Chapter Text
Ranboo is finally starting to settle down after the relentless launch of New Year’s day fireworks outside, with Springerle curled up against his leg as he mindlessly soothes her back to sleep, when he hears a loud knock at his front door.
Springerle jolts up again, and Ranboo kisses the fur between her ears, whispering, “It’s okay, honey, go back to sleep. The fireworks are done, it’s okay, I’ll be right back, yeah?” He pulls his legs out from under the covers, careful not to jostle her, and spares a glance at his bedside clock to see that it’s, in fact, three in the morning. He had been meaning to sleep way earlier than this, but that’s not really his concern anymore– rather, why the hell is someone at his front door at such an early hour?
It’s probably Niki, Ranboo reasons to himself. He hadn’t gotten any texts from her, but maybe her phone died and she needed to come back and grab something. Maybe the celebrations at Puffy’s place are over with and she’s not staying the night, and there isn’t any spare key outside, so she’s waiting for Ranboo to answer. That’s most likely it, Ranboo would have to imagine, because he’s pretty sure a serial killer isn’t going to show up to his apartment complex of all places on New Year’s day.
Even still, he makes sure to grab a hairbrush as a weapon, and he gives Springerle another set of scritches before he opens his bedroom door-
and is immediately faced by Dream.
Ranboo startles so badly that he slams his ankle into the side of his bed and falls onto the covers, hairbrush dropped on the floor and hand clutching at his heart, and Dream watches him fumble with an amused grin before saying, easily, “You really need to remember to lock your front door.”
“Dream,” Ranboo gasps out, “Uh- uh, hi, why are you- why are you here?”
“Are you busy?” Dream asks, at three in the morning, like this is a casual conversation they’re having and not at all like Dream just, for all intents and purposes, broke into Ranboo’s house.
“I- I guess not?” Ranboo answers honestly, still trying to get his heart rate under control, “Dream, why are you here? It’s- it’s three in the morning, don’t you, uh, isn’t there- aren’t you celebrating? You- you said you were celebrating, uh, with Sapnap and George for the ball dropping, remember? Why- how did you-”
Dream’s smile flickers. “Plans change. People bail. The ball drop wasn’t even that great, did you see it?”
“I- I did, yeah,” Ranboo says, somewhat absent-mindedly as he watches Dream’s expression carefully. Plans change, people bail, what does he mean? “Is- is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Dream’s quick to say, but his words aren’t convincing, and before he can process it, Dream holds out his hand and Ranboo accepts it. With the both of them standing and Springerle meowing in slight alarm beside them, Dream states, “I have something to show you. It won’t take long, but nobody else will come with me. You know how it is, they don’t understand all the intricacies of this place like we do. I need you to come with me.”
“It- I don’t doubt you, but, uh, isn’t it- isn’t it kind of late?” Ranboo asks warily. “Or- or early, I guess. Just- do you want to crash here, and we can go in the morning?”
“It’s going to storm, Ranboo.” Springerle jumps off the bed and rests beside Ranboo’s feet, and he kneels down to pet her, keeping his eyes locked with Dream. It’s one of the first times in a while that Dream holds this eye contact without breaking it or waiting for Ranboo to look away before staring. That has to mean this is important, surely, even if every other clue didn’t already point to that. “You’ve been watching the news, you don’t need me to tell you that. We have to go now. Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course I do, I-” Ranboo swallows before finishing that statement, adopting a more agreeable tone and negotiating, “I need to fill Springerle’s food bowl, first. Will I need to bring anything else?”
Dream’s eyes flicker towards Springerle before he nods, lips pressed together in what might be a smile if Ranboo turns his head ninety degrees to the right. “Feed the cat,” Dream allows, and Ranboo takes his hand again to get up from where he’s crouched on the floor. “Bring your phone, wallet, and driver’s license. The camera would be nice, but we’re not doing anything that your phone can’t handle.”
That seems easy enough. “Okay. Give me a second to feed her, and I’ll change into something warmer, and then we can go?”
“I’ll wait in the kitchen,” Dream says. “Where’s the cat food? I can pour it out for her.”
“Oh, she’s kind of picky,” Ranboo says apologetically. “I’ve got it, don’t worry. You can help yourself to anything, it’s just me here today. So- so you can have anything, I’ll just be out in a few.”
Dream nods silently before turning around and leaving, and Ranboo catches a glint of metal in his back pocket. It almost looks like a key, but Dream had said that the door was unlocked, and Niki has the spare key that would normally be outside, so that doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s- oh, yes, wait, obviously it’s Dream’s car keys, even though it doesn’t have the large button side sticking out, that’s probably shoved away somewhere in the baggy jeans. Of course it’s Dream’s car keys, why the hell else would he have a key in his back pocket? Ranboo needs to take a breath, Jesus Christ.
Or, no. Ranboo needs to hurry up, actually, because Dream’s waiting for him and he needs to bundle up tightly for the blizzard that might reach their neighborhood by the time Dream drops him off back here, assuming this trip takes no longer than two hours or so.
Ranboo trades his sleep shirt for a black long-sleeved shirt, throwing a sweatshirt over top of that. He considers wearing a skirt for a brief moment before he realizes how impractical that is for the weather, instead electing to wear the highest-rise socks he has and a pair of thick jeans. He slides his phone into his back pocket and pulls his driver’s license and wallet out from the bedside drawer, and then leaves the bedroom with Springerle close behind to head to the kitchen.
Having taken Ranboo up on his offer, Dream is perched in one of the kitchen chairs, eating a green apple. Ranboo gives him a brief smile before pouring out Springerle’s cat food– which isn’t actually that unique, like Ranboo had said earlier, but the label is kind of hard to parse and there’s also another bag in here she likes in the afternoon– he’s pretty sure Dream doesn’t care that much about Springerle’s diet either way.
He heads back to his room quickly to wrap the camera around his neck before re-emerging, Dream throwing out the apple core carelessly before beckoning him with, “Shall we?”
“Yeah, let me make sure I lock the door this time,” Ranboo says, mostly to himself, and Dream waits patiently for Ranboo to make extra sure that the house is guarded and Springerle will be safe while he’s away.
As Dream and Ranboo walk to Dream’s car, mindful of the light snow that has accumulated on the sidewalk, Dream casually says, “You’ve been ignoring my texts recently.”
“Oh,” Ranboo says, the sound coming out instinctually without any thought. He quickly amends it by adding on, “I’m sorry, I- it’s been busy recently with, uh, work and things.”
“Alright.” Dream puts the car into ignition, and the two don’t waste any time before they start driving down the road. Dream, noticeably, doesn’t put anything into the car’s GPS system, but he has his phone pulled up in his lap. Ranboo can’t blame him for that– he also prefers the sound of his phone’s map feature over the car’s loud GPS voice. “So you say that it was a work thing.”
Is that meant to be a question? “Uh- I mean, yeah, it was. Things have been kind of busy lately, and I’m sorry. I- I thought that you stopping by the bakery two days ago made up for it?”
“The banana muffin was good,” Dream admits, and Ranboo’s brain briefly tries to piece together if that’s Dream’s normal order, because that sounds sort of familiar. It takes him a few seconds to realize that it’s Tubbo’s, actually, which makes a lot more sense– has Dream ever even been to the bakery before? “But I’m still kind of upset that you ghosted me for an entire day. Something could have happened, Ranboo, that was irresponsible of you. Turning your phone off too so that I wouldn’t see the delivered signals– that was a low blow, Ranboo, aren’t we friends?”
“We are,” Ranboo confirms hurriedly, “I- I’m sorry. I won’t do that again, promise. I- did anything urgent happen?”
“No,” Dream replies, “but something could have. I appreciate the apology though, I just really hope that you mean it.”
“Of course I do,” Ranboo insists, because there’s not really any other option for him here. “I won’t do that again. And- and if looks like it’ll be a busy day, I’ll let you know ahead of time so-”
“That won’t do.”
Ranboo turns his head. “What?”
“If you’re having a busy day, I still expect you to answer my texts, Ranboo,” Dream says, voice firm. “Okay?”
Ranboo tries to process that, but his tired and slightly confused brain fails to understand Dream’s logic. Still, though, he figures that this must be a conversation they’ve had before that Ranboo’s just forgotten, so he finds it easy to make the same promise again, “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not even just about something happening to me, Ranboo,” Dream points out, “it’s about something happening to you. You could have been dead for all I knew, and I wouldn’t even be the first to see the body.” Dream lets out a laugh, and Ranboo knows in his core that this isn’t a time where he should laugh, too. “Like, thank God I saw you at that bakery, and thank God you told me your address before-”
“I’ve told you my address?” Ranboo interrupts.
Dream glares at him. “Don’t interrupt me,” he scolds, “and yeah. We’re friends, right? That’s not the first time I’ve been over, don’t you- oh, well, I guess you’ve forgotten.” His face softens. “Yeah, I know your address, I’ve been to your place before. That’s how I know that you always forget to lock the front door.”
“Did I lock it when we left?”
“Yes, Ranboo, you did.” Dream sighs tiredly. “God, what am I going to do with you? What am I going to do with you.” The first iteration sounds like a clear question, but the second is mumbled to himself, and Ranboo almost wants to ask if he didn’t already know it wasn’t his place to. “Look, just- just leave your phone on, okay? We don’t have to make it more complicated than that. We have something bigger to focus on, anyway.”
“Right, yeah, sorry.” The place that Dream’s taking him. He should ask about that. “How far is it?”
Dream glances at his phone before letting out a non-committal sound. “It’s only about three hours from here, assuming the skies stay clear. Which, I guess they won’t, but either way, that’s only an extra half hour.”
Ranboo’s breath catches in his throat. “Did- did you say three hours? ”
“Yeah?” Dream gives Ranboo a look way too relaxed for what he just said. “What, is that a problem? You didn’t seem busy.”
“I- I’m not busy, but I- I didn’t realize you were taking us somewhere that was- that was three hours away?” Ranboo doesn’t work today, thankfully, but he was expecting that they would be back before the sun rises in case Niki came home, and- and he wasn’t expecting three hours, that’s really far and Ranboo didn’t agree to that. “What’s- what’s three hours away? I thought-”
Dream sighs loudly, and Ranboo’s protests stop, his brain quickly refocusing on listening as Dream states clearly, “Look. You have nothing to do, I have nothing to do, everyone who claims to love us has bailed on our plans. It’s just you and me, Ranboo. And there’s something important where I’m taking you, because you’ve been so close-minded to assume that all of this is just about this town. It’s so much more than that Ranboo, bigger than you can conceptualize. And I’ll be right there to show you, but you’ve got to trust me. You already said you did, you can’t take it back.”
“I do trust you,” Ranboo says weakly, “but- but I- I wasn’t preparing for this.”
“You did exactly what I told you to do,” Dream retorts. “I have snacks in the backseat and a blanket, too, in case you’re the type to bitch and whine about the cold. I don’t think you are, but you never know, people change on you. Get needier than you expect. Isn’t that right, Ranboo?”
“I-” Ranboo doesn’t know how to respond to that. “I- I’m fine with the cold.”
“Good boy,” Dream says. “You can take a nap, then. I downed a few shots of espresso before driving over, I can make this drive on my own. Just get some rest, alright? You’ll need it for what we’re going to do.”
“What are we going to do?” Ranboo asks, and it’s only then that he registers the feeling swirling in his stomach, growing fiercer and fiercer with every minute that passes: fear. “I thought- I thought we were just going to drive and take some photos?”
Dream laughs, loudly, almost infectiously. “Go to sleep, Boo,” he says, and the mocking way he pronounces that nickname only adds to the anxiety in his chest. “We’ll be there before you know it.”
Ranboo wants to protest more, wants to interrogate Dream about where exactly he’s taking him. But he knows that conversation will be useless, and Dream will just get more and more upset with him, and considering who is driving the vehicle right now, it wouldn’t be a good idea for Ranboo to upset him.
So Ranboo just settles down, shutting his eyes and adjusting his seatbelt to rest more comfortably over his lap, and forces his breaths to be slower. For at least twenty minutes, he fakes sleep, hoping that Dream will say something to himself that might help, but all Dream does is pat his head a few times and turn up the noise on the GPS.
And soon enough, despite his best wishes, Ranboo finds himself slipping into actual sleep, subconscious eerily calm as he tries to convince himself, to the last second, that Dream has a sane explanation for this.
–
When Dream eventually shakes Ranboo awake, it’s still dark outside. The sun rises at around seven in January, and if the two of them left at around three AM and the traffic wasn’t so bad, then it makes perfect sense that the sun hasn’t come out yet.
Still, that doesn’t shake the anxiety out of Ranboo’s throat as he straightens up, making sure he has everything with him as he and Dream open the door.
The first and most immediate thing he registers is that the brief glimpse he got of the sky isn’t all that he can see here, and that the two of them are actually submerged partially in a parking garage. There aren’t that many other cars here, and the lot isn’t that big either, so they must be at a small institute. Still, it’s not what Ranboo was expecting, and the chill of the internal structure isn’t the only thing that makes him shiver upon first leaving the car.
Behind him, Dream pulls out a backpack full of snacks and presumably other things, as well as the blanket he had mentioned before. “We’re at a hotel,” he explains readily, before Ranboo can even ask. He must tell the confusion on his still-tired expression. “I figure that we may as well check in, just in case the two of us crash while we’re out there. It’s pretty cheap, anyway, so I just snagged us a room with two queen beds to accommodate for your height, and I figured that should be good enough.”
“Okay,” Ranboo says uneasily, but he doesn’t exactly have any other complaints to raise that Dream hasn’t already answered in that one series of sentences. So, Ranboo just nods slowly, sparing one last look at the car before asking, “Do you need me to pay for anything?”
Dream laughs. “Nah. You didn’t know we’d be staying at a hotel, so I’ve got it covered. I just asked that you bring your wallet in case you needed something out of a vending machine.”
“Oh.” That makes sense, and it’s good knowing that Ranboo doesn’t have to worry about the financial side of this. That doesn’t make him feel all that much better, but he forces himself with a heavy swallow and deep inhale to suck it up, because this is Dream and Ranboo trusts Dream, because Dream clearly thought out every detail to this excursion meticulously, even if he didn’t entrust Ranboo with all of it. And honestly, Ranboo wouldn’t trust himself with that information either– he could have messed something up really, really easily. So really, all he should say is, “Okay,” and then let Dream take over the rest.
He follows Dream soundlessly like a shadow as the two of them leave the parking garage and go into the hotel. Dream, charismatic as always, introduces Ranboo as his friend and tells the hotel clerk that they’re here to stake out some of the local mines. She seems to get what he means, despite the fact that Ranboo has no idea there were mines here, but he doesn’t even know the name of the town they’re in, so maybe that makes sense.
It doesn’t take long to check in, and Dream is swift in his motions, bidding the clerk goodnight before guiding Ranboo to an elevator and taking them to where their room is. It’s not a large hotel, so it’s not like the number of floors is impressive, but Ranboo still notices that Dream booked a room on the fourth floor, the highest one they have. Maybe that’s just because they only have double queens on the top floor, and Ranboo isn’t about to criticize the hotel management staff, but it’s still a little nerve-wracking and he finds himself pressing his back against the wall.
Far too quickly, the elevator dings, and the two of them step out and make their way to the room. Dream slides the key in and gets it right on the first try, letting Ranboo take the first steps in. He’s pretty sure he’s never stayed in a hotel room before, now that he thinks about it, except maybe once on a foster family trip or something. At the very least, this is the first time staying in one that he can remember, and he has to appreciate the tasteful artwork on the walls and the coordinated red and beige color theme.
Dream drops the backpack of food onto the spare armchair in the room before sitting down on one of the beds. He takes the one closest to the coffee machine and farthest from the chair, and so Ranboo takes the other one, which puts him farther from the door and closer to the large window. The details don’t matter much, Ranboo imagines, as he expects that they will be leaving soon anyway.
However, Dream makes no effort to up and leave, instead scrolling on his phone for a few minutes while Ranboo anxiously watches him from where he hovers by the TV, before he gets up and starts making himself some coffee. He gives Ranboo a glance, silently offering him some, and when Ranboo shakes his head, Dream’s lip quirks up. “Have at it with the food, Ranboo,” Dream says, gesturing to the backpack. “I didn’t poison anything, promise. It’s literally just some cheap shit I grabbed from my place, but hey, this hotel has a fridge and a microwave, so may as well make use of it.”
Ranboo takes a few seconds to process that before nodding, hesitantly setting his things down on his bed before going to open the backpack. As he does, Dream starts the coffee machine, meaning that Ranboo has to speak a bit louder than he likes to ask, “When do you think we should go?”
Dream shrugs. “Probably by sunrise, at least. Maybe a bit after that?” Ranboo’s face must betray his worry, and Dream laughs directly in the face of it. “Loosen up, Ranboo. We’re having fun, aren’t we? Just two friends hanging out in a nearby sitting, eating shitty food and talking. You don’t have to be so methodical about this.”
Ranboo shuts his eyes for a second, hand still poised over the backpack. “I know, but I-”
“Ranboo,” Dream interrupts, moving away from the coffee machine and taking quick strides to stand beside Ranboo, putting a hand on his shoulder. It squeezes tightly, almost enough to bruise, before he lightens his grip and gently says, “You don’t have to overthink this, okay? I know you’re used to tackling everything on your own, but you’ve got me here. You’re my best friend, Ranboo, and I have a lot of trust in you, and you keep saying that you trust me, but I’m starting to doubt that. I didn’t bring you out here for you to get cold feet, okay? I need you to care about the thing that we’ve spent this past year and more trying to unwravel, and in order to do that, I need you to relax. ” Ranboo breathes out shakily, and Dream forces his shoulder to turn so that Ranboo is meeting his eyes directly. Dream isn’t smiling, and he looks dead serious, and Ranboo has to trust him because there’s no other option, never was another option. Ranboo is Dream’s best friend, and Ranboo saved Dream’s life, and Dream is one of Ranboo’s friends and maybe the most substantial one, in this moment at least, and so… “Can you do that for me?”
And easily, “Yes. I can- I can relax. I can do that. I- I trust you, Dream, I promise, let me- let me make this up to you.”
Dream shakes his head. “You don’t have to do anything, Ranboo, except relax for a bit and eat some food.” Dream squeezes his shoulder one last time before letting go, and Ranboo represses the urge to move his own hand to the place of impact and make sure it hasn’t bruised. Across the room again, Dream adds, “I’m going to dip for a few minutes, by the way. I’ll be back, I just wanted to talk to the hotel clerk again. She seemed familiar, didn’t she?”
Truth be told, Ranboo’s already sort of forgotten her face, just remembers how easily Dream talked to her. Ranboo’s apprehensive to let Dream go, but he just promised to relax and trust him more, so he nods and says, “Okay.”
“I also need to check my car, because I think you jinxed me and there’s a chance I forgot to lock it,” Dream laughs. The coffee finishes, and with no disregard for how hot it must be, Dream takes a long sip. “Alright. Eat some stuff, I’ll be back in five.”
“Okay. See you.”
Dream smiles before using the keycard to step out of the room and lock it behind them, leaving Ranboo alone with everything that the two of them had, standing in an otherwise vacant hotel room.
It won’t be like this for long, though, Ranboo reminds himself before he can begin to panic. Dream is going to be right back, and he’ll probably be pissed if by the time he returns, Ranboo hasn’t started to at least eat something. And he might have a point to that, too, because the anxiety in his stomach should be fading out, meaning that what’s left of the nausea must be hunger.
After looking through all the snacks– a large bag of salt and vinegar chips, a couple of fruit gummy snacks, a box of two microwave mac and cheese bowls, and a few pieces of fresh fruit– Ranboo picks out a clementine and starts carefully peeling it. He dislikes the way that the soft part of the skin gets underneath his nails, but he persists anyway, finding the taste of it pretty good despite its prolonged stay in the bag. It’s winter, anyway, so citrus season must have saved its case.
By the time he’s done eating that, Dream hasn’t come back yet, but Ranboo shakes the thought away and grabs another clementine. It doesn’t take two minutes to traverse the entirety of the hotel grounds twice over, Ranboo reasons, so he should be way more patient about Dream’s imminent return.
Ranboo gets through all of the clementines before he parts from the bag, carefully throwing them away, and then returns to fiddle with one of the mac and cheese boxes. He should probably make this for himself, but he feels like hotels are specific about microwaves, and even if there is a microwave in the room, maybe he should be careful about it. Or maybe it doesn’t matter and he should just go for it, but is he even hungry enough for that- oh, of course he is, his stomach still hurts and he feels a bit like he might throw up. So he should probably just make himself the mac and cheese using the water bottle that is already stocked in the room, or maybe he should just eat one of the fruit gummy snacks, because that might be easier-
Eventually, Ranboo decides to just eat one of the gummies, having ripped the bag open on impulse and finding it as fair a way as any to commit to eating it. He takes a few careful bites, finding that the citrus flavors are disappointingly bad, but nothing beats the real thing and certainly not bad flavoring additives. At the very least, the grape flavored ones taste nice, and he knows people complain about grape and cherry flavors tasting like cough syrup, but Ranboo’s always liked the taste of cough syrup a little, anyway, from the few times he can remember having to have it.
He’s eaten a total of four separate things before he realizes that Dream isn’t back yet, and he quickly checks his phone to see if there are any texts. Nothing. He decides to leave his phone face up anyway, scrolling through his playlists to listen to some soft instrumental music, just to ease his mind more. Not that he’s nervous, exactly, but there’s not exactly anyone to talk to right now, and his phone is still fully charged, so assuming that Dream comes back kind of soon and the two of them can part ways with the hotel room, he doesn’t expect his phone to die.
Five songs have passed with the durations of two minutes, four minutes, four minutes again, six minutes, and eight minutes. Ranboo gets up from the bed and starts to pace, expecting every second for Dream to suddenly appear again at the door. He doesn’t. Ranboo paces anyway, because at the very least he can maybe make his body tired enough to fall asleep. He just finds that he feels more and more tense as he walks along the length of the short room.
He eventually makes himself one of the mac and cheeses, apologizing silently to the neighboring rooms if they hear the sound of the microwave, and also apologizing silently to Dream if he actually wanted to drink some of the bottled water. He’s drinking coffee, though, and checking his car, and maybe he has some more water bottles in there, or maybe he can just ask the clerk for some more, or- or actually, there’s another bottle stowed away, actually, so that should- that should be fine.
He sits cross-legged, onto song sixteen, and he shuts off the music in favor of scrolling through his favorite images in his photo library until he can find a video of Springerle he took a while ago. It’s only thirty seconds, but he watches it over and over on loop as he eats through the pasta. He eventually throws out the box, watching the video a few more times before deciding to shut his phone off from noise altogether. He should probably try sleeping, now that he has the chance.
He gets forty five minutes of dazed sleep before he wakes up in a panic. He’s somewhere- he doesn’t know where he is, but it’s not his house, and it kind of looks like a hotel room and there’s an open backpack next to him, oh God, and there’s nobody else in here, and-
There’s a window, okay, there’s a window.
Ranboo walks out to the window, opening the curtains to see the sun starting to rise. He watches it through the panes for a bit before realizing that one of the panes actually slides open, and carefully, he steps out onto the patio. The air that hits his skin is frigid, but it’s better than being trapped in the room, even if the fall is long from up here.
It takes Ranboo a little longer to remember where he is, and he watches the sun rise with a sinking feeling in his chest as he realizes that Dream hasn’t come back yet.
He goes back into the room and grabs the blanket, taking it back outside and wrapping it around his legs. It’ll probably hurt whenever he wakes up if he tries to sleep out here, but the light is comforting and there was something off about the actual beds in the room, so Ranboo drapes himself in the cloth and shuts his eyes.
He tries to pretend that he doesn’t wish that someone was there right beside him.
He fails, brain filled with images of brown-haired boys as he drifts off to sleep again.
Two hours pass when he finally wakes up, the sun starting to beat down on him, and he feels panic fill his body again like heavy liquid metal. He doesn’t know what town he’s in, nor how to get back to his house, nor where the hell Dream is, nor what he’s supposed to do in this situation-
He- he hasn’t been- no, this isn’t-
Was Ranboo talked into getting kidnapped? Is that what this is? Is Dream ever coming back?
He opens his phone and texts Dream something, a casual, Hey, you okay? When the message delivers, though, he hears the text tone sound from back inside the hotel room, and he realizes with an asphyxiating feeling that he has no way to contact Dream.
If he tries to go to the front desk and talk to the clerk, he’s sure that they would maybe understand, but they would also probably find it sketchy that an unaccompanied teenager is suddenly out looking for someone with nothing but a grey backpack in his room, and Ranboo looks sort of strange and can’t talk right so maybe, maybe that would actually backfire.
He can call someone, but Tubbo can’t exactly get here, Techno could if Ranboo just bothered to look for the actual address but he can’t recognize these buildings and is too scared to search online, scared that Dream might have dragged him somewhere farther than he expected, and the last time he talked to Techno was ages ago, anyway, so he can’t- he can’t call him-
And Niki, he could text xem, but xe has xeir own stuff going on, and xe is going to ask too many questions, and Ranboo can deal with being alone for a few hours but he really doesn’t want to hear any more questions-
Maybe he calls the police? No, no, no, that’s a horrible idea, he’s not calling the police, Dream did nothing wrong and maybe- oh God, maybe Dream’s in trouble and Ranboo’s just sitting here looking at the sun doing absolutely nothing, and maybe it’s Ranboo’s fault they’re out here- no, no, it definitely is, because Ranboo started the whole there’s something wrong with the town thing, and even if Dream agrees it’s definitely Ranboo’s core idea from the start, it must to have been, and even if that’s true the police won’t believe him, Dream always said that the police wouldn’t believe him.
There’s nothing Ranboo can do. He has nobody to call, no way to get help, no way to get back home. He has his driver’s license, but he doesn’t have the slightest clue how to use Dream’s car, and Dream is probably going to wonder where his car went too, and Ranboo has no money nor is at the age required to rent a car, and he can’t see any obvious public transportation from where he glances off the balcony, so his only way out is walking or taking Dream’s car but either way that means he defied Dream’s orders and Dream will find him and get angry and Ranboo doesn’t want Dream to get angry-
He grasps the balcony railing with both his hands, fingers turning pink from where they peek out from his gloves due to the cold, and Ranboo watches the storm clouds roll with hyperventilating horror in his chest. Oh God, is it going to rain? No, no, it’s winter, so maybe it’ll hail? What if it’s a blizzard, and Dream can’t get back here in time, and he gets stranded in the cold and avalanches and how long did he book this room for, Ranboo doesn’t even have a room key, if Dream dies he has no way out of here, because Dream is the only one he trusts but Dream isn’t here-
He forces himself to take a deep breath, vision getting spotty as he panics, and he starts to realize that he’s begun sobbing to himself, tears frozen on his face as he tries to get a grip on himself. It’s going to be fine, it- it has to be fine, Dream is coming back, it’s taking him a while but he’s going to come back.
It’s been a little over four hours– no, no, closer to five– since Dream left, and all he had to do was check his car and talk to the person at the front desk. At this point, the clerk has probably changed shifts from a night shift worker to a morning one, so unless he happens to know everyone here, he’s definitely not talking to them. And it doesn’t take that long to check his car– Ranboo has had to check his car five times in twenty minutes out of fear for forgetting something several times in his life, and that’s all it takes, really, just twenty minutes and Dream’s a lot faster than Ranboo is mentally so it probably takes less.
If Dream doesn’t show up by sunset, Ranboo is going to have to call the police, or talk to the front clerk, or something. This isn’t a place he owns; he can’t stay in this hotel room forever, and by the time it’s that late he’s going to need to get back home so that he can go to school tomorrow- oh God, there’s school tomorrow, oh that is not good.
It’s almost eleven, which means it’s going to be a while until sundown, but also that it’s going to be close to lunch time soon, and Ranboo can go a while without eating if he has to, isn’t exactly put off my hunger any more than the average person, so if he has to spend an entire day eating nothing but what’s in Dream’s backpack, then he can. But eventually, that food is going to run out, and his phone will run out of charge, and he’s going to be stuck here. He has his wallet, he has his driver’s license, but that only gets him so far when he doesn’t have a car to use and he doesn’t know where he is.
Why is Dream taking so long? He said that he needed Ranboo to trust him, and Ranboo does, Ranboo always has, and maybe he didn’t trust him enough? Is that the problem, Dream is just- is just waiting for Ranboo to finally cave and lean into him fully? Ranboo needs autonomy, this isn’t just about Dream, and- and why would Dream leave him like this, has he- has he really done anything so wrong to deserve abandonment?
What if this isn’t even intentional? What if Dream is- what if Dream is dead, and Ranboo couldn’t save him, and he’s the lead suspect because he’s the last one who talked to him while he was alive, and then Ranboo goes to jail and he can’t see anyone again and nobody can pay his bail and he’ll die in there he’ll die he’ll-
No, no, Ranboo’s hands are clean, he doesn’t even know if Dream’s dead and he knows that if he is then it’s not Ranboo’s fault, that’s easily proven, all that they could analyze off of him is that his fingertips are covered in clementine juice and that’s it, he’s done nothing-
Maybe, then, if Dream doesn’t come back, Ranboo shouldn’t call the police, because- because maybe they’ll be wrong, and Ranboo doesn’t trust them, knows what happens to people who are clinically crazy when they try to interact with a police officer, and the clerks will just rat him out, so maybe if- maybe if Dream doesn’t come back, Ranboo tries to drive his car, and he won’t be able to find the car keys but he can- he can figure something out, probably, climb in through the trunk- he’ll have to open it but he can- he can-
He doesn’t want to resort to that, but assuming he can get it open, that’s maybe the best decision. Drive Dream’s car back to his hometown, drop it off at his apartment complex and explain the situation to Sapnap and George, and then go back home. Ranboo has to go to school tomorrow, has to make sure Springerle is taken care of, he can’t stay here forever.
He’s so stupid. Ranboo’s so stupid for doing this, and he trusts Dream, he does, Dream is one of his closest friends, but Ranboo should have asked more questions before the two of them left, should have protested to leaving when they’re going three hours away. This is his own fault, he should have known, he trusts Dream but he should have asked if he was under the influence or if something was happening or why they left in the middle of the night-
Dream is going to come back. Dream isn’t an idiot; Dream knows what this must look like, knows that if he leaves Ranboo too long that it’ll look like it was a kidnapping or abandonment of a minor or something. Dream hates police as much as Ranboo does, has talked endlessly about the corruption in the system, and he must know that if he doesn’t come back, then he’s going to have to deal with them. And Dream- Dream doesn’t want to die, he’s too careful to get assaulted and killed by another person, so he must be out there. Maybe he’s getting an early lunch for them, or- or maybe the car got stolen and it is taking a while to sort out, and he just left his phone here anyway, yeah, yeah, surely it must be that.
Ranboo should feel calmer after walking through every single possibility, but his chest is still hiccuping over breaths, and his fingers are turning white from gripping the edge of the railing so hard. His earlier observations stand true, Ranboo notices as he stares off into the sky again: it looks like it is going to storm, either blizzard or hail or frozen rain. Knowing that, he should go back inside before he gets a cold or frostbite– his fingerless gloves only protect so much, and his choice of clothing didn’t accommodate for the fact that wherever Dream took him would be colder than back home– but he finds himself frozen out there, taking in the freezing oxygen like a lifeline, heart blistering in his chest as he tries to find some tranquility out here.
Not for the first time in Ranboo’s life, he thinks that this might be the actual place he dies.
It would be bad, obviously, it would, but there’s something about dying on the first day of the new year that both depresses and soothes Ranboo. Death would mean abandoning Springerle, but he’s sure that as he looms closer to passing, he could message Niki and let her know to circle back home when she can. Death would also mean having to abandon Niki herself, but she’s strong and Ranboo was never a permanent fixture in her life, and aside from her the only other people he would really be leaving would be Techno, who might not even notice he’s gone, and…
Ranboo closes his eyes, teardrops turning to frost in his eyelashes.
The last day Ranboo spent with Tubbo was one of the best days of Ranboo’s life. It was melancholy sometimes, and Ranboo admitted to more than he ever intended, but Tubbo made him laugh and Ranboo made him smile and they watched the sunset together while Tubbo called him pretty over and over and over, and it felt like Ranboo was finally getting an experience in life that he’d been deprived of.
He’d never had those teenage romance escapades he hears about, and has actively tried to avoid them for all the drama they can bring, and it’s only this year that he’s ever made a school friend that has actually stayed. And, of course, it’s his first time having someone like Tubbo in his life, who is both that school friend and also so much more, and it’s scary but it’s new and exciting and it’s the kind of experience Ranboo thinks he can survive going through.
He opens his eyes again and looks at the horizon steadily. That is, if Ranboo has the choice.
But, that’s Tubbo, and that’s Niki and that’s Techno, and Dream obviously already knows, so that is effectively everyone who will care about him.
Someone flashes in Ranboo’s mind, quickly, and he bites down on his lip hard enough to start to taste metal.
Fundy.
Ranboo hadn’t considered him in all of this because, honestly, he’s been trying not to think about him. It’s not fair to Fundy, but Ranboo is trying to survive and the memories that Fundy brings up in the few times they talk, sparking nightmares upon nightmares of recollection, are directly stopping Ranboo from trying to live his life normally. It almost feels manipulative, Ranboo’s avoidance, because he knows how much Fundy is desperate to have him around, and that if he asked Fundy would probably drive all the way up here with no questions asked, and yet Ranboo can’t muster the thought of even asking because it feels embarrassing.
Fundy is neither a stranger nor someone Ranboo knows, and it would be wrong to depend on him in a situation like this, but he’s not the worst option on the table, honestly. And Ranboo, despite how selfish it is, almost craves the thought of Fundy coming here, finding Ranboo, wrapping him up in his warm arms and driving him home. Brotherly, the way that Fundy wants them to be, the way that Ranboo can never give.
Ranboo has two people in his life that are practically like siblings to him, and both of them came into his life with only the tiniest space of time between them. Niki, he knows better, and he loves so much it feels heartless, and he can’t let xem in when he knows their arrangement can’t be permanent. Fundy, he hardly knows at all, but he finds his fingers trembling at the thought of just telling him to get here, not having to explain or say a word but just asking him to save Ranboo-
Ranboo is so, so selfish. And if this is where he has to die, he would rather not Fundy be there to witness it. It’s so, so cold, and Fundy must hate the cold for all the warmth he radiates, and touching him would feel like a fever, because Ranboo would be hit with both the frost and the heat and have to live with the fact that he’s hugging someone he could have had in his life if he were only a better brother.
The fact is that Ranboo is not the kind of person that stays. Dream must be trying to give Ranboo a taste of his own medicine with this, because it’s true, Ranboo doesn’t- he has never stayed for anyone. He left all his foster homes, presumably too much of a problem to handle, and he abandoned Fundy in some traumatic accident that Ranboo can’t grasp onto the memory of, and Niki took him in knowing that Ranboo probably asked to stay for a week and then remained for two years and is still going to leave, and Techno and Ranboo’s stint of tutoring has come to its close, and Tubbo- and Tubbo must realize that Ranboo likes him a lot, because it’s impossible not to see, but he can’t stay for him even then. He can’t stay, not for Niki or Techno or Tubbo or Fundy-
Goddammit, what the hell is he forgetting about him and Fundy? He- he’s trying not to agonize over it, but he knows that Fundy told him, can vaguely remember coming home in a haze of distress, and his brain must have blocked out the details to either protect or persecute him, he can never really tell its motivations, whether his brain wants him dead or wants him to live. Broken, nevertheless, but God, what is he missing? It has to be significant, has to explain all of this, has to matter, has to has to has to-
One hand goes to his chest, twisting in the fabric resting above his heart as he lets out strangled, panicked breaths, trying to pull out a memory from out of nowhere. It’s like wandering through the backrooms of a department store in disarray, except everything scattered around the ground is sharp, and he’s already bleeding, and he’s crawling for the one object that will fix it, but there’s nothing, and he’s just hurting himself, and there’s nothing he can find because the memory is gone, shoved in the dark recesses of his mind, and there’s nothing he can do to get it out-
Why is he like this? Why is he- what did he do? He can’t have been born like this, with a messed up mind and horribly dark thoughts, there has to have been something that happened that made his old photographed self look so exhausted, and for so many foster homes to take him in but never keep him, and there has to have been something. People aren’t born wrong in the way that Ranboo is, that’s impossible, it’s biologically nonsensical that there is one person out there that is flawed beyond repair and that this person is Ranboo.
But isn’t that the truth? Isn’t that why Ranboo has selfishly chased after the hope of saving his hometown? Because his hometown holds a dark secret, he knows it even if he doesn’t know it, and it hates him so much it wants to expel him out of its exoskeleton, but Ranboo keeps crawling back and collecting evidence and digging his nails into the skin of it to pry it apart, because Ranboo has nothing else to do with the sharp edges of dirty glass that he is, and nobody else is fit for the task because nobody else is worth sacrificing for it.
Isn’t that his goal? Isn’t that why Dream volunteered to help him, seeing how useless Ranboo was and how this is the only thing he can do right? Doesn’t Dream see something of himself in Ranboo, aren’t they both so twisted and awful, isn’t the greatest hope for the world that both of them get pulled under and die alongside a curse?
Ranboo shouldn’t wish death on Dream, not when he’s already disappeared for suspiciously long, but he can’t help but remind himself of why he’s still alive, why he can’t succumb to the frostbite. Because he has to do something to help the world, and he’s the only one who can do it, and nobody else is capable of it because nobody else has the abilities Ranboo has. He’s special, he’s a prophecy holder that can’t even hold the prophecy right but is still trying, and that’s why he sees things that aren’t really there, that’s why people don’t understand some of the things he says and does, that’s why, that’s why, that’s why.
Isn’t it?
It’s been five hours since Dream left, and Ranboo finds himself sinking to his knees on the balcony, wrapping his arms around himself and keeping his eyes fixed on the horizon. Dream has to come home. There’s work left unfinished, work that only the two of them can do, so he has to come home. He wouldn’t be selfish enough to leave when there’s still a mystery to unwravel, and he knows that Ranboo can’t do it alone, that he was never able to. Prophecy holders need their mentors, and Dream is his mentor, so Dream can’t disappear like this is nothing. Dream can’t do this to him.
So he has to come home. This is Ranboo’s test. He has to stay out here, in the cold, waiting for the arrival of the person who can show him back into the light. Every hero needs to have a test, one imposed by their mentors, to make sure they’re ready for it. Ranboo would sit in the freezing cold, starved, for however many hours it takes if it meant that somewhere in between, the truth would be revealed to him. And that must be what Dream is testing.
And so Ranboo sits there, so cold he nearly looks catatonic, and holds himself as he waits. His mind wanders from the forgotten event that tore him away from Fundy to the last night he spent with Tubbo to the way that Niki beamed as he tried on some of her clothes. Silently, he allows his thoughts to be scattered, because there’s no point in thinking about anything other than the sole reason that he’s alive. The conversations of guilt and crime paint his mind, too, the voice of Dream as he discusses the implications of Ranboo’s guilty conscience with him, and Ranboo resolves to make up for it when Dream returns, to prove that he is a good person worthy of repentance. God, if It even exists out here, must be able to see that, too.
At some point, Ranboo starts crying again.
But he stays. He stays there until another hour passes, and then feels the ticking of the minutes as if there were a clock inside his skin. Maybe there is. Maybe there’s always been a clock there, one that Ranboo can feel if he listens hard enough to the vibrations of his own skin, and maybe he should wring it out. He doesn’t, though, he just waits for a saving chime of the bells in his clockwork. He waits for something holier than him, something better, a reason to keep himself kneeling.
Repentance walks through the door at midday, carrying an empty coffee cup in one hand and car keys in the other.
The hotel door closes behind him, and Ranboo hears Dream carefully set things down before approaching the balcony, crouching to sit beside Ranboo. Unsteadily, Ranboo turns to look up at him; his green eyes are emotionless, but there is a smile on his face, and it’s the unspoken expression between them that has always meant pride.
For the first time in Ranboo’s life, he buries his face in Dream’s shoulder and cries.
Dream wraps his arms around Ranboo tightly, nose pressing against the top of his hair, and he must know how cold Ranboo has been because every second his hold feels like it gets a little tighter. Ranboo’s body shakes violently with sobs, and he knows how pitiful this must look, but he can’t help himself from crying out everything that has run through his mind in the past six hours since Dream left him.
“I’m sorry,” Ranboo manages to make out between hiccups and sniffs. “I waited. I waited. I didn’t know if you- if you would come back.”
“I know,” Dream says, and his voice is soft in the ways that Ranboo can only compare to an older brother consoling their sibling. “I know. It’s okay. You ate, right? Got some sleep? You were good when I left, right?”
Ranboo nods, and he can feel Dream’s smile widen against his temple. “No nightmares, right?” Ranboo nods again, and Dream sighs. “Good, good. Alright, cry it out, Ranboo. I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m scared,” Ranboo confesses before he can stop himself, voice rasped out in a higher pitch and softer volume than normal. He almost feels like a different person, younger and unsure and seeking guidance from someone who knows more than he can even conceptualize. “I’m scared, Dream, I-”
“I know, I know,” Dream reassures again. “It’ll be over soon, Ranboo. I promise you, it will be over soon.”
Another time, maybe, Ranboo would have asked what Dream meant by that. Would have taken his red-pen mind to overthink the subject of the sentence, what will be over and what soon means. But right now, all he can think about is the fact that Dream came back, and the guilt of ever thinking he wouldn’t, and so he soaks up Dream’s words like they’re the word of God, because there’s nothing else he can do. He completed his task, he’s letting out his sorrows, and God is speaking to him in the cold again.
“It won’t be long,” Dream tells Ranboo, voice hushed and kind in the way it rarely, rarely is. “You’re so brave, you know that? Seventeen and still doing all this crazy shit, you must have had to fight so hard this entire time just to finally get here, where there’s answers in reach. It’ll be over soon, and you will finally be able to rest, I promise you. You’ve redeemed yourself, Ranboo, and you will get your reward. It will all be over soon. You just have to trust me.”
And Ranboo does.
–
By the time that Ranboo has finished crying and has shrugged on Dream’s jacket at his request, the blizzard has already started.
Dream hisses profanity under his breath as he walks Ranboo back to his car, legs still adjusting to movement after hours spent sitting in the cold. Ranboo buckles himself into the passenger’s seat just in time for Dream to quickly put the car in ignition, driving recklessly out of the parking garage in hopes that the downpour of snow and sleet won’t be brutal.
As soon as they leave the cover of the hotel garage, though, it becomes clear to the both of them that the winds have accelerated fast enough to pull down tree branches until they nearly break, and the snow building on the main streets is near unbearable to drive in.
“Shit,” Dream mutters, turning on his low-beam lights in an attempt to ward off the visibility issues. Cars have already begun turning on their warning lights and pulling over to the sides of the road, but some are still pushing through the traffic, and they follow without question. “We might be out here a while, Ranboo.”
“When does the blizzard stop?” Ranboo asks.
Dream shrugs, not taking his eyes off the road. “No fucking clue. We’re not going to let us stop this, though. Sign from the universe that they want to keep us from something, so we’re going to push through it.”
Ranboo hums and nods. “Mhm mhm. Please be careful, though.”
“Don’t worry, I’m a good driver,” Dream reassures, which he clearly is, so Ranboo shouldn’t worry too much about it. “It might take us a few hours to get to where I wanted to take us, though. Do you want to sleep again? It’s mostly just going to be me cussing people out and the car being in standstill from here on out.”
Ranboo considers the offer carefully before nodding his head. “Okay. If something happens, please, you can- you can wake me up. And I- I can help.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dream waves him off slightly. “Appreciate it, but I’ve got this. Just get some rest. You still look exhausted– have you even been sleeping these past few days?”
He thinks about the night where he realized he was aromantic, where he had slept easily and soundly. He thinks, too, about the nights before then, where he was constantly awoken by nebulous nightmares that he couldn’t parse. It seems like, without the comfort of having had Tubbo’s company just moments prior, the latter streak seems more likely to reoccur.
“It’s been a lot of dreams lately,” he admits. “I’ve woken up in the night a lot.”
“Ah, okay.” Dream switches lanes carefully, moving the two of them to the left. It’s a risky place to position them when the weather is this intense, but Ranboo trusts him. There’s a newfound shine in Dream’s eyes, too, that must come from something Ranboo’s said. “You get some rest, then. I’ll get us out of this storm, don’t worry.”
Ranboo nods, tilting his head against the window and shutting his eyes. His body tries to fight off the sleep, some internal part of him panicked at the thought of him drifting off while still very cold, but Ranboo’s exhaustion wears his survival instincts out and he finds himself falling into sleep before long.
Haziness. You walk forward, or you crawl, yes you are crawling your limbs are heavy your palms are calloused you are pushing and pitching forward and forward and forward and
Come down here come down here come down here you know you have to you know you have to you can hear us I know that you can hear us join us come down here come down here come down here what do you have to lose we have God here we have your parents we have everything come down here come down here come down here what do you have to lose what do you have to lose what do you
It feels like seconds later before he’s jolting himself up, Dream sparing him a careful look in the driver’s seat as one of his hands carefully presses on Ranboo’s shoulder.
“Nightmares again,” Dream explains. “Fuck. Keep trying to sleep. I’ve got you, and we’re doing something good, and nothing else matters.”
Ranboo tries again, slumping further into his seat, but his mind quickly overwhelms itself with the same voices speaking in a tangled cacophony.
You hate it here you hate it here come down here come down and speak to us
dark dark dark dark everything is dark, there are stars scattered in the sky, they are being dragged down into the hole, the hole beneath him, everything is sucked away, higher winds than a blizzard and the smoke is pulled out of his mouth exorcized out of him
We stole away the smoke we took your parents we are hiding God come down here come down here come down here there is a whole place for you here you have to come down take our hands
a million hands, tugging at him, he can feel them through his shirt
Come down here we don’t love you but nowhere does so come down come down come down come come come come come come come
try to get us off try to get it off you know we’re here pulling you down we have your life we have everything hands through your shirt come down come down don’t you wanna come down don’t you wanna don’t you wanna we’re right here holding you hands everywhere don’t you wanna come down come down come down
“What the hell are you even dreaming about?” Dream asks, voice equally frustrated and desperate, as he shakes Ranboo awake the second time. “You’re shaking in your sleep, whispering something about smoke.”
“I don’t know,” Ranboo whispers, looking down at his hands. There are scratch marks down his arms.
“Are all your dreams like this?” Dream’s eyes furrow in concern, eyes still agitated. “God, has Niki never taken you to see somebody? No, no forget that– just tell me. What the hell are you seeing? What are you dreaming about?”
“I don’t know,” Ranboo repeats. “It’s- it’s dark, and there are people talking.”
“Who are the people?”
“I don’t know!” Ranboo’s voice comes out louder in panic, brain trying to grasp at pieces of his dream that are already starting to fade. “I don’t know, but I don’t like them, and they- they won’t stop talking, I-”
“Ranboo, go back to sleep,” Dream orders.
“Dream, please-”
“We need more information,” Dream insists. “And we’re still stuck on this main road, so we have all the time in the world. Have the dream again. I won’t wake you up this time.”
Ranboo nods weakly, shutting his eyes and pulling his sleeves back down over the middle of his palm. Beside him, he can hear Dream give quiet permission for Ranboo to put his shoes up against the leather seat, and so Ranboo curls up as tightly as possible, hoping that his dream ends here and the two can continue driving in silence.
Come out here little rabbit crawl out through the window can’t you see can’t you see can’t you see? We are down here everything ends down here we have your parents the ones that don’t love you they’ll give you a second try isn’t that what you want? we are down here GOD IS DOWN HERE and It is disappointed in you but will show you the truth don’t you know don’t you know we have your future lover down here your entire life is down here we have everything we have everything we stole the stars we stole your smoke we stole your music we stole your voice come down come down come down
STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP LEAVE ME ALONE I DON’T WANT TO I DON’T WANT TO
The sky is dark dark dark dark dark and his chest feels tight this must be imploding he must be the last star left he feels his skin start to sear away his body tight condensed metal he’s expanding past here if he closes his eyes he’ll be okay he’ll be okay
YOU ARE A COMET
Black hole in the center of the universe and you are a comet YOU ARE NOT A STAR Come down come down come down come down you have nothing else to do LET SLEEPING COMETS DIE don’t you want to be a star don’t you Don’t you do you have anything anything anything HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE DREAMING How do you ever know
this skeleton isn’t his own
STOP STOP STOP STOP STOSPTS SOTPS STOSTPTT I CANNTTH I CNAT TYOU KNOW IC ANT I CAN T
COME DOWN HERE COME DOWN HERE COME DOWN HERE
WHO MADE YOU THE PERSON YOU ARE
Brown hair in the center of the universe everything is dark he can only taste smoke Its second hand bad diner bad choices who is he he can’t remember who he is it wants him it wants him it wants him
There are hands on his body LET GO LET GO LET GO I DON’T WANT TO GO I DON’T WANT TO GO STOP IT STOP SITISTOPS TT SOTPT SOTP FUFNDHYY FUDHNHDYD
try to wake up try to wake up try to wake up try to wake up I HAVE TO WAKE UP This isn’t real this isn’t real this isn’t real
what does it look like Don’t you want to look down?
black hole black hole black hole a lid over it a lid closing the iris of an eye NO STOP STOP STOP THAT WAS NEVER ME MY NAME IS MY NAME IS I don’t know I don’t know i don’t know i don’t know why is it closing why is it closing YOU DONT WHAVE MCUH TIMET
GOD IS AN IRIS
FUNDDYD FUDNDYD WHERE AREAYYOU THERE IS NTOHGINT THERE IS NOTHING JUST THE EYE THE EYE THAT GOES FOR FOREVER HE IS STARING AT THE EYE YOU ARE STARING AT THE EYE the eye the eye the eye come down here come down
STAY DOWN blood blodod blodod ohh h god where is he Wgod where is he where is he is that his leg why is it why does it why is it like that where is he where is he why does it hurt why can’t he breathe where ei s he efuckndhy fundyd wfnundy hELP HELP EHLP
NOBODY IS COMING LITTLE RABBIT BABY COMET SMALL IRIS FALL DOWN STAY DOWN WHAT ARE YOU DOING DON’T TOUCH DON’T TOUCH DON’T TOUCH
Ranboo has blood under his fingernails when he wakes up.
(can’t stop it can’t stop it it won’t stop coming out)
He’s going to be sick.
(Not in the rosebushes never in the rosebushes you have to)
“What did you see?” Dream asks.
Ranboo is staining Dream’s jacket with blood. Only a little. It was an accident, an accident, an accident-
His head jerks forward as Dream swerves abruptly, and he slams the center of it against the dashboard. His thoughts leave for a second, scattering, but they come back in a loud encore of screams soon enough. Nothing gets them to stop. His mind is in the department store, trying to spill glass onto the floor, but Ranboo is grasping memories for the first time like he’s starving for answers, and nothing can hold him back.
All he sees when he closes his eyes is a black hole, pulsating and blinking, and a starless sky around it.
He’s going insane. That must be this. He’s bleeding, and he caused it, and his head is pounding, and he’s seeing things that aren’t cosmically possible. He’s going insane. He thought he would die first but no, this is it, this is the end. Ranboo Beloved is going insane.
And then Dream grabs the collar of Ranboo’s shirt, holding it tightly to keep him from slamming against the dashboard again as he makes another abrupt turn away from a tree branch in the road, and he lets go of it and spares Ranboo a callous look as he repeats, shouting, “What did you see?”
“I- I- I don’t…” Ranboo looks down at his hands. “I’m bleeding.” His vision blurs. He’ll never be able to wash it off. “Dream, I’m bleeding.”
“What happened in the dream, Ranboo?” Dream asks again, patience lost as his voice gets louder and louder, almost louder than the storm outside. “Was I there? Did someone say anything? Where were you?”
Ranboo can’t think. “I don’t know. I- no, I don’t- I- I feel really sick.”
“No to what?” Someone slams their hand on the horn, and Dream startles, swearing. “Fuck! Ranboo, what are you saying no to? I asked you if I was there, if anyone said anything, and where you were?”
“No,” Ranboo mutters, “no, no, no, no, no.”
“Ranboo, was I in the dream or not?”
“Black hole,” Ranboo explains, body shaking. “It was blinking. Staring at me. I…” Ranboo looks back down on his hands. He’s bleeding, oh God, he’s bleeding. “I think I killed it.”
“No,” Dream breathes out, sounding scared for a second. Then, he swerves off to a side road, and Ranboo slams his head against the window. He can’t see anything. Oh God, he can’t see anything. “No! No, Ranboo, we are not doing this again. I’m not doing this again.”
“Again?” Ranboo repeats, confused, faintly dazed.
Dream’s face is red from anger and something else. “I don’t want to hear about the fucking black hole! Goddammit! I thought we moved on! Why are you still dreaming about it?”
Ranboo tries to reply, but no sound escapes his lips, and Dream lets out a yell that’s mangled with a scream. “Why can’t you forget about it? Why can’t you just fucking forget, that’s all you do, Ranboo! That’s the only thing you’re good for! What, you think I keep you around to remember? You forget everything! Everything! ”
The blizzard is getting worse and worse. They’re going to hit someone soon.
“You forget everything! ” The scream almost sounds like a sob. “You have no idea- you have no idea what you’ve done, do you? You don’t- you don’t even remember! You can’t remember anything, but you still cling to that stupid fucking black hole, like it’s going to save you!”
“I…” Ranboo wets his lips; they feel frozen together. “I don’t… it won’t… it needs me… it… I…”
“It’s gone, Ranboo!” His eyes feel heavy. “It’s gone, you- it never even existed! You’re not insane anymore, Ranboo, you can’t do this to me- stay awake , goddammit!” Dream grabs the collar of his shirt again, fingernails roughly pressed against his neck, and Ranboo needs him to let go, but he’s not going to, is he? “We’re almost there, it’s almost over, just- you’re not taking this from me! You can’t- it’s my turn! It’s my turn!”
“It’s God, isn’t it?” Pulsating and blinking. “That’s me. I’m… I’m God.”
“NO!” The car stops at a red light, and Dream slams Ranboo’s head against the dashboard. He falls limply before he’s jerked up. “You aren’t God. Do you understand me? You aren’t God. You’re a delusional fucking kid, and you need me. You’re nothing without me.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s just me and you, Ranboo.” Dream’s eyes are vivid with anger. Everything is desaturated. “You have no idea what’s about to happen, do you? Do you think you’re getting out of here alive?”
Ranboo can’t understand what he’s saying. All he hears is the ringing in his ears, the blood pounding, the blizzard snapping trees apart. Everything is desaturated except his eyes and the blood on his hands. He tastes blood, and he smells exhaust fuel, and he feels numb. It’s already over. Does Dream not realize?
Dream can’t do anything to Ranboo. Nobody can.
Dream slams his head against the dashboard again, and Ranboo laughs.
“You’re fucking insane,” Dream gasps out. He’s choking on something. A little God crawling up his throat. Incredulous and outraged. This isn’t Dream. This is a nightmare. This is what life is. “They should have kept you in that fucking hospital. I should have never done this. I could have had a good fucking life without you, you ruined everything!”
Niki, Fundy, Techno, and Tubbo are never going to see him again, are they?
But Sapnap and George aren’t ever going to see Dream again, either.
Tommy is never going to have to see either of them again.
This is one of the best days in history.
“It was supposed to be Tommy,” Dream says between gritted teeth, driving with one hand, clutching onto Ranboo with the other. “He was fun. Things were nice. Everything was good until he tried to kill himself. I didn’t want him to. I didn’t. He was weak.”
Most people have a guilty conscience. Guilt means you did something bad. If someone kills another person, do they deserve to die?
Ranboo is never going to find out what college he’s going to.
“His stupid fucking family,” Dream spits out. He must know it doesn’t matter anymore. They’ve made it this far. “I was going to apologize. I wasn’t going to hurt him. But no, they look me in the eyes and say, ‘Oh, Dream, you piece of shit, if you come back we’ll kill you’. They’d kill me! Wilbur was going to shoot me right in the head, and I should have never trusted Techno, backstabbing piece of shit.” It doesn’t matter anymore. “Did you know Tommy has another brother? Tubbo. He would have hated you.”
Ranboo can’t see the sun out here. “We were gonna get married.”
“What?”
Ranboo’s face glows pink. “He called me pretty.”
“Shouldn’t be surprised you two knew each other,” Dream mutters under his breath. “Should have known you were lying to me.”
“Mhm mhm.”
“God,” Dream glares at Ranboo. “You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me. You know that? No, you don’t, because you don’t remember. All you remember is that stupid fucking black hole. It should have killed you. If the universe was fair, you’d be dead already.”
But Ranboo lived, just for one purpose.
“You almost killed me.” He lets go of Ranboo’s collar, grabbing his wrist. He shoves it against the wheel, and Ranboo grips on. It’s okay; he knows how to drive. “I could have died. A dumb fifteen year old who could barely speak and shook all the time, the other car should have hit you. You fucked up my car! You could have killed me!”
Ranboo can faintly remember now. Fifteen years old with a new name and no family, going through withdrawal from antipsychotics. No idea where to go. Walked for days straight until he reached that overpass, tried to cross to the other side, and then-
It was destiny. The two cars collided, one driver unconscious and the other wide awake. Ranboo fled, but someone remembered his face. Two days later, he was sitting at a park at night, and a familiar man approached him. Money in his palm and a kind smile, he asked if that camera around his neck took photos by request.
(That very same camera would go on to break, only a month later, and get replaced on another day as a birthday gift.)
Ranboo stayed in that park most of the time, but sometimes he was with the man. The man listened more than he talked– Ranboo had a lot to say, but his words came out messed up and twisted. It took him a month to rewire his brain to speak slower, to let some thoughts go, to take a breath instead of continuing on with a sentence composed of misfit fragments.
And then, the man stopped coming back. And Ranboo waited for so long.
Another month passed, and his mind went back to a peaceful blank. He couldn’t remember much about the man, or the park he stayed in, or whose number the scrap piece of paper in his pocket was for.
But he still called it, didn’t he?
“Niki,” Ranboo breathes out softly.
“She’s not coming to get you,” Dream tells him. “Nobody is.”
“Tubbo will look.”
“He’s a kid, what the hell is he going to do?” Dream scowls. “Do you even know him? Did you make up this fantasy about a random classmate of yours? You’re sick, Ranboo, did you even know him?”
Ranboo misses Tubbo.
That’s okay, though. It’ll all be okay.
“Nobody is going to know what happened to you,” Dream says, a touch of happiness finally finding its way in his voice. “They’re going to think you killed yourself. Or that someone hit you. I’ll make it out of here, Ranboo, you won’t.” Does he really still believe that? “They’ll never find you.”
Ranboo closes his eyes. He hears the scream again.
He feels the side of his car digging into his spine.
He opens them.
“Tommy,” Ranboo says softly. “Tommy will know.”
“He doesn’t know you,” Dream insists gleefully. “He wouldn’t want to find you.”
“He wouldn’t,” Ranboo agrees. “But Tubbo will. They both know, Dream.” Ranboo’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “It’s finally over.”
Just as they get under the overpass they last saw two years ago, Ranboo suddenly jerks the wheel, and Dream lets out a scream as the car swerves towards the side wall.
Quickly, Dream tries to turn the wheel in the direction of the skid, but Ranboo unbuckles his seatbelt with his free hand to throw one of his legs over and slam it into the brakes. Dream realizes too soon what he’s trying to do, slamming the side of his body against Ranboo and shoving him out of his chair. Dream slams on the emergency lights, and he lets the car spin until he can manage to get it into the side lane, where other cars have filed up to wait out the storm. Ranboo pushes himself off the car floor, trying to grasp onto the steering wheel and pull them into the right lane, but Dream grabs the back of his hair and tries to slam him against the dashboard again. His hands are shaking, though, and Ranboo throws a hand out to stop himself, brain thrumming with adrenaline.
Dream turns off the car and unbuckles his seatbelt, Ranboo having given up on crashing and instead making a reach for the glovebox. He manages to get it open, fingers bruised on top of bleeding, and he tries to feel for a weapon that Dream surely kept in case this all went awry.
Ranboo feels something smaller than a gun yet still promising, but before he can pull it out, he feels something sharp cut against his skin. He still tries to hang on, but the sight of blood against his arm makes him feel dizzy, and his muscles spasm as he lets go of the unknown object, the only thing that could have saved him.
Only seconds later, he watches as the switchblade falls to the floor, and he catches a glimpse of red again before something is shoved in his face, hand fisting his hair and holding him down. Without the seatbelt, he kicks, hand slamming against the side of the door in an attempt to set off an alarm, but Dream holds him down, heavily breathing in the effort.
It only takes a few more seconds before Ranboo’s vision blacks out.
Stay down.
–
The first thing Ranboo notices when he wakes up is the cold.
He had sort of expected his afterlife to be frozen over as opposed to scorching hot, in the few times he’s tried to think about it. So really, he’s not exactly surprised that the first thing that his conscience registers is the fact that he is cold, because for all intents and purposes, that just means that the universe did its job correctly when Ranboo died.
Good job, universe. Take an early lunch break for your hard work.
The second thing that Ranboo realizes, though, is that only the top of his body and his hand are cold. The rest, actually, are pretty warm. He’s at a pretty nice, cozy temperature, actually, excusing just one part of his body.
Nevermind. Universe, get back in here, what the hell went wrong?
Ranboo opens his eyes steadily, finding that wherever he is is… dark. Which is a good thing, because his head hurts a lot, and if the room was bright, hoo boy, that would really suck.
He tries to make out some details in the place he’s in, which only makes him more confused, because from the very little he can see, it not only looks like a bedroom, but it looks like his bedroom. As in, the one he had when he was living.
Ranboo sits up abruptly, needing to see more of his surroundings, but his head instantly shoots with pain and he falls back down onto the bed.
“Shit,” Ranboo hisses, which he’s never actually said out loud before, but now is a pretty good time to start swearing if he’s ever seen one.
He tries to look to the side, which is somehow harder than opening his eyes in the first place, and he quickly figures out that the reason his head and hand is cold is because he’s holding an ice pack to his head. How he kept the ice pack there this entire time, he’s not really sure, but he’s been gripping it pretty hard so he assumes some subconscious part of him is trying to look out for his physical health.
There’s also bandages wrapped all along his arm, which is already concerning enough, but he soon realizes that some of them are bleeding. Which means he should definitely change them, but also, why is he bleeding?
Okay. He needs to not panic. In the long seventeen years of his life– he is seventeen, right?– a lot of concerning things have happened. This is not the first time he’s woken up extremely confused by his setting, and seeing as he’s alive, it won’t be the last. The first step, as always, is to try and see what he remembers before he woke up.
He shuts his eyes, because the extra strain on them isn’t needed when he’s already pushing against his head to trudge up a hidden memory. Faintly, he can register that the time frame he’s in right now is winter, because it’s pretty absurdly cold in the room and he has the heavier duvet over his legs instead of the lighter, summer one. It’s also worth saying that it’s probably either early in the morning, or his curtains are shut, because the room is very dark.
His head injury. Okay. How did he sustain his head injury?
… He can’t remember.
Okay. Arm is bleeding. How’d that happen, Ranboo?
…
… Nope. Nothing.
Okay. Let’s go more abstract. Why did you think, when you woke up, that you were in hell-
Ranboo is suddenly jarred by the loud sound of his phone beside him. He quickly opens his eyes and slams his index finger– which hurts a lot, for some reason– into the close button. He looks away, happy that that’s dealt with, before he pauses and tries to sit up more carefully this time to see why his phone was screaming at him in the first place.
The screen brightness burns his eyes a bit, but he turns it down as much as possible and reads the current date and time.
It’s January 2nd. It is also 7 AM.
Ranboo has school in approximately one hour.
… Huh.
There are a couple of other notifications on his phone, he notices. One of them is a text from Tubbo, his best friend that he’s in love with. He remembers that, at least.
Tubbo: EXCITED 2 C U TODAY
The other set of notifications comes from Dream, his other close friend who Ranboo is pretty sure he hasn’t spoken to in at least a few days. He also remembers that.
There are apparently eight messages he’s sent, which means that Ranboo should probably buckle himself in for a lot of reading, because he is starting to think that Dream might be at least somewhat involved in this whole situation.
For now, though, Ranboo sets his phone down and adjusts the pillows behind him. He’ll figure out how to get to school in a little bit, but for right now he needs to figure out how bad his injuries are in case going to school turns out to be a really bad idea.
As Ranboo sits up, moving the ice off of his head for the time being and setting it down beside him, he hears the bedroom door push open. He watches it, vision still very hazy, until he sees Springerle come in.
For some reason, the sight of her does horrors to his vision capacity, as his eyes immediately fill up with tears.
He makes a soft cooing sound, and she’s quick to jump up onto the bed, curling up in Ranboo’s arms and licking away his tears. Ranboo smiles softly, burying his face in her fur, not sure why he’s so overwhelmed to see her. He always misses her when he’s at school, of course, but this is different. He feels almost… surprised to see her, not in an outright shocked way, but in a soft oh, you’re still here.
Springerle lets out a meow, face nudging against Ranboo’s bandages, and Ranboo sniffles before whispering, “I know.” His voice is raspy, like he hasn’t talked in days. “It’s okay, honey. I probably look pretty bad right now, but I’m okay. Just need to read some texts my friend sent me, then I can pour some water out for you, okay?”
Springerle meows again, sounding a little more distressed. Ranboo kisses her head once, and then a second time, and then a couple more times because her fur is so, so soft, and he loves her so much. “Shh. It’s okay. I bet you miss Niki a bit, huh?” Ranboo takes a second to carefully consider before deciding, “You know, maybe I’ll take today off. I’m not doing so hot, and I don’t want you to be lonely. We can cuddle and watch eight hour long compilations of birds chirping for you, how about that?”
She tries to tuck herself against Ranboo’s chest, fumbling around a bit before eventually falling down to curl up in his lap. Ranboo smiles softly, dedicating his good hand to petting her, and he reaches out with his bandaged one to grab his phone and read the messages from Dream.
Dream: Good morning, Ranboo. You’re probably still asleep by the time you’re seeing these text messages, but there is a slight chance you’ll never actually read these. I tried to patch you up best I could, but I have no idea how bad the head injuries are. Sorry about those, by the way. Last night should have gone a lot smoother than it did.
That’s… a worrying first text message. Ranboo’s glad that Dream tried to help him out, at least, and he should probably draft a thank you message once he finishes reading these. He’s not sure why Dream is apologizing for the head injuries like he gave them to Ranboo, but Ranboo figures that maybe last night was weird and things got chaotic and it just kind of naturally happened as an accident. He wouldn’t blame him for something like that.
Dream: I don’t think you’re going to remember much of what happened yesterday, but I’ve taken measures just in case you do. I hate to inform you like this, but by the time you are reading this, I am dead. I have re-thought destiny and considered your every possible move, and though you have a horrible habit of trying to ruin my life, I have determined that the only thing you have no control over is my death.
Ranboo feels his heart stop in his throat, breath caught alongside it.
Dream… Dream is…
No. No, this isn’t real. This isn’t real. Dream wouldn’t- there’s no way. There’s going to be a catch, he must mean in some metaphorical sense, there’s no way that Dream is actually-
Dream: You can do whatever you want. Call 911, don’t call 911. Tell someone, don’t tell anybody. Kill yourself, don’t kill yourself. I don’t care anymore. Karma will catch up with you, Ranboo, and I wish I were still around to see it. Just look forward to the day that your entire life is taken from you, the way you had taken mine.
Dream: I didn’t bother washing the blood off your fingernails, by the way. Too taxing, and pointless. You need a reminder of what you’ve done. You’ll forget otherwise. You always do.
Springerle lets out another meow, but Ranboo can hardly hear her.
The next text is the longest.
Dream: Ever since I first met you and you nearly killed me, I swore I would be your end. I raised you when you could hardly speak, collect your thoughts, or navigate around a tiny park. You were a fifteen year old infant, and I helped you. And then I left you, hoping that would leave you helpless. Instead, you forgot me for the second time and met Niki. Again, I met you, and you told me about this prophecy. It was never real, Ranboo. I didn’t keep those photographs, I didn’t believe your bullshit. You were insane and you always have been. The day I told you about guilt was the day I vowed to myself that my New Year’s wish would be to kill you. You came with me in the car, I left you in that hotel, and when I decided the time was right, the blizzard struck. The storm ruined everything. I was supposed to kill you. Instead, you had those dreams about the black hole that you always talked about when you were 15 (I don’t get why you ever had a metaphor for it. It was a suicide attempt, Ranboo, for God’s sake. Everyone knew that.) And then you tried to kill both of us. I knocked you out, drove you back home, said my goodbyes, and now I’m gone. I hope you’re happy.
Ranboo feels the world stop around him.
Dream: Ranboo, you are insane. No matter what you try to do, what pseudonym you pick next, what town you decide to haunt, what friends you attempt to make, you are always going to be a deeply sick human being. And nothing, not even a hospital, will ever change that. I tried to give you peace. You are never going to have that. By dying, I am taking away the only person who understood your delusions.
Oh God, he really did… he actually…
Dream: Since you know Tommy, I can finally tell you this, but the difference between you and him is that I actually liked Tommy. A lot, in fact. Tommy was a troubled kid, but he wasn’t anything like you. He had normal interests and normal friends and normal hobbies, and yet he was extraordinarily fun for me. I don’t like you, Ranboo. I don’t like you at all. You are an extremely unlikable person.
Ranboo’s hand is shaking as he scrolls down to read the last message.
It’s not very long.
Dream: I’ve said enough. More than you deserve. See you, Ranboo. I really, really hope seeing that black hole had been worth it.
The first thing Ranboo notices when he wakes up is the cold.
It feels like someone poured a bucket of ice water over his head, washing over his entire body, causing his muscles to freeze and his thoughts to almost clear. On any other day, they would go perfectly blank, and he’d be left trying to assemble the pieces of a working memory.
Ranboo now knows better than that.
He has remembered things he will never, ever be able to forget. Not even in death.
He tries to send a message to Dream, Dream please are you okay, but he messes up the letters so badly that it’s incomprehensible and it never sends, anyway, because of course Dream blocked him, of course they won’t send, Ranboo is too late.
The phone drops against the floor with a loud thud, and Ranboo knocks Springerle off his lap and the ice pack off the bed as he stumbles his way into the bathroom. He turns on the lights, which are so bright that they sear his head, but he forces himself to unwrap the bandages around his arm, chest shaking, trying to see how bad the damage is.
There are vertical scratches, none particularly deep but still enough to draw blood. Self-inflicted. There’s two horizontal slashes, definitely done with the intent to seriously injure. Not self-inflicted. Dream caused those in the car, didn’t he? A last resort to get Ranboo to let go, when he was trying to-
Ranboo looks at his fingernails. There’s still blood under them. He tries to wash them with the sink water, but nothing gets it all out. These hands will never be clean.
Ranboo attempted to murder someone yesterday. He tried to murder-suicide himself and his mentor. He almost killed two people, one of them was himself. This isn’t even the first time someone has nearly died by his hand.
“It’s not my fault,” Ranboo tells himself, voice raspy and shaky and filled with tears. “It’s not. It’s- he was going to kill me. It was- it was either me or him, and- and I had to. It- I was just trying- I- It’s not my fault, I didn’t-” Ranboo tries to breathe, he’s begun hyperventilating, sobbing every time he tries to speak. “I wasn’t- I wasn’t going to-”
But you were, his mind reminds him. This isn’t a hypothetical, Ranboo. You quite literally went out of your way to kill him. You were going to use what was in the glovebox to shoot him.
“No,” he mutters frantically, “no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I didn’t- I didn’t-”
You should have let him kill you. He shakes his head, but the thoughts continue, because when have they ever stopped for him? That would have made things better. You know that. You were losing your mind in there-
“I’m not crazy!” he shouts, feeling like a knife is twisting in his voice.
The bathroom is quiet aside from the faucet. He shuts it off, because the blood isn’t getting off anyway, and he needs the silence to think.
The silence only makes it worse.
“I’m not,” he insists. “I- I know that I- I know that sometimes I… I see things, and they aren’t- they aren’t actually there, and- and I… and apparently I had to go to a hospital? Before? But- but, uh, that doesn’t- that doesn’t mean anything! I- I’m fine, I’m not insane, I just- no, no no no no no no no, oh God. ” Ranboo covers his mouth with one hand, staring at himself in the mirror. There’s a large bruise all across his head with some swelling on the right side, and his arms are bloody, and he looks- he looks-
He slams his fist into the mirror.
The glass doesn’t shatter, but it doesn’t do much to help his already-bruised knuckles, and he lets out a whimper as he grasps the linoleum sink to keep himself stable. He can’t look himself in the eyes. He can’t. He can’t.
“What am I supposed to do?” Ranboo whispers. “What- what am I supposed to do?”
He needs to get new bandages. He can’t- the scent of blood is so strong, he has to replace the bandages. And- and probably disinfect it, because Dream- Dream probably didn’t have the chance to clean it out.
Ranboo opens up a couple of the cabinets in the bathroom, still ignoring his reflection and holding his breath so he doesn’t smell anything. He moves restlessly, getting everything out and briefly going to his bedroom to drag his desk chair in, just in case he accidentally falls and hurts himself worse. As he maneuvers it in, though, his foot hits something and he jumps, chest relaxing when he sees that it’s just Springerle, looking up at him with bright blue eyes.
(Springerle’s eyes are the same color as Tubbo’s, and Tubbo’s are the same color as Tommy’s. It’s so strange that God’s eye is colorless, then, but that’s- it was a black hole, anyway, so. It’s a stupid, stupid thought.)
“I’m sorry,” he tells her softly, “I need to do this first, okay?”
Ranboo turns back to the supplies, hands still a little shaky, and tries to use his basic knowledge of first aid that his work had taught him to clean out the gashes. The first step hurts worse than anything, and he hisses, but he persists in washing the wounds out with water and wrapping the bandages around tightly.
It’s not a great job, but it’s good enough. It gets the smell out, at least.
His head injury is still pretty bad, but he doesn’t know what else he can do for it aside from wait for it to get better. Going to the hospital is obviously not an option, because they’ll sense that Ranboo is out of his mind and will book him a stay somewhere and he’ll never come back. And then who would take care of Springerle and cover the weekend shifts?
His fingertips and knuckles are messed up, too, and he thinks his shoulders have to be a bit bruised, or at least hurt in some way. Those are okay, though, he can’t- there’s only so much he can do. And right now, seeing as he’s alive, his next best step should probably be- should probably be seeing if Dream’s still…
He… kind of- no, he definitely doesn’t want to do that, but he should at least check on his apartment and see if his roommates have any information about Dream’s whereabouts. If those two are there, that decreases the odds that Dream might pop out of nowhere and try to kill him on sight. But, then again, he doesn’t know Sapnap and George well enough to determine whether or not they wouldn’t also try to kill him.
And it could always be empty. Or it could always just be Dream in there, baiting Ranboo to come and find him, and then grabbing his hair and shoving his face into the couch and not letting him go until his pulse stops.
Ranboo feels sick thinking about it again. He needs to bring a knife with him or something, just in case Dream’s there. He’s already in too deep to pretend like he’s a good person, so he should just- just in case, because he can’t- he doesn’t want- he doesn’t want to be pulled under again, doesn’t want to fall into the black hole and doesn’t want to be tugged by his hair to his asphyxiation.
He won’t be empty-handed when he walks into his gallows. Guilt aside, forever aside.
He takes off his clothes, noticing that Dream took back the jacket with blood on it, thank God. Ranboo mostly gets rid of the sweatshirt, leaving the same black long-sleeved shirt on, before he notices that it has stains on it. He’s not sure how the blood got on both Dream’s jacket and his shirt, but the thought makes him feel worse, swirling in the depths of his gut, so he just throws a long hoodie over it and avoids looking at himself in the mirror. At the very least, it covers up his bandages.
As he walks out of the bathroom, he spares Springerle a gentle look before ignoring her and making sure he has his phone and driver’s license. He won’t need money, and he can’t actually locate his camera, so he shouldn’t really need anything more.
He heads to the kitchen, refilling Springerle’s water bowl, and walks towards the front door. He makes to open it when he notices something taped up to the center of it, and his heart stops in his chest for a brief second before he lets out a slow breath.
It’s a photograph, likely taken from his own misplaced camera, showing his unconscious and injured body in the car. Dream must have taken it as some sort of reminder.
There’s blood down one of his arms, hands a light shade of red, and his face looks paler than usual. Inhumanly pale. The lighting of the shot is kind of bad, though, and Ranboo almost wants to laugh, because that’s something he’s always talked about when taking photos, and it’s all the more clear now that Dream maybe never listened to that.
He can’t leave the photograph here, and part of him wants to throw it out, but then someone might find it in the trash and panic. So, he shoves it into the pocket of his hoodie, stepping outside and locking the door behind him.
He starts to move towards his car, but something in him stops by the trash can in front of his apartment, and before he can stop himself, he’s opening the lid of it at seven in the morning and staring down into its contents.
At the very top, the broken pieces of his camera stare back at him.
The lid shuts seconds later, Ranboo’s arms going to wrap around himself, and he knows there’s enough time for him to drudge it up before the garbage people come around his neighborhood on Thursday, but he shakes his head to himself and forces himself to back away from it, clicking the button on his car keys and getting into the driver’s seat without thinking about Dream’s final goodbye.
The vehicle, at the least, seems okay. The thought of being back in a car after everything kind of makes him on edge, but he doesn’t have a choice. He’s an independent adult, and he should be able to handle driving somewhere close-by without his throat closing in on him.
Carelessly, he throws the knife and photograph into his passenger’s side, because it’s not like anybody is going to get in the car, and he starts to put his keys into the ignition until he realizes how absolutely bad that’s going to look if a police officer pulls him over.
He moves the photograph back to his hoodie pocket, resigning himself to the reality of having to keep it closer to his person than he’d like, but he can’t let somebody else find it. The knife he leaves underneath his thigh, which might be a bad idea but that’ll keep it easy to access, at least, and he can’t exactly draw the line at a knife in his chair after everything that’s happened.
… He’s still going to have to avoid police officers like hell, though. More than usual. Because he looks extremely suspicious at best and like a murderer at worst, and neither of those are incorrect but he would rather not have to deal with it at the moment, even if his due karma will come to him one of these days.
Outrunning the gallows is a useless act, but as Ranboo puts his car into drive, he realizes that he’s outrun his entire life with enough of a success rate to maybe keep him alive for a few days longer.
As Ranboo starts driving, hands in the standard position and gripping tighter than he ordinarily would bother doing on an open road like this, he realizes he should have taken painkillers. Even something like melatonin would help, because he doesn’t want to sleep on the wheel– or really sleep anytime soon, ever– but being alone in the car is making his mind wander again, and there’s only so many ways he can bite back the thoughts of oh God, Dream’s really dead and how are you going to live with yourself before it starts to become too much to simply task himself with the act of staying awake.
Sleep might even be better for him at the wheel, honestly, because every second he feels closer and closer to the brink of passing out.
You just have to make it to Dream’s place, he tells himself desperately, clinging to that goal like it’ll save him. You need to find out what actually happened. Lay this to rest and figure out everything else later. This is all you have to do. All you have to do.
He wishes it were that easy.
At the very least, though, actually getting to Dream’s old apartment isn’t that difficult; Ranboo remembers the way, having pretty good navigational memory even if he has nothing else going for him right now. His leg bounces wildly, all his restless energy channeled there and kept out of his hands, and the effort to not implode at the steering wheel is making his shoulders tenser. He knows it’s inevitable that everything is going to hit him, but he has to keep pushing forward, forward, forward, forward-
He feels like he’s trapped in a blur by the time he steps out of his car in front of Dream’s apartment. He wraps his fingers around the hilt of the kitchen knife he brought with him, and the presence of it just makes him feel more awful. It’s early in the morning, and a seventeen year old is standing in front of his dead friend’s apartment, a knife in his hands and a photograph of his unconscious body in his hoodie pockets.
The anxiety threatens to eat him alive, claw into his body like he had clawed into the black hole and killed it, astral blood on his hands. Nevertheless, he shoves his knife into his jeans, waistband holding it in place as his sweatshirt covers the rest of the exposed hilt. Anyone who touches his waist will immediately know that it’s there, but he hopes to God that nobody in the suite that he ascends the stairs to get to has any intentions of killing him.
He makes it up one flight of stairs before he’s pressing himself against the wall, dots crossing into his vision and his breathing faltering. It feels like Dream is right beside him, pressing his face into thick fabric, trying to kill him again. It feels like he never left, and he needs to throw up, needs to breathe even more than that, because anybody could see him right now and call the police and he has to get to Dream’s apartment-
For the first time, it feels like Ranboo’s death is above him. It must have felt like that when he fell into the black hole, though, staring up at that bedroom window and screaming the name of his foster brother-
no, no, no- Ranboo has to stay strong, Fundy has no relation to this. All of this is Ranboo’s doing, his own idea that went too far, and he has to go up the stairs. It’s too late for him to go back to his own apartment.
The next flight of stairs is just as hard as the first. The one after it is easier. And then Ranboo feels like he’s running up the stairs, going faster and faster as his heart rate picks up, and he might pass out but at least he’ll get to the right floor and then, and then-
Before he can even knock on the door to Dream’s place, that very door swings open an inch away from his nose.
It’s him it’s him oh God it’s him it’s him it’s HIM-
Ranboo stumbles, hands going up to shield his head as he falls down on the carpeted floor. His knee takes the brunt of the fall, but he can hardly hear it outside the noise in his head repeating the same phrases it’s him it’s him it’s him, and he wants it to shut up, wants his mind to stop screaming, but he can’t- he can’t. It won’t stop.
The only thing that gets it to quiet down, even the tiniest amount, is the sound of someone saying, near incredulously, “Ranboo?”
Ranboo’s eyes fly up, and he makes eye contact with the warm brown eyes of Sapnap, who has heavily furrowed his brows even though his eyes are wide, and it’s a near impossible expression for a human to make and oh, Ranboo must have fallen asleep at the wheel, Ranboo must not be here right now, Ranboo feels distinctly unreal.
There’s a piece of cold metal against his skin, and his entire body is beaten up, and he’s staring the best friend of his dead friend in the eye, the last person to see him alive, and he wants to flee more than anything he’s ever wanted in his life, but he throws his hand out in front of him for Sapnap to pull him up instead.
It’s not an olive branch. If anything, it’s a dead branch of a winter tree with fungi and poison berries grown all over it. Like a handshake with the devil, Sapnap has blood on his own hands now.
And still, Sapnap looks him in the eyes, because he must know that they’re complicit. They saw Dream before he died, and they have blood on their hands, and this disease is beyond any doctor’s practice. Certainly past the expertise of those who handle midnight bodies and broken things– almost like a doll-maker, but for people like Ranboo. Fundamentally messed up, and a born accomplice, if not a killer.
“Get inside,” is the first thing Sapnap says before grabbing Ranboo’s arm and doing that for him, yanking him in with a grasp on his bad arm, pain causing colors to blur in front of him and the knife to jostle at his side. The door shuts, and Ranboo grabs his waist to stabilize it, but Sapnap catches the motion and pushes his shoulders against the wall, grasping where Ranboo had touched and feeling the hilt of a knife. His eyes widen more than they had before. “Holy shit. Holy shit, Ranboo, what are you doing? ”
Ranboo shakes his head desperately. “Not for you,” he weakly explains, but Sapnap yanks the weapon out anyway. He stares at it, then looks above Ranboo’s eyes, and then his jaw sets.
“Dream,” Sapnap says, almost unbelieving of his own words. “He- were you just with him?”
“Do you know where he is?” Ranboo asks instead of answering, because he doesn’t know how to tell Sapnap that his best friend tried to kill him.
“What the hell, no?” Sapnap’s face twists with anger. “Do you? He- we thought he was in jail already, how the- Ranboo, what happened? ”
“Jail?” Ranboo feels dizzy. “He’s- he’s dead. Isn’t he?”
There’s a sound of someone moving, and Ranboo sees George walk up to them out of the corner of his eye, his facial expression blank. Even still, he says with that same dull, neutral tone, “How would he be dead? The cops got him.”
“Yeah, what the fuck are you talking about, Ranboo?” Sapnap asks again, and Ranboo feels the blood drain out of his face.
Jail? Jail? Dream isn’t supposed to be in jail, no no no no no he was just with Ranboo, Ranboo saw him, that wasn’t a dream, that couldn’t have been a dream that was Dream, that was his Dream, why was- there’s no way in hell that he’s in jail, he didn’t even do anything wrong, there’s- he just saw him when would he have gone to prison he said he was killing himself-
He feels someone moving him, and he follows limply as Sapnap and George sit him on the couch. Something large is shoved into his hands, and he grabs the sides of it tightly before realizing that it’s a trash can, in case he needs to throw up. He thinks he honestly might, because- because Dream is supposed to be dead, and he doesn’t want to tell them that, he really doesn’t, but he has to-
“He’s dead,” he says, “Dream’s dead. I know. I- I saw him. No, no I didn’t see him, but he told me, he said-”
“What are you talking about?” Sapnap interrupts, confusion clearly in his tone. “He’s in jail. For a DUI. Where are you getting this from?”
Ranboo isn’t crazy. He’s not, he didn’t- he didn’t- what if he dreamed all of that? What if Dream didn’t actually- oh God, oh God. He’s going to be sick, he’s going to be- “DUI? What?”
“Driving under the influence-”
“Ranboo knows what a DUI is, dumbass.”
“Are you sure?” George betrays some irritation in his tone. “Look at him.”
Did Dream take him out while he was drunk? There’s- there’s no way in hell, that- that that was drunk driving- they would have died if that was the case, so there’s- they have to be lying, they have to be- “Are you lying?”
“Why the fuck would we lie about this?” Sapnap rips the trash can out of his hands to kneel in front of Ranboo, staring him dead in the eyes. “No, seriously, why would we lie? Actually, no, better question, why did you show up to our place with a knife while injured? If you can’t explain that, then- then-”
“Dream,” Ranboo mumbles.
“Did he hurt you?” Ranboo can’t differentiate apathy, frustration, and fear, maybe that’s the problem. Maybe he can’t tell the difference between drunk Dream and sober Dream, or a dream and reality. Maybe he really is too far gone. “If he hurt you, that- that makes that really bad, Ranboo, we need this information.”
He can’t tell them that Dream did this. He can’t.
Because- because they won’t believe him, and it didn’t even actually happen anyway, Ranboo must have- but how would Ranboo have hurt himself if none of that happened, and the photograph- the photograph- it couldn’t have been a dream but it clearly didn’t happen, what the hell is happening, where is Ranboo, is he awake? Did anything- where is he- oh God, oh God, oh God no he can’t he can’t he can’t-
He gags into the trash can, which somehow returned in front of him, and there’s something being tilted to his lips, and he tries to drink the cold water but it makes him feel like he’s dying, and it goes spilling down the front of his sweatshirt before Sapnap stops trying to drown him with it.
“I’m calling the police,” someone says across the room, and Ranboo knocks the trash can over as he straightens, hands falling back on his shoulders but he can’t, he can’t, he can’t-
“I’m okay,” he lies, “okay, it wasn’t- not Dream, just- just an accident, I’m okay- I’m okay-”
“Nobody could have done that to themselves by accident.”
“It was an accident,” and Ranboo feels fifteen again, lying to his parents and the police as he says, over and over, “it was an accident, it- please, please it was an accident, please believe me, it wasn’t- no, no no no no no, it was- it was-”
“Breathe, Ranboo,” someone says again. “I believe you, it’s okay. We still need to- we need to call the police, this is- this is really bad-”
“Don’t,” Ranboo begs, “they’ll take me away.”
“Is someone hurting you? Is that what this is?”
“Home alone,” Ranboo wants the water back. Anything at all to make it stop. “Please, home alone, accident, it was-”
He hears someone talking, and the words stick in his head before bouncing off and exploding with fire-hot pain past his eyes, and he cries out and curls up on himself, trying to cover his ears, but hands are on his shoulders and forcing the can in front of him, and his chest is heaving and his throat is burning and he’s trying to throw up but nothing comes out, doesn’t remember the last thing he ate, this is what it must be like to be a star.
He’s no God, he’s just- he’s just a star.
Is he throwing up blood? This wasn’t an accident- Sap, stop. Something cold is in his hand, is he dying? George, look at him, he’s- they’re already on our ass. This is how a rabbit goes rabid. We can’t let them see this- we’d never hurt Ranboo- yeah, nobody knows that though. This is how a fungi eats scraps. Fuck, let me get him into Dream’s room, you can cover for us, we- we have to get him out. This is how a main sequence star begins to die. They’re going to throw us into prison, what’s your dad going to say? I don’t give a fuck- we can’t help him, we can’t do shit. He’s so cold. You’re right. Fuck. He’s so warm. God forgive me. He’s so tepid. Just get him out of here. He’s so feverish. What is that- don’t look at it, just get him out of here- what the fuck was that photograph?
Ranboo falls down the first flight of stairs, knees burning as he falls into a crawl, getting himself out of the apartment complex while staying miraculously out of sight. The knife is gone, the photograph is still here, and he pulls himself into his car and starts typing in an address he remembers from when there used to be a passenger, but he misses the first turn and starts driving aimlessly instead, GPS telling him you are on the fastest available route you are on the fastest available route meet me at our usual place where are you going Ranboo we have to get him out come down here stay down stay down you are on the fastest available route YOU ARE ON THE FASTEST AVAILABLE ROUTE
When his hands finally rest, and the car stops jolting and jerking and screaming and stilling, Ranboo fumbles for years on the door handle like he accidentally trapped himself in there. You are on the fastest available route, you are on the fastest available route, you are on- it takes the full force of his shoulder to open it in the end, and he finds himself on his hands and knees in a gravel parking lot, entirely alone.
His palms get covered with scrapes as he tries and fails to push himself up several times, and once he’s up and walking again, he can tell there’s blood trickling down from the middle of his hand to his wrist. The bugs might like it, he thinks, and then he remembers that it’s the dead of winter, and he has no idea where he is, and nobody is around to bandage him up or cut him down anyway. No people, and certainly no bugs, and even the air is still with the lack of animals. Wind, maybe, but nothing else.
Ranboo isn’t awake.
There are endless trees in front of him, and a rock found its way up his sleeve. The sound of water trickles in the gaps of static that scream in his mind, and all the animals are laying at rest or are otherwise dead, leaving the sound of his boots breaking twigs and crunching snow all the more pitiful. A lone person, walking into the glade of their dreamscape, only hoping that it ends in anything other than a nightmare.
His entire body feels away from itself. His waking body must want to wake up, to have the two eclipse as one entity once again, but all his dream self can do is walk. The corners of his eyes threaten darkness, disjointed limbs on the brink of collapse with every step, but he can start to see the shapes of people surrounding him, too, always behind wherever he faces. Is he the only one trapped here? Does Iris…?
Iris can’t be here. He is Iris. Iris is him. The start of a story that ends in a different book. Like all series are, if each novel has no satisfying conclusion. Maybe there’s no point reading every installment if the first one is bad. Maybe there’s no point considering a person beyond who Iris was.
Behind him, the trees close in. Nowhere to go back. Step after step, body heavy, mind clear.
If his feet lead him to Dream, does he bury the body? Does he mourn it? Does he lay and die beside him? How much of Ranboo starts and ends with Dream? If your life begins with a person and then that person is gone, do you still exist? Is Ranboo still a person if Dream was his end, beginning, and everything in between? Where do you look to recreate yourself? Do you have to find someone new?
Iris, died and reborn as Ranboo. Ranboo, died and reborn as someone .
Is this where he changes his name? Flees the city? Finds somewhere else to blend in? Is there any point, when there’s nowhere else Ranboo can go?
He’s so cold. He’s so hot. He’s so tepid. He’s so feverish.
He wants to have someone in the woods with him. Dream, Techno, Niki, Fundy, Tubbo, Tommy, anyone. He doesn’t want to be alone. He doesn’t want to keep walking. Does he even have service anymore? Where did he drive? Why can’t he feel his body? When did Ranboo break? Is he even Ranboo anymore?
Ranboo Beloved, with the sweet-sounding last name, someone wants to take it, a promise he’ll never have, Iris Beloved with the sweet-sounding first name, someone wants to take him, a promise to keep him safe-
Slowly, he notices feeling start to seep back into him, and he blinks his eyes lazily like he’s seeing for the first time. He’s curled up in a patch of grass, snow scattered around and underneath him, and his heel nudges a patch of stubborn ice. Nobody is around, and there isn’t even a single creature, and he feels so cold and all the rest. He has no idea where he is, must have driven himself out to a random park, just to lay and finally sleep.
If he sleeps here, he won’t wake up. He’s hurt.
His head hurts because Dream slammed it into the dashboard twice. The first time, really, was an accident on Ranboo’s part, but Dream meant it the second two times. His arm hurts because Dream slashed at it trying to protect his own life. His fingertips are bleeding because he killed God and all Its angels. His knuckles hurt from punching a mirror. His knee hurts from falling on the floor in front of Dream’s apartment, and then falling down the stairs, and then falling into the parking spot. His palms hurt because he scraped gravel to get here.
His chest hurts because he’s breathing shallowly.
This place he’s in feels so, so empty, but he shuts his eyes and finds himself praying anyway.
“God,” he breathes out, voice so quiet and raspy and broken. Has he spoken recently? When did he last drink water knowing it wouldn’t freeze to frost? “God, how do I go?” His cheeks are clammy and start to stream with tears, crying out the very little water he has inside him anyway, and he starts to shake on the grass. Convulse, maybe. “How do I go? God? How do I… do I… go? Go, God. Go? God, I… I- God!”
There’s nothing up there. Nowhere else to go but down.
His eyelashes flutter. His knees curl up to his chest.
For hours, he lays there. He tries to give himself reasons to stay awake, but he finds that there isn’t any, yet the hassle warrants enough thought to buy him a few minutes before he tries to fall asleep and has to think it all over again. He’s slept so much recently, and he’s so tired, and he watches as the sun goes from in the middle of the sky until it begins to die.
At some point, he pushes himself up with great effort until he’s sitting there in the snow, staring up at the sky as it darkens, and he waits and waits and waits until it starts to set. How is it already so, so late? The sun sets early these days, doesn’t it?
Niki is going to be so upset.
Ranboo doesn’t want to be here. He wants to go home. He wants to feel warm, and he wants his cat, and he wants Niki to bake something in the kitchen, and he wants Techno to talk to him about mythology for hours, and he wants Fundy to show him all the baby photos he has, and he wants Tubbo to call him pretty until their faces are both red, and he wants Dream to hug him again, he wants Dream back so badly, he needs Dream back he needs him he needs him why did he leave him-
Ranboo loved Dream. Dream was his boss, and Dream was his tutor, and Dream was his friend, and Dream was everything he had, and now he’s gone. Gone, in the bottom of the pit. Where Ranboo… where Ranboo… why won’t the memory stick? Why? He knows the black hole pit, that’s where he- he- he jumped, and he-
He-
His hands go to cover his ears, but it doesn’t stop the sound of wind rushing around him, whirling, trying to pull him down. He can still smell the weed, thick and hovering against his nose, and there’s nothing in front of him but the black hole-
-and snow, he’s in a park, he’s not there-
-but God, it’s always so cold, does it have to be this cold?
Is this what it feels like to die?
His phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s getting dark. Ranboo is starting to feel numb and sick and he needs to- he needs to go before he dies.
But is there any point trying to save himself? He’s going to be so sick that he can’t go back to school anyway. Nobody is going to want him because it was only ever Dream, and Dream’s dead, and it’s all Ranboo’s fault, he just killed his best friend, so he should die, right? There’s nothing for him. He’ll never get to go to college, and nobody is ever going to love him, and- and-
And he wants Niki to bake and Techno to talk and Fundy to text and Tubbo to flirt because they- they still-
don’t they love him?
And isn’t it awful? For Ranboo to crave their love like he’ll die without it, and everyone knows that he will? That as he lays here, he’s so loveless and that’s why he’s dying, that if anyone were to love him it would just be to save his life? That there’s nothing to the sisterly bond that Ranboo made up in his head to justify sapping away Niki’s life, and there’s no true friendship in the stilted meetings of tutoring sessions with Techno, and Fundy is a stranger that Ranboo is desperately forcing to be something other than that and yet pushing away with every breath, and Tubbo-
Ranboo wants Tubbo. Ranboo wants Tubbo here, right now, he wants him, he wants him, because Tubbo doesn't love him but he needs Tubbo he needs him he’s so scared and he needs Tubbo Tubbo makes it better he has to be here where is he where is he Ranboo needs him he’s going to die he needs Tubbo he needs
Shakily, he pulls out his phone. Texts on his screen but he doesn’t know who, brain beginning to lose its rhythm again as he thinks about how much he doesn’t want to be here alone, how he wants to feel warm again and go home but there’s no hope for him if he does, there’s nothing there for Ranboo nothing he wants everything so badly but there’s nothing he’s going to get nothing that could save him he’s stuck forever he’s stuck he’s stuck
there’s no hope
and he needs to get someone here he doesn’t want to die but maybe he does
does he want to die
there’s no other way
iris reborn ranboo reborn black hole pit starry sky open
ranboo is a white dwarf and he is beginning to collapse and die and and and
keys in front of him he types and he types and he feels so so sick but its ok he is ok he has to be ok he wants to go home why isn’t anyone coming for him where are they does nobody want him is this why is nobody where is dream he wants dream he wants
someone calls him.
His head is filled with static, wind, and heartbeats, but he can still hear the sound of someone asking, “Is everything okay?” because that specific person has the loveliest voice in the entire world because that person is Tubbo and Ranboo is in love with him and Ranboo thought of him before the car crashed before he died and Ranboo is a white dwarf and
“Ranboo? Please say something, I- where are you?”
galaxy far out in the galaxy galaxy, “Safe.”
“Okay. Okay, Boo, can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“‘M a white dwarf.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Why? Why? Why? Why is he like this, did he even have a chance? He wants to fall in love, he wants to go to the school dance, he wants to get into college, he wants to read a book, he wants to take a test, he wants to go to work, he wants to bake, he wants everything in the entire world but he can’t have it. He’s supposed to die. He’s supposed to die, and he doesn’t know why, because he doesn’t want to. Why would he ever fall out a window? Why did he want that? There’s so much Iris had that Ranboo is never going to have. Ranboo wants to be happy and he wants to live and he can’t have that, and he can’t tell Tubbo all of that because it won’t make sense, hardly makes sense to him, and his entire body is shattering under the weight of knowing that nobody is ever going to understand.
The phone is talking, but he can’t understand. He’s drowning in the dark matter of the universe, suffocating him until he’s condensed matter, and he still has some energy burning in him. He wants it to stop, wants to give up until he’s barely anything more than space debris, but his body forces him to live as something equally as insignificant, yet taking up far more space. Eons of astral and celestial entities, all for him to emerge as the most time-consuming one. Defusing bombs, the way he always has.
His mouth keeps moving, and he’s saying words but can’t remember any of them, just knows that Tubbo isn’t hanging up on him, just knows the the snow underneath him is so much warmer than any embrace he could receive from the other, and it would be so tempting to sink into it and die the same night that Dream does.
Instead, his phone dies.
And the silence around him causes something to break.
He pushes himself out of the suicidal snow and begins walking aimlessly, the darkness making it harder to navigate his way back to the car. He still feels half outside his body, but every step forces him in, making him confront the pain of several instances of near-death. He knows there’s nothing waiting for him once he goes home, but he doesn’t want to die alone, not like this. It’s so, so cold, and he’ll die anyway, lying lifelessly in bed as the cold takes him, but he wants to be found. In all of Ranboo’s endless selfishness, there’s this: he doesn’t want to die where nobody will ever find him.
Isn’t that why he plummeted into the black hole? Hoping that his parents would be there, that there could be some reason for his fifteen year old self to fall out the small window other than his obvious suicidality at the time? Every person who found him, with the exception of Dream who had heard the story recounted much later, automatically assuming that it was an accident, the hospital workers stating the exact opposite, and him choosing the easiest answer? Had he wanted to believe he was capable of ending his own life when it was much easier to say that there was a black hole speaking to him, that if he fell he could have everything he wanted?
And in the car, Ranboo tried to kill himself alongside Dream, the two of them in a different town three hours away but nevertheless still capable of being found. Dying in a car collision the way that Ranboo had always acted out– because nobody can overlook a stationary car, not when it’s by a busy overpass, even in the midst of a blizzard.
Now, Ranboo pushes himself into his car, shaking as much snow out of his sleeves as he can, because he doesn’t want to die out here. He doesn’t want to die out here because nobody would know where to find him, and Ranboo wants to be found because he is so lonely in life and cannot fathom an afterlife where he has to be that, too. He wants company, wants someone to be there, and the stilted call with Tubbo must have been his way of seeking company, but he wants more than that. Selfishly, he wants more– he doesn’t want to be alone. He doesn’t.
That’s what makes him a murderer; that’s what makes him delusional. He can’t die somewhere if there’s not another person to watch.
He’s so sick.
He manages to get the GPS working and begins the drive home, wincing at the gravel that scrapes against his tires. Nothing punctures, thankfully, and every second he is in the car is spent trying to restore the blood back in his body. Trying to feel alive again. He has to.
(He was fifteen when he began the end of the universe. He is seventeen when he becomes it.)
The sun has set, and Ranboo doesn’t want to die alone, and he drives away from his fourth death, the fourth end of the universe, knowing that abandoning ship means nothing anymore. Not when he knows there will always be a fifth time; not when he knows he will always come back.
He tries, desperately, to lie to himself that it will never happen again.
It’s the only thing that keeps him alive.
–
When Ranboo finally gets back home, he throws all of his wet and freezing clothes into the laundry, plugs in his phone so he can eventually text Tubbo back an explanation, and carefully tends to the new wounds he’s sustained and old ones he’s aggravated in his brief escape from the house.
Then, he collapses into his bed and screams.
He shoves a pillow into his face to muffle the sound of his sobbing, throat convolusing around every noise as he cries harder than he ever has in his life. The exhaustion of the day and the delirium of not remembering the majority of it hit him harder than his skull to the dashboard, and he finds himself rocking back and forth as he tries to self-soothe.
At some point, Springerle hops onto the bed, and Ranboo can’t even reassure her that everything is okay, just drops the pillow and picks her up and buries his tear-streaked face into her fur.
Dream is gone. Be it death or a DUI, Ranboo is never going to see him again. For better or for worse, Ranboo himself is alive, with the only people knowing of his whereabouts the past two days having been Sapnap, George, and Tubbo. None of them seem concerned enough to summon themselves at his door, though he finds himself still shaking at the thought of someone entering his house.
There’s a photograph of Ranboo’s struggle in the car, unconscious and bruised and bleeding. In his head, there’s the clear memory of his fifteen year old suicide attempt, that his brain tries to push back but he knows is far too difficult to repress anymore. After all that’s happened the past two days, he’s never going to forget what he’s done to other people and what he’s tried to do to himself. He’s always going to have to live with it.
How awful, having to come to terms with surviving alongside something like that.
The future for Ranboo is hazy. There’s no hope of him ever finding someone that understands his mind the way Dream does, and even if Dream had tried to kill him, that was mingled with affection Ranboo will never forget, because he is fervently convinced Dream loved him to the bitter end. Even if Dream had said the exact opposite, Ranboo has to believe this to be true. Because Dream knew him better than anyone else does, and if he hated him, then- then-
There’s no hope for Ranboo ever forging a true human connection. He’s too other, he’s too crazy, he’s too wrong. Every second of his life going forward will be dedicated to the act of survival, even if it is reckless and difficult and pain-stricken. There’s nothing else for him.
When Ranboo eventually dies, it will have to be alone.
He has no idea how long it takes to stop crying. His phone manages to charge enough for him to send Tubbo a text: sorry, my phone died. I’ll see you tomorrow! He throws the device on the bedroom floor soon after that. Springerle stays wrapped up in his arms, ever so patient with him, and he has no idea why she would bother being affectionate towards her clearly horrible owner. God, Ranboo is so, so awful it’s hard to conceptualize. Niki and Fundy’s sibling-like affections, Techno’s friendship, Tubbo’s… Tubbo’s something– none of that can ever exist or continue the way it has. Not when Ranboo is this awful of a human being, immoral and reckless and out of control.
His head begins to ache from dehydration rather than the bruising, and he takes that as a reason to finally let Springerle go and lay down. Despite this, his cat stays in bed beside him, curling up against his chest as he tries to shut his eyes. All the images he sees are black holes and car crashes and Dream’s expression the last time he saw him– the last time he’ll ever see him– and Ranboo has to choke back another sob.
This is where it ends. He’s braved the storm this far and made it to the eye, but the thickest part of the eye wall and thus the worst of the storm happens directly after. He had fallen in love in that diner, convinced he was on top of the world, and now the same body that wore a beautiful skirt is seizing under the blanket in an attempt to keep him alive.
This is where it ends. It always had to stop somewhere. Ranboo had just wished he wouldn’t be alone.
Come down here, the black hole whispers to him, a lullaby.
I want to, Ranboo says back, and then flings himself into white dwarf star death instead.
In the quiet of his bedroom, body and mind equally broken, Ranboo Beloved becomes a black dwarf.