Chapter Text
Apo can read well enough, but he doesn't think he has enough words in his limited vocabulary to properly describe the sheer amount of panic he felt being squeezed so tightly in the human's hand, his only relief from the suffocating pressure coming from him being thrown haphazardly into that cage, buzzing with electricity yet to be released.
He's absolutely positive that he doesn't have the words to describe how far his heart drops into his stomach when the first person to come to his rescue is Tubbo. Apo tries to keep an open mind for everyone, he really does, but this guy pulled a sword on him not even ten minutes after being found—hell, he's the reason Apo is even in the cage in the first place. He's not only completely unhinged, but he's also infuriatingly talented—the guy literally weaved through a human's legs at a point, not even hesitating to do so after realising that the human didn't even know he was there. He moves faster than any other rat Apo has ever seen, disappearing in a cloud of dust and not bothering to look back for any reason other than to see if he's being followed until he's safely out of harm's way.
Apo managed to gather this from him being there for an hour. He can't even begin to imagine how much havoc he would wreck on the community if he stays, but it isn't like they can kick him out of the giant mansion. And hey—he came back for Apo. Maybe that's progress?
"Tubbo," Apo says placatingly, walking towards the front of the cage and wrapping their hands around the bars, ignoring the dull vibration and warmth generated by the electric cage warming up.
"Apo," Tubbo mocks, leaning on the cage with an expression that's nothing but teasing and playful, as if Apo isn't under immediate threat of death. Wait—does he know that the cage will kill them if they're not let out?
"You realise that if you don't let me out, I will die, right?" Apo clarifies, eyes widening and eyebrows raising as Tubbo's expression flickers with something akin to annoyance.
"Of course I know that," Tubbo scoffs, rolling his eyes and throwing a glance over his shoulder to see if any humans are drawing near. "I'm not an idiot."
"Just asking!"
"I'll tell you what, Apoo," Tubbo says, splaying out one hand as the taller rat sighs. They don't even know if Tubbo is doing that on purpose anymore—mispronouncing their name sometimes and pronouncing it perfectly some others. It's three letters, surely it can't be that difficult. "I'll let you out of the cage...if you can prove to me that you're a rat."
Apo blinks, hard. The question takes a few precious seconds to register in their brain. "What?"
"Prove that you're actually a rat!" Tubbo repeats, crossing his arms and standing up straight. The amount of glances behind him that he takes is almost unnerving—as if he expects a human to just appear in the room all of a sudden. "I don't think you're a rat."
"What—" Apo cuts themself short, left absolutely speechless. The cogs in his brain are desperately trying to keep up with Tubbo's pace, but it just isn't working. The guy is practically high, anyways—sugar high, at the very least. Once he got his hands on the tiny bottle of alcohol Apo gave him in an admittedly poor deal, he found where the sugar was kept, cracked a cube of it in half, forced one half into the bottle and just ate the other half straight. And then drank the bottle of wine. Apo is pretty sure that would outright kill them, but all its seemed to have done to Tubbo is make him just that much faster and send him off his rockers. Case in point: "Why?"
"Well, for one," Tubbo starts. "You can speak English. Human speak."
Apo stares. This can't be happening. "What in the world are you even talking about? You're speaking the same way I am!"
"Yeah, well," Tubbo leans back, blowing a part of his bangs out of his face. "I'm near the TARDIS. Universal translator 'n' all that, you know how it is."
"What—"
"And in any case—" Tubbo interrupts, speaking loudly over Apo before freezing and throwing another glance behind him. This time, he can actually see the maid starting to walk in, and when his eyes shift back to where Tubbo was half a second ago, it's just empty space. It actually takes a second or two for his eyes to focus on the tiny splotch of red underneath the table—of course Tubbo immediately ran. Of course. "And in any case—" He continues, just yelling now, "You've got no way to prove that you're actually a rat!"
Apo stares at Tubbo. He holds up his arms, which are literally covered in fur and tipped off with claws, and whisper-hisses with as much aggression he can muster, "What other proof could you possibly want?"
"You could have glued on that fur," Tubbo says, as if that makes any sense at all. "How'm I s'possed to know that those ears aren't attached by a plastic band or something?"
Apo opens his mouth to respond again, but he's cut off by the cage shaking and kicking into a higher gear—the buzz of growing electricity is much louder now, and his heart leaps into his throat before sinking again, dragging all the blood out of his face and ears as he goes violently pale. He can feel static under his paws, so he lets go of the cage and wraps his arms tightly around himself. "Oh, God."
"What?" Tubbo asks, face twisting into a frown before he hears the buzzing in the silence. "Oh—oh."
"Tubbo, look," Apo practically pleads. "You—I know we don't actually know each other at all, but you aren't seriously about to let me die for a joke. Right?"
Tubbo looks offended. "I would never let you die for a joke. I'm serious. I don't think you're a rat."
Apo lets out a terrified breath, drawing his claws up and down his arm in a nervous scratch. Okay—okay, fine. He can prove this—he's heard tons of stories of rats having to bite off their own tails to escape traps. He can just...ignore this being any different. He can prove it. It's better than dying.
"Okay, fine, look—" Apo takes the needle that hangs at his side at all times and holds it up, part of it connecting with the metal and shocking him so bad that he lets out a tiny squeak and almost drops the tool. He doesn't, though, firmly gripping it with shaking paws and brandishing it at Tubbo from behind the bars. "You see me? Look."
"I'm looking!" Tubbo yells, raising up his hands in surrender as he squints from underneath the table.
Apo takes in a breath, a long inhale and a short exhale that makes him dizzy, then pulls down his ear to the side and stabs the needle through the thin skin and yanks.
He bleeds—the pain doesn't register for a moment, then he feels the blood running down their thin inner ear and stream down over their eye, and it hits them all at once and makes them stumble. Still—they have three minutes left. The cage is rattling. They push themself up against the bars and almost screeches, "I'm bleeding, see? Blood—it's real, I'm real. Let me out. Tubbo—let me out."
Tubbo looks pensive, and maybe a bit troubled, but not at all bothered by the grotesqueness of Apo's desperate action, which doesn't exactly bode well for the guy being any sort of sane. Apo shakes the bars—or, rather, attempts to shake the bars and only shakes themself in the process. "Tubbo."
"I'm thinking, I'm thinking!" Tubbo snaps, hands going underneath his chin as he 'thinks.' "You make a compelling point. But, I mean—" His voice wavers as he flicks his eyes from Apo to the lever. "Y-Youuu could have faked it?"
A half-hysterical laugh leaves Apo's throat. "How—how would I have—?"
"Nevermind, nevermind," Tubbo interrupts, waving his paws back and forth. "Ignore that I said that. What do I get out of saving you, here? I'm not just going to do something so merciful without getting something in return, you know?"
"Kind?" Apo snaps, their terror manifesting in a horrible anger that prickles underneath their skin and makes them swish their tail behind them (both out of nervousness and a poor attempt to cool down). "That—that isn't kind, that's just basic decency!"
Tubbo's eyes widen for a split second before he straight up laughs in Apo's face, snorting and crossing his arms. "You people are insane," he mutters, turning his head away from Apo and casting a glare to the floor as if it personally slighted him.
"What are you even talking about?"
"Nothing, Apoo," Tubbo sneers, failing to force away a wince when the buzzing in the cage kicks up into a higher gear. Two minutes left—maybe a minute and a half. "Maybe—maybe I should just leave you there, if you're in a position to snark."
Apo opens their mouth to respond—not that they know what they would have said; a plea, maybe? A bargain?—but is interrupted by a blue-haired rat skidding into the room, his straw hat flying off of his head from the sheer speed as he scrambles to the cage and shoves the lever down with his entire body weight. The electricity all shuts off at once, and Apo goes tumbling out of the front of the cage, the sigh of relief making them dizzy to the point of honestly forgetting that Tubbo is even there, despite his shrieking about Scott ruining his 'deal with destiny.'
He runs his hands through his hair and leans against the leg of the table, sure that his heart is about to beat out of his chest, filtering out the sound of Scott and Tubbo's bickering as he tries to wrangle his breathing back under control.
He's fine. He came terrifyingly close to death, but he's fine. He'll just...ignore Tubbo. Surely.