Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Phil thought, when he heard this was a vacation island, that it’d be smaller.

Phil hacks his way through a jungle, Chayanne, Tallulah, Bad and Dapper following behind, warp stone in each of their hotbars. They’ve been travelling for hours, in accordance with an egg quest that asks they go somewhere they’ve never been before. But considering how long they’ve been on the server, how many times they’ve had this quest, that’s far.

The closest place they all haven’t been is a few thousand blocks away from spawn far.

Bad fidgets with the placable warp machine that works even under code attack, his eyes often darting up to the sky. Phil, meanwhile, takes on most of the role of watching out for normal, killable monsters.

Phil jumps up onto a log, flapping his mostly-useless wings a few times for the bit of extra lift. They now look over a river, bending away from them in both directions, only a few blocks from one shore to another. Phil makes careful steps towards the sand of its edge, keeping his eyes peeled for monsters.

“See anything?” Bad asks. Phil shakes his head.

The group proceeds, swimming through the water. Chayanne and Tallulah swim side by side, Tallulah holding on to Chayanne's floatie for a bit of extra steadiness in the current. Dapper has an easy time keeping up with Bad.

Phil takes a few steps onto shore, then turns and reaches hands out to help the eggs up. Tallulah stops to shake herself out, while Dapper looks around.

Phil takes another step, and Dapper stops him with a harsh tug on his shirt.

“Hey-! What’s that for?” Phil asks.

Dapper points to the ground in front of them, rough, grassless dirt. It’s not that unusual, they’ve come across a bit of it, but normally there’s a clear reason; nearby sheep, an old explosion. This is just in front of some random dirt wall.

Dapper pulls out his shovel and starts scraping the dirt down, checking for mines. It doesn’t catch on anything, but something more interesting happens; The lowering reveals a lever hidden at the corner of the wall and the ground.

Bad and Chayanne catch up, and Bad immediately puts his hand out in front of Phil and Dapper. “Careful, could be a trap.” He says, and raises his shield, taking slow steps forward.

Weird Chayanne writes.

“It is, yeah.” Phil says. “Weird. Do you think a player built this, or is it just a generated dungeon?”

“I’ve never seen a dungeon hidden like this before, but I guess I wouldn’t.” Bad says with a slight chuckle.

“Get in the water, in case it blows up.” Phil says to the kids, all four of them taking a few steps further back as Bad kneels down to flick the lever.

A door opens in the dirt wall.

Bad places down a bed, which Phil quickly steps forward to click on. Regardless, no monsters surge out. The stars do not chase away the sun.

That’s interesting. Dapper writes, stepping out in front of Phil.

Tallulah clings to Phil’s leg, and he can guess why pretty quickly; the passage is narrow, enough so that Bad’s shoulders are inches from either edge as he starts to enter it.

“We’ll be fine, Tallulah. Stay close.” Phil reassures her, holding her hand.

“There’s cobblestone in here.” Bad calls. “Should I break it?”

“If there’s no other open route.”

As they walk in, the soft sound of music becomes apparent. Bad rocks to it a little bit, recognizing it before Phil does. Seconds later, it shuts off.

"Aww, the music stopped." Bad pouts.

"Well, does mean it's not mobs." Phil responds.

"Is that a good thing or a bad one, do you think?"

Phil shrugs. "Depends, frankly, on who's home." He turns back to the kids, beckoning them closer with hand and voice. "Keep up, you three. I do not want you getting lost in here."

"Time to meet the mystery." Bad says, when the walls around their cobble-carved path start to change, when his pickaxe chips through rock into light.

The mystery man in question had been having a pretty decent day, actually.

He’d gone outside earlier in the day, to check in on his radio system, make sure it was both hidden and fully functional. He’d sat in the grass for a few moments, enjoying a rare bit of sunshine, and gone back inside to change the frequency on the radio as they’d planned to the night before.

From there, a quick breakfast of avocado toast. He’d long forgotten what he and/or his friends used to find funny, about that being such a good food, but cracks a dumb joke about eating his greens to himself anyways. Why not.

That's most of the morning routine part of things done, which was in truth most of his schedule. It's been about half an hour. He's got other things to do, sure, but thought he'd have established more of a schedule by now, after what- A month and a half of living here? Seriously? And this is still it.

He sighs, and looks around for more things to do, some of the many little things he fills his time with. He's got a solitaire game still open from last night, when he got sick of the cards blurring together getting in his way and went to bed. Theoretically, he could start that back up.

He strolls over, pulling the chair away from the desk, and looks upon his game.

..There's. There's places where he forgot to switch back and forth between colors. He put an eight below a five. There's an ace in a queen's spot.

He groans, running a hand down his face, and leaves the cards alone for now to fix later.

From there, he stands up, and runs a finger along one of his antennae, smoothing out any disconnected pieces. He can't afford to have anything getting in the way of his hearing right now. His other antennae flick around, moving like cat's tails in search of sounds or smells to sense.

And then, something he hopes can get him thinking a little more, moving a little more; He pulls a music disc and a jukebox out of his inventory, and sets the jukebox down near the middle of the room. It and the disc fill the room with the first notes of Otherside.

Dan knows this by heart by now, this song, along with the others he's collected. He lets himself relax, taking a moment to close his eyes and breathe. His purple-frilled antennae, all frayed despite his efforts, turn towards the jukebox, leaning in to listen.

He's absorbed enough in the music he almost doesn't hear his front door open.

He double-checks that the door to the radio room is closed, then shuts off his music and pockets the disc. He flicks all his antennae toward the door, to the winding, mazelike hallway of stone the intruders are currently breaking through. He realizes with a sinking feeling he forgot to re-fortify it on his way back in today. The one day he finally forgets, of course.

Surprise visit from a friend? That's the best case scenario. That would be.. a really nice change of pace, actually, come to think of it.

It's unlikely, though, and the fact he doesn't recognize the voices he's hearing rules it out.

It also rules out Federation agents, though, which is good.

"Aww, the music stopped." Someone pouts, as the steady sound of blocks breaking continues.

"Well, does mean it's not mobs." Another voice, recognizably British, says.

"Is that a good thing or a bad one, do you think?"

Dan takes a deep breath, and starts shuffling through his backpack.

"Depends, frankly, on who's home." The british guy says, then a bit more distantly, turned away; "Keep up, you three. I do not want you getting lost in here."

Dan finds what he was looking for, and holds in his hands his universal block remover and twenty or so blocks of TNT. Question is just.. what to destroy.

In theory, they've got plans for this.

In theory, Dan uses one of the escape routes, and leaves jack shit for anyone to find, anything the Federation could use to find them. Leaves nothing but a smoking crater.

In practice, Dan remembers the main flaw of the plan: A fresh explosion is still suspicious.

In practice, Dan then raises the same question he does every time he thinks about this, of if there's any better way to do this.

In practice, he hesitates too long.

The wall breaks.

Dan stands, deer in headlights, as two completely unfamiliar people enter his home.

The space is both smaller and larger than Phil expected, given how hard it was to find. He and Bad seem to have entered some sort of kitchen space, with barrels as cupboards and a cauldron sink and a fridge.

A jukebox sits across the room from them, near a series of levers with unclear purposes. Off to the left, there’s a blue desk with an unclear card game on it, and a bookshelf next to it.

The place is mostly built of spruce wood, with the white of the fridge and the diorite floor tiles in its part of the room a stark contrast. It’s warmly lit by the light of a redstone lamp in the ceiling. Small decorations, mostly dried plants or other things from the surface, are the main decoration in the space, accompanied by currently-dull glow in the dark stars and a couple of plushies. Other than the scuff marks on the floor by the back wall clearly suggesting a hidden door, and the terrified man standing in the middle of it, it looks like an average little base.

He’s tall, taller than Phil and Bad, but even through the thick green jacket Phil can tell he’s scrawnier. He’s wearing a large but light-fabriced scarf, a mottling of dull blue with little white spots along one side of it, laid over itself on his shoulders many times. Its tail is in front of him rather than more practically behind. His pants have a lot of pockets, and a lot of patches from mending.

His hair is brown, and parted in the middle, the bangs partially but not fully hiding where ears would be; instead are tufts of fur or feather or something similar, from which there are four antennae of the sort creepers use to hear; capable of lots and lots of motion, with barbs forming a feather-like structure. All of them are some level of torn up, one to the point it’s clearly completely useless. His eyes are a dull shadow of something purple.

Phil takes a step and the moment breaks. The man takes a step back towards the levers, and Bad holds up empty hands. “Hey, we’re not here to hurt you.”

Phil’s eyes drift down to the TNT held in the man’s hands, and takes his step back. “It did probably look that way a bit, given we did, you know, break into his house.”

Bad nods. “Yeah, fair enough.” He turns back to the stranger. “I humbly apologize that we did not knock.”

Phil can see the cogs turning in the stranger’s eyes. “ What?”

“We broke in, did you not hear us?” Bad says, gesturing behind them.

“No, I just-” The stranger runs a hand through his hair, making an interesting expression; slightly smiling, eyes wide, brows furrowed. “Ohh, bloody hell, you’re the new people aren’t you, you’re in my house.”

“Yes, we are.” Bad says. “I like what you’ve done with the place. Very ‘dark academia college student making the best of a basic dorm room’ of you.” He says, eyeing the desk.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I mean, it’s pretty clear.” Bad says, then turns and calls over his shoulder. “Do you agree, Dapper?”

The egg kids poke out around the corner, stepping into the room. The stranger goes completely still again.

Dapper looks around and nods, and does a thumbs-up. The stranger’s shoulders slump, and he takes a step back, feeling for a lever on the back wall and flicking it.

Phil bristles, and throws his wings up in front of the kids. Nothing happens.

“What did that do?” Phil asks, mind darting through various possibilities.

“Nothing you need to worry about.” The stranger says, quiet, then. “And, I’m not- that’s not in a sinister foreshadowing sort of way, I really mean it’s got nothing to do with you. It’s not a trap.”

“Put the TNT away, and I might start believing that.”

The stranger looks down at his hands, startling. “Right, that’s out.” He says, and seems to think for several seconds before putting it away.

“Are you someone who was on the island before us?” Bad asks, and the stranger stiffens again. “You are, aren’t you? If you were someone from our group, I would’ve seen you already, right?”

Phil slowly lowers his wing, and Dapper immediately charges out from behind it and starts writing something. Chayanne and Tallulah step out as well, a little more slowly.

The stranger watches them with an odd but familiar expression, of apprehension and acceptance and grief. A second later and he turns away, walking to the corner with the obvious secret door and blocking himself off. “Keep the eggs like- Out of here. don’t let them follow me.”

Phil prepares for if this is a trap, making sure he has his warp stone ready, and that all the small children around him do too. Several seconds pass in near-silence, accompanied only by the sound of blocks breaking on the other side.

“We didn’t say they used to be eggs.” Bad says, a little louder than usual to be heard. “Did your group have eggs too?”

The sound of the blocks breaking stops. The eggs all look up to where the stranger had disappeared into the wall. Tallulah writes a sign.

Did? are his people ok

Bad steps up to the cobblestone barrier the stranger had made. “We’ve had three eggs show up so far who weren’t there when they were first given to us. Enough that we don’t think it’s a coincidence, think the dragon story’s a myth, even if they did hatch into little dragon-ish kids. If your group also had eggs, that basically proves it then, doesn’t it? Especially if the story’s the same.”

No answer. Phil starts to consider the possibility the guy might’ve left, that the breaking blocks were an escape route.

“I’ve got a lot of questions, if you’ve got time. Like- did you guys manage to do the pressure plate puzzle, right at the start? We didn’t, and we still don’t know if there’s something important we missed there. Did you also get a six days announcement? There’s so much we don’t know yet, we’ve only been here about two months. Would you be willing to help us find a way out of here? ..One egg parent to another?”

Phil stiffens at that, reeling a bit at Bad’s choice of just. Literal blatant emotional manipulation, holy shit, but clearly it does the trick; Seconds later the stone begins to chip away, and the stranger steps out.

“Sure, I guess.” He says, more than a little strained. “I’m dead meat anyways, so why the fuck not.”

“Wh-? Dead meat? Why?”

“In short, the Federation thinks my group is dead, and wants us to stay that way.” He pauses. “So now that they know I’m not, they’ll probably try to kill me. Or capture me, at least, and then do who knows what.” His breath shakes a little, even if his voice itself is mostly even.

“Well, we can hide you.” Bad says, a little confused.

He smiles, wry and sarcastic. “Right, for half an hour, yeah?” He chuckles. “Give me a minute to grab some things.”

He wanders around the room, first to the fridge where he grabs several stacks of avocado toast, which Phil can see Tallulah trying not to make a face about. Then grabs a few items from a cupboard, which he shovels directly into a purple backpack with a sheep-themed charm on the back. Tallulah basically coos at the sight of it, pointing to her own backpack with a grin.

He’s quiet for a few seconds, then nods, smiling. “Yeah, same backpack.”

From there, he breaks a block in the wall and takes some clearly more valuable things - diamonds, totems, gapples, Phil thinks he sees a bit of netherite - and shoves them into a different backpack, this one black, that he un locks.

Bad has, at this point, wandered over to the desk, which he continues to inspect. “What card game is this? I don’t recognize it.”

“Solitaire,” The stranger says, in the middle of packing a few books that Phil tries and fails to read the titles of as he grabs them.

Phil takes one look at the cards and almost laughs. “By what ruleset?”

“I- I know how to play solitaire,” The stranger protests, turning to them. “I was- up too late.”

“M-hm,” Phil says, feeling very amused by the way the stranger’s face is slowly turning a little red.

“I mean it, I’ve had lots of practice.” He says, starting to pack up the cards. “I used to play it competitively.”

Phil does fully laugh now. “How the fuck do you play solitaire competitively?”

The man stops, then proceeds more slowly. “I- I don’t know, but I did.” He says. “I did play it.”

“Right, definitely.” Phil says, and shares a look with Chayanne.

Bad continues to tap his fingers along the desk, back and forth, while Dapper writes a sign. The stranger-

“My name’s Phil, by the way. Yours?” Phil says, to the man who is turning away from the desk and taking another look around the space.

He stills for a second. “I don’t think I want to tell you.” He says, brows a little furrowed. “The Federation will recognize me with or without it, but it’s the, uh, word- principle of the thing. Is that fine with you?”

Phil shrugs. “If you’re fine just being called ‘the stranger’.”

He nods. “Alright with me.”

“Dapper,” Bad says, in a scandalized almost-whisper. “You can’t just- I mean, maybe.” He says, calmer, and stands in a way that just so happens to cover the sign the egg had written when the stranger starts walking over to read it. “Are you ready to go?”

He looks around again, soaking in every detail, and nods. “Fuck it, let’s go.”

“Language,” Bad chides.

“English, mostly? Yo- yo hablo un poco de español, because of this server.”

“He’s upset you swore.” Phil explains.

“Oh. Yeah, well.” He shrugs. “So how are we getting to.. Wherever you live?”

Dapper turns to Bad, eyes wide, and Bad nods. Dapper immediately surges towards the stranger, hopping up and down, and places a crate.

“What.”

Dapper points to the middle of the crate.

“I- Doesn’t that only work on mobs?” The stranger asks, turning to the other adults in the room for answers. He gets a pair of shrugs. “I- screw it, sure.” He says, and steps into the crate.

It closes.

Dapper picks it up and tucks it in his inventory.

“Well that’s terrifying,” Phil says.

“And very useful.” Bad brings a hand to his chin. “Imagine if we could just.. Box up Cucurucho, or one of the code monsters.”

“Imagine if they could box up us .”

“That is true. They did learn how to lasso people from me.” Bad says. “We need to warn the others that this exists.”

I like him Tallulah writes.

It's cool that he survived this long I'm surprised is from Chayanne.

Phil, looking around again, gets a chance to read the sign that Dapper had left, which reads Can we keep him and laughs. Meanwhile, Bad steals the desk.

“Home time?” Phil asks.

The rest of the group nods, and people bring out their warp stones. Phil and Bad wait till every egg is gone, then warp away.

Chapter Text

Dapper tosses the crate back and forth between their hands as the group walks down to the basement of Phil’s house. More specifically, as Phil stands against the wall and opens doors so people can get by.

This, Dapper knows, is a discovery. This person right here in his hands is someone amazing. Someone who could hold all their answers, could save all their lives. He knows people like his dad, and like Tio Cellbit, like Tío Maxo, will have high hopes here.

Dapper also remembers meeting him, though, and finds the name she’s put on the box of ‘pathetic wet cat’ to be quite fitting.

“Please stop juggling him,” Phil says, when he catches sight of what Dapper’s doing. “We don’t know if he can feel that.”

Dapper writes back; He hasn’t lost any hearts. Phil sighs.

Then, they’re in.

Dapper sets the crate down in the center of the room, and hops near it while the others talk, taking note of any sounds - rather, the lack thereof - from the inside.

Is he safe to let in here? Chayanne asks. To keep in here?

“He didn’t seem to hold any ill will.” Phil says, though it’s slower than usual; uncertainty.

“I’m not sure I trust him so fast either? But he seemed to like you guys.” Bad says. “And if his band of muffinheads is anything like ours- he’ll be nice to you.”

Phil hesitates a little longer. “We’ll.. Keep a close eye on him, and reassess later.” He says, then, “Why does the Federation want him dead? Did his group get that troublesome? D’you think they’ll turn on us too, one of these days?”

“We’ll have to wait and see.” Bad says. “Are we clear to unbox him?”

There’s a series of nods, though Chayanne keeps a hand on the hilt of his sword.

Dapper does the honors of releasing him, and raises their arms to show him off to the group.

“Yeah, no, I don’t think that’s going to work,” The stranger says, then blinks, and immediately stumbles to the ground, off-balance. “Oh, that. I do not like that. Okay. I can be crated. Great.”

Dapper inches closer to him, watching the way his antennae flick around, taking in the space. They’ve always wanted to study the antennae of creepers, learn everything about how they worked. However, due to obvious facts of creepers, he could never stay close enough for long enough, or ask questions. Maybe now..

Dapper returns to the situation at hand. The others are running through introductions; she is being pointed to and his name said seconds after he looks up. They nod to the stranger in greeting.

“How many of the eggs are still alive?” The stranger asks, having moved more to a proper sitting position rather than just a not-hitting-my-head position. “You said you’d been here two months, so that’s a month and a half with them, if you’re the same as mine.”

“In total, there have been eleven eggs, right now there’s seven.” Phil says, setting his hands on Chayanne and Tallulah’s heads. “The others are named Leo, Ramón, Richarlyson and Pomme.”

“Eleven?” The stranger asks, visibly confused. “How many people do you have?”

“Like, eight in each original group, plus Quackity, so- 27 total, with the new guys?” Phil says. “That sound right?”

Bad nods. “Did your group not have this many?”

The stranger hesitates, then shakes his head. “Only had five in each original group, only ever had seven eggs. We had two or three dead by now, I think. Our last died about four months in."

So. Does this prove we’re.. fake? Chayanne asks, looking down to where his hands fade into scaled claws by the fingers, the black and blue dragon-scales.

“You’re clearly animals , ” Bad says. “And clearly think, and feel, and impact us. So I don’t think any of you are ‘fake’. Just the story.”

Chayanne nods, though it doesn’t make him smile.

“We never quite figured out where you guys came from, honestly.” The stranger says. “I think we got close, I remember K- someone- I heard that a big building that seemed federation-built was found, at one point a month or so ago, and no one knew what it did. We wondered if that was it.”

“Do you happen to know the coordinates?” Phil asks, while Bad opens up his communicator. The stranger shakes his head.

“Okay, I’ve got someone who’s going to have good questions for you.” Bad asks. “You fine with him coming over?”

The stranger nods. “More questions, fine by me.”

This then leads him to meeting the whirlwind that is Tallulah’s Tío Cellbit.

Tallulah tries to listen in, she really does, she knows how important this is. How important it is to the mysteries of the island, to everyone making it out of here ok. But she's tired, and people are loud. So she finds herself sitting out on the wall fifteen minutes in, looking down on her and her Papí’s house.

One more day. When- the best thing in the many bad things of her losing a life, was that it meant Papí was coming home sooner. Instead of some big unclear amount of days, which was functionally forever right now, there is one. She can make it one more day easily enough. And then she will have her Papí.

She would be in bed in the basement now, if not for the fact that the nice guy with the purple backpack and tío Cellbit were still talking in there, and. She’s slept recently enough none of the phantoms here are after her - Probably after Tío Cellbit, or Tío Bad - and if the code monster shows up she can probably just scream and someone will rescue her. So she’s just here.

It’s kind of nice, hanging out in the starlight. The sky's pretty like this.

Meanwhile, around a foldable table below Phil’s base, several things are established that night:

1: The stranger will not share his name, or things about the other people from his island. He implied that there are other survivors, but will not share how many. This is to protect his group from the Federation.

2: Unfortunately, when asked if he knew how to defeat the code monster, he didn’t even know what they were. It’s unclear if that means anything, given the next fact, but it's worthy of note.

3: The stranger either has shit memory, or is lying about not knowing a Lot of things, some of which there’s no clear point in lying about.

4:

“Did your group have Cucurucho?” Cellbit asked.

“Have what?”

Cellbit brings out a poster from his backpack, one of some greyscale face, going to pin it on the wall before apparently realizing it’s the wrong one and putting it back to instead bring out a picture of a white, smiling face.

“Oh, Todd Howard.”

Dapper crumples in on himself in laughter.

Bad turns to him, a little confused. “You alright?”

Why did you name it that? Dapper asks.

“Well, the first time we ever saw him, it was in a poison swamp. Plus, fuck you todd howard, already a common phrase for me, and then he’s like- if Todd Howard is Todd Howard about poison swamps, this Todd Howard is like that about white rooms. He’s the Todd Howard of white rooms.”

“Who the fuck is Todd Howard?” Cellbit and Phil ask at the same time, Bad asking a similar but swearless question. Even Dapper, who got the reference, looks a little confused now.

The stranger thinks for a second, then; “A game dev, I think.”

“Ok.” Cellbit says, like that answers anything near enough. “Ok. So, Todd Howard, what did he…”

5: The stranger has chainsaw scars on one of his legs from Todd Howard. He’s not at all surprised by Cellbit’s.

6: Todd Howard has killed people.

7: That means people can die on the island.

8: It is unclear if there is a life system, if only certain entities can kill, or if people can only truly die under certain conditions. Death’s mechanics are a mystery.

“So what I’m getting from this is, act like it’s hardcore.” Phil says.

“That’s basically how I treat it, yeah.”

“Right. Fucking Hell. I need to convince Wilbur to start wearing proper armor when he gets back.”

“Wilbur?” The stranger asks.

“One of the island’s english speakers. He’s been out of the island on tour.”

“ Out of the island?” The stranger and Cellbit ask at once, leaning toward Phil.

He leans back. “Don’t ask me how he does it, I don’t know.” He pauses. “Wow, I- yeah, you haven’t met him, have you?” He says to Cellbit, leaning forwards again, chin propped on hand. “He went before your boat crashed. Yeah, he’s Tallulah’s dad. Looks a lot like her.”

“Huh,” The stranger says, mouth hidden behind his hand.

9: Their stays on the island are Absolutely some sort of Federation-run experiment. The purpose of the experiment is unclear, but they're definitely being studied.

10: The Federation can track them through their communicators; the same devices used for chat, used for coordinates, that can act as a bonus translator if you can’t look above someone’s head. Everyone bristles about this, but even the stranger agrees that they’re probably too important right now to scrap entirely; he did, and it wasn’t a great plan. At this stage, being able to communicate across distances is more important, especially as the Federation probably has other ways to track them. Just leave them outside meetings.

11: The stranger thinks there were probably other sets of people on the island before his, but as far as he knows his group never met anyone from them. He doesn’t know if they left or died.

12: His group had eggs show up twelve days in, and a six day countdown to a kidnapping of them, just like this one did. He says if the Federation tries to have them have Elections, find some fucking way out of them, they’re how it all went to shit.

13: His sleep schedule is horrible, which means he’ll fit right in.

“At this rate,” Phil says with a yawn, at around two in the morning, “We’re going to end up with no one up during the day, and the eggs’ll all just die then.”

Bad frowns. “Yeahh, maybe we should like- set up shifts or something,” He says, slower than usual.

“How is this a problem on an island with twenty-seven people?” Phil asks, drawing a hand down his face.

Cellbit gets a kind of faraway look, while Bad just shrugs.

The stranger giggles to himself a little, not really saying anything, just staring at the people around him with a dopey-wistful, sleep-drunk grin.

Bad smiles, too, seeing him happy. “Your smile’s nice,”

The stranger’s smile dies partway upon observation, but he nods. “Thanks. You’re good too? Cool teeth.”

“Thanks!” Bad says, and bares his fangs a bit, running his tongue by them. “I do cut my tongue on them a lot though, which sucks.”

The stranger hums, and smiles a little more.

At this point, Cellbit’s the only one of them who seems unaffected by the late time. Whether that’s because of the coffee he’s been drinking, or because he sleeps so little anyways that needs-sleep Cellbit is the one Phil thinks of as normal, Phil’s not sure. Either way, he’s the most awake of the bunch; the rest inch on towards sleep.

The eggs have all already gone to sleep, actually, Dapper having grabbed a spare bed from their backpack. How they slept through the conversation, Phil’s got no clue, but he knows Chayanne and Tallulah are easily tired. It might just be that.

“Do you happen to have a bed with you?” Bad asks, and the stranger points to himself like he’s not sure he’s the one being talked to. “Yeah, so you can sleep?”

“Uh, no.” He says, shaking his head a bit. “I didn’t plan that far ahead, to be honest, uh.”

“Didn’t plan for one night?” Cellbit asks.

“Not really? I thought Todd Howard would’ve killed me before I even got here.” He says, chin propped up on his hands. “I- I unlocked my valuables backpack so that you guys could loot it off my corpse, I didn’t.” He pauses, glancing away. “I didn’t think I’d sleep again.”

Bad frowns, and reaches forward, taking the stranger’s hands in his. The other man stiffens, staring at their hands. Bad leans a little closer; “I’m glad you will.”

The stranger stares for a bit too long, and Bad taps his hand once before pulling away. He blinks his way back to the present, then nods. “Right, yeah, thanks. A bed would be nice.”

Phil nods, and starts rummaging through his bags for a bed.

Bad turns to Cellbit. “Oh yeah, by the way,”

14: People can be crated.

“What?”

Cellbit has a very reasonable reaction to finding out people can be crated, that being that he immediately has some sort of crisis about the implications and leaves to warn everyone.

That left Dan with several sleeping eggs, Phil, and Bad.

“Right, found a bed in the backpack, so here’s that.” Phil says, chucking it across the table to Dan, who catches it.

“Are you really just-? Completely fine with me being here?” Dan asks, gesturing to the room around them.

Phil and Bad exchange a glance. Bad turns back to RT. “I think we’ll both sleep down here tonight, to be sure you don’t do anything.” He says, then shrugs. “If you do, I can just break your knees, probably.” Phil laughs, wings almost smacking Bad in the face.

“Right, yep, not doing that, I won’t do anything,” Dan starts, as Bad continues.

“Or I could crate you, since that’s an option.”

“Not necessary, I will not hurt the eggs.” Dan says, hands up.

“Good! Then we’re all in agreement.” Bad says with a clap. “I’d hate to have to kill someone so interesting.”

Phil laughs again, damn near falling out of his chair. Bad grabs hold of his shoulder to pull him back to a steadier position without even looking, eyes still on Dan.

“I mean, I’m not lying,” Bad says. Phil wheezes.

Dan takes another look at Bad and Phil’s armor, shiny with enchants. At the very fortified base he’s in, with only one way in or out that he probably can’t use. At the axe Bad had brought out during the threats and not yet put away. At the chips on it, the bits of dried blood.

Yeah. Even if he was an egg-killer, he’s not fucking with that, chat. He knows his limits.

“I’m- glad I’m interesting?” Dan says, with a small smile.

“Interesting is a very nice thing to be.” Bad nods.

They then sit there for several seconds in silence, and Phil starts laughing again, trying to hide it behind his hand. Dan stands up, and looks down at the bed in his hands. “Where should I- put? This?” He asks.

Bad stands up as well, and in a swift motion breaks the table and chairs, all of them magneted into his backpack. Dan makes a mental note not to drop anything near him. “You can put it.. There,” Bad says, pointing to one of the corners of the room neighboring the door, on the side of it Chayanne’s on. He then places his own bed between that and where the eggs sleep, and sits down on it.

Dan places his bed in the corner, and when he’s turned back, Philza’s bed is a few blocks further away than Bad’s, closer to Tallulah. They both sit down as well.

Dan takes a breath, an antenna trailing along one of the nearby flowers. The air’s pretty still in here, suggesting that there aren’t any secret doors. He can hear Bad tapping his fingers along the side of the bed, a few blocks away.

Right. Okay. There’s people here. He’s with people again now. Not just over radio, not just through shitty redstone lamp morse code, they’re. Right there. He just talked with them for hours.

It’s been hours and he’s not dead.

So that’s cool. That's actually really cool, yeah. He’s alive.

He pulls out his deck of cards, shuffling them together, and sits down on the moss. He can feel that one of the others is watching him, but and then partially because of that he dives into his game of solitaire, laying the cards out with practiced ease, going through the motions of the game.

Which is why he hopes that they have actually played Solitaire, and understand why he then does Not Win that game. Because he has attempted to defend his solitaire gameplay to Several people, and most of them don’t believe him when he says the game is just literally unwinnable sometimes.

He also doesn’t win the next one.

Or the next one. He got really close, and if he hadn’t been sticking to three card draw because he had an audience, he would have gotten even closer, but it didn’t work out.

Another game lost, and even if he hadn’t been playing the way he is he couldn’t make it there.

“I would absolutely get papercuts if I shuffled that much.” Phil comments, leaning over the side of his bed.

Dan waves his fingers a little bit, forgetting Phil’s not close enough to see the scattering of tiny scars across them. “Trust me, I have.” He grins a bit at Phil’s laugh.

He doesn’t win that game either, and gets two minutes into the one after it before he gives up on three-card draw, finally frustrated with having a card visible, within reach, but unplayable.

Dan looks up a few minutes later, making incredibly brief eye contact with Philza before dropping his eyes back to the game. Phil chuckles, and Dan can hear him roll over, feel him look away. His shoulders lose a tightness he hadn’t realized they had.

Dan glances up again, finding that Bad is asleep. Philza has turned away, clipped wings trailing over the side of the bed. His back turned to Dan.

A few lost games later, and Phil is asleep. The cards are blurring for Dan at this point, given the time of night, and he gets one win before finally falling asleep on the mossy floor.