Chapter Text
The barren landscape of the End becomes boring after a time.
For only so long can one stare into infinite void and experience but three colours.
Yellow and black and purple.
And yet, Wemmbu hasn't taken his eyes off it.
Transfixed, seemingly, on the main island.
Egg draws him away from the window more than once.
A hand on his shoulder, to grab his attention.
A voice, to assure familiarity and presence.
And a push, to turn him back into the base and tear his focus from what's outside it.
Dinner with Minute and Egg doesn't ease the stiffness in his shoulders. His eyes flicker to the nearest window. He watches and listens for something to change.
He barely touches his food. Egg draws a line.
That line is crossed when he doesn't come to bed.
Egg turns over on his bed, covered by blue sheets and littered with a few stray white feathers.
Wemmbu's bed is opposite his. When Egg was given a room in the base, Wemmbu insisted on joining him.
Even when he isn't there, starlight spills from outside onto his bed. Empty, purposefully left a little messy. Purple, because of course it is.
The bedsheets, half pulled back, are a promise to return.
Egg throws his own covers off and gets up to find his friend.
The dark stone of the base is cold on his feet, like everything else in the End.
Most of the lanterns have been extinguished for the 'night', a symbolic setting of the sun the dimension lacks.
Wemmbu is exactly where Egg expects to find him.
Leaning out of a window. Arms rested on the sill, armoured with a weapon at his side. He stands guard for the night, ready for an attack.
Egg interrupts his watch.
"Brother," He says quietly, so as not to wake Minute, "you should sleep."
His insistence is, predictably, met with perseverance.
"Lettuce could come through and attack the base any second," Wemmbu argues, "I can't afford to let my guard down."
Egg steps a bit closer, ruffling his wings intentionally to make extra noise.
"What about Minute?"
Wemmbu is caught off-guard by that statement, attention unifying and turning fully to Egg.
"What?"
Egg shrugs casually, encouraging Wemmbu's posture to ease. It doesn't work.
"Minute protects the End, bro," He explains, "it's not your job."
That stumps his friend for a moment. A tail sweeps across the floor in thought.
"No, bro," Wemmbu decides on the shallow and annoying answer, apparently, "that's stupid."
Egg hums, then makes a deliberately exaggerated turn to the hallway.
"Guess I should let him know the position's been taken," he teases, enough to get the dragon's attention.
"Wait, bro–"
Egg runs to get a head start, so he can at least make it to Minute's room before Wemmbu catches up to him.
As expected, the angel is tackled to the ground right outside the End defender's door. He doesn't have to make much noise to gain attention; a dark wood door swings open on its hinges.
He feels Wemmbu freeze as Minute observes the situation before him.
"What's going on here?" he asks hesitantly.
"Wemmbu won't sleep!" Egg tattles immediately.
"Traitor!" The dragon above him hisses.
Minute gets them both up off the floor, and breathes a deep, tired sigh.
"Wemmbu," He addresses first, with the tone of a disappointed parent, "why aren't you sleeping?"
It is, unfortunately for Wemmbu, too late to just lie. It's not like Minute would believe Egg lied, even if Wemmbu wasn't standing in his armour with deep bruises under his eyes.
Magenta eyes turn to the floor.
It's answer enough for Minute, who takes a breath.
"Come on," the voidling calls them to a familiar and favoured room at the end of the hall, "both of you."
Egg is happy to comply, walking close behind Minute and making sure Wemmbu doesn't wander.
The Nest, as it has long been dubbed, is a shared room that the three of them made in the End base. Reserved for sick days and sleepovers, the room is filled with soft and comfortable blankets and pillows.
Minute stops just inside the closed door to help Wemmbu take his armour off, while Egg flops into the room's namesake in its centre. Wemmbu soon joins him, falling into the nest as grumpily as possible on his hands and knees.
His sleep clothes were layered under his armour, as if he had meant to have gone to bed and gotten distracted. He kneads the blankets of the nest, long since adjusted the way he seems to like them, with his hands.
Angels don't nest, and, to his knowledge, Voidlings don't either.
Egg doesn't pry into what nesting might fulfill for Wemmbu outside of being an exceptionally comfortable place to rest, but he does wish there was more literature on dragons.
Maybe he could write something of his own.
Wemmbu interrupts his daydreams of research papers and scientific discovery by butting his head into Egg's shoulder. He scratches between his friend's horns, watching Minute climb into the opposite side of the nest.
Nesting dragons, Egg thinks as Wemmbu nudges him to try and make him lie down, have major behavioural changes just by being in a nest-like structure.
Egg lays down on one of his wings and covers his body with the other, if only to placate Wemmbu. Compliance earns him a happy purr.
Wemmbu is happy.
Wemmbu is happy, because Egg is safe and Minute is here, and they're all in a nest that's warm and smells right.
He can protect them here.
Egg lets him protect him, like always. Getting the angel to lie down in the blankets is easy; it's just how it always is with the two of them.
Minute is different.
Wemmbu turns his attention away from Egg, who is already safe, to Minute, crawling across soft fabric to reach him. He nudges Minute with his head.
The voidling doesn't budge.
Minute only seems confused at the action, so Wemmbu tries again.
He wedges Minute's shoulder between his horns and tries to topple him from where he's sitting.
Instead of being listened to, Wemmbu is grabbed.
He's pulled into Minute's lap, which is not what he wanted.
He huffs at the indefensible position, flicks his tail and tries to wiggle away.
Minute lets him go, and he flops onto his back.
Wemmbu rolls over and tackles Minute, only to end up sitting next to him when the attempt to knock him over fails again.
He keeps trying, telling Minute to lie down so Wemmbu can protect him. He tries to be gentle, so as not to hurt him.
"Wemmbu," Minute calls him out of another shot at pushing him over in that calm-but-firm parental voice usually reserved for when Wemmbu's being stubborn or impulsive.
He hears and ignores him, because Minute is the one being stubborn. Egg understands him perfectly, and so should Minute.
"Wemmbu," Minute repeats more firmly, placing a hand on Wemmbu's forehead to stop him from butting into him.
He doesn't growl because growling is aggressive, and Wemmbu wants to protect. He doesn't whine at him, either, because protectors aren't weak.
He can't be weak again.
He couldn't protect anyone from that stupid prison.
Not even himself.
Minute grabs Wemmbu and flips him onto his back in the nest. Wemmbu responds by wriggling around onto his stomach.
A hand is placed on his back. Gentle pressure, more suggestion than force, keeps his ventral side in the blankets on the bottom of the nest.
He turns his head to the side, and he sees Egg sitting up a short distance from him. Egg was comfortable and safe, but now Minute's messing up his whole system. He whines in self-pity at his failure to control the simple situation.
A new hand finds its way under his chest, and Wemmbu is pulled into Minute's lap again.
He whines again, pressing his head down into Minute's shoulder in a bid for comfort. Minute purrs back and scratches the base of his scalp, which is wrong because whining is unbecoming, unproductive, and annoying.
Egg presses himself to Wemmbu's back, laying feathered wings over the scaled ones at Wemmbu's sides.
It's warm and comfortable. His brother's hand carding through the hair above his braid pulls an inevitable purr from his own throat. It's quiet, but present, layered under Minute's.
Minute places a steady hand on his core, lightly brushing his thumb where crystal meets skin. Wemmbu stiffens, melts, and whines because his core is vulnerable, but Minute promises to protect him, which isn't fair because Wemmbu is supposed to be protecting him.
His friends, both constantly stuck in the End due to his own failure, wear his guard down until he relents.
They lie down as three, all huddled together in soft blankets gathered over months of impromptu visits and a few too many injuries and ailments.
He turns over in Minute's hold to wrap his arms around Egg, whom he still can and must protect.
He's been assured again and again that he isn't a bad dragon. He feels safe surrounded here, by his kin, but it's still wrong.
The rumbling in his chest matches itself to Minute's, following his example.
It's terribly comforting, and the energy required for his pitying self-loathing quickly escapes him.
Maybe going to sleep earlier would have been a good idea.
He falls asleep first.