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Please, please, please, please, please, please.
A little further and he’d make it. He’d managed to stumble away from the Law unnoticed, leaving Spoke and the rest to fend for themselves. Not his proudest moment, but he’d felt his grip on Crucible slipping with every hit and knew he wouldn’t be useful much longer. After being starved for a week, there was no way he could keep up in a fight with that many netherite players.
His legs were in agony. He’d landed weirdly after jumping the wall and every step he took he had to bite his tongue to stop himself from crying out. But he couldn’t stop. Flame’s base was so close.
So, he kept going, even after doubling over to retch on the loose sand leading up to the hovel.
“Flame?” he rasped, limping through the doorway.
No.
The place was wrecked. Cobwebs were scattered everywhere, in cracks where the floor had been broken, and - he glanced behind him - outside around Flame’s old cow pen. He hadn’t noticed on the way there.
Wemmbu rummaged through the barrels, praying that there was something left that might help him. Empty.
“Flame!” he tried again, knowing he wouldn’t get an answer.
He checked Boosfer’s room. It looked even worse than the main area. The green decor had been torn down and defaced with the Law’s symbol that scorched the back of his hand and it seemed like either Flame or a Lawman had been thrown into the back wall because a chunk of it had collapsed, revealing a small crevice behind the wall exposed.
His head was spinning. Sometime while checking the base out he’d started coughing and when he realised some of the red stains on the floor were from him he knew he couldn’t run anymore. The thought made him feel sick. They must have figured out where he’d gone by now. Any moment, they’d burst through that door and they’d find him and drag him back and cut his hair again and Lettuce would parade him around like a fucking animal.
Excited shouts rang from a distance. 100 blocks? Less?
Please, no.
He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t run. Where the hell could he hide?
He twisted his head frantically. The barrels were too obvious. If he hid under Boosfer’s decorations they’d probably trample him and kill him right there. When it finally dawned on him, a tiny breath of irony escaped his lips. The broken wall. If it was good enough for Egg, then maybe it would be good enough for him.
There really wasn’t another choice so he scrambled inside the crevice, shifting until he was no longer visible from the outside. It left him in an awkward, half-lying down position that forced him to lean on his bad leg, sending through him a stabbing pain like he was being struck by lightning.
It took everything to not start screaming when the Law came bursting in.
They were speaking amongst one another but he couldn’t understand a word they were saying. Don’t scream. His ears were ringing. Don’t scream. Dark splotches were creeping over his eyes and he was starting to shiver. Don’t scream. He bit down on his tongue. Mesas weren’t supposed to be this cold, even in the winter.
It was quiet now. Had they gone? How long had it been?
He couldn’t move anymore. He was tired. So tired. Between having his identity uncovered, fighting off the Law, and getting imprisoned, he’d only slept a handful of hours. Every other minute had been spent fighting for his life under increasingly impossible odds.
For a moment, he cursed Flame and Parrot for not letting him be. This was exactly why he’d faked his death in the first place.
And yet, here he was. Taking refuge in Flame’s former home. If he died in that crevice, how long would it take for his rival to notice?
He didn’t want to scream anymore. Was that a good or a bad thing?
He slipped away before he could figure out an answer to either of those questions.
Flame had promised himself he wouldn’t see this place again until he was stronger.
He was sticking to that. Once he was done here he was heading right back out 50,000 blocks.
Halfway through training, he’d realised that one of his dogs was missing. The pup. He’d left her hidden underneath his base when the Law had attacked, and in the chaos he’d forgotten to go back for her.
So, he’d sneaked back to the mesa to go get her. 5 minutes in and out, that was all it was meant to be. He’d removed his blindfold in case of an ambush, stashing it in his pocket.
But when he’d made his way inside, he noticed a new patch of blood near the entrance to Boosfer’s room. It was still wet, unlike the dried muck elsewhere in the base from his previous encounter with the Law.
“What the hell, bro,” he murmured as his eyes fell upon another further into the room, near a deep crack in the wall. His hand instinctually reached for his sword, inching forward in case of a trap.
It was then that he heard it. Ragged, laboured, breathing, coming from… inside the wall.
“Who’s there? Come on out,” he called out.
No reply. He moved forward, faster now. As he reached the crack in the wall, he pulled out his sword.
And dropped it almost instantly. There, bruised and bloodied, purple hair cut far shorter than when he’d last seen it, was Wemmbu. He was curled up unmoving, eyes shut tight and skin having taken on a horrible greyish tint. If he wasn’t breathing so loudly, Flame would have thought he was dead.
“Wemmbu?”
His rival didn’t stir. He reached a hand out to the demon’s cool forehead, and came away with a thin layer of blood and sweat. Great. What the hell was he supposed to do with this? The Law base was only a few hundred blocks away but he really didn’t want to move Wemmbu far in this condition.
He could just leave him. It would save him a whole world of trouble. But… he knew Wemmbu had only been caught by Lettuce because his resources had been completely drained during their fight. It wouldn’t be right to let him die or get captured again. Besides, he was the only interesting person to fight these days. And one of the only ones who still remembered his brother.
Flame sighed and reached into the crevice, pulling Wemmbu out as gently as possible. He laid him on the floor just outside, giving him a better view of his wounds.
The demon was a mess. There were cuts, some fresh but others days old and probably infected littering his form. A particularly nasty gash was still dripping blood down his arm. His left leg was bent at an awkward angle and when Flame tried to touch it Wemmbu’s face scrunched up in his sleep. Probably fractured. There were other injuries too, bruises on his head and neck, and scorch marks closer to his back.
The last injury made his face twist in horror.
The Law’s symbol, branded on the back of Wemmbu’s still hand.
It didn’t matter that Wemmbu was until recently his main rival, that he, just like Flame, had done some pretty terrible things on the server. Nobody deserved this kind of treatment. As he placed down an enderchest and rummaged for his first aid shulker, he could feel his skin boiling in rage. He had half a mind to hunt down Lettuce and kill him right then if it wouldn’t mean leaving Wemmbu in this state.
His daydreaming was cut short by a croaked, “Flame?”
Wemmbu was awake. Barely. His eyes were open but unfocussed, breathing still rough.
“Bro, what happened?”
He coughed. “Spoke helped us escape. I ran… I thought you might be here. When the Law came to find me I hid in there.”
“Oh.”
Flame didn’t know what to say. The thought of an injured Wemmbu desperate for help and finding him gone left him with the same weird twist in his stomach as when Lomedy called him a lost cause.
The same twist as when Mane had betrayed the Zam Empire and stopped speaking to him, all that time ago.
He glanced back at Wemmbu and rushed to push him down. The idiot had been trying to stand up.
“Are you trying to kill yourself? Lie down and let me patch you up.”
“It’s fine,” the demon murmured, “I feel better. I’ll get out of your way.”
“Bro, your leg’s broken. If you’re not going to lie down then sit at least. Drink this,” he held out a regeneration potion, “These wounds need proper treatment but it’s a start.”
The second he let go of the potion, it smashed on the ground. Wemmbu’s hand was still out, shaking. He stared blankly at the broken pieces, mind somewhere else entirely.
“Alright,” Flame sighed, “We’ll try it again.”
This time, he guided the bottle to Wemmbu’s lips. Drinking it brought a little colour back to his face, and some of the smaller injuries closed up. But as he thought, it wasn’t nearly enough.
He reached in his shulker again and brought out some water and a needle and thread. That gash had been bleeding out for way too long.
“I need you to not move, alright? This is going to hurt.”
To Wemmbu’s credit, he didn’t shift much as Flame cleaned and stitched the wound. A jerk every now and then, a horrible scraping as he clenched his teeth together. He shut his eyes at one point, scrunching his face as he grabbed onto Flame’s shoulder with his other, branded hand for support. Flame hated looking at it.
“Fuck,” Wemmbu hissed as Flame finished his stitches, wrapping them in a roll of bandages that bled through in a few minutes. It was the first sign of life he’d given since trying to leave, and Flame welcomed it. The pain was at least keeping him away from wherever his mind had wandered after breaking the bottle.
But the feeling of the stitches was nothing compared to what was to come next. Because he didn’t have a proper cast, he would have to set Wemmbu’s leg with a few pieces of wood and a whole lot of bandages. And no anaesthetic.
As soon as he touched it, a strangled cry made him tear his hands away.
“I’m sorry,” Flame said, moving his hands back towards his leg, “I have to do this. Just push through it.”
Wemmbu’s skin was starting to take on that grey tone again. Flame gave him another regeneration potion to try and ease the worst of the pain as he worked, but soon the demon was begging him to stop, tears running down his face.
“I can’t do this,” he gasped, leaning fully on Flame’s shoulder now, “Please. Please. I can’t.”
“You have to. You can’t die here.”
“Why are you doing this? Just leave. I already said you can be the strongest. You don’t need to rub my face in it.”
He frowned. “Is that what you think this is? You think I’m doing this to prove I’m stronger than you? I don’t need to do that, bro. I already won.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“Why did you come in the first place?” Flame countered.
Wemmbu fell silent.
“You’re one of the strongest players I know. And, yeah, you beat me that one time. With cheap tricks and no skill, but you still won. You’re the only student my brother trained, the only person who even remembers him anymore. There is no way-” he gritted his teeth “-I’m letting you die as pathetically as this.”
“Wow,” Wemmbu said weakly, “You really don’t know how to talk to people.”
“Shut up and let me help you.”
Wemmbu did his best to stay quiet as Flame started treating his leg again but whimpers couldn’t help but slip out. Bloody fingers dug into the ground as he bowed his head.
“I’m here,” Flame murmured, awkwardly patting his hair. It was too short, all choppy and uneven like someone had hacked it off with a sword. The demon flinched but wordlessly leaned into the touch like the abandoned dogs Flame would bring back home with him from time to time.
First they’d bare their teeth, snapping if he dared come too close. All he could do was offer some food and back off. The trick was to encourage them to come to him, to give them as much control in the situation as possible. Let them choose the warmth.
Neither spoke for a while after that. Flame was grateful; he needed to concentrate to avoid hurting Wemmbu any more than necessary. He didn’t know what had happened to him in prison, but if this was the state he’d been left in…
“I don’t really have a lot of friends in the overworld anymore,” Wemmbu offered in response to Flame’s earlier question, “The stronghold was too far. Your place made more sense.”
Flame nodded. From what Wemmbu was saying, he could probably also only count the people he trusted on one hand right now. Mane was gone, Jaden was a traitor, Parrot had no use for him anymore, and Spoke he’d avoid at any cost. Now that Lomedy had seemingly given up on him, Wemmbu was probably the only one he could rely on anymore. What a depressing reality.
That didn’t make them friends. Flame wasn’t going to accept that.
“What happened here, anyway?”
“Long story. The Law banished me 50,000 blocks away and raided this place. I came back because I left one of my dogs behind.”
“Where is it?”
“Below us. I’ll go get her when we’re finished here.”
After a slow, agonising few minutes, Wemmbu’s leg was finally bound enough to keep him stable until he could get to a proper medic.
His colour still wasn’t great. He was shaking, Flame realised. And thin. That broken bottle earlier…
“Bro, when was the last time you ate something?” he frowned.
“Uh. They fed us one or two beetroots a day in prison. I stole Zam’s portion sometimes but, yeah. I guess I didn’t have time to eat anything other than gaps when we were fighting the Law either.”
Flame pinched his nose bridge. When Wemmbu recovered, the two of them were going to kill Lettuce.
He rummaged through his enderchest again. Solid food was a bad idea. There was already blood everywhere, he didn’t need anything else. A suspicious stew he’d picked up somewhere? He didn’t really want to risk a harmful potion effect, but it was the best he had.
“Here,” he handed Wemmbu the bowl, “Don’t drop it this time. If it poisons you… my bad, bro.”
Slowly, only spilling a little on the ground, Wemmbu drank. He only managed a few sips before putting the bowl back down with a tight grip. It was a start. Already a little colour was returning to his face. He frowned, and Flame was worried for a second that it really had poisoned him.
Then, for the first time since he’d awoken, he smiled.
“Jump boost.”
Flame huffed out a laugh. Completely useless, but it wouldn’t hurt him either.
An awkward silence fell. “You said Zam was there?”
“Yeah. Him, Fantst, and Baablu.”
Flame let out a noise of disgust. He’d had enough of those three for a lifetime. Smoke rose from his skin just thinking about that shitshow of a team Jaden had forced him to bring to the Farlands.
“Your friend Lomedy was there too.”
“What?!”
Why would the Law keep a farmer imprisoned with actual terrorists? Who was he even going to hurt?
“Where is he now?” he pressed.
“We tried getting him to come with us, but he wouldn’t go. Said he wanted to be a good prisoner and obey the Law or something.”
Flame groaned. “Why is that kid so stubborn?”
As much as he wanted to march into that prison and drag Lomedy out himself, there was no way he was strong enough yet. More likely he’d get them both captured or killed.
He sighed, turning his attention to the last of Wemmbu’s pressing wounds. The brand was a deep angry red, tiny white blisters popping out of the skin around it. A fire resistance potion would stop the worst of his reaction but that mark would be there forever. The sun would mock him, etch into him a permanent reminder of whatever horrors he’d faced in prison that he was clearly avoiding discussing.
“Guess I’ll have to start wearing gloves.”
Wemmbu’s tone was light but Flame could feel his hand tense beneath his fingers. His tail swished, curling up tightly in the same way that Mane’s did whenever he was upset. A tiny part of him wanted to reach out, to hug him and brush his hands through his hair like he would to calm his brother down when they were younger. Anything to let him know that he wasn’t alone.
But that would mean admitting to the demon, and to himself, that he cared about him. That he was more than a rival, more than a hesitant ally against the Law. That when he’d seen him mocked and paraded around on stage while an audience of thousands cheered he stopped breathing for a while.
So, the best he managed was, “We’ll make them pay.”
Wemmbu shuddered. “Yeah.”
Flame gave him the potion and wrapped his hand in bandages. Neither of them wanted to look at it anymore.
As Flame finished tending to his wounds and went looking for his dog underground , Wemmbu couldn’t help but feel a pang of loss. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been treated with that much care. Flame’s standoffish but attentive presence brought him back to band-aids and handed over potions of regeneration between sparring sessions with Mane.
Mane had always stepped back before getting too close. He’d looked out for Wemmbu, fought by his side, but the one time they’d hugged after surviving a close call with the Zam Empire he hid himself away for hours and pretended nothing happened afterwards. They were allies, a mentor and student. Never friends.
He expected Flame was about to do the same. Those two were more alike than either would ever admit.
“Grab on.”
“What?”
Sometime while he was thinking, Flame had found his dog and sat her down near the front entrance. He’d ducked back into Boosfer’s room and was now… crouched down in front of him?
Flame waited expectantly, twisting his head around to raise an eyebrow. At some point he’d put his blindfold back on.
“...You want me to come with you?”
“Bro, did you think I was going to leave you here? You can’t walk.”
“I mean, yeah. Kind of.”
“Are you actually stupid? Why would I go through the effort of fixing you up if I was going to let you get caught again? The Law will come back eventually. I’ll take you back to where I’m staying and we can figure out taking them down from there.”
He blinked. Flame’s home? For more than just a quick restock? Flame didn’t look like he was bleeding, but he must have hit his head badly to be suggesting that.
He must have been making a weird face because Flame added, “...Or I guess I can take you to a medic if you don’t want that.”
Wemmbu was about to start teasing him when he noticed the hesitancy on Flame’s face, the way he shifted awkwardly.
The immortal demon was nervous.
Even under Zam Flame had isolated himself, avoiding the others as much as possible. The only person he’d ever spoken to outside of duties was Mane and that had stopped after he’d betrayed the Empire. Both of them had done their best to keep a cool demeanour, but Wemmbu had never seen Flame attack someone with so much aggression to the point that it made him sloppy. He’d swung his sword wildly, barely even flinching as Mane cut into his flesh again and again, hits he could have easily stopped if he had been thinking at all. Winning that fight was nothing short of a miracle and sheer willpower.
Today was the first time he’d spoken about Mane since that war. Even as he did, he flinched like he was still on that battlefield.
As far as Wemmbu knew, he’d only had a couple friendships since then. Jaden, Lomedy, Parrot, Theo, if those last two could really be considered friends. Regardless, they had all fizzled away, through distance and betrayal. While he didn’t exactly know what had gone down between Flame and Lomedy, it sounded as if it was pretty irreversible.
It struck Wemmbu then that the man in front of him was incredibly lonely.
He couldn’t refuse. Not when Flame was reaching out despite every instinct in him telling him not to. Not when he was clearly afraid Wemmbu would reject him like everyone else in his life. Flame saved him, he owed him that much.
Besides, when was the last time he had somewhere proper to stay?
“I’ll go with you, but don’t you live 50,000 blocks out? That’s a long way to carry someone.”
Flame noticeably relaxed, even if he snarked, “Then I guess we should start soon. Come on, I don’t have all day.”
Maneuvering onto Flame’s back with a broken leg was a nightmare even with Flame’s assistance. Eventually he made it into a position that wasn’t exactly comfortable but wasn’t agony either, his arms and good leg wrapped tightly around Flame’s torso with his broken leg hanging loose.
It couldn’t have been comfortable for Flame either, although he didn’t complain. He only grumbled, “If you tell anyone about this I’ll break your mace myself.”
Wemmbu poked him in response.
“Seriously? That’s what we’re doing?”
“Stop being miserable.”
“Bro, why are you so weird?”
Wemmbu poked him again.
“You’re such a child.”
“I thought you wanted to get going.”
Flame sighed. “You were half-dead an hour ago. Don’t you need to rest or something?”
To be honest, Wemmbu was exhausted. But he was hesitant to let his guard down like that again. He’d already embarrassed himself enough.
But the monotonous footsteps, the dog’s padding next to them, the gentle swaying as Flame walked was really making his eyelids heavy. He was speaking quietly; Wemmbu had asked him about his sword and let him ramble about various groups he’d destroyed. He kept saying the word toxic over and over and something about it soothed his mind. It reminded him of Egg’s endless chatter as they’d crossed the Farlands. It had annoyed him to no end at the time but deep down he knew he’d have lost his mind in the silence.
He rested his head on Flame’s shoulder. The story was actually pretty interesting. Egg would probably like him if they ever met outside of combat.
When Wemmbu’s head had rolled onto him, Flame nearly dropped him in surprise. The demon was too tired to even notice, humming quietly and tightening his grip slightly.
“Keep talking,” he mumbled.
Flame continued the story of fighting the toxic team but his mind was elsewhere.
Before today, he’d assumed Wemmbu tolerated him at best. They were rivals, always sniping at each other even when they were forced to team up. Wemmbu had ruined his life and he’d ruined his in return. But something in him had changed. He’d given up the title of the strongest willingly, grinning like it was his birthday as he did it. He’d gone looking for Flame as soon as he’d escaped prison, and now here he was half-asleep on his shoulder.
Flame didn’t know what to think. People were so annoyingly unpredictable.
How could he define their relationship at this point? They weren’t rivals, Wemmbu didn’t seem to care about fighting him anymore. They knew each other too well to be acquaintances. Allies? Perhaps, but… Parrot had been his ally, and he would have died before being this vulnerable around him. And Flame had never been so worried about Parrot leaving him.
A word danced around his mind. Flame pushed it away for as long as possible.
“Flame?” Wemmbu was just about awake, words barely intelligible as his face pressed against his shoulder.
“Mm?”
“Thank you.”
And then, offhandedly, like what he said wasn’t about to send Flame’s carefully constructed barrier surrounding their relationship crashing down, he added, “You’re a good friend.”
Friend.
Fuck.
The word made so much sense and it scared him more than anything. A friend was weakness, it was loss. It was a knife in the back waiting to start bleeding. He’d watched those around him, one by one, be ruined by those they’d called friend.
Mane had been his brother and his best friend and he had abandoned him without a second thought the moment things had become tough in the Empire. Jaden used and betrayed him, had tried to kill him after everything they’d gone through together. And Lomedy? He was just a lost cause to him now. That idiot had stayed in prison rather than come out and face Flame, face the reality of their situation.
That was where friendship got people.
And yet, he ached for one. Sometimes, when he watched those huge teams that hunted him down, he wished that he was one of them. The way they laughed together, had each other’s backs, and mourned each loss he caused with fury.
And yet, Wemmbu was the most self-centered person he knew. He’d hurt everyone around him again and again. He’d hurt Flame with his dumb obsession with being the strongest and he’d hurt him more when he threw everything away and faked his death like the title didn’t even matter. There was never a choice but to challenge him after they slaughtered the army of 1000, or Wemmbu might have avoided fighting him for the rest of time, just to torment him. He couldn’t let that title stop meaning anything.
And yet, Flame cared about him anyway. He wanted to storm the Law’s base and kill everyone there with him. He wanted to make them suffer for what they did to him ten times over.
50,000 blocks was nothing; he’d carry him all the way to the Farlands if that’s what it took to get him away from Lettuce right now. Until he was recovered Flame would do anything to keep him safe.
Both of them had changed. If Wemmbu was as selfish as he’d once been he would never have risen to Flame’s challenge after the battle, knowing he’d lose the one thing he still held over him. And if Flame was as against friendship as he’d once been he wouldn’t have found himself as overcome with these feelings as he was now.
His throat felt like it had been stabbed through with broken glass as he choked, “You’re welcome.”
“Seriously. You didn’t have to.”
“Idiot,” he nudged Wemmbu’s resting head with his own, “I’d do anything for a friend.”