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Mister Wizard won’t meet his eyes.
And—honestly, Max thinks that might be a bit unfair. Like—sure, he messed up. What else is new? He’d have thought everyone else would be used to it, at this point. He’s made a list, actually, of all the things he did in just the first day he met them: he got drunk on wine, and he nearly scared off that druid in the forest clearing, and he stuck evil moss in his mouth—at that point, why not pull out his bagpipes, as well? He already made things bad enough; why not make it worse?
Not to mention that the very first thing he did in front of them was to fail his backflip.
They really should just expect it, at this point. Max is a failure—that’s the truth, and it’s not something that’s going to change any time soon. Max would know. He’s been trying to change it for his entire life.
Ruby is sitting on a tree stump, polishing her dagger and glaring at Max every few minutes. She hasn’t spoken a word in his direction for two hours. Broghini has disappeared, for the time being—searching for food in the forest, Max thinks. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t particularly care. Broghini can do whatever he wants to do. He’s a free dwarf. Max can’t stop him, nor would he want to, or have any reason to.
So what, Broghini cast an unreadable glance over his shoulder as he hefted his axe? So what, the dwarf’s friendly and warm demeanor has frozen over, and now he won’t give Max so much as a small smile? Max doesn’t care. This is normal. This is familiar.
More familiar, actually, than when he healed Broghini’s wounds, or when he cast Bless on the group while they were battling that tavern master—Marchessa, was it?—and helped them all out. It was an odd feeling, being thanked for his actions. Even Ruby had tugged on his braid from where she was beside him, down by his elbow, and begrudgingly told him well done.
He almost prefers it when they’re yelling at him. It makes his chest less tight. It makes the voices in his head a bit quieter.
It’s not like he gets much of a choice in the matter, anyways. He’s always going to mess up, no matter how hard he tries. No matter how well he does, he’ll undoubtedly upset them again, and they’ll be right back where they started.
Max exhales, long and weary, and winces at the pain in his ribs as he does. He shuffles, intending to get to his feet from where he’s lying back against a fallen tree.
Ruby’s head whips up, and she fixes him with a piercing scowl. She points her dagger in his direction. “Move one more inch, and your ribs won’t be the only things that are broken,” she threatens. “I will snap your neck, and I won’t regret it for an instant. Stay. Still.”
Max freezes. For a moment, his head is spinning and his eyes are burning and his lungs ache in a way that’s completely unrelated to his ribs, and he thinks that he might throw up—
And then he blinks and yawns, draping his arms over the tree trunk that he’s leaning against, ignoring how the movement agitates his ribs. “Right,” he drawls, arching an eyebrow and quirking his lips up, though he’s not really feeling it, at the moment. His head hurts. “You’ll snap my neck. Of course.” Ruby’s eyes gleam a sharp crimson. She knows him well enough, at this point, that she knows he has more to say.
She’s right. Max grins. “That is, if you can reach.”
Briefly, he worries that he may have overstepped. Truly overstepped, this time, because there have been moments where Max thought Ruby was about to stab him, but right now, he’s absolutely convinced. Her grip tightens on her dagger, and she’s on her feet in an instant, and she’s already taken two quick steps in Max’s direction before Mister Wizard makes a quiet sound from his position sitting on a rock, and she falters.
Max releases a soft breath as Ruby clenches her fists, but returns to her perch on the tree stump. Her eyes are still glinting angrily, and her dagger is looking quite sharp, but she’s no longer as murderous as she was.
Still, if Max weren’t quite so used to dirty looks, he’d have withered under the weight of her glare. As it is, he just tenses his shoulders so they don’t slump, and he tilts his head to the side as Ruby glowers at him.
“You have,” she grits out, “some nerve making jokes after what you did.”
Max tosses his braid over his shoulder and crosses his arms. “I don’t get why it’s such a big deal,” he complains, and Mister Wizard stiffens, but still doesn’t look in his direction. “We killed the nasty things. They’re dead. We’re alive. What more could you possibly ask for?”
It was a gaggle of goblins, nearly the same as the ones they faced in Marchessa’s tavern, but far less…creepy. Normal goblins, rather than goblins that were under the effects of the boar moss. Easy, right? Far easier than the creatures they faced before, at least.
Except Ruby wouldn’t let him help. She and Broghini went ahead, and Max was told to stay back with Mister Wizard, and no matter how much Max protested, Ruby wouldn’t budge on the matter. You, she’d reminded him sharply, yanking on his braid to make him hunch over to her height so she could jab a finger into his chest, are the one to save us all when things inevitably go wrong. Stay.
Sure, he can heal people. Who cares? He can fight. He has fought, and Ruby knows this. Why would she make him stay back? He wanted to help. He’s more than just his ability to heal. He’s a performer, and a musician, and damn it, he can fight. He’s not as useless as she seems to think he is.
But then he got too close, and he got in the way of Ruby and Broghini. Of course he did—he wasn’t trying to, but he happened to stumble right into their immediate proximity, and he distracted them for long enough that the goblins got the chance to attack. And Max caught a club right to the ribs.
He thinks he may have hit his head on the ground when he collapsed and passed out from the pain and the impact, which is…quite embarrassing, if he’s being honest. He’d briefly returned to awareness to someone jostling his shoulders and saying his name, over and over—Mister Wizard, he now knows—and he recalls the feeling of being half-curled on the ground, arms wrapped around himself, teeth snagging on his lower lip in a desperate attempt to stop the pained whimpers from escaping. He remember’s Broghini’s voice, low and deep and worried, and Ruby’s voice, harshly ordering Mister Wizard to do something, idiot, don’t you have some sort of healing spell in that book of yours?
Mister Wizard didn’t, apparently, because Max’s ribs feel the same as they did before. But he must have done something to help Max calm down—even if that ‘something’ was just running a cool hand over Max’s forehead and smoothing back his hair—because Max quickly fell into an uneasy sleep.
The next time he woke up, he was propped up against this tree, with a bandage slapped over his forehead and an aching pain in his entire body, but especially his ribs and his head. His hair had been—still is, in fact—sticky with blood, and Mister Wizard and Broghini both refused to say a word to him, and Ruby only spoke, words clipped and sharp, just enough to tell him what happened while he was out.
Apparently, Broghini managed to fight off the goblins while Mister Wizard and Ruby worked on getting Max out of the danger zone. Once they did, Ruby left Mister Wizard with Max to make sure he didn’t die on the spot, somehow, and she helped Broghini to finish off the goblins before they could do any more damage. The three of them had trudged back to camp in this clearing, with Broghini carrying Max as they went.
And now they’re all giving him the cold shoulder. And Max doesn’t understand.
It’s not even like Ruby or Broghini were the ones to get injured. Max doesn’t understand why they’re all so upset with him. Yeah, he made a mistake. Whatever. He’s the one who paid for it, in the end. Mister Wizard didn’t even have to exhaust his magic to help, and they only ended up needing to use one bandage on him. Max has already offered to replace it with his own money, but Ruby had stuck her dagger into the ground in a fit of anger and told him harshly that that wasn’t the point.
The voices in Max’s head had screamed when she said that. They still haven’t quieted. They’re making Max’s headache worse.
“I should not have to explain this to you, Max!” Ruby huffs, frustrated, in response to Max’s previous comment. “Not only did you put yourself in danger, you put all of us in danger!”
“You and Bro didn’t get hurt,” Max reminds her, and he can’t stop his voice from trembling dangerously, or from cracking as he speaks. He clears his throat and pastes an unbothered mask on his face. “You didn’t get hurt. I was the only one who got hurt, and I’m fine. I’ll be all better in a day or two.”
Through the voices in his head, Max thinks he hears Mister Wizard comment quietly that concussions and broken ribs don’t heal in just a few days, but he ignores it. He could recover in a day or two, if he wanted. It wouldn’t be particularly hard to heal himself. He’d have to wait, for a bit—he had to heal Mister Wizard earlier, and he hasn’t yet recovered enough to use the spell again—but either way he’s decided that it’s not worth it. He’s fine, after all. He can still fight and heal, if he needs to. Sure, it might be tough to do backflips for a few days, but he can deal with that. Consider it his punishment.
“It doesn’t matter that you were the only one who got hurt,” Ruby hisses. “You could have died. You realize that, right? This isn’t a game, this is real. Lives are at stake, and every single time you leap into battle without thinking, you put yourself at risk of dying.”
Max shrugs. He feels oddly dizzy. “Well, that’s my choice, isn’t it? Besides, I’m clearly fine, and you’re clearly overreacting.”
And, oh, Ruby doesn’t like that. She grinds her pointed teeth and leaps to her feet, waving around her dagger dangerously. “There are four of us, Max,” she spits, and at this, Max flinches almost imperceptibly. For the first time since he woke up, he feels Mister Wizard looking at him, eyes sharp and curious. “Did we pick this group? No. If we had gotten to pick, you would have been my last choice.”
Max waves a hand dismissively. “I’ve heard it said before.” It never hurts any less.
“But now that we are a group, it’s just. Us. Okay?” Ruby punctuates each word with a jab of her dagger in Max’s direction. He doesn’t even blink. “It is you, me, Bro, and Mister Wizard. I don’t know what you did before you were here, but you’re not alone anymore, and you can’t just—go around being selfish, Max!”
“I’m not—” Max grunts, frustrated. “I’m not being selfish, I’m trying to help—”
“Yeah, well, you’re not going to be able to help anyone if you don’t stop thinking only about yourself. That’s how it works.” Ruby gestures at Mister Wizard with her dagger, then at Broghini, who has just returned from the forest. His legs are wet up to his knees, and he has a dead fish slung over his shoulder. He watches their exchange with wide eyes. “You have to deal with the three of us, now. Either go sulk about it on your own, or get over it, because I refuse to let you put the rest of us in danger just because you can’t deal with your problems.”
“I’m dealing with my problems just fine, thank you,” Max snarls, and Ruby scoffs incredulously.
“Right. Sure.” Ruby rolls her eyes. “I genuinely can’t tell if you’re trying to lie to the rest of us, or if you actually believe that.”
“I’m not—” Max clenches his jaw tightly enough that his teeth hurt. He doesn’t finish his sentence.
Unfortunately, Ruby seems to take that as confirmation. “Exactly.”
Broghini shifts, uncomfortable. “Hey, Ruby? Not sure about this.”
Ruby waves him off. “Max, honestly? I couldn’t care less if you’ve managed to convince yourself that you’re good at dealing with your problems. I just really wish you wouldn’t strut around, messing things up for the rest of us!”
That hits home, perhaps more than Ruby expected it to.
Embarrassingly, tears prickle at Max’s eyes. The voices shriek in his ears, screaming about the many things he’s already done wrong—today, yesterday, for as long as he can remember. “I’m not trying to mess it all up, Ruby!” he cries, voice cracking, and the furious twist to Ruby’s face wavers. “It’s not—” His vision is blurry, and he swipes at his eyes harshly. It doesn’t help. The voices in his head cackle. “It’s not like I wake up every day and decide that I’m going to make things difficult for everyone, okay? I’m not trying to make things worse!”
“I—okay.” Ruby’s eyes are wide, and they shine in the light as she lifts her hands, palms forward. Her tail flicks anxiously behind her. “Look, Max, I didn’t mean that you were trying—”
“Stop—stop,” Max begs hoarsely. His heartbeat is too quick, and he can feel it pounding in his chest. His skin is too tight, and his head is echoing with a million voices, and he can’t tell which ones are his own and which ones aren’t. He’s not sure if it matters.
Ruby stops. She goes silent.
Mister Wizard stands up from where he sits on the rock. He adjusts his hat, and clutches onto his staff, and he opens his mouth as if he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. The scar across his eye glows eerily.
Max clutches at his hair, tugging on his braid until it pulls at his scalp enough to hurt. “I don’t—” He laughs, almost hysterically. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what to do, anymore.”
Ruby looks nervous. “Max?” She looks as though she’s about to continue—her mouth opens and she takes a breath—but Max can’t handle hearing that, right now. He can’t.
“I’m trying,” he sobs desperately, and Ruby’s mouth snaps shut. “I—I know I keep messing up, okay? I get it! It’s not like I—not like I never do stuff just for fun! The bagpipes are for fun! But I just—” He curls his fingers into a tight fist and pounds it against his chest. Once, twice, as if that’s going to loosen his lungs. It doesn’t. It just agitates his ribs even more, and he chokes on the pain, head spinning.
“Wait, Mister Bl—Max? Don’t—”
It’s the first thing Mister Wizard has said directly to Max all day. All Max can do is ignore him.
“I’m not trying to mess everything up,” he pleads, hoarse, begging for them all to understand. His eyes flicker wildly from Broghini to Ruby to Mister Wizard as if one of them will be willing to hear him out. “It’s—it’s really hard to be anything more than a—a screw-up—” The voices in his head echo the ones of his parents, the other entertainers at the circus, the three travelers standing before him. In his mind, Broghini calls him weak, and Ruby calls him a liability, and Mister Wizard calls him useless, and he’s not useless. He’s not.
He gasps for air that doesn’t ender his lungs. “It’s hard to be anything more than a screw-up when you’ve spent your entire life as a Blunder.” Another sharp cackle, raw and ragged. “That’s all I am! That’s all I’ve ever been, and it’s all I’ll ever be, and I can’t—I can’t.”
A sort of clarity descends upon him. He can’t be here, anymore. And—and he’s not quite sure what that means, yet. Maybe it means that he needs to get out of this clearing, or maybe it means that he needs to leave the group altogether. He just keeps messing things up, after all. He shouldn’t be here anymore.
It’s strange. It’s been a long time since he’s reacted this way to making a mistake. He used to get this upset every single time, and his distress was only worsened by the presence of the voices in his mind—quiet when he was young, and stronger and louder as he met more people and their voices were added to the clamor. But he got used to it, over time, and he grew numb to the feeling of being yelled at, and he learned how to deal with it, so why can’t he just deal with it?
He’s not used to this, anymore. Maybe it was a mistake to grow comfortable with himself. He was always going to end up right back where he started. He was never going to be anything but a Blunder.
Broghini must see something desperate and jagged in his eyes, because he leans forward, reaching for Max.
“Max, wait—”
Max shakes his head, ignoring Broghini entirely. “No—no, I have to—” He bites down on the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood, and clambers to his feet, gasping sharply at the piercing pain in his ribs, but not sitting back down even when Broghini reaches forward to stop him and Ruby lifts her voice in protest. “I have to go,” he croaks, even as he hunches over and clutches at his ribs. His head spins, and he blinks away the stars that flicker in his vision. He’s not sure if they’re a result of his concussion or of his panic.
Either way, they make it hard to see, and he wobbles dangerously as he drags a hand through his hair and lurches forward. Ruby yelps and darts to his side, as if he’s going to topple over, but he regains his balance and reels away from her.
“Get—get away,” he wheezes, both for himself, and for her. Ruby doesn’t want to be near a screw-up. No one does.
He staggers away from the clearing—away from his crew. Behind him, Mister Wizard reaches out to stop him, and Ruby clenches her fists and sheathes her dagger as she takes a step forward, but Broghini stops them both.
“Wait—give him space,” Broghini tells them. “He wants space.”
“I don’t care what he wants,” Ruby spits, and Max flinches at the vitriol in her tone. “He doesn’t just get to—walk away! Not after all that!”
“We can’t stop him.”
“He’s got a concussion and three broken ribs, and he’s walking around like a drunkard. If we let him go on his own, he’s going to get himself killed.”
Ruby’s voice sounds more distressed than Max would have expected from her, especially when she’s talking about Max himself. She truly does sound afraid for his life, as if she’s fearful that Max is going to wander off into the forest and never come back out.
Truthfully, he hasn’t decided yet if he will or not.
“I—I don’t want him to die,” Mister Wizard whispers hoarsely.
Max can’t help but feel mildly surprised.
“I know,” Broghini soothes Ruby, then turns to Mister Wizard and repeats, “I know. But we can’t force him to stay here if he doesn’t want to.”
“I could make him stay,” Ruby tells him savagely, and Max is reminded of the daggers she keeps on her at all times.
“We can’t make him stay,” Broghini repeats softly. Ruby makes a frustrated sound, and Mister Wizard begs Broghini to reconsider, but Broghini stands firm. And as Max stumbles onward, further and further from the clearing, their voices fade behind him and he vanishes among the trees.
The bells on his outfit make it difficult to disappear entirely, but before Max got good at being large, he was an expert at being small. This isn’t anything particularly unfamiliar to him.
He walks. Each step is accentuated with a spike of pain in his ribs, and he has to grit his teeth as he continues onward. Every so often—despite every voice in his mind, his own and otherwise, that calls him a weak coward for it—he glances over his shoulder. He’s far enough into the forest that he can no longer see the clearing behind him. He’s not even entirely sure how long it would take to get back.
At this point, he doesn’t see Ruby’s crimson eyes, or the gleam of Broghini’s battle axe as he hefts it on his shoulder, or Mister Wizard’s glowing scar. There are enough trees between them that Max has lost sight of everyone.
Max refuses to admit that it feels oddly lonely. He doesn’t need to, anyways. The voices do it for him.
— / — / —
Somewhere between the clearing behind him and the trees before him, Max’s mind must fade, because he doesn’t recall anything for a very long time. Maybe it’s a symptom of his concussion—some sort of dazed fog, or maybe amnesia from taking a blow to the head. He doesn’t think so, though. He doesn’t feel dizzy or sick. Just…numb.
He returns to himself, eventually, and very nearly topples out of the tree he finds himself in.
Max doesn’t know how he got all the way up here, so high above the ground. He’s leaning back against the trunk of this tree, sitting on a thick branch, clutching onto it for dear life with both hands. His braid is loose, and his breaths have turned into ragged wheezes, and his ribs and his head hurt so badly that it’s all he can do to keep himself from falling to the forest floor, far below.
He must have been here for a while, already; his hair is peppered with fallen leaves, and when he cranes his neck—yelping as he nearly slips from the branch—he can see the sun dipping slowly below the horizon.
Even just that movement, however, must be too much for him at the moment, because the pain in his head spikes and his ribs complain and he’s forced to lean back and take long, deep breaths through the static that has overtaken his vision.
He doesn’t know how long it takes, but when his eyes clear, the sky is even darker than before. On an impulse, he looks out at the millions of trees around him, nearly indistinct from one another, then lowers his gaze to the forest floor. He doesn’t see the others. By now, he wouldn’t know how to get back to them if he tried.
For the best, he reminds himself, though his fingers drift absently to the braid that Ruby had begrudgingly woven into his hair when he woke up one morning and it was a mess. She’d even taught Mister Wizard and Broghini how to do it, and now, Max’s braid is marked with the touch of the people he left behind as they practiced plaiting over and over again.
Max sighs wearily and tugs on the braid. The strands are falling out, and the thin piece of rope that Ruby tied meticulously around the end is already fraying. He has half a mind to just take it out altogether and redo it, but…he can’t. He just can’t.
His hair is long enough that it would be dragging on the ground as he walked if he didn’t do something with it, but he’d almost rather chop it all off than act like nothing ever happened. Like there wasn’t a moment that Max felt truly and genuinely cared for.
And then he had to go and mess things up, again. Just like always.
Fantastic.
Hopefully, by now, he’s far away enough that they won’t be able to find him, even with Broghini’s superior tracking skills. Not that they would bother trying, in the first place, but when Max isn’t mucking everything up, he likes to cover all of his bases.
He should be okay. Ruby wouldn’t bother searching for him, and Mister Wizard couldn’t even look him in the eye, and despite Broghini’s inherent kindness, he wouldn’t be quick to ditch the others. Especially not to look for Max.
This knowledge sends a prickling pain through his bones that’s not caused by his head injury or by his broken ribs. It’s not foreign, not by any means, but it’s certainly uncomfortable, and Max takes a shaky inhale. He presses his palm against his chest, right over his heart.
It’s fine. This is for the best. He doesn’t have to concern himself with figuring out what to do, yet. If he had to worry about his crew coming to search for him, he’d be forced to make a quick decision, which…would be quite difficult, considering that Max isn’t even confident he’d be able to climb down from this tree, if he needed to. He could do it, but it would be absolutely miserable. Best to avoid it.
As it is, Max can wait for a bit. Hang out in this tree, maybe stay here overnight so he doesn’t have to deal with the dangers of the forest in the dark. If he finds a safe position, he could sleep. He’s—he’s so tired. He’s so tired. Physically, and emotionally, and he’s not sure if the exhaustion is from his injuries or from the effort it took to leave camp and stagger all the way into the forest, but he doesn’t think it matters. He just needs to rest. Anything else is—too much.
He can stay here until morning, he decides. And then…then he’ll get on his way. Whether that be towards or away from his group—he can figure that out later.
It would be entirely shameful to drag himself all the way back to camp, arm wrapped loosely around his torso, head hung and hair grazing the ground behind him. He’d never live it down. It would truly be its own special brand of torture. The amount of ammunition it would give Ruby—it would be ludicrous.
Somehow, though, staying away sounds even worse.
Max shakes his head to dispel of his thoughts. In the morning, he reminds himself harshly. Figure it out in the morning.
But even as his eyelids flutter and the sky grows darker still, he can’t quite bring himself to sleep. The tree is uncomfortable, and his entire body aches, and his mind is reeling with a million thoughts and voices that just refuse to quiet. As Max takes a deep breath and shifts position once again—grimacing at the flash of pain it brings—he resolves himself to the fact that this will be a long night.
It takes him a long time to find a comfortable position—long enough that the moon gleams in the sky and the stars glimmer between the gaps in the trees—and Max finally manages to settle in. He exhales, more unsteadily than he’d have liked, and closes his eyes.
“Hello?”
…What?
He’s going insane. He has to be going insane.
“Mister Blad—Blund—” A frustrated huff. “Max? Are you here?”
And, despite how convinced he is that his ears have to be deceiving him, Max’s eyes fly open, because even if he is going insane, he can’t just ignore the sound of his name. He straightens immediately, groaning at the pain rocketing through his body, and cranes his neck to look at the forest below him.
He had thought he was hallucinating, or something, but no—Mister Wizard is wandering aimlessly through the trees beneath him, arms waving around awkwardly, pausing every so often to bring his hands to his mouth and call Max’s name through the night.
Under his breath, Max curses emphatically.
It’s dark out. It’s really dark out. Mister Wizard isn’t weak, by any means—in fact, Max suspects that he’s far more powerful and competent than he lets on—but it’s more than possible to be powerful and competent and an idiot, and Mister Wizard checks every single box. It gets dangerous at night; Mister Wizard is going to get himself killed if he doesn’t stop yelling at the top of his lungs and making a fool of himself.
(Not that Max has any leg to stand on when it comes to making a fool of oneself.)
“Max? Max!” Mister Wizard continues to call out, and Max releases an irritated sound. He sits up and leans out over the forest as far as he can, braid dangling over the ground and swaying in the wind.
“Hey,” he hisses, then again, louder, “Hey! Bartholomew! Up here!” A pause. “Robert!”
Mister Wizard, of course, doesn’t look up. He does pause for a moment, confused, but he doesn’t even turn his head up towards the tops of the trees before he shakes his head and clears his throat. He opens his mouth to shout Max’s name once again, but Max tugs on his braid, frustrated, and clears his throat quite loudly.
“Mister Wizard,” he grits out, and oh, how he hates addressing the lanky moron in this way, but apparently the guy won’t understand if Max calls him anything else, and Max isn’t quite so stubborn as to refuse to comply in this particular situation. Just this once.
And now Mister Wizard looks up, of course, and his jaw drops to an almost comical degree. His eyes bulge, and the scar on his face glows brighter than Max has ever seen it before.
“Max?” Mister Wizard blurts, and Max represses a long sigh. The only reason he doesn’t shout down something snarky or sarcastic is that his head is aching enough to make him nauseous, and he’d rather not throw up all over himself, thank you very much—or Mister Wizard, for that matter.
Max expects a scowl, or an accusatory finger, or some sort of angry declaration. What he doesn’t expect is for Mister Wizard’s face to split into a wide, relieved grin.
“Oh, hoo-hoo—Max! You’re okay!”
Max blinks. Mister Wizard, somehow, sounds genuinely ecstatic at the fact that he hasn’t found Max dead in a ditch, somewhere. It throws him off; this isn’t what Max had expected.
The voices hum in agitated confusion, and Max can’t help but flinch at the sound.
Still, he tries for an unconcerned yawn, and flips his braid over his shoulder. “Yes, well.” He’s not entirely sure what to say. He didn’t expect Mister Wizard to come searching for him, let alone be excited upon finding him. “Here I am, in the flesh,” he settles on. “And...you’re here.” He leans back against the tree and takes a shallow breath, closing his eyes for just a moment. “On that note,” he calls, without opening his eyes. “Where are the others? Ditched you at last?”
His words are unnecessarily rude, and filled with a sort of venom that Mister Wizard absolutely doesn’t deserve. Mister Wizard doesn’t seem upset by this, though, when he responds.
“Oh, no, not at all!” he reassures Max cheerfully. “They’re somewhere around here, I’m sure!”
Max falters. He opens his eyes and looks down, where Mister Wizard is staring up at him—and paying no attention to the dangerous forest around him, as a matter of fact, but Max ignores that for the time being. “What?” He doesn’t understand. “What did you say? What do you mean?”
Mister Wizard blinks. “They’re somewhere around here? We all went different directions, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find them—”
“No, no, what do you mean?” Max repeats, emphasizing the word, because he’s not an idiot—he understands what Mister Wizard means when he says that the others are somewhere nearby—but he doesn’t understand how it could possibly apply to this situation. “Why would you all have gone different directions?”
Mister Wizard still doesn’t understand what he’s asking. He just waves a hand and blabbers on, talking about covering more ground, and splitting up, and efficiency, and Max doesn’t get it.
“Mister Wizard!” Max shouts, and Mister Wizard stops. He stares up at Max with a sort of confusion that doesn’t make any sense at all. “Listen to me. Why. Are you. In the forest.”
Mister Wizard tilts his head. “Well, you ran away, and it was getting late—”
“Yes,” Max emphasizes. “It’s late. It’s not safe to be out this late. You’re not stupid. Broghini is not stupid. Ruby’s probably the least stupid out of all of us.” It’s true. Ruby may have a tendency to get distracted by the bugs and flowers along their path, but she’s clearly the one with the most sense out of all of them. She’s absolutely not the type to risk everyone’s lives for something that doesn’t matter.
“Yes? But—” Mister Wizard clears his throat awkwardly. “You ran away.”
Max doesn’t understand. “…Yes.”
“And—you’re hurt. And it getting dark.”
“You’re not saying anything that I don’t already know, Keith,” Max sighs tiredly. “Get to the point, please. I’m tired.”
If he had the energy, he’d put some of his normal pomp and self-importance into his tone. But he’s drained, and he’s confused, and his head is pounding and his ribs are aching and nothing makes sense. He still doesn’t understand what’s going on. He doesn’t understand why Mister Wizard is here. He doesn’t get it.
“Well, we weren’t going to just let you wander around in the dark,” Mister Wizard huffs, and he sounds almost…indignant. “You could have died. You could have already been dead.” A pause, then, quieter, “I’m…lucky I found you.”
“I found you,” Max corrects, as if that matters at all. “You would have completely walked past me.”
Mister Wizard shrugs. “Semantics.” His tone sobers. Max has never heard Mister Wizard this serious. “Max, you can’t just run off like that.”
Max scoffs. “Why not? I think it was the right choice, personally.”
“Were you going to come back?” Mister Wizard’s voice wobbles, and Max can’t quite bring himself to tell Mister Wizard the full truth: that he really didn’t know. So he just stays quiet for a moment, allowing the silence to speak for itself.
Mister Wizard exhales. “Okay,” he whispers, and the sound carries all the way from the ground up to Max’s tree. “That’s—fine.” Max can see him swallow. “You’re coming back with us, by the way,” Mister Wizard tells him. “Not a choice.”
“Yeah?” Max just feels weary. “Says who?”
“Says Ruby. She told me she’d slit my throat if I didn’t bring you back.” Mister Wizard shudders, shaking his head. “She’s scary, that one. If I was you, I wouldn’t cross her.”
Max’s eyes begin to sting. He attempts to blink the feeling away, but it refuses to leave. “Right,” he manages weakly. “I’ll—yeah. I’ll come back.”
And Mister Wizard is far happier than he should be by this declaration. He pumps his fist in the air and cheers and claps his hands excitedly, and all Max can do is stare blankly down at him. His chest is tight, and his throat is dry. He pulls on his braid until it hurts. The voices hiss in his ear that this is what he deserves, not the kindness from Mister Wizard.
“That’s—that’s fantastic!” Mister Wizard sounds genuinely relieved, and he beckons eagerly to Max. “Come on, then! Let’s head on back!” He sighs, and expresses, “Ruby and Broseph will be so glad that you’re okay.”
“Right.” Max doesn’t make an effort to move. “Let me just….”
It doesn’t take long for him to discover a problem with this plan.
Max looks at the very large drop beneath him, and the many branches he’d be forced to climb in order to reach the ground. He thinks about his aching head, and his splintered ribs.
That…could be an issue.
Mister Wizard is still chatting aloud to himself, waving his hands around distractedly, talking far too loudly for a dangerous forest at night. His voice echos through the trees, and he giggles, as if he’s delighted by the simple fact that Max has agreed to return to camp with him.
Max doesn’t understand, truthfully, but he does feel guilty that he’ll have to break the wizard’s spirits.
“Ralph?” he calls suddenly, voice cracking, and Mister Wizard makes a curious sound, turning his head up towards the branch where Max is sitting. Max grimaces. “I…don’t think I can get down.”
Everything hurts…too much, honestly, and as much effort as it must have taken Max to climb all the way up here when he wasn’t aware of his actions, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to expend the same amount of effort in an attempt to get back down. The knowledge roils in his stomach; on top of making enough mistakes to topple a mountain, he’s making everything harder, as well.
Mister Wizard must come to the same understanding, because his mouth opens in realization, and he winces. “Right! Right, that could—that could make things tricky, huh? Hoo-hoo!” He tries for a laugh to lighten the mood, but it falls heavily to the ground, and Max grimaces. He rests a hand on his ribs, then brings it to his head. He closes his eyes against the way the world spins around him.
“Oh—Max? Are you okay?” A beat. “Max.”
Begrudgingly, Max opens his eyes. He has to clutch tightly onto the branches so that he doesn’t lose his balance and fall to the ground and make everything even worse than it already is.
Mister Wizard is looking at him, worried. “Are you okay?” he presses again, and Max shrugs.
“As much as I can be,” he says, strained.
Mister Wizard purses his lips. “I can’t get you down by myself.”
Max waves him off, already mentally preparing to clamber down the trees, despite the immense pain he knows it will cause. He’d be okay if he passed out and fell, right? “It’s fine, I can just—”
“No, no, wait. Hold on.”
Mister Wizard peers up at Max with an almost analytical eye. He hums, squinting, and Max shifts under the scrutiny. “How much longer do you think you can stay there, for?” he asks. He sounds almost hesitant, almost concerned, and Max scoffs. It’s a bit duller than he intends for it to be, though, and everything feels a bit…wrong.
“I was going to stay here all night,” he admits, and his words linger in the air between them. Mister Wizard takes a deep inhale.
“Okay.” His voice trembles imperceptibly. “Okay, then—I’m going to go find Ruby and Bro, okay? Or—one of them, at least.” He gives Max a wide smile, but Max spent much of his life as an entertainer, and he learned how to recognize when something is a mask. Mister Wizard’s smile is fragile, delicate, as if it could shatter at any moment. Max doesn’t comment on this. The voices, however, mutter about it in the back of his mind.
“Go ahead,” he says instead of sharing his thoughts. He gives Mister Wizard a wry smile, looking down at him from above. “I’ll be here.”
Mister Wizard gives him one last long look. “Be safe, Max,” he pleads quietly. Max doesn’t respond. Mister Wizard waits, but when he’s only met with silence, he exhales softly and turns to leave.
Max leans back and resolves himself to wait.
His ribs protest at every movement, and even just the light from the moon is enough to make his head throb, and every little thing reminds him of his mistakes, and he’s tired of it. He’s so tired of being a screw-up—a Blunder.
Somewhere between the moment Mister Wizard leaves and the time he returns with Ruby and Broghini, Max decides that he’s done quite enough moping, and it’s about damn time he pull himself together.
It takes some time for him to settle into the role. He has to find it again; at first, it feels awkward and uncomfortable, and he has to practice an easy smile until it, once again, feels natural. He forces himself to lounge back against the tree, no matter how hard the position is on his ribs, and he crosses his arms behind his head as if as a pillow. It doesn’t matter that he’s one strong breeze away from losing his balance and leaving himself flat on the ground for Mister Wizard to find later. Why would it matter? He’s fine.
That’s the role he’s playing, and he’s sticking to it.
From the outside, he knows, he’s the perfect picture of flippant disinterest. Haughty and disdainful, lounging in a tree as if it’s his throne. Sitting tall despite the dizzying pain, speaking loud even when his head pounds—it’s less a demonstration of persistence than it is of denial. From the outside, though, it all looks the same.
Max knows that the mask will slip, at some point. He knows he’ll mess up eventually—it’s what he does. He tries and he fails and then the cycle repeats, over and over, until he finds himself battered and bruised and hiding in a tree with no way down—
He knows the mask will slip. But, if he’s lucky—which is rare—he’ll manage to keep it up long enough to trick his group. And, if he has to go back with them, like Mister Wizard said, then at least things can return to normal. Until Max comes along and messes it all up again, that is. But he can backflip over that bridge when he gets to it.
By the time Mister Wizard returns with Ruby and Broghini, the sun is peeking over the horizon, illuminating the way Max lounges lazily on the branch, feigning a yawn in the way he always does when he isn’t quite sure what to do or say. It’s not just fake, to be fair—Max is certainly tired enough to be yawning—but the others won’t know that. Just as Max intends.
“How,” Ruby states as she and Broghini approach Max’s tree, with Mister Wizard close behind, “Did you manage to get up there.”
No greeting. Not a hello, or a good morning, or a gee, Max, I’m so glad you’re okay. Alright, then. That’s fine. Max doesn’t care.
He shrugs cockily. “Talent, I suppose.” He gives her a casual grin. “Used to be an entertainer, you know. I was always partial to backflips, but—” He gestures at himself, suspended high in a tree. He pretends that it doesn’t send his head spinning with the pain. “—This is fun, too.”
Ruby rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t look as irritated as she normally does when Max acts this way. Rather, she exchanges an unreadable glance with Broghini, then with Mister Wizard, who presses his lips together and nods. A flash of frustration zips through Max’s veins; they must have been talking about him while they were walking. Max isn’t sure what Mister Wizard told the rest of them, but it mustn’t have been anything good.
He’ll have quite a bit of work to do in order to fix the things he broke.
“Right,” Ruby drawls, returning her red eyes to Max with a gaze that is absolutely not free of judgement. “Well, now you’ve got the get down. You think you can do that?”
Her voice is dismissive—contemptuous, almost, and Max grits his teeth. Somehow, in the past day or so, Ruby has gotten much better at getting under his skin. Either that, or Max is just…losing his touch, which he supposes is just as likely, considering his nature.
He pastes a smile on his face. It’s more brittle than he’d have liked, but it will have to do. “You know I can’t,” he responds pleasantly, but there’s a frustrated edge behind the words. “Or else I’d have already done it, and then, we wouldn’t need you, would we?”
Ruby grins wildly at him, showing off her sharp teeth. “Just thought I’d ask. You know, just in case you found a way to fix things without needing us to do it for you.”
She’s not wrong, and it strikes Max like an arrow to the chest. He inhales sharply—flinches, caught off guard—and wobbles, nearly losing his balance. For a moment, almost hysterically, he thinks about letting himself fall. Maybe then, he would be worthy of forgiveness. Is this enough to fix things, Ruby? My blood and bones? Is this enough?
But the thought disappears as quickly as it came, and Max is left gasping.
“Ruby.”
Broghini’s voice cuts through the air like a stone axe, sharp and unsubtle. Ruby, whose mouth had been open—undoubtedly to deliver another scathing remark—freezes. She closes her mouth and, to her credit, appears to be rather guilty.
Broghini leans in and whispers something into Ruby’s ear, and Max’s hearing isn’t quite good enough to catch the words, but he can see how Ruby winces and nods. When she looks up at Max, again, Max can’t help but be mildly surprised by the degree to which her expression has softened. Rather than frustrated or irritated or angry, she just looks…worried.
“Okay,” she murmurs quietly, then, louder, “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. All of you—” She turns to glare at Broghini, then at Mister Wizard, but her eyes aren’t quite so harsh when they return to Max. “—Listen up.”
“I’m listening,” Max calls lazily, as if bored. In reality, he’s only half-paying attention; most of his energy is devoted to keeping himself conscious. The combination of constant pain and staying awake all night has drained him so drastically that he’ll almost be surprised if he manages to hold himself together long enough for Ruby to share her plan.
Ruby doesn’t seem perturbed by his lackadaisical response. “I’m going to climb on up there,” she yells to him, as if Max’s ears aren’t working just because he’s got a concussion. “And make sure that you’re not going to fall off. And then we can figure something out—maybe Mister Wizard can use his floating disk, or we can get Bro to catch you…or an assembly line of sorts, if we find a way to pass you down from one person to the next.“ She places a hand on the tree trunk, then glances up at him. “Does that sound alright?”
It’s at this point, perhaps, that Max realizes he didn’t catch a single word of Ruby’s plan.
“I—” Max winces. He blinks rapidly to dispel whatever fog had wrapped up his mind while Ruby was speaking, and clears his throat. “I’m sorry, I need you to—repeat that, please.” His thoughts come to him like skipping a rock on a lake—skimming the surface of his mind for a few moments before sinking into the watery depths and disappearing from his grasp. The voices, of course, don’t help him to keep a train of thought, either.
“Max.” Ruby pinches the bridge of her nose, and Max realizes with a sort of desperate horror that she thinks he’s making things difficult on purpose. And—and that’s fair, because he’s done it before, but— “Now is not the time to be—”
“No, I really didn’t—” Max blinks back tears. “I really didn’t hear. I really didn’t.” Here he goes again. Mucking it all up. Great going, Blunder. Way to live up to your name.
“He has a head injury, Ruby,” Mister Wizard reminds her quietly. Ruby opens her mouth, then exhales, pursing her lips guiltily.
“Right. Sorry.” She lifts her voice once again. “I’m going to climb up to you, okay? We’ll go from there.” She speaks slower, this time, gives him more time to process, and though it takes a few more seconds than Max would have liked, he nods.
He hates this fuzzy feeling. He was fine, earlier! Perfectly fine, save for a savage headache—why is it just now that the rest of the symptoms have made themselves known? Truly the worst possible timing, as well. If it was earlier, at least he could have dealt with it by himself. Now, of course, it just had to become everyone else’s problem as well.
He lifts his hand to his head, feeling the dried, crusty blood that still sticks to his hair, and grimaces when the touch stings. He decides to ignore it for the time being.
He turns his attention, as unreliable as it is, back to Ruby.
Just as Ruby had promised, she begins to scale the tree as Mister Wizard and Broghini watch from below. As often as Max argues with her, he spent enough time in the circus to recognize talent, and he watches her with no small amount of interest as she leaps lithely from branch to branch, making her way to Max’s perch with ease.
Max must not have the presence of mind to hide how impressed he is, because Ruby sits on a branch next to his and turns to meet his eyes, then laughs. It’s not quite carefree or jovial, but it’s not cruel, either, and that’s enough to throw Max off.
“Close your mouth, you’ll catch a fly,” she remarks. Max does. He swallows, anxious. and Ruby softens slightly. She looks out across the forest.
“It’s a nice view, up here,” she comments quietly, and once again, Max can’t stop himself from whipping his head around and gaping openly at her—has he ever had a truly civil conversation with Ruby? The answer, he thinks, is no, and he’d never intended to, either. This is ruining his streak of irritating the tiefling as much as possible. “I see why you chose it.”
Well, chose isn’t quite the right term, considering that Max hadn’t been conscious enough to know where he was at the time, but it’ll do.
“Yes, well.” Max sniffs. He lifts his chin. “I’ve been known to have good taste.”
“Of course,” Ruby agrees. It makes Max uncomfortable. Ruby isn’t supposed to agree with him. Especially not after he’s made so many mistakes.
Ruby leans back against the tree, crosses one leg over the other. “Bro was worried when you left,” she tells him, point blank. “And Mister Wizard, too. Wouldn’t shut up about you.” A pause. “Don’t do it again.”
Max grins at her cheekily. “It’s okay, Emerald, you can just say you missed me.”
Ruby doesn’t respond, not even to correct her name. She avoids meeting Max’s gaze.
Max’s eyes widen. “No.”
“Shut up.”
“There’s absolutely no shot that you actually—”
“I’ll shove you off that branch,” Ruby threatens. “Don’t you dare think I won’t.”
Max shrugs. Ruby would be well within her rights to do so, after how much Max had screwed up in the last twenty-four hours, but oddly enough, he doesn’t think that she will.
“Are you two alright, up there?” Broghini shouts up to them, and Max jerks his head, startled, at the sudden yell. It triggers a spike of pain in his head, then his ribs when he doubles over, and Ruby curses under her breath.
She reaches over to grip Max’s arm, steadying him so he doesn’t fall off the branch, then calls back to Broghini, “Fine!” Her voice is strained. “Getting there!”
She squeezes Max’s arm to get his attention. “Look, I want to get this over with as quick as possible, and the way I see it, you have two options,” she informs him tightly.
“Two options? Oh, joy,” Max mutters. Ruby huffs and squeezes his arm harder.
“Focus. Either you can be an idiot like usual and jump, and Bro can catch you, or I can try to figure out the easiest path for you to climb down yourself. But you really put yourself in a terrible situation, here.” She pauses, and, gentler, “Whatever we do, it’s gonna hurt.”
“I know,” Max snaps, but Ruby doesn’t even flinch, and that just upsets Max even more. He scowls. “What about Garth down there, hm? What about his little—disk thing? How about that?”
Ruby shakes her head. “I don’t know much about magic,” she warns him in advance, “but he said it’s too risky. And I’m inclined to believe the wizard when it comes to his magic.”
Right. Of course. The one time he needs Mister Wizard to come through for him, he doesn’t. And he had really been looking forward to taking a spin on the magical hoverboard, too!
That means he can either let Ruby guide him step by step as he climbs down like he’s a child…or he can end his misery quickly and just take the jump.
He huffs and cracks his knuckles. “Right, then,” he sighs. “Tell Bro to get ready. Might as well get this over with.”
At his words, Ruby’s face puckers, and she looks remarkably as though she’s tasted something particularly sour. Max almost wants to snicker at the sight, but he’s about to jump out of a tree with broken ribs and a concussion, so he figures it might not be the best timing.
“I would suggest the other option, personally.” Ruby’s voice is tight. Max just waves her off.
“I positively refuse to deal with all that. Besides, it’s not even that high up.” False. It’s high enough to make Max dizzy when he stares down, though that could be the effects of the concussion or of the voices in his head that attempt to convince him he’s going to fall. “I’ve seen higher.”
That one’s true. Max has seen higher, back at the circus. Who cares that there was always a net beneath him, just in case? Broghini Dudestone makes just as good of a net as he does a fighter. Hopefully. Honestly, Max had never expected to have to make that determination.
Ruby lifts an incredulous eyebrow. Below them, Max can see Mister Wizard and Broghini growing steadily more restless. “Max, you absolutely cannot be serious about thinking this isn’t that high.”
He’s not, but it’s funny to see her face when he says things like this, so he leaves it up to interpretation with a shameless wink.
Sure enough, Ruby’s face tightens and twists, and her eyes flash. “You could get hurt,” she reminds him harshly.
“Oh, no,” Max drawls dryly. “I could get hurt? What a shame that would be!” He cards a hand through the bloody section of his hair, then pounds a fist against his side, where his ribs have been killing him all day and night. His vision goes blank at the pain, and his ears ring, and for a moment he’s convinced that he’s going to throw up or pass out from the pain, but he regains composure after a few torturous moments and decides that it was worth it to see the abject horror on Ruby’s face.
“Max Blunder, you absolute imbecile,” she hisses, and Max registers that she’s clutching onto his arm even tighter to make sure he doesn’t topple over and slip off the branch. Down below, Mister Wizard’s hands are lifted, as if he was trying to steady Max from all the way on the ground. “What point are you trying to prove?”
Max shrugs. It’s weaker than he wants it to be, but then again, he nearly just vomited all over himself and Ruby, so he thinks he can cut himself a little slack. “‘M already hurt, aren’t I? What’s another broken bone or two?” Or more. Maybe internal bleeding, a fractured spine. Paralysis. Max had done some work on the tightrope, way back when; he knows all the potential risks of taking a fall.
“Right, right, of course.” Ruby shakes her head with a frustrated huff. “Fine! Fine, you’re already hurt. There’s no need for you to get hurt even more, Max!”
“I know how to fall safely, I’ll be fine.” Max grins cheekily. “Careful, Sapphire, or people will start thinking that you care.” He tilts his head and bats his eyelashes dramatically.
“I do,” Ruby tells him stonily, and any sense of grandeur that Max may have held for a moment disintegrates. Almost unconsciously, he lifts a hand to his braid and feels the loose strands of hair. He recalls Ruby’s touch—shockingly gentle, despite how much he thought she disliked him—and exhales shakily. Fleetingly, a part of him wants to ask Ruby to redo it before he takes his leap of faith, but he just clenches his jaw and remains silent.
Ruby doesn’t say anything else, either. She just sighs wearily and stands up, keeping her balance easily on the branch. Bracing one hand on the trunk of the tree, she leans over and calls down to Broghini, “Hey, Bro!”
“What?” Bro calls back, immediately alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
Ruby puffs out her cheeks. She gives Max one last glance. “You’re sure about this?”
Max shrugs. “Would you do anything different?”
“Probably not, no,” Ruby admits. She looks back down to Broghini. “Heads up, down there!”
“What?”
“Here goes nothing,” Max mutters to himself, and—using the tree to steady himself, as well as Ruby’s hand, which hovers next to him—he stands on the branch. His foot slips, and he very nearly finds himself tumbling towards the ground, but Ruby makes a sharp sound and steadies him. He doesn’t thank her, but he does cast her a short, grateful glance before looking down at Broghini.
Max swallows. He measures the distance from himself to Broghini, and from himself to the ground, then squares his shoulders and flips his braid over his shoulder.
He clenches his fists, tenses, then leaps with a, “Geronimo!”
It hurts just as much as he figured it would. At least Broghini catches him. At least he only feels the pain for a brief, torturous flash before his world goes white, then black.
He comes to, eventually. It takes a little while, sure, and he’s fairly positive that Mister Wizard was refusing to let them start traveling until he regained awareness, which is mildly frustrating, actually. He could have been pleasantly unconscious for part of the travel back to camp, if one of them had just picked him up and carried him along, but no. They just had to wait for him to wake up. Now he has to walk all the way back.
They do seem insanely worried for him, though, and Max can’t help but feel mildly guilty.
Ruby forbids him from even sitting up until she checks him out and makes sure she hasn’t injured himself even more, and Broghini apologizes continuously for not ‘catching him well enough,’ whatever that means, and Mister Wizard pages frantically through his book for a healing spell that Max knows he won’t find.
It doesn’t matter, anyways! Max is fine!
Sure, his ribs hurt considerably more than before, but at least there’s no new pain! That’s good, right? His lungs are functioning just fine, even though his breathing does get a bit funny when he tries to move and accidentally agitates his ribs. Mister Wizard even performs a cursory check-up on him with some sort of spell—Max has no clue about the nuances—and confirms that he’s no more injured than he was before, though he does sound uneasy.
At least they can start heading back to camp, now. Max is…exhausted.
Of course, he can’t even make it thirty seconds—can’t even get off the ground—without getting in an argument with Ruby.
“You are absolutely not walking,” Ruby states, and Max rolls his eyes. “Bro will carry you. Or Mister Wizard. Or I’ll drag you by your stupid braid, but walking all the way back to camp is not on the list.”
“Ugh,” Max groans. “Topaz, please, you’re overreacting again. I will not be carried back to camp like a useless infant. Now, help me up.”
Ruby doesn’t move. She crosses her arms and stares down at him where he’s lying on his back in the dirty, hair splayed out behind him. Broghini shifts anxiously, then leans on his battle axe. Max would get to his feet on his own, but he’s not entirely sure he’ll be able to, and he’d really rather not make a fool of himself more than he already has in the last day or so. Especially if it’ll just give Ruby more ammunition against him when it comes to letting him walk back on his own.
Surprisingly, Mister Wizard is the one to offer him a hand.
Max just blinks at it for a moment, but recovers quickly, and shoots a smug look at Ruby as he reaches out to accept Mister Wizard’s help. Mister Wizard drags him to his feet, and his head complains and his ribs explode with pain—
And he finds himself on the ground once again, squinting blearily up at the other three members of his group. Ruby looks far more smug than Max is willing to deal with.
“Bro will carry you,” she repeats, and Max can’t find it within himself to argue.
— / — / —
Max wakes up the next day to the sun glaring down at him from high in the sky, and a thick green robe draped over him, and a constant painful pulse in his ribs and his head that makes it very tempting to squeeze his eyes shut once again and return to his restless slumber from before. Unfortunately, Ruby notices that he’s awake from where she’s poking at a campfire with a stick, and he doesn’t close his eyes quite quickly enough to pretend that he’s still sleeping.
“You.”
Max opens his eyes sheepishly. Ruby is scowling at him, and pointing at him with her stick. She seems to do that quite a bit, he notices—sometimes with a stick, sometimes with a finger, sometimes with her very sharp daggers.
Mister Wizard is resting off to the side, hat pulled low over his eyes and arms crossed behind his head, robe noticeably absent. When Max looks at the fire, he can sense the telltale signs of magic emanating from it, and it doesn’t surprise him that Mister Wizard has decided to rest after casting that particular spell. He doesn’t have to—he could easily carry on without a nap—but it makes it easier to use spells later, when he really needs them.
Broghini is cooking the large fish that he brought back to camp yesterday, before Max ran off and forced everyone to come chase after him. He’s whistling under his breath, something light and cheerful that completely contrasts the dark glare that Ruby is giving him.
“Heal yourself,” Ruby orders. Max blinks.
“Sorry?” He’s still groggy; he hasn’t even gotten a chance to figure out what time it is, yet. It’s certainly no longer morning, so Max must have been asleep for a long time, now. A very long time, considering that he fell asleep while Bro was carrying him back to camp, which was sometime in the early morning yesterday. He’d woken up very briefly to the feeling of someone setting him down gingerly, and something soft being laid over top of him, and at that point, it had already been getting dark.
It’s at least mid-morning, now, if not early afternoon. Max must have been tired.
“Heal yourself,” Ruby repeats. “Go on. Do it. You’ve recovered enough, now, haven’t you?”
Max shrugs. He attempts to sit up, then winces, immediately regretting his decision and lying down once again. His fingers curl into Mister Wizard’s robe. “Guess so,” he allows.
“Okay. So do it.”
The voices tell him he shouldn’t; he doesn’t deserve it. Max grits his teeth and mentally tells them off. Better to heal himself than to inconvenience everyone even more. He can fix this, and make things better, and then he can return to his old self. Things can be normal again, as soon as they get past this…incident. It’s a minor bump in the road, really—all he needs is to fix it, and then he doesn’t have to bother with all of this trouble.
Healing himself has never been particularly pleasant, but it’s much more pleasant than leaving his ribs broken, at least. It only takes a few seconds to go into effect—he mutters the same familiar words under his breath, just like he’s practiced a million times, and a tingling warmth spreads over his torso and his head, and he sighs in relief as the pain ebbs.
He ignores the heavy guilt in his stomach and the voices that are hissing in his ears. Sure, it’s completely his fault that he ended up getting injured. Sure, it probably would have been more fair to everyone if he dealt with the consequences of his actions. Whatever.
When he’s done, Max glares at the tiefling across from him, who is now twirling the stick in her fingers. “Happy?” he grumbles, and Ruby Nyx—the absolute gall that she has—smiles.
“Very.”
Max rolls his eyes. “Right. Fantastic. Glad that that’s all settled.” He sits up, marveling at the distinct lack of any ache, and stretches dramatically. He twists one way, then the other, and it really hasn’t been that long since he broke his ribs and messed up his head, but goodness, it’s nice to be painless again. Even the fogginess that had clouded his mind is gone.
Ruby claps her hands together. “Me, too,” she agrees with him, but something in her tone puts Max on edge. “In fact, I’m so glad that it’s all settled, because now we can have a discussion on what on earth happened yesterday.”
Broghini sets down the fish, off to the side. Mister Wizard yawns and straightens, adjusting his hat. Ruby crosses her arms. All of them are looking at Max.
Max lifts his hands, palms up. “Look, fellas,” he sighs boredly. “This really isn’t quite so big of a deal as you’re making it out to be.”
He moves to brush his hair out of his eyes, but grimaces at the feeling of dried blood against his fingers and returns his hand to his side. His braid is still an absolute mess, tangled with twigs and leaves and matted with dirt and blood. It’s quite uncomfortable, and really, he’s not particularly in the mood to have this discussion, at the moment.
It’s fine. Max has dealt with these conversations before; he’s mastered the art of making mistakes.
“I don’t care,” Ruby tells him bluntly, but Broghini sets a hand on her shoulder, wincing.
“Max,” he says, voice deep and rumbling. “What Ruby means to say is that—we’re concerned.” Ruby mutters something along the lines of, that’s not what I meant to say at all. Broghini ignores her. “You kinda just—ran off, yesterday, y’know? And you were injured and everything….”
Max shrugs. “I got tired of dealing with the rest of you. Is that really so unreasonable?”
“It is when you disappear for half the day with broken ribs and a concussion,” Ruby huffs, heated, but Broghini shoots her a pointed glare, and she clenches her jaw. The stick snaps where she’s still clutching it in her hands, and Max eyes it with a smirk that he’s not really feeling. Ruby grits her teeth.
“Anyways.” Max stretches, arms above his head, shoulders shrugged. He sighs. “If that’s all, I think it’s about time I catch a wink or two.”
“I refuse to believe that you’re still tired,” Ruby declares.
Max rolls his eyes once again. It’s one of his favorite responses to Ruby; he knows she hates it. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Mister Wizard shifts awkwardly. “I mean—you did just sleep for...what, twenty-four hours? More?” He sounds hesitant, but his comment is fair. Max can’t even be mad at it; he’d make the same argument, probably, if he was on the other end of this debate. However, he’s not on the other end of the debate, so Mister Wizard’s words just mildly irritate him.
Broghini hums. “That’s…a good point,” he admits quietly.
“I was injured,” Max yawns, waving them all off. “It barely counts. I need my beauty sleep.” He squints at Mister Wizard, looks him up and down, raises an eyebrow. “Not that you would know.”
“Well, that’s not very nice,” Mister Wizard responds pleasantly. “We’re worried about you.”
“Yes, so you’ve said. But guess what!” Max lifts his hands and gestures wildly to himself. “I’m fine! I’m perfectly fine! Nothing to worry about, in the slightest, so I think it’s about time to move on, don’t you? And before you say anything—” He lifts a finger to stop Mister Wizard from opening his mouth, and to prevent the inevitable comment from Ruby’s direction. “Before you say anything, we’ve already discussed anything worth discussing, have we not? I made a mistake! I owned up to it! I’m all better!” He leans back, crosses one leg over the other, and finishes, “Case closed, I believe.”
“Case closed,” Broghini echoes, then grimaces. “Yeah, uh, not sure about that one, buddy.”
Max groans. “Ugh, what now?” He can still make this work, if he’s careful. Of course, he has to make sure not to give too much away—has to make sure that he can handle any questions they throw at him—but that shouldn’t be too hard. He’s gotten good at playing things off, when he has to. And none of these people care enough to press harder than they should. Max can defend himself against just about anything they have to say.
“It’s hard to be anything more than a screw-up when you’ve spent your entire life as a Blunder.”
Max goes still.
Ruby and Broghini are silent. Mister Wizard eyes him closely. After a moment, in which Max does nothing but breathe shallowly, Mister Wizard continues. “That’s all I am. That’s all I’ve ever been, and it’s all I’ll ever be.”
Those are Max’s words. That’s what Max said a day or two ago, ribs and head aching, voices screaming in his ears, eyes stinging and breaths uneven. Mister Wizard heard him. Mister Wizard remembered.
Max can’t handle this. He doesn’t move.
“Ring a bell?” Mister Wizard asks softly, and Max unfreezes.
“I…don’t see why that’s relevant,” he manages. His heartbeat is just a bit too quick, and he feels lightheaded. Untethered, as if he’s not quite touching the ground, anymore. He reaches up and yanks on his braid until it hurts. It only helps the slightest bit. “You’re—mm. You’re—quoting me, now, Lucas? Feels—unnecessary.”
His words are choppy, sporadic. He can feel them leaving his mouth, but any control he had over them has slipped out of his grasp. The world is tilting beneath him; he has to fist his hands in Mister Wizard’s robe in an attempt to keep himself steady.
“A screw-up.” Ruby’s words are sharp and blunt, and Max doesn’t have the ability to hide his flinch, anymore. “A blunder. You really believe all that?”
Max swallows harshly. “Technically, I am a Blunder,” he jokes weakly, but—then again—it’s not really a joke, is it. He is a Blunder, full stop. There’s nothing more to say on the topic.
“It’s not—you’re not a blunder,” Broghini tells him, pained, and Max falls silent once again. “Do you actually think that you are?”
Max closes his eyes. “Guys.” His voice is soft, quiet. Vulnerable in a way he’s always refused to let himself be around others. “Can we—can we please just drop this?”
“I don’t think we can.” Mister Wizard sounds guilty, to his credit, but he doesn’t back down. “Look, Max, this—you ran away because of this. Injured. When it was getting dark out.”
Max wants to cry. He doesn’t. He keeps his voice as level as possible, but he still doesn’t open his eyes. “I was fine. I am fine.”
“You’re not.” Broghini and Mister Wizard had both sounded gentle, concerned, but Ruby’s voice is nothing but righteous anger. “You’re lying to us. Do you really think we’ll believe you?” She laughs sharply, shakes her head. “Look, we’ve had our differences. Okay? But it’s not fair for you to have to go around thinking that you’re—what, a failure?” Her tail flicks. “Either you need to get over yourself, or we need to talk about this.”
“We need to talk about it either way, actually,” Broghini puts in. “Even just as—as a team thing. We’re a team, aren’t we? We have to work together. We have to know each other’s weaknesses. And I don’t mean—” He immediately tacks on when Max opens his mouth. “—I don’t mean talking about failures, or whatever. That doesn’t matter.”
Mister Wizard nods sagely. “Doesn’t matter,” he agrees in a murmur, and Max can only look between the two of them incredulously.
“What matters,” Broghini continues, “Is that we learn each other’s limits.” A pause as he considers his words, then, softer, “Having limits doesn’t make you a screw-up, and it doesn’t make you a blunder.” His tone is heavy, as if he can tell he’s holding the weight of everything Max is carrying on his shoulders. Broghini is strong by nature, though, Max thinks. He can handle it. Even if he shouldn’t have to.
“Mm.” Max doesn’t know what to say. It’s not often that he doesn’t know what to say. “Lots of thoughts for a dwarf,” he settles on, and Ruby looks irritated by his caustic words, but Broghini just smiles sadly at him.
“Had a lot of time to think while you were gone.”
Max opens his eyes and stares up at the sky. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Me, too.”
There’s a million things he could do, right now. He could pack his bags and run. He could disappear into the forest once again. He could take out a knife or a sword and run the blade through Mister Wizard’s stomach. He could wrench Broghini’s axe out of his hands and bring it down on the dwarf’s neck before he has a chance to react. He could draw back his bow and aim it directly for the center of Ruby’s forehead. He could do so many things to escape this conversation. He could do so many things to hurt them all.
He doesn’t. He stays where he is and thinks about all the ways he could ruin things, just like he always does.
“I don’t understand,” Mister Wizard breathes. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Max laughs lowly. It’s too exhausted to sound anything more than bitter. “Why would I say something? ’S a lot easier to mess up when everyone knows what to look for.” Swallows. Fiddles with the end of his braid. “Best to avoid it at all costs.”
“Oh.”
Mister Wizard goes silent. Max doesn’t bother trying to explain it any further. Like he said—best to avoid explaining, at all costs.
“What I don’t understand,” Ruby cuts in, breaking the tense silence that has formed between Max and Mister Wizard, “Is how you can think all this and still act—like you do.”
“Like I do?” Max echoes. He forces himself to open his eyes. He can see the apprehension on Mister Wizard’s face, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. “Like this, you mean?” And all of a sudden, everything’s an act, again. His voice is snide and irritated, and one eyebrow is arched, and if not for the reddish tint to his eyes, he knows that it would be impossible to see whatever turmoil lies behind them. He’s practiced this act for a reason.
He graces Ruby with a derisive grin. “I think we both know how I can still act ‘like I do.’”
“Stop it,” Mister Wizard whispers, and Max’s grin freezes on his face. “Stop. I don’t—I don’t like when you do that.”
“Do what?” Max jeers, and he turns the tight, eerie smile to the wizard beside him. “Do this? You don’t like it when I do this?”
“Max,” Broghini starts. Mister Wizard’s lips are pursed as if he’s about to burst into tears.
“What? Something wrong?” Max cackles, almost hysterically. “What’s wrong?” His grin is hurting his face. It feels more like a grimace, wide and desperate. If he’s not careful, it might be imprinted on his face forever. Maybe that would be for the best. Maybe everything would be better if he was never able to fall apart. “You don’t like this? That’s not very nice of you, is it, Mister Wizard?”
“Cut it out, Max,” Ruby orders harshly. “That’s not necessary. Drop the act. Now.”
Max drops the act. He buries his face in his hands—refuses to look at any of them, but especially Mister Wizard—and he weeps. He sobs.
The cries wrack his shoulders, and he can feel the illusory pains in his ribs, though any fractures have been healed. The pounding in his head has returned, not from a concussion, but from the stress and the exhaustion of this conversation—this entire day, in fact. In his left ear, the phantom voices of Ruby and Mister Wizard and Broghini whisper that he doesn’t deserve to feel like a screw-up. A failure. In his right ear, the rest of the voices scream over them, too loud to ignore even as Max clamps his hands over his ears to try to block them out.
Throughout it all, his team—the real ones, the ones who are standing around him, not the ones speaking in his mind as if they’re ghosts—try to calm him.
Mister Wizard sits beside him, pressing their knees together. Broghini kneels in front of him, speaking softly and gently in a way that’s unnatural for dwarves, talking about everything and anything under the sun. Ruby slips behind him silently and slowly takes out what’s left of his braid, plucking out the twigs and leaves and combing through it with her fingers as she goes.
The voices don’t go silent. Max doesn’t think they ever will. But they grow quiet, and eventually, Max finds the courage within himself to remove his hands from his ears.
Mister Wizard and Broghini don’t say anything, but Mister Wizard nudges him with a knee, and Broghini smiles broadly when Max makes eye contact with him. Max can’t quite manage to give him one in return, but Broghini doesn’t seem to mind, and Max doesn’t feel guilty. Maybe that’s progress, or maybe it’s exhaustion—does it matter either way?
Behind him, Ruby’s hands work deftly, bringing one thick strand of his hair over the other, over and over until the braid begins to show itself. She leans in—fingers not pausing for even a moment where they’re tangled in his hair—and whispers in his ear.
“This isn’t over,” she informs him softly, and Max shudders. “We’ll drop it for now, but it’s not over. Okay? We need to talk about this.”
“I don’t—want to.” Max’s voice cracks. He can’t do this. He can’t.
Ruby tugs gently on his hair. It’s such a drastic difference from when Max pulls at his braid with the intent to hurt, and Max tears up once more. “Don’t care. We’re going to talk about it. And you’re going to learn that failing doesn’t make you a failure.”
Failing doesn’t make him a failure. Screwing up doesn’t make him a screw-up. Max thinks—hopes, maybe—that he can learn to believe that.
And maybe he got lucky. Maybe, just maybe, these three other members of his crew don’t mind the fact that he’s a Blunder.