, no- Tubbo, it’s me,” Ranboo reassured him. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I mean, not okay okay, you’re obviously hurt, but you’ll be- I’m here to help.”

Tubbo blinked blearily at him, eyes hazy with pain. “Ranboo? Shit- this fucking hurts.”

“I know. I’ll, uh, I-”

Tubbo’s eyes widened. “Behind you!”

Ranboo whipped around.

Niki was floating down through the ceiling. Puffy struggled in her arms, skin blistered and burned where Niki touched it.

“Get out of our bakery,” Niki growled. The rose petals around her pulsed dangerously.

Ranboo swallowed. “Uh… no? I’m- I’m gonna need you to calm down, ma’am. You’re, uh, you’re hurting people. Can we have a civil chat about this?”

Niki’s eyes narrowed. “Get out. You don’t get to take my bakery away from me.”

Ranboo raised his hands placatingly. “I’m not here to take anything from you. I swear. I just want you to stop hurting people and destroying the town. Please?”

He took a tentative step forward. Niki floated back.

“They’re trying to take my Rosebush away,” Niki repeated. “I won’t let them.”

“That’s horrible of them,” Ranboo agreed, “but you can’t- hurting people isn’t going to get you your bakery back. We can talk this out, just- just let them go.”

They took another step forward. Niki didn’t move.

“Look at them,” they continued, gesturing to Puffy and Tubbo. “They’re seriously hurt. I need to get them help. Let me help them, and I’ll help you keep your bakery safe. You have my word. Deal?”

Niki gave him a scrutinizing glance. Her eyes flicked from him to Puffy to Tubbo to the crowd outside the Rosebush.

“Alright,” she relented finally. “Take them. I will stand guard. Come back right away so we can protect the Rosebush together.” She gazed softly down at Puffy. “Come back soon, sunflower. I will keep our shop safe.”

She slowly lowered Puffy toward the ground. Ranboo reached out their arms, bracing her when she stumbled.

“Can you walk?” He asked.

She nodded, eyes trained on the floor.

Slowly, carefully, they moved her across the room to where Tubbo was lying by the window. They knelt beside him.

“This might hurt, Tubbo,” Ranboo warned. “I’m sorry.”

Tubbo nodded sharply, gritting his teeth.

Ranboo put a hand under Tubbo’s arm, pushing some of the cold from his Core into him. He’d done it instinctively with Tommy when they were running earlier. Surely it would work now, too.

They rose slowly from the ground until they hovered a few inches off the floor. Tubbo winced as he was jostled, but didn’t otherwise complain.

Ranboo extended the cold through Puffy, too, until she joined them in the air.

He drifted towards the door. “This might feel a bit tingly.”

The three of them passed cleanly through as if the door didn’t exist in the first place. Ranboo honestly hadn’t expected that to work. He allowed himself a moment to internally celebrate.

Tubbo and Puffy gave simultaneous sharp inhales, like all the breath had been momentarily punched from their lungs.

Right. People needed to be corporeal to breathe. Maybe Ranboo shouldn’t pull that trick again, then.

They scanned the street corner. Where the hell did Tommy go?

“Unhand those people, ghost!” A voice came from the crowd. It spat the word ghost like a curse, the same way Draco Malfoy would say mudblood, or a toddler might say vegetables.

Phil. Great.

Ranboo followed the source of the voice. Phil was shoving people aside, pointing an ectogun at Ranboo’s face. Tommy followed behind, speaking and gesturing wildly, but Ranboo couldn’t make out what he was saying.

Ranboo gingerly set Puffy and Tubbo back on solid ground. Puffy let go the instant she could stand on her own. Tubbo clung to them and shook his head.

“Phil’s got ghost weapons, man,” he said. “You should leave. He can handle the ghost. We’re out, we’re safe, just- let him deal with it from here.”

As if on cue, a bright green blast shot into Ranboo’s arm, leaving a sizzling wound. He stumbled back, hissing.

Tubbo waved his arms frantically. “Phil, wait! Don’t shoot!”

At the same time, Tommy tackled Phil from behind, wrenching the ectogun from his hands. Phil gave him a flabbergasted look. If the situation was different, it would have been hilarious.

Tubbo gave Ranboo a look over his shoulder. “Dude! Go!”

Ranboo tugged at his Core and promptly slipped off the visible spectrum.

Sweet. He was absolutely acing his ghost powers today.

With no small amount of conscious effort, they flew back through the wall and into the bakery. Niki was still floating above the tables in the exact same place she’d been when they left.

He landed heavily, the cold slipping away from him. He winced. Maybe not acing his powers so much, then.

They stared at each other for a moment. Neither of them said anything.

Ranboo’s Core thrummed. His mind raced. What was he supposed to do? Tommy couldn’t keep the ectogun away from Phil forever. He had no idea where to even begin with the whole Niki situation.

Maybe they should just leave like Tubbo suggested, fly back home and wait until everything sorted itself out.

Their Core flared at the thought. No. No, they couldn’t leave. He had to help them. Protect them.

So how was he supposed to do that?

“Have you come to help me keep my bakery now, halfa?” Niki asked, snapping Ranboo out of his thoughts.

Ranboo spluttered. “Half- what? My name’s Ranboo.”

Niki blinked at them. “Are you going to help my bakery or not?”

“Uh- I, um, I…”

Niki’s eyes hardened. The rose petals around the shop gave a dangerous pulse. The temperature spiked.

Ranboo raised his hands. “Just- wait, hold on-”

The window shattered. Another green blast of energy charred the wall over Ranboo’s head. The rose petals swirled in front of Niki, blocking a third shot.

Phil stood outside the broken window. He wore thick goggles over his eyes and his jaw was set with determination. He raised the ectogun again.

“Niki, be careful,” Ranboo warned, never looking away from Phil. “He’s a ghost hunter. His gun can seriously hurt you if you get hit. We need to get out of here.”

Niki didn’t move. Her eyes burned with seething rage.

“How dare you.” Her voice was soft but dark with fury. “How dare you hurt my little Rosebush like this.”

A ring of rose petals lashed at Phil. He ducked out of the way, unfazed.

“You’re not allowed here, spooks,” he snapped.

“Not allowed?” Niki demanded. “This is my bakery, and you are damaging it. You’re the one who’s not allowed.”

She raised one hand. Neon pink energy swirled around it. The rose petals glowed brighter.

Ranboo’s Core thrummed. Their right arm snapped out instinctively. Cold, electric green collected in their palm, the same energy Niki was now pointing at Phil.

He released his energy a second before she did.

A blast similar to the ones from Phil’s ectogun burst from his hand, tearing its way through the air and landing squarely on Niki’s side. She yelped and recoiled, her own blast going wide. It hit the ground just beside Phil.

The crowd outside screamed.

Niki rounded on Ranboo, eyes blazing.

Ranboo raised their hands in surrender. “Niki, I am so sorry, but I can’t let you hurt him. Please, just calm down, we can still-” They ducked to the side as Niki sent a stream of burning rose petals at them. “Let’s talk about this.”

Niki lashed out again. He tried to dodge, tried to float, tried to phase through the ground, but his Core didn’t cooperate. The barrage of rose petals struck him dead in the center of his chest. He stumbled backwards, crashing into a table from the force of the impact.

It didn’t hurt as much as they expected it to.

He ducked under the next swarm of rose petals. They sailed over his head and arched back around to Niki.

Another of Phil’s shots hit the wall.

Ranboo rolled to the side, urging their limbs to pass through the floor. They cooperated this time. They flew through the ground, feeling oddly like they were swimming, and popped up a short distance behind Phil.

The crowd gasped and scrambled backwards as he pulled himself out of the pavement.

Tommy met his eyes. He gave a sharp nod and pushed his way to the front.

Ranboo grabbed Phil under his arms and hoisted him into the air. Phil cursed, clawing at his hands and firing a few errant ectoblasts.

“Let me go, ghost!” Phil ordered. “Right now!”

Well. Since he asked nicely.

It wasn’t a far fall, a few feet at most, but it was enough to stun him. Tommy swiped the ectogun from Phil’s hands and hid it behind his back.

Ranboo gave him a grateful nod.

Tommy nodded back. He pulled something from Phil’s belt and tossed it into the air. Ranboo caught it with one hand.

It was a squat metal cylinder with a green lid on one end. A cartoonish sticker on the side proudly dubbed it a Philza Thermos.

Ranboo’s eyes widened. The thermos. Right. The one that could trap and contain ghosts. The one that also didn’t work.

A tendril of neon pink rose petals whipped towards Ranboo from the shattered bakery window. It carved through their already-injured chest, sending them flailing through the air.

He glanced down at the thermos.

Well. No time like the present.

The lid popped off with relative ease. He brandished it at Niki. Nothing happened.

Another swath of rose petals singed their hair as it shot past their face.

He fumbled with the thermos. There had to be an on switch somewhere. If he was Phil, where would he-

There.

A button, small and silver, just under the rim.

“This better work,” they muttered.

They pressed the button. The thermos whirred.

Niki snarled. More bursts of pink shot towards him.

Ranboo pointed the thermos at Niki. “I’m sorry, Niki. I’ll figure something out! I promise! Oh, god, please work, please-”

A blue beam of light shot from the thermos. The rose petals froze in place, slowly creeping towards the mouth of the thermos. Niki’s form wavered and warped.

“No!” She cried. “I can’t- my Rosebush! I have to- please don’t!”

Someone in the crowd cried out for Niki. Ranboo didn’t bother to notice who.

Niki screamed, fighting fruitlessly against the pull of the thermos. Her hands clawed at the air. Her body twisted and contorted to fit inside the tiny object. Her fingers clutched the lip of the thermos until they, too, were dragged inside.

Ranboo slammed the cap back on.

WILBUR

Wilbur couldn’t move.

Phil had randomly dashed out the door, armed to the teeth with ectoweapons, after a series of frantic texts from Tubbo. Wilbur had followed him, unease settling heavy in his gut, all the way to the wreckage of the Rosebush.

The patisserie itself stood largely untouched, except for a few charred spots and the crumpled back corner. The rest of the street was in ruins. A large crack split the asphalt. The front faces of several other buildings had been blasted off. Piles of burning rubble littered the ground, the flames electric pink.

All Wilbur could think was, Not again.

And in the middle of it all were ghosts.

Ghosts.

Real, live - or dead, Wilbur supposed - honest-to-god ghosts.

They were just as unsettling as Phil had always described them. One of them was black and white, with long limbs and devil horns. The other was bright pink, rings of rose petals lashing around it.

Phil brandished his ectogun and charged into the fray.

Wilbur stood in shock.

That pink ghost- it looked-

But it couldn’t be. Niki was dead. She wouldn’t do anything to harm her bakery.

Ghosts are dead, a traitorous part of Wilbur’s mind supplied.

Puffy yelled from somewhere in the crowd.

Fuck. Puffy.

She’d already lost the Rosebush to a fire once. She didn’t deserve to lose it again. She was struggling enough as it was.

And Hannah. God. Where was Hannah? Was she in today? Wilbur hoped not. She was supposed to be touring college campuses next week and she would hate it if she was stuck in the hospital instead.

There was a burst of blue light and a scream, and Niki’s ghost was gone. The black and white ghost hovered awkwardly above the street.

“Oh my god,” Techno gasped, appearing behind Wilbur. “Is that-”

“A ghost,” Wilbur finished. “An actual ghost.”

“Ghosts are real.”

“Yep.”

“Phil was right.”

“Yep.”

Techno cursed under his breath.

Wilbur wasn’t sure exactly what was going through Techno’s mind, but he could guess. Phil had been right all along. All those lectures over dinner, the ectogun training, the explosions of acidic green goop in the kitchen that Wilbur and Techno had to mop up so they could actually eat at the table… they were real. They mattered. They were logical and useful and based in actual science.

Ghosts were real.

How many times had Techno gotten into arguments with Phil over this? How many times had Wilbur chewed Phil out himself for the amount of time he spent down in the lab, tinkering away, before he ever had actual proof? How much more time would he spend down there now that he did? How long until he only left for food and a few hours of sleep?

How long until he drove all of his sons away?

The black and white ghost scanned the crowd. Wilbur could have sworn its eyes lingered on him and Techno for just a moment too long. There was something familiar about this ghost, too, but Wilbur couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

Sirens echoed in the distance. Wilbur blinked, and the ghost was gone.

“Where’s your car, mate?” Phil asked, clapping an arm on Techno’s shoulder. Techno jumped. “We need to go after it.”

Wilbur shook his head. “Absolutely not, Phil. It could be anywhere by now.”

“We have bigger problems,” Tommy called, heavily supporting a wounded Tubbo.

Tubbo looked horrible. Blood dripped down his hand where it was pressed against his cheek. Various blisters and burns littered his body. His shirt was ashy and full of holes like he’d been shot with a firework.

Techno’s eyes widened. He met Tubbo halfway, lowering him to the ground with shaking hands.

“Sit down,” Techno demanded. “What- what the hell? How did this happen?”

“Ghost,” Tubbo replied, voice raspy from smoke inhalation.

“That- the ghost did this? That black and white thing?”

Tubbo shook his head. “No. Other ghost. Pink fucker. Ranboo wouldn’t-”

“Couldn’t,” Tommy interrupted. “Couldn’t warn him in time.”

Behind him, Phil stumbled, coughing harshly.

“Fucking hell, Phil,” Wilbur said, catching him by the arm. “Why didn’t you say you were injured?”

Phil winced. “Didn’t hurt at first. Thought I’d be alright. Fuck- ow. Fucking ghosts.”

Techno’s eyes hardened. “Let’s not talk about that right now, Phil.”

Phil grinned triumphantly. “I was right.”

“I know, Phil.”

Emergency vehicles pulled through the crowd. Paramedics swarmed them, taking Tubbo and Phil and sweeping them off into ambulances.

Techno glanced around. “Where’s Ranboo?”

“He, uh, got separated from us,” Tommy said. “He probably went back home. He wasn’t feeling too great.”

“I can certainly see why.”

“Tommy and I can go look for them,” Wilbur decided. “You go in the ambulance with Phil and Tubbo. Take some time to… process, y’know? Try to find a bright side.”

Techno grumbled, but handed over his car keys. “There is no bright side.”

Wilbur sighed. “At least try not to get into an argument in front of the paramedics.”

“No promises.”

Chapter Text

TOMMY

They found Ranboo lying flat on his face on the side of the road. Tommy sent a silent prayer of thanks to whatever god was listening that he looked human again.

“Will, wait! Stop!” Tommy pointed out the car window. “That’s him, that’s him!”

Wilbur pulled over immediately. Tommy was out of the car before it had stopped moving.

“What is it with this guy and passing out recently?” Wilbur muttered as he jogged over.

Tommy looked up at him, concerned. “What should we do?”

Wilbur gently patted the side of Ranboo’s face. Ranboo mumbled incoherently and shifted away.

“I don’t know,” Wilbur said. “Let’s… let’s take them back to their apartment for now. We can talk to them when they wake up. Figure it out from there.”

Taking him home was a lot easier said than done. Manhandling six and a half feet of dead-weight teenager wasn’t an easy task, especially without Techno there to carry the brunt of it.

The thermos containing Niki sat innocently in the grass nearby. Tommy grabbed it before Wilbur could see and hid it behind his back.

“Thanks for the help, Tommy,” Wilbur drawled, shooting him a glare as he nestled Ranboo in the back seat.

Tommy shrugged. “My hands were full. Besides, you looked like you had it handled.”

Wilbur slammed the car door shut. “Yep. Totally handled. And what, exactly, were your hands full of?”

“Bitches.”

Wilbur shoved him into the passenger seat.

“Wow,” Wilbur grunted, setting Ranboo down on his bed. “His apartment’s a fucking mess.”

Tommy glanced around. “Yeah, he, uh, he had a rough few days.”

“No kidding.”

White rings flashed around Ranboo’s waist. Tommy yelped, flinging a blanket over them.

“Alright,” he said a little too loudly. “Hey, Will, can you do me a favour and let Techno know we found Ranboo? I’m gonna see if I can wake them up so we can head to the hospital, see how much damage that ghost did to Tubbo.”

Wilbur gave him an odd look, but nodded. “Sure. I’ll… be in the hallway.”

Tommy sighed in relief as the door clicked shut. “Fucking hell, Ranboo, don’t scare me like that. Wilbur almost saw you.”

Ranboo sat up with a sharp gasp. He pawed frantically at the blanket over his head, freezing when he noticed the black and white of his jumpsuit. “What…”

“We found you passed the fuck out on the side of the road,” Tommy explained. “Thank god you looked human. I don’t know what the fuck we’d have done if you didn’t.”

Ranboo blinked. “Why… is there a reason Wilbur can’t know?”

Tommy scoffed. “Is there a- you realize he’ll go straight to Phil if he finds out, right? Then Phil will know and you know how he feels about ghosts. He’ll want to study you. You can say goodbye to doing anything ever again, because you’ll be stuck in a box in the lab until he melts you into a puddle of goo.”

Ranboo flinched sharply. Their body flickered.

Tommy took a deep breath. “Okay, uh, maybe not quite that dramatic, but he will want to study you. Like a ghostly lab rat. Just- just change back, man, Wilbur’ll be back in any second now.”

Ranboo furrowed his brow. The rings returned after a moment of intense concentration.

“Can- what happened?” He asked.

Tommy raised his eyebrows. “Uh, we found you on the side of the road and brought you home. Good thing you had your key on you, by the way. Not sure what we would’ve done if you didn’t.”

“Not that. Tubbo. What happened to Tubbo?”

Ranboo stood up abruptly, phasing through the blanket.

Tommy held up a placating hand. “He’s at the hospital for his burns. Phil, too. We’re gonna go see them in a bit, just-” He shoved Ranboo back onto the bed. “Hang on a minute, man. You fought a fuckin’ ghost and then passed out. We gotta make sure you’re good, too.”

Ranboo’s shoulders were tense, but they nodded.

“Good. How, uh, how’re you doing? Your chest okay? Shoulder?”

Ranboo rubbed his arm where Phil had shot him. There was no visible wound. “A little tender, but otherwise fine. Nothing’s bleeding.”

Tommy raised his eyebrows. “Wait, really? Is that like-”

“How is he?” Wilbur interrupted, walking back into the room. He gave Ranboo a gentle smile. “Hey, Ranboo. Welcome back to the land of the living.”

Tommy suppressed a snort.

Wilbur ignored him. “You feeling okay? Nothing hurts?”

Ranboo shrugged. “I feel fine.”

“I think they’re good to go,” Tommy agreed. “I wanna check up on Tubbo and Phil.”

Ranboo winced. They pressed a hand against their chest.

Wilbur frowned but nodded. “Yeah, alright. If you’re gonna pass out again, I guess there are worse places to do it than a hospital. I’m gonna use your bathroom and then we can go.”

“Sounds good.” Ranboo brushed dirt off his shirt. “I should, uh, probably change into something clean.”

Tommy took the opportunity to run to the car. Niki’s thermos was still hidden where he’d stashed it under the back seat. Ranboo’s apartment was probably a much safer place for it than anywhere near where it could fall into the hands of Phil.

He crept back into the apartment, thermos stashed under his arm, and ran directly into Wilbur.

Wilbur stared at him, confused. His gaze landed on the thermos. “What is that?”

“Nothing,” Tommy lied, unsuccessfully trying to hide it behind his back.

Wilbur reached around him and snatched it right out of his hands.

Damn Wilbur and his long arms.

“The Philza Thermos?” Wilbur realized, eyes widening in shock. “The thermos- what the fuck? Didn’t the ghost have this? How the hell did you end up with it?”

Tommy shuffled his feet. “It was lying in the street where we found Ranboo.”

“Just, like, on the ground? The ghost seriously just left it?”

“Yup.” It wasn’t technically a lie.

Ranboo reappeared wearing clean clothes. He swiped the thermos and set it on his desk.

“We can deal with that later,” they declared. “Right now, I’d really like to get to the hospital, if you don’t mind.”

They were out the door before either Tommy or Wilbur could respond.

Wilbur shrugged. “Well, the Ranboo has spoken. Off to the hospital we go.”

Tommy followed him to the car.

RANBOO

They got lucky. They only had to spend a few minutes in the anxious, sterile boredom of the hospital waiting room before Tubbo was cleared for visitors.

“You guys head in,” Wilbur said, waving a hand. “I’ll wait with Techno for Phil.”

That was all the permission Ranboo needed. He stalked through the halls as fast as was socially acceptable. His Core buzzed, clawing at him, dread building in his stomach. It only worsened the closer he and Tommy got to Tubbo’s room.

Room 16… Room 12… Room 8…

There.

Room 6.

Ranboo barely stopped themself from throwing the door open. They knocked a little too loudly.

Tommy ran up behind them, panting.

“Come in.” Tubbo’s voice was raspy.

Ranboo’s Core gave another sharp, almost painful, pulse as they entered.

Tubbo had the room to himself, settled in the bed closest to the tiny window. Bandages were visible underneath his hospital gown. Gauze covered the whole left side of his face.

Ranboo’s Core roared. He clutched a hand over his heart. His head pounded. His chest burned. His entire being was awash with dread and agony.

You failed , his Core screamed. Failed, failed, failed.

Distantly, they were aware of Tommy calling to them, resting a hand on their shoulder, closing the door behind them.

“C’mon, Ranboo,” Tommy insisted, “you gotta talk to us.”

His breathing was loud and shallow. Metal clamps cinched around his ribs. He gripped his chest tight enough to hurt, though it was nothing compared to the wailing anguish of his Core. He deserved it, anyway. Failed, failed, failed-

“Ranboo, please, tell us what’s going on.”

Tubbo. They hurt Tubbo. They failed.

“Core- hurts,” Ranboo gasped through gritted teeth. “Failed.”

“This has to be a ghost thing,” Tommy deduced. “Look, his eyes are glowing.”

Tubbo frowned, confused. “What did you fail, boss man?”

Ranboo groaned in pain. White rings flickered around his waist, expanding and contracting, but he forced them away. Nausea built in his throat. Tears dripped down his cheeks.

“I’m- Tubbo, I’m sorry,” they managed. Their words were strained and broken. “Should have helped- stopped her sooner. My, my fault. My fault- you got hurt.”

Tubbo scrambled out of his hospital bed. His hand rested feather-light on Ranboo’s shoulder.

“It’s alright,” he murmured. “It’s… I’m gonna be fine, Ranboo. I mean, yeah, I've been better, but… I’m gonna be okay. It’s not your fault, boss man.”

Tommy rubbed gentle circles into Ranboo’s back. “Yeah, man. You did everything you could. You saved all the people in the area, remember? Caught the ghost. Protected the town. Tubbo’s here, he’s being treated, and he’ll get better. Phil, too. You know nothing can beat that old man.”

Ranboo’s fingers fisted in his hair. His Core wailed. “I don’t- I can’t- it hurts. I failed you. I failed Phil. I didn’t- wasn’t- my Core, it’s so loud.”

“You didn’t fail,” Tubbo asserted. “Ranboo- Ranboo, look at me.”

Ranboo raised their head, blinking away tears.

Tubbo’s eyes were filled with determination and concern. “You didn’t fail me. You did everything you could, which is way more than anyone else could do, and you protected me. I’m okay. Phil’s okay. Puffy’s okay. What happened to us wasn’t your fault. It was Niki’s. And you caught her. You protected all of us, boss man.”

It wasn’t your fault.

Ranboo’s Core receded to a dull thrum in his chest, soothed by Tubbo’s words. His hands unclenched from his hair. He wiped the tears from his face.

They sat in silence for a moment.

Ranboo stared at their lap. “Sorry. I’m… I don’t know what that was.”

Tubbo and Tommy sighed in relief.

“No need to apologise, big man,” Tommy said, patting Ranboo on the shoulder. “Welcome back. We’ll figure out whatever the fuck that was in a second. For now, Tubbo, get back in the bed.”

“Take me out to dinner first,” Tubbo said saucily, hopping back up onto the thin hospital mattress.

Tommy led Ranboo to the chairs beside the bed. He stood next to him, hand still resting comfortingly on Ranboo’s shoulder. Ranboo appreciated it more than he’d like to admit.

Tubbo cleared his throat. “I was gonna ask how you’re doing after the attack, but… should we talk about this now?”

Ranboo swallowed. Their throat was dry. “I, uh, I have… no idea what happened.” They rubbed their chest. “When we were running over, it - my Core - it was buzzing. Like, I could feel it, and it wasn’t good, but I could ignore it. Kinda just assumed it was because I was stressed. But then I got here and saw you in the bed, and I guess it just… snapped.”

Tubbo frowned. “Core?”

“It’s like a ghost heart,” Tommy explained. “Gives him his ghost powers and instincts and shit.”

“Ah. So was… was that an instinct thing?”

Ranboo stared at his hands. “I guess it must have been. Seeing you hurt- it was screaming that I had failed you, that I should have done better, that I should transform and grab the others and not let anyone anywhere near you guys.” His Core thrummed. “It’s still saying it now, just… less. It was so intense, man. It was like someone put a clamp around my chest and screamed in my face that I was a failure.”

Tubbo and Tommy exchanged a look.

Ranboo hung their head and groaned. “This is so stupid. I don’t want this- this ghost instinct stuff. I thought I was getting better at controlling it during the fight, and now this happens.”

Tommy’s eyes lit up with realization. “Hang on. You said you wanted to keep everyone away from us, yeah?”

Ranboo nodded slowly.

“That’s it! That’s your reason, Ranboo!”

Tubbo gave Tommy a sharp look.

“Hear me out,” Tommy insisted. “Phil said every ghost has a reason to exist. You said you don’t have one, but I disagree. Think about Niki. Remember how she was, like, super fuckin’ protective of her bakery? I think what you’re talking about is kinda the same thing. If her reason was to protect her bakery, your reason must be to protect us. And if a ghost’s reason is the entire point of their existence, going against it must feel really fuckin’ wrong, which I think is what that was.”

Tubbo’s eyes widened. “Ranboo, just before the portal turned on, what were you thinking about?”

Ranboo blinked. “I… something felt off. I knew something bad was gonna happen, and I was worried that- I wanted you guys to be safe.”

“That’s it, then. Your reason is to protect us. Maybe Phil and the others, too. And when I got hurt and you, like, immediately transformed to get into the fight, I bet that was the same thing. Your Core told you what to do. How to protect us.”

Ranboo’s Core pulsed in agreement. Protect, protect, protect.

Tommy frowned. “That’s not something we can fulfill, though.”

Tubbo waved a hand. “Let’s worry about that later. We can relax for now. We’ve solved one mystery. You-” he pointed to Ranboo- “got that ghost and saved everyone! That was sick as fuck, man. You’re, like, a real life ghost superhero. I mean, walking through walls? Disappearing? Flying? That’s cool as shit! And you did it on purpose, too, not like on Saturday.”

Ranboo blinked again. They had done that, hadn’t they? They’d controlled their powers. Not perfectly, but enough. They’d even shot an ectoblast from their hand.

He rolled his shoulder, flinching at the memory of Phil’s shot, and was surprised when he felt no pain. Even the tenderness he’d felt back at his apartment was gone.

“I don’t hurt at all, either,” they said. They rubbed tbeir chest.

“Yeah, you weren’t bleeding or anything when I checked you over earlier,” Tommy agreed. “Your suit wasn’t even torn when you transformed again.”

Tubbo hummed. “I wonder… Ghosts are made of ectoplasm, right? Maybe that means you can heal shit faster or don’t take as much damage.”

Ranboo stared at the floor. “Made of ectoplasm… I’m really not human anymore, huh.”

Tubbo and Tommy exchanged a look.

“Hey, now,” Tommy chided, “no one’s saying that’s a bad thing. Superman’s not human and no one thinks any less of him.”

Tubbo nodded in agreement. “Yeah! You’re just a bit goopier than the rest of us, that’s all.”

Ranboo stared at him incredulously. “Did you just imply that I’m goopy Superman?”

“Gooperman,” Tubbo said seriously.

Tommy’s laughter rang through the hospital.

WILBUR

Phil grinned. “Techno! Wilbur! How’s it going, boys?”

“I feel like we should be asking you that, Phil,” Wilbur said as he sat next to Phil’s hospital bed. “What did the doctors say?”

“Nothing broken,” Phil relayed. “Just bruised.”

Techno grunted in affirmation.

The conversation was pleasant - Wilbur explained how he and Tommy found Ranboo, Techno told them about his phone call with Dream - but there was an underlying tension hanging in the air. Stilted words. Shifting glances.

Eventually, Techno sighed. “Are we gonna address the elephant in the room?”

Phil smiled. “I didn’t want to be the first to bring it up.”

“We have to talk about it at some point,” Wilbur agreed.

Phil looked like he was holding himself back from jumping out of the bed and dancing around the room in celebration. “Well, boys, I was right. Ghosts are real, my tech is effective, and my research is relevant.”

Wilbur gave him a strained smile. Techno’s face remained blank.

“That you were, Phil,” Wilbur said placatingly. “So what does this mean for us now? You know as well as I do that the town isn’t going to suddenly start believing you.”

Phil shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. But I’m willing to bet that if there was one ghost attack, more will follow eventually. Maybe then they’ll accept it.”

Techno’s eyes hardened. “Are you sayin’ you want more attacks?”

Phil’s smile faltered. “Of course not! Jesus Christ, Techno! I just want more people to understand the threat so they can better protect themselves. I know you hate ghosts, but this is your reality now. You need to accept that.”

Techno crossed his arms. “Trust me, Phil, I’ve accepted it. I had plenty of time to think about it while I was sittin’ in the hospital waitin’ room after you, Tubbo, and multiple other people were seriously injured in a ghost attack.”

Phil frowned. “I don’t understand why you’re mad, mate. I mean, yeah, people got hurt, but this could be a good thing! More ghosts means more people will start taking me seriously. I can get more funding for my research. My inventions can finally get some use. Maybe-”

“Someone died, Phil,” Techno snapped.

Phil froze. “There was- someone died?”

“Dream told me,” Techno continued. “They found someone crushed in the rubble.”

Phil’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly. “Shit.”

“I’m gonna see how Tubbo is doin’,” Techno declared, sweeping out of the room without another word.

Wilbur sighed, staring after him. “He’s taking this hard. You know he is. Just… give him some time.”

“Yeah.” Phil’s voice was rough. “I didn’t know anyone died. I should have guessed- they’re ghosts. Of course they’re not above killing people.”

Wilbur swallowed. “Yeah, I guess so. I’m… I’m gonna go see Puffy. Hopefully Techno will have calmed down by the time I get back.”

His feet dragged as he wandered through the hospital halls.

The ghost… it had Niki’s face.

Niki’s death had been horrible. It still stung, a constant ache under his skin. His heart panged every time he went to text her something only to remember she wasn’t there to receive it.

She had been so kind. So polite. So gentle.

And now she was back as some kind of electric pink ghostly murder machine. Niki, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, had killed someone in the same way she herself had died.

God. It was probably Hannah, wasn’t it? She usually worked in the back. She wouldn’t have been able to get out in time. She would have died burning, crushed by rubble, buried so deep no one had heard her scream.

Wilbur choked on a sob. He blinked tears out of his eyes.

He wouldn’t tell Puffy. Not yet. Not until he had confirmation of whose body had been pulled from the wreckage.

Puffy’s room was a few doors down from Tubbo’s. Tommy cackled as Wilbur walked past. That meant Tubbo was probably fine, which was good.

Puffy gave him a smile when he ducked into her room. “Will, hi. How are you holding up? You look like you’ve been crying.”

Wilbur laughed brokenly, wiping his eyes. “I’m not the one in the hospital bed.”

Puffy’s arms were wrapped in bandages. The skin on the backs of her hands was dry and irritated. Heavy bags hung under her eyes. Her smile was a little too tense to be fully genuine. Wilbur couldn’t imagine he looked much better.

Puffy gestured wordlessly to the plastic chair in the corner. Wilbur sat.

Silence stretched between them, uncomfortable and heavy, for a long time.

“She followed you around,” Puffy said finally. “Said that she came through some green doorway, that you were the first person she saw. She followed you until you came to the Rosebush.”

Green doorway…

Wilbur tensed.

The portal. Phil’s portal.

Of course she had come through Phil’s portal. Where else would a ghost come from? And he’d felt that presence over his shoulder all morning, the smell of fresh baked goods in his car, the sudden shifts in temperature. He could have kicked himself. Why didn’t he realize?

What might have gone differently if he did realize? What if he had noticed her, had tried to talk to her? Could he have stopped all this from happening if he was more observant? Could Hannah still be-

“I just can’t wrap my head around this, Will,” Puffy said, snapping Wilbur out of his thoughts. “This shouldn’t have been possible. Ghosts don’t exist. Dead people don’t come back and… and attack the living. There has to be another explanation. One that makes sense.”

He stared sadly at her. “Puffy, I am so, so sorry.”

She blinked. “What?”

Wilbur lifted his glasses and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “This is all my fault. I’m- that green doorway you mentioned is Phil’s latest invention. A ghost portal. It only started working on Saturday.”

Was it really only two days ago? It felt like so much longer than that. So much had happened. Too much.

“Phil and I were taking another look at it yesterday morning,” he continued. “That must have been when she came through. I felt like something was… off, all day, but I chalked it up to stress. If I had noticed, none of this would have happened. I’m sorry.”

Puffy sighed. “It’s not your fault, Will, don’t apologize. I- it was me mentioning how much the bakery is struggling that set her off. If I hadn’t done that, none of this would have happened, either. Do you blame me?”

“Of course not.”

“Exactly. What happened- it’s her fault, hers and that other black and white ghost’s. They’re the ones that ruined my bakery. They’re the ones that hurt me and Phil and that other kid.”

Angry tears gathered in her eyes.

“Fuck, Will, what am I supposed to do now? The other ghost caught her, yeah, but what if it lets her go? What will she do when she sees the bakery in the state it’s in now, when I have to sell it off to even begin to cover the cost of rebuilding a second time?”

Her voice broke. She choked on a sob.

“I’m screwed, Will. I can’t- I can’t keep doing this. I can’t face her again. I thought I knew her, thought I had come to terms with everything that happened last year, and now this… I don’t know what to do.”

Wilbur wordlessly offered her the box of tissues from the small table beside him. She took one, blowing her nose loudly.

His mind whirled. He’d spent years half-listening to Phil talk about the dangers of ghosts, about the risks they pose to everyone, and now it was all coming true. Right before his eyes. One of his closest friends, who had been ripped away far too early, had come back, had attacked people, had gotten someone killed.

He groaned. “Fuck. Puffy, I… If you want, like, an ectogun or something, let me know. I’ll- I can talk to Phil. We’ll find these ghosts, I promise. Tommy thinks he found the thermos that the other ghost used. I’ll see if she’s actually in there. I’ll figure it out.”

Puffy laughed bitterly. “Thanks, Will. Though you’ll have to give me a while to scrape together enough money for that ectogun. This whole mess is already a strain on my finances.”

Wilbur waved a hand dismissively. “Nope. Don’t even think about paying for it. Consider it a small compensation for letting her through in the first place.”

Puffy considered him for a moment, then nodded. “Alright.”

“Just… take care of yourself, okay? I’ll figure something out.”

Puffy’s smile turned soft. “Thank you, Will.”

Chapter Text

TOMMY

Tommy raised his hand. “Can I take Tubbo to the nurse, miss? It’s for his burn ointment stuff.”

The teacher waved a hand at the door. “Yes, go ahead.”

Tubbo’s burns had significantly improved in the two weeks since the attack. The doctors were optimistic that he would heal with minimal scarring. The burn on his cheek, however, would leave a permanent mark. Something about the skin of the face being different or some shit. Tommy didn’t know.

Tubbo was taking it like a champ, all things considered. He barely made a peep when it was time for check-ups and treatments, and he’d made so many jokes about being flaming hot that even Tommy was beginning to get tired of them.

Ranboo, on the other hand, wasn’t handling things particularly well.

Tommy understood why, they all did, but it didn’t make his fussing any less annoying. He hovered and nagged and mother-henned, always making sure Tubbo was listening to the doctors and taking care of his injuries.

Operating around Ranboo’s new set of instincts was odd, to say the least. Any anxiety he’d previously had, which wasn’t an insignificant amount, had been doubled when it came to Tommy and Tubbo. Tommy figured they’d get used to it eventually. It was just another part of life, like the ghost attacks and Ranboo’s whole dead superhero schtick.

He made sure not to complain about his ankle when Ranboo could hear. Granted, he’d probably made it worse by running around two days after he’d injured it, but Ranboo would only blame themself, and no one wanted a repeat of their breakdown in Tubbo’s hospital room.

The nurse smiled as he and Tubbo stepped through the door. “Hello, boys. Come on in, Tubbo. Tommy, you can have a seat, or head back to class if you’d like.”

“I’ll sit, thanks,” Tommy replied.

Tubbo waved over his shoulder as the nurse closed the office door.

Tommy settled in an uncomfortable plastic chair, bouncing his good leg.

The room was painted a soft blue that reminded Tommy of hospital gowns. Posters lined the walls, ranging in topics from the RICE Method to meditation techniques. Plastic curtains separated several beds from the rest of the room.

Tommy had had to lay on one of those beds when he busted his knee during gym class. Flat fuckers, those beds, thin and lumpy and uncomfortable as hell. He honestly thought lying there had made his knee injury worse.

“Hello, Tomathy. Fancy meeting you here.”

Tommy spluttered. “What- Jack?”

Jack was propped up on one elbow on one of the beds, grinning smugly. Tommy shoved the curtain the rest of the way open and perched next to him.

“Hey,” Jack protested, “who said you could sit here? Bugger off.”

Tommy made a face at him. “I did, bitch. Why the fuck are you here?”

Jack sighed. “Well, long story short, I saw a ghost, proceeded to fuck up my foot, and now I’m waiting for my mum to pick me up.”

Tommy’s eyes widened. “A ghost? Where?”

“Out by that tree you and your posse like to sit under all the time. Saw it about half an hour ago while I was heading to class. I’m, like, ninety percent sure it was the same one from the bakery.”

Tommy frowned. Niki was still in the thermos in Ranboo’s apartment. He wouldn’t have let her go, would he?

“The pink one?” Tommy asked. “Wasn’t she, like, captured or some shit?”

Jack waved his hands. “No, no, the other one. The one that’s been fighting all the other ghosts. Black and white fucker. It was, like, floating around in the branches. Looked kinda miffed, to be honest. It saw me and just- poof! Gone.” He made a little poof gesture. “Man, it was so cool. I ran over to get a better look, but I couldn’t see anything, so I kicked the tree, and now I’m here.”

Shit. This was bad.

Ranboo was in ghost mode at school, which meant either he’d lost control - not an impossibility, though he’d been getting much better - or something really, really bad was going to happen. It could already be happening.

Fucking hell.

Tubbo opened the nurse’s door with a click, a fresh bandage on his cheek.

Tommy sprang to his feet. “Alright, good talking to you, Jack. Try not to kick any more trees. See ya!”

He speed-walked over to Tubbo, ignoring the spike of pain in his ankle, and dragged him towards the door.

“Um. Okay,” Tubbo said. “Hi, Jack. Bye, Jack.”

The hall outside was blessedly empty. Tommy let go of Tubbo’s arm.

Tubbo gave him a look. “What the fuck, Tommy? What’s going on?”

Tommy’s jaw clenched. “Jack said he saw a black and white ghost hovering in the branches of our tree.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Exactly.”

They hurried down the hallway as fast as Tommy’s ankle would allow. There was still a good fifteen minutes of class left, but they had been excused to go to the nurse, so they wouldn’t be missed. Besides, Ranboo was more important.

There was nothing out of place around their tree. No imprints in the grass from a body they couldn’t see, no peculiar wind that didn’t touch the surrounding shrubbery.

“Maybe we’re too late,” Tubbo suggested.

“Oh, hey, guys.” Ranboo materialized above them, lounging in the tree branches. “What brings you around?”

Tommy jumped. “Jesus fuck, Ranboo, you scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” Ranboo laughed, not sounding particularly sorry.

Tubbo squinted up at him. “What are you doing?”

“Sitting in the tree. Obviously.”

“I can see that, dickhead. Why are you all spooky right now?”

Ranboo rubbed the back of their neck. “Yeah, about that… I was sitting in English when my, uh, ghost sense went off, I guess you could say. I figured it was one of those low-level ghosts just drifting around, y’know, the ones that are more of a nuisance than an actual threat? Something I don’t even need a thermos for and can just chase back through the portal. It would take, like, ten minutes max.

“So I went to the bathroom to go ghost or whatever, but as soon as I got there, my ghost sense went off again. I’m- it was massive, guys. Like, if a low-level ghost is a bike bell, and Niki was a car horn, this was like an air raid siren.

“I changed before I could even think about it. I- it felt like I was standing three inches from a tiger in the bushes. Like something was breathing down my neck. I was in the hallway, and there was something or someone at the other end, and they were glowing green, and then they were gone and people were coming so I came out here. Then Jack showed up, and I kinda went invisible on instinct, and I’m just now realizing that I can’t change back.”

Tommy and Tubbo exchanged a look.

“What do you mean, you can’t change back?” Tommy demanded. “Why the fuck can’t you change back? Class is gonna be out in, like, five minutes, and I don’t think dear ol’ Techno would appreciate a ghost roaming the school.”

Ranboo gave him a look. “I’m well aware of that, Tommy. I just- my damn Core is still all wound up. I can’t calm down enough to change back. I don’t- I’ve never felt anything like this before. It was big, man. Easily the most powerful ghost I’ve ever met.”

Tubbo shifted uncomfortably. “Well, uh, do you still feel it now? Like, is it still here?”

Ranboo’s eyes flashed neon. He scanned the schoolyard.

“No,” they said slowly. “No, I don’t… I don’t feel any ghosts, like, at all.”

“That settles that, then,” Tubbo said. “The threat is gone. You’re alright. There’s no screaming, no smoke, none of that. No ghost attacks happening right now. You just need to calm down a bit and we can think this through, okay?”

“He’s right,” Tommy agreed. “If you’re not sensing any ghosts, you should worry more about your, ah, physical appearance for the time being.”

Ranboo nodded, drifting down through the branches of the tree. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Okay. I can do this. I’ve got it under control. I can-”

“Hey, guys!” Jack yelled, appearing around the corner.

Ranboo blipped out of visibility.

“Any sign of that ghost?” Jack continued.

Tommy spun on his heel. “Nope! All gone, Jack! Don’t worry!”

Jack groaned. “Aw, man, I wanted to see it again.”

“Maybe another time, boss man,” Tubbo smiled stiffly.

A car honked in the distance.

Jack sighed. “I gotta go. See you guys tomorrow!”

He limped away with a wave.

Ranboo blinked back into existence. “Whoops.”

Tommy waved a hand. “It’s fine, Ranboob. Let’s try this again, shall we?”

RANBOO

Ranboo’s ghost sense flared again the instant they stepped through Tommy’s front door. An icy chill spread over their skin. Their hair stood on end. Their ears rang sharply. Every step forward was like walking through molasses.

The kitchen. Whatever was setting off his Core was in the kitchen.

“No,” Tubbo was saying, “because, like, imagine if he managed to hone it a bit. Properly shoot them and catch-”

“Dream!” Tommy interrupted loudly. “What are you doing here?”

Ranboo’s eyes snapped to the blonde-haired man sitting at the kitchen table, various teaching materials spread out in front of him, an acid green hoodie wrapped around his shoulders. Their Core thrummed.

Dream waved. “Hey, Tommy. Techno invited me over.”

“We’re workin’ on a lesson plan,” Techno grumbled from the seat next to Dream, “so if you guys could make yourselves scarce until the pizza gets here, that would be great.”

Dream clasped his fingers under his chin. “What were you talking about just then? It sounded interesting.”

Danger, Ranboo’s Core buzzed. Danger, danger, danger.

Tubbo and Tommy exchanged a mildly panicked look.

“New game,” Tubbo blurted. “It’s super cool. You’ve got to play it with us sometime. I don’t remember what it’s called, but I’ll, uh, look it up on Tommy’s computer.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” Dream smiled. “I’ve been waiting for something new to play.”

Danger, danger, danger.

“We’ll be upstairs,” Ranboo decided, grabbing his friends by the arm. “Wouldn’t want to bother you.”

They stumbled up the stairs. Ranboo could have sworn they felt Dream’s eyes on their back even when Tommy’s door slammed shut.

“Well, that was awkward as fuck,” Tommy said. “How exactly do you plan on finding the name of a game that doesn’t exist, Bee Boy?”

Tubbo huffed, flopping onto Tommy’s bed. “I don’t know. Neither of you were saying anything. I had to come up with something on the spot. I’ll just, like, look for something that might fit.”

“Excuse you, I was simply planning my genius response, and you cut me off.” Tommy hummed. “Could you use that dodgeball game, maybe? It’s pretty new and has catching involved.”

“Maybe. Don’t know if he’d believe we were that excited about a dodgeball game, though.” Tubbo glanced at Ranboo. “Boss man? Any ideas?”

Ranboo pressed a hand over his chest. His Core still buzzed danger at him, though it was less now that Dream wasn’t in the room.

Dream.

“Ranboo?” Tommy frowned, leaning forward. “You alright?”

Ranboo shuffled his feet. “Did you guys notice anything… off about Dream?”

Tubbo and Tommy exchanged a look.

“Not really, no,” Tubbo replied. “Why?”

“I think…” Ranboo cleared his throat. “I think Dream set off my ghost sense.”

It didn’t add up. Ranboo had been around Dream plenty of times, and he’d never struck them as odd. That was all before the portal incident, though, so maybe they’d just never noticed? But then how did it take Dream this long to register on their ghost radar if he was that powerful? And how did he suddenly vanish off of it?

Except his ghost sense was still pinging in the back of his skull, still ice cold in his chest, still warning him away from the kitchen where Dream sat.

Ranboo clenched his hands into fists to stop them from shaking.

Tubbo’s eyes widened. “Dream? He’s- are you sure?”

Ranboo nodded. “Yeah. I’m- when I was at school, and, and I couldn’t- because of that thing? And now I can feel it here and Dream is here and it’s in the kitchen and he’s in the kitchen and I-” He took a shaky breath. “It’s Dream. It has to be.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “You really think Dream is a ghost, Ranboo? You know him. He’s one of Techno’s mates. He’s not a ghost. There’s probably one, like, lurking in an alleyway outside or some shit. Do you wanna go outside and have a look?”

“The same way that I can’t be a ghost?” Ranboo asked pointedly, ignoring Tommy’s suggestion. “Maybe he’s possessed. Maybe it isn’t even the real Dream, and a ghost has taken his place. I just- whatever I’m feeling is coming from him.”

Tubbo raised himself up on one elbow. “He had a point, Tommy. And he’s a ghost, so I think he would know better than you do. What if Dream is a really human-looking ghost like Ranboo is? Isn’t that at least worth thinking about?”

Tommy sighed. “Yeah, okay, but how do we even look into it? Are we supposed to go up and ask him? Shoot him with an ectogun and see if his blood is green?”

“Obviously not. But we could, like, keep an eye on him, y’know? See if he does anything ghostly. He’s staying for dinner, isn’t he? We’ll watch him for today, then go from there.” He turned to Ranboo. “Ranboo? Thoughts?”

Ranboo shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know, guys. Dream… this isn’t anything I’ve felt before. Like, Niki was strong, but Dream makes her feel like a fly in comparison. I can’t do anything against a ghost that powerful.”

They stretched their ghost sense to the kitchen. Dream hadn’t moved.

“Maybe you don’t have to,” Tubbo said. “That’s my point. We have no idea if he’s a threat or anything. For all we know, he could be perfectly friendly.”

Tommy nodded. “Yeah. Y’know what, I agree with Bee Boy. We’ve gotta gather more info before we do anything. He probably won’t do shit for the time being, seeing as he hasn’t already, so you don’t have to worry about him leaping up and attacking you in front of the rest of us while you’re eating pizza. Calm down. Being all on edge like this is just gonna make Techno and Wilbur all worried.”

Ranboo took a deep breath. “Right. Yeah. Okay. You’ve got a point.” He slumped against the side of the bed, running his hands through his hair.

Tommy batted them away, ruffling Ranboo’s hair himself, and smirked. “Of course I do.”

Ranboo was going to kill Tommy.

The questioning was supposed to be subtle. Sneaky. Under the radar.

“Okay, but, like, what do you do , Dream?”

Clearly, subtlety was not Tommy’s forte. He’d asked at least three other out-of-character questions in the last five minutes. Dream was laughing about it, but Ranboo wasn’t sure if it was out of discomfort or genuine amusement.

“The same stuff Techno does,” Dream replied airily. “Teacher stuff. I’m here to work on a lesson plan. That takes up a good chunk of my time, really.”

Tommy hummed, hastily swallowing a mouthful of pizza. “That’s boring. I meant in your free time. Got any hobbies? Crochet, maybe?”

Ghostly activities, perhaps?

Ranboo wanted to kick him.

Sweat beaded on the back of Ranboo’s neck. Despite Dream’s laughter and apparent ease in the situation, his smothering aura hadn’t lessened. Ranboo could have sworn Dream’s eyes flicked to them constantly, surveying them.

It didn’t help that Dream had removed his cloth mask to eat. Not that Ranboo was bothered by the mask - he wore one himself, after all - but Dream’s mouth and jaw were painted with jagged lightning scars not unlike the ones on Ranboo’s arm.

Ranboo’s hands shook as he raised his pizza to his mouth. His arm twitched. The pizza slice phased right through his hands and landed on his plate with a splat .

Techno gave him a concerned glance. “You alright, there, Ranboo?”

Dream’s eyes landed heavily on Ranboo. They almost looked like they were glowing.

Ranboo’s throat was dry. Their heart pounded in their ears. Their Core writhed, frost swelling in their chest. It took all their concentration to not disappear on the spot.

A hand slapped over his eyes.

“You dumbass.” Tommy’s voice was strained. “Managed to get sauce on your face, did you? Go wash that shit off.”

Ranboo stumbled out of his chair, bringing a hand up to pretend to rub at his eyes.

Tubbo made a comment they didn’t quite catch as they headed towards the bathroom. The table erupted with laughter.

Good. At least the atmosphere wasn’t stifling to everyone else.

Ranboo locked the bathroom door behind him. The porcelain sink was pleasantly cold as he leaned over it. Red and green eyes stared back at him from the mirror, neon and electric.

He tamped down the cold in his chest, willing his eyes to go back to normal. They didn’t change.

“Dammit,” he cursed, a little too loud.

They closed their eyes, took deep breaths, focused on their heartbeat, on the feel of the sink under his hands. On warmth. Anything to remind themself that they were human.

Dream’s presence draped over him like a heavy, anxiety-inducing blanket. His eyes didn’t change.

Someone knocked on the door. He jumped.

“You doing okay in there, Ranboo?” Wilbur asked.

Ranboo cleared their throat. “Uh, yeah, don’t worry. Just got some soap in my eye. I’ll be back out in a minute.” He tried to sound light-hearted. He wasn’t sure he succeeded.

Footsteps receded down the hallway. Ranboo opened the door hesitantly, checking to see if the coast was clear. It hit Wilbur in the chest.

Ranboo squawked and slapped a hand over his eyes. 

“You good, mate?” Wilbur’s hand settled gently on Ranboo’s, trying to force it away from his face. “Did you manage to wash it out? D’you want help?”

Ranboo spluttered, trying desperately to get their Core to settle. “I- uh-”

Wilbur pried more forcefully at their hand. “Let me see.”

“Just- just gimme one second, Wilbur, I’m still blinking water away.”

“Why didn’t you say that, then?” Wilbur teased, dropping his hand. His tone turned serious again. “You sure you’re doing alright, though? It looks like it’s hurting you pretty bad.”

Ranboo forcefully shoved the cold back into his Core and pulled his hand away from his eyes. Wilbur didn’t visibly react, so he must have been successful. He smiled in a way he hoped came off more casual than strained.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” they said. “Stings a bit, but I’m good.”

Wilbur gave them a considering look, then nodded. “Great. Let’s head back to the table.”

Tubbo and Tommy exchanged a glance when Ranboo shuffled back into the kitchen. Tommy made some comment about how long Ranboo had taken that he didn’t fully catch.

Dream’s eyes were greener than usual. There was a radioactive glint to them, similar to the way Ranboo’s eyes had glowed only moments earlier, but decidedly more off-putting. His presence in the room was twice as overwhelming as it was before.

Tubbo must have noticed Ranboo’s distress, because he shoved the rest of his pizza in his mouth and stood up from the table.

“I’m done,” he declared. “I’m gonna head up to Tommy’s room. I’ll meet you guys there. Nice chatting with you, Dream.”

Tommy stood just as quickly. “I’m done, too. I’ll come with you.”

Ranboo turned to follow them upstairs. The less time they had to spend around Dream, the better.

“Going so soon?”

There was an edge to Dream’s voice that hadn’t been there before. Ranboo, Tubbo, and Tommy exchanged a look.

Dream smiled dangerously. “You know, Tubbo, you never did give me the name of that game you guys were so excited about earlier. I still want to hear about it.”

Tubbo gulped. “Uh, yeah, sorry about that, Dream. I forgot to look it up. I’ll- I can find it  for you later.”

He grabbed Tommy and Ranboo by the elbows and dragged them upstairs. None of them relaxed until Tommy’s door was slammed behind them.

Ranboo slid down the wall, pulling his knees up to his chest. His Core flared. He was sure his eyes were glowing red and green again.

Tubbo slumped on Tommy’s bed. “You doing alright, boss man? What happened down there?”

Ranboo ran a hand through their hair. “I’m alright, yeah. I swear he was staring at me, like, the entire time. Made my Core go all…” Their Core flared. They flinched. “Yeah. It was… not fun. Felt like I was fresh out of the portal for a minute there.”

Tommy and Tubbo exchanged a concerned look.

Ranboo cleared his throat. “Well, uh, did you guys learn anything? I didn’t really catch much of the conversation. Or did you, like, see anything weird? Were his eyes glowing or something?”

Tubbo frowned. “He didn’t really say anything all that interesting. Uh, he likes football, and he’s here to work on a lesson plan. I didn’t- I wasn’t sure how to ask anything more without prying too much.”

“Yeah, same here,” Tommy agreed. “I was trying to ask questions, but, like, can’t just ask the guy if he’s an evil ghost, right? And we can’t exactly determine his level of evilness from his passion for teaching.”

Tubbo shoved him in the shoulder. “You weren’t even trying to be subtle, dickhead. You might as well have just asked him point blank.”

“Hey, there isn’t a fuckin’ instruction booklet on what to do if you think your brother’s friend is possibly an evil ghost. I was doing my best.”

“From now on, you don’t get to do interrogations.”

“Fuck you.”

Ranboo sighed, leaning his head back against the wall. So they had nothing. They were no closer to figuring out the whole Dream fiasco than they were before dinner.

Tubbo propped himself up on his elbows. “I gotta be honest, guys, I don’t trust him.”

“I thought he seemed pretty normal,” Tommy said with a shrug. “Didn’t really scream dangerous ghost here to kill everyone, I don’t think.”

“Yeah, but he just seemed so… I don’t know. Amused, I guess, with the whole situation. It was creepy.”

“Amused is a good word for it,” Ranboo muttered. “I just- even the vibe he gave off when we were down there. It was overwhelming, yeah, but not outwardly angry or hostile. It was more like he found us funny.”

“That’s because you’re hilarious.”

Everyone immediately leapt to their feet.

“Dream?” Tommy squeaked. “I- where?”

Dream laughed. It echoed painfully in Ranboo’s skull.

Ranboo scanned the room, reaching out with his ghost sense. Dream was here, but where?

Ice cold hands clamped down on their ankles. They didn’t get the chance to scream before they were dragged down through the floor.

Chapter Text

RANBOO

He landed in a crumpled heap on the floor of the lab. His legs jolted with pain as he pushed himself to his feet, but he ignored it. He didn’t have time for that right now.

The lab was dark and empty. No Phil, no Dream, nothing. The only light came from the electric glow of the portal. It was cold, colder than it should be.

Ranboo had been down here a few times since that godforsaken Saturday two weeks ago to herd whatever low-level ghost was causing problems that day back through the portal. They had only ever found it mildly unsettling. Now, though, the green light was acidic. Toxic. The machine stood tall and imposing in the darkened lab.

For a moment, they were staring at their grave.

He shook his head. Not now. He had other things to worry about.

Their ghost sense nagged at them. Chills crawled underneath their skin. Something skirted around the edge of their perception, there and gone too quick for them to get a good idea of what or where the thing was.

“Ranboo? What are you doing down here?”

Ranboo whirled as Dream stepped into the lab.

“Are you alright?” Dream asked, faux-conderned. “I heard a sound.”

Ranboo’s eyes narrowed. This wasn’t right. The nagging from his ghost sense had stopped. Not faded, stopped. Dead silence in the lab and in his Core.

“What are you?” Ranboo demanded.

Dream cackled and lunged.

Bright rings burst to life around Ranboo’s waist. They had barely reached their knees before Dream was on them, clawing, slashing, the talons on his fingers slicing through their forearm like it wasn’t even there. Neon ectoplasm spilled from the wound.

Ranboo leapt backwards into the air, barely avoiding another swipe. “Wait!” Swipe. “Let’s talk-” Swipe. “-about this!”

Dream laughed again, loud and sharp. His claws slashed faster than Ranboo could dodge, scratching his chest, arms, legs, anywhere he could reach. Ranboo tried flying away, tried going intangible, but Dream was quicker. 

Ranboo blipped off the visible spectrum. Dream didn’t slow his attacks, somehow able to track him without needing to see.

A claw caught their hand, tearing into their palm.

Ranboo snarled, turning visible again. He gathered power in the wound. His hand glowed, the vibrant green of ectoenergy, and he shot it directly into Dream’s upper arm.

They both paused.

Dream grinned. “Hey! You landed a hit! You can fight back!” He raised his arms in celebration, apparently unbothered by the sizzling shoulder wound. “That’s what I was waiting for!”

Ranboo stared at him, their uninjured hand pressed to an especially deep wound in their stomach. “What?”

“I wanted to see if you were any good,” Dream explained cheerfully. “And you aren’t, but you’ve got potential!” He swept ash from his burned shoulder. “I mean, that hurts! And you’ve only been a ghost for, what, two weeks? That’s impressive!”

The lab door swung open. Two sets of footsteps rushed down the stairs. Someone yelled Ranboo’s name.

Dream moved before Ranboo could respond. “Oh, dear, visitors. That’s not good. Off we go, then!” He rushed forward, grabbing Ranboo’s shoulder and pulling him through the wall just as Tubbo reached the bottom step.

They reemerged in an empty street, cool moonlight reflecting off the road.

Ranboo wrenched his shoulder out of Dream’s grip. Dream gave him a considering look. There was an unnerving glee in his eyes.

They stared at one another in silence for a long moment.

Dream’s ghost form was ridiculous, to say the least. Almost everything about him was tinted in various shades of green. His face was a smooth white mask with an open, smiling mouth. His real mouth was visible behind it, glowing with neon lightning scars and filled with too-sharp teeth. Twin gold halos looped around his head and crossed where his eyes should be. A full-length cape billowed behind him in the same nonexistent breeze that tangled Ranboo’s hair. His fingers were clawed and dripping ectoplasm - Ranboo’s ectoplasm - onto the street below them.

Ranboo’s entire body stung. The smallest cuts on their arms and legs had already begun healing, but the gashes across their chest and back remained deep and wide and angry.

Dream laughed, startling Ranboo out of their thoughts.

“You can fly by yourself,” Dream noted. “Good. Come, we need to get further from here before those guys find us.”

He grabbed for Ranboo’s arm again. Ranboo ducked out of the way.

“No,” Ranboo snapped. “I’m- what is going on? Tell me what’s happening.”

Dream dropped his hand. “I will, I will, just- let’s get out of here before Phil comes out to shoot us, okay? I don’t want that any more than you do. Once we’re, y’know, not in the immediate vicinity of the only ghost hunter in five hundred miles, I’ll explain everything.”

Ranboo hesitated.

There was noise coming from inside the house. Shouting. Something crashed. If Phil didn’t come running with an ectogun, Tommy and Tubbo would, and Dream would destroy them. Ranboo couldn’t have that.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “But I don’t need you to pull me. I can fly just fine on my own.”

Dream grinned. His teeth gllinted. “Excellent.”

They flew almost the entire way across town. Dream kept up a pace that was slightly faster than Ranboo was comfortable with, like he was trying to prove a point. Ranboo was grateful that they didn’t need to breathe. If they did, they were sure they would be gasping for air right about now.

“This has to be far enough,” Ranboo declared eventually. “They’re not gonna look this far out. They’ve got other stuff to do.”

Dream slowed and turned around, giving Ranboo a once-over. His eyes lingered on the gashes in Ranboo’s chest.

“If you insist,” he acquiesced. “Over here should be good.”

They touched down in a graveyard. It was empty and silent, lit up by dim street lights over gravel driveways. It felt like an omen.

Ranboo slumped against the nearest headstone, ectoplasm pooling beneath him. Dream remained floating a few inches off the ground.

“Sorry about all that, by the way,” Dream said, gesturing to Ranboo’s injuries. “Just wanted to see how strong you were. May have gone a bit far.”

His words did nothing to soothe Ranboo’s agitated Core.

“Explain,” Ranboo demanded.

“Alright, alright.” Dream raised his hands in surrender. “Where shall I start?”

“The beginning.”

“The beginning… very well. I was twelve at the time. This was before Tommy was adopted. I wasn’t yet friends with Techno, but I had friends who were. Phil invited us over for a demonstration of his new ghost tech. A proto-portal, he called it.”

Ranboo’s arm twitched, phantom jolts of electricity racing under their skin.

“My friends never showed up,” Dream continued, “said they got distracted and missed it. I never found out if that was true. Anyway, Phil gave me a tour of his lab, showed me the blueprints for his ectoguns, that sort of thing. He was pretty bummed that my friends didn’t come, so he gave me more freedom to poke around than he probably should have.

“The proto-portal was much smaller than that monstrosity in the basement. Only about two feet wide, really. It flickered on and off constantly, never really stabilizing like it has now, but Phil was so excited. He rambled on and on about things I didn’t understand at the time.

“I got… too close.” A muscle in Dream’s jaw twitched. “Caught myself on the portal just as it was flickering back on. I’m sure you can imagine what that felt like.”

Ranboo clenched his fist to hide the shocks in his arm. “I can guess.”

“I spent the next few weeks in a hospital.” Dream smiled sadly. “I kept falling through the bed, blasting holes in the walls, losing sight of my own limbs. Had to figure out all this ghost nonsense on my own.”

Ranboo nodded slowly. “So have you- you’ve always been a ghost? As long as Techno’s known you?”

“Kinda.” Dream’s sad smile twisted into a smirk. “Oh, there is so much for you to learn. You don’t even know what you are yet!”

Ranboo blinked. “What? I- what do you mean?”

Dream spread his arms. “We, Ranboo, are halfas. Half ghost, half human. The Schrödinger’s Cat of the ectoplasmic community. Both dead and alive at the exact same time.”

Ranboo stared blankly at him. “Elaborate.”

Dream laughed. “Well, as I’m sure you’ve heard from Phil, when someone dies a violent death, their consciousness can imprint on ectoplasmic energy, and they become a ghost. That’s how it’s supposed to work, at least. You and I didn’t quite get that far. I’m not certain of the specifics of it, as the only specimen I’ve had to study so far has been myself, but I think halfas are created when someone dies in a way that involves massive amounts of both electricity and ectoplasmic energy. That checks out, right?”

Ranboo’s arm twitched again. “Right.”

Familiar rings of light burst to life around Dream’s waist. They travelled over him, replacing his ridiculous ghost form with the obnoxiously green hoodie he’d been wearing at dinner. He landed on the grass in front of Ranboo and did a little twirl.

“Halfas,” he said. “Not quite dead, not quite alive.”

Ranboo frowned. “But… aren’t we just, like, ghosts that can look really human? That’s what I thought, at least.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You can tell you aren’t a normal ghost, can’t you? You’ve got a pulse, you can breathe, you need sleep and food and water. Ghosts don’t need any of that. They can’t really imitate it, either. Not well. We, my friend, are both alive and dead at the same time! It’s kinda cool when you think about it. All of the fun of being dead with fifty percent less death.”

“That makes no sense.”

Dream shrugged. “Not in the slightest, no. But, then again, nothing about ghosts really makes sense. You get used to it.”

He drifted back up into the air, transforming into his ghost form again.

“You can’t deny it, Ranboo.” Dream’s tone turned serious. “I know it’s confusing, but I also understand what you’re going through. You’re a halfa now. Niki said it before, didn’t she? Back when you fought her?”

Ranboo stared at the ground. “I- yeah, she did.”

“That’s because ghosts can tell. We give off a different vibe than they do.” Dream spread his arms. “Look, Ranboo, you’ve only been a halfa for two weeks. You’re practically a baby. You’re still all wound up, right? You sit in class like everything is normal, but under your skin, just below the surface, you can feel it. Your Core is buzzing with more power than you know what to do with.”

Ranboo rested a hand over their chest. Their Core thrummed.

Dream gestured vaguely. “You try to live a normal life, but you feel disconnected from it, from your friends. They don’t get it. You get phantom twitches sometimes, little jerky movements you can’t control, like someone shocked you with a bug zapper. Like you’re back in the portal again.”

Ranboo’s eyes widened. 

“I’ve been there,” Dream continued. “I still get phantom twitches, though not as much as I used to. They happened less the better I got at controlling my powers. Judging by that whole thing at dinner earlier, and the fact that you’re clenching your entire arm to stop it from twitching, your control isn’t that great.”

Ranboo relaxed his arm. It twitched. He glared at it.

Dream held out a hand. “I can teach you. I can help you learn everything about your new power. I want to be your mentor, baby halfa.”

Ranboo spluttered. “I- what? You want to mentor me?”

Dream shrugged. “I mean, who else would do it?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe someone who didn’t just beat me up, take me to a graveyard in the middle of the night, and dump some paradoxical information about the state of my being on me while I slowly bleed out?” They flailed their hands, flinging ectoplasm over the grass. “You seriously expect me to just… become your student? I don’t even know if this halfa stuff is actually true. For all I know, you could be some random ghost that’s possessing Techno’s friend.”

Dream cocked his head. “Why would I lie about this? I’ve already transformed and told you my tragic backstory. I even related to your baby halfa struggles. I’m not sure what other proof you’re looking for, here.”

“I don’t know!” Ranboo groaned, leaning his head back against the headstone. “I just- this doesn’t make any sense, Dream. I don’t- you don’t attack someone, then ask them to work with you. How can I take you at your word when I’ve spent the past ten minutes sitting in a puddle of my own ectoplasm? Ectoplasm that was spilled by you, I might add.”

Dream stared at them for a long moment.

“You have a point,” he said eventually. “I didn’t mean to actually hurt you, I promise. I just wanted to test you, see how well you could control your powers. I get that it’s hard to wrap your head around all this, that this is a lot to take in, but I swear on my own grave that I’m not lying. You’re a halfa. So am I. I’ve been dealing with this for years. I can help you.”

“This is insane,” Ranboo grumbled. “I just- I’m not gonna be your student, or apprentice, or anything like that. Even if I am a halfa, I don’t wanna learn from someone whose first test was attacking me.”

Dream raised an eyebrow. “Look at yourself right now. Normal ghosts don’t have blood in their ectoplasm, do they?”

Ranboo glanced down at their wounds. Sure enough, tiny dots of bright red were sprinkled among the green.

“Have you never wondered about that before?” Dream asked incredulously. “Or did you just assume that it was another really human-looking ghost thing?”

Ranboo shot him a sharp look. “Well, Dream, I’ve never been hurt this badly before, so I haven’t exactly had the opportunity to wonder about it until now.”

“No, I suppose not. You healed right up after the fight with Niki, didn’t you? She’s also a young ghost. Only a year old. Her attacks look plenty intimidating, yes, but they don’t cause any real damage.”

“Not like you did, you mean.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have been so aggressive. But there are ghosts out there a hundred times more powerful than Niki, and they’ll all want a piece of a baby halfa like you. You need to be able to fight back.”

Ranboo pushed himself up off of the headstone with a wince.

“Y’know what,” he huffed, “I’ve had enough. None of this is making me want to learn from you any more than I already did. I’m going home.”

“Hold on.”

Dream’s voice was sharp. His presence shifted, becoming suffocating. Ranboo’s Core screamed at them. Danger, danger, danger.

“I strongly urge you to reconsider,” Dream said. “You won’t find anyone else who can teach you about this. I’m offering you the best you can get.”

Ranboo gulped. “I- no. No, Dream, I’m not- I won’t be your student. I don’t want you to teach me. I don’t want you to even come near me and my friends. I’d rather deal with this on my own than with you.”

Dream’s eyes flashed neon.

Ranboo’s arm twitched. He floated up into the air.

“No,” he said, more firmly this time. “That’s my final answer.”

Dream snarled and leapt at him. Ranboo dodged, shooting up and over Dream’s head, and racing back to Tommy’s house as fast as they could fly.

He landed ungracefully on the front step. As he transformed back to human, the stinging in his wounds turned to burning, the pain increasing tenfold as the sluggish flow of ectoplasm was replaced by blood. He clutched at his chest, gritting his teeth.

The front door opened.

“Hey,” Ranboo rasped, “I need-”

The rest of their sentence got caught in their throat when they saw who was at the door.

Dream, in human form, gave them a menacing grin, a wide-eyed Tommy two steps behind him.

Ranboo’s Core flared. He phased right through Dream, placing himself in front of Tommy as a barrier.

“You stay away from him,” Ranboo snapped.

Dream’s eyes sparked in amusement. He raised his hands in mock surrender.

“Whoa, calm down, man. Why are you so worked up?” His tone was confused, but Ranboo knew better. “Hang on, you’re bleeding. What happened?”

Ranboo gritted their teeth. “You know exactly what happened. Now get out. I thought I told you I didn’t want you anywhere near them.”

“Ranboo, chill out, man,” Tommy said with a forced laugh. “We need to look at your wounds.”

Ranboo ignored him.

Dream’s face twisted into a cruel parody of concern. “Seriously, what’s wrong? How did this happen?”

Footsteps approached from behind Ranboo and Tommy.

“Ranboo?” Tubbo’s voice was tinged with worry. “Where did you go? What- you’re bleeding! What the fuck happened?” He rushed forward, unintentionally placing himself between Ranboo and Dream.

Dream’s eyes flashed neon again. Ranboo’s eyes flared red and green in retaliation.

“He’s bleeding?” Phil demanded, appearing beside Tubbo. “Jesus fuck, Ranboo, what happened to you?”

Dream laughed. “You know what, I’m gonna take that as my cue. I’ll see you at school, Techno. Phil, thanks for having me. I’ll grab my stuff and get out of your hair.”

He side-stepped Ranboo, hands still raised in front of him, and vanished into the kitchen.

Ranboo relaxed the instant Dream was out of the room. They sagged in Phil’s arms. Their injuries burned. Their T-shirt was soaked through with blood. A haze settled over their senses.

Phil laid them gently on the couch. He yelled something across the room at Techno and Wilbur, but Ranboo didn’t catch what.

A cold hand landed on his forehead. Ranboo tensed.

“You guys take care of him, alright?” Dream ordered. “I expect a full recovery.”

If anyone found Dream’s tone unsettling, they didn’t comment.

Ranboo’s Core writhed. He shifted on the couch, trying to get up, to protect the others, but soft hands pushed him back down.

The door locked with a click.

Safe .

Ranboo dropped back onto the couch and let the world fade to black.

TOMMY

“We’ve gotta take him to a hospital for this,” Wilbur muttered. “I mean, what the fuck…”

Tommy winced as Phil cut Ranboo’s bloodstained shirt off of them. Their chest and arms were covered with so many cuts and gashes they looked like a patchwork quilt.

“How did this even happen?” Tubbo asked in a small voice.

Wilbur sighed. “I don’t know, man. It doesn’t make sense. His clothes are fine, not a single rip, and yet… fuck. This is bad.”

Techno hurried back into the room carrying a bottle of iodine, a pile of washcloths, and a bowl of water. He dropped his supplies next to the couch and knelt by Ranboo’s head, gingerly dabbing blood away from the cuts.

“We need to get them to a hospital,” he decided when he reached the ones across Ranboo’s chest. “Some of these are too deep for us to deal with, and we don’t know how much blood they've lost. They could be in real trouble here.”

Tommy opened his mouth to protest.

“No,” Phil ordered. “No, he’s not going to a hospital.”

Wilbur and Techno gave him equally incredulous looks.

“And why not?” Techno demanded gruffly.

Phil held up Ranboo’s bloodstained T-shirt. Small flecks of electric green were dotted amidst the red.

“There’s ectoplasm on here,” Phil said. “No person could have done that. Ranboo was attacked by a ghost.”

Tommy made a choked noise. “What? How did- how would a ghost- I don’t get it.”

“Think about it. Only ghosts make ectoplasm. He was somehow badly cut without his clothes tearing. What else could it possibly be?” Phil shook his head. “We can’t take him to a hospital for ghost wounds. They would have no idea what to do with him.”

“Well, we can’t help them enough,” Techno snapped. “They need a doctor. We can’t- we don’t have the stuff, or, or the training that this requires.”

Wilbur nodded. “Techno’s right. I’m calling an ambulance. This is more than a couple cat scratches, Phil. Even if he was attacked by a ghost, he needs professional medical help.”

“No!” Tubbo blurted, a bit too loudly. “No, Phil’s right. It has to be a ghost wound. What if there’s more, uh, ghost stuff in there? What if the ectoplasm is, like, doing something only ghost tech can handle? The hospital is a bad idea. We should keep them here and watch him. If they get worse, we can always call an ambulance later.”

Techno scoffed. “By then, it might be too late.”

Tommy bit his lip. “Can we even afford another hospital visit? I mean, Ranboo definitely can’t pay his own bills, and Phil was already in the hospital after the attack at the bakery, and we don’t have a lot of money as is…”

Techno shot him a look. “You’re not supposed to be concerned about money.”

“Money doesn’t matter if Ranboo’s dead,” Wilbur snapped. “We can worry about that later. They need to get fixed up by actual doctors.”

“Will,” Phil ordered sharply, “can I talk to you in the kitchen for a minute?”

It wasn’t a question. Wilbur’s eyes narrowed, but he followed Phil out of the room.

Tommy and Tubbo immediately took their places next to Ranboo, grabbing washcloths and wiping away the red that was slowly staining the couch. If they wrung out the cloths more aggressively than was strictly necessary, that was no one’s business but their own.

Tubbo nudged Tommy. “Look.”

Tommy glanced over at where he was pointing and gasped.

A small cut on Ranboo’s arm, barely deep enough to bleed, was closing before their eyes. Small specks of green ectoplasm lined the sides. The edges pulled themselves together, the skin healing itself when they met, leaving no trace of the cut ever existing.

Tommy scanned the rest of the cuts. Another one of a similar size on Ranboo’s shoulder glowed a faint green as it closed.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Techno asked, leaning over Tommy’s shoulder, dripping washcloth in hand.

Tommy and Tubbo exchanged a panicked look.

“Uh, nothing,” Tubbo said unconvincingly. “Hey, could you, uh, change the water in the bowl? It’s getting pretty gross. We’ll keep watch and keep wiping.”

Techno let out a shaky breath. “Yeah, alright. I’ll be back in a minute. Let me know if even the smallest thing changes.”

As soon as he was out of the room, Tommy and Tubbo inspected the rest of Ranboo’s wounds. Sure enough, ectoplasm glowed at the deepest part of every cut, slowly knitting the flesh back together. It was unnerving. Tommy suppressed the urge to retch.

“We can’t…” Tubbo’s voice came out strangled. “A hospital can’t see this. Phil can’t see this. What the fuck are we supposed to do?”

Tommy rested a hand on Ranboo’s forehead. It was freezing, as usual.

He sighed. “I don’t fucking know, Tubbo. Shit- we gotta deal with this soon. Techno’s gonna be back any second. Fuck, and we don’t know what Phil and Wilbur are chatting about in the kitchen. For all we know, they could be discussing how to- to fuckin’ strap him down and cut him up-!”

“Not helping, Tommy,” Tubbo snapped. “We need to come up with something. Stop with the fucking dramatics.”

Tommy took a deep breath. “I know. I just- I don’t know what to do about this at all, Tubbo. Covering for them when they duck out of class is one thing. Getting them out of a hospital trip when they've spent the last ten minutes bleeding out on my couch? That’s a different fuckin’ ball game. I mean, their arm’s practically healed itself already. Only a few big ones left.”

Tubbo’s eyes widened. “Tommy, you’re a genius.”

Tommy spluttered. “What- I, uh, I know that, obviously, but would you like to explain why?”

Tubbo’s eyes flicked to the kitchen door. “We can say that we wiped more blood off, which we technically did, and that it isn’t as bad as it looked. Like, if he doesn’t actually have that many cuts, there’s no reason to go to the hospital. Techno or Wilbur can drive him back to his house, we can go with him, and we can make sure he properly heals up there instead.”

Tommy bit his lip. “Are you sure that’ll work? They all saw how bad he was before. They’re not fuckin’ idiots. What if they question it?”

Tubbo’s reply was cut off by Techno re-entering the room, carrying a clean bowl of water. Phil and Wilbur followed close behind, still arguing in hushed tones.

“Sorry that took so long,” Techno said, kneeling next to the couch and setting the bowl beside him. “They wanted to talk to me. Did anythin’ change?”

Tubbo cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, we, uh, we cleaned off more blood and it’s not actually as bad as we thought. There aren’t as many cuts, see?”

He pointed to an area of Ranboo’s stomach where none of the cuts were closing too visibly. Tommy hid a few under his washcloth.

Techno blinked. “Huh. You’re right. I could have sworn there were more…” He stared at the wounds as if they held the answers to the universe. “Still doesn’t change the fact that some of them are too deep for us to deal with, though. They still need to get those checked out. Phil? Thoughts?”

Phil inspected Ranboo’s chest. “Tubbo’s right about the cuts looking better, yeah, but I’m still worried about the ectoplasm on his T-shirt. There could be residue that got in his wounds. We have no idea how that could hurt him if it gets into his bloodstream.”

“We didn’t see any when we were wiping the blood away,” Tommy piped up. “I think it was just on their shirt. It’s not like we could miss fuckin’ neon green spots while we were cleaning them up.”

Phil hummed. “You make a good point. I don’t like how much hospital activity we’ve seen lately. Techno?”

Techno grunted.

“Would you be willing to drive them back to their apartment once they wake up?”

Holy shit, that actually worked. Tommy shot Tubbo a grateful glance.

Techno raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Phil. Even if we don’t take him to the hospital, which we should, he shouldn’t be alone at his apartment while he’s injured like this. He’ll only make things worse.”

“Tommy and I can stay with him,” Tubbo suggested. “He’ll just feel like a burden if he stays here. Besides, after the day he’s had, I’m sure he’d like to be able to sleep in his own bed.”

Tommy nodded in agreement. “What the fuck’s a doctor gonna do, anyway? Prescribe them bed rest and painkillers?”

“Give them stitches, maybe,” Techno retorted, eyeing Ranboo’s stomach wounds. “Those looked pretty deep before.”

Tubbo shrugged. “It probably just looked really bad because it was all bloody.”

“I agree with the boys on this one, Techno,” Phil said. “I think we all kinda freaked out when he first showed up, and that made everything seem worse than it actually is.” He scratched his head. “My radar should have gone off if there was a ghost, though. Must be time for an update.”

Techno scoffed, but didn’t otherwise comment.

“We can ask him when he wakes up,” Wilbur decided. “Speaking of which, he’s been out for a while now. Should we be worried about a concussion?”

“There weren’t any injuries on their head that I saw,” Tubbo reassured him. “Maybe they just got, like, really scared. Or had an adrenaline crash or some shit.”

“He has been fainting a lot recently,” Tommy added.

Wilbur hummed. “True. Worrying, but true.”

Techno frowned. “Okay, but-”

He was cut off by a groan from Ranboo. Everyone was immediately beside the couch, watching as his eyes blinked open blearily.

Tommy gave a wobbly smile. “Hey, Ranboob. How’re you feeling?”

Ranboo grimaced. “Like I got clawed by a ghost.”

“He’ll be fine,” Tubbo deduced.

Tommy laughed.

Chapter Text

RANBOO

“That makes no fuckin’ sense, man,” Tommy complained from where he was sprawled across Ranboo’s bed. “We were literally talking to Dream that entire time. Are you sure it was him?”

“Positive,” Ranboo replied, hovering cross-legged above the floor in the middle of the room.

Techno had driven the three of them back to Ranboo’s apartment a few hours ago with strict instructions to rest and recover. Ranboo had promptly ignored these instructions, changing into ghost form and trying doggedly to wrestle his powers under control. So far, his flight and invisibility were pretty good, his intangibility was passable, and he had only managed to summon two successful ectoblasts. He had, however, discovered that while the ectoblasts from his black right hand were the usual neon green, the ones from his white left hand were a brilliant red to match his eyes.

“He said he was gonna teach me how to be a halfa,” Ranboo continued, red and green sparking across their fingers.

Tommy raised his eyebrows. “The fuck’s a halfa?”

Ranboo huffed. “What I am, apparently. According to Dream, it’s someone who’s both dead and alive at the same time. The Schrödinger’s Cat of ghosts.”

Tubbo frowned, resting his feet on top of Ranboo’s desk. “Okay. Quick question: how the fuck does that work? I mean, Schrödinger’s Cat is a paradox. It’s not supposed to exist.”

“Neither are ghosts,” Ranboo said drily, gesturing to themself, “and yet here we are.”

“Stop breaking fundamental laws of nature. It makes my brain hurt.”

“Sorry.”

“This makes no fuckin’ sense,” Tommy said again. “Isn’t death, like, a done deal? You’re either one or the other. You can’t be half and half.”

Ranboo glanced at his black and white split jumpsuit. “At least I’m on brand while I’m breaking fundamental laws of nature.”

“Fuck you.”

Tubbo hummed. “Actually… Tommy, remember that ectoplasm we saw on the floor in the lab? It had flecks of blood in it. That was yours, wasn’t it, Ranboo?”

Ranboo nodded. Their arm twitched.

“And then there were flecks of ectoplasm in your blood in the same way. That wouldn’t make sense if you were a full ghost. Ghosts don’t bleed, and humans don’t have ectoplasm in their bodies. Plus, you can do that whole transformation sequence between human and ghost form that other ghosts can’t do. The whole concept hurts my brain, but it checks out.”

Tommy’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but he didn’t seem to have a response. He crossed his arms and scowled.

“Either way, I think Dream’s right,” Ranboo admitted. “Niki called me a halfa back when I fought her, so that lends some credibility to his statements. I wish I had anyone else I could talk to about this.”

Tommy sighed. “I’ll be honest, man, I was only just starting to wrap my head around the whole you being a ghost thing. This is… a bit more than that. Bloody hell.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Why the fuck does this have to be so damn complicated?”

“Also,” Tubbo added, “that still doesn’t explain how you could have been fighting Dream while he was talking to us on the other side of town.”

Ranboo flexed his right hand. Green ectoenergy built up around it, then fizzled out. He huffed in frustration. “Maybe it’s one of his powers? We barely know anything about the guy. Maybe he can teleport or something.”

Tommy made a face. “Nah, he never left my sight, not even for a second. He would literally have had to be in two places at once.”

“Well, maybe that’s the power,” Tubbo posited. “Maybe he can, like, duplicate himself or some shit. You’ve gotta talk to him again, boss man. See what he can do.”

“How about no,” Ranboo retorted. “I don’t wanna go anywhere near him ever again. Not until I have significantly more control over my powers, at least.” He tried for another ectoblast and was met with red sparks. “You guys weren’t there. You didn’t see how easily he overpowered me. I could barely even move.”

They changed back into their human form, lying flat on their back on the floor. Their arm twitched. They didn’t have the energy to glare it into submission.

“He’s way too strong,” Ranboo whispered. “I can’t fight someone like that.”

Tommy rolled over on the bed, reaching out to ruffle Ranboo’s hair. “How’re you feeling? All healed up?”

“Mostly, I think.” Ranboo rested a hand over his chest. A few of the deepest gashes in his stomach had yet to close, but aside from that, he was physically fine. Thin silver lines were all that was left of his previous injuries. Soon, those would be gone, too. Ranboo was grateful for that. He wasn’t sure how he’d explain away that many scars.

Tommy shoved their shoulder. “Let me check your back. Shirt off, Ranboob.”

Ranboo scoffed but sat up and did as instructed, wincing as the bandages shifted against their wounds. “Bit forward, aren’t you, Tommy? Take me out to dinner first.”

“Fuck you. I’d expect more gratitude after all the girlbossing Tubbo and I had to do to keep your ass out of the hospital. Wilbur was, like, two seconds away from calling an ambulance the entire time. It’s thanks to us that you’re here being a dickhead and not in a hospital getting dissected.”

“Alright, yeah, I owe you. Both of you. Big time.” He sighed. “I’m sorry you have to keep stressing over me and my ghost stuff. I’ll get better eventually, I swear.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, boss man,” Tubbo said, swinging his feet back onto the floor. “I mean, we aren’t the ones who, like, half-died or whatever. I feel like being a bit awkward when talking to people isn’t- it’s not really a comparable struggle, y’know? And we, uh, well, lying isn’t the most-”

“What Tubbo means,” Tommy interrupted, “is that we get it. You’ve been through a lot of shit recently, and will continue to go through a lot of shit if this trend continues, which it probably fuckin’ will, so take your time, man. All this ghost shit has been a lot to take in. As long as you’re doing your best, we don’t mind.”

Ranboo sighed again as Tommy unwrapped their bandages and poked at the wounds on their back. They were in pretty much the same state as the gashes on their stomach, scabbed over but not quite healed.

His arm twitched. Tommy jumped.

“You alright, there, Ranboo?” Tommy asked, eyes widening.

Ranboo pulled his shirt back on. “Yeah, I’m…” He took a deep breath. “Can I talk to you guys about something?”

“Of course, boss man,”  Tubbo reassured him, leaning forward. “What’s up?”

Ranboo gulped. “I’m, uh…”

They were scared. Terrified, even. Dream’s mild attacks had reduced them to an ant at God’s will. He was overwhelming, his aura paralyzing, his speed beyond anything Ranboo could even dream of keeping up with, let alone surpassing. Ranboo had only gotten away because Dream let them, and they knew that.

“I don’t know what to do, man.” Ranboo’s voice shook. “I can’t deal with Dream. I can’t even- he was playing with me. That whole fight, I was doing everything I could to defend myself, and he just- it didn’t make a difference.”

Tommy gripped his shoulder in a show of silent support. Tubbo crossed the room and leaned against his other side.

Ranboo’s arm twitched again. Tubbo raised his eyebrows.

“It’s, uh, a halfa thing, apparently,” Ranboo explained, rubbing their bicep. “Dream called them phantom twitches. They’re like little shocks of electricity left over from the portal or something.”

Tubbo’s expression softened sympathetically. “Do they hurt?”

“A little. Not nearly as much as- as the portal did, though.”

“Can we help at all? With the phantom twitches or Dream or anything else?”

Tommy’s grip tightened on his shoulder. “Yeah, let us help, man. You don’t have to face him alone, y’know? We’ve got shit we can use. I’ve got my charm and access to Phil’s tech, and Tubbo has his nerd brain and stubbornness. We can go with you.”

“No,” Ranboo snapped, Core flaring. “Absolutely not. I don’t want you guys anywhere near him. Besides, the only thing we seem to have on ghosts is the thermos, and we don’t know if it even works on halfas.”

“We could test it on you,” Tommy offered.

“Shut the fuck up, Tommy,” Tubbo said. “Ranboo, are you sure there’s nothing we can do to help? Tommy’s an idiot, but he’s right, kind of.”

Tommy spluttered indignantly. “Hey!”

Ranboo chuckled. “Just you guys being here is helping enough.”

“You soft bastard.” Tommy ruffled Ranboo’s hair. “You know what we meant. Give us shit to look up or something. We want to help you figure out whatever the fuck is happening.”

Tubbo nodded. “Yeah! Now that we have a name for what you are, it’ll make finding information easier, right?”

Ranboo frowned. “I don’t think so. Dream said the only other halfa he’s ever met was me.”

“He could have been lying, though. That’s, like, his whole thing. I don’t think he’s the most trustworthy source on this shit.”

“He knows more than we do. We had no idea I wasn’t a full ghost until he said so.”

“Well, he doesn’t-”

Ranboo’s Core suddenly wailed. Frost spread through his chest. His breath fogged in front of him. He was on his feet and in ghost form before he realized what was happening.

Danger, danger, danger.

Dream was here.

Tubbo scrambled to get up, frowning. “Ranboo? What-”

“He’s here.” Ranboo’s voice was tight. “Dream. He’s here. I can feel him.”

Tommy pushed himself up off the bed. “What the fuck? He’s here ? Where?”

Ranboo stared blankly through the floor. “I don’t- he’s… outside the building, I think. Out in front.”

Their Core writhed in terror, screaming at them to do something, anything. A new energy bubbled up deep within their chest, almost the same as the churning energy they used for ectoblasts, only more. So much more.

Purple shot down their right arm. Particles buzzed around their hand. Violet light washed over the room.

Tommy flinched, shielding his eyes. “The fuck- Ranboo, what’s going on?”

Power flowed freely from Ranboo’s Core and down his arm. He tried to tamp it down, to wrestle it under his control, but it didn’t respond. Panic began sparking in his mind. His arm raised of its own volition and pointed through the wall towards where Dream was standing. He tried to lower it, to push it down with his free hand, but nothing happened.

“Back-” Their voice was strangled. “Back up.”

Tommy and Tubbo took a few hesitant steps backwards.

“Ranboo,” Tommy demanded, “what the fuck is happening?”

Ranboo gritted his teeth. “I don’t know. I can’t- it won’t listen to me. I can’t stop it.”

“Well, keep trying! Holy shit- is this how you felt when Dream was in the kitchen?”

The hair on the back of Ranboo’s neck stood up. Power and electricity crackled around them. The energy around their hand built and built, what felt like their entire Core pouring itself into his palm.

Everything stopped for one brief moment. The air itself seemed to be holding its breath.

Ranboo screamed. The energy around him released, exploding outwards with a violent boom .

The world went purple.

TUBBO

Tubbo’s retinas burned.

Somewhere amidst the purple, Ranboo was screaming. It was high and sharp, hauntingly so, echoing and crackling like a bad radio signal. Tubbo was unpleasantly reminded of barely two weeks ago when a similar scream echoed from inside the portal in the lab.

Tubbo never wanted to hear Ranboo scream again.

Ranboo’s hand was still raised, fingers spread, pointed toward the empty street below. Thousands of tiny purple particles billowed around them. When the particles touched something, they burned, eating away at it like they were made of acid. The entire wall corroded and crumbled in an instant.

Ranboo’s eyes, rather than their usual human grey or ghostly red and green, were bright purple and thick with tears.

“Ranboo, stop!” Tubbo coughed. “He’s not there!”

Ranboo didn’t seem to hear him.

Despite the burning of the particles, the temperature in the room dipped sharply. Tubbo shivered violently.

“Come on, Ranboo,” Tommy begged. “You gotta control it! We’re safe. There’s no one there. Please, man.”

Ranboo’s arm twitched. His jaw clenched. Glowing tears dripped down his cheeks.

Tubbo took a hesitant step forward. “You’re scaring us, boss man. You’re hurting people. You need to stop.”

That got a reaction. The particles fizzled out. Ranboo blinked, their eyes first going red and green, then grey as their transformation washed over them, then rolling back in their head as he collapsed. Tubbo half-caught them on their way down.

“Shit,” Tommy said eloquently. “What the fuck- what was that?”

Tubbo gently rested his fingers against the side of Ranboo’s neck. His pulse thumped at its standard too-slow rate.

Tommy blew out a breath. “Tubbo, what the fuck do we do?”

Tubbo didn’t respond, turning his gaze to the hole in the wall.

Without the particles buzzing around, it was much easier to see how much damage had been done. The wall was entirely gone, along with sizable chunks of the floor, ceiling, and even the road below. The particles hadn’t touched Tubbo or Tommy - probably due to Ranboo’s protective instincts - but many of Ranboo’s things were peppered with holes and singe marks.

Outside, people poured from doors and leaned out windows, looking for the source of the sound. Someone on the ground floor was crying.

Tommy patted Ranboo’s face a few times. Ranboo didn’t stir.

Tubbo crept toward the hole where the wall used to be. He stopped on the edge, gulping as small chunks of tile and drywall tumbled to the pavement three stories down.

The crater in the road stretched all the way across to the other side, lit sporadically by flickering street lights. It was easily as wide as two buses stacked end to end. A few stubborn purple particles still flickered at the bottom.

Sirens howled in the distance. People on the street were shouting.

Tubbo jumped back as the part of the floor he was standing on crumbled and fell.

“Holy shit,” Tommy said, eyes wide.

“Holy shit,” Tubbo agreed.

Chapter Text

TOMMY

“Seriously, thanks for letting me stay with you guys,” Ranboo said, suitcase smacking the front step as he dragged it inside.

Wilbur smiled. “No problem. You’re sharing with Tommy. You won’t be thanking me after a few weeks of that.”

“Oi,” Tommy protested, “when was this decided? I don’t want Ranboob in my room.”

Ranboo gave him a look. “Wow. Rude.”

Wilbur raised an eyebrow. “He’s your mate, Tommy. Besides, your room is the biggest. Suck it up.”

Tommy made a face at him. He didn’t actually mind sharing a room with Ranboo - they’d already slept there last night after the explosion, after all - but Wilbur was his brother and therefore not allowed to be right under any circumstances.

“Duck!” Phil yelled, appearing from the entrance to the lab.

Something smacked against the side of Ranboo’s head. He squawked, stumbling and dropping his suitcase.

Tommy cackled, picking what looked like a metal boomerang up off of the floor. “Nice reflexes, Ranboob.”

Ranboo glared at him.

“Sorry about that, Ranboo,” Phil said apologetically, taking the boomerang from Tommy. “This thing needs more work.”

Ranboo rubbed their forehead. “What even is that?”

“It’s a new invention Tubbo and I have been working on,” Phil explained proudly. “It’s called the Boo-merang, emphasis on Boo. It’s supposed to lock on to a ghost’s ectosignature and track it down. Obviously, there’s something wrong with it. It seems to think that you’re a ghost.”

“Me?” Ranboo’s voice came out strangled.

Tommy laughed a little too loudly. “Hey, it found a Boo, didn’t it? Just not the kind of Boo you were hoping for.”

Phil chuckled. “I guess it did. Dunno why, though.” He frowned at the Boo-merang. “Sorry again, mate. About this and your apartment. Hopefully, the repairs won’t take too long. Damn ghosts, always ruining it for everyone…”

The news claimed it was a ghost-related accident. There was an investigation underway to determine exactly how it had happened. The building had since been closed, due to the massive hole in the front wall rendering it unstable and dangerous.

“It shouldn’t take too long,” Tommy said, which was a complete guess. “I mean, most of the damage was external, wasn’t it? That’s gotta make it easier to fix. Like, isn’t it kinda lucky that only some of the rooms were fucked? Less shit to put back together.”

“It’s lucky, that’s for sure,” Wilbur agreed, heading upstairs to Tommy’s room. “Any further to the side, or a bit higher up, and it could have really hurt someone. It’s a miracle that no one was hurt, let alone you three.”

Ranboo flinched as he followed.

Tommy huffed. “Well, what if that’s what the ghost wanted? Maybe it wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. Maybe it had to defend itself or some shit. Maybe it was a fuckin’ accident. We don’t know.”

Phil crossed his arms. “It hit three floors, Tommy. Twelve apartments. Even tore up a good chunk of the road. I don’t think that anything with that amount of destructive power has good intentions at heart. For a ghost to be that powerful, it would take a lot of anger and a lot of time. I’m willing to bet that this thing is old and mean.”

Wilbur raised an eyebrow, shoving Tommy’s door open. “That’s a lot to assume, isn’t it?”

“Knowing about ghosts is literally my job, Will. Out of everyone here, I think I’m the most qualified to make assumptions.”

Ranboo ducked their head, setting their suitcase at the foot of Tommy’s bed.

Tommy cleared his throat. “I think that’s enough ghost talk, yeah? This guy just got clawed to shreds and had his apartment blown up in the same night. I think we should spare him your nonsense for at least a little while, Phil.”

“It’s science, not nonsense,” Phil protested, taking a step back. “But I’ll give you some space. Gotta fix this damn Boo-merang, anyway. Call me if you need anything. Will, you leave the poor boy alone, too.”

“Oh, but father,” Wilbur drawled, “I wish to spend time with my darling little brother and his lovely friend, whom I love so very much.”

Tommy flipped him off. “Get out of my room, dickhead.”

Wilbur laughed. “Yeah, alright, I’m leaving.” He swept out of the room, leaving the door wide open behind him.

“Bitch,” Tommy grumbled, kicking the door shut.

Footsteps receded down the hall.

“Well, shit,” Tommy summarized after a moment of silence.

Ranboo slumped on the bed. “Phil’s- the Boo-merang targeted me like this. I’m not even in ghost form, and it still knew.” They ran their hands over their face. “What if he can’t fix it? What if he has other ghost weapons, ones way more dangerous than that one, and they lock on to me, too?”

Tommy swallowed. “Maybe, uh, maybe it was just that one. I mean, most of his weapons are ectoguns that don’t really need to lock on to shit to shoot.” He flinched. “Not that that’s much better. I mean, if the Boo-merang can find you like this, then maybe ectoguns can also be a bit… dangerous. And he’s been working on the new ones, too, that are supposed to be way more powerful.”

Ranboo glared at him. “Not helping, Tommy. How am I supposed to stay here for however many months if Phil’s tech has a decent chance of killing me again?”

Tommy sighed. “He said he was working on shit with Tubbo, right? Tubbo’s a smart guy. He can probably figure out how to get any of the fuckin’ risky stuff to avoid you.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Ranboo took a shaky breath. “I just- what other stuff does he have down there? Is it even safe for me to be in this house at all?”

Tommy rested a hand on his shoulder, ignoring how cold it was. “We can get Tubbo on it whenever he has free time. For now, though, you need to calm down. I don’t need a-”

His reassurances were cut off by Ranboo’s next exhale coming out as fog. Ranboo’s eyes widened. He raised a hand as though to catch it before it floated away.

Tommy sighed. “Dream?”

Ranboo shook their head.

“Big?”

Another shake.

“Go deal with it, then. I’ll check in with Tubbo. If anyone asks, I’ll say you’re taking a massive shit or something.”

Ranboo’s hand clenched around his wrist. His skin was freezing.

“Tommy, what if…” They stared at the ground. “I don’t know if I can do this. What if that purple thing happens again? I can’t control it at all. It could kill someone. I could kill someone.”

Tommy flinched. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve only done it once, and that was after Dream showed up, attacked you, and stressed you the fuck out. Seeing as you passed out, like, immediately after, I assume it’s some sort of last-resort-type thing. Like, your Core decided that he was a big enough threat to bust out the big guns. You said this one is a smaller ghost, yeah?”

Ranboo nodded.

“So there’s no reason for your Core to think that that’s necessary. You can’t just stop being a ghost, man. You’ve gotta face this.”

“I mean, I guess so, but-”

“Nope. Shut up, Ranboob. I’m right and you know it. You’re gonna be fine, and if you aren’t, fly really high and aim away from all the buildings, yeah?”

Ranboo gave him a look. “A true master of reassurance, you are.”

“That’s me.” Tommy grinned, ruffling Ranboo’s hair. “Now go kick some ghostly ass.”

RANBOO

All things considered, this was not one of Ranboo’s finest moments.

The ghost had decided it wanted to make a mess of a mostly-empty warehouse on the other side of town. Overturned boxes and crates were scattered everywhere, dripping with a suspicious green substance that wasn’t ectoplasm but was equally gross.

The ghost in question was a human-shaped blob of green slime. A white T-shirt and blue jeans clung to its body, both soaked through and sticky. Its glasses, rather than resting over its ears, were jammed into the sides of its face. A popsicle stick was stuck into the top of its head in a similar way.

“I am Slimecicle!” The ghost declared. “Master of all things goopy and grimy! Fear me!”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Ranboo muttered. “What are you, an NPC? Do you say anything else?”

“Fear me!”

“Shut up.” Ranboo pointed the thermos at him. “Please just stop talking and let me put you in the thermos.”

“No!” Slimecicle ducked under a shelf. “I am goo! I am slime! I cannot be ensnared in a container of soups and liquids! You must feel my grimy wrath!”

Ranboo grimaced. “I will not be feeling your grimy anything. Stay still.”

The thermos whirred to life. Slimecicle melted into a puddle on the floor and slipped away between the boxes. He left a glistening trail behind him, like a radioactive snail the size of a great dane.

Ranboo poked their head behind the box and was met with a faceful of slime. They wiped it off, grumbling. Slimecicle cackled from somewhere in front of them. Ranboo reached forward blindly and grabbed for him, yelping when their hand plunged into ice cold jelly. They flicked goo off their hand.

“Gross,” he complained.

Slimecicle cackled again. “This is my haunt now, silly halfa! Your little machine cannot put a stop to my goopage!”

Ranboo aimed the thermos at him and clicked it on. Slimecicle simply split himself in half with a schlorp , dodging the beam and scurrying off in two different directions.

“Oh, come on!” Ranboo protested. “Does every ghost have duplication powers now?”

Slimecicle’s chittering laughter echoed in the warehouse.

Ranboo stuck the cap back on the thermos and floated up into the middle of the warehouse. Time for a different approach .

“Hey, goop man!” They called. “Slimecicle! Come here, I wanna talk about this.”

The chittering stopped.

“I put away the thermos, I promise,” they continued. “I just wanna talk to you.”

The slime coating the warehouse began to glow, oozing together like it was being pulled by a giant slime magnet. The two halves of Slimecicle stared up at him, each with one loose eyeball floating amidst the goo.

Eugh. Gross. 

“Speak, halfa!” One of the Slimecicles ordered. “Do you wish to bargain for your life, perhaps? Bargain now before I goop you to death!”

“Well, I won’t be… doing that.” Ranboo frowned, glancing back and forth between the two Slimecicles. “Can you, like, put yourself back together, or are you in pieces forever? You’re kinda creeping me out, man.”

The Slimecicles cackled and stuck themselves back together with a gloomp . “You fool! I am far too powerful to be injured by your little tubule! I simply split! I am slime! I am grime! My form cannot be contained by your bodily limitations!”

As if to prove his point, Slimecicle grabbed one of his arms and ripped it from its socket. It writhed and squelched before melting and reforming like the whole thing had never happened.

Ranboo raised his eyebrows. “That’s almost cool, I’ll give you that.”

Slimecicle gaped at him. “Almost? I am the coolest of goos! They call me Big Boy Cold Slime because of my coolness!”

“There’s no way anyone calls you that.”

“Bargain, halfa! Bargain or face my wrath!”

Ranboo rolled their eyes, drifting down closer to where Slimecicle was standing. “Not gonna bargain, man. Just talking. I wanna ask you a few questions, if that’s alright.”

Slimecicle narrowed his eyes, giving Ranboo a thorough inspection, before nodding and floating up to join Ranboo above the warehouse floor. Slime continuously dripped from his body, only to rise up and reabsorb into him before it hit the ground. 

“Speak,” Slimecicle said graciously, “and I shall answer you with my immense knowledge of all things! Specifically things that involve goop, slime, goo, gloop, gunk, grime, and perhaps even sludge, if I feel so inclined to share such dangerous knowledge.”

Ranboo blinked. “Okay. Uh, could you tell me what halfa means? And, like, how exactly do you know that I’m one of them?”

“Seriously, man?” Slimecicle dropped the flamboyant façade, his tone changing to something heavier, more serious. It was jarring. “You don’t know? How did you even get this far?”

Ranboo rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, trial and error? Mostly error. Anyway, I just- I want some clarification, y’know? I haven’t gotten to speak with very many ghosts.”

Slimecicle nodded. “Well, halfas are ghosts that are half ghost and half human. You’re, like, super rare, though. I’d only heard stories before you and that other guy showed up. In the Ghost Zone, halfas are sorta mocked and sorta feared, because on one hand, you’re not really a full ghost, but on the other hand, you’re crazy powerful, y’know? Everyone’s heard of you. You’re hot gossip.”

“Great,” Ranboo muttered. “I always wanted to be a ghost celebrity.”

“It’s your Core.”

Ranboo pressed a hand instinctively against their chest.

“It’s different from regular ghosts,” Slimecicle continued. “It’s, like… well, it kinda pulses. Like a heartbeat. And the energy flows through your veins and stuff instead of drifting around aimlessly. I’ve heard Clockwork talk about it in the Ghost Zone but actually seeing it in person is so cool.”

Ranboo’s eyes widened. “You can see Cores?”

“Yeah, of course! What, you can’t?”

“No?”

“Dang. Alright. That’s weird. Well, Cores are a bit like auras, if auras were inside of people’s chests. They’re all different and can tell you a lot about the ghost in question. Mine is apparently quite goopy.”

Ranboo fidgeted with his hands. “What, uh, what does mine look like?”

Slimecicle stared intently at Ranboo’s chest. Slime dripped onto Ranboo’s leg. He grimaced, flicking it off.

“Purple,” Slimecicle said eventually. “And fuzzy, like it’s jumping around a lot.”

Ranboo winced, remembering the explosion at their apartment yesterday.

Their next thought was cut off by a bright orange ectoblast burning through Slimecicle’s chest.

Slimecicle yelped and fell to the floor. Ranboo whipped out his thermos, scanning the warehouse for the source. His ghost sense hadn’t gone off, so it wasn’t a ghost, but none of Phil’s weapons shot orange ectoblasts. Maybe it was a ghost like Dream, who could hide from Ranboo’s ghost sense?

God, he hoped not. He didn’t need another halfa trying to recruit him.

There.

A red-hot hole had been blasted through the warehouse wall. Mechanical orange eyes peeked through.

“Hey, halfa,” the thing behind the wall drawled, words tinny and robotic.

The wall shuddered and crumpled as a metal robot burst through. Its shell was scratched and weathered, rippling like skin when it moved. A flame insignia was stamped into its chestplate. Bright orange flames danced around its head like hair, tied back by a singed white bandana. Sparks jumped from its joints.

A ghost, then, but not one Ranboo had ever seen.

The ghost smirked. “Show me what you got.”

Ranboo’s gaze flicked to Slimecicle, who was sizzling on the ground behind them.

Another ectoblast built in the metal ghost’s hand.

Ranboo uncapped the thermos and sucked Slimecicle inside just as the metal ghost released the ectoblast. More blasts quickly followed, whizzing past Ranboo’s head and singeing his skin as he dodged. He ducked behind a row of shelves.

“Hiding behind a bunch of boxes isn’t showing me what you got,” the metal ghost taunted. “Come on, fight me.”

Ranboo turned Slimecicle’s thermos intangible and shoved it into their stomach - not a particularly comfortable place to store it, but at least they had both hands free - and sank down into the floor. Crates and boxes exploded around them. Their Core writhed, ice shooting through their limbs.

The barrage of ectoblasts came to an abrupt halt. Heavy footsteps stomped above him.

He should have run. He should have flown through the ground and back to Tommy’s room and let someone else deal with it.

Curse his Core and his stupid protective instincts.

A hand, metallic and cold, punched through the ground, shattering concrete like glass. It grabbed Ranboo by the shoulder and flung them across the warehouse. Their back crunched when they landed on a metal shelf. They crumpled to the ground, groaning in pain.

The metal ghost laughed. “Well, this has been a bit sad. I was told you would be a good fight. Aren’t you halfas supposed to be scary?”

The metal ghost pressed its boot harshly into Ranboo’s side. Ranboo cried out.

“This was easier than I thought it would be,” the metal ghost mused, pulling out a small device similar to a ghostly smartphone. “I guess we can’t all be-”

Ranboo went intangible, throwing the metal ghost off-balance. He fired a series of red and green ectoblasts into its face and chest. The metal ghost cursed, swiping at him, but Ranboo ducked and flew up to the warehouse ceiling.

The metal ghost recovered and grinned sharply. It sent a volley of ectoblasts upwards, leaving charred holes in the roof.

Ranboo dodged. He darted around the warehouse, leaving the metal ghost blasting wildly behind him.

The metal ghost never flew. It only stomped around with its big metal feet. Hopefully, that meant it couldn’t fly, not that it actively chose not to. Ranboo could use that against it.

They drew as much ectoenergy into their palm as he could, but before it could release, they stretched it out, projecting a mental image of their forearm covered in green light. It spread from their hand and up over their elbow.

Huh. He hadn’t expected that to actually work.

He took no time to celebrate the small success, instead tucking into a steep dive.

The metal ghost barely had time to look up before Ranboo’s fist drove into its chest. It yelped and crumpled under the force of the attack. Its head smacked against the concrete floor, cracking it. Its hands flailed, grabbing blindly for Ranboo, but he dodged them.

Ranboo turned themself intangible. They phased through the metal ghost and into the ground, turned, and shot back upwards, hands outstretched. Their fingers resolidified as soon as they brushed the metal ghost’s back. The metal ghost flew across the warehouse, crashing through metal shelves and stacks of boxes.

Ranboo hovered above it, watching warily.

The metal ghost didn’t move. Neither did he.

He stuck his hand into his stomach, feeling the thermos he’d stashed there earlier. Slimecicle was already inside. He wasn’t sure it could fit two ghosts, especially if one was as big as the metal ghost was. And that was if the metal ghost was even a regular ghost in the first place.

So what were they supposed to do? They couldn’t just leave the metal ghost here. It would wake up eventually, probably royally pissed off, and then Ranboo would have to fight it all over again. They didn’t want that. It was a smart ghost. It most likely wouldn’t fall for the same trick Ranboo had just pulled.

Searing pain engulfed his leg. He cried out, dropping a few feet in the air.

Tinny, creaky laughter filled the warehouse.

“That’s more like it,” the metal ghost grinned, pointing a dented arm at Ranboo. “The Nightmare King was right. You are pretty good.”

Ranboo’s eyes widened. Their Core writhed. Who the hell was the Nightmare King?

Another ectoblast whizzed past Ranboo’s ear.

“Hey,” the metal ghost taunted, “I’m talking. Don’t be rude.”

Ranboo gulped.

The metal ghost smirked. “I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Sapnap, the Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter. I’m here to catch you and hang your skin on my wall.”

WILBUR

“This way, Will.” Phil squinted down at the device in his hand, a green spot blinking on the screen. “It’s in the warehouse. How do we get in?”

“We don’t,” Wilbur grumbled. “That’s not legal, Phil. Let’s just go home. I haven’t had lunch yet.”

Phil rose to his tippy-toes, perring in over the lip of a small window. Bright orange light flashed behind it.

“There are two of them,” Phil muttered, glancing between his tracking device and the window. “This says there’s only one.”

Wilbur huffed. “Maybe your tech is broken. It wouldn’t be the first time. You’ve seen your ghost, now let’s go.” He tugged on Phil’s arm.

A muffled cry of pain and a loud boom rattled the warehouse window.

Phil cursed. “The ghost boy is in there. It just wrecked a big metal ghost.”

Wilbur followed Phil’s gaze. Sure enough, the black and white ghost that Phil was always complaining about was floating near the warehouse ceiling. It looked almost the exact same as it had at the Rosebush, except for how unkempt its hair was, like it hadn’t bothered to brush it recently. It seemed stressed, too, as much as ghosts could get stressed. Maybe it was just pretending.

The metal ghost abruptly shot a bright orange ectoblast into the ghost boy’s leg. The ghost boy shrieked, toxic ectoplasm spilling from the wound and mixing with the green sludge on the floor. Another orange ectoblast shot through the warehouse ceiling.

Wilbur gritted his teeth. “Phil, can we please just go home? They’ve obviously got their own problems. We should just stay out of it.”

Phil ignored him, throwing his shoulder into a nearby door. “Go back to the RV, Will. I’ll meet you there once I’ve got these two contained. You start the engine.”

Wilbur didn’t get the chance to reply. The door flew open with a crash . Phil ducked through, brandishing one of his newest ectoguns.

Both ghosts paused, staring at Phil and his ectogun. The metal ghost’s menacing grin twisted into a smirk of dangerous amusement. The ghost boy’s eyes widened, panic briefly overtaking its features before it could school its expression.

That panic was too real for the ghost boy to just be pretending.

“Leave, Ph- please,” the ghost boy said, its voice shaky and laced with poorly-hidden fear. “This doesn’t involve you.”

“It absolutely does,” Phil declared. “You’re ghosts in my town. Either leave willingly, now, or I will capture you.”

Wilbur wasn’t sure if Phil’s confidence was unfounded or not. He didn’t want to find out.

Phil’s free hand hovered over the thermos he’d clipped to his belt.

The metal ghost laughed, turning to the ghost boy. “Hey, you had one of those before! Is that what happened to the slimy guy?”

The ghost boy pressed a hand against its stomach. It didn’t answer.

“Ah, whatever,” the metal ghost grumbled. It raised a dented hand and fired an ectoblast at Phil. Phil dodged, rolling to the side.

The ghost boy made an aborted movement toward him.

Phil fired an ectoblast of his own, landing a hit squarely on the metal ghost’s shoulder. His second shot hit the ghost boy in its already-injured leg. Its skin blistered and burned, ectoplasm flowing freely, and- was that white thing bone?

Ghosts weren’t supposed to have bones.

The metal ghost growled, firing a volley of ectoblasts in Phil’s direction. Phil ducked behind a stack of boxes. The metal ghost’s footsteps clunked against the concrete warehouse floor as it gave chase.

The ghost boy still hovered near the ceiling, clutching its injured leg. Its gaze flicked between the metal ghost, Phil, and the roof. It was calculating. Planning something.

Wilbur tensed, prepared to distract it if it went after Phil.

The ghost boy shot upwards, flying through the ceiling and around the back of the warehouse.

Wilbur only hesitated for a moment before following.

It flew sluggishly, much slower than the other times Wilbur had seen it around. It bobbed and drifted, sagging in the air, as if it were struggling to stay afloat. Still, its pace was much faster than Wilbur’s, and he pushed himself into a sprint.

The ghost boy dropped out of the sky like a stone at the back of the warehouse.

Wilbur skidded to a halt, peering around the corner.

The ghost boy groaned, injured leg splayed out in front of it. Ectoplasm pooled on the concrete. It dragged itself over to a nearby box, trying to pull itself to its feet, letting out pained hisses and grunts when the movement jostled its leg. A thermos dropped from the ghost boy’s stomach and fell to the ground, rolling toward where Wilbur was hiding. The ghost boy glared at the thermos like that was a personal offence.

Wilbur inspected the thermos as best he could without revealing himself. It was another one of Phil’s.

The metal ghost had mentioned that, hadn’t it? Something about a slimy ghost. Whoever Slimy was, it was probably in that thermos right now.

Phil and the metal ghost were still causing a ruckus inside the warehouse. Wilbur was alone out here with the ghost boy.

As good a time as any, really.

See, Wilbur had a hunch. He wasn’t sure when it had started. Back when Tommy tackled Phil outside of the Rosebush, maybe. Maybe it was when Tommy had tried so hard to help the ghost boy when it was fighting Niki, despite never having seen a ghost before. Maybe it was in the hushed conversations that drifted through not-quite-closed bedroom doors.

It was the explosion at Ranboo’s apartment last night that solidified it.

After the accident with the portal, Ranboo had been so nervous, so flighty. Their arms twitched without their knowledge. Their hands sometimes seemed to pass through solid objects like they weren’t even there. There were a few moments where their eyes almost looked like they were glowing. Wilbur had waved it all off, discounting it as his overactive imagination, a trick of the light, but what if it wasn’t?

Phil had said that the portal may have started due to a sudden spike in ectoplasmic energy. The formation of a new ghost might have been enough. Admittedly, Wilbur knew very little about Phil’s tech, but it was a possibility.

And then Ranboo’s apartment exploded with no explanation.

Maybe the ghost didn’t want anyone to get hurt, Tommy had said. Maybe it had to defend itself. Maybe it was an accident.

Of course no one got seriously hurt. Ranboo wouldn’t have wanted them to.

The longer Wilbur thought, the more sense it made.

Except it didn’t make much sense at all. There were a few things that hindered his theory.

First of all, it was impossible. Ranboo was definitely alive. He breathed, he ate, he bled, he watched stupid YouTube videos with his mates at three in the morning. Ghosts didn’t do any of that.

Well. They might watch YouTube. Wilbur didn’t know. But he was certain they didn’t bleed red blood, their stomachs didn’t grumble loudly when they forgot to grab lunch for school, they didn’t hyperventilate when the world became too much too fast. They definitely didn’t have a pulse. Ranboo did.

Second, Wilbur wasn’t quite sure how exactly he would go about proving it. What could he do? Go up to Ranboo and ask, Hey, buddy, quick question, are you dead? It obviously wasn’t something Ranboo wanted to talk about, if their hushed conversations with Tommy and Tubbo were anything to go by. They’d probably just laugh awkwardly, brush it off, and Wilbur would have learned nothing.

The ghost boy was leaning against a box, now, pressing a hand over its chest.

If Wilbur ignored the fact that it was heavily injured and could be in need of urgent medical attention, now would be the perfect time to confront it.

The ghost boy tried to set weight on its injured leg and grimaced, leaning against the box again.

Wilbur bit his lip. Did he really want to confront Ranboo about this? Did he really want to know if Ranboo was dead? He could just as easily go about his own life, pretending nothing was wrong with the ectoplasmic imprint of Tommy’s best friend hanging around as if it were still human.

Ranboo obviously wanted to keep it a secret. He and his mates stumbled through excuses whenever Wilbur or anyone else brought up ghosts in conversation. Confronting him might only make it worse, make him feel trapped and scared. The last thing Wilbur wanted was to drive him deeper into secrecy.

And what if Wilbur was wrong? What if he had the right pieces, but the wrong image? He was working off of a hunch. The chances of him being wildly off the mark weren’t exactly small. If he was wrong, he would be putting himself in front of an injured but incredibly dangerous ghost.

Either way, he could very well be inserting himself where he was neither needed nor wanted. Was that a risk he was willing to take?

The ghost boy whimpered, its hand slipping in its own ectoplasm.

Wilbur made up his mind. He reached out from behind the corner of the warehouse and grabbed the thermos.

The ghost boy froze, eyes wide. It held out a shaky hand. The beginnings of an ectoblast sparked in its palm.

“Who’s there?” It called. “Go away. I’ll- I’ll shoot you if you don’t leave. Right now.”

The tremble in its voice was achingly familiar. The false bravado was newer, but didn’t cover the fear.

Wilbur stepped forward, hands raised in a placating gesture.

“Hey, Ranboo,” he said gently.

His face was a calm mask of comfort, but inside, his mind was racing. He hoped desperately that he had the right ghost. That he hadn’t guessed wrong. That the ghost boy would put the damn ectoblast away.

The ghost boy’s eyes widened further. Its hand dropped, ectoblast vanishing. It gripped the edge of the box it was leaning on.

“I, uh, I’m sorry,” the ghost boy stuttered, swallowing hard around its words. “I don’t know… I don’t know who that is. You should really get out of here, man. There’s a very dangerous ghost in the area. It’s not safe.”

And with that, the last of Wilbur’s doubts vanished. He took another step toward Ranboo. Ranboo flinched backward, crying out in pain when they rested too much weight on their injured leg. It buckled under them. Wilbur was there in an instant, catching them by the shoulders and easing them to the ground.

Ranboo stared at him. Their arm twitched. Wilbur stepped back, sitting on the ground a short distance away.

“It’s okay, Ranboo,” Wilbur reassured him. “It’s okay. I just want to help you. I promise.”

He set the thermos on the ground and nudged it toward Ranboo. A peace offering. Ranboo snatched it up, shoving it directly into his stomach.

Okay. That was… weird. Wilbur elected to ignore it.

“You’re hurt, man,” he continued. “Obviously too hurt to fly. Let me help. I can drive you home while Phil’s distracted.”

Bringing up Phil was a mistake. Ranboo winced, eyes flicking between Wilbur and the warehouse.

“It’s alright,” Wilbur promised. “I won’t tell.”

They regarded each other in silence for a long moment.

There was a loud crash from the warehouse beside them, followed by Phil’s whoop of victory. He would be expecting Wilbur at the RV shortly. They were running out of time.

Ranboo must have realized this, because their face crumpled pitifully.

“Wilbur, please,” they whispered.

Wilbur blinked, smiled, and nodded. He scrambled to his feet.

Phil appeared around the corner of the warehouse, grinning and triumphantly brandishing a thermos. “Will! I got-”

“Ghost!” Wilbur yelled. “Get back!”

He made a show of leaping away from Ranboo, accidentally-on-purpose running directly into Phil’s chest. They both tumbled to the ground. The thermos rolled out of Phil’s hands.

Ranboo hovered for a moment, sending Wilbur a grateful glance, before grabbing the thermos and disappearing.

Wilbur pulled himself to his feet with a wince, taking note of the singed holes in Phil’s jumpsuit and the hobble in his steps.

Phil glared at the empty air where Ranboo had been moments before. “Damn ghosts. I had him, too, that big metal one. Was gonna do some experiments when we got back to the lab.”

Wilbur suppressed a wince. “I’m sure you’ll have another chance to catch some ghosts. Can we go home now, though? I’m hungry.”

If Ranboo wasn’t ready to talk about it, Wilbur wouldn’t try to make him. He’d been through enough already. Wilbur could turn a blind eye if that’s what Ranboo wanted. If he wanted to talk or needed Wilbur’s help, he would say something.

If he never mentioned it again, Wilbur could live with that, too.

Chapter Text

TOMMY

“Wilbur knows,” Ranboo said when he finally stumbled through Tommy’s bedroom door, jeans growing steadily darker around his shin.

Tommy cursed, catching them by the arm and practically carrying them over to the bed.

“Fucking shit, Ranboo,” Tommy scolded, “sit the fuck down. What happened?”

Ranboo collapsed on the bed. The two thermoses he had been carrying rolled out of his hands and clattered to the floor.

“Wilbur knows,” he repeated, voice tight with tension and pain. “I don’t know how he knows, or- or how long he’s known for, but he knows. I was trying to fly away from Phil, but I had to stop because he shot- and then- so I landed on some crates so I could, uh, could take a break and think for a second, and he just, like, walked out and was like- he knows! But I couldn’t say anything about it because I didn’t know what to say so he- he let me leave, but he knows, Tommy, and I don’t-”

“Hang the fuck on,” Tommy interrupted. “Phil shot you?” He glanced at the stain on Ranboo’s jeans. “Shit. Is that what- what happened to your leg? Fuck, what the fuck, we gotta… Let me take a look at this.”

He ran to his desk, grabbing a first aid kit and a pair of scissors. He nudged Ranboo’s calf gently. Ranboo hissed in pain. Tommy winced.

“Sorry about your jeans,” Tommy said, holding up the scissors. “Gonna have to cut them off, I think.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck, man, I’m gonna be honest, I’ve never done this before. I don’t- this- I don’t think this is comparable to the cuts from last time.”

His hands trembled as he brought the scissors up to the denim. Could he really do this? Ranboo’s leg could be decimated under the cloth. Could he really handle seeing that, knowing how much pain his friend had to be in? What if the bone was sticking out? What if it had to be amputated? What if-

The door flew open with a bang , startling Tommy out of his thoughts.

“Oi, Tommy, give me a hand with these,” Tubbo ordered, bustling through the door with his arms full of papers. “I found the schematics for the- what the fuck?” He stumbled, eyes locking on Ranboo’s prone form bleeding out on the bed.

“Close the door,” Ranboo hissed, sagging against the pillows.

The papers in Tubbo’s arms fluttered to the floor. He slammed the door shut and ran to Tommy’s side.

“What the fuck?” He demanded. “What happened?”

Tommy took a shaky breath. “Well, long story short, Wilbur knows, and Phil shot Ranboo. I can’t- Tubbo, I don’t know if I can deal with this.”

He dropped the scissors. They landed next to the steadily-growing pool of blood at the foot of the bed.

“Shit,” Tubbo said, which Tommy thought summarized the situation nicely. Tubbo’s eyes flicked between Ranboo's leg and the fist aid kit on the ground by Tommy’s feet. “Okay. I’ll, uh, I’ll cut off his pants and see how it looks. You get water and washcloths. Try to grab the ones that are already stained from- from last time.”

Tommy nodded, leaping to his feet. He was out the door and halfway down the hallway in an instant.

He hesitated when he reached Wilbur’s door. Ranboo said that Wilbur knew. Maybe it would be okay if he went to Wilbur for help. Wilbur would know what to do, right? He would at least know more than Tommy or Tubbo did.

But Ranboo had also said that they hadn’t explained anything to Wilbur. What if Wilbur didn’t actually know, and Ranboo was just overthinking everything and reading the situation wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time they’d done that. And what if Wilbur told Phil? Tommy had no idea how Phil would respond. He might make everything ten times worse. Ranboo was only just starting to get comfortable with being half ghost. They didn’t need any more stressors in their life.

Half-life? Afterlife?

Hell, Tommy didn’t need any more stressors in his life.

He kept running, throwing open the closet door and snatching the washcloths that were already stained with Ranboo’s blood, and, God, he hated how many there were. He stopped by the kitchen and grabbed a large bowl before racing back upstairs.

His ankle seared with pain and gave out from under him, sending him sprawling at the top of the stairs. The bowl and washcloths scattered across the floor. He barely managed to catch himself.

“Fuck,” he groaned, ankle throbbing.

He pushed himself to his feet. A wave of pain shot up his leg in complaint, but he ignored it, gritting his teeth. Ranboo’s injury was more important. Tommy had gone this long without seeing a doctor for his stupid ankle. He could go a little while longer.

He gathered up the washcloths and the bowl, silently thankful that he hadn’t filled the bowl with water yet, and continued on to the bathroom. His ankle complained the entire time. He considered hopping to relieve some of the pressure, but that would take much longer, and Ranboo might not have that long.

Fuck. Ranboo. He couldn’t go to a hospital. Who knew what they would do to him if they found out what he was? But he might not be able to stay in Tommy’s room, either. What if Tommy and Tubbo weren’t enough to fix him? What if they had to watch Ranboo die again, knowing it was their fault but helpless to stop it?

Tommy paused in front of Wilbur’s door again.

No. No, it was just a leg injury. A bad leg injury, yeah, but not a life-threatening one. Ranboo would be fine. They had to be. Tommy wasn’t sure what he would do if they weren’t.

He filled the bowl with warm water from the bathroom sink and limped back to his bedroom.

Ranboo barely acknowledged him when he entered. His face was pale, forehead dripping with a thick layer of sweat. His eyes glowed brightly. His jeans had been cut away from around his injured leg. Tubbo was kneeling next to it with wide eyes, shaky hands, and the entire contents of the first aid kit spread over his lap.

Ranboo’s leg looked awful. The skin was charred and blistered. Blood dripped onto the floor in a steady rhythm. A chunk of flesh was missing from his calf. Tiny spots of ectoplasm pulsed within the wound, but it wasn’t visibly healing yet.

Tommy suppressed the urge to vomit.

“Fucking finally!” Tubbo huffed. “Tommy, bring that shit over here, we’ve gotta wipe some of the blood off.”

Tommy hobbled over, kneeling next to Tubbo and setting the bowl and washcloths between them. Water sloshed over the edge and mixed with the pool of blood on the floor.

Tubbo dipped a cloth in the bowl, wrung it out, and held it up to Ranboo’s leg. He hesitated.

“This is gonna hurt, boss man,” he mumbled. “Tommy, can you, like, hold their hand or something?”

Tommy spluttered. “What the fuck? How would that help?”

“I don’t know! Just- give him something to focus on other than pain!”

“He’s injured, not giving birth!”

“Both of you be quiet,” Ranboo snapped. “There are other people in this house and the walls are thin. You can’t keep shouting. Just… just do it.”

Tommy picked up one of his hoodies from the floor and offered it to Ranboo.

“You can bite down on this or some shit,” he suggested. “I don’t know. I’ve seen people do it in movies.”

Tubbo grimaced. “Is that even clean?”

“Cleaner than their fuckin’ leg.”

Ranboo stuck the sleeve of the hoodie between their teeth. They nodded, jaw clenched.

Tubbo took a shaky breath. “Alright. Here goes nothing.”

He gently pressed the washcloth against the edge of Ranboo’s wound. Ranboo hissed, eyes flaring neon.

“Sorry,” Tubbo muttered.

The room was silent except for Ranboo's muffled grunts of pain and the splashing of water as Tubbo wrung out washcloth after washcloth. The water grew steadily darker. The dirty washcloths quickly outnumbered the clean ones.

As Tubbo worked to clean out Ranboo’s leg, Tommy scrubbed at the pool of blood staining his floor. He didn’t want to think about how he would explain it to Phil.

Oh, yeah, so you shot one of my friends with one of your new ectoguns, except he’s a ghost, so it did a lot of damage, but he’s also a human, so he bleeds red blood. We had to clean him up in here so he didn’t lose his leg or some shit, and he bled all over the floor. Sorry.

Yeah. That would go over well.

Tubbo sat back on his heels, adding another bloody cloth to the pile.

Ranboo’s leg looked notably better now than it did earlier. Still red and blistered and charred, yes, but better. The chunk of flesh missing from his calf was smaller than it had been. Blood dripped sluggishly rather than steadily. The spots of ectoplasm glowed brighter.

Tubbo glanced at the contents of the first aid kit. “There’s disinfectant in here somewhere, right, Tommy?”

Tommy followed his gaze. “There should be, yeah. Be a pretty shit first aid kit if there wasn’t.”

“Cool.” Tubbo began poking through the pile of medical supplies. “How’re you doing, Ranboo?”

The answer was obviously not good. Ranboo’s hair was plastered to their forehead. Their jaw was clenched tightly around Tommy’s hoodie. The blankets smoked where their hands clutched them. Neon tears leaked from their glowing eyes.

“Great,” Ranboo hissed, spitting out Tommy’s hoodie. “Never been better. I think I should get Phil to shoot me again, y’know? Go for round two.”

Tommy snorted. If Ranboo was making jokes, he was probably feeling okay. Not great, obviously, but okay.

“You’re cleaning yourself up if you do,” Tubbo told him.

“Yeah,” Tommy agreed. “You can bleed out somewhere that won’t stain my fuckin’ floor.”

Ranboo gave him a look. “Where am I supposed to bleed out? The Statue of Liberty?”

“It wouldn’t stain my floor.”

Tubbo picked up a bottle of rubbing alcohol and poured it over one of the few remaining clean cloths.

“Bad news, boss man,” he said, “I’m gonna have to disinfect this. It’s- it won’t be pleasant. I’ll count you in, yeah?”

Ranboo shoved the sleeve of Tommy’s hoodie back in their mouth.

“Ready? Three, two…”

Tubbo pressed the cloth against the wound. Ranboo gave a muffled shout. Red and green energy danced over his hands. The blanket smoked.

Tubbo winced. “Sorry.”

Tommy gave another futile scrub at the stain on his floor. It wasn’t coming out. Maybe he could just leave a pile of dirty laundry on top of it. It wasn't like it would make his room look any messier than it already was.

“Alright, I think that’s probably good,” Tubbo said, gently peeling the cloth away from the wound.

Ranboo spat out Tommy’s hoodie. “Eugh. I take it back, I’m- ow.” He groaned. “I- yeah. Ow. That hurt.”

“Sorry,” Tubbo said again. “I should- I think now I just gotta wrap it, and then… then we wait, I guess.”

“Great.”

Tommy frowned at the first aid kit. It wasn’t particularly large. Would there even be any bandages that could fit Ranboo’s wound?

Tubbo seemed to be thinking the same thing, holding up three bandages that, combined, managed to cover everything.

“Tommy, help me out here,” he ordered, pressing one of the bandages against Ranboo’s leg. “Just- there’s a roll next to my knee. Grab that and wrap it a few times around where I’m holding.”

Tommy obeyed.

Going back and forth, with a good deal of fumbling, they managed to wrap the wound. It was shoddy and uneven, but it would hopefully hold. It would last a few hours, at least, which would hopefully be enough for Ranboo’s ghost healing to kick in full blast and fix everything. Hopefully.

Tubbo stood, wiping his bloody hands on his pants.

Tommy sighed. His room was even more of a mess than it usually was, what with the stain on the floor, the pile of bloody cloths, and the scattered components of the first aid kit. He’d have to deal with that later.

“Oi, move back,” Tubbo demanded, pointing at the pillows.

Ranboo released their death grip on the blanket, leaving charred handprints behind - another thing Tommy would have to explain to Phil - and shuffled back to lean against the headboard. Tubbo lifted their injured leg, shoving a pillow under it for support.

Tommy flopped on the mattress, exhausted. Tubbo followed suit. It was a tight fit, all three of them on one bed with space for Ranboo’s injured leg, but they made it work.

“So what now?” Tommy mumbled.

No one answered him.

Really, what could they do? Ranboo would have to heal his leg the rest of the way on his own. The thermoses he’d dropped earlier had rolled under Tommy’s bed to be dealt with whenever they figured out what to do with them.

Tommy stared blankly at Ranboo’s leg. Phil had done that. Phil had shot them. He’d probably celebrated afterwards. He might even bring it up at dinner tonight.

I shot the ghost boy , he would say. Hit it right in the leg. It flew off after. Probably scared of me. Ectoplasmic scumbag.

Ranboo didn’t deserve any of this shit.

Tubbo stood up abruptly, making Tommy and Ranboo jump.

“I’m gonna get us some water,” he decided, “and some crisps. Maybe some painkillers, too.”

He was out the door before Tommy could respond.

WILBUR

Wilbur paced in his room. His mind spun in frantic circles. He’d had a hunch about this, but having it confirmed was a different thing entirely.

Ranboo was the ghost boy. Ranboo was a ghost. Phil had shot him. Ranboo was hurt right now, badly, so badly that he couldn’t fly. Ranboo could fly . Ranboo was dead.

Fuck.

Wilbur took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. He needed to calm down. Panicking wasn’t going to help anyone, least of all Ranboo.

Okay. He had to think this through rationally.

He grabbed his notebook and a pencil, flipping to a blank page and scribbling down a list of things he knew.

1. Ranboo is a ghost.
2. Ranboo wants to keep it a secret.
3. Ranboo is currently injured.

There. Those were the most important things. Wilbur slumped in his desk chair, staring at the list. He chewed on the end of his pencil.

1. Ranboo is a ghost.

That meant they were dead. They had died at some point, probably in the past few weeks, and no one had noticed. They’d stubbornly remained as human as possible, going out to fight other ghosts whenever they showed up.

So when had he died? What had killed him? He’d had a few close calls recently. The explosion at his apartment last night, the ghost attack a few hours earlier that tore his chest to shreds, the whole mess with the portal…

God. Wilbur groaned, dragging a hand down his face. Did the portal kill them? That would explain why Tommy and Tubbo were so weird about the accident. They had gone inside to fix it, turned it on somehow, and Ranboo didn’t make it out.

The portal required millions of volts of energy to work. More than enough to kill a lanky teenager.

Wilbur shuddered. Ranboo was dead. Dead. He’d died in the basement, thanks to Phil’s latest invention, while Tommy and Tubbo watched helplessly, and Wilbur was upstairs eating ramen. His stomach swam with guilt. Why hadn’t he stayed downstairs in the lab with them? He could have helped fix the portal safely. Ranboo could still be alive right now if only he’d-

There was a clatter outside of his room, followed by a curse from Tommy.

Wilbur shook himself out of his thoughts. No. Dwelling on his guilt wouldn’t get him anywhere. He could write a song about it later. Right now, he needed to focus on Ranboo.

2. Ranboo wants to keep it a secret.

Wilbur could accept that. Phil’s first instinct upon seeing Ranboo doing anything ghostly would be to shoot them. He’d already shot them. Wilbur didn’t want to find out what he’d do to Ranboo if he ever managed to capture them in one of his thermoses.

It also meant that Ranboo might not ever talk to Wilbur about his being a ghost. Wilbur might be forever kept in the dark. He was okay with that, he decided. He could make excuses if Ranboo suddenly had to leave, since Tommy and Tubbo obviously weren’t that great at it, and he could make sure the first aid kit in Tommy’s room was always well-stocked.

Ranboo and the ghost boy looked very different, which was handy for keeping their ghost business a secret. That meant they had some sort of shape-shifting ability, or maybe some kind of camouflage that let them blend in with humanity. Wilbur hadn’t heard of a ghost being able to bleed red blood or mimic a pulse before. He’d have to ask Phil about it.

Muffled shouting drifted from Tommy’s room. Ranboo’s voice cut through it, shutting it down as quickly as it began.

Ranboo made it back, then. Good. Tommy and Tubbo would do what they could for him. Wilbur resisted the urge to run over to Tommy’s room to check on them. He didn’t want to intrude. If Ranboo didn’t want him there, he would leave him alone, as much as it pained him to do so.

3. Ranboo is currently injured.

This was the most pressing point on the list. Phil was in the basement at the moment, making more thermoses, but that wouldn’t hold his attention forever. He would definitely notice Ranboo being injured, would probably find some way to blame it on a ghost. Maybe the ghost that had attacked Ranboo last night, clawed up his chest, and blown up their apartment.

Was that really only last night? It felt like years ago.

Wilbur sat up straight. Actually, maybe they could run with this. Ranboo had acted fine that morning, but they could always say they got worse as the day went on, or that they’d fallen and reopened some of his wounds.

Wilbur frowned. Ranboo had acted suspiciously fine that morning when they went to grab his stuff from his apartment. It was like the gashes in his chest weren’t bothering him at all. Come to think of it, he’d acted fine in ghost form, too, up until Phil shot him.

Maybe they had some sort of ghostly healing factor. It would explain why they could get so beat up during ghost fights and then be home for dinner without so much as a black eye. Their chest wounds might have healed themselves up overnight.

Wilbur steepled his fingers under his nose. He’d have to talk to Phil about this. He hoped this was the case, because that meant Ranboo might be completely fine by the time Phil emerged from the lab, but he didn’t want to take his chances.

If Phil asked, Ranboo tripped on his way up the stairs. Nothing ghostly. Just regular teenage clumsiness.

There was a hesitant knock on his door. He jumped.

“Yeah, one second,” he called, hoping his voice didn’t betray his frazzled thoughts.

Tubbo stood uncertainly in the hallway, three glasses of water and some prescription painkillers in his hands, and a bag of crisps tucked under his arm.

“Ranboo’s not feeling so good,” he said.

Understatement of the century , Wilbur thought.

Tubbo bit his lip. “Could you, uh, maybe come and play him a song or something? To cheer him up?”

Wilbur raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

He grabbed his guitar and followed Tubbo down the hall.

Tommy’s room was, predictably, a mess. A pile of dirty washcloths sat beside a bowl of water tainted with blood. There was a suspicious stain on the floor whose origin Wilbur was determined not to think about. Tommy’s first aid kit had been emptied and swept into a pile at the foot of the bed.

Tommy and Ranboo were crammed together on Tommy’s too-small mattress, leaning against the headboard. Ranboo’s leg was wrapped in amateur bandages and propped up on a pillow. Their jeans had been cut away to get at the injury. Their calf was misshapen under the dressings, like a chunk of flesh was missing from it, which was another thing Wilbur was determined not to think about.

Tubbo perched next to him on the edge of the bed. He handed Ranboo a glass of water and the painkillers, which Ranboo stared blankly at for a moment before taking.

Tommy took the other glass of water from Tubbo, staring anxiously at Wilbur over the rim. Ranboo followed his gaze and froze. His eyes widened. His glass hung halfway between his mouth and his lap, clutched tightly in a shaking hand. Wilbur could practically hear him overthinking things from across the room.

No wonder Tubbo asked Wilbur to help calm him down.

Wilbur smiled as reassuringly as he could, pulling a chair out from Tommy’s desk and setting his guitar across his lap. He plucked gently at the strings, not really playing any song in particular, just trying to be comforting.

It seemed to work. Ranboo relaxed ever so slightly. They knocked back his painkillers and sagged against the headboard.

Wilbur began to hum. He’d been working on a few new songs the past few weeks, writing and rewriting into the wee hours of the morning. They didn’t have words, not yet, but he figured that didn’t matter. This moment felt too fragile for words.

Ranboo’s eyes closed. Tears slipped unbidden between their lashes and rolled down their cheeks. Tommy and Tubbo leaned closer against either side of them, offering a steady, silent comfort.

Wilbur suddenly felt like he was intruding on something private. Something sacred. Something vulnerable. These three were hurt, shaken, desperate. Who was he to intrude?

Ranboo’s arms wrapped around his friends, pulling them close to his chest. Tommy and Tubbo hugged him back just as tight.

Wilbur smiled softly.

Then again, they had come to him for support. If his music gave them some measure of comfort after the absolute shitshow of the past few weeks, he would play as long as they needed him to.

RANBOO

Ranboo had mixed feelings when Wilbur stepped through Tommy’s bedroom door.

On one hand, he was better at first aid than Tommy and Tubbo were. He could probably do a better job bandaging Ranboo’s leg than they could.

On the other hand, Ranboo still had no idea how Wilbur felt about the whole ghost thing. Everyone else who knew was either some sort of ghost or had been there when he’d- during the accident. Wilbur had pieced it together himself. What if he had the wrong idea? He hadn’t told Phil at the warehouse, but what if he still wanted to? What if he had questions? Ranboo wasn’t sure he had the energy to answer questions right now.

Wilbur perched on Tommy’s desk chair, plucking the strings of his guitar. The sound was quiet. Melodic. Relaxing.

Ranboo slumped back against the headboard, all their energy draining out of them at once. Their leg stung. Their entire body ached. Their Core thrummed beside their heart, working overtime to heal the damage caused by Phil’s newest ectogun.

Wilbur was humming. It was a song Ranboo recognized, one that he’d heard drifting through the walls at three in the morning when he returned from a fight with whatever ghost thought it would be fun to wake him up at that hour.

Ranboo’s eyes slipped closed. A knot tied itself in the back of their throat.

How was this a common thing in their life? Waking up at odd hours of the night due to a breath of cold air? Flying through the walls in silence to search for a ghost hiding in an alleyway? Falling back into bed in their friend’s room while the very thing that killed them sat releasing more ghosts in the basement?

Was this how it would be for the rest of his life? Would he always fall asleep in class? Always run bleeding to his friends and hope that they could fix him? Always feel that crushing pain in his Core when one of them was in danger?

Would they even have a life now? They were dead. They died. Ghosts don’t go to college. They don’t get jobs. They don’t have friends or families. What were their future supposed to look like now that they were dead? Hell, what were they supposed to say to their parents?

Tears dripped from his chin. He hadn’t been aware that he was crying. Tubbo and Tommy leaned against his shoulders, silent and steady and warm. Alive. He wrapped his arms around them, drawing them into his chest. Tommy snaked an arm around his waist. Tubbo rested a hand against his shoulder.

They were kids. They were kids . They were kids who had been barely holding it together for weeks, clinging to a thread, desperate not to fall apart. One of them was kind of dead, but also kind of not. One of them was permanently scarred from a ghost attack. One of them was the son of the only ghost hunter in town, who was constantly pursuing them. They were facing something that almost no one had ever faced before, and the one person who had was actively making things worse for them. They were drowning, out of their depth, dumped from the kiddie pool into the sea.

Damp spots grew on Ranboo’s T-shirt where Tubbo and Tommy leaned against him. He buried his face in their hair, hiding his shuddering breaths.

They had been walking a tightrope for weeks. Now, finally, Wilbur’s music a calming presence in the background, Ranboo allowed himself to fall.

Eventually, the music dwindled to a stop. It might have been hours later or merely minutes. It certainly felt like hours. Ranboo’s every nerve was rubbed raw. His Core ached. Tubbo and Tommy didn’t seem to be faring much better.

Fingertips gingerly brushed against Ranboo’s wrist, like they were afraid if they pushed too hard, they would break him.

Rightly so. Ranboo felt like he was made of glass.

They blinked the last of their tears out of their eyes and glanced up. Wilbur’s face was kind and open, not a trace of malice in his expression.

“I know you’re still not ready to talk,” he whispered, “but I’ll be here when you are. Anytime. My door’s always open.” He turned to Tubbo and Tommy. “You guys, too. I know more about first aid than you do. I’ll help whenever you need me to, no questions asked.”

He gathered up the washcloths and the bowl of bloody water. He hesitated, one hand on the doorknob.

“These walls aren’t very thick,” he added. “It’d do you well to remember that.”

With that, he left, closing the door quietly behind him.

Silence hung in the air for a long moment.

“Fuck Dream,” Tubbo declared into Ranboo’s chest.

Tommy gave a choked laugh.

Ranboo spluttered. “What the- Tubbo, what?”

“Fuck Dream,” Tubbo repeated. “Fuck Niki. Fuck all of that. You know what we’ve done? We fucking- we dealt with all that, all the ghosts and shit, and we’re still here. Rough fuckin’ shape, yeah, but we made it. So fuck it. Fuck Dream. We can deal with it.”

“I don’t- where is this coming from?”

“Think about it, boss man. We had all this shit under control until Dream came along and fucked everything up. So fuck him. He can take his apprenticeship or whatever and shove it up his ass. We don’t need him.”

Ranboo blinked at him. Tubbo’s eyes were red and his face was sticky with tears, but he was smiling. His gaze burned with determination.

Well. They may have been dumped in the deep end, but at least they already knew how to swim.

“Yeah!” If Ranboo’s voice was verging on hysterical, no one commented on it. “Yeah- we- screw Dream! And- and Phil, and the ghost instinct stuff! They literally don’t matter. We’ve dealt with it already, we can deal with it again!”

Tommy’s face split into a grin. “Yeah, fuck those bitches! They’re all pussies! We are men! We’ll fucking- we’ll beat Dream and every other fucking ghost that decides to come at us!”

Ranboo laughed, squeezing his friends tighter. It was absurd laughter, nonsensical and bittersweet, but it was genuine, and it was loud. It was release. Joy was a precious resource these days. Ranboo would take every drop he could get.

“You need a cool hero name,” Tommy decided, pulling back from the hug just enough to look Ranboo in the eyes. “Like, if you’re gonna be fighting ghosts and all that shit, surely you need, like, an alter ego. Some Superman-type shit. You’ve already got the suit and the secret identity. All you need is a badass name.”

Ranboo raised their eyebrows. “I mean, the news already calls me ghost boy .”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, ‘cause that’s what Phil calls you. D’you really want your hero name to be chosen by fuckin’ Phil?”

Tubbo snorted. “What about just Boo? Like, it’s in your name already, and you’re a ghost. Ghosts say boo.”

“I do not, in fact, do that,” Ranboo drawled.

Tommy shook his head. “No fuckin’ way. I am not calling him Boo when he’s fighting ghosts. That’s how you start weird rumors.”

“Fair enough.” Tubbo hummed. “Uh, what about Inviso-Bill? Y’know, because he can go invisible?”

“He can do a bunch of other shit, too, though. Also, that’s a fuckin’ terrible name.”

“Oi, fuck you, man. You made a gun and named it the Tomzooka. You can’t talk shit about my naming abilities.”

“Tomzooka is a fuckin’ fantastic name, I’ll have you know-”

Ranboo’s arm twitched. He stared at it for a moment.

Phantom twitches.

“How about Phantom?” They suggested tentatively.

Tommy and Tubbo exchanged a glance.

“Perfect,” Tubbo said.

“Fuck yeah,” Tommy agreed.

Ranboo grinned. “Phantom it is.”

Chapter Text

RANBOO

Ranboo’s shoulders pressed up against the brick wall of the alley. He could phase through it, yeah, but that didn’t make him feel any less trapped. Besides, the occupants of the building probably wouldn’t appreciate it.

A volley of flaming poker chips rained down from above. They cursed as one caught their shoulder, searing through the fabric of their suit.

Of all the days to not have a thermos with them. Where the hell was Tommy?

“Wanna make a bet?” The voice came from the same place as the poker chips.

Ranboo glared up at the ghost, brushing ash from his shoulder wound. “No, thanks. I would prefer to keep my soul.”

The ghost’s face was almost human if one could ignore the pointed teeth and sickly yellow eyes. Its black hair fell over its forehead with an un-ghostly tolerance for gravity. It wore a white button-up shirt with a bowtie and suspenders that were either navy or black, though it was difficult to tell from a distance.

“Make a bet with me,” the ghost insisted.

Ranboo stared at it. “Why? What for?”

The ghost huffed. “Well, Mr. Phantom, my casino doesn’t seem to be in operation anymore, which makes it very difficult for me to make bets with people. Would you indulge me? Just this once, for old times’ sake.”

Ranboo ignored the offer. “Why are you here? Your casino definitely wasn’t in a small town like Essempy Park.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.” The ghost’s eyes turned dreamy. “Las Nevadas was the most successful casino this side of Vegas. I was infamous! Quackity was a household name!”

So the ghost’s name was Quackity. Good to know.

“It was a paradise in the worst part of town,” Quackity continued. “The most gorgeous building I’d ever seen. Scarlet carpets. Glass balconies. And the lights! Man, you’d never believe you were in the middle of nowhere walking through that door.” His eyes hardened. “And the fuckers bulldozed it. They tore it down for an apartment building!”

Another volley of flaming poker chips embedded themselves in the brick wall behind Ranboo. They gulped. “Listen, Quackity, I’m sorry to hear that, but, uh, property damage isn’t the way to get your casino back.”

“A fucking apartment building, Phantom!” Quackity seethed. He flung more poker chips into the wall. Ranboo dodged.

Tommy had better get here with the thermos, and soon. Ranboo wasn’t sure how much longer he could stall.

“I don’t want to fight you, man,” Ranboo said, “but you can’t just destroy public property like this. It’s not fair to the people that live here.”

Quackity glared at them. “It’s not fair that I was in debt, either, but the fuckers still took my casino. I’m just taking it back!”

The brick wall cracked under the force of the poker chips.

Ranboo mentally cursed. This was bad. There were people in there. He needed to either de-escalate the situation or get everyone out as fast as possible. Preferably both. If he had a thermos, there wouldn’t be a problem, but Tommy was nowhere to be seen.

Quackity’s eyes glinted maliciously. “I’ll make you a bet.”

“I don’t want to make a bet,” Ranboo protested.

“I bet you can’t stop me from getting my casino back.”

“Quackity, wait-”

Quackity cackled and flung another handful of poker chips into the side of the building. The wall crumbled. Several people screamed.

Ranboo caught the arm of someone who was leaning precariously out of the gash in the wall.

“Get everyone out,” they ordered. “Pull the fire alarm or something. Go!”

The civilian nodded, wide-eyed.

Quackity was pegging another wall full of flaming poker chips. Ranboo shot him in the face with an ectoblast.

“I didn’t take the bet,” Ranboo reminded him. “You have to stop.”

Quackity sneered. “Sorry, pal, that chip has sailed.” He fired a handful of poker chips at a window where people were gawping at the fight.

Ranboo’s Core yanked at them. They threw themself in front of the window before they were aware of what they were doing. The poker chips embedded themselves in their gut. They screamed.

“Aww, does that hurt?” Quackity cooed. “Can’t deal with the pain?”

Ranboo gritted his teeth. He raised a hand, charging up an ectoblast.

Quackity grabbed his wrist. “Rule number one of gambling: the house always wins.”

He whipped Ranboo into the wall. The bricks cracked under the impact. Ranboo’s back stung. Their vision went fuzzy. They shook their head to clear it and were immediately hit with a wave of nausea.

When he could see again, Quackity had vanished.

“Well, that’s not good,” Ranboo muttered.

Something exploded on the other side of the building. Ranboo leapt into the air, scanning the wreckage, but still no Quackity.

“Debt has a way of sneaking up on you, doesn’t it, Phantom?”

More poker chips shot into his shoulder. He yelped and whipped around. Nothing.

Quackity materialized on his other side. Ranboo shot an ectoblast at him. It went wide, burning a hole in the building below them.

Quackity grinned. “You want to help me get my casino back? That can be arranged.”

He grabbed Ranboo’s ankles and flung him downwards. Ranboo crashed through an already-crumbling wall and landed roughly back in the alley.

“Jesus fuck, Ranboo, you scared the shit out of me.”

Ranboo blinked blearily. “Tommy?”

“Yeah, bitch.” Tommy held out a hand to help them up.

“Took you long enough,” Ranboo grumbled, taking Tommy’s offered hand.

“Sorry.” Tommy held out a thermos. “Had to snatch it out from under Phil’s nose. He’s coming, by the way. Be quick.”

“Thanks.” Ranboo grabbed the thermos and shot up into the sky.

The building was in rough shape. There were large holes in the walls. Flames danced wherever poker chips had landed. A large crowd had gathered out front. Hopefully, that meant everyone had made it out okay.

Quackity was nowhere to be seen.

Ranboo’s ghost sense tingled. He was still here somewhere. He must have gone invisible.

Ranboo closed their eyes. They reached out with their ghost sense, combing through the burning building for that familiar cold-

There.

Ranboo opened his eyes and shot an ectoblast directly behind him. Quackity yelped, flickering back into full visibility.

“I bet you can’t fit in my thermos,” Ranboo snarled, clicking it open.

Quackity grinned. "You're betting against me? You really think-"

He vanished in a blast of blue light.

Ranboo shut the thermos with a snap, drifting back to the alley where Tommy was waiting. Their back ached. Their stomach and shoulders were covered in poker-chip-shaped burns.

“That was way too fuckin’ close,” Tommy decided. “I’m never leaving home without a thermos again.”

Ranboo nodded. “Yeah. Good idea.”

TOMMY

The news anchor smiled. “Submitted through our website, we have yet another sighting of our ghostly hero, Phantom. The spectre was seen-”

“Hero my ass,” grumbled Phil around a mouthful of pizza.

Tommy winced. Phil made no secret of his distaste for Phantom, but Ranboo didn’t deserve to be in the room whenever he talked about it. Frankly, Ranboo didn’t deserve any of the shit that had happened to them recently.

Wilbur sighed from where he sat next to Phil on the couch. “We’re trying to eat, Phil. Let the TV guy talk.”

The couch still had a faint bloodstain on it from when Dream had attacked Ranboo two weeks ago. Tommy tried not to think about it.

“-footage of the event,” the new anchor continued.

A transition wiped across the screen, replacing the anchor with shaky phone footage of the fight with Quackity earlier that day. Phantom hovered in front of a window. Quackity was saying something from out of frame, but it was impossible to understand. A fire alarm blared in the background.

“Holy shit,” the cameraperson said.

Phantom suddenly screamed. Flaming poker chips embedded themselves in his stomach and the window frame.

“Holy fucking shit.” The cameraperson sounded even more panicked now. “Oh my god, that could have killed me.”

Ranboo hid their face in their pizza. Tommy gave their least-injured shoulder a comforting squeeze.

On the TV, Quackity grabbed Phantom’s arm and threw them into the wall next to the window. The camera shook. Dust trickled down from the ceiling.

“We gotta get out of here,” someone said from behind the camera.

“Yeah,” the cameraperson agreed. “Let’s fucking go.”

Phil shook his head as the news anchor reappeared. “It’s trying to garner sympathy. Ghosts don’t feel pain. It’s trying to lull us into a false sense of security so it can attack when we least expect it.”

Ranboo rubbed a hand over his stomach where the poker chips had hit him.

“It did save those peoples’ lives, though,” Wilbur pointed out. “What reason would a ghost have to do that if it was just going to kill them later?”

“To garner sympathy, Will.”

“Those people are only alive because of Phantom.”

“They were only in danger because of Phantom, too. Didn’t you see the other ghost throw those fireballs at it? They destroyed an entire building, the two of them. How many other people died while Phantom was putting on a show for this one camera?”

Ranboo’s arm twitched violently. They screwed their eyes shut.

“None!” Wilbur threw Ranboo a reassuring glance over Phil’s head. “No one died. Everybody got out fine. There were a bunch of minor injuries, but that’s it.”

Phil slumped against the couch. “What about the property damage, Will? These people are homeless and their belongings were destroyed because of a pissing contest between two ghosts. Who’s gonna pay for that?”

Ranboo shoved his pizza away from him. His face was pale and ashy.

Wilbur hesitated. “I think the ghost Phantom was fighting was the one actually doing most of the damage.”

“I was there, Will,” Techno said from the other side of the couch. “I watched from across the street. Phantom deliberately did as much damage to the building as the other ghost did, if not more. It waited until the last possible moment to suck the other ghost into its thermos thingy.”

“And that’s another thing!” Phil burst out. “It keeps stealing my thermoses! I can’t keep making new ones forever. Eventually, I’m gonna run out of materials, and then Essempy Park’s only defence against these ectoplasmic scumbags will be toast.” He shook his head. “I swear, if I ever get my hands on that black and white bastard, I’ll tear it apart molecule by molecule.”

Ranboo made a choked noise.

Tommy stood up sharply. “Okay, well, I’ve had enough. Thanks for the pizza, Phil. Ranboob and I have homework to do.”

He grabbed Ranboo by the arm without waiting for a response and dragged them upstairs.

The instant Tommy’s door was shut, Ranboo collapsed on the bed, throwing an arm over their eyes.

“You alright, big man?” Tommy asked, his voice tinged with sympathy.

“Fine,” Ranboo grumbled.

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Phil just cursed you out the entire dinner. I call bullshit.”

“I said I’m fine, Tommy.”

“Do I need to call Tubbo on your ass? Because I fuckin’ will.”

Ranboo groaned and dropped his arm. “I just- it hurts, y’know? To hear Phil talk about me like that. He’s right, too. I destroyed a building. Again. Those people are homeless because of me.”

Tommy perched on the edge of the bed. “Those people are alive because of you, big man. I think they appreciate that more than having a place to live. I know I would.”

Ranboo hummed, unconvinced.

Tommy nudged him. “Besides, Quackity started it. If you wanna blame anyone, blame him.”

“I guess so.”

Tommy jutted his chin at Ranboo’s stomach. “How’re you healing up?”

Ranboo pulled up the bottom of their shirt. The poker chip burns on their skin had all but vanished, leaving a series of pinkish circles in their wake.

“They don’t hurt anymore,” he said. “My back still stings, but it’s better than it was.”

Tommy nodded. “That’s good.”

Ranboo rolled over, sticking his hand into the wall and pulling out a dusty thermos. It was the first one he’d stashed there, from the fight at the Rosebush. Niki was still inside.

“We need to find a way to deal with these,” they said. “We’re gonna run out of space.”

“We could stick them in the floors,” Tommy suggested.

Ranboo gave him an unimpressed look. “Yeah, and your dad can keep making infinite thermoses for you to steal. He’s gonna figure it out at some point.”

Tommy huffed and crossed his arms. “Well, how many thermoses do we have? Maybe we can fuckin’ cram a bunch of ghosts into the same one.”

"I don't think they work like that, but sure." Ranboo swept his arms through the wall again. A pile of dusty thermoses tumbled out onto Tommy’s bed.

Tommy whistled. “Holy shit, that’s a lot. Some of these guys are definitely getting roommates.”

Ranboo frowned, running their hands over the thermoses. “Shouldn’t there be one more?”

“Are you sure? How many are there?”

“This one’s Niki’s,” Ranboo said, pointing. “That one’s Quackity’s, that’s Slimecicle’s, that’s-” His eyes widened. “No, yeah, there’s definitely one missing.”

Tommy ran a hand through his hair. “Shit. This is bad. This is really, really bad. Who- do you know which one it is?”

Ranboo’s jaw clenched. “I think it’s Sapnap’s.”

“The big metal fucker?”

“That’s the one.”

“The one that Phil somehow managed to capture?”

“Yeah, after I beat him up. And-” Ranboo froze.

Tommy’s shoulders tensed. “And what?”

Ranboo bit his lip. “I- he didn’t work alone. Someone sent him to find me. Someone called the Nightmare King.”

Tommy gaped at him. “And you only remembered this now?”

“I had bigger things to worry about! It must have slipped my mind!”

“Fucking hell.” Tommy dragged a hand down his face. “Right, you stay here and make sure no more thermoses go missing. I’m calling Tubbo.”

Chapter Text

TUBBO

Tubbo was at the door within minutes.

“Explain,” he demanded as soon as he stepped into Tommy’s room.

Ranboo nudged the pile of thermoses with his foot. “Sapnap’s thermos is missing. It probably got stolen by whoever the hell the Nightmare King is.”

Tubbo crossed his arms. “And you didn’t think to mention this Nightmare dickhead sooner?”

Ranboo glared. “I was a bit distracted by the chunk of flesh missing from my calf. Excuse me if my memory wasn’t working at peak capacity.

Tubbo took a deep breath. “You’re right. Sorry. I just- this is a lot. We already have Dream to deal with. We don’t need another evil ghost after you.”

“Unless they’re the same ghost,” Tommy suggested.

Tubbo stared at him.

“What? Dream. Nightmare. Seems like the kind of overly dramatic bullshit he would pull, doesn’t it?”

Holy fucking shit.

“Tommy,” Tubbo said seriously, “that is the second time this month you’ve been a genius by accident.”

Tommy spluttered. “Excuse you, Bee Boy, I am always a genius on purpose.”

Ranboo groaned, dropping their head into their hands. “Great. Of course it was Dream. Why not? Maybe next he’ll team up with Phil.”

Tommy snorted. “That’ll be the day.”

“So,” Tubbo said, “assuming Dream and the Nightmare King are the same ghost, that means he’s recruited Sapnap to help him attack you or some shit. Sapnap and Dream have each kicked your ass by themselves on separate occasions. How do you expect to take on both of them at once?”

Ranboo stared at the floor like it held all the secrets of the universe. “I don’t.”

“You need to get better at your ghost shit,” Tommy decided. “Dream and Sapnap have years of practice on you. You’ve got one hell of a learning curve if you’re gonna beat them.”

Ranboo huffed. “Dream offered to teach me. Maybe I shouldn’t have turned him down.”

“No way,” Tubbo said immediately. “You made the right choice, boss man. Dream is a controlling, manipulative son of a bitch. Accepting his help would only have made shit worse.”

“Never accept lessons from someone who names himself the Nightmare King,” Tommy added sagely. 

Ranboo spread his arms helplessly. “What other choice do we have, then? I can’t learn fast enough on my own and there’s no one else to teach me.”

Tommy picked up one of the thermoses. “Maybe we can ask one of the other ghosts for help.”

Ranboo gave him a look. “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll be real pleased to help the guy that stuck them in a thermos for weeks.”

Tubbo hummed thoughtfully. “Actually, Tommy might be on to something.” He picked up another thermos. “What about that goo ghost from the warehouse? What was his name, Slimy Boi?”

“Slimecicle?”

“That’s the bitch. What about him? He talked to you before, didn’t he?”

Ranboo made a face. “He was pretty hurt the last time I saw him. I don’t know how well he could have healed in the thermos.”

Tubbo tossed the thermos to Ranboo. “He’s our best bet. And the worst thing he can do is cover Tommy’s room in slime. He’s not exactly a threat.”

“Oi,” Tommy protested, “I don’t want my room fuckin’ covered in slime. I like it clean.”

Ranboo gave him a look. “Your room is a step away from a nuclear waste dump, Tommy.”

“Hey, it’s your room, too, bitch! Some of this mess is yours!”

Tubbo set a hand on his hip. “Do you have any better ideas, Tommy?”

No one said anything.

“Right. So we’re doing this. Ranboo can keep the thermos pointed at him the whole time and they can suck him up if he tries anything.” Tubbo’s face twisted. “That came out weird. Ah, fuck it, you know what I meant.”

Ranboo adjusted their grip on the thermos. “Should I transform? Just in case?”

Tommy shook his head. “He might get more pissed if he saw you as Phantom. Right now, you just look like a random human.”

“Really filling me with confidence, here, Tommy.”

“And if Phil happens to walk by, it’s a lot easier to play off you pointing a thermos at a ghost than Phantom being in my room.”

“Fair point.” Ranboo hesitated. “I just- are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Nope,” Tubbo replied cheerfully. “Let ‘er rip, boss man.”

Ranboo opened the thermos with a click. An amorphous blob of green goo shot out of its mouth in a beam of blue light, splattering on Tommy’s bedroom floor.

Tommy grimaced. “That better clean itself up.”

“Give him a minute,” Ranboo said, powering down the thermos. “He does this.”

The goo coalesced into Slimecicle, who raised his arms dramatically above his head.

“Fear me!” He declared. “I am Slimecicle! Master of- oh, it’s you.” He dropped his arms and the flamboyant tone of voice, frowning at Ranboo. “Why’d you stick me in your thermos, man? We were having a nice chat.”

“You got shot in the chest,” Ranboo replied. “I didn’t really want to worry about you and fight another, more powerful ghost at the same time.”

“Hey, I’m pretty powerful! Back in the Ghost Zone they called me-”

“Drop the act, man. We have more questions.”

Slimecicle stared at Tubbo and Tommy like he had only just noticed they were there.

“I see,” he said. “Ask me your questions, then, and I shall bestow upon you my vast knowledge of all things goopy and slimy!”

Tommy glared at him. “I don’t want your fuckin’ slime knowledge, bitch, unless you wanna tell me how to get slime out of the clothes that you’re fuckin’ standing on.”

“Oh, that’s fairly simple, actually-”

“That’s not what we want to talk to you about,” Tubbo interrupted. “I’m- what exactly is the Ghost Zone?”

Slimecicle shrugged. “The Zone of Ghosts. Where ghosts live. Or don’t live, I guess. Die? Unlive?” He frowned. “It’s where we stay when we’re not here.”

Tubbo’s eyes widened. “Is that where the portal in the lab goes?”

“Yup!” Slimecicle nodded excitedly. “It’s where I came through!”

Ranboo glanced at the pile of thermoses on the bed. “So if we can figure out a way to close the portal, the ghosts will stop attacking?”

“That would require Phil agreeing to shut the portal down,” Tommy pointed out, “which basically means no fucking way.”

Ranboo groaned. “Why are there never any easy answers?”

“That would be boring,” Slimecicle said sagely.

“Right.” Tubbo cleared his throat. “Well, d’you reckon we could just shove these ghosts into the Ghost Zone and hope they don’t come back and attack us again?”

Slimecicle thought for a moment. “It might work. This is your haunt, after all. Coming into another ghost’s haunt uninvited is generally considered quite rude.” He paused. “Unless you want to pick a fight to prove how powerful you are. That happens a lot.”

“Hang on,” Ranboo said. “Go back a bit. What are haunts?”

“It’s like your home,” Slimecicle explained. “A place where your Core can rest and recharge. Most ghosts will respect your haunt and stay out of it, but it really depends how powerful you are and how strong their Obsession is.”

Ranboo frowned. “Obsession?”

“Yeah. Y’know, the reason ghosts exist? Their unfinished business? The thing that fuels their Cores?”

Ranboo blinked at him, rubbing a hand over their chest.

Slimecicle’s face fell. “Oh, man, you really don’t know anything, do you?”

“What’s yours?” Tommy asked.

“Slime!”

“Of fuckin’ course it is.”

Tubbo hummed thoughtfully. “So it’s like how Ranboo always wants to protect us?”

Slimecicle nodded. “Your Obsession is, like, your entire reason for existing. If you try to go against that, then ooh, boy, do I have bad news for you.”

Ranboo flinched. His hand clutched his chest.

Tubbo remembered how distraught Ranboo had been when they’d seen him in the hospital bed after Niki attacked the bakery. How they’d felt like they failed. Tubbo nudged Ranboo’s shoulder in a silent reminder that he was okay. Ranboo nodded gratefully.

“It would be better if you could talk to another halfa about this,” Slimecicle continued. “It might be different for you. Your Core certainly looks different enough.”

Tommy huffed. “Yeah, well, the only other halfa we know is Dream, and he’s a major dickhead, so we’re not talking to him.”

“You’re kind of our only source of information,” Ranboo admitted sheepishly.

“Oh!” Slimecicle clapped his hands excitedly, sending a splatter of goo into the air. “You know who else knows about halfas? Clockwork!”

Tommy grimaced, wiping goo off his shirt. “The fuck is that?”

“Another ghost,” Slimecicle said. “They live in the Ghost Zone. They can time travel and they’ve been around for basically forever and they know everything. They can help you!”

Tubbo and Ranboo exchanged a look.

Ranboo shrugged. “Worth a shot, I guess.”

“Where do we meet them?” Tubbo asked. “Do we get to go into the Ghost Zone? Please say we get to go into the Ghost Zone.”

Ranboo frowned. “I don’t think a place called the Ghost Zone is a great spot for regular humans to visit, Tubbo.”

Tubbo pouted. “Oh, come on. I wanna see what the afterlife is like.”

“It’s very green,” Slimecicle said. “There’s lots of ghosts. Not nearly enough goo, though.”

Tommy hummed thoughtfully. “If there’s a land of ghosts, d’you think there’s a heaven and a hell, too? Like, what happens to the humans who don’t become ghosts? What happens when a ghost moves on?”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Well, shit,” Tubbo said eloquently, wondering why Tommy chose today of all days to start using his brain.

Slimecicle grinned. “I don’t want to think about that!”

“Great.” Ranboo glanced at him. “Can you, uh, can you take me to Clockwork?”

“Sure can!” Slimecicle agreed. “But only if you let me go after. I don’t like being stuck in your thermos. There’s not enough room for all of my goopy awesomeness.”

Tubbo, Tommy, and Ranboo exchanged looks.

“He’s the least dickheaded ghost we’ve met so far,” Tommy pointed out. “Surely it won’t be too bad to let him go.”

“The worst he can do is goop up another warehouse,” Tubbo added. “It’s not like he’s attacking people or burning down bakeries.”

Ranboo sighed. “Alright. You get me to Clockwork, we’ll let you go.”

Slimecicle grinned. “Awesome! I would have escaped even if you didn’t agree, but it’s good to have your support!”

Tommy blinked. “Right then.”

“Great,” Tubbo said. “To the Ghost Zone it is.”

Ranboo fidgeted with the empty thermos. “Um. Problem. The portal is down in the lab. Phil’s probably working on it right now. I don’t think he’ll appreciate us going through, especially not after- after last time.”

The memory of Ranboo’s dying scream echoed in Tubbo’s skull. He shuddered. “Yeah, we need to get him out of the lab.”

Tommy’s eyes sparkled mischievously. “Leave that to me.”

RANBOO

“All clear,” Tommy called up the stairs.

Tubbo whistled. “What did you do?”

“Told him there were ghosts on the other side of town,” Tommy explained, eyes glinting. “He’ll be busy for hours.”

“Nice.”

Ranboo’s hands trembled as they followed Tommy down into the lab. They wiped their sweaty palms on their jeans. Everything was fine. They were just going to revisit the site of their death and traverse the realm of the undead to find an unknown ghost who could maybe help get them some answers. Nothing to worry about.

He stared at the portal in trepidation. His heart pounded in his ears.

“You don’t have to go in there, boss man,” Tubbo reminded him. “I can always do this instead.”

Ranboo’s Core spiked sharply. They shivered. “No. No way. I can do this.”

“That’s good,” Slimecicle said absently. “You need to be able to fly to get around in there. It’s like a floating maze.”

Ranboo stared at him. “And you’re only mentioning this now?”

“It didn’t seem relevant.”

Ranboo, very nobly, didn’t zap his face off with an ectoblast.

Tommy cursed. “How the fuck are you gonna find your way back here, then?”

“And how will we know you’re not hurt?” Tubbo added. “What if Phil comes back while you’re in there and we can’t warn you? Fuck. We didn’t think this through.”

Ranboo’s friends were clearly just as apprehensive about him going back into the portal as he was. The thought soothed his agitated Core.

Tommy bit his lip. “Could we tie a rope to your waist or something?”

“Oh!” Tubbo rushed over to the desk, rummaging through the piles of machinery around it. He pulled a metal boomerang out of the mess and held it up triumphantly. “Behold, the answer to all our problems!”

Tommy stared. “Is that that fuckin’ metal boomerang?”

“It's called the Boo-merang,” Tubbo corrected him saucily, “emphasis on Boo. Phil was helping me work on it. It was supposed to track down ghosts, but it only ever locks on to Ranboo.”

Ranboo rubbed the side of their head. “Yeah, I remember.”

Tubbo brandished the Boo-merang like a sword. “We can tie some rope to this bitch and chuck it in after you when you need to get out. That way you can find your way back.”

Ranboo raised an eyebrow. “Do you have enough rope for that?”

Tommy shrugged. “We can improvise.”

“That’s not nearly as reassuring as you think it is.”

Tubbo shoved his shoulder. “Go ghost, boss man. Send us a postcard from the afterlife.”

Ranboo tugged at his Core, allowing the familiar cold transformation settle over him. He nodded to Slimecicle. “I’m ready.”

“Into the great beyond!” Slimecicle chorused, floating through the portal.

Ranboo took a deep breath they didn’t need and followed.

The Ghost Zone was… Ranboo wasn’t sure what the Ghost Zone was. It was difficult to describe. There was no ground, only a distant series of floating islands. Instead of a sky, there was a backdrop of rich, swirling greens. The atmosphere wasn’t breathable, but it was thick and easy to fly through.

There weren’t even any ghosts. His ghost sense wasn’t going completely haywire like he’d expected it to. The only other ghost he could see was Slimecicle, who was rapidly disappearing behind an asteroid belt of disembodied doors.

“Hey, wait up,” Ranboo called, shooting after him. They glanced around uneasily. “Where is everyone? I thought the Ghost Zone would have more, uh, ghosts.”

Slimecicle shrugged. “They’re probably in their haunts. That’s where all these doors lead. No one just hangs out in the open like this. That’s like having a picnic on a freeway.”

Ranboo nodded. That made sense, they supposed.

His skin tingled as they flew. He had anticipated feeling a lot more ghostly while flying through the Ghost Zone, but oddly enough, he felt more alive than he did when he was human. The atmosphere wasn’t freezing, not exactly, but it was cold in the same comforting way his Core was cold. It felt right.

A ghost with long brown hair and a red dress was growing roses on one of the floating islands. It ducked out of sight when Ranboo waved.

They glanced over their shoulder. The portal was a barely-visible neon smudge in the distance.

“How much farther?” They asked, turning back to Slimecicle.

“We’re almost there,” Slimecicle replied.

Clockwork’s haunt was, naturally, a giant clock tower. Large, heavy stone bricks made up the base. The clock face was glowing white and ticking with so many hands it was impossible to know what time it actually was.

“This is where I leave you,” Slimecicle said. “Whatever you do, don’t mention rings. Bye!”

“What-”

Slimecicle was gone before Ranboo could say another word.

“Great,” Ranboo grumbled. “Thanks for the support.”

Another ghost appeared in front of him. It wore a brightly coloured coat of pinks and oranges and purples and blues, looking oddly out of place in the dark greens of the Ghost Zone. Steampunk-style goggles with crystal lenses perched in front of its eyes. Its wrists were wrapped with half a dozen watches each. A handful of pocket watches hung around its neck and out of its pockets.

“Are you Clockwork?” Ranboo asked tentatively.

“I am,” the ghost replied. “And you’re a halfa.”

Ranboo gulped. “Uh, yeah.”

“This is our first meeting.”

“Yes…?”

Clockwork hummed. They lifted their goggles and set them in their curly hair, revealing multicoloured eyes. “Why are you here?”

Ranboo rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh. Well, uh, I'm kinda new to this whole ghost thing, and my- uh, Slimecicle said that you might be able to help me out.”

Clockwork regarded him for a moment, then nodded. “I can. Follow me.”

The inside of Clockwork’s tower was almost as chaotic as Phil’s lab. Hundreds of clocks, calendars, and hourglasses hung on the walls. Gears and other clock parts were stacked in piles on various desks. In between the clock-themed messes were shelves upon shelves of journals with no obvious system of organization.

Clockwork trailed their fingers along the spines of the journals. “Halfas… halfas… You’re Phantom, right?”

Ranboo blinked. “Um, yeah?”

“Ah, crap, wrong shelf.” They flew across the tower and pulled a deep red journal off the shelves. They flicked through the pages for a moment, then stopped. “How far along are you? Has the whole Dream fiasco happened yet?”

“We’ve met,” Ranboo said warily. “What exactly do you mean by Dream fiasco ? You’re telling me it gets worse?”

Clockwork slammed the red journal shut and shoved it back on the shelves. “Not that one, then. Earlier.” They drifted upwards.

Ranboo flew closer, eyeing the red journal. What was in there? Was there information about Dream? Clockwork had discarded it, but maybe if Ranboo looked with fresh eyes-

Clockwork dropped a journal on Ranboo’s head. Ranboo yelped. 

“No spoilers,” Clockwork said seriously. “You can experience time chronologically like everyone else.”

Ranboo stared at the red journal. “Then why is it there?”

“Because I’m the timekeeper,” Clockwork explained, shoving aside three more journals. “I know everything and I remember nothing. I write the journals to ensure I never forget.”

Right. Because that made perfect sense.

Clockwork pulled another journal off the shelves, this one purple and shimmery. “Ah, here we go. You said you’ve met Dream, yes? But he’s still out there. You’re just a baby halfa.”

Ranboo stared. “I am so confused right now.”

“We all are.” Clockwork drifted down to Ranboo’s eye level, paging through the journal. “Right. Baby halfa. Still figuring out your powers, right? What all can you do?”

“Uh, well, I can fly and shoot ectoblasts. I have a… a ghost sense? I can tell when ghosts are around. I’m not very good at using it yet, though. I can go invisible and intangible. I can, uh, I can transform from human to ghost and back again, but I think that’s a pretty standard halfa thing. Um. I think that’s everything?”

Clockwork hummed. “No purple yet?”

Ranboo opened his mouth, then closed it again. His Core shuddered at the memory of the explosion at his apartment. There was something there, something important, something powerful, but he had no idea what it was.

“There was one purple thing,” Ranboo said eventually. “I, uh, kinda blew up my apartment by accident.”

“Ah, I see.” Clockwork flipped back a page. “Here we are. Got it. Okay, what exactly did you want to know?”

Ranboo gestured vaguely. “Everything? I dunno. I’m still so new to all this. I don’t know what questions I need to be asking.”

“Oh, trust me, you don’t want to know everything. You’ll lose your mind.” Clockwork snapped their fingers. “You need to know more about Obsessions.”

Ranboo blinked. “Okay. Tell me about Obsessions.”

“You know they’re the whole reason ghosts exist,” Clockwork began, flipping back another page. “You know that a ghost’s every move is dictated by their Obsession and they can only move on when their Obsession is fulfilled.”

Ranboo nodded. “Slimecicle told me.”

“You know that a ghost’s Obsession is often the foundation for their powers. Sometimes, how they died has more influence, but not often.”

“I- no one told me that, but it makes sense.”

“Good. Halfas work a little differently. Your Obsession isn’t a single-minded focus like Slimecicle’s is. You have much greater impulse control. You can even go against your Obsession if you wanted to, though I can’t imagine a scenario where you would.” Clockwork gave Ranboo a look. “You know what your Obsession is, right? Your last thought before you died?”

Ranboo’s Core sang. Get Tommy and Tubbo out of the machine. Protect them from harm. Keep them safe. Protect, protect, protect.

“Protection,” Ranboo said.

Clockwork nodded. “There you go, then.”

Ranboo processed for a moment. “Does that mean that Slimecicle’s dying thought was about goo?”

Clockwork shrugged. “Apparently so.”

Ranboo wasn’t sure what to think of that. They resolved to never think of it again.

“Going against your Obsession can cause your Core a great dial of distress,” Clockwork continued. “You’re well aware of this.”

Ranboo thought of Tubbo lying in a hospital bed, face burned and covered in bandages. His Core twinged painfully. “Yeah.”

“A particularly smart or vindictive ghost can use this to their advantage. Obsessions are easy things to manipulate. I’d advise you to keep yours under wraps if that wasn’t completely impossible.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Clockwork gave him an intense look. “There are no gods here, Phantom, only Obsessions and those that control them. You would be wise to be one of the latter.”

Ranboo stared. He had the feeling that he’d just been given some important advice about the future, but he couldn’t for the life or death of him figure out what the hell it meant.

Clockwork turned back to the journal. “The purple is also important. You’ll figure that out on your own, though. Your Core will mature without my help.”

Ranboo blinked. “What?”

“Your Core.” Clockwork tapped two fingers against their chest. “The more time you spend as a ghost, using your powers, the more your Core matures. It happens with all ghosts, though with halfas, the results are often more… dramatic.”

Ranboo narrowed their eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You can unlock extra powers when your Core is mature enough to handle them. Halfa Cores take longer to mature, because they’re half human, but once they’re fully mature, they’re more powerful than regular ghosts. Dream can duplicate himself. You-” Clockwork shook their head. “No. No spoilers. You’ll figure it out.” They paused. “Also, Cores can mature exponentially faster when under extreme stress. This can result in ghosts getting powers they’re not ready for.”

Ranboo raised his eyebrows. “That sounds important.”

“That’s all you need for now.” Clockwork snapped the journal shut. “The rest will come in due time. Your friends are getting worried.”

As if on cue, the Boo-merang flew in through an open window and smacked into the side of Ranboo’s head.

“We need to put padding on that thing,” they grumbled.

Clockwork waved a dismissive hand. “Go back to your friends. I’ve got cleaning up to do. I’ll have been seeing you later.”

“That- okay. Thanks, I guess.”

“You’re welcome.”

Ranboo followed the rope back through the Ghost Zone, more confused than ever.

Chapter Text

RANBOO

Ranboo stared blankly at the whiteboard, trying and failing to absorb anything the history teacher was saying.

“Is it wrong to wish for a ghost attack to get out of class?” He muttered under his breath.

Tommy stifled a snicker. “Anything’s better than history class, Ranboob.”

Tubbo sighed on the other side of them. “Do you have a thermos handy? Because I don’t.”

Tommy spluttered indignantly. “Of fuckin’ course I have a thermos, Bee Boy. Who do you think I-”

“Something to add, boys?” The teacher interrupted.

Tommy straightened in his seat. “No, ma’am.”

The teacher narrowed her eyes, then nodded. “Good. Now, as I was saying-”

“You’re lucky you didn’t get detention,” Tubbo whispered.

Tommy shrugged. “Eh, I would’ve skipped it anyway.”

Tubbo’s response was cut off by a bout of familiar laughter. A breath of mist floated out of Ranboo’s mouth. His Core flared in panic.

“Now, children,” Dream said, appearing in ghost form at the front of the classroom, “how about a lesson in self-defence?”

The classroom filled with screams. Some people hid under their desks. Others gaped at Dream, too frozen with shock to move.

Ranboo’s Core writhed in his chest. People were in danger. He had to protect them, but he couldn’t just transform in front of everyone.

And it was Dream. Because of course it was Dream.

Dream grinned maniacally. “For this lesson, I’ll need a volunteer from the audience.”

Ranboo glanced at Tommy, who was reaching for the thermos in his backpack. If they could just-

“Ah, ah, ah,” Dream chided, waving a finger at Tommy. Tommy’s backpack abruptly vanished into the floor.

Clones. Right.

“Your little ghost toys won’t be necessary today,” Dream taunted. “I’m thinking something a little more… hands-on.”

Ranboo’s eyes flicked around the room. His Core screamed at him. He needed to transform, to protect his classmates, but he couldn’t, there was no place to-

Dream’s eyes bored into his skull. “How about you?”

The invisible Dream clone grabbed Ranboo by the bicep and threw them into the whiteboard.

Ranboo groaned, picking himself up off the floor. How the hell was he supposed to get out of this?

“Leave them alone!” Tubbo ordered, not entirely disguising the tremble in his voice.

Dream gazed at him, amused. “Or what?”

Tubbo hesitated. He grabbed his history textbook off his desk and brandished it in front of him like a weapon.

Dream laughed. “Ah, yes, the horrors of history class. I’m sure that’ll do wonders against a ghost like me.”

He dug his claws into Ranboo’s shoulder. Ranboo cried out, squirming, trying desperately to get away without going intangible in front of his whole class, but Dream held firm.

Tubbo’s history textbook sailed through the air and right through Dream’s chest.

Dream gave him a look. “That’s no way to treat your new teacher. In fact, just for that-”

He flung Ranboo against the ceiling, watching with amusement as they crumpled to the ground along with a handful of ceiling tiles.

Someone screamed.

Ranboo gritted his teeth. He needed to get out of here. People were in danger. His friends were in danger. How much longer could he let this go on for before he had to reveal himself?

“Who are you?” Someone asked.

“I have many names.” Dream spread his arms. “But you may know me as the Nightmare King.”

Ranboo internally rolled his eyes. More like drama queen.

That did confirm Tommy was right about the names, though. At least one good thing could come out of this.

One of the students whose name Ranboo didn’t know stood up, glaring defiantly at Dream. “Leave them alone. You’d better get out of here before Phantom shows up.”

“Yeah,” another student agreed. “He’ll rock your shit.”

Dream gave Ranboo a grin filled with too many teeth. “I’d love nothing more.”

The first student gave a yell and swung her chair through Dream’s head. It did nothing, of course, but he stared at her in shock like he was astonished that someone other than Tubbo or Tommy would dare to stand up for Ranboo.

Ranboo made a mental note to send the girl a thank-you card once this was all over.

“I’m getting bored,” Dream decided. “Let’s take this outside, shall we?” He grabbed Ranboo’s already-injured shoulder and dragged him through the wall.

The instant they were out of view of Ranboo’s classmates, Ranboo transformed, ripping themself out of Dream’s grip.

“That was so uncool,” they snapped.

Dream grinned. “Maybe I like to play with my food.”

Ranboo shot an ectoblast at his face.

Dream dodged, cackling. “Now we have a fight.”

This fight was much more evenly matched than the one in the lab two weeks ago. Ranboo flew faster, dodged faster, shot ectoblasts with much more efficiency. He landed nearly as many hits as he took.

“You’re improving, baby halfa,” Dream noted, swiping his claws at Ranboo’s face.

Ranboo grabbed his wrist and twisted in the air, sending Dream tumbling into the field below them. “No thanks to you.”

Dream snarled, leaping up and lashing across Ranboo’s side. Ranboo cried out, drilling a series of ectoblasts into Dream’s chest.

Distantly, Ranboo noted that they had moved to the far end of the football field. That was good. It meant that his classmates weren’t in danger of getting hurt. It was also very, very bad, as he didn’t have a thermos to suck Dream into, and the one in Tommy’s backpack was both far away and stuck in the ground.

A hint of exhaustion crept into Dream’s voice. “Still not as powerful as me.”

“I’m not taking lessons from you,” Ranboo snapped.

They aimed a kick at Dream’s face. Dream grabbed their ankle and spun them around in a circle, sending them crashing headlong into a tree.

“You will, baby halfa.” Dream floated over lazily, hands clasped behind his back. “You will.”

Ranboo shook his head and immediately regretted it as a wave of nausea rolled over him. Ectoplasm dripped from his wounds, pooling in the grass.

Dream put one clawed finger under their chin and tilted their head up. “See, that right there was a rookie move. You’re a ghost. You could have phased right through that tree with no repercussions at all. But no, you just had to go and give yourself a head injury.”

Ranboo gritted his teeth, jerking his chin out of Dream’s grasp. “I’m not becoming your apprentice.”

He clenched his fist behind his back. The beginnings of an ectoblast sparked in his palm.

Dream shrugged. “Not right now, maybe. I can always come back tomorrow for another lesson. Perhaps Tubbo should learn that it’s not okay to throw textbooks at your teacher.”

Ranboo’s Core flared. Energy pulsed in their hand. They spat on Dream’s mask.

Dream gritted his teeth. He raised his claws menacingly. “You little-”

His words were cut off with a scream as Ranboo shoved his handful of ectoenergy into Dream’s face.

Dream stumbled backwards, spluttering and cursing. His mask cracked and broke in half. His skin blistered and sizzled. Ectoplasm dripped down his neck. The edges of the burn were blackened, charred, ashy.

Ranboo’s Core gave a vindictive purr.

“Leave Tubbo alone,” they ordered.

Dream spat ectoplasm on the grass. “You fight hard, baby halfa, I’ll grant you that. But maybe it’s time you learned to fight smart.”

Ranboo stared at him in confusion. “What?”

Dream smirked.

Heavy metal footsteps thudded behind Ranboo. He whirled around, coming face-to-face with Sapnap, holding the missing thermos.

Ranboo’s last thought was a string of curses before the world went black.

TUBBO

The classroom was a mess. Dust and crumbled ceiling tiles littered the floor. Desks had been overturned. Papers and pencils were everywhere.

Tubbo coughed, spitting grit out of his mouth. His shoulder ached.

“Everybody okay?” The teacher called from the front of the room.

A chorus of half-hearted yeses hung limply in the air.

“Ranboo,” Tommy rasped.

Tubbo’s heart stuttered in his chest. “Fuck. Ranboo!” He scrambled to his feet, racing to the broken window.

Ranboo and Dream were nowhere to be seen.

Behind him, Tommy cursed, holding his ankle gingerly.

“Careful, Tommy,” Tubbo warned, rushing back to help him up.

“I’m fine,” Tommy grumbled. “Just sore, ‘s all.”

Tubbo glanced back out the window. “Where the fuck did they go?”

“I dunno, but we gotta go find him.”

“Sit down, boys,” the teacher ordered. “Phantom will take care of Ranboo. Tommy, your ankle needs medical help.”

Tubbo and Tommy ignored her, picking their way out of the trashed classroom and into the hallway.

Tommy let out a harsh breath. “Fuck. Where the fuck could they have gone?”

Tubbo shook his head. “I don’t know. The field, maybe? Dream looked pretty pissed. They’re probably fighting right now.”

“And Ranboo doesn’t have a thermos. Fuck.” Tommy stomped his foot, then cursed again when he jostled his bad leg. “This is bad. This is really, really bad.”

Tubbo tugged on Tommy’s shirtsleeve. “Let’s check the field. Maybe… maybe there’s something we can do.”

Tommy gave him a look, but followed anyway. “What can we do? Dream fuckin’ yoinked my thermos. I don’t have any ectoweapons on me.”

Tubbo froze, struck by a sudden realization. Dream was the Nightmare King. Which meant- “Shit. Dream has Sapnap’s thermos.”

Tommy’s eyes widened. “Fuck.”

They rounded the corner and were nearly bowled over by Jack, whose eyes were wild and panicked. His knees and side were smeared with dirt. Speckles of neon green ectoplasm dotted his shirt.

“Sorry,” Jack panted. “Holy fuck.”

Tubbo and Tommy exchanged a look.

“Jack,” Tommy said, “what the fuck happened to you?”

Jack ran a hand over his head. “It was fuckin’ wild, man. There was this ugly green ghost, and it was fighting Phantom - the ghost boy, black and white fucker, you know the one - and then this big fuck-off robot ghost showed up out of fuckin’ nowhere! Scared me half to death. I ran away after that, but man, it was awesome. They were tearing each other to shreds. This green stuff was flying everywhere.”

Tubbo’s heart pounded behind his ears. Fuck. Ranboo was fighting Dream and Sapnap, and he was hurt. Bad. 

“That green stuff is ectoplasm,” Tommy said, voice strained, gesturing to Jack’s shirt. “It’s, like, radioactive and shit. Super dangerous to humans. You need to get rid of that shirt and wash yourself up, like, right now.”

“But I haven’t told you the best part.” Jack grinned. “You know Phantom? It’s Ranboo.”

Tubbo froze. Tommy made a choked noise.

“It’s true,” Jack insisted, mistaking their shock for disbelief. “I saw it with my own eyes. The green ghost pulled Ranboo through the wall of the school, there was a flash of light, and then Phantom was there instead.”

Tubbo laughed awkwardly. “No way, Jack. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but ghosts are dead, and Ranboo is very much alive.”

Tommy nodded frantically. “Yeah, that’s ridiculous. I think we would know if our best friend had gone and fuckin’ died on us.”

“But what if he was already dead?” Jack argued. “He's only been here for, like, three months. What if he’s secretly been a ghost this whole time and he’s only pretending to be human?”

Tommy mustered up an unimpressed look. “My dad’s a ghost hunter, Jack. He’s met Ranboo. If Ranboo was a ghost, don’t you think Phil would have noticed by now?”

Jack opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Exactly,” Tubbo said. “Besides, they have a pulse. Ghosts can’t pretend to have that.”

Jack crossed his arms. “I know what I saw.”

“Maybe you were seeing things.” Tommy patted Jack’s shoulder placatingly.

Jack glared at him. “I was not! Ranboo and Phantom are the same person. I saw it with my own eyes!”

Tubbo scoffed. “Whatever, Jack. If you say so.”

Jack brushed past them, muttering curses under his breath.

Tommy let out a shaky breath once he was out of earshot. “Fucking shit. This is the last thing we need right now. What if he tells everyone? Fuck, what if he tells Phil?”

Tubbo threw a glance over his shoulder. “I don’t think anyone will believe him. I mean, this is the guy who spent most of last year trying to convince people that rocks were soft until you touched them.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Besides, Ranboo is still kind of alive.”

“He’s also kind of dead. And fighting Dream.”

Tubbo straightened his back. “We need to find him.”

They hobbled out of the school as fast as they could, but they were too late. The field was empty by the time they arrived.

“There’s little spatters of ectoplasm everywhere,” Tubbo noted. “They definitely fought here for a while.”

Tommy nodded, inspecting the broken half of Dream’s mask, which lay cracked and burnt on the ground. “Looks like Ranboo put up one hell of a fight, too.”

“So where are they now?”

Tommy spread his arms. “Fuck if I know.”

Tubbo sighed, kicking lightly at a tree. There was a sizeable pool of ectoplasm around the trunk. Tubbo didn’t want to think about whose it was. Large footprints were scattered around it, pressed heavily into the ground like they were made by some sort of machine.

Or a robot.

Tubbo cursed. “Sapnap was definitely here, too.”

Tommy groaned. “Fuck, they probably double-teamed him. No wonder he’s not here. They probably-” His voice broke.

Tubbo stared at the pool of ectoplasm, blinking back tears. He didn’t have time to cry right now. Ranboo was hurt, bad, and they needed help.

Tommy slumped against the tree, carefully avoiding the puddle of Ranboo’s- of ectoplasm.

“What the fuck do we do now?” His voice was small. Defeated. “Dream has him, and he’s hurt, and we can’t do shit against Dream.”

Tubbo sat beside him. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know, man. They could be anywhere.”

Tommy scrubbed viciously at his eyes.

“D’you think we could ask Techno where Dream likes to hang out?” Tubbo asked. “Maybe he knows something.”

Tommy snorted. “Techno fuckin’ hates ghosts, Tubbo. He won’t know shit. Besides, he would ask too many questions that I’ve got no fuckin’ clue how to answer.” He paused. “And he’s in class right now. I don’t think he would appreciate being interrupted.”

Tubbo leaned his head back against the tree. “We can’t search all of Essempy Park on our own, Tommy. We need help from someone.”

Tommy thought for a long moment. “I might have an idea.”

WILBUR

There were voices outside of Wilbur’s door. They were hushed, trying their best to be secretive, but one of them was Tommy’s, which meant they weren’t doing a very good job of it.

Wilbur sighed and set down his guitar. He wasn’t normally one for eavesdropping, but he had a sneaking suspicion that this conversation had something to do with Ranboo’s situation, and he desperately wanted updates. Ranboo had yet to explain anything to him, other than that they were fine, don’t worry, and please don’t tell Phil.

Which Wilbur would never do. That just seemed cruel.

He did worry, though. Ranboo looked constantly exhausted. He would often come to dinner with a limp or a suspicious bruise that was gone by the next morning. Wilbur regularly found bloody bandages in the bathroom garbage can. Sometimes, when Wilbur was up writing music until three in the morning, he would hear thumps and muffled curses from Tommy and Ranboo’s room.

Whatever stress Ranboo was dealing with, Wilbur hoped they got a break soon. They deserved it.

“-can’t possibly think this is a good idea,” Tubbo was whispering on the other side of Wilbur’s door.

Tommy huffed. “Well, who the fuck else can we ask? Ranboo needs us, man. We can’t just do nothing.”

So this was about Ranboo. Phil had raced out the door half an hour earlier yelling about ghosts, which meant Ranboo was probably hurt. Badly, if they needed Wilbur’s help. Worse than when Phil shot him in the warehouse two weeks ago.

Tubbo sighed. “I know, I know. I just- you do the talking, okay? He’s your brother.”

“That’s only gonna make him less likely to listen,” Tommy grumbled, but knocked on the door anyway.

Wilbur took a deep breath. He had to stay calm. He could do this.

He opened the door to Tommy and Tubbo both covered head to toe in dust.

Wilbur stared at them. “What the hell happened? Are you guys okay?”

“Ranboo’s missing,” Tommy said.

Okay. That wasn’t exactly what Wilbur was expecting. “What?”

“Ranboo’s missing,” Tommy repeated. “Dream showed up during class and fought him but he couldn’t transform or everyone would know so he couldn’t fight back and Dream dragged him through a wall and-”

“Slow down, Tommy,” Wilbur said. “Deep breaths. What’s going on?”

“Dream took Ranboo,” Tubbo explained. “We don’t know where the fuck they are, but they're hurt pretty bad, and we- we need your help, Will.”

Wilbur glanced between Tommy and Tubbo. “I think you’d better come inside.”

He opened the door fully, allowing them into his room. Tommy immediately flopped onto his bed, covering the bedsheets in dust. Tubbo sat beside him. Wilbur internally cringed at the mess, but decided against chastising them for now. There were more pressing matters at hand.

Wilbur pulled out his desk chair and took a seat. “Okay. What’s going on with Dream?”

Tubbo hesitated. “How much do you know, exactly?”

“I know that Ranboo is Phantom, that it has something to do with Phil’s portal, and that I’m not supposed to worry about it.” Wilbur bit his lip. “I’m- he’s dead, isn’t he?”

Maybe it was a stupid question, but he had to know for sure.

Tommy and Tubbo exchanged a look.

“Kind of,” Tommy said slowly. “They're a halfa. Half a ghost, half a human.”

“Half dead, half alive,” Tubbo added.

“That makes absolutely zero fucking sense,” Wilbur said.

Tubbo shrugged. “You get used to it.”

Tommy waved a hand vaguely. “There’s a whole bunch of other cosmic bullshit involved with that, but the main thing is, halfas are, like, super rare and super powerful. The only other one we know about is Dream.”

“Dream,” Wilbur said. “Techno’s friend Dream?”

“That’s the one. He’s a complete dickhead, by the way. Calls himself the Nightmare King. Wanted Ranboo to be his apprentice or some shit. When Ranboo said no, he beat him up, and then he came back today during class and beat him up again.”

“We looked for them,” Tubbo continued. “The only thing we found was half of Dream’s mask and the ectoplasm at the end of the football field.” He shuddered. “There was a lot of it. Wherever Ranboo is, they're hurt, and badly.”

“And Jack apparently saw them transform,” Tommy added, “but that’s a less pressing issue.”

Wilbur steepled his fingers under his nose. “Okay. Do you have any idea where Dream might be?”

Tommy glared at him. “Well, if we knew that, we’d fuckin’ be there, wouldn’t we?”

Wilbur shot him a look. “I know you’re upset, Tommy, but yelling at me isn’t going to bring Ranboo back any faster.”

Tommy deflated. “I know. I’m sorry.”

If the situation were different, Wilbur would have mocked his arrogant brother for apologizing. Now, though, he decided to keep that particular quip in his head.

Okay. What to do about Ranboo.

…Wilbur had no idea.

Theoretically, he could use one of Phil’s ghost tracking devices, but both Dream and Ranboo had been in the presence of those and they hadn’t gone off. Phil might be able to modify one to specifically track Ranboo, but getting Phil’s help was a bad idea for a variety of reasons.

And then there was the issue of ghost powers. If Ranboo could fly, then Dream probably could, too, and he could be anywhere by now. Or he could have phased them underground or into an impenetrable vault that would be impossible for three regular humans to get into.

Wilbur dragged his hands down his face. “I don’t know how much help I can be, guys. I’m not equipped to find someone who’s been kidnapped by a ghost.”

“Halfa,” Tommy corrected.

“Halfa. Whatever.” Wilbur waved a hand. “Really, the best people to call here would be the police.”

“Yeah, let’s get the police in on the halfa hunt. Sounds like a great idea.”

Wilbur smiled ruefully. “I know. But we’re just three people. We can’t do everything ourselves.”

“We can try,” Tubbo grumbled.

“Listen, I’ll do my best to help you find him, but if he’s still missing by the end of the day, we need to call the cops. Deal?”

Tommy and Tubbo exchanged a look.

“Deal,” Tommy agreed reluctantly. “But we do everything we can by ourselves first.”

Tubbo stared thoughtfully at the wall. “Maybe we could talk to one of the ghosts they caught. They might be able to help.”

“That’s a fuckin’ terrible idea.”

“Slimecicle was helpful.”

“Slimecicle also booked it the second he had the chance. Any other ghost is more likely to attack us than do anything useful. Besides, Ranboo fuckin’ shoved them all in the wall beside my bed. Unless you have a sledgehammer handy, we’re not getting any of them.”

Wilbur rubbed his chin. “Phil might have one.”

Tommy glared at him. “Absolutely the fuck not. We’re not bringing Phil into this.”

Wilbur raised his hands placatingly. “That’s not what I meant. He has tech, that’s all. We could probably find something in the lab to break and repair the wall if we really need to.”

Tubbo abruptly straightened. “Oh my god, I’m a fucking idiot.”

Wilbur raised an eyebrow. “What for?”

“My Boo-merang. Phil helped me make it. It was supposed to track down ghosts, but it only ever runs into Ranboo.” He turned to Tommy. “Remember? We used it to find them in the Ghost Zone.”

A smile slowly crawled across Tommy’s face. “That could actually work. Nice one, Bee Boy!”

Tubbo jumped up from the bed. “I’ll go get it.”

“We should go with you,” Wilbur said, standing. “Phil’s not there, and we need to arm ourselves with ectoweapons in case Dream tries to attack us.”

“Which he will,” Tommy said. “Bastard.”

Tubbo grinned. “Let’s get our shit, then, and save Ranboo.”

“Fuck yeah,” Tommy agreed.

Wilbur gave a decisive nod. Hang in there, Ranboo. We’re coming.

Chapter Text

RANBOO

The first thing Ranboo was aware of was a thick haze of pain blanketing his entire body. His head pounded. His throat was dry and sandy. His limbs felt like they had been dipped in molten lead.

The second thing they noticed was that they weren’t stuffed in a thermos. They would be more grateful for that if they weren’t strapped to a table instead. Metal bands were wrapped tightly around their arms, legs, and torso. They weren’t tight enough to hurt, thankfully, but they weren’t particularly comfortable, either.

Not that it mattered. He could just go intangible and-

Nothing.

They frowned. They focused intensely on their arms, reaching for that spike of cold, straining against the metal, and… still nothing.

His Core was still and silent, almost warm in his chest. It didn’t seem to want to wake up.

They blew out a breath. Great. So they were stuck here, then.

He ignored the panic rising in his throat at the thought and took stock of his injuries.

Their head felt like it was filled with cotton. The puncture wound in their shoulder was mostly healed over, but not completely. The gashes in their side still freely wept ectoplasm. Their arms and legs were decorated with a variety of smaller cuts and scratches that should have long since healed over, but hadn’t, for some reason. Maybe the metal bands they couldn’t pass through had suppressed their healing ability, too.

In summary, he hurt like hell.

It was dark in whatever room Dream had stuck him in. The only light came around the edges of the door and through the slats in the blinds. A desk sat against the far wall. Neatly organised atop it were several computers and a handful of unidentifiable pieces of equipment. The other half of the room more closely resembled Phil’s basement lab, cluttered with bizarre components of tech and machinery. A half-finished suit of armour much like Sapnap’s leaned against another wall, though it appeared empty. Several vials of glowing green ectoplasm were strewn about amongst the mess.

They were in a lab. Dream’s lab, presumably. And they were strapped to a table with no hope of escape.

As if this day couldn’t get any worse.

He debated calling for help. Surely Tubbo and Tommy would know he’d been taken by now. They must have been on their way. On the other hand, though, he was locked up in Dream’s lab, and he really didn’t want to find out what Dream would do to him if he found out Ranboo was awake.

In the end, the decision was made for them when the door across the room creaked open and the lights flickered on.

Dream leaned against the doorframe, back in human form, grinning smugly. Ranboo was pleased to see the burn on his face was wet with fresh blood.

“Good morning, Ranboo,” Dream taunted. “How was your beauty sleep?”

“Let me go,” Ranboo ordered. It sounded weak even to his own ears.

Dream tutted, strolling lazily towards the table where Ranboo was restrained. “No, I don’t think I will. I have plans for you.”

Ranboo struggled fruitlessly against the metal bands. They reached for their Core again, but it was warm and sluggish and absolutely no help at all.

Dream chuckled. “Like it? It’s a serum developed by a friend of mine. Prevents the use of any and all ghost powers. It’s only temporary, of course, but you won’t be able to escape even once it wears off.”

Ranboo mustered up a glare. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Phase-proof metal.” Dream rapped his knuckles against one of Ranboo’s restraints. Ranboo flinched. “Completely inhibits your ghostly abilities. Designed by your good friend Phil, as a matter of fact. Man’s a complete lunatic, of course, but he’s a smart lunatic. Not all of his ideas are terrible. Like his thermos, for example. A real work of genius. I trust you enjoyed your stay?”

Ranboo gritted his teeth, glancing at the suit of armour. “Where’s your friend?”

Dream followed his gaze. “Sapnap? Oh, he’s not here. He rarely is. His suit is remote-controlled, you know. An experimental gift from myself and a friend of ours. The same friend who made the serum, actually. He’s quite talented in that regard. The suit works wonders, don’t you think?”

A remote-controlled suit. That would be why Sapnap never set off Ranboo’s ghost sense. There was never an actual ghost inside it.

Ranboo’s Core shifted slightly. If Sapnap and this other friend of Dream's were still out there, Tubbo and Tommy were in serious danger. “Where is he?”

Dream gestured expansively. “Who knows? He prefers to stay out of the action. Both of them do, hence the remote-controlled suit.”

Ranboo jerked their chin at the suit across the room. “What’s that, then?”

“That? Another experiment. One that I hope you’ll come to appreciate the results of.”

Ranboo gulped. He clenched his fists to hide the tremble in his hands. Where were Tubbo and Tommy when he needed them?

Dream straightened, folding his arms behind his back. “What do you know about Obsessions, Ranboo?”

Ranboo narrowed their eyes. This was definitely some sort of trick question. A verbal trap. They could either play along and fall into it, take whatever torture Dream had prepared for them, or fight him on it and risk irritating him even further.

At least playing along would buy them some time.

“They’re the reason ghosts do what they do,” Ranboo said slowly. “The unfinished business the ghost left behind. All ghosts have them.”

“Very good,” Dream praised, “but not entirely true. I am the exception. I have no Obsession.”

Something in Ranboo wanted to argue, but he kept his mouth shut.

“I had no last wish when I died,” Dream continued. “No reason to come back. And yet your dear friend Phil’s wonderful machine brought me back anyway.” His eyes narrowed. “I assume you know what that’s like.”

Ranboo’s arm twitched. “I can guess.”

“Having no Obsession allows me certain… perks, you could say. For example, I can mask my ghostly presence as much as I like. You’re only able to sense me if I want you to.”

Ah. That explained a lot.

“I can split myself into multiple clones. I’m sure you’re aware of that after our, ah, unpleasant first encounter.”

Ranboo’s jaw clenched. If they hadn’t been restrained and sedated, they would have blasted that stupid smirk off Dream’s face.

Dream’s eyes flashed dangerously. “And I have much greater control over my… impulses.”

Ranboo frowned. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I could do anything.” Dream gestured lazily. “Anything I want. I’m basically a god amongst ghosts.”

Clockwork’s voice echoed in Ranboo’s mind. There are no gods here, Phantom, only Obsessions and those that control them.

Gods. Obsessions. Control. Ranboo gritted his teeth. That was important, but his brain was too sluggish to piece together how.

“And,” Dream continued, “I’m uninhibited by petty urges to, say, protect Tubbo and Tommy.”

Ranboo’s Core twinged.

Dream hummed. “Protection. A noble thought, sure, but do you even consider anyone else getting hurt in the aftermath? Like- what about that girl who died in the fight at the Rosebush? What was her name, Anna? Hannah?”

Ranboo froze.

“Hannah, I think it was,” Dream mused. “She was a gardener. Had a bright future ahead of her. And now she won’t get to see it because you were too busy making sure your little friends were out of the way first.”

Ranboo’s Core writhed, ice spiking in their chest. Their intestines tied themselves in knots. Someone was dead - dead - because of him. Because he wasn’t fast enough. Wasn’t good enough. His fault, his fault, his fault-

Dream gave their shoulder a condescending pat. “Don’t beat yourself up too much over it, baby halfa. How many people do you think died when that apartment building collapsed, hm? How many were injured? But you didn’t care, because you were too busy looking out for your friends.”

Ranboo strained against the metal bands. No. No, that apartment building was empty, everyone got out okay, no one was hurt, he would have known -

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Dream chided. “You never know when you might need to protect someone.”

The restraints dug into Ranboo’s skin. Their Core was so cold it hurt, roiling and clawing and screaming at them, because someone died, someone is dead because of you, because you weren’t fast enough, weren’t good enough, didn’t even think-

“I can help you,” Dream offered, and there it was, the verbal trap snapping shut. “I can teach you to better control your powers, control your impulses. You can’t protect everyone on your own. If you let me help you, no one has to get hurt on your watch ever again.”

The words were tempting, almost soothing, but they sounded like they were coming from far away. The metal band across his chest was too tight, too constricting. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t need to breathe. He was dead. Dead, just like that girl from the Rosebush, crushed under the rubble, skin blistered and charred, screaming for someone, anyone , to come and help-

Failed. You failed. You failed and now she’s dead. She’s dead because of you. Dead. You failed. Failed, failed, failed-

Electricity crackled across the table. Ranboo screamed, arched their back, tried to pull away, but they couldn’t. Needles stabbed under their skin. Their nerves were on fire. They were frozen. Burning. Numb. In agony.

He was back in the portal in the lab, only this time it was worse, because he deserved it, he had failed, she was dead , this was his punishment-

The electricity shut off as quickly as it had arrived. They were left gasping and shaking on the table, tears streaming down their face.

Dream leaned over him. “There. That’s better, now, isn’t it?”

Ranboo didn’t have the strength to answer. His tongue tasted like copper.

The screaming in their Core was pushed down to a manageable level. It wasn’t gone, not remotely, but it had receded enough for them to be able to think. That familiar coldness shifted slightly in their chest. The smallest scratch on their forearm sealed itself up and vanished.

Huh. The serum must have been wearing off.

Dream looked up from where he was seated at the desk, scribbling in a notebook. “This has been very insightful. Would you mind describing how you feel? Your Core, your Obsession, things like that.”

Ranboo could think of many things he wanted to say, most involving colourful language worthy of Tommy. What came out instead was a pitiful whine.

“Interesting.” Dream made a note. “A moment to recover, then. We should be-”

Dream’s words were cut off by the sound of smashing glass and the thunk of a small metal boomerang whacking into the side of Ranboo’s head.

TOMMY

Tommy cursed as he ran, his stupid fucking ankle throbbing with every step. It would have been easier on everyone if they could have driven, but Techno’s car was still at the high school and Phil had taken the RV when he ran off to hunt ghosts.

The Boo-merang sliced through the air. They had followed it nearly all the way across town at this point. Surely they were getting close.

“This fuckin’ sucks,” Tommy complained.

Wilbur glared at him. “It would suck less if you took care of your ankle like you were supposed to.”

“I don’t wanna wrap it! I’m not a pussy!”

“Yeah, well, now you can’t run, so that pretty much backfired, didn’t it?”

“Both of you shut up,” Tubbo snapped.

The Boo-merang veered sharply into an alley and smashed through a small basement window, followed by a thud and a familiar groan of pain.

“He’s down there,” Wilbur said, skidding to a halt in the middle of the alley.

“Yeah, no shit,” Tommy panted. He leaned heavily on the Tomzooka. “Fuck.”

“This is what you get for insisting on bringing the heaviest fucking weapon in our entire house.”

Tommy flipped him off. Wilbur rolled his eyes.

Tubbo frowned. “Why is Dream’s secret lair in his regular-ass basement? That’s lame.”

“I don’t think it’s a regular basement,” Wilbur said, crouching down to peer through the window.

A bright orange ectoblast shot into the ground in front of him, causing him to stumble backwards directly into Tommy.

“Oi!” Tommy protested when the movement jostled his ankle. “Watch yourself, bitch!”

Tubbo brandished his ectogun, scanning the alley for the source of the blast. “Who shot that? Show yourself!”

Mechanical laughter came from behind them.

“You know, Dream figured you would come for him,” Sapnap said, appearing in the mouth of the alley, “but I didn’t think it would take this long.”

Tommy growled, pointing the Tomzooka at him. Green ectoenergy whirred in the barrel.

Sapnap was unbothered. “Honestly, I’ve been waiting here for hours. Aren’t you two supposed to be the children of the greatest ghost hunter in Essempy Park? And the little one is some sort of tech genius, right?”

“Hey,” Tubbo protested.

“And yet you couldn’t track down two halfas and a giant ghost robot. That’s pretty sad. You’re not even worth the hunt at this point. It’s like shooting fish in a-”

He was cut off by an ectoblast slamming directly into the side of his jaw, leaving it hanging by its hinges.

“Hide,” Wilbur ordered, ectogun raised in front of him.

Sapnap’s eyes flared bright orange. He roared something loud and angry, but his words were mangled by his broken jaw. A volley of orange ectoblasts hurtled across the alley.

Tommy didn’t have to be told twice. He grabbed Tubbo and pulled him behind a nearby dumpster. Wilbur followed.

“I didn’t know you were such a good shot,” Tubbo panted.

Wilbur fired another ectoblast around the edge of the dumpster. “You can thank Phil for that. He insisted on giving us all ectoweapon training.”

“Yeah, but Tommy’s got shitty aim.”

“Hey,” Tommy protested.

“That’s because he’s a child,” Wilbur said.

“Hey!”

“And that’s irrelevant. We need a plan.”

Tubbo fidgeted with his ectogun. “Right. Uh, how did Ranboo beat Sapnap last time?”

“He didn’t. Phil did.”

“Well, that’s good, then,” Tommy said. “If Phil can defeat this metal bitch, then so can we.”

Wilbur bit his lip. “I don’t know. Ranboo beat him up pretty heavily before Phil and I came along. Phil might have just taken the final shot.”

“Can’t we just shove him in a thermos?” Tubbo asked.

Wilbur shook his head. “We only brought one, and we need it for Dream.”

“Well, that was fuckin’ stupid, wasn’t it?” Tommy muttered.

Tubbo huffed. “Well what if-”

The dumpster they were hiding behind exploded in a blast of orange. Tommy cursed as he scrambled backwards, his ankle dragging uselessly across the pavement. Tubbo frantically patted out a small fire on his T-shirt.

“Stop hiding and fight me!” Sapnap demanded. At least, that was probably what he said. All Tommy heard was a lot of garbled yelling.

Wilbur fired another ectoblast, this time hitting the joint at Sapnap’s shoulder. Sapnap’s arm shuddered and jerked, sparks jumping from the damaged area.

Tubbo’s eyes widened. “Ghost robot- holy shit.”

Tommy hefted the Tomzooka. “What?”

“It- he’s a ghost robot. I’m a tech genius.”

Holy shit. “You think you can-?”

“Tommy,” Tubbo said seriously, “I need you to be as obnoxious as possible.”

Tommy grinned. “With pleasure.”

Tubbo scampered off.

Tommy aimed the Tomzooka at Sapnap’s chest and fired. The ectoblast exploded from the barrel, sending Sapnap tumbling backwards down the alley.

“Holy shit,” Wilbur said, glancing at the Tomzooka appreciatively. “I didn’t think that thing would actually work.”

Tommy made a face at him. “Of course it fuckin’ works, bitch. I made it.”

“Yeah. That’s exactly why-”

Sapnap roared, heaving himself to his feet again. His metal chestplate was badly dented. The joints in his hips were sparking and shuddering.

“Not so pathetic now, huh?” Tommy taunted.

Sapnap growled. An ectoblast built in his hand. Tommy charged the Tomzooka in response.

Wilbur’s eyes widened. “Tommy-”

Tubbo jumped on Sapnap’s back. The orange blast went wide. Sapnap flailed his arms and shook himself, trying desperately to dislodge Tubbo, but Tubbo was nothing if not stubborn.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Wilbur hissed.

“Saving our asses,” Tommy hissed back.

Tubbo pulled a fistful of wires from the back of Sapnap’s neck. Sapnap’s flaming hair flickered and went out.

“He’s gonna get himself killed,” Wilbur muttered.

“If he does, he can stay with Ranboo.”

“Tommy-!”

Sapnap yelled. Tubbo yelled louder. He wrapped his hands around Sapnap’s metal neck, twisted, pulled, and popped Sapnap’s head clean off.

Wilbur blinked. “Holy shit.”

Tommy grinned. “I know, right?”

“Holy fucking shit. How the fuck is Tubbo that strong?”

“He is simply built different.”

Tubbo jumped off of Sapnap’s back as the beheaded robot crumpled lifelessly to the ground.

Tommy laughed, lowering the Tomzooka. “That was fucking awesome, man.”

Tubbo grinned sheepishly. “Thanks.”

“How the fuck did you know that would work?” Wilbur demanded.

Tubbo shrugged, turning Sapnap’s disembodied head over in his hands. “I didn’t. I just- he said he was a ghost robot, and I know how robots work, so I just kinda grabbed stuff and started pulling.”

“You didn’t know-?”

“I made an educated guess.”

Wilbur pinched the bridge of his nose. “You two are going to be the death of me.”

“Ranboo might have some complaints about that,” Tommy said.

As if on cue, a hauntingly familiar scream of pain drifted through the shattered basement window, cutting off with a strangled sob.

Tubbo dropped Sapnap’s head. “Fuck. Ranboo.”

Tommy hefted the Tomzooka. “Down we fucking go.”

Chapter Text

TUBBO

Tommy was naturally the first to tumble through the basement window, heedless of the broken glass. He immediately began spitting curses and brandishing the Tomzooka at someone Tubbo couldn’t see.

Which meant Dream was waiting for them. Fucking perfect.

Tubbo ducked down to peer through the window and swore.

Ranboo lay trembling, still in ghost form, on a metal table at the far end of the room, just in front of a large octagonal panel in the wall. Thick restraints wrapped around his arms, legs, and torso. Ectoplasm oozed steadily from a series of gashes in his side. The rest of his body was littered with smaller cuts, scrapes, bruises, and burns. Faint sparks of ectoenergy flickered between his fingers.

“Holy shit, Ranboo,” Tubbo gasped, pulling himself through the window with the same reckless abandon that Tommy had. Wilbur followed with a good deal more grace.

“I see you brought friends,” Dream mused.

“I’ll fuckin’ shoot you, bitch,” Tommy threatened, pointing the Tomzooka at Dream’s face.

Dream raised an amused eyebrow, tapping a pencil against his notebook. “You do that.”

Tubbo glared. A small, vindictive part of him was glad to see how badly burned Dream’s face was, though there were a few tell-tale dots of healing ectoplasm amidst the blood.

The rest of him had other concerns.

He scrambled over to Ranboo, tugging fruitlessly at the metal restraints.

“T’bbo,” Ranboo groaned weakly. “G’way. He… hurt.”

Holy shit, they sounded awful. “What the fuck did he do to you?”

“Nothing, really,” Dream said with a shrug. “Just a little experiment.”

Tommy growled. “The fuck kind of experiment needs him to be fuckin’ strapped to a metal table?”

Dream just smiled, leaning against his desk, not bothering to respond.

Ranboo’s arm twitched violently. He made a faint whimpering noise.

Tubbo gently rested a hand on their least-injured shoulder. “It’s alright, boss man. We’re here. We’re gonna get you out.”

Ranboo shook his head. “You should go.” His voice was thin and raspy. “He’ll hurt you, too.”

Tubbo subconsciously tightened his grip on Ranboo’s shoulder. “No way in hell are we leaving without you.”

“There’s gotta be a release somewhere,” Wilbur deduced, coming to stand on the other side of the table. “A latch or a button or something.”

“Don’t count on it,” Dream said, unbothered by the Tomzooka’s close proximity to his face. “I could have just phased him in there.”

Wilbur gave him a calculating look. “If you could phase them in, they could phase themself out. They haven’t.”

Dream shrugged. “Maybe they're just too weak.”

Ranboo whined. Tubbo winced in sympathy.

“Phase… phase-proof metal,” Ranboo coughed. “And sedatives.”

“You fucking drugged him?” Tommy cried.

Dream leaned away from the Tomzooka, which was practically resting against his forehead at this point. “It’s perfectly safe, don’t worry. Just a suppressant so his little ghost tricks didn’t interfere with the experiment.”

Tubbo gritted his teeth. Seething rage burned under his skin.

One of the smallest cuts on Ranboo’s forearm sealed itself up and disappeared.

Tubbo blinked. Huh. Maybe Ranboo wasn’t as sedated as Dream thought.

Tommy snarled. “Tell us how to release them, dickhead.”

“Dickhead?” Dream laid an offended palm against his chest. “You wound me, Tommy. Just for that, I’m not helping you.”

“Like you were gonna help us in the first place,” Tubbo muttered. He ducked under the table, deliberately not thinking about the ectoplasm dripping on the floor. Maybe there was a hidden switch or a plug he could pull.

“Actually, I was,” Dream said. “All I ever wanted was to help you. To help the Phantom of Essempy Park fully come into his own as a halfa. But you turned me down, so I had to… force your hand, so to speak.”

Tubbo clenched his fists, nails biting into his palms. He had never wanted to punch someone more.

“You’re a monster,” Tommy spat. “A great big fuckin’ bag of dicks, that’s what you are.”

Dream hummed. “Your insults are lacking, Tommy, though I suppose that’s to be expected from someone whose entire vocabulary consists of the same five swear words.”

Tommy’s face turned crimson. “Fuck you.”

“You’re proving my point, here.”

There was a loud clattering noise as Wilbur rifled through one of Dream’s haphazard stacks of machinery. “I'm not seeing anything that looks like a remote or a release button.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Tubbo said, glaring at the smooth underside of the metal table. The shiny surface felt like it was mocking him.

“Give us the fucking controller, Dream,” Tommy demanded.

Dream’s chair creaked as he leaned back lazily. “Oh, there isn’t one. Not one that you’ll find, anyway.”

Tubbo crawled out from under the table, banging the back of his head against the edge. He cursed. “Ow, what the fuck-”

He was cut off by Ranboo’s strangled scream.

Electricity crackled across the table. Ranboo’s muscles twitched and jolted. Their flesh seared, burned, melted away. Ectoenergy pulsed around them, tasting of ozone, flickering red, green, purple-

And just as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

Ranboo was left trembling violently on the table, coughing out sobs. Radioactive tears leaked from his eyes. Sizzling, lightning-shaped burns scarred his entire body.

And their hands-

Tommy cursed. Tubbo gasped.

“Well, would you look at that,” Dream said. “Our little experiment was a success.”

Dancing around Ranboo’s clenched fists were buzzing purple particles.

RANBOO

Ranboo was beginning to get real sick of being electrocuted.

Sensations washed over him through a haze of pain. Distantly, he was aware of his friends yelling, of Dream taunting them, of the steady drip of his own ectoplasm off the table and onto the floor. His head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. His skin was peeling off of his bones. His throat was raw and shredded, like he’d swallowed a weedwhacker.

Frozen. Burning. Numb. In agony.

God. They needed a nap.

Deep within his chest, his Core rolled over, stretched, and purred, like a cat waking up from a nap.

Hello, you , they thought, somewhat delirious. Where have you been?

His Core gave a disgruntled grumble in response, still on edge and sensitive from his Obsession being exploited earlier. Whatever sedative Dream had given him was now entirely burned away by the electricity.

Comforting cold washed over their limbs, numbing the edge of the pain. Ectoenergy sparked over their skin. Their deepest wounds began to stitch themselves back together. The steady drip of ectoplasm slowed to a stop.

He groaned, blinking his eyes open.

Tubbo hovered above them, eyes welling with tears. Wilbur was doing a poor job of masking his fear. Tommy still had the Tomzooka shoved in Dream’s face, screaming shaky insults.

“Ranboo, hey,” Tubbo whispered brokenly, gingerly brushing his fingers against Ranboo’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“Everything hurts,” Ranboo tried to say. It came out as a ragged cough.

Tubbo whirled on Dream, voice dripping with venom. “What the fuck did you do to him?”

Dream shrugged. “I told you. An experiment. Trying to unlock their halfa powers. Electricity creates us, after all, so it’s only logical to assume it can make us stronger, too. And by the looks of things, it does.”

Ranboo clenched their fists. The purple particles buzzed around the restraints, scorching and scratching at them, but otherwise unable to loosen them.

“And rudimentary attempts at control,” Dream praised. “A futile effort to escape, of course, but control nonetheless. That’s progress! We can do great things, baby halfa.”

“Alright, that’s fucking it .” Tommy glared at Dream, the Tomzooka whirring to life in his hands. “Let him go right the fuck now or I blast you.”

Dream chuckled. “It’s cute that you think you can control me.”

Ranboo’s arm twitched. His Core thrummed in his chest.

There was that word again. Control. There was something there, something important, something Clockwork had tried to warn him about in the vaguest possible way.

There are no gods here, Phantom, only Obsessions and those that control them.

“I’m a god,” Dream said.

“You’re a dickhead,” Tommy snarled.

Gods. Obsessions. Control.

Pieces clicked together in Ranboo’s mind. They weren’t sure whether to hug Clockwork or kick them.

Ranboo tugged against the metal bands again. His Core hissed at him, a warning, whispering danger danger danger. He needed out, needed to protect his friends, needed to keep them safe from whatever Dream was so smug about.

Energy pooled in their chest, the same buzzing, sparking energy that had exploded their apartment two weeks ago. Their Core tugged at them. This way , it seemed to say. This way will get you out.

He gritted his teeth. Dream had said that Phil designed these restraints. Ranboo had gotten out of Phil’s tech before, hadn’t he? When he’d- with the portal. There had been a tug in his Core, he had followed it, and then he was out. Maybe this was the same thing.

More purple particles blinked in and out of existence around their hands. Their arm twitched violently. They clenched their jaw, straining against the metal bands, reaching desperately for the tugging in their Core.

“Let him go, fuckwit,” Tubbo ordered.

Dream sighed. “I’d love to, really, I would, but I’m gonna have to take a rain check on that. We’ve only just started, see, and I’d hate to lose the progress we made.”

Ranboo struggled harder against his restraints. The tugging in his Core turned sharp and almost painful. Something was coming, something big, something dangerous, and he needed out. Now.

A flash of light filled the room as Dream returned to ghost form, still with the broken mask. He glanced at his nonexistent watch. “Sorry to cut this party short, boys, but I’ve got a casserole in the oven.”

The next moment happened almost in slow motion.

Dream’s face curled into a maniacal grin. He split himself into three separate clones, each one lunging at one of Ranboo’s would-be rescuers.

Ranboo’s Core screamed at them. Protect Wilbur. Protect Tubbo and Tommy. Protect, protect, protect.

He reached for the tugging in his Core, straining for a way out, pulling, yanking, clawing, dragging-

Vwoop.

And suddenly, in a cloud of purple particles, they were standing next to Tommy on the other side of the room.

Chapter Text

RANBOO

Ranboo had no time to revel in his new ability. He grabbed Tommy by the arm and pulled at his Core again, this time appearing next to Tubbo, then Wilbur. He only stopped once he had all of his friends safely behind the table he’d been restrained on.

The Dream clones attacked empty air. They stumbled and spluttered, batting at the particles and hissing when they burned their skin.

Wilbur gaped at Ranboo. Tommy nearly dropped the Tomzooka.

“Ranboo…?” Tubbo said hesitantly, placing a hand on Ranboo’s forearm.

Ranboo glanced down at him through a haze of purple. “It’s okay. I can control it this time.”

The Dream clones exchanged glances. One of them laughed, shaking the others out of their shocked stupor.

“Well, would you look at that,” the Dream clone said. “Our experiment was more successful than we thought.”

The second Dream nodded in approval. “Teleportation? Out of phase-proof restraints? That’s impressive.”

“Good control, too,” the third Dream added, “though that may have just been his Obsession kicking in. Instincts are difficult things to ignore.”

Ranboo scoffed. “Yeah, you would know all about that, wouldn’t you, Dream?”

The Dream clones gave them identical looks of confusion.

“Ignoring your instincts,” Ranboo continued. “Going against your Obsession.”

The first Dream narrowed his eyes. “We don’t have an Obsession. No instincts to ignore.”

“Nothing to go against,” the third Dream agreed. “Not like you.”

Ranboo teleported in front of the table, placing himself between his friends and the Dream clones.

The second Dream laughed. “See? Just like that. Your little protective instincts are controlling you.”

Ranboo ignored him. “You keep saying that you don’t have an Obsession, but that’s not exactly true, is it? You have an Obsession just like every other ghost. A strong one. And you’ve been going against it ever since I turned you down.”

The first Dream brandished his claws menacingly. “Watch your words, baby halfa. You won’t like what happens when we get angry.”

“You sound like the fuckin’ Hulk, man,” Tommy muttered under his breath.

Ranboo threw a glance over their shoulder at his friends. Get ready, they said with their eyes.

Tubbo nodded sharply, gripping his ectogun. Tommy hefted the Tomzooka.

Ranboo turned back to the Dream clones. “You’re in denial, but denying that you have an Obsession doesn’t change the fact that you do.”

The Dream clones exchanged another glance.

“You keep saying that you’re a god,” Ranboo continued. “That you can do anything, have anything you want to.” His eyes hardened. “Except you want me, and I’m the one thing you can’t have.

“I bet I’m the first person to tell you no. The first ghost to not bend to your whims immediately. The first to brush you off when you offered an alliance. You think your way is the only way, the best way, the right way. I disagree, and that makes you angry. You’re mad that I’m resisting you. Even now, after I’ve made it perfectly clear I’m never going to learn from you, you’re still trying to recruit me.”

The third Dream smirked, but it was strained. “Oh, but you’ve already learned from us, baby halfa. We taught you to teleport, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, by exploiting my Obsession and electrocuting me. The rest I figured out on my own.”

“It’s not too late to join us,” the second Dream offered. “We can still teach you through much less… drastic methods.”

“And there you go again,” Ranboo huffed, gesturing toward him, “trying to recruit me. How many times do I have to tell you no? You can’t have me. I’m not your pawn, not your plaything, not your apprentice.”

Ranboo’s eyes flashed. Purple particles buzzed around their clenched fists like a swarm of angry bees.

“You can’t control me, Dream,” they spat.

The Dream clones roared and lunged.

Ranboo was ready. He teleported to the other side of the room, causing the clones to crash into each other. He shoved a hand straight through the nearest Dream clone’s back and released a cloud of purple particles inside of his chest. The Dream clone screamed, disintegrating from the inside out.

Tubbo, Tommy, and Wilbur shot the remaining two Dreams full of ectoblasts. The second clone shrieked and melted into a puddle of ectoplasm, leaving the original Dream stumbling backwards, spluttering and cursing.

“You need control,” Ranboo growled. “I need to protect my friends. Which of us do you think is more Obsessed?”

Dream leapt at them, seething, lashing out with his claws. Ranboo danced out of the way. Clouds of purple particles swarmed around them. They sizzled against Dream’s skin, burning, stinging, getting in his eyes and obscuring Ranboo from his view.

Dream tried to split himself into clones, but every time he did, Ranboo would release another handful of particles in the clone’s chest and incinerate them.

Tommy, Tubbo, and Wilbur continued to send ectoblasts into the fray whenever they got a clear shot. Wilbur had remarkably good aim. Ranboo made a mental note to ask him for tips later.

Tommy stepped out from behind the table. He stumbled, ankle rolling slightly.

Ranboo froze for a single moment.

He’s hurt. Tommy’s hurt. When the hell did that happen?

Dream seized the opportunity, slashing deeply through Ranboo’s chest. Ranboo cried out, flinging a handful of purple particles in Dream’s face.

“Ranboo!” Tubbo cried.

Ranboo glanced at Tommy. “Your ankle-”

“Worry about my ankle later, bitch!” Tommy yelled, firing another ectoblast from the Tomzooka. “Fight the green fucker now!”

Ranboo whirled.

Dream had vanished. His presence was completely masked from Ranboo’s ghost sense.

Except he had to still be here. He wouldn’t just leave. So where was he?

The half-finished metal suit against the wall creaked, extending its limbs, taking a heavy step forward.

“Perhaps we should try another experiment,” Dream snarled from inside of it. “This one’s a bit more hands-on.”

He grabbed Ranboo with large metal hands and flung him into the wall. Ranboo crumpled to the ground, groaning.

The suit clomped over and picked them up again. Ranboo struggled, trying to get loose, to phase through, but they couldn’t. Dream threw them into another wall. Something in their back snapped on impact.

“Leave him alone, bitch!” Tommy ordered, firing an ectoblast at the suit’s chestplate. The ectoblast bounced off the metal, rebounding and crashing into the wall just over Tommy’s head.

Dream laughed. “Phase-proof metal. Ghost weapons won’t help you here.”

He grabbed Ranboo by the legs and threw him across the room.

Ranboo’s Core flared. They turned themself intangible just in time, flying right through the opposite wall like it wasn’t even there.

Great. That bought him at most a few seconds to think.

Right. Okay. Dream’s suit was pretty much the same as Sapnap’s, except it was only partially completed and made of phase-proof metal. Their ectoplasmic power fist trick wouldn’t work this time around.

Purple particles whizzed around his hands.

Ranboo’s eyes widened. Ectoblasts didn’t do anything against phase-proof metal, but maybe…

His Core flared, purring vindictively.

They shot back through the wall and slammed their particle-encrusted fist directly into Dream’s chest. The suit dented, sparked, shuddered, and shut down, crumpling to the floor.

Ranboo grabbed Dream by the shoulder, yanking him out of the damaged suit and throwing him against that awful metal table Dream had restrained him on earlier.

Tommy and Tubbo were on him in an instant, ectogun and Tomzooka trained on his head. Wilbur stood a few steps back, uncapping a thermos. He glanced at Ranboo, waiting for the go-ahead.

Particles buzzed around Ranboo’s clenched fists like a swarm of hornets.

“It’s over, Dream,” he declared. “You don’t control anything anymore.”

Dream groaned, dragging himself to his feet. His eyes flashed neon with Core-deep rage.

“Yeah, you green son of a bitch,” Tommy taunted. “You’re a fuckin’ loser.”

Tommy was leaning slightly, favouring his ankle. Ranboo’s Core twinged. What was up with that? Why-

Dream’s face twisted into a malicious grin. He lunged, grabbing Tommy by the neck and resting his claws threateningly against his throat. Tommy made a choked noise of pain. The Tomzooka clattered to the floor at his feet.

“You will join me,” Dream growled, a final, desperate grab for control, “or your friend dies.”

Ranboo’s Core screamed. Their world went purple.

Particles rushed at Dream, ripping, clawing, tearing at his arms and face. Dream cried out in pain. His grip on Tommy lessened enough for Ranboo to yank him out of Dream’s grip and teleport him across the room to Wilbur.

Dream batted the particles away. More replaced them. They bit and scraped and burned his skin like acid. He screamed. He tried to fly, to go intangible, to get away , but the particles were relentless and he was too wounded to do anything for long.

He collapsed to his knees. Blood and ectoplasm dripped down his sides and smeared on the floor. His screams turned choked and ragged.

The particles didn’t stop. Neither did Ranboo.

Distantly, Ranboo felt hands on their arms. Voices called to them through a wall of cotton. Ranboo ignored them. They clenched their fists. Dream shrieked.

“-boo! Ranboo!”

Tubbo. Tommy. They were here. They were in danger.

“Ranboo, stop! You’re killing him!”

Killing him. Like that girl from the Rosebush. Dead. Because of Ranboo.

He didn’t want to be a killer.

Slowly, the purple faded from his vision. He dropped his hands. The particles surrounding Dream vanished. Dream collapsed.

Tubbo gently squeezed Ranboo’s arm. “You alright, boss man?”

“That was fuckin’ scary, Ranboo,” Tommy rasped. “What the fuck was that?”

Ranboo opened their mouth. Closed it. Swallowed. Their throat felt like sandpaper. Various cuts and injuries decorated their body like a patchwork quilt. The gashes in their side and chest throbbed. Ectoplasm leaked from their shoulder. Their back stung. Their head spun with nausea.

He was vaguely aware of Wilbur sucking Dream into the thermos just before the world went black.

He woke up in human form on a bed.

At least I’m not strapped to a table this time, they thought distantly.

He ached through to his bones. His head was pounding. His skin itched. A good portion of his body was wrapped in bandages.

They opened their eyes to the ceiling of Tommy’s room.

It was nearly pitch black, like he’d slept the rest of the day, which he probably did. Tubbo and Tommy were passed out on an air mattress on the floor next to the bed. Wilbur was slumped over his desk, snoring. Various first aid supplies and fast food takeout containers littered the floor.

He must have made some sort of noise, because Wilbur sat up from his desk and blinked blearily at him.

“Ranboo?” He asked, voice thick with sleep. “You awake?”

“Yeah,” Ranboo rasped. They coughed. “Everything hurts.”

“You need water,” Wilbur decided. “I’ll get you some.” He stood up, kicking Tommy and Tubbo off the air mattress as he left.

Tubbo snorted, jolting awake. “Huh?”

“What the fuck, Will,” Tommy mumbled.

Ranboo coughed again. Immediately, both of their heads snapped in his direction.

“Ranboo!” Tommy grinned. “You’re awake!”

“You scared us, boss man,” Tubbo chided, resting a gentle hand on Ranboo’s shoulder. “We thought you were dead.”

“I am dead,” Ranboo said drily.

Tubbo poked him. “Deader.”

Tommy pushed himself up, wincing when he put weight on his injured ankle.

Ranboo’s eyes narrowed. “What happened to your ankle?”

Tommy didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s nothing. Save your breath, big man, you sound awful.”

Ranboo’s Core spiked sharply. They pushed themself up on their elbows, gritting their teeth against the wave of nausea that followed. “What happened to your ankle, Tommy?”

“I told you, it’s nothing. Lay back down.”

Ranboo slumped back down against the pillows, but his Core continued to writhe in his chest, abused and sensitive. Tommy wasn’t telling him something.

Wilbur reappeared in the room holding a glass of water, which Ranboo accepted gratefully. It did wonders for their dry throat. It did nothing to soothe their agitated Core.

“Wilbur,” he asked when he had finished drinking, “what happened to Tommy’s ankle?”

Wilbur gave Tommy a sharp look. “Something happened to your ankle? Let me see.”

Tommy scrambled backwards. “It’s nothing, Will, I swear.”

Tubbo sighed. “He twisted it when Ranboo threw us out of the portal. It never healed properly.”

Ranboo froze.

Wilbur relaxed. “Oh. That.”

“It’s not that bad,” Tommy insisted.

“It is. You’ve just been ignoring it.”

He hurt Tommy. He hurt Tommy weeks ago, by his own hand, and Tommy was still hurting.

He had failed. Failed, failed, failed -

“Ranboo, wait-”

Ranboo tugged at their Core and vanished from the bed.

He reappeared in the basement lab. The only light came from the neon green glow of the portal. He sat cross-legged in front of it, watching mesmerizing emerald blobs drift across his grave.

Ranboo’s Core ached. Tommy was hurt because of them. Tommy had been hurt the entire time they’d been a halfa, by Ranboo’s own hand, and he’d never said anything.

Ranboo had failed.

“Ranboo?”

He flinched at Tommy’s voice.

“Hey.” Tommy sat down next to them and nudged his shoulder. “Ranboo, look at me.”

Ranboo turned to Tommy.

“Thank you for fucking up my ankle.”

Ranboo gave a startled, broken laugh. “What?”

“If you hadn’t fucked up my ankle by throwing me out of the portal, I would be dead right now. Tubbo and I would both be dead. You saved our lives. I’ll gladly take a fucked-up ankle over being dead.” He hesitated. “Uh, no offence.”

“None taken.” Ranboo turned back to the portal. His Core settled, soothed by Tommy’s words.

His Core, which he shouldn’t have, because he was supposed to be alive right now.

“I’m really dead, aren’t I?” They whispered.

Tubbo sat down on their other side, squeezing their shoulder. “Only halfway, boss man.”

“Better than all the way dead,” Tommy agreed.

All the way dead. Like the girl from the Rosebush attack.

His Core flared again. His fault, his fault, his fault-

“Someone died because of me.” The words escaped their mouth without his permission.

Tubbo and Tommy exchanged a look.

“At the Rosebush,” Ranboo continued quietly. “Her name was Hannah. She was a gardener. She got stuck under the rubble. I didn’t even think to look for anyone else. I only wanted Tubbo to be safe.”

Tubbo drew in a shaky breath. “Well, has anyone else died because of you?”

Ranboo swallowed. He shook his head.

“That’s good, then.”

Ranboo shook their head again. “People are hurt. If I wasn’t-”

“If you weren’t here,” Tommy interrupted bluntly, “we would be dead, and so many other people would be dead. You save lives, Ranboob.”

Tubbo nodded. “If you gave up now, so many other innocent people would die from ghost attacks. The best way to make up for not saving her is to save everyone else.”

Ranboo stared into the portal. The swirling vortex of greens was mesmerizing. Hypnotic, almost. His Core swirled the same way. Tubbo’s suggestion hadn’t calmed it, not entirely, but it seemed to agree with him. No one else was allowed to die.

“What do we do with Dream?” They asked eventually.

Tommy shrugged. “Wilbur’s got him in the thermos upstairs. We can stick him in the wall for a while. Put him in time out.”

“Put him in the bathroom,” Tubbo suggested.

Tommy grimaced. “As much of a piece of shit as he is, I do not want Dream watching me take an actual shit.”

Ranboo chuckled, but quickly sobered. “Sapnap’s still out there, too, and Dream's other friend that we still don’t know about. What if they come to find him? They’ve done it before.”

“Sapnap won't. Tubbo fuckin’ beheaded him.”

Ranboo blinked. “What?”

“We can talk about all that later,” Tubbo decided, waving a bashful hand. “For now, we deserve a break.”

Tommy nodded. “Yeah, you need to rest, big man. I don’t know what the fuck Dream did to you, but you look like hell.”

“I need to get better,” Ranboo insisted. Ectoenergy sparked between their fingers. “I still barely know anything about my ghost powers. Especially that purple stuff. And I keep getting thrown into things and breaking them instead of just going intangible like other ghosts do.”

“We can experiment,” Tommy suggested. “Blow shit up. Throw shit at you. Y’know, for science.”

“We can probably ask the other ghosts, too,” Tubbo mused. “At least some of them have to be willing to talk to us.”

Ranboo hummed, unconvinced. “Maybe.”

“Tommy’s right, though. You need to rest first.”

Tommy poked Ranboo’s shoulder. “And then you’re taking me for a flight over the town.”

Ranboo raised an eyebrow. “I’m not your chauffeur, Tommy.”

“You are now. I’ve always wanted to fly in non-life-threatening situations.”

“Flying with me is significantly more dangerous than flying in a plane.”

“Planes don’t fight ghosts and pull people out of burning buildings. I think I’ll take my chances.”

Tubbo laughed.

There was silence for a moment.

“This is the new normal, isn’t it?” Ranboo asked after a while. “A ghost hunter’s son, a tech genius, and their half-dead best friend?”

“We kick ass,” Tommy declared.

Tubbo grinned. “Fuck yeah, we do.”

Ranboo would never be human again. But maybe, he thought as Tommy went to ruffle his hair and yelped when Ranboo let his hand pass right through his head, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

Chapter Text

WILBUR

Ranboo was out taking Tommy for a flight around town. Tubbo was in the lab with Phil, stealthily reprogramming his tech to avoid Ranboo. Techno was studiously reworking a lesson plan in his bedroom.

And Wilbur?

Wilbur was pacing.

It had been a week. A full week since they had rescued Ranboo from that godforsaken basement. A week since the thermos containing Dream had been unceremoniously dumped in the tank of the upstairs toilet. A week since Wilbur had wrapped Ranboo’s chest in bandages and hoped to God that they would heal during the night.

And since it was December, every single radio station was constantly playing Christmas music.

Wilbur wanted to scream.

Ranboo was fine. His wounds had vanished within the day. The only physical reminder that anything had happened was the new set of lightning scars that spread across his shoulders and back to match the one on his chest.

And the nightmares. God, the nightmares.

The events haunted Wilbur’s subconscious. Ranboo’s prone form on that fucking metal table. The steadily-growing pool of ectoplasm flecked with blood. The way they’d screamed when electricity coursed through them. Panicked. Haunting. Ragged, like the sound tore their throat on its way out.

That wasn’t a scream that came from a living being. That was the scream of a dying child.

Ranboo had died screaming.

Fuck. This kid needed therapy.

Wilbur wasn’t the only one getting nightmares, either. Muffled yells and frantic whispers drifted through the walls from Tommy and Ranboo’s room. Tubbo had been sleeping over most nights. Wilbur desperately wanted to check on them, to make sure they were okay, but he suspected his presence wouldn’t be all that welcome.

Phil was joking about accidentally adopting two more kids. Techno looked increasingly like he wanted to punch him.

A sudden thump from outside Wilbur's door snapped Wilbur out of his thoughts, followed by Tommy cursing and Ranboo’s laughter.

So they were back, then.

Wilbur poked his head out into the hall.

“I fucking hate you,” Tommy muttered, picking himself up off the floor.

Ranboo grinned smugly down at him. “Maybe you wouldn’t have fallen if you listened to me.”

“You fucking dropped me, you dick!”

“I didn’t drop you. You’re just cursed to abide by pitiful mortal laws such as gravity.”

Tommy flipped him off.

“Good flight, I take it?” Wilbur asked.

Ranboo’s eyes snapped over to him like they hadn’t realized he was there. “Uh, yeah, it was nice.”

“He fucking dropped me,” Tommy complained.

“I did not -”

“Most people don’t have friends who can fly them places, Tommy,” Wilbur chided. “I suggest being nicer to your chauffeur.”

Ranboo paused. “See, I want to agree with you, but also I’m not his chauffeur.”

Tommy tugged at Ranboo’s elbow, apparently having realized something. He flapped an insistent hand in Wilbur’s direction. Ranboo looked uncertain, glancing between them, but nodded.

Wilbur leaned against his doorframe, doing his best to look unintimidating. Curse these kids and their silent conversations.

“Hey, Wilbur,” Ranboo said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can I, uh, talk to you? In private?”

“Of course.” Wilbur stepped back from the door and allowed Ranboo into his room.

Down the hall, Tommy gave him a warning look. Be nice to them, bitch , he mouthed.

Wilbur nodded as he closed the door behind him. Of course .

Ranboo stood awkwardly in the center of the room, fidgeting with his fingers.

“Am I right to assume this is about the whole ghost thing?” Wilbur asked, taking a seat at his desk.

“Yeah,” Ranboo said. “I just- I feel like I owe you an explanation.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

Ranboo raised an eyebrow. “You just helped pull me out of the basement of an Obsessive halfa who wanted to make me his apprentice and experiment on me or kill me the rest of the way in the process. I think you deserve an explanation after that.”

Wilbur shrugged. “Fair enough, I suppose.”

Ranboo perched on the edge of Wilbur’s bed, staring at the ground. "Tommy mentioned that he and Tubbo explained a few things to you, but I don’t know how helpful that actually was.”

“Not very.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

Wilbur rubbed his chin. “They said that you and Dream are some sort of half-ghost?”

“Halfas, yeah. It… doesn’t make much sense. We’re basically half alive and half dead at the same time.”

“How the fuck does that even work?”

“I don’t know, man. No one ever gives me straight answers.”

“Because everything else about you is straight.”

“The straightest of straight.”

Wilbur laughed. The tension in the room lessened.

Ranboo fidgeted with their hands. “But anyway, yeah. Apparently, halfas are, like, super rare. I’ve only ever heard of the two of us. No one really knows why we are the way that we are. Dream thought it had something to do with how we… died.”

Wilbur hesitated. “How, exactly, did you die?”

Ranboo flinched. His arm twitched violently.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Wilbur added hurriedly. “I can guess.”

Ranboo rubbed their arm. “No, it’s fine, I just- death is personal, y’know? And there isn’t a single ghost out there that died peacefully. It’s… not something we usually like to share.”

Wilbur winced. Right. Of course dying would be fucking traumatic. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s okay. You deserve to know.” Ranboo’s arm twitched again. “You’ve probably already figured it out, anyway.”

Wilbur gazed at the barely-visible lightning scars on Ranboo’s arm. “It was the portal, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Ranboo’s voice was choked. “It kinda turned on… on top of me.”

Wilbur winced. “That can’t have felt good.”

“It didn’t. It really, really didn’t.”

Wilbur had no idea what he was supposed to say. Sorry that you died in my dad’s faulty invention? Sorry you got electrocuted to death in my basement while I was upstairs eating ramen and arguing with Techno? Sorry there’s nothing I can do but offer sympathy and bandages?

The words felt too hollow, too flimsy, too shallow. Too small for something so big. So they sat in silence.

Ranboo’s arm kept twitching. He hugged it against his chest.

“What’s up with your arm?” Wilbur asked eventually. “Why does it do that?”

Ranboo glanced down at it. “Oh, um, that just happens sometimes. Phantom twitches. That’s what Dream called them, at least. They’re kinda like aftershocks, I guess. From the... portal.”

Wilbur flinched. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“No, I-” Wilbur looked away. “I could have done something. I just- you were down in the lab, dying in my dad’s invention, and I was upstairs eating fucking ramen-”

“Hey,” Ranboo interrupted, a hint of ghostly static echoing in their voice. “If I’m not allowed to blame myself, then neither are you.”

“But I-”

“Nope.”

Wilbur pursed his lips.

“I had this same conversation with Tommy and Tubbo,” Ranboo said, voice softening. “It was Tubbo’s idea to go into the portal in the first place. And Tommy almost shot me when it spat me back out. Neither of them could have known what would happen. It was an accident. No one’s fault.”

Wilbur frowned. “Tommy almost shot you?”

Ranboo raised his eyebrows. “That’s the part you’re focussing on? I get almost shot on, like, a daily basis. I’m used to it.”

“That makes it so much worse. You realize how that makes it worse, right?”

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

“You need so much therapy.”

“I don’t need therapy. I’m dead.”

Wilbur sighed, dropping his face to his hands. “Fuck, you really are, aren’t you?”

Ranboo swallowed. “Only halfway.”

“Fuck.” Wilbur swallowed harshly. “I- fuck. Can I hug you?”

Ranboo blinked, taken aback, but nodded and held out his arms. “Yeah, okay.”

Wilbur crossed the room and wrapped his arms around Ranboo’s shoulders. Ranboo melted into the embrace, resting their hands against Wilbur’s back and burying their face in his shoulder. Their skin was cool under Wilbur’s palms despite the hoodie they wore, like the December chill had settled deep into their bones and stayed there. Their breath came thin and shallow. Their pulse thrummed sluggishly, far too slow for a regular living being.

Wilbur blinked back tears. This poor dead kid.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“It’s okay,” Ranboo whispered back.

“It is absolutely not okay.”

“I’m getting used to it.”

“You shouldn’t fucking have to.”

“I know.”

“None of this is fair.”

“I know.”

Wilbur pulled back just enough to look Ranboo in the eye. “You can talk to me, you know. All of you. Whenever you need to. It doesn’t even have to be about ghost stuff. I just- you’re kids, and you’re traumatized. It’s not healthy to keep everything in like Techno does. I just want you to be okay.”

“Thanks, Will.” Ranboo smiled ruefully, eyes glossy. “We’re getting there.”

Wilbur returned his smile. “Thank you for telling me this.”

Ranboo’s smile turned mischievous. “Oh, I’ve just been dying to.”

Wilbur gave them a look. “You’re gonna be absolutely insufferable about this, aren’t you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”