Work Text:
Clown is running from someone. Or something. He’s not too sure. But he’s running for a reason.
So he’s running from something. Probably the Empire. Actually, Clown isn’t sure why the Empire is chasing him, or who the Empire is to begin with. Now that he’s actually thinking about it – he should probably be focussing on running away, not trying to make sense of the situation – he’s not sure if it’s an Empire. He remembers a huge modern building. Like the office buildings back at home – in his home world. In his home world.
Is he back in his home world? Why is he running from a business empire?
Nevermind that. He’s running for a reason. He must’ve been running for a while, as his lungs are aching and his leg muscles feel like they’re about to rip.
Clown takes a sharp left and almost falls. His head is spinning. Maybe he was poisoned? That would explain his confusion. Maybe.
Clown’s eyes widen as –
Everything hurts. Most importantly his chest. No, it’s not his chest, it’s… it’s a sharp pain between his fifth and sixth rib. Clown wants to bring his hand to the source of pain, but the pain spikes when he tries to move.
He painstakingly forces his eyes to open to an unfamiliar yet familiar looking ceiling. He tries to sit up despite the pain, but is forced to lay down with a small groan of pain escaping his gritted teeth.
“ S E r U I p A … Stay down,” a voice says from beside him. His name, his real name sounds familiar from their lips, though it sounds strange, wrong. He tries to turn his head toward the source of the voice and his mother comes into view. His mother? What is she doing here? Why does she look like that? “You’re hurt. You need to rest.”
Clown shakes his head and tries to push himself up again. Pain surges through his body.
“E I r PA s U,” his mother says, “You got stabbed. You’ll only make it worse.”
Clown blinks. Yeah, that makes sense. It does feel like a stab wound. Kind of. Actually, it feels a little odd. But he’s walked hours with a stab wound before, he can manage sitting up.
He sits up, much to his mother’s dismay. He ignores her complaints.
Clown’s head is spinning. He’s going to die. He’s going to die by the time the next night ends. It’s evening. He’s going to die.
His family is at least letting him set up his gravestone in the attic. He can see the evening slowly turn into night, the light fading from the sky through the giant window at the other end of the room. It’s scary. He doesn’t want to die.
Clown can’t help but watch helplessly as the sky goes dark and slowly turns red. Red like danger. Red like the blood he’s losing at an alarmingly high rate.
His time is limited. He looks back to the blackstone gravestone he’s placed. It looks ugly. He supposes he can customize his gravestone a little before he meets his inevitable fate.
He brings his right hand to the gravestone and the customisation window pops up. There are different gravestone shapes. None of them particularly appeal to him, but he’ll have to make do with one of them.
He ends up choosing a classic round-ish gravestone with multiple heights at the top and different layers and moves on to the font shapes and colours.
He considers choosing ComicSans for a bit, just for the sake of it, but decides on Typewriter instead, to be a little more serious about it. He keeps the colour black, but he keeps it in mind, just in case he wants to change it later. If he still has time that is.
Dread is building in his stomach and he glances toward the sky while still in the customization window, but it still seems to be at the same point as when he first started customizing his gravestone.
That’s strange. He’s sure he’s taken a good chunk of time already, enough time for the blood red moon to be a little higher at least. What is happe–
Suddenly his vision goes gray behind the customization menu and Clown freezes. That’s not– That’s not something that just happens. That’s not normal. That’s not–
Before he can panic too much, the gray disappears and suddenly the sky is back to evening light.
Clown exits the menu, turns to the window and stares at the sky. What the fuck. It’s… It’s evening again. A million different thoughts race through his head. They all finally land on one conclusion.
Customizing the gravestone can freeze and set back time. It’s unintentional, of course, likely a glitch, and very inefficient, but Clown can prolong his death. Maybe if he plays his cards right, he can fix this, maybe he’ll live.
Clown swallows thickly and opens the customization menu again.
Endless repeats later and Clown is running again. He feels his wound ripping further, but he just needs to… He needs… He needs to… What is he doing? He’s running. His best guess is that he’s being chased again. That is… not good.
The sun is setting. He’s running out of time. He’s nowhere near home? Home? Was he home? He’s nowhere near home. Nowhere near the gravestone. Why is he away from the gravestone? Why is he…
Clown is running and hopes it’s the direction of home. Why is he out here in the first place?
His head hurts. His wound hurts. His muscles feel like they’re about to rip. His head is spinning, his head is swimming, but he forces himself to continue running.
He’s not sure what he’s running from but perhaps that’s why he’s running. Perhaps that’s the scariest part. Perhaps that’s
The sun is almost gone and the sky is tinting red, Clown is running out of time. If he doesn’t get to the gravestone fast enough, he’ll die the moment the sun rises again. He doesn’t know how he knows that, but he does, he does know, he knows. He doesn’t want to die, he can’t die, he’s scared. He’s scared of dying. He doesn’t want to die. But at this rate, at this rate it seems like that’s his fate. He’s so, so scared. Death in itself is short. But what comes after it? What comes after it… That’s what Clown is most afraid of. A primal fear. A primal fear that proves that Clown, that all human life, all humanoid life is still no different, not above their origin at all. That Clown is no better than a primal, instinct-driven animal.
Clown is running. His lungs feel like they’re about to burst. He’s running for his life, he doesn’t want to die.
Clown is sitting at a table with his parents. They’re talking about something but their voices sound like they’re covered by several layers of water. Clown feels like he’s floating. Somwhere distant, Clown feels the pain of his stab wound sharp and blurry. His eyes feel like they’re about to drift shut. He wants to curl up into a ball, a primal instinct. He’s so tired, not sure from what. He doesn’t remember anything that warrants him being so tired.
Clown is staring at his gravestone. It doesn’t look like he wants it to. It’s ugly, it’s not pretty. It’s not what he wanted. It’s not… what he… made. It… Did that mean nothing? The time… the time he’s spent on customizing his gravestone meant nothing? The running, the stalling for time, the effort he’s put in meant nothing?
A quiet sob racks through his body. Does anything he did, anything he said, thought, wanted, dreamed, tried even mean anything, amount to anything? Is he even worth anything? Can he even do anything? Was he ever even really in control?
It’s so painfully cold. He’s freezing, kneeling over his grave, clutching his chest. The tears falling from his burning eyes materialise into small pieces of ice, clattering down onto the cold, hard floor.
Clown hates the cold. He misses the warmth he hasn’t felt in what feels like centuries. He misses the feelings of arms around him that he hasn’t felt in years. Clown misses being a person.
Clown stares at his mother and she stares at him– No, she stares at him and he stares at her. Why isn’t she saying anything? Why is she looking at him like she doesn’t know who he is?
“What are you doing here?” she asks, “How did you get into my house?”
“Mom, what do you mean?” Clown wants to ask, “You’re my mother, why don’t you recognise me?”
His father holds his mother close. His expression is the same as hers. He doesn’t know who he is. It… hurts… a lot. Is he really that insignificant?
His mother won’t speak to him anymore. No, she won’t even look at him. Neither do his father or his brother. None of his present family are acknowledging his existence at all. Maybe… Maybe it’s because he doesn’t exist. Did he ever exist? He must have, right? He must have existed if they acknowledged him before. But… If he can think this at this very moment, wouldn’t that mean he’s existing right now? What doesn’t exist can’t think, right? “I think, therefore I am”, wasn’t it? But he’s not really meeting the other criteria, so maybe he really doesn’t.
He wants to exist again. It’s so cold.
People phase through him, like ghosts. They’re desaturated and blurry and transparent, but Clown knows that he himself must be the one who’s on the wrong plane of existance. That he must be the ghost among people.
His head is spinning and he’s tired and he just wants to be alive, be a person, preferably one surrounded by other people. Because, even when he is alive, is he even a person if he’s not around other people? He sure doesn’t feel like it. He’s never felt like a person when he’s gone without human interaction for too long, when no one was there to witness him. And now… will anyone ever witness his personhood, will anyone interact with or even just acknowledge him anymore? A negative. Very probably not.
Clown sighs softly as he resigns himself to his fate for the next eternity.
Clown stares at the ceiling, the wooden support beams. He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting here. Or is he lying? Standing? Clown doesn’t know. He supposes it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters. He doesn’t matter.
Clown is a little surprised when his mind drifts back into himself, when his consciousness returns. He’s still here? That’s… odd. He could have sworn that he’s gone for good. Guess he’s not. He brings his hand to his forehead and is surprised that it doesn’t hurt in the slightest. In fact, no part of Clown’s body hurts more than usual. Clown blinks, confused.
He brings his hand down to his eyes, rubs at them and forces himself to sit up. Something– Fabric rustles beneath him. Now that he thinks about it, the floor beneath him– around him? is soft, much unlike before.
It feels like…
Clown’s hands drop to his sides and he turns his head to look at his surroundings.
…like the nest-like bed he sleeps in when he stays the night in the Circus.
He draws in a sharp breath. He’s on LifeSteal. He’s… not wherever he was before. Does that mean…? Is he…?
Clown quickly stands up in one fluid motion, disregarding his temporary blindness and dizziness in favour of getting off the bed and quickly walking out of his room, paying close attention to everything he can hear.
It’s pretty quiet, but he can hear the ticks of a clock, the faint buzzing of the redstone lights, pistons extending and unextending distantly and… footsteps. Clown quickly decides for their origin to be in the west part of the circus tent, where the Funhouse 2.0 is in progress. Or… done, depending on how long Clown was gone. Clown remembers it like yesterday, but it feels like much longer ago.
Clown’s legs don’t sting as he makes his way to the worksite, almost as if nothing has happened at all. He shakes his head, clears his mind of any distracting thoughts and speeds up his walk. This is important.
“C-Clown?” is all Branzy manages to stutter out when the door flies open and Clown’s completely unmasked face stares him down. He’s just been doing some late night redstone fixing when Clown interrupted him. Clown has expressed mild annoyance that Branzy chooses to interprete as worry at him working late into the night, but he’s never looked that intense, not to mention gone as far as to leave off his mask for further intimidation. Branzy thought he’s come to know Clown pretty well by now, but apparently not.
But then something shifts in Clown’s expression and he doesn’t really look intimidating at all with his widened, teary eyes, softened features, parted lips and shaky hands. Instead he looks like, for a lack of better wording – and excuse Branzy’s disrespectful language –, a wet, kicked cat. Something tells him that this isn’t about him working late.
Branzy softly tilts his head to the side and watches as Clown’s hands grip at the hem of his own, loose and oversized shirt. It’s crumbled, clearly having been slept in. Clown looks so unsure as Branzy has never seen before. So unlike himself. So helpless.
Branzy feels his own expression soften and steps towards his partner, holds open his arms as an invitation. Clown’s eyes widen even further, his expression is hesitant and a little terrified, but then he squeezes his eyes shut and almost launches himself into Branzy’s arms, buries his face in his shoulder and not so gracefully allows Branzy to hold him close.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Branzy asks carefully, softly threading his fingers through Clown’s almost silky curls. He can’t help but worry about the man in his arms. Clown isn’t crying, but he might as well be. He might as well be sobbing his eyes out into Branzy’s steady shoulder with the vulnerability he’s showing. Actually. No, that Clown isn’t crying, sobbing right now might even be more vulnerable toward Branzy. Because he must know that Branzy knows and allows him to know, even allows him to know that he’s not ready to let it out yet. It tears at Branzy’s heart.
Almost instinctually, he lightly sways his partner comfortingly, similarly to how one would sway a crying baby to calm it down. It seems to be working as, after a few minutes, Clown’s shaking slowly starts to subside.
“Talk to me,” Branzy softly says, “I want to help you, love. What’s wrong?”
Branzy can only hear the light rustle of his own shirt as Clown shifts in his hold, turns his face to press it against his neck, no response. He can only sigh softly as he continues threading his fingers through Clown’s hair.
“I’m real,” Clown then says, so quietly that Branzy almost misses it. Almost. He doesn’t. Softly, carefully, gently, he takes Clown’s face and pushes it back and up to look at him, cups one of his cheek.
“Hm?” he hums softly, encouragingly, strokes the skin beneath his eye. Clown’s lips quiver slightly, his gaze is fixed to the floor. Then he forces it up, looks at Branzy.
“I’m real,” Clown repeats, a little louder this time, “I’m alive. …Right?”
Branzy feels his eyebrows rise before he can stop them. “Of– Of course you’re real,” he says, “And you certainly seem alive to me, Clown.”
He can’t fathom why Clown seems to have thought any differently, but he knows that Clown needs reassurance right now, so that’s what he’ll give. The assassin still looks a little doubtful, so Branzy decides to go a little further.
“Do you want me to check your pulse?” he asks and Clown freezes, bites his bottom lip as he seems to consider it, before finally nodding. Branzy smiles softly and moves his hand from on Clown’s cheek down to his throat, keeps his thumb on Clown’s jaw as he softly, gently presses the pad of his index finger against the spot right beneath Clown’s jaw and ear, carefully checks for his carotid pulse.
“There we go,” Branzy murmurs, “All there, like it’s supposed to. Fully alive, darling.”
He gently takes one of Clown’s hands and replaces his finger with one of Clown’s.
“You feel that, Clown?” he asks softly. “You’re alive and here, sweetheart.”
Clown’s eyes are wide and he slowly nods. “I’m alive,” he whispers and lets out a soft puff of air, finally lets the tears fall, “I’m not dead.”
Branzy smiles softly and pulls Clown in for a hug again. “Bad dream?” he asks softly and feels Clown nod against his shoulder, gently pats the man’s head in response, “Do you want to talk about it, darling?”
Clown freezes again. He seems to be actually thinking about it, but ends up shaking his head. But he considered it, which is a lot further than he would have gone just a few months ago. Branzy smiles. Clown is warming up, emotionally opening up to him more. Not that he wasn’t warmed up to him before, it’s just progressively getting better.
Branzy smiles softly. “Alright,” he says, “But please feel free to tell me if you change your mind.”
Clown nods against his shoulder. Branzy can’t help but feel pride rise up in his chest.
“Good,” he says, “Now, let’s get you back to bed. You’ve still got a solid four hours worth of Z’s to catch.”
Clown pulls back. He looks far more composed now, but he’s still a little stirred up.
“You’ll sleep, too,” he says, “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’re overworking yourself.”
Branzy smiles sheepishly. “Sir, yes, Sir,” he says lightheartedly. Clown smiles.
“But you’ve proved that I can’t trust you on that, Branzy,” he says ominously and Branzy can’t help but instinctively feel nervous. Then his tone lightens as he says, “So I guess you’ll have to sleep in my bed and let me hold you for the rest of the night so I can know for sure.”
Oh. So Clown is just making an excuse to ask to cuddle without making it seem like he wants to cuddle. Branzy grins. “Aw, shucks!” he says, “Guess I’ll have to resign myself to the fate of being held all night by Minecraft’s cutest assassin, how terrible.”
“How terrible, indeed,” Clown says bluntly as he takes Branzy’s hand and leads him to his room, “Now come, we don’t have any more time to waste.”
Branzy chuckles and allows Clown to pull him to his room. God, he’s in love with this beautiful man. Clown could probably lead him to his death and Branzy would let him, so long as he lets him hear his suggary sweet voice. But Clown will never kill him, betray him, that much Branzy is sure about. Clown is his as he is Clown’s. That’s the only thing he can trust in on LifeSteal, it’s the only consistent thing on LifeSteal, forever engraved in the bedrock that holds their world together.
Once they’re in Clown’s room, Branzy waits for Clown to light an about halfway, maybe three fourths burned down candle to shut off the light, then crawls into Clown’s nest-like constellation of pillows and blankets, where the man is waiting for him, and curls up next to him. Clown immediately cuddles against him, holds onto him like a lifeline, snuggling his face into his neck like a cat. Branzy holds Clown in return, as gentle, as soft as he can.
They lay like this in silence for a long time. Only when Branzy’s eyes start drifting shut and the candle is on its last three hours, only a stump now, does Clown speak what he’s obviously been chewing on for the entirety of their time laying down.
“I, um, I changed my mind,” he mumbles, breaking the peaceful silence, “I… I want to talk about it, if that’s okay.”
Branzy blinks, rubs his eyes slightly. “Huh?” he asks. “No, of course that’s okay, darling.”
He’s tired and wants to sleep, but he’d be stupid not to pursue this line of conversation. If not for Clown’s sake (that’s a lie, it’s fully for Clown’s sake), then to further develop their relationship, encourage trust. So he turns to look at Clown’s barely lit face, waits patiently for him to start talking.
“I’m, um,” Clown says, “I’m not sure how to start, actually. I’ve never really done this…”
Branzy smiles. “It’s okay, take your time, sweetheart,” he says, brushing his hand over Clown’s cheek. Clown mirrors his smile, though it seems to come a little less naturally to him than it comes to Branzy. Branzy thinks it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen, regardless. He wants to see nothing but that smile for the rest of eternity.
“I thought it was real,” Clown says after a while and his voice is shaky, so human it’s beautiful, “Even though it was so unrealistic.”
Branzy nods encouragingly, intently listening to Clown. Clown’s tongue darts out for just a split second to wet his lips and his eyebrows furrow as he seems to think on his next words.
“Nothing about that world was like LifeSteal or any other world I lived in before,” he says, “But I thought it all was real. I thought I was really on the verge of dying on the snap of a finger. It felt so real. It felt like I was really trying to prolong my death for as long as possible with a fucking gravestone glitch. Why– Why would my grave have been in my ‘family’’s attic? Why would my ‘family’ have me create my own gravestone? Why did none of them look how they do?” Hot tears trickle onto Branzy’s hand. “I was… I was… terrified,” Clown admits and Branzy is stunned by his admission, “It felt so real. I was so scared. If not of my inevitable death itself, then of what comes after. And then, I think I did die. And– And first my ‘family’ didn’t recognise me and then they didn’t acknowledge me at all. And when I woke up, at first I didn’t realise I did, I thought I was still dead. And then, when I realised I was here I– I needed to see you. Because– Because you would know what to do…”
Branzy gently pulls Clown closer. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. He can’t believe that Clown is just telling him, just like that, without Branzy prying at all. It feels a little dignifying. Like Clown really trusts him. He smiles softly.
“That means a lot,” he murmurs, “I’m glad it was just a dream. Now… What do you need?”
Clown frowns. “What?” he asks and Branzy pats the top side of his arm.
“What would help you right now, darling?” Branzy patiently clarifies, “What can I do for you?”
Clown’s frown deepens. “I don’t know,” he admits, “I was hoping you’d know. You always seem to know how to make me feel okay.”
Branzy smiles and gently kisses Clown’s forehead. “Alright,” he says gently, “Right now, I think you need some rest, so how about you go back to sleep, give your mind some time and a chance to properly process it. I’ll be here with you until you wake up. Longer, if you want. And if you need anything at all, you tell me and I’ll do my best to give it to you, yeah?”
Clown nods shortly. “Sounds good to me,” he says and yawns, “Thanks, Branzy. I love you.”
And suddenly Branzy’s resolve just crumbles and his face just fully heats up with what must be a really, really bright blush.
“I love you too, Clown,” he whispers, “Good night.”
