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ice-cap-k · 15 days

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I Always Had Been Partial to the Color Blue (Part 2)

Hey! Got a new story for part of the 2024 MCYT Horror Gift exchange ( @mcythorrorgiftexchange ). Chapter 2 for @spicypotstickerbliss. I hope I did your request justice. I hope I did your request justice. I went a little wild with the prompt...

It's longer than my old whumptober stuff, so feel free to read it on AO3 here: I Always Had Been Partial to the Color Blue

CH 1

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I went skidding as I rounded the corner that led to the guest rooms.

There was Tommy! The teen was slipping out the door to his room. He was rubbing sleep out of his eyes and trying to flatten the wrinkles in his tee shirt with the palm of his hand. My timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

“Tommy,” I hissed.

“Wil? Good morning to you, fine sir. I don’t know about you, but I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

I all but threw myself at him. I couldn’t let go of the crutch, but still I grabbed at his shoulder and refused to let go with my free hand. “Tommy, we have to leave. Now.”

He pulled back as if I had just slapped him. “What? But why?”

“Toms, please. I just need you to trust me on this.” Truth was, I didn’t have an answer. I couldn’t begin to pretend I understood half of what I overheard, but I didn’t need to understand to know that it didn’t bode well for me or Tommy.

Tommy only slapped my hand away. “No way. Technoblade said he would do another of those ‘sparring’ lessons with me,” he huffed. “And what about breakfast? Think about my poor stomach, Wil. I’ll never make it back home if I starve to death along the way.”

“And what if Techno’s not what he seems?” I blurted.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know!” I threw my hand up in frustration. “I overheard him and Phil talking. I don’t have the details and none of it made sense, but it sounded bad. Really, really bad.”

Tommy wasn’t convinced. His mouth twisted into a scowl as he gave me a skeptical glare. “What kind of ‘really bad,’ are we talking about?” He threw his hands up and flexed his fingers into quotes as he spoke.

Think. Think. I needed to piece together what I could remember of their conversation. “Techno said he could make use of you. That you were bloodthirsty enough for something.”

Tommy’s chest puffed up as pride set in. “So I did convince him of how strong I am! What are you talking about, Wil? That’s great news! Surely that means he’s ready to duel me man to man, eh?”

Somehow, that was even less believable than the reality of our situation. “What? No. That’s not- Forget it. That’s a bad example. Phil! Phil was talking about contingency plans and that they would have to ‘take care of me.’” I was an awful impressionist, but I deepened my voice to try and match the gravenness of Phil’s words.

Tommy rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Uh, yeah. Because your ankle’s still fucked.”

“I…”

Okay, that was a fair point.

“Fine. That’s another bad example. Look. My point is that they were talking about weird shit, okay? Things that made no sense like domains and something about an inquiry and I’m pretty sure I saw something that they didn’t want me to see but I’m not entirely sure. You just have to believe me when I say that what they were talking about… it didn’t sound as nice and cheery when I was listening to it in person.”

That gave Tommy pause. “You saw something?”

I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t. Bloody walls and red eyes? Monsters? Well, I suppose he had already seen a few monsters the night before, but he would still think I was going crazy. None of it had actually been real, after all.

“Forget it. Come on.” With the arm that wasn’t currently wrapped around the crutch, I pulled him after me.

I had only gone through the entryway once, but it was yesterday. The memory was still fresh enough that I should be able to find our way back.

“What did you see, Wilbur,” Tommy insisted.

“I’ll tell you when we’re out of here and on our way back home.”

“Oh, come on Wil,” He groaned. “I don’t want to leave yet. If you won’t tell me what’s up and keep pulling me along like this I’ll scream. I’ll scream bloody-fuckin’ murder about being kidnapped.” I rolled my eyes but didn’t slow my pace. “Really? Really, Toms? We are literally in a random castle in the middle of nowhere with a couple of complete strangers, and you’re going to accuse me of kidnapping?”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do when you’re being unreasonable??”

“I’m trying to be reasonable,” I hissed. “And I am trying to explain. Sure, it doesn’t make the most sense, but I know what I heard.”

“And I don’t.”

He dragged his feet, but he didn’t pull away. He didn’t scream either. All that bluster was just for show. As much as he didn’t want to leave, he wasn’t fighting me on it either. It was a major relief.

He made a couple more half-hearted attempts to dissuade me. Complained about breakfast and what a long walk it would be. It filled what would have been an awkward, stilted experience as I limped my way down the flight of stairs leading to the entryway. I had found my way back easily enough.

Tommy brightened at the sight of a familiar bucket hat visible through the gaps in the bannister.

“Hey Phil!”

Phil stopped mid-step to smile up at the two of us. “Tommy! Wilbur! I was just about to come check in on the two of you. Breakfast is ready.”

“Fuck yeah.” Tommy leaped the last two steps and I stumbled after him. I still had a hold on his arm, after all.

I did my best to gracefully right myself and spare my dignity. Tommy slipped out of my grip completely but didn’t go far.

“Actually, we appreciate the offer, but me and Tommy really have to get going now.”

Phil’s smile faltered. “You sure? You know you two are free to stay a little longer.” He tilted his head and took a few steps forward. I grabbed the back of Tommy’s shirt and pulled him two steps back. Phil was no fool, though. He froze as soon as I tried taking an uneven step back. The smile reappeared, his face bright and welcoming. “I was even thinking I might take a look at your leg again today. If that’s alright with you, Wil. Change the bandages. Clean it right up again. See how it’s coming along.”

“That’s alright, Phil. I’m doing just fine.”

Tommy snorted. “You can hardly walk.”

“I’m fine,” I gritted out forcefully.

Phil’s eyes narrowed. He looked up at me like a mother would at a child acting particularly stubborn, crossing his arms over his chest as he did. The motion sent the folds of his cloak rippling down his back. I tried not to focus on the edges that looked like feathers. They weren’t real. They weren’t. What was real was the skeptical look on Phil’s face. He looked as unconvinced as Tommy. “Uh-huh. Sure. How far is it to where you're from again?”

“Not far-”

“Kilometers away,” Tommy huffed. “We had to have run a marathon to get here.”

“It was not nearly that far, Tommy.”

“Yes it was!”

Phil silenced us both by raising a hand. “And are you sure you’re feeling well enough to walk that far?” he asked, blue eyes trained on me.

I looked away as soon as he tried to make eye contact. The thought of holding that gaze after what I had heard… I couldn’t do it. Phil seemed like a man who could see right through you if you let him. I was already having a hard enough time trying to leave without raising further suspicion. Tommy wasn’t helping at all. If Phil looked me in the eye, he would know for sure that I was on to him. At the very worst, he only suspected it for now.

“Of course.” I had to inject a bit of cheer into my voice. “I might be on the slower side right now, but that’s all the more reason to get an early start. Especially if what you said about those monsters is true.”

Both of his blond eyebrows shot up. “Really now? Is that what’s got you so concerned? I’d rather not worry about you going out there and hurting yourself more. If you go out like that, your ankle will only get worse. I’m sure I can talk Techno into letting you guys stay another night. The extra rest should help.”

My gut twisted at the thought. There it was. The offer to stay another night. Just as I had overheard Phil mentioning. Oh, it was slick. It was simple and almost unnoticeable, if I hadn’t already been keeping an ear out for the offer. With that smile and all his cheer, Phil was convincing. He had Tommy perking right up at that. The teen was nodding along like it was a great idea. And he had presented it in such a reasonable, caring manner. But still, Phil wanted us to stay another night like they discussed. I didn’t want to wait around and find out what their veiled threats concerning me and Tommy would turn into. It was all I needed to solidify my decision in my mind.

“Thank you, but also no thank you.” I didn’t wait for any further argument.

The older man made no move to stop me as I worked my way over to the door. Tommy, though, let out a whine from the back of his throat and followed.

Tommy stepped around my side, trying to get in front of me. “Wil, come on… You’re being ridiculous.” If he had meant to stop me, he did a poor job of it. My hand slipped past him and wrapped around the door handle.

I heaved, leveraging the sole of one shoe against the floor to swing the door open. It was time to leave.

But we couldn’t.

Even with the door open, something was blocking the way.

Every centimeter of the doorway, top to bottom, left to right, was completely overtaken by bright red vines. Vines with pulsing stems and fleshy leaves. Vines that wove into and out of and in between each other so that it was impossible to make out anything through the mess. Vines that couldn’t possibly have grown that fast overnight, because this was the same door we entered last night.

The smile dropped off Phil’s face.

“Shit.”

He moved fast for an older man. In the blink of an eye, he was at the door. One arm flung out in front of me and Tommy, separating us from the vines that were breaking loose without the door supporting them. They fell limp onto the first few tiles of the entryway. With the other arm, he reached for the door. There wasn’t much of a gap between the floor and the door. Wood scraped against the fallen vines as it swung closed, leaving red smears in its wake. When the latch clicked I stepped away from his arm with Tommy in swing and Phil pressed his back against the door.

“Techno! We’ve got trouble.”

“Heh?” Techno sounded distant. His voice was muffled behind the walls of whatever nearby room he was in. The pound of footsteps on tile echoed through the entryway as he approached.

“What the fuck was that?” Tommy asked, sounding more curious than concerned. “That wasn’t there yesterday.”

Phil flipped the deadbolt. “You remember those things that grabbed Wilbur yesterday?”

There was a crash. Glass broke. Footsteps stopped. I could hear Technoblade shout and something else screamed. Another crash sounded out, this time accompanied by the splintering of wood.

A second or two passed of pure silence. Me and Tommy huddled closer to each other, not sure what to make of it all. Then Technoblade’s face appeared at the top of the stairs. There were flecks of blood on his cheek and staining his blue clothes. It didn’t appear to be coming from any wound on him, but it suited him all the same.

“I think we ticked off our neighbors again,” he deadpanned.

One corner of Phil’s lips turned up into a lopsided smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “We alway had a bad habit of doing that.”

“We should have learned our lesson last time. Now history’s repeating itself.”

I looked out the nearest window. More of those vines were visible. They pressed up against the glass at the bottom of the sill. The sun was higher now than it had been this morning, but I could still make out streaks of red over the open ground. There wasn’t another building to be seen. “You have neighbors?”

“Yeah. You met them last night.”

At that moment, something else appeared in the window. A familiar dark shape with empty white eyes. Crack! A dark fist connected with the glass, sending a spiderweb of lines snaking along the window pane.

I screamed, pedaling backward. Tommy’s eyes nearly bugged out of his skull. We wheeled out of the way just before another hit sent shards of glass flying into the room.

It poked its horned head in through the shattered window. Sharp fragments that still clung to the frame scratched against its dark skin, but it paid that no mind. Only pushed further and further inside. It’s mouth was a white maw, snarling as it reached one claw tipped hand out in my direction.

Phil jumped in surprise. “F-fuckin’ hell! They’re REALLY pissed.”

Techno snatched a trident off a mound on the wall and leaped into action. ‘Leaped’ in the literal sense, as he skipped the staircase entirely to vault over the banister. He landed heavily on his feet. “I’ll handle it. Get them out of here.”

An arm wrapped around my wrist. Phil had peeled himself away from the door. He had a solid grip on both me and Tommy. One that didn’t allow for me to pull away or break the contact. I had half a mind to try, but where would I go? The entrance was blocked and there was a snarling monster trying to squirm through the nearest window. He yanked so hard that I nearly dropped my crutch.

Tommy let out a garbled shout as we were both pulled along behind Phil. He was fast. So fast that I was afraid my leg really would fall out from under me and the man might end up dragging me instead. It was only by some miracle I was able to keep hopping along and not knock my bum foot into something as we went careening through an open door frame set into the wall opposite the window the monster had just slipped through. The last thing I saw was Techno reeling the massive weapon over his shoulder.

We were halfway down the next hall when I heard the thump of an impact and a shill scream.

“I thought we were supposed to be safe here,” Tommy screeched, having found his voice faster than I could find mine. Phil wasn’t breathing as heavily as me or Tommy as we ran, but there was still a strain to his voice to go to the panic that was filling the space in his vast blue eyes. “Yeah. Well, I didn’t expect them to get this riled up. They’re throwing a tantrum like a fuckin’ child.”

A brown-furred hand broke through the window as we passed. Pieces of red vines and leaves fell off it onto the floor. It came close enough that I could feel claws brush my hair as we passed. “What the fuck!!?”

Ah. There was my voice. Turns out I wasn’t too stunned to use it after all.

“Shit!” Phil overcorrected, nearly knocking his shoulder into a corner wall as he tried to lead me and Tommy into an inner hall. One that didn’t appear to have any windows. They couldn’t break through and reach for the three of us there, but the smash of glass kept up behind us. Crash. Crash. Crash! Window pane after window pane must have been breaking just outside of our line of sight; all the way around the house. It echoed off the tile behind us and ahead of us.

Phil skidded to a stop. I nearly flew past him before his hold on my wrist jostled me back. He swore as each crash sounded off.

“Shit.” Crash. “Shit.” Crash. “SHIT.” Crash.

If they couldn’t reach for us directly, they were getting through where they could.

“Stairs,” I shouted. My mind chugged to keep up with my words as the half-baked thought took shape. “Up the stairs where they can’t reach the windows and block the way.”

“Good idea.”

Me and Tommy let Phil guide us to the nearest staircase. The sound of snarls and growls was steadily growing. The crashing subsided, but I suspected that meant there were no more windows for the creatures to break. We climbed three whole flights before coming to a panting stop at the top.

There were two weapons resting against the wall of the landing: a thin sword, and an ax. The landing itself led to a narrow doorway; one without a door, but small enough that it could still act as a choke point.

“We have to block it up.”

“Right.” Phil finally dropped our wrists. His eyes widened as he did so, looking at his palm and then our hands as if surprised he had been holding on this whole time. There wasn’t a bruise, but I could still feel the phantom touch of his grip where one would probably form later.

He shook off the surprise almost as quickly as it hit him. He reached for the sword. “Tommy. You remember what Techno showed you yesterday?”

Tommy rubbed at the inside of his wrist. “Yeah. Why?”

“Here.” He tossed Tommy the ax. “Hopefully you won’t have to use it.”

The teen nearly fumbled the catch, and if I wasn’t already terrified for my life I probably would have snapped about how unsafe it was to throw bladed weapons around a child.

“We’ll have to find something for you to use later, Wil.”

“He doesn’t know how to use any weapon,” Tommy corrected. “I’ll protect him.”

“Maybe. But if something-”

“I’d be useless,” I croaked. “I can barely stand, and I’d be more likely to hurt myself than anything else.”

The pen was mightier than the sword. Just this once, though, words might not mean much. I doubted the things trying to get us could understand English. And if they could, they wouldn’t listen.

“Let’s not worry about that right now.” I tried hobbling towards the nearest display case full of weapons and pressed against its side. “Just help me move this in front of the stairs.”

Phil understood what I was saying a little faster than Tommy. I helped as much as I could with only one leg, which wasn’t much. I had to give up the heavy lifting to grab whatever lighter objects I could within close proximity. Phil and Tommy piled the cabinet and benches and glass cases up while I threw tapestries and paintings and cushions over the gaps on top. We didn’t stop until the throughway was completely covered over. By then, we could already hear something knocking against the opposite side. Something that howled.

“How long do you think that is gonna hold?” Tommy asked.

Phil shrugged. “No clue. Let’s put some distance between us. I’d rather not stick along to find out.” He turned to me. “Do you need help running?”

I opened my mouth to say I was fine, but Tommy cut me off. “Of course he does.” “Tommy! I-” “I’m not listening to your pride right now, Wil. Shut the fuck up and take the help.”

I snapped my mouth shut.

Phil looked between the two of us, eyes as wide as an owl’s. He made no move to step between us as me and Tommy stared each other down.

It wasn’t fair. Tommy still didn’t believe me when I said we couldn’t trust Phil and Techno. He was chalking it up to pride. I didn’t want to fight him over it right now. There were more pressing concerns.

“Fine.”

Phil swooped in to wrap his arm around my back and prop his shoulder beneath my armpit. I stood a head taller than him, but he was more stable than the crutch that now hung uselessly at my side. “I got ya. Let’s go.”

He started forward at a pace that was much easier for me to keep up with. Tommy followed, ax gripped tight in his hand. “It’s your castle, Phil? Where can we go?”

“The towers. There’s one nearby. It overlooks the river. The water’s pretty deep there. If they somehow make it past Techno and that barricade, we can make a jump for it.”

“You’re fuckin’ with me. How high is it?”

“Very.”

“We’re going to die,” I groaned.

“No you’re not,” Phil said firmly. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

He sounded so sincere.

We had to have crossed the length of the entire castle to get to the base of the tower. It was hard to keep my attention on moving forward rather than on the sound of chaos unfurling the floor below us. I tried not to think about the furniture smashing and angry howls, even as it assaulted my ears. I tried not to notice how it was getting louder.

Phil pointed ahead. “Over there. That’s the door.”

Thunk!

I tumbled back away from the large spikes that splintered up through the wood floor between me and Tommy. I fell ass-backward, hard enough that it would leave a bruise. Nearly dragged Phil down with me in the process. The spikes came so close that one of the barbs ripped a slit into the toe of my shoe. Tommy had been further away, but he still nearly jumped out of his skin as he flailed backward, screaming at the top of his lungs.

My ankle up until that point hadn’t been giving me much trouble. I could have just been lucky not to bump it until this point. That, or the adrenaline and fear pumping through my veins had overridden any screaming pain my nerve endings might have been dealing with. I grunted against the pain that now came in a bright flash and curled inward, reaching for my leg.

Phil was at my side, crouching next to me. “Are you okay?”

“Hurts.”

It was all I managed to get out before the floor beneath us buckled. It heaved up like a growing hill before the wooden boards gave out with a groan. They split, starting at the point where the spikes stuck through and splintering off until a familiar pink head with a gold circlet shoved its way through.

Phil lurched under me. He reached toward Technoblade, but Tommy got there first. The teen dropped the ax and helped drag the man through the floor. Techno looked as fresh as a daisy, despite the splinters in his air and extra blood stains dotting his blue outfit. His glasses were still perched nice and straight on his nose. His cloak was gone, though.

He pulled his trident after him and kicked a boot at something with a head wrapped in a red length of cloth that tried to crawl up after him. It whimpered, fingernails grasping at the splintered floor before it slipped and fell back down to the level below.

“That was sick,” Tommy said with a smile.

Technoblade shook a few pieces of wood out of his braid. “I know.”

My foot was still stinging enough to make my eyes water as Phil heaved me back up. “Was that the last of ‘em?”

Techno shrugged. “Eh… Technically.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Was it the last of those eggheads? Yes. Are we in the clear?”

He tilted forward just enough to peer over the edge of the hole he had made in the floor. I followed his line of sight. Through blurry eyes, I could still make out the rippling surface of hundreds and hundreds of red vines covering the walls and floor. The tendrils moved much faster than any plant ever could. As I watched, they covered the still form of the thing Techno kicked. They surged up towards the hole as soon as I peered over the edge. I pulled back, and I could hear the slippery swish of them settling back down.

“Not by a long shot.”

Phil’s shoulders tensed beneath me. He looked at me from the corner of his eye, then looked down at my ankle.

“You can’t fight that, Techno.”

“I can try.”

“No. I’ve got contingencies. We’ll be okay.”

That word again. Contingency. I felt myself stiffen and Technoblade’s eyes snapped to Phil’s face. Whatever nonchalance he had been sporting was gone. “You sure?”

“We’ll try to make it to the top of the tower and jump for the river,” Phil explained and some of the intensity left Techno’s gaze. “We’ll figure it out from there.”

“Holy shit,” Tommy exclaimed, completely oblivious to whatever underlying meaning had passed between Phil and Technoblade. “We’re actually doing that? I thought-AAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Something red had reached out from the broken floorboards and brushed against Tommy’s foot. He stamped his feet and grabbed his ax to swing at the vines crawling towards me and Phil.

“Tommy!”

I tried to reach forward, but Phil pulled me back. “Whoops! Time’s up,” he shouted as he half dragged me away. Before I could struggle, Technoblade scooped up Tommy like a sack of potatoes and leaped over the gap in the floor.

“Let me go!” Tommy screamed, even as the man set him back on his feet.

“There. Happy?”

“No!”

“Then do something about it and move.”

I could see the effort it took for Tommy not to bite back a retort in the way a grimace pulled at his face. There just wasn’t enough time. More vines were already making their way through the hole. Their twisted leaves shook as they reached closer and closer.

We ran. All four of us ran until we hit an open door to a stairwell no wider than a closet. Me and Phil rushed in first followed immediately by Tommy. Technoblade brought up the rear, slamming the door closed behind him.

Phil helped me climb the steps two at a time. “The window’s at the top,” he shouted or all of us to hear

“Will it be big enough for us to fit through?” I demanded.

“Plenty. I’ve made it through with no issue.”

My voice went up an octave. “You’ve jumped out the window before?!?”

“That’s so cool!” Tommy jumped in.

Techno’s voice sounded from somewhere below us. “Uh, guys…”

Crack!

I didn’t have to look back to know that was the sound of the door at the base of the stairs being forced open.

An edge of panic had worked its way into Techno’s voice as he spoke up again. “Phil, they’re picking up speed.”

“Shit,” Phil spat. His pace faltered and, since he was helping to keep me steady, mine did as well. “How fast?”

“Probably not going to make it at this rate.”

Phil came to a complete halt. “Fuck it. Time for plan B.”

I did not like the sound of that.

“Wait, Phil.” My voice was shaking. “What do you mean-”

I cut myself off as I looked over to him. His hair was whipping beneath the brim of his hat, but there was no breeze in the stairwell. Those vast blue eyes sharpened to steel, then darkened into something even deeper. The sound of distant thunder rolled, and when I blinked, his entire cloak appeared to be made of pitch-black feathers.

My mind immediately began to dismiss what I was seeing. It wasn’t real. Nothing like this had been real before. It wasn’t real now. It couldn’t be. But the sudden heave of the stairs beneath our feet was VERY real. So real, in fact, Tommy had to slap a hand against the wall to keep from pitching backward.

“What was that?” he gasped.

“Oh no.” Techno threw an arm around Tommy. “Brace yourself!”

The ground heaved again.

Snap!

Cracks broke out between the edges of the stairs. They crawled up the walls alongside the vines that were reaching for us. My stomach did a flip as the ground split off around me and Phil. Gaps appeared a few steps above us and a few steps below. The foundation shuttered, and the chunk of stone and wood we were standing on separated from the rest of the tower.

Separated OUTWARD.

The floor and piece of the wall we were standing on swiveled out into the open air as if it were on hinges. It drifted out further as if it were suspended.

“Fuck,” I hissed, pressing myself tighter against Phil because there was nowhere else to go. He didn’t respond. That stormy look in his eyes intensified. Something flickered past the pupils in a way that reminded me of lighting.

More pieces of the tower pulled away. They drifted out, lighter than air, broken and cracked, coming undone like pieces of a puzzle.

I would have thought it was another in the series of unexplainable things I had been seeing, one that could even top the bloody hallway. If that were the case, though, Tommy wouldn’t be screaming. He had latched onto Technoblade’s side. The man had a scowl on his face as he watched more and more pieces of his castle drift up into the sky. He didn’t look particularly shocked. Just grim.

The tower disassembled itself completely. Many pieces remained suspended in the air, finding some spot out away from their old foundation and settling into a bobbing halt. What was left was a large gap in the crumbling wall. Vines visibly writhed in that gap. Smaller tendrils grew around the edges to feel out where the tower ceased to be.

I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. Everywhere I looked was red. Everywhere but the blue sky above.

The snowy ground was covered in red leaves. Red lines were crawling up the outside of the castle’s walls. The gaps in the roof of the castle displayed red vines inside. When I looked straight down, something red stirred beneath the surface of the river.

“It’s in the river,” I shouted numbly over the heavy breeze that had picked up around us.

“Then that’s not an option either,” Phil growled.

“I’m imagining this. This has to be another waking nightmare. It has to be. It can’t be real.”

Phil’s stormy eyes flicked to me. “Waking nightmare?”

“Tell me I’m seeing shit, Phil. Tell me we aren’t floating several hundred meters in the air. Tell me a bunch of red plants aren’t everywhere I look. Tell me the bloody walls and all the weird shit I’ve been seeing since last night were all in my head. I’d rather be crazy.”

He sucked in a breath between his teeth. I could feel his shoulders slump beneath my arm. “I’m sorry…”

“Technoblade!”

Tommy.

I looked down to see Technoblade and Tommy standing on their own hunk of foundation below us. Techno was shoving Tommy back behind him as he swung out with his trident. Vines were pulling at the corner of their cluster of steps. The mass had grown over itself in a thick clump, building up like a bridge until a few tendrils were able to reach their platform and start tipping it. Techno’s trident cut through them easily enough, but more grew back in their place in the blink of an eye.

“Hold on!” Techno snatched up Tommy and leaped through the air to land on another floating piece of debris. It bobbed in place but didn’t fall. The piece they left behind was quickly covered up by the mass of vines and disappeared.

Techno tilted his head back and called up. “It’s trying to climb. We need to go higher.”

“I’ll try,” Phil said with a huff. The piece of flooring beneath our feet shifted. It was more subtle than the initial break. Slower, but my heart fluttered at the sight of the ground getting further and further away. I didn’t bother to make heads or tails as to how Phil had done that, but he must have.

“Can you get up?” he shouted back down to Techno.

“I can’t fuckin’ jump that far,” Tommy shouted as Techno’s gaze fell on a couple of stairs floating a few meters higher.

“I can,” the man said evenly, answering for both of them at the same time. He launched himself once more, and with inhuman strength, his toes hit the floorboards of his target. He put Tommy down and placed a hand on the teen’s shoulder. “You stay here. Use that ax if it gets close.”

“B-but-”

“Tommy, I saw what you were capable of yesterday, and you have reinforced that today. In the face of a challenge, you step up. Don’t let that step falter now.”

Tommy’s head tilts back as if stunned. “O… Okay. Go fuck shit up.”

Techno gave him a closed-mouth smile and let go of his shoulder. He took a step back. That smile grew wider as his foot hit open air, and he dropped down to a piece of debris below. I looked away before the sound of ripping vines could start.

“Should we climb to?” I asked, turning to Phil.

He looked like he was struggling. His eyes were focused on something in the distance that I couldn’t see. Sweat was starting to bead on his forehead. We were still rising. “No,” he managed to say. “There’s not much above for us to climb to.”

Sure enough, I hadn’t thought through my question before asking it. Blame the panic. There were a few rocks and broken pieces of wall above our heads, but they were few and far between. Nothing substantial enough to hold one of us, let alone both of us. Certainly nothing close enough I could risk jumping. Maybe Phil could, but he had two working legs.

“I can get us further,” he added and shifted his position against the wall. “I just have to…”

The foundation beneath our feet began to tilt. It was still going up, but slower now. Instead, it’s path had changed to start sweeping in a horizontal arc through the air. It moved in the beginnings of a circle around the castle. Other bits of debris and floating staircase fragments followed like flotsam caught in a whirlpool. The red mass wriggled at its epicenter. Already it had ahold of a couple pieces of the wrecked tower. Those were held firmly in place, but the ones that the vines were on the verge of wrapping around pulled out of their reach. The tendrils grew sideways to continue their climb, but the lean made the columns of ingrown vines off-balanced. A few toppled over, back to the roof of the castle. Those that did had to start the process of growing upwards all over again. Almost always it started growing in the direction of whatever was directly below me and Phil.

Tommy and Techno were caught in the swirl as well. I could hear Tommy freaking out about his platform moving under him. But while Tommy stuck to his own piece, Techno was on the move. He hurtled from piece to floating piece, a blur of pink and blue. Whenever he landed on a set of floating stairs the vines had just started to manage a hold on, he stopped to rake the tines of his trident over their stems. WIth the connection snapped, the vines would fall, the platform would continue it’s swirling path out of reach, and it would by more time to keep them from reaching any higher.

I blinked in awe at the sight. “That’s amazing.”

“Much appreciated,” Phil said, though he sounded tired.

We moved round and round like a clockwork. All the while, the world beneath us became more and more red. I watched it all unfold beneath me. What more could I do? I was so far in over my head, I was still half convinced that this was a dream. Dream’s don’t hurt the way my leg had started throbbing again. Phil was already getting tired, and Technoblade was like a machine cutting those vines back over and over and over again. It couldn’t last forever. Something had to give eventually.

That something was a particularly fast-moving set of vines reaching out for Tommy’s platform.

I leaned over the edge to get a better look.

“Tommy! Behind you!”

“Gotcha!” He lashed out with the ax. Ribbons of vines fell away like confetti. He swung again, and the vines came away completely. They didn’t fall far, though, and it didn’t take them as long to catch up.

I reached over to jostle Phil’s shoulder. “Hey, I think Tommy might be in trouble. Can these things go any faster?”

“I… I…” The motion of the stairs beneath our feet stuttered. “I’ll try…” He sounded like he was in pain.

Tommy’s platform lurched. He stumbled as it sped up a few meters and then almost immediately slowed down again. It gave the vines a big enough opportunity to latch on once more. This time, Tommy was too busy picking himself back up to cut them away.

“Phil, it’s not working. They’re at his piece of the tower.”

The man was panting with sheer, unseen effort. He rolled his shoulders and squeezed his eyes shut.

Tommy’s platform lurched again, throwing off his balance once more. It pulled as if to continue on its winding path but one of the roots dug itself into a crack in the floorboards and stayed lodged. It was thick enough not to snap under tension.

My heart sank.

“Tommy! Tommy, cut the vines! Hurry!” My words might as well have fallen on deaf ears. They were pointless. Tommy was already scrambling back to his feet and swinging his ax like a madman. Leaves and tendrils fell away from the sides, but he could only reach so far. Could only swing so fast. The vines were like the hydra’s head. Cut away one, and two new ones sprung forth. He was keeping them from passing over the edge, but he could do nothing to stop the ones burrowing into the base of his platform.

Crack!

The whole thing shifted beneath the teen’s feet. Tommy’s arms pinwheeled to right his balance, but the set of stairs broke apart and sent him down to his knees. The ax slipped off the side of the platform before he could grab it.

“No!” With a pained grunt, Phil doubled over. His weight pressed heavily into my side. It was an odd switch from him having to support me to me nearly keeping him upright. It was too much. He was too much for me to keep up. I shifted to let him slump against the fragment of wall still stuck to our floating chunk of steps.

The floor Tommy was standing on strained against the hold of the vines. Some snapped, but it couldn’t break free.

“Technoblade, HELP HIM,” I begged.

Techno looked up from where he was slashing at a larger column of vines and stiffened.

“Wilbur,” Tommy cried. He looked up at me with a tear streaming down his cheek. The teen reached out to me, though there was no way for him to cross the impossibly vast expanse between us.

Crack!

What was left of the ground beneath Tommy’s feet crumbled. My heart stopped. His eyes, still desperately focused on mine, widened. The panic barely had a chance to register on his face before gravity caught up to him.

I reached out. It made no difference across the space that divided us.

“TOMMY!!”

He fell.

He fell, and he screamed, and his other arm reached up alongside the first as if that could help him reach me. It didn’t.

He twisted in the air. The wind whipped his hair around his face and pulled at his clothes until we could no longer see eye to eye. All the while, he grew further and further away. Closer and closer to the mass of vines roiling below.

Thud.

Tommy disappeared between the reaching tendrils a hundred-some meters below.

A haze crossed over my eyes. Static filled my head. Made me numb. My legs threatened to give out from under me. I pitched forward. Whether I fell or jumped, it was all the same to me. As long as I went after him.

Something tightened around my wrist.

I was aware enough to recognize the pressure and look down at my arm. Phil was there. He was holding me in a white-knuckle grip. His feet were firmly planted against what remained of our hunk of a floor. He was panting hard. The grimace splitting his face looked out of place.

“Hang on, kid!” Movement below caught my attention. Technoblade was there. He launched himself off the ledge of his platform, ripping off his glasses with one hand as he went. Without the frames, I could make out a flash of red in his eyes. Red like at dinner, where it looked like two figures were sitting in the same seat. Red like the tusked monster I saw looming at the doorway in the hall. Red like blood.

Seeing him like that, diving down after Tommy, willingly throwing himself at the reaching, slithering, scaling mass below, it kick-started my heart to beat again. To get past that initial, all-consuming numbness that overtook me with the shock of seeing Tommy disappear.

The sound of a heartbeat echoed over the slither of vines sliding past each other. It thudded once, twice, three times, a drum beat signaling what was to come, and then Techno also vanished into the turmoil below.

Thump.

I needed to go after Tommy too.

Phil’s grip tightened on my wrist as I gave it a harsh yank. I turned on him and snarled. “Let me go, Phil.”

“Listen to me, Wil. You can’t go down there-”

“Tommy needs my help!”

“They’re not after Tommy,” he cried. “I know this has gotta be some pretty strange shit, but surely you’ve figured out by now that it’s you that thing is trying to get to?!?”

“I can’t just sit here and let those THINGS have him!”

“Techno’s got him. He won’t let that happen. He literally can’t be beaten.”

I pulled my hand a little harder. His palms were clammy. Their grip on my hand slipped a little, but not enough for me to break free. “What could Techno possibly do against something like that!?” My mind reached back to the conversation I overheard. “Do you mean whatever domain shit of yours you two have up your sleeve?”

He looked down at the vines that had stretched across everything, then back up at me. He seemed at a loss for words. “How did you know…” The shock fell away. His eyes lightened and the barest hint of a smile graced his lips. “Wilbur that’s it! That’s the only option!”

“What? I don’t even know what that means.”

“Then it’s a good thing I do.” He reached for the sword he had kept in his belt. The one he grabbed from the top of the landing. It glittered coldly in the morning sun. It moved so fast that the steel was nothing more than a flash of light. With a flourish, he brought the tip of the blade out to the side and swept it up from his bottom left to his top right, the pommel stopping directly over the head.

The sky unfolded.

It was the only way I could describe what I saw when I leaned back to stare at the space above us. It simply creased down the center and pulled apart, the edges sinking out towards the void of space. In its wake was something darker and more empty than the void itself. Something that practically sucked all the air out from under the dome of the sky. It tugged on my stomach like a string, pulling up through the top of my head.

“What the bloody HELL!?!?”

Words couldn’t describe how detached I felt from anything that made sense at that moment, but in itself that summed things up well enough. There had been a lot of things that made no sense over the course of these two days.

With another flick of his wrist, Phil had the sword tucked away at his waist once more.

“Listen to me, Wil,” he said, reaching for my shoulders and giving them a shake. “All of this can end in an instant. I just need you to answer two questions for me? Okay?” He was insane.

Then again, I was convinced I was as well.

“Two questions?”

He nodded. “Two questions. Answer them honestly, and I promise everything will work out. Tommy and Techno we’ll be fine. The nightmare will end.”

“...I can do that.”

“Good.”

Phil kept his hands on my shoulders as he straightened. His shoulders tensed, making the imaginary feathers that were still there flare out. His entire demeanor changed, eyes going from stormy grey to sharp steel. The expression on his face was unreadable, and when he spoke it sent a shiver down my spine.

“If you could choose to fall into the sky, would you?”

It was strikingly similar to when Technoblade asked Tommy about listening to his gut, or me about listening to the history of our surroundings.

“What kind of question is that?” I shrieked.

“Don’t think too hard about it, Wilbur. If there was any scenario, any justification you could possibly think of where you might say yes, then say it.”

“Now isn’t the time for philosophically nonsensical questions, Phil!”

“Just answer the damn question!”

“If saying yes could make this madness end, then yeah, sure. Whatever it would take to wake up from this nightmare.”

“Is that a yes!?!” “YES!”

As soon as the word tore its way out of my mouth, it felt like the world flipped on its head. It was like an explosion went off with me and Phil at the epicenter. Crumbling castle walls and stone brick cracked and broke, flinging themselves further out out all around us. The debris hung suspended in the air, still, but was now twisting and twirling like leaves caught in the wind. The ground below visibly grew further and further away at a significantly faster pace than before. The pieces of the tower’s floor were climbing higher and higher compared to the hilly landscape below, but rather than my stomach dropping out from under me like it would when riding an elevator to the top floor, it felt like someone had set a hook at the bottom of my heart alongside my stomach and was pulling me up.

When I looked at Phil, none of the strain from before pulled at the corners of his eyes or tightened the way he held his shoulders.

I tried to pull back from Phil’s embrace in my utter amazement. His grip on my arms hardened. His fingers were cold. Far too cold. The chill was painful, even through the fabric of my shirt sleeve. Steel eyes lightened to sky-blue. They looked too wide for his face. Too vast and unending for his age, or maybe that was just it? Maybe that endless vastness behind those eyes was the real Phil? It didn’t match the man who stood before me. Not in appearance. But in personality? Perhaps. Something deeper and greater and all-encompassing that I had only gotten to glimpse a fraction of.

I didn’t have long to contemplate that before sky-blue gave way to glowing gold, so bright it was like looking into the sun.

A shadow leaked out from the tear in the sky. It spread like ink bleeding through paper until it encompassed everything. In that dark, I could barely make out the outline of Phil’s cloak as a breeze picked up. It whooshed up from beneath us, causing the fabric and feathers to billow out at his sides like a massive set of wings. I could feel the press of my feet on the stairs beneath me growing lighter and lighter. I threw myself to the piece of wall lining the side of our stairs and dug my fingernails into the uneven brick. It gave me something to hold onto because I felt dangerously close to floating away.

The cloak flared once more, wrapping around Phil. The pressure of his hands on my shoulder vanished. I blinked, and he was gone.

Phil was gone, but the vines were still there. Still climbing up from their new vantage point on Tommy’s platform. Reaching towards me. A few more meters, and they might have me. Their leaves wavered on the breeze. The whistle of it carried a voice.

“If the sky could reach out and catch you, would you trust it to?”

A lump formed in my throat. One so large, I couldn’t hope to swallow around it.

I had absolutely no reason to trust the two strangers I met last night. Neither had Tommy. Yet we willingly went with them into a decrepit castle.

What was it that Technoblade said about trusting your gut?

“Yes. I do,” I whispered, and let go.

And the world went radio-silent as I fell up into the broken sky.

____________________________________________________

The first thing I became aware of was a bright, blue light.

So bright, it shone through my eyelids.

Next came the horrible sense of falling. I wasn’t moving, though. There was no rush of air or anything like that. In fact, when I groaned and twitched my fingers I was pleasantly surprised to find something solid and rough pressing against them. But still, there was that awful lurch to my stomach that made me feel like I was in the middle of a free fall.

I dared to flutter my eyes open. For as bright as the blue was through my eyelids, it got no brighter once I fully opened my eyes. The sky in all its vast, overwhelming glory filled my vision. Blue and deep, broken by the occasional wisp of clouds, and encompassing everything. I groaned again, this time letting my head fall to the side. There was more around me than just sky. It was a familiar sight, actually. I was lying on the concrete slab of a train platform.

I let my head flop over to the other side.

It wasn’t just a platform. It was an entire train station. One with an open ceiling and walls encircling booths and benches and waiting areas. There were no trains here. Just tracks and the empty tunnels bored into the wall. The tracks running down them faded away into the dark.

“Tommy…?” My voice sounded odd to my ears. It reverberated and echoed as if I were in a cave, not a train station. “Phil?” I called a little louder. Still, my voice echoed back at me. “Techno…?”

I pushed myself up to a seat. My whole body swayed as a wave of vertigo washed over me. I didn’t feel grounded. My sense of direction was so thrown off, that the room may have actually been swaying for all I knew.

I tried again. “Tommy! Phil! Techno! Is anyone there?”

“I am, mate.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of the familiar voice echoing alongside my own. The vertigo was still in full swing, though, so while I tried surging to my feet I really only ended up stumbling into a bench.

Wait… I used both legs to do that…

I looked down and pulled up the leg of my trousers to see that my bum ankle looked normal again. The rash, the bruise, the scratches, they were all gone. “How…”

“It’s all healed,” Phil’s voice sounded out again. “You won’t have to worry about that ever again.”

The train station was empty. No matter where I looked there wasn’t another soul on the platforms or the tracks. I couldn’t see Phil. “Where are you?”

“Look up.”

I tilted my head back. Two pale edges swept out from either side of the station’s open roof. They met in the middle before fluttering back open. When they did, a dark orb, almost like a black hole with light warping around its edges, took up the center of the blue space.

What I thought was the sky over the open ceiling of the station had just blinked.

It was an eye. A huge eye as vast as the sky. Bright, unending, and undeniably’ Phil’s.

My grip on the bench tightened.

The eye blinked again, and then it was gone. Replaced with an empty black void. A pair of legs appeared over the roof’s ledge, and then a torso and head swung into view. There was Phil, peering down at me beneath the brim of his bucket hat. He looked different, but also the same. Gone were the pale blue winter clothes and cloak. Instead, he wore a loose-fitting green robe with a close-fit black undershirt. The black cloak hung in folds against his back. There were cuffs around his wrists with hearts emblazoned on them and his blond hair was wild and pale beneath the hat. It looked sort of like a cloud.

“This form is probably less scary for ya, I’m sure.” He kicked his legs lazily out over the drop. “What are you?”

Phil’s shoulders pulled up around his ears. “I’m Phil.” He looked away, embarrassed. The moment his eyes left me, that horrible vertigo vanished and I was able to stand up straight.

“I didn’t ask who you were,” I said, my words harsh.

He turned his eyes back onto me and I nearly toppled over. The bench helped ground me as my head spun.

“Do you want the short answer or the long answer?”

I wasn’t sure I had the patience for the long answer as long as I felt like this. “Short answer.”

“I’m the sky.”

That made no sense.

“Fine, long answer,” I spat.

“Wil-”

“Don’t Wil me! Nothing, and I repeat, nothing has made sense ever since those things chased me and Tommy through the woods. Least of all this.” I waved my hands at the train station around me and nearly toppled over in the process. “What the fuck is this?! I just fell into the fucking sky?! So tell me, what the FUCK was all that? And THIS?! AND YOU!?”

“Whoa! Whoa! Easy there.” Though we were several meters apart, he threw his hands up, palms outward as if to shield himself. “Deep breaths. Try to take things slow. You’ve just been through a lot.”

“You’re damn right about that! I’d appreciate some sort of answer!”

“Okay!”

He kicked off the ledge overhanging the ceiling and dropped. What I thought had been a cloak flared up until two black, shimmering wings stretched to catch the air. They were huge! Fully spread like that, the edges came close to touching opposite walls of the station. The very tips of the longest primaries sported that same diamond pattern that had lined the edge of his cloak. The inner coverts shined with countless glimmers of bright light; like stars set in the night sky.

Did that mean I hadn’t imagined the feathers?

He rode the draft down to the concrete below. Sandaled feet hit the ground walking and his wings folded back behind him, dragging and settling like the cloak.

As he approached, my sense of vertigo lightened. The disorientation became less and less as he walked closer and closer. By the time he stopped in front of me, I felt normal.

“I’ll try. I’ll try to clear up what I can, starting with me,” he said softly and placed a hand over his heart. “The easy answer really is that I am the sky. I’m like you, but not,” the wings flexed outward before returning to rest along his back. “If the sky was a person, it would be me.”

“Am I really supposed to believe that?” I huffed, taking a step away from the bench.

“Probably not,” he said with a tired shrug. “But could you possibly come up with anything else that might make sense to you?”

That was a loaded question. Considering I was staring at a man with wings on his back, I suppose the sky incarnate wasn’t as outlandish as it really should have been.

“So what? Are you supposed to be some sort of god?”

“Pffft. As if.” He leaned back and laughed. “I’m just Phil. It just so happens that being me also comes with a few side gigs that are a little harder to wrap your head around.”

“Like what?”

“Appearance, for starters.” The wings spread out behind him. Not to their full extent. They would have filled to room if that were the case. Just enough so that I could make out constellations glittering amidst his coverts. “Don’t normally have to keep this under wraps, but didn’t really feel like having to explain myself. You’re awfully perceptive, though. Ya didn’t it easy.”

It had been real…? It had been real. The snapshot hallucinations of Phil’s feathery cloak hadn’t been hallucinations after all.

“What else?”

“My lifespan. Or lack-there-of. Remember when I told you about me and Techno’s trip to the Antarctic?”

“Y-yeah.”

“That would have been before your grandparents had even been born.”

I had to reach out to grab the bench again. It wasn’t the vertigo returning. It was because the weight of what Phil was saying was starting to come crashing down on me. This man didn’t look a day over thirty.

“Wait, does that mean Techno-”

“Mate’s like me,” Phil said puffing up his feathers. “Like me, but not.”

“So definitely not human either?”

He shook his head. “If I am the Sky, then he’s Bloodshed.”

It fit. Yet it didn’t. It seemed like there were a lot of oxymorons I simply had to accept. From what I had seen of Techno so far, he had shown an aptitude for battle. Phil clearly trusted the man to handle himself in a fight. But he was also pretty mild-mannered and reserved. Far from what I would expect from someone who carried a name like Bloodshed.

But did that also mean that there was something else to Techno as well? Something with red eyes and dripping tusks, like I saw looming above me?

Probably.

The thought didn’t scare me as much as it should have. The relief I felt at having so many of my self-doubts flipped on their head overpowered the fear, and I was starting to become numb to being surprised.

And then it hit me that Techno had gone after Tommy and the fear broke through the relief like a swinging sledgehammer.

“And a guy like that went after Tommy?!” I shouted, pulling away from the bench. I felt like I needed to pace and wasn’t up for facing Phil while my mind was racing. I made it a couple of steps before I immediately regretted it. The dizziness kicked back in, making me sway on my feet.

“Ey! Careful.” Phil quickly crossed the small space I put between us. “You’re still adjusting to the effects of the change in domain. You shouldn’t be pushing yourself.” He stepped in front of me, reaching out to right me, but at the sight of his eyes, the unsteadiness left me. I knocked his hand away.

“Is this what you and Techno were talking about?” I growled, feeling a little more false confidence churning in my gut now that my head didn’t feel like it was spinning. “He had mentioned a domain then too. Is this your contingency? Your plan? Whatever it was you were planning on doing to me and Tommy because I’m adrift?”

Phil’s wings drooped so low his primary feathers lay against the ground. The sheer devastation in his expression almost made me regret the extra venom I had laced into that last word. Almost, but not quite.

“You heard that?” he breathed.

I nodded. “Yeah. I did.”

He looked away. “Well… that explains why you were in such a rush to leave.” He pulled his hat off to card his fingers through his hair. A sigh left his lips as his fingers reached the back of his skull. That was where he let his hand come to rest. His elbow pointed up at the void above us.

“Look. The situation isn’t ideal. And that probably doesn’t sound great. You don’t even know what any of that means, do you?”

I rubbed my forehead with the base of my palm. “Of course I don’t.”

“Right. That’s… not easy to explain.” He sighed. “Ok. I don’t know how much you heard, but me and Techno… we have this thing called a domain. It’s basically whatever we have an influence over. For me, it’s the sky. What’s a good example… oh! You know how the tower broke and the pieces flew?”

I nodded.

“That happened because I could influence it. The tower was in the sky, and I exerted my influence. If we want, we can extend that influence to people. That’s where those freaks that came in with the vines come in.”

“The monsters that chased us?”

He nodded.

“Techno called them eggheads.”

“Yeah. They were people, but they’ve got no mind of their own. Those bastards and all those disgusting red vines belong to something else. Something like me and Techno, but prefers to exercise complete control over everything in its domain. Its… preferred shape isn’t human.” He shrugged and gestured down at himself, sweeping his arms back to include the wings spreading behind him. “Far less human than this. Like a big fuckin’ egg.”

“So eggheads?”

“That’s right.”

“How creative,” I said sarcastically.

“Hey!” Phil’s blue eyes brightened at the tease. He plopped his hat back onto his head. “I’m the one who came up with it. I don’t have to listen to this slander!”

I rolled my eyes. The more I thought about his words, though, the more I had to suppress a shudder. “You said they have no mind of their own?”

The light in his eyes faded to something stormy and overcast. “Yes. They may have been able to think for themselves at some point, but they lost that when they became part of its domain.”

“And… you said they were after me?”

He nodded stiffly. “I’ll be blunt. Yes. They were going to drag you into its domain as well.”

It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head. I finally had at least a baseline understanding of what was at stake now. Everything that made me… well, me. I tried to picture myself in the place of that dark-skinned creature, punching through glass, throwing myself mindlessly ahead at something, with no thoughts or concept of self-preservation.

Death sounded preferable.

“One of ‘em marked you when they grabbed you,” he continued. “Their way of saying you were due to be one of ‘em. When I cut you free, you still had the mark, but you weren’t a part of their domain yet. You were adrift. Halfway there, but still a long way to go. I’m surprised they were that dead set on having you in the first place. I thought after the first time I scared ‘em off they would have let the matter drop.”

Goosebumps crawled up my arms. “But it’s gone now,” I said, pulling up my pant leg. Sure enough, it still looked fine. Still didn’t throb or ache. “So what does that mean? Is this my hell? Is this where my mind ends up now that they’ve got me?”

“Oh fuck no,” Phil’s eyes hardened and he shook his head quickly. “After all the shit we went through? Those guys, they take for their domain. Me? I ask nicely. You answered my inquiries perfectly.”

“Inquiries…?” Then it dawned on me. “Those weird ass questions…”

Phil snapped his fingers. “Bingo! You didn’t have to actually fall into the sky, but bonus points for dramatic flair.”

“Wait, so what does that mean? Is this your domain? Am I gonna turn into one of those weird assed monsters for you?”

“NO!” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “God, no. That’s the last thing I want.” He shivered and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “And this isn’t my domain. This is a… crossroads. One of your making.”

“Explain.”

He rolled his eyes. “That mark put you on a similar path as the eggheads. Whenever you answer a couple of inquiries from someone like me and Techno, it qualifies you for a different path. One through us. You answered my inquiries. This is your fork in the road. Your mind just decided to picture it this way.” He swept his wings out behind him as if to gesture to the train station around us. “So you could, I don’t know, get on a train towards your desired destination. Something like that.”

This sounded laughably familiar.

I couldn’t help the smirk that stretched across my face. “You’re not seriously giving me the Harry Potter treatment right now, are you? What, are you about to tell me that I can take a train if I feel like ‘moving on?’”

Phil threw his head back and laughed, one hand going up to cover his heart. “Not exactly. I mean, I guess the situation is a bit similar but it’s not the same.”

“How so?”

He raised an eyebrow. “For one, I’m not dead. Dumbledore was. For another, you’ve got a couple of options.”

A distant roar sounded out, like all of the air rushing out of the room. “What is that?”

Phil didn’t answer.

I turned around to see the lighted clocks and timetable screens flickered to life. Through blinking neon, they displayed all zeros across the number slots. Fluorescent lights flared brighter and buzzed.

Screeeeeeeeeeech!

Yellow light filled the tunnels leading out of the terminal. I could hear trains barreling in long before I could see them. They came from opposite directions on different tracks, and both slowed down until they came to rest directly in front of me. One red. One blue. Their doors slid open, but there was nobody inside. No ticket taker was standing ready at the entry. No people were milling about the aisle. No heads bobbed in the window seats.

“And there’s two of ‘em,” Phil said, his voice falling somewhat flat. Almost sad.

“Where will they take me?”

“Back,” he said, looking away from me to stare at the trains. The floor seemed to rock under my feet as the vertigo pressed in. It was faint, but it was still there. “To the present. It will be like all of this happened within the span of a heartbeat.”

“Which one will take me back to help Tommy?”

The corner of his mouth pulled up into a half smile. He still wouldn’t look at me. “Both. Technically. Your outlook and how you would approach the situation would be pretty fuckin’ different, though, depending on which one you take.”

I paused.

“Okay, Phil. You told me that those guys with the vines… if I were to end up like one of them, things would be pretty bleak. I believe you. I’m so far out of my depth here that I wouldn’t know what else to believe anyway, so I believe you. So be honest with me. If I were to take this ‘path’ that you opened for me, the one those stupid questions unlocked, what would it entail?”

Some of the heaviness left his voice. “Not that,” he said teasingly.

“Very helpful.”

“I try.”

“Honestly…” He continued. “There might be some side effects. It differs based on the person. But you’d still be you. As much of you as I am me. And if you were part of my domain, then the vines and all those freaks would move on. You and Tommy wouldn’t have to worry about either of them. Techno would be keeping it from hurting him until then, not that it would have cared about him. Then again, if it had you it would leave him be anyway.”

“They wouldn’t be pissed at you if I didn’t pick them?”

“They can be pissed all they want. Wouldn’t change a thing, and they’d know that. There’d be nothing left for them to do about it but move on. Not like they can actually hurt me.”

That only left one other option up in the air that I could think of.

“And if I didn’t take either train? If I just… let them pass?”

“Then you wait for the next one,” he says easily. “And then you really move on. Is that enough like Harry Potter for ya?”

“Yeah,” I say with a chuckle. “Fair enough.”

Phil took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. He pulled his wings tight against his back. As he did so, his visage flickered across a vast array of colors and emotions. Red, purple, blue, yellow, happy, sad, angry, content. It was like another hallucination, but as he shifted from one foot to the other, his green cloak was back and those vast blue eyes were understanding. “That’s about all I’ve got, Wil. As much of an explanation as I can give. This isn’t exactly my space. It’s yours. I’ve intruded long enough. I’ll make sure to see you on the other side. Maybe give you some pointers and get you situated, depending on which path you take.”

I risked the verging sense of vertigo to look away from him and take in the trains once more. They sat completely still on the tracks. One red. One blue. Both pointing in opposite directions, set into different tracks. Not even the doors swung on their hinges. It was so still, I could have been looking at a painting. A big choice made to look deceptively simple. All I had to do was step into a car.

“Phil, wait. Don’t go yet. I’m still so confused and I don’t know what questions to ask, can’t you tell me more?”

No answer.

“Phil?”

When I turned back, Phil was gone. Where he was standing, a couple of black feathers drifted down to the concrete floor. I looked up, but the space visible above the train station’s open ceiling was void black and empty. He really was gone.

The station was quiet without him. There was no whistle of the breeze or chatter of the crowd. The clocks didn’t tick and the lights didn’t buzz with electricity. There was just the sound of my breathing and the sway of the room.

The vertigo was back in full swing. I stumbled a few steps closer to the trains and it lessened, but without Phil around it wasn’t vanishing anymore. Only subsiding as I came closer and closer to a choice I was pretty sure I couldn’t come back from. One that I didn’t know the full scope of. I cursed out Phi under my breath for not sticking around.

Still. A choice had to be made. Red. Blue. Or stay?

I always had been partial to the color blue.

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ice-cap-k · 15 days

Text

*I Always Had Been Partial to the Color Blue (Part 1)

Hey! Got a new story for part of the 2024 MCYT Horror Gift exchange ( @mcythorrorgiftexchange ). This is for the amazing @spicypotstickerbliss. I hope I did your request justice. I went a little wild with the prompt...

It's longer than my old whumptober stuff, so feel free to read it on AO3 here: I Always Had Been Partial to the Color Blue

CH 2

__________________________________________

“Keep running, Tommy!”

“But Wil-” “Don’t talk! Just Run!”

I shoved Tommy’s shoulder. I had meant to give him a boost, but he teetered mid-step and I panicked, digging my fingers into his shirt to keep him from falling forward. I didn’t let go. Couldn’t let go. It almost felt like I was dragging him forward, but his feet kept moving and he stayed in front of me. We were running as fast as our legs could carry us, even if my lungs burned and my feet were numb with cold.

The cold. It seeped through my coat and fought against the heat wafting off my skin, the uncomfortable difference between hot and cold practically stinging me. Ultimately, though, it felt good. Like it was the only thing keeping me from passing out.

Tommy was only in his T-shirt and trousers. The petulant child had refused to put on something warmer when we first left the house to go see Tubbo. Then again, neither of us had imagined we would have gotten chased off the main path through the woods.

This was only meant to be a short trip.

Awoooooooooooooo!!

That sounded like a wolf.

It wasn’t a wolf.

The howl was coming from right behind us. The baying of beasts calling for both of our blood had picked up in tempo. They knew that the two of us would have to tire soon. We couldn’t outrun them forever. How long had we even been running? Minutes? It felt like an eternity.

Our only saving grace was the snow. As much as it weighed on my feet and made it more difficult to put one foot in front of the other, it seemed to be even more troublesome for our pursuers.

When I dared to look back, just for a second, I caught sight of burning pink eyes and steam emanating off of brimstone tentacles. Something hissed and growled like an angry cat when one of Tommy’s steps kicked up a spray of slush and hit one of the figures following us square in the face. Claws flashed, and red pulsed purple-black, it fell behind another few steps, and I looked away, trying not to gag. There wasn’t time to stop and worry about losing the contents of my stomach.

“What the fuck?!! Wil! There, look! ” Tommy grabbed my wrist where I was still gripping his shoulder and pointed. I didn’t have time to see what he was referring to when he wrenched my arm to the side. Now he was the one pulling me.

I stumbled over the snow, nearly running face-first into a low-hanging branch. “Tommy, I-” I cut myself off this time. Despite being fully aware of the things breathing down the back of my neck and swiping at my heels, it dawned on me that there was light up ahead. Tommy was still pointing, though the action was pretty shaky considering the fact that we were running. He wasn’t the best at holding steady, even on a good day, but throw in the need to dodge around trees and uneven footing down a hill in the woods meant Tommy was actually kind of all over the place. I followed the line of his finger as best as I could to the center of the blue light flickering and flaring down the slope ahead of us.

“Is that a castle?” I asked between heavy breaths.

That was the only thing I could think to call the massive building tucked away at the bottom of the valley. It was a crooked thing, made up of stone bricks stacked up on top of each other. The blocky center build took up most of the space with steeped roofs and swooping arches, while turrets that looked more tacked on than anything rounded out the corners. Long, tunnel-like wings swept off the sides and followed a frozen river that cut through the trees. The slate and copper-lined roof was sunken in places and completely collapsed in others. Vines and moss threatened to overtake the lower walls as if the forest was reclaiming it.

Still, there was light. Torchlight. Lamp lights. Fires. Blue lights glowing behind windows that could have still had glass, or been covered over with paper for all that I could make out. Bright blue lanterns marked a small path of inlaid wood steps leading up to a front door where the snow had fully melted away. Someone had to be around to light those fires. Someone had to live there.

“Change of plans, Tommy. We go there and we call for help.”

“Already ahead of you, big man.”

We half slid, half stumbled our way down the rest of the hill. It was only by some miracle that we hadn’t slammed into a tree trunk on the way down. Some of our pursuers weren’t so lucky. Snapping tree branches and howls of pain and frustration assaulted my ears as we bottomed out at the end of the slope.

“They’re stupid, Tommy. They’re giving us an opportunity. Don’t let it go to waste.”

We both took off towards the first light along the muddy path. The trees were thinner here. Almost non-existent, and it didn’t take long for the creatures behind us to right themselves after the slip down the slope. Some of them were still hot on our trail. I could hear the panting of their breathing, and the sound of the snow sloshing beneath their feet as they struggled to stay on our tail.

A shape loomed out of the white ahead of us. There! On the trail further along. Someone riding horseback. I was too focused on running to get a good look at them. Besides, it was too dark to make out their features. When they turned their horse around on the path to see me and Tommy barreling towards them with several terrifying creatures after us, their horse half-reared.

“Heh?!?!”

“Please help us,” Tommy screamed.

The stranger turned their horse around. I caught sight of a glint of moonlight on steel by their waist as they pulled on their reigns. “Phil,” came a deep-throated shout. For as loud as it was, they didn’t sound particularly concerned. “We’ve got a bit of an issue.”

‘A bit of an issue,’ sounded like an absurd understatement to me, even in the moment. I probably pulled a frown, not that I could see my own face, or that Tommy was looking at me to tell me what sort of expression I wore. I just remember thinking about how strange the horseman’s words were considering the situation. I had never seen anything like what was chasing us before tonight. Not in any scary campfire story or wild nature documentary on TV. And here Tommy and I were, accidentally leading their reaching claws and snarling fangs right to this guy.

Of course, I didn’t have time to dwell on those thoughts when my luck ran out.

Something tightened around my ankle.

I went down hard. All the air rushed out of my lungs as I fell belly-first against the first few stairs in the path. Deep, heavy, throbbing pain bloomed to life on my right side. It felt like someone took a sledgehammer to the bottom rib. Instinctively, I went to curl up to cover the spot, but when I did my fingers slipped from the snow-slicked edge of the stair and the thing on my ankle YANKED.

I screamed. I screamed Tommy’s name over and over as if he could help me. A voice in the back of my head worried it had gotten him to, but that was impossible. I could see him come to a stop alongside the horseman, who had drawn something razer thin and gleaming out from his side. Tommy’s blue eyes flew wide, mouth gaping open as our gazes locked for a millisecond. Then the grip shifted and I ended up on my back. From this angle, I couldn’t see Tommy anymore, but I could see what had gotten ahold of me.

I vaguely recognized one of the creatures that I had seen chasing us from amidst the pack. A dark-skinned creature, so black it was near impossible to make out most of its features. I could still see its eyes and mouth, though. Those were bleached completely white. They practically glowed compared to the rest of its complexion, and when it opened its mouth to snarl, I could make out long fangs where they left dark gaps in the stark white. Its clawed hand was wrapped around my ankle, and its grip was reinforced with a red vine or tentacle wrapping from its wrist onto my leg.

Try as I might to kick and scream, I knew that there was no getting out of that grip. All I managed to do was knock the hood off of its horned head as the others from its pack began to draw closer.

There was no consistency to them. The one on my leg might as well have been a demon. That one over there, a giant cat, and the one with red eyes looked almost like it could be human. It certainly moved more like one than the others, glaring at me past blond bangs as if I was a particularly interesting bug.

In a desperate attempt to do something, anything, I swept my arm out and up, tossing an arc of snow up onto the thing gripping my leg.

“Let go of me!”

The snow hissed and sizzled where it came in contact with pitch-black skin. The thing squawked in pain. The grip on my ankle loosened slightly, Clawed fingers loosened when it tried to shake the snow off so that only the red tendril remained.

I kicked out against it. Pulled at the ground with my nails. Even tried sitting up to unwrap it from my ankle with my hands, but I couldn’t stay upright long enough to manage. There was a dull throbbing running up the length of my leg since the thing let go of me, and that pain was starting to drown out the waves of aches washing over my side. I blinked against it, surprised to see a dark shape pass across my vision. Was I seeing dark spots already?

SHING!

The pressure on my ankle disappeared.

It still throbbed, but when I pulled my foot back towards the rest of my body there was no resistance. Part of the red tendril lay squirming in the snow. The other part was probably still attached to whatever had grabbed me, but I couldn’t make it out past the broad silhouette that now stood between me and the monster.

And what an intimidating figure it was. From the back, I could make out a heavy cloak billowing in the late winter breeze, white diamond patterns appearing and disappearing in the shifting folds like whirling snowflakes. When the wind moved the cloak just right, I could make out heavy black boots and pale blue fabric that almost blended into the snowy landscape. Even further beyond that, I could make out the terrified gaze of the creature that had been chasing me as it backed away. Fur trim lined the top of the cloak where the black fabric shifted to red. And at the very top, a blue and white striped bucket hat sat atop a mop of loose blond hair.

Their arm was positioned at their side. A steel blade hung from their hand, the very end dripping bright red dots into the white snow.

Their shoulders shifted and the tip of their sword bobbed as they spoke up in a voice so cold it rivaled the winter air. “Looks like someone’s trespassing in our domain.”

I crawled backward, attempting to put some more distance between us. “I’m sorry,” I found the words tumbling out of my lips.

The person in front of me turned to look over their shoulder. It was a man, old enough to be my father with stubble on his chin and eyes that first glinted like ice but warmed like the summer sky when they fell on me.

“Oh, don’t worry. Wasn’t talkin’ about you. As for the rest of you lot, though…” His words lowered into a hiss as he turned back to face the pack of creatures that were backing away. All of them. Not just the one that had grabbed me. They all stared at the tip of his sword as he raised it, and flinched when another red drop fell from its edge. “I’d suggest running back to your own domain before the issue can become…” He spared another side-eyed glance at me. “Complicated.”

The creatures froze. They didn’t back up further, but they showed no signs that they were interested in approaching, either. They shared a few torn looks between themselves.

“Oh, so you intended to trespass?” The man took a step forward and brought the blade out in front of him.

Their eyes flew wide. Any hint of doubt in their expressions vanished. They turned tail and fled back up the slope, clawing and leaping over each other to get away faster. Taking up the rear was the dark-skinned monster that had grabbed me. It ran with its wrist cradled in its opposite arm and its wiry tail tucked between its legs.

“You alright mate?”

The man slid his stained sword into a loop at his waist as he turned to look at me. From the front, he looked warm and friendly. He wore a lopsided grin, and the brim of his hat was a little lopsided over his forehead. The warm clothes he wore looked fine enough to be meant for royalty, but yet still retained an almost militaristic air that did not match the casual slouch to his shoulders. He held out a hand.

I blinked at it, so stunned my brain needed a moment to catch up to what had just happened. I shot a glance down at the tendril that now lay still in the snow, then at the hill where the last of the monsters disappeared over the crest, before realizing he was offering to help me up.

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” I croaked, taking his hand. He pulled me up easily. Surprisingly so, considering that once I was up on my feet it became clear that I was considerably taller than him. Even Tommy would have towered over this man.

His eyes screwed shut as a wide smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “No problem. Those guys can be such a pest sometimes. Far less friendly than us. I’d recommend steering clear of them if you can help it.”

“Sounds like sound advice,” I said with a laugh that was one part nerves and two parts relief. “The name’s Wilbur. To whom do I owe a thank you to?”

“I’m Phil.”

Phil? Like the name the gentleman on the horse had shouted? The guy that Tommy ran to?

Wait… Tommy? Oh God, Tommy!

I pivoted on a heel to look behind me, but as I did so, I moved my leg and the throbbing pain came rushing back up my leg like bolts of electricity. The ankle gave out and the whole world tilted as I went down again. “Agh!”

“Careful there!” Phil’s arm managed to wrap underneath mine just in time to catch me before I could hit the ground.

“Tommy,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “Where’s Tommy?”

“Wilbur! Wilbur are you alright?!”

Relief washed over me, even as I struggled to blink back tears. Snow crunched as Tommy came running. He gripped a bright red cloak, similar to Phil’s, over his shoulders. It covered his exposed arms. A hulking shadow of another man walked behind him at a much more laid-back pace. The horse stood back at the side of the path, tied by the reins to a wayward fence post.

“I take it this is Tommy?” Phil asked with a chuckle.

I nodded. “I’ll be fine, Tommy,” I said. The pain made my voice come off strained. It wasn’t doing much to assure him, but my words were true. The worst of the danger seemed to have passed. “I think I’ve got a sprain, but that’s the worst of it.”

“That thing did have you by the ankle, didn’t it,” Phil asked, but didn’t seem like he was expecting much of an answer. His eyes narrowed as he looked down at the tendril lying in the snow.

The reassurance seemed to be enough for Tommy, who launched himself at me and wrapped his arms around my torso in a tight hug. There was a twinge as his arms brushed my ribs, but nothing worse than that. It would probably have a bruise there by morning. “Don’t ever do that shit again. You hear me?” he demanded. “I won’t have it. Next time I might not step up to protect you and what are ya going to do then, huh?”

Phil raised an eyebrow. “Protect him?”

“Pretty sure it was Phil who scared them off, kid.” At that point, the man who had been following behind Tommy came to a full stop an arm’s length away. He was dressed similarly to Phil with fancy pale blue winter attire. There was no fur-trimmed cloak, though Wilbur assumed that was where Tommy had gotten his warm new cover. Unlike Phil, though, this man’s expression and demeanor seemed a better match to his outfit. He held his head high and his shoulders stiff, pink hair pulled back in a perfect braid. Not a single hair was out of place, even around the gold circlet that sat above his brow. He was tall. A couple of centimeters taller than me, even. He looked down at me and Phil through wire-framed glasses.

His expression was blank and stony. When I looked a little longer, though, I could have sworn I saw a spark of amusement in his eyes.

“Well I was the one who thought to come here and called for help,” Tommy huffed. “I saw the castle, and I saw you, and you called for this guy.” He pointed a shaky finger at Phil. “If I wasn’t as big and strong and smart as I am, that wouldn’t have happened. So really, it’s because of me that Wilbur’s alright.”

Phil and the other man shared a glance. I rolled my eyes and reached out with the arm that wasn’t being supported by the sword-wielding, bucket hat-wearing man at my side so I could ruffle Tommy’s hair. The teen pulled away from the touch, but I just smiled. “You did good, Toms.”

“Of course I did.”

The man with the braid shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat. Where did you guys even come from?”

“Over the ridge,” I said, jutting my chin back in that direction. “There’s a path leading through the woods back to the town over there. Those things chased us here from the other side of the forest.”

“There’s a town over there now?”

Phil shot the pink-haired man a glare. “Sorry, about my friend,” he huffed. “This is Technoblade,” he said, bobbing his elbow in the other’s direction. “It’s been a while since we’ve been that way. You guys must have made it pretty far.”

“I’ll say,” Tommy whined. He pulled the cloak tighter over his shoulders and leaned away from me, kicking at a clump of snow. “My feet HURT.”

“Welp. That’s a shame.” Technoblade crossed his arms in front of his chest.

He was an intimidating man at first glance, but the change in posture broadened his shoulders and made me want to shrink out from under the shadow he cast.

“The sooner you get out of here, the better. After that scare Phil gave them, our uninvited guests,” he said, monotonous voice dipping ever so slightly in what must have been disgust, “won’t risk coming back around for a while.”

“Hate to break it to you, but I’m not sure I can walk all that way back,” I admitted, and I hated the words as I said them. There was nothing I wanted more in that moment than to get me and Tommy back home, safe and sound.

“Tommy, do you think I can lean on your shoulder?”

“No way,” Tommy snapped. I turned to look at him, surprised, and he stuttered. Backtracking. “I mean, of course, Wil. I would, but walking right now sounds like bullshit. Can’t we just go bunker down in that castle until morning?”

“I don’t-”

“No.” Technoblade didn’t give me a chance to consider it.

“Bitch!”

He looked down at Tommy with an expression that was impossible to read. “Me and Phil aren’t prepared to take visitors right now. Besides, if you plan on going home to whichever town you came from tonight, the best time is now.”

“Or tomorrow afternoon when the sun’s at its peak,” Phil said brightly.

Technoblade blinked and gave a good hard look at the man who was still supporting me. “Phil,” he hissed, and it had the barest hint of a whine at the end. Almost like he was pleading with his companion.

A hint of that steel returned to Phil’s eyes as he kicked at the severed tendril with the toe of his boot. “Wilbur here got his ankle wrapped up before I cut him free,” he said smoothly. “I think they might have got him good. Don’t you think it would be better if we were to take a good look at it? Make sure it’s nothing more serious?”

“You’re kidding?” Technoblade said, deadpan, although I had a sneaking suspicion that it was probably his default tone.

Phil didn’t say anything. The two men stared each other down, some unheard conversation passing between them that I couldn’t make heads or tails of. Finally, Technoblade looked away first and his eyes bore into mine.

“I… I promise we’ll be on our best behavior,” I offered. What could I say? The idea of trekking through the woods on my tender ankle didn’t sound like fun. And if we had to, I knew Tommy would help me walk. He would whine and complain the entire way there, but he would help. If it meant I didn’t have to put up with a long night like that, then I’d gladly stay in a literal castle with people who were clearly capable of keeping me and him safe from those things.

Even if I had only just met the inhabitants. “Tommy, promise you’ll behave.” “But why should I?” “Because I am asking you to.”

“Need another reason than that, Wil.”

“Please, Tommy?”

Tommy threw back his head. Blond hair rustled in the winter breeze, catching passing snowflakes as he groaned. “Ughhhhhhh. Fine. I promise I will try to behave. Odds of me not breaking your shit goes up if you throw in dinner, too. I’m starved.”

Technoblade shifted from foot to foot. His eyes narrowed behind his glasses as he considered. Eventually, he let out a sigh. “Alright. But just one night. Let me go get Carl.”

“Oh, good idea!” Phil tilted his head back and let out a high-pitched whistle. A high keen split the winter air almost immediately in reply. “I’ll take Wilbur on Dave and you take Tommy on Carl.” A second later, a large chestnut horse appeared. It crested over a hill and trotted up until it could press its head to Phil’s back.

“Sure. Come on, kid. Have you ever ridden a horse before?”

Tommy screwed up his face into an open-mouthed scowl. “Ew. Of course not. They’re smelly and stupid.”

Technoblade arched one eyebrow. “Would you rather walk?”

“...Oh my! What an amazing horse! How wonderful and nice!”

The next few minutes were a mess. It took a lot of effort for me to get situated on Phil’s horse behind him. The process of climbing up sent pricks through my bad leg like hot knives tearing into me over and over again. More than once I had to stop just to catch my breath and wait for the pain to pass. It wasn’t so bad when I held my ankle still. Just a dull throb. Stretching and flexing it, though, made everything worse.

Tommy wasn’t doing much better, but for reasons that were pretty typical for him. Mainly the arguing. The puffed-out chest and insistence that he knew what he was doing, even as his foot slipped out of the stirrup and he fell so hard against the saddle that it spooked the horse.

I had to admire the man’s patience.

Once we both were secure on the backs of the saddles, though, Phil and Technoblade kicked off and started down the path towards the castle. Technoblade and Tommy led the way, while me and Phil rode to the rear.

“Does that place really belong to you?” I asked as I admired the crumbling walls.

“It does,” Phil answered brightly. “We’ve been trying to fix it up for a while now, but things tend to get away from you, ya know?”

“And do those freaks from the woods come around often,” Tommy asked. He had a white-knuckled grip on the back of Technoblade’s belt that only got tighter with every other sway of the horse.

“Eh.” Technoblade shrugged. “Not really. Put a sword through a few of them or threaten them a handful of times and they learn to leave you alone. It’s all about power. Showing them who’s the boss when and where.”

“I’m a total boss,” Tommy perked up. His grip loosened enough that it didn’t look like his nails were cutting into the leather belt anymore. “Any chance you could show me how to chase them off?”

Phil laughed.

Technoblade paused. He turned just enough to give Tommy a curious look over his shoulder before turning to face the path once more. “Maybe if you were older.”

Phil broke down laughing again.

“So, what, you would show Wilbur but not me?”

“I’d rather just not run into those things ever again,” I said, shutting down that line of thought entirely. “The pen’s mightier than the sword for me. My skills are much better off put to use in politics.”

“Geez, Wil. Can you be less boring?”

“But debates are fun, Tommy.”

“No, they are fuckin’ not. Technoblade. If you won’t show me how to chase off monsters, then can you at least give me some pointers?”

“Yeah. Run.”

Tommy scoffed. “You’re looking down on me. I don’t appreciate this treatment.”

Phil spoke up. “Techno’s right, though. Best thing you could do in those situations is to trust your gut. Both of you knew to run, and you ran. Everything turned out just fine.”

“Yeah, because you pulled out a wicked cool sword and fought them off. Not because we ran.”

“Well, that's what my gut told me to do. Something I didn’t want around was crossing over where it had no business being, so I acted as I saw best. See! Me following my better judgment and you following yours led to some pretty good results.”

Technoblade nodded. “It boils down to observation. You look. You listen. You make a judgment call.”

“Look and listen for what,” Tommy asked petulantly. “I’d much rather fight.”

At this point, the front door of the castle was well within sight. Phil pulled his horse up closer behind Technoblades. From this vantage point, I could no longer see Tommy up ahead. I could still hear the fabric of Technoblade’s outfit shift, see the barest hint of his pink hair over the tops of Phil’s hat and the horse’s ears as the man straightened. He spoke once more, that deep voice of his took on a hint of some emotion that I couldn’t identify but sent a shudder down my spine.

“If the blood pounding in your ears could warn you of the danger at your back, would you listen then?”

“Well, yeah,” Tommy said, utterly oblivious to the change in Technoblade’s demeanor. “I’m not stupid. That literally just happened.”

______________________________________________________________

By the time Phil and Technoblade led me and Tommy into the lavishly decorated sitting room situated near the entrance to their castle, Technoblade had clearly become much more dismissive of Tommy’s big mouth. Which was good, because Tommy was making it pretty clear that the thing he wanted most out of life right now was to get under the man’s skin. He helped me limp through the front door while Phil rushed ahead to light a fire and warm the drafty old building. The entire time we walked, Tommy pestered our remaining guide with questions.

“Do you fight, or is it just Phil?”

“Is that sword just a fancy toy or something? I bet I could take you, easy.”

“What’s a couple of weirdos like you doing so far out here, anyway?”

He asked the last one as he helped lower me into an overstuffed velvet armchair. It was also the only question Technoblade bothered to address.

“Me and Phil have always preferred to stick to ourselves. Last time I bothered to throw my lot in with other people, it didn’t go so well.”

“You got into a fight?” Tommy asked pointedly.

The barest hint of a smile pulled at the corner of Technoblade’s mouth. “Something like that.”

“Aha! So the sword isn’t just for show!”

“Tommy, I don’t think-”

“It is not.” Technoblade clicked his tongue. “And no, I am not showing you how to use it.” Tommy deflated a little at that. Technoblade continued. “Look. This is basically the place where I chose to retire. A place to call my own. It’s peaceful and out of the way, and normally I don’t have to worry about other people showing up.” His eyes flicked from Tommy to me. “So I apologize if I sound a bit rude, but I can’t help but feel a little- just a little concerned when two strangers come running up to me on my evening ride, screaming at the top of their lungs.”

“You didn’t seem very concerned about the monsters,” Tommy said with a frown.

“Because I knew how they would react,” he said without missing a beat. “Me and Phil have dealt with them plenty. They’re easy to predict. I don’t know what to expect from the two of you.” His gaze fell on my throbbing ankle.

I sat up a little straighter in my chair. “Technoblade, if I may… We appreciate that you and Phil are willing to let us stay the night.” Even if Phil had to talk the other man into it. “I also understand that we are complete strangers in your home. I respect that. I really do. It can be scary letting someone brand new into your personal space, especially one as grand as this.” I motioned to the room surrounding us.

It was rather nice, as well, in a homely sense. Bookshelves and plush furniture with well-worn fabric from years of use filled the space. There were scraped wooden tables and worn spots on the floor. The hearth burned bright. Blankets and furs were strewn across the floors and furniture, helping keep the heat in the room. It looked like it could have been made to suit expensive tastes if everything didn’t look so old and well-worn.

What little I saw of the castle on the way in didn’t fall too far from the mark either. Sure there were finely sewn tapestries along the walls, but most had looked pretty sun-faded. Sure the parquet floors were shiny and detailed, but the rails of stairwells were wound with brightly colored ribbons and there were scuff marks everywhere. Weapons lined glass cabinets, but some swords and spears were left resting out in the open, leaning against the wall or a banister where someone had left them and forgotten to put them away.

It was a lived-in home, even if it was a castle. “But,” I continued. “I’m gonna admit that it’s pretty scary for us too. Frankly, I might still be in shock from that chase. We don’t know much about you two, either. So if it helps, I don’t plan on risking upsetting you.”

“Me either.” To my surprise, Tommy chimed in an agreement. One that wasn’t laced with sarcasm or immediately followed up by an insult. I shoved down the pride I felt rising in my chest and smiled instead of vocalizing my approval.

“You know the saying, never look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Some of the tension uncoiled from Technoblade’s shoulders. The crackle of the fire filled the air in place of words as he looked between the two of us. His eyebrow twitched. I caught sight of that amused twinkle in his eye once more. “Gift horse, huh?”

What was I supposed to say to that? I tried opening my mouth but decided to let Technoblade’s question hang in the open air. I didn’t have anything that I was confident would sway him, so I decided to wait and see.

“Cool.” With two long steps, Technoblade crossed the room and sunk into the chair next to mine. “Good to have that all cleared up.”

“Have what cleared up?”

I startled at the sound of Phil’s voice. The other man swept into the room carrying a small box in one hand and a wooden crutch in the other.

Technoblade waved him off. “Eh. These two just assured me they wouldn’t cause any trouble. That’s all.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good.” Phil dropped down onto one knee next to me and let the crutch rest on the floor. He flipped the lid off the box in his hands. Inside were rolls of gauze and bandages. Small, marked vials of liquid rattled as he began pulling out supplies.

“Go ahead and make yourself feel right at home, boys. I brought the first aid kit and something to help you get around a little easier.”

“You couldn’t find anything better than that hunk of junk?” Tommy muttered.

I shot him a disapproving glare and tried to keep the embarrassed flush burning at the tips of my ears from becoming noticeable. “It’s fine. Honestly. We’re just happy for the help.”

“Of course, mate,” Phil said easily. “Hey, Techno. Could you take Tommy and show him around the rest of the castle? I’d like a little space while I take care of Wilbur’s ankle.”

“He means peace and quiet, Tommy.”

“Shut up, Wilbur. I’m an absolute angel.”

Technoblade snorted. “Sure.” He pressed his hands against the arms of his chair and pushed himself back up to his feet. “Come on, Tommy. You feel up for a lesson or two on sparring?”

“For real? Like, with real weapons.”

“Of course.”

“Then hell yeah!” Tommy threw up his arms like he had just won something.

Tommy? Sparring. I gulped. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea…”

“Don’t listen to Wilbur,” Tommy shouted. “He’s just jealous because he can’t compete with these guns.” He held up both of his arms to flex his biceps.

“I’m really not.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Phil said dismissively. “Techno knows his way around the sparring field better than anyone. Tommy may even learn a thing or two.”

It sounded more reassuring than it probably should have.

“If you say so…” I conceded. It’s not like there was much I could do to stop Tommy. His eyes were already shining at the prospect. Knowing him, he’d probably get too tired to bother for very long.

The teen shot up from his seat and rushed to the taller man’s side. “I thought you said you wouldn’t teach me how to fight off those freaks from the woods?” Technoblade shook his head until the braid running down his back bobbed. “Oh, this won’t help with those guys. Trust me. But a little time to figure out how to defend yourself from the average thug would benefit anyone, and I want to blow off some steam. You up to the challenge?” “Boy am I!” Tommy followed Technoblade as the man made for the door. He had to slow down to keep up with Technoblade’s more leisurely pace. With all that excess energy, though, he might as well have been vibrating between each step.

“So what are we using, big man? Swords? Guns?”

“You said you wouldn’t show him how to use a sword,” I said quickly. “And no guns. Absolutely not.”

Technoblade rolled his eyes. “Didn’t plan on either of those, actually. You ever swing an ax, Tommy?”

“Like, a battle ax? Or do you mean for chopping wood?”

“Either?” “Nope,” Tommy crowed, popping the ‘p.’

Technoblade let out a weary sigh that made me laugh. Not many people were equipped to handle Tommy. This man was probably another of the long line of people whose patience wasn’t built to stand against the challenge, but I had hope.

As I watched them retreat, I blinked and had to do a double-take. For a moment there, I could have sworn Technoblade’s blue clothes with white trim looked different. Shifted. More cream-white with red running down the sides like droplets soaking through the fabric. When I blinked again, the image righted itself and his clothes were clearly a pristine pale blue.

Tommy continued to badger poor Techno with questions about whether or not it would be a ‘real’ fight when they shut the door behind them.

“Maybe sending them to blow off some steam was a good call,” I said with the smallest of chuckles. I pulled my eyes away from the shut door to where Phil was taking the catch off a roll of gauze. “Tommy’s great and all, but the kid doesn’t know how to contain himself.”

“He seems like a handful. Here. Hold onto this if you would,” He passed me the loose roll of gauze and reached for a bottle of antiseptic. “Let’s get a better look at that ankle.” Gently, he pulled back the fabric of the bottom of my trousers.

The motion didn’t hurt, but I let out a hiss at the sight of the angry mark wrapped around my ankle. The skin was already bruising a dark purple where the creature had its fingers wrapped around me. Four shallow scratches, barely big enough to bead blood, ran from the top of my shin down to my foot where its claws had dragged the moment I kicked loose. In the gap where my skin had been exposed between the bottom of the trousers leg and my sock was a fiery red rash. The veins running beneath it were clear through the damaged skin. They leached out from the bruise, breaking up into smaller and smaller capillaries. I could feel the throbbing sensation pulsing from that point through the rest of my leg and foot. No wonder it hurt so much.

Phil let out a small gasp as soon as he saw it. His head flinched back. “Looks like they got you good.”

I gritted my teeth and looked away. Anything else in this room had to look more appealing than my leg right now.

“Good lord! I didn’t realize it was that bad. They just grabbed me… I knew I would have a bruise or a sprain but not something like this. No wonder it feels like shit.”

Phil’s hands hovered over the worst of the rash as he considered how to approach cleaning it. “I was hoping for just a sprain, but it looks like ya got unlucky,” he said without looking up. “They’ve got something like a poison up their sleeves. Don’t always use it, but this time it looks like they did.”

“What, like a snake bite?” I scoffed.

He shook his head. “Nothing nearly so… deadly. But it’s not pleasant either. Gonna feel like shit.”

“I take it you and Technoblade had to live through that unpleasantness at some point?”

He shook his head again. “Nah. Not us, but I’ve seen what it does. Here.” With that, he flipped over the bottle and dumped its contents all over my leg.

The antiseptic STUNG. Almost as bad as the rash. The smell didn’t help to keep the tears out of my eyes either. I gritted my teeth to bear it while the rash practically sizzled.

“Oi, watch it! You nearly kicked me.” “Sorry,” I sputtered. Some sort of fabric brushed against my ankle. Phil must have finished cleaning the wound and started wrapping it. When I turned back to look, Phil’s cloak moved. My eyes locked onto the folds of his black cloak. That. I could focus on that instead of my leg. The fabric was shifting as he moved. It rustled and twitched, and for a moment I could have sworn I saw feathers poking out from between the diamond patterns.

“Does that feel better?” “Huh?” My eyes snapped back to Phil’s blue eyes.

“How does that feel?” he asked with a smile. “Not too tight?”

When my eyes trailed down his back again, all I could make out was fabric. I must have imagined the feathers.

“Y-yeah. It feels fine. Not too tight.”

“Good.” He flipped the lid of the first aid kit closed. “That should take care of it for a while now. I’m no doctor, but it would be smart to avoid putting weight on it. That’s what the crutch is for. Give it the night, see how you’re feeling in the morning, and I’ll take another look at it then.”

He scooped the crutch off the ground and held it out for me. I slid to the edge of the chair and took it. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“No, really,” I insisted, pushing off from the chair. It took some effort to balance. I teetered as I figured out how to leverage the crutch, but Phil was right there with an arm hovering, waiting to reach out if I needed it. After a few seconds, I got a feel for how to best adjust my weight without havint to use my bum ankle. “I appreciate the help,” I admitted. I was now confident enough with my balance to tap the crutch against the floor. “You and Techno didn’t have to put up with us for the night, and you certainly didn’t have to go to this length.”

His blue eyes flashed, and for a moment they looked far too deep and far too vast. Like an ocean in an iris, or the dome of the sky. “Pffft, as if I was just goin’ to leave ya out there. As if. As much as Techno might have put up a good front, he’s not all that bent out of shape about it. If he minded that much, he wouldn’t have rushed off to go play with Tommy.”

I paused, blinking wide-eyed at him. “Play?!”

Phil’s smile grew a little wider. “You heard what I said. Trust me, I’m sure those two are having fun. I can also say with one hundred percent certainty that it’s no skin off our back. You’re welcome here.”

I opened my mouth to thank him once more, but he wrapped his arm under mine in a show of support and cut me off before I could even start. “Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s getting late and I’m starved,” he said. “Any chance I can talk you into helping out in the kitchen?”

______________________________________________________________

Helping out in the kitchen mostly consisted of sitting on a stool and chopping vegetables while Phil did most of the work. It was a big kitchen for two people, but Phil had an odd way of filling the space. He easily fluttered back and forth between burners and the icebox, counters and the cupboards. Sometimes he swung the hinged doors open and shut as he went. Sometimes he left drawers and cupboards open well after he pulled out what he needed. In no time at all, he had multiple pots boiling and a roast in the oven.

As he worked and I chopped, we talked about life. He politely asked about the basics of my life. Where Tommy and I were from, what I liked, what kind of career I was pursuing. He never pushed for details if I didn’t outright give them to him. And in turn, he told me a few stories about his life before coming to this castle.

It made me a little jealous, hearing about how he had flown all over the world when he was younger. Literally. He had even gone so far as to spend some time in the Antarctic. That would explain why he didn’t mind the winter chill here. I can only imagine the types of people he met. The things he saw. I hung on to every word.

Not all of it sounded like a walk in the park. He didn’t push for details in my life, so I tried to extend the same courtesy, but my curiosity was in full swing as he talked about dog fights over the ocean and the civil wars that he and Techno had fled.

I guess that was some of what Technoblade was hinting at when he mentioned that the last time he mingled with people, it didn’t turn out so well.

By the time the roast came out of the oven, Technoblade popped his head in to check on the time. He and Tommy had called it quits on their little sparring session. They set the table while Phil transferred potatoes and vegetables onto platters for serving. Everything got moved to a cozy dining room with a small table looking out of place in the regal space. It was big enough to seat six at maximum but perfect for the four of us. I didn’t do any of the prep work. I hobbled out of the kitchen and took a seat at the table where Phil pulled out a chair for me.

“So, how was the sparring session?” I asked as I poured gravy over my cut of roast. I still had my doubts that Tommy had bothered with strenuous physical activity for as long as he was gone.

Tommy speared a carrot so hard his fork clattered against the plate. “Fuckin’ boring. Techno kept trying to show me ways to hold the ax and swing it. Everyone knows how to swing an ax.” He mimed the motion with his fork, swinging it over his head to the point where I was afraid the carrot might fall off.

“Always start with the basics,” the pink-haired man said evenly. “You seemed pretty excited when it finally clicked that moving your shoulders with the motion did more damage to the target.”

“That was just me unlocking my big, powerful muscles.”

“Uh-huh.”

Phil folded his hands in front of him, propping his elbows on top of the table so he could rest his chin against his knuckles. “So I take it you wouldn’t be interested in another lesson tomorrow morning?”

Tommy brought his fork back down to his plate and straightened up in his chair. His eyes flew wide with giddy excitement. “Wait, is that an option?”

Both me and Phil laughed at the same time over that. “So I guess it wasn’t that boring after all?”

“...Maybe.”

“You’re not fooling anyone, Tommy,” I teased. Tommy sputtered a handful of unintelligible syllables as he tried to think of a comeback while I turned to Technoblade. “He didn’t give you too much trouble, did he?”

“Excuse me, I was an absolute angel!”

Techno finished chewing his bite of the roast before setting his knife and fork down on the napkins folded on either side of his plate. This guy had been the perfect image of prim and proper as he ate, as opposed to Phil who was comfortably slumped in his chair as he shoveled a few bites of roast beets into his mouth.

Techno shrugged. “The kid picked up a few things pretty quickly. I wouldn’t mind going over a few more forms tomorrow morning.”

Phil shot me a lopsided smile from across the table and wiggled his eyebrows as if to say ‘see? I told you so.’

Tommy didn’t seem to be sporting any fresh bruises or cuts, so I chalked it up to a good thing.

“What about you two,” Techno asked.

“I’d say our evening was pleasant,” I said as I cut into my portion of roast. “Phil had a lot of very interesting stories to tell. It sounds like you two have had quite the adventure.”

“Really?” Techno shot Phil a look. “What kind of adventure did you discuss?”

“Just the Antarctic and a few of our side excursions.” Phil popped a chunk of potato into his mouth and twirled his fork through the air as he chewed.

Technoblade relaxed a little deeper into his chair. “Ha! Yeah, those were great times. I’m sure Phil gave you the rundown on how we ticked off our neighbors.”

“Of course I did.”

“It’s given me a lot of my own ideas. You should hear all about it, Tommy. It’s a really good story.”

“Sounds boring.”

“You might learn something new.”

“Don’t care. Hard pass.”

I snorted. “I’ll just tell you about it on the way back home.”

He pulled a disgusted face, but I ignored it.

With a bit of insistence on my part, Phil hit the highlights of what he told me. This time, Techno was nearby to provide his input. It wasn’t much, but the pink-haired man would offer a “humph” of agreement here and there, or offer a few extra details of what he worked on while the two of them were working apart. Tommy perked up at the talk of business and air battles and rolled his eyes when it came to the political impact of it all. I found it just as interesting to listen to the second time around as it was on the first.

The topic began to drift as time went on and we cleaned our plates. We talked about our day, about me and Tommy’s hometown, and what we were studying. Phil and Techno talked about how they filled their days with hunting, horse riding, and dog-breeding… apparently.

To be honest, I was enjoying myself. Whatever tense feelings from earlier were gone. The atmosphere was warm and cozy. We were just a couple of people getting to know each other and sharing a few laughs.

But as I polished off the last of my food, something caught my eye.

It was such a little thing. I’m not even sure what made me notice it.

It’s just that, wasn’t Technoblade drinking a glass of water a moment ago?

The glass in his hand was stained red. Red like wine, but when his arm moved the liquid inside looked thicker than alcohol.

I looked over to see if there was a bottle of wine on the table I hadn’t spotted before, but when I did, the unnatural movement of something along Phil’s shoulder pulled my attention.

Had Phil swapped out his cloak?

There were feathers along the trim instead of fur.

I found myself looking back and forth between the two. Their laughter and Tommy’s wild shouting faded into the background. I could still hear them, but the words were muffled in my ears. The longer I looked at our two hosts, the sharper their outlines appeare.

That was when I noticed that there was something else there.

It was like someone had superimposed an image on top of what I was seeing. On one hand, I could clearly make out Phil and Technoblade. They looked just how I expected them to look. Phil’s near-endless sky-blue eyes, blond hair, and always-present smile. Technoblade’s long braid, mouth set into a thin line, and subtle amusement crinkling at the corners of his eyes. That was there. That was them. But there was also something else where they sat. Something hazy around the edges. Something that gave me the impression of long tusks and hunched wings.

I squinted my eyes, trying to make out what I could possibly be seeing.

Then Technoblade noticed me staring and turned to face me.

As soon as our eyes met, the hazy image flared like a sunburst. Colors and shapes solidified and then washed out like an overexposed photo. Dark eyes glinted red and violent.

“Wh-”

I dropped my fork, and the other image vanished entirely.

Phil’s eyes locked on me, sky blue sharpening to pale steel. “Is something wrong, Wilbur?” I dragged my attention back to him, sucking in a breath. He was looking at me with a curious tilt to his head.

I dared to steal another glance at Technoblade. His eyes were thrown wide open, shoulders held stiff. It was the most emotion I had yet to see the man show.

He put down his glass. It was filled with water. Regular, clear water.

Phil leaned forward in his seat, shoulders stooping as his elbows rested against the tabletop. The trim at the top of his cloak was lined with fur.

“I…. I’m fine.”

“You sure, mate? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Ghost? More like a monster. I shook my head as if that could knock the image of what I thought I just saw right out of my thoughts. “It’s nothing,” I insisted. “I think the stress of the day is starting to get to me.”

Phil and Technoblade exchanged a glance. “And what makes you say that?”

“I think I might be starting to see shit. Call it PTSD or whatever the fuck you like, but I feel like I’m starting to imagine monsters.”

“Like the ones that chased us?” Tommy asked.

“Kind of.” A shudder ran down my spine and goosebumps ran up my arms. A sympathetic twinge pulled at my ankle, and I adjusted it beneath my seat. My imagination must have been running wild. What I saw had been just as unnatural as the creature that had grabbed me, but it made my heart rate spike in a way that not even the run through the trees had managed to do.

“Please excuse me.”

Technoblade abruptly pushed back his seat, grabbed his cutlery, and in a few brisk steps he was out the door.

Tommy frowned and turned to Phil for answers. “Where’s Techno going?”

His bright blue eyes narrowed. The creases around his eyes grew for a moment as something akin to worry passed over his expression. I could have imagined that too, though, because in the blink of an eye that easy breezy smile was back on his face. He waved off Tommy’s question with one hand. “Off to his room, probably. He’s a creature of habit. He’s got his own set of nightly rituals like anyone else.”

“Will he come back out?”

Phil hummed. “Probably not. He’ll be up bright and early tomorrow, though.”

“Well, alright I guess.” Tommy made no effort to hide his pouting. He slumped deeper into his seat.

“We got a late start on dinner as it was,” Phil mused, drumming his fingers against the table. “Maybe it would be a good day to follow his lead. Hit the hay. What do you two think?”

“Yes, please,” I groaned, carding a hand through my hair. “Before I start having any more waking nightmares like a crazy person.”

Phil flinched. I know for a fact I didn’t imagine that one.

“I am perfectly fine.” Tommy stuck his nose in the air. “But if you were to show us where we’ll be sleeping then I demand the biggest luxury suite you’ve got.”

Phil pushed back his chair and stood up. “Right. We’ve got a couple of spare rooms in the east wing. I’ll show you where to go. Leave your plates. I’ll come back for them later.”

________________________________________________________________

“Did you actually have fun today, Tommy?”

“I’m not sure if fun is the right word, Wilbur. We were chased through the woods by ugly beasts.”

“Fine. Let me rephrase. Did you actually have fun learning how to swing an ax? Not too sore, are you?”

“It was alright.”

Tommy pulled his legs up onto the bed he would be using for the night. His words were nonchalant, but his eyes were shining.

“So if we were to leave without you doing another sparring session with Technoblade, you wouldn’t be disappointed?”

“Whoa whoa whoa, hold up there, bub.” Tommy’s voice shot up a couple hundred decibels. “I never said that.”

I chuckled.

Me and Tommy finally had some time alone. Phil had been kind enough to show us to our rooms and leave us be. Breakfast was in the morning, and he made it clear we were welcome to stay after that for a bit. Noon would be the best time to travel safely, according to him. Considering he was the one who knew how to swing a sword and scare off monsters, I trusted his better judgment.

Tommy let himself flop backward against a row of pillows. “This place is cool. So are Technoblade and Phil. It’s crazy we’ve never realized they were out here this whole time.”

“We’ve never had much reason to leave the path.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me of that. I can just imagine what Tubbo’s doing right now. He’s so obsessed with me. He probably can’t sleep.”

As hyperbolic as Tommy tended to be, I couldn’t help the seed of guilt that had rooted itself in my gut. The truth was, Tommy might be right about that. “We’ll clear it up when we get back. Eventually, we’ll look back at this and laugh.” “Maybe I can make it up to him by showing him this place. Go when it’s nice and bright out and freaky shit isn’t happening.”

“Techno didn’t seem all that interested in us stopping by unprompted. Might want to warn him if you plan on bringing Tubbo.” The castle might not survive the two of them together.

Tommy snorted. “Sure I will,” he said. It was an utter lie, with all the sarcasm he could possibly inject into his voice. Oh well.

“Hey Tomm, you uh… You didn’t notice anything strange at dinner, did you?”

“Other than the fact that you ate something as disgusting and shitty as vegetables, no. Why?”

“No reason.”

He tilted his head to get a better look at where I was seated at the end of the bed. The crutch leaned precariously against one of the bedposts. I noticed him looking, how his eyes trailed down to my ankle even as I tried to keep my gaze on the moon hovering just outside the window.

“How you feeling, Wilbur?” “I’m fine, Tommy.”

“And the, uh… the ankle?”

“I barely notice it.”

That wasn’t entirely true. It still throbbed on occasion, and though Phil had wrapped it tight and cleaned it well, the rash was starting to smart beneath the gauze. The stinging wasn’t unbearable, though. If anything, I took that as a sign that it was starting to heal. This had to be the itch before it began scabbing over. As long as I didn’t jostle the sprain too much, it was manageable.

“You sure?”

I threw a pillow at his face. “What? You don’t believe me?”

“Hey!”

Tommy wasted no time flinging another couple of pillows directly at my face. The downy surface packed a surprising punch. I battered them away as best as I could with an elbow until Tommy grew tired and slumped back against the mattress.

“Seriously, Wil. If you don’t feel up to it tomorrow, just say something. I’d hate it if a weak, fragile thing like you are now went and hurt yourself further. Protecting you all through the woods would be a tall order, even for me.”

The smile dropped off my face because for all Tommy’s bluster, I knew what he really meant.

He’s worried about me.

Wasn’t that a scary thought? It was supposed to be the other way around, what with me being so much older than him.

I tried to play it off with a bit of humor. “I think we might drive Phil and Techno up the wall if we stuck around longer than necessary.”

“They’d let us stay,” Tommy said without an ounce of doubt. He propped himself up on an elbow as he lay on his side to get a better look at me. “They seem cool like that. And it’s not like staying another night would be awful. I mean, it’s a fuckin’ castle.” He waved his hand out above him, letting his fingers wave at the ancient walls and ceiling.

He wants to stay longer.

My ankle twinged with a pinprick of pain.

“I’ll tell you what. Let’s see how I feel in the morning. Okay?”

“Alright.”

“Good.” I patted my palm against the side of the mattress and reached for the crutch. “Now get some sleep. It’s late. We’re both exhausted, and I don’t think I can stand spending any more time around you right now,” I teased.

“I’m not exhausted,” he huffed, only to immediately let out a yawn.

“Sure you’re not.”

With a heave, I was propped back up on the crutch and my one good foot. My crutch tap tap tapped against the tile floor as I made my way across the room.

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Night, Wilbur.”

“Night, Tommy.”

I left the candle flickering on the nightstand for the teen to put out whenever he was ready. The door clicked shut behind me and I began my clumsy trek back to the room next door. It was late, and now that Tommy was all squared away I was allowing my worries to settle. Exhaustion really was finally dawning on me.

I was going to sleep hard tonight, as long as I could find a way to get comfortable and not jostle my foot too much.

____________________________________________________________________________

The sun filtered through the gap in the heavy curtains. I could feel its warm rays against my back. It felt good to lie in bed a little longer than necessary, basking in the heat of the sun like a cat.

It was morning.

It had been a blissful, dreamless night.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It even looked pleasantly warm out, if the dwindling snow on the ground was anything to go by. Tommy and I should be safe to go back home now.

Phil and Techno had been pleasant last night. I wasn’t necessarily in a rush, but I was also very aware of the fact that we hadn’t had the chance to tell anyone where we were. Tubbo had been expecting us to show up last night. He would have panicked when we never did. That would take some apologies and smoothing over once we got back.

With a deep breath, I pulled myself out from under the covers and began to get ready for the day.

It wasn’t hard. I only had the clothes on my back, and Phil and Techno hadn’t pointed out a shower last night. Just the nearest, bare-bones bathroom they had set up. It was probably somewhere on the other side of the castle. I’d have to ask them about it. For now, though, I settled for passing a comb over my hair and straightening my clothes as best as I could.

A quick glance outside gave me a beautiful view of the rising sun glistening across the frozen river. Red streaks worked their way across the shallow hills in long lines, highlighted by tha shadow of tall grass and snow. They wavered in the rising sun as if they were moving, the landscape practically breathing.

Like the day outside, it felt like things were looking bright. My leg was no longer stinging. The throbbing had gone down, but not quite stopped. There was a pep in my step as I tried to make the room look as tidy as it had been before I showed up. It seemed rude to leave the bed a mess, so I straightened the sheets a little before hobbling out the door.

Tommy’s room was right next to mine. I stopped at the door and rapped my knuckles against it. “Morning, Tommy!”

“Wh-wha…”

He was never much of an early riser.

“Wake up, sleepy head.”

“Go away, Wil. Let me sleep in peace.”

“Aw, and I thought you would be excited to wake up in a castle and head down to breakfast.”

“Phil or Techno can come to wake us up when they're ready for that shit. They never gave us a time. Now go away and let me sleep.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. If you miss breakfast, that’s all on you.”

A few grumbled curse words filtered through the door. That was all I was going to get out of him until he was ready to come out on his own time.

That was fine. There was an entire castle for me to explore. I wasn’t sure where Phil or Technoblade would be, but I wasn’t Tommy. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me looking around the place as long as I didn’t touch anything that looked important. It wouldn’t hurt to check out a few side corridors while on my way down to the dining room. And if Phil and Technoblade weren't there, then I was sure there were a few rooms nearby I could check out. They both seemed like learned men. Perhaps they had a library around here somewhere?

I lowered myself down a staircase with some difficulty and found myself in a particularly fancy hall. There were glass cases with all sorts of odds and ends on pedestals. Pieces of pottery, old maps, measuring equipment, and a handful of decorative weapons were displayed prominently, as were beautiful hangings made from quilted fabrics; tapestries, pendants, and flags. They depicted old civilizations and glorious battles. I took it all in excitedly as I walked.

It also looked like someone had already been this way.

Fires were lit down the length of the hall. Torches were placed in sconces to light up the darker corners while braziers and lamps took care of the bulk of the lighting. That was a good sign that someone had come through recently to light them all.

I was so busy taking everything in, it was surprising to hear something other than the crackle of the torches.

Babump!

What was that?

I whirled around, taking in the fine masonry with all its cracks and chipped paint. Scanned the faded banners and tarnished braziers hanging from the ceiling by fine linked chains. Nothing seemed to have fallen. No rats were scurrying through the shadows in the corners from what I could see. I strained my ears, listening.

Babump!

There it was again. I know I heard something, but nothing moved. Nothing outside of the snap and crackle of the fire lighting the hall. I narrowed my eyes, trying to see if there was something else I could be missing. Anything else.

Babump!

The slightest bit of movement caught my eye. It wasn’t by the ground where a rodent might be trying to hide, or at eye level where any of the ancient decor stood, but up by the ceiling. There, in the corner where the light of the torches didn’t hit, something was sliding down the wall. It was so small and fast, that I was surprised I noticed it at all.

Gingerly, I made my way over until I stood beneath that same spot on the wall and craned my head back. Whatever it was it dripped down the stone. Something liquid, but thick and slow and dark. I couldn’t tell what it was in this light. I reached up.

Babump!

It dripped. A warm droplet hit the center of my ring finger and pooled down in the space where it met my pinky.

My lip curled up at the feel of it. Gross. It felt sticky. It stank of iron and looked ruddy like it had picked up some rust from wherever it seeped out of. I flicked my hand away, knocking as much of it off as I could. Dark flecks speckled the cobbled floor, but my hand was still stained and sticky.

When I looked back up at the wall, rivulets of the strange liquid started streaming down the cracks in the mortar. The first stream was already trickling past eye level down to the floor.

Babump!

Something dripped on my nose. With the forefinger of my already messy hand, I reached up and wiped at it. Sure enough, there was more of that dark liquid. The smell of iron was growing worse now. It was practically scathing against my nostrils. I did my best to wipe it off of my nose and clear away the smell. My skin wasn’t even dry yet when more droplets fell right in front of me. They splattered the floor in front of my toes. I looked up to see a large wet spot pooling in the ceiling. The droplets running down the wall were growing more numerous now. The seams between the stone bricks were starting to look more like little streams. A steady trickle of the dark liquid was running along the mortar paths. A small puddle was pooling at its base.

“Hey, uh, guys?” I called down the hall, hoping one of our hosts could hear. They couldn’t have gone far. Not yet. Someone had to have lit the fires. Surely if I shouted loud enough, they would notice. “I think you might have sprung a leak or something.”

Babump!

I felt more droplets splashing off the shoulders of my coat. I backed away. Hopefully that wouldn’t leave a stain. Whatever leak they had must have come on suddenly and quickly, because the dark water was now practically running down the walls. Had a pipe blown? Did this place even have running water?

“Hello! There’s a mess starting over here. Can you hear me? Phil? Techno?” There was no answer.

The puddle was growing bigger. About to reach my shoes. I backed further away. I shouted louder. “HEY! SOMETHING’S WRONG.”

Babump!

When I looked around, It dawned on me that this spot on the wall wasn’t the only one leaking. The opposite wall had streams of murky liquid running down it. The firelight danced across its slick, undulating surface. It roiled and flickered like angry red sunlight over deep dark rivers. It was getting harder and harder to make out the wall beneath it all.

Splotches were seeping through the brightly colored tapestries of knights marching, staining their bright white armor and horses into an ugly red.

Puddles were spreading out from the entire length of the hall as far as I could see. Even far off where the furthest brazier burned and the rest of the space fell into shadow, I could see the light flickering off wet walls.

And the smell! The smell!! It was so strong I could almost taste the metallic tang now. The sickly sweet notes now underlying the overwhelming smell of iron only made it worse.

This… this couldn’t be a burst pipe. Could it?

Babump!

The puddles were closing in. The ruddy liquid was pressing in from all sides. I looked behind me and there was more lapping at the heels of my shoes. I took a step, more to test the floor than go anywhere. The liquid felt oddly thick. Droplets splashed up onto my ankles.

I panicked.

“Help! Phil! Techno! Somebody! Can anybody hear me? Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong!”

I shouted it at the top of my lungs and took off as fast as my bum leg could handle. Having to use a crutch was horribly slow, and every time instinct tried to kick in and have me put my weight on it, horrible throbbing rocked that side of me.

“Something’s leaking! The hall is filling! What’s happening?!?”

Babump!

And yet it kept dripping down. Tapered streams of red poured off the ceiling and dripped off sconces and braziers so that their flames sputtered and threatened to go out. It was getting harder to slosh my crutch through the heavy liquid. It already pressed uncomfortably against both ankles, leaking into my shoes, and threatening to climb higher.

I spotted a light at the end of the tunnel, both figuratively and literally. There were shafts of light stretching out from a crack in a door. I zeroed in on that light and threw my all into getting there. Someone had to be inside.

I slammed my fists against the wood. “Who’s in there?! The hallway’s flooding!?! Please!”

Babump!

The door flung outwards and I shrieked.

Something was towering over me in the doorway. A beast that put to shame each and every one of the monsters that chased me through the woods. It had a bristly hide and cloven hooves. Eyes flashed an angry, fiery red, and beneath those were long tusks that dripped blood red.

Another scream dried up in my throat. I had half the thought to back away when my crutch slipped. It fell out from underneath me and I found myself tumbling backwards. My backside hit the growing pool of red liquid and sent foul-smelling blood seeping through my clothes.

Because that’s what this was. I knew it deep within my bones now. I was sitting in a massive hall flooded with blood. Blood that ran down the walls and threatened to fill the entire castle. Blood like the gore that dripped from the tusks of the monster that leaned closer and closer and closer…

I threw my arm up over my eyes.

Babump!

“Wilbur?”

Huh?

With some effort, I forced my eyes open and lowered the arm in front of my face.

There before me, standing in the doorway and looking over me with a surprising amount of concern was Technoblade. I took a shaky breath and flicked my gaze back and forth to look at my surroundings. The hall was pristine. Well, not pristine. It was still dusty and a little scuffed from years of boots passing over the threadbare carpets, but it was dry. Nothing was dripping from the ceiling or running down the walls. The floor was clear. My clothes weren’t actually soaked with red. I took a long, slow breath in through my nose and my heart soared as I realized there wasn’t a metallic tang in the air. It smelled a little musty, and that was all.

A hand waved in front of my eyes and pulled my attention back to the man in front of me. “Wilbur,” Technoblade said again, this time a little sharper. “Are you okay?”

“I… I-I… I…”

“Geez, man. Please don’t tell me you’re going into shock or something. I’m not equipped to handle that sort of thing.”

I didn’t trust my voice enough to form a coherent sentence, so I shook my head.

“Not shock?” Techno leaned further past me and looked up and down the corridor with wide eyes. “Phil is much better at this sort of thing than me,” he admitted, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. If he was looking for Phil, he was out of luck. Nobody else was nearby. I was surprised Techno was here in the first place.

“Let’s get you up off the floor. It’s gotta be cold down there.”

He stooped down to wrap his arms under mine. I braced myself to help push myself to my feet, but in the blink of an eye Techno had me back up on my feet. The motion was fluid and fast. As effortless as picking up a doll and plopping it back down.

“I-I just…” I swallowed a lump in my throat and tried pulling myself together. “I just heard something. I… I heard something and I don’t- I didn’t know what it was.” A nervous laugh bubbled up in my chest. “God, I must still be half asleep. You really scared me there for a second.”

Some of the tension in his shoulders uncoiled. The concern on his face began to fade. He let out a grunt. “Heard something? Mind describing it to me?”

I wasn’t about to tell him about a wall that bled faster than a heart could beat. I wasn’t.

“Rhythmic,” I started, and wanted to kick myself when my voice pitched high. “Booming, maybe? Just a couple loud thumps. Probably nothing worth concerning yourself about, I’m sure. Could have just been footsteps. There’s a second floor above here, right?” Better. My voice was closer to its normal register, but now my words were picking up speed. That was more believable, right?

To my surprise, Technoblade perked up. “Rhythmic, you say? I think I know what you heard.” He nodded his head towards the room he just emerged from and went back inside. “Here. I want to show you something.”

I took a moment to stop and process. Probably too long. I doubted that he knew exactly what I was talking about, but if there was some sort of reasonable explanation past that door, I was in desperate need of something to cling to that could prove I wasn’t going crazy.

Color me surprised when I followed him inside.

“Drums?”

The corner of Technoblade’s mouth turned up in the barest hint of a smile as he looked at the strung-up instruments. There were two padded mallets left on the mantle of a fireplace at the front of the room. The leather stretched across the drumheads was scuffed from plenty of use. When Techno looked back at me, he tilted his head and raised his eyebrows.

“Everyone’s gotta have a hobby,” he droned in that monotonous voice of his.

I laughed again, utterly relieved. That explained half of my hallucination, which was more than I could have hoped for.

I wiped at the corner of my eye. “Forgive me, Technoblade. I didn’t take you to be much of a musician.”

“Well, I’ve always been pretty good at dishing out hits. Phil likes to think that this allows me to put that energy towards a more creative option.”

That sounded a little more in line with what I knew about Technoblade so far.

He picked up one of the mallets and let it twirl across the back of his hand. The handle wobbled over the catch of his knuckles before falling neatly back into his palm. Then he pointed the fabric-wrapped tip at my chest. “You play?”

“Not the drums. I’m more of a guitar man myself. Had this dream of starting up a band one day and figured the guitar made the most sense. But now that I’ve said that, you wouldn’t happen to know how to work a full drumset, would you?” The massive bass and snare drums in front of me gave me hope.

Which was immediately snuffed out when he shook his head. “Sorry. I’m not that kind of drummer.”

“Then what kind are you?” “The war drum kind.”

I rolled my eyes. “Technoblade, I’m sensing a running theme with you.”

“Then that means I’m staying on brand.”

It was hard to argue with that.

“You know,” he continued, drawing the words out. With one hand, he reached out to run his fingers across the edge of the nearest drum head. He placed the drumstick back on the mantle with the other. “I do enjoy it. Outside of techniques and terminology, or even staying on brand, it gives me something else to focus on. It feels good.

“For instance, there’s nothing quite like the beat of a drum. It’s more than sound. The best bass drums can be felt deep in your bones.” He placed a hand on his chest over his heart. “Have you ever stood next to one as it’s being played?”

I had.

“You can feel every stroke in your chest. It resonates. Like a heartbeat. Thud. Thud. Thud.” With each spoken ‘thud,’ he pounded his fist against his chest. The fingers resting against the drumhead tapped in time, making tiny, hollow sounds in the instrument.”

I could imagine the thrum in my own chest, as clear as if I were standing next to the drumset on stage again.

“The sound goes for miles. And like a heartbeat, it’s good for keeping time. That’s why drummers played over the sounds of battle while men marched in time. They relaid orders by playing codified beats that the others had memorized. It kept the tempo while men bled for their country.”

His phrasing nearly made me shiver.

“If you look into the history of it, what you find might pique your interest,” Technoblade finished, pulling both hands back so he could clasp them behind his back.

“Huh. Interesting. I was under the impression Phil was the history buff.

Techno smirked. “He’s seen his fair share, but I’m fairly well-read.”

“So I take it that those antiques on display in the corridor are yours?”

He grunted. “Eh. Most of them. Comes with the territory. We are in a castle, after all. There’s a lot of history here as well.”

I turned my back on him so I could peer out the door. It perfectly framed a small glass case shoved against the opposite wall with a gold totem inside. “I can only imagine the stories they’d tell.”

“If the walls could bleed, would you listen to the kind of stories they would tell?”

A shiver crawled down my spine and whipped back around to face Technoblade. There was that odd tone of his again. The same one he used during the horse ride up to the front gates. It practically echoed with a thousand other voices, years and years of experience and expectation packed into an odd question. Experience and expectation that Techno didn’t appear old enough to have. He looked like he could have been a year or two older than me at the most, though, that odd sense of maturity did seem to ooze out of every aspect of his personality.

And what a question to ask. One that hit a still-fresh nerve.

My heart raced once more as crystal-clear images of red dripping down walls and soaking through tapestries ran across my mind.

I shook my head. “I don’t think I would, honestly.”

Something sparked in the back of Techno’s eye. That barest glint of amusement. He tilted his head at an angle and let a huff of air out of his nose. “Yeah. You don’t seem the type.”

What did that mean? I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s a weirdly specific question-”

SLAM!

I nearly leaped out of my skin as Phil rounded the doorframe and smacked his hand against the already-open door. “Hey, Techno, are you still practicing your… Oh! Wilbur! You’re up. And here. Good. I was planning on stopping by you and Tommy’s room next.”

Techno crossed the room to snatch up a few blankets resting on a chair. “What do you need, Phil?”

“I wanted to talk breakfast. I wasn’t going to make our guests help in the kitchen.” Phil’s eyes flicked to me. “At least, not this time.”

“I’ll help.” Technoblade spread the blankets out over the top of the drums with an apathetic look. Any hint of concern or amusement over what we were just discussing was gone.

I wanted to prod him further, but Phil was looking at me again with those vast blue eyes. “Is Tommy up too?”

I shook my head. “No. He chose to take full advantage of the opportunity to sleep in this morning.” ‘Well, it shouldn’t take more than a half hour for me and Techno to throw something together. I’ve already started some of the prep work. Could you go wake him up and have him get ready?”

“Of course. That should be no problem at all.”

“You remember where the dining room is, right?”

I nodded.

“Then I’ll see you both down there soon. We’ll have ourselves a nice breakfast.”

“That sounds nice,” I admitted. “It was nice hearing about your hobbies, Techno,” I said, turning back to him.

“I appreciate that. Maybe next time I could listen to you play guitar.”

Phil gave me a curious look. “You play guitar?”

“I do. Maybe I’ll play you both a sample of my music some other time.”

Phil flashed a brilliant smile. “Sounds like fun.”

On that note, I slipped past him and out into the hall. Phil waited until I had hobbled a few paces away before gently shutting the door behind them.

That had been a lot to take in all at once. I needed a moment. It took some effort, but I managed to maneuver the crutch so that I could sidle up against the wall. To my relief, it wasn’t slick. The stone was still perfectly dry. Not a spot of red in sight. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I just needed a moment to take a deep breath and remember how to get back to the guest rooms.

That’s what I told myself, until Phil and Technoblade’s voices began to drift through the shut door.

“Thanks Phil.”

“Of course. It seemed like you two were getting along there.”

“Perhaps.”

“How are you feeling?”

There was a pause and a shuffle of fabric. “...better. But I also feel like I owe him an apology. Last night… It was an accident. I didn’t mean to let myself get out of hand like that.”

Huh. Curiosity kept me in place. I perked my ears up to listen. ‘Out of hand’ was the last thing I would use to describe Technoblade.

“I know.”

“I think it happened again. Just now, when he knocked on my door-”

“I know.” Phil’s voice sounded tired. “You’re not used to having to hide like this. I’m not either, mate. If things were different, it wouldn’t have mattered and he wouldn’t have seen anything and I wouldn’t have had to step in just now. You wouldn’t have had to walk out last night.

“The kid’s fine, at least,” he continued. “But this… I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. With that mark on his ankle, it’s only going to get more difficult. We’ll have to be careful.”

I looked down at my leg. It was still throbbing, and the angry purple bruise was clear in the dim firelight. Do what on purpose? And were they talking about me? They had to be. Who else would have a mark on their ankle? I couldn’t imagine what that would have to do with anything.

“They should have left as soon as you chased off those eggheads.”

“I don’t think that would have helped this time, Techno. Getting them out of here might have slowed down the process, but I saw the mark. This isn’t a case of our rowdy neighbors playing with their food. They were going to pull him into their domain. There’s no going back from that, and we stopped it before it could go any further. He’s floating adrift.”

I latched onto every word they spoke, no matter how little sense it made. They spoke as gravely as one might discuss a funeral. Even Technoblade, who up until now seemed barely capable of much when it came to inflection, spoke with words so heavy it sounded out of place in his voice.

They were talking about me. They had to be. I was somehow adrift, whatever that meant, and it was because of my ankle. I shifted it, pulling it ever so slightly closer to my other leg, and for a moment I could have sworn I saw blood dripping down the walls once more. When I blinked, though, everything looked fine.

Perfectly normal, even.

“Is he going to be able to go back?”

Phil didn’t answer for a moment, and my breath caught in my throat.

“I don’t know,” he finally answered, and the breath I was holding came out sharply. “If not, then I have a contingency-”

“Phil.”

“It’s fine, Techno.”

“Are you sure that’s even an option?”

“What, you wanna try?”

Another pause.

“He’s the one who said the pen is mightier than the sword. He sounded more like a politician, Phil. Not to mention he just failed one of my inquiries. It would never work if it were me.”

“Then let’s not argue over this. We’ll both just have to reign it in. I’ll try to convince them to stay another night. By then we’ll know for sure. If we have to take care of him, then we will.”

“What about the kid? Tommy?”

“I don’t know. We’ll figure that part out once we’ve sorted out Wilbur.”

“I suppose I could make use of him in my domain if I absolutely had to. Seems bloodthirsty enough.”

“Let’s not talk like that. Keep your chin up, mate. A couple of old souls like us finally have some company out here. Maybe we can ask them about what the world’s been like for the past couple of decades.”

“Alright. I’m done with the drums for today. How about the two of us make breakfast first, then we check in on those two?”

“Good, ‘cause I’m starving.”

They were coming. I couldn’t hear the footsteps behind the door but they sounded like the conversation was over. I was still eavesdropping right next to the door that they would be walking out of any second. My heart leaped in my chest and I bolted as fast as my injured leg would allow. The crutch tap tap tapped down the hall.

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ice-cap-k · 15 days

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Owen Had a Cough (Art)

Here's the art on its own.

Tumblr Fic: Owen Had a Cough

AO3 Fic: Owen Had a Cough

For @mcythorrorgiftexchange . This is for the amazing @some-stupid-wannabe-artist

#mcythorrorgiftexchange #horror #body horror #rats smp #scott smajor #owengejuicetv #bekyamon #soupforeloise #mcyt art

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ice-cap-k · 15 days

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Owen Had a Cough

Hey! Got a new story for part of the 2024 MCYT Horror Gift exchange ( @mcythorrorgiftexchange ). This is for the amazing @some-stupid-wannabe-artist. I hope I did your request justice. It was honestly a lot of fun. Been a while since I bothered with Rats.

It's longer than my old whumptober stuff, so feel free to read it on AO3 here: Owen Had a Cough

____________________________________________________

Owen had a cough.

It wasn’t that surprising, since Scott had found the other rat passed out at the entrance to the boiler room. His friend had been down there for a long time, breathing in air that had been festering in the quarantined room. The basement had been downright hazy with all of the airborne spores. And Owen, well, Scott figured the bigger rat had gotten off lucky if all he had to show for such a stupid stunt was a little cold.

He told Owen what would happen if someone went in there. The larger rat could be almost impossible to sway once he set his mind to something, so of course he decided to set his sights on fixing the infestation down there. First the bugs, then the fungus. Scott just wished his best friend had told him. Then he wouldn't have found him crawling on his belly four days since the last time they saw each other.

Other than that, though, the tinkerer seemed alright. He had apologized and admitted Scott had been right. Those words would have been like music to Scott’s ears if he hadn’t been worried half to death for the sake of his friend. Owen promised to never go down there again, which had given Scott some sense of relief, and life moved on.

The cats were still a problem. The people living downstairs still chased them and their friends whenever they ventured out of the attic. And just today there were tiny little termites they’d gone to the effort of rehoming. But hey, life in the attic was full of surprises, so even that was typically atypical. Despite looking half dead on his feet the morning before, the large rat was starting to bounce back.

He was even leading the way as they raced back up to the attic with the others. Claws scrabbled at the red carpets lining the halls. The trash talk was flowing freely, and the bathroom was in sight.

“Oh, come on. I’m already at a tactical disadvantage with this dress,” Martyn huffed. His claws hooked over the edge of the side table. Owen was already pouncing off the edge towards the mouse hole in the wall. There was no catching up now so Scott turned to help haul Martyn up. Willow and Crow passed by beneath the table legs, still aiming for the doorway.

“Thanks, Scott,” Martyn breathed. He smoothed out the wrinkles of his maid’s dress with padded fingers as Scott leaned against a nearby plant pot.

The ceramic was cool against the fur lining his bare back and the hall was quiet, save for the excited squeaks of the returning rats. The cats were nowhere to be seen. The human residents were busy elsewhere. They were free to enjoy themselves without worry for a little while. How everyone else wasn’t tired yet was beyond Scott. His lungs hurt from all the running on top of all the laughter. This place was making him soft.

“Of course,” he said absently, mind already back on the race. Even if he wasn’t physically keeping up, his eyes followed Owen as his best friend leaned out of the chewed-out hole.

“Oh no you don’t!” he squeaked as the two smaller rats passed beneath him.

Scott flicked his ears back as he watched Owen launch himself from the wall. His arms and legs splayed as he dropped. A star-shaped shadow passed over Willow and Crow. The two rats had just enough time to look up. They were already running, but Owen’s aim was true and he crashed into Crow with a pained WHUMPF! Both of them went rolling tail over ears across the floor, knocking over Willow in the process and leaving all three of them sprawled and groaning.

It was just a bit of roughhousing. They were rats. Scott himself had leaped off the tallest bookshelves in the library and safely landed paws first on the tile more times than he could count. Despite knowing that, though, concern drove him forward. He pushed off the pot and was leaning over the edge of the table in an instant. His eyes raked over the three for signs of injury. His ears twitched at the rustle of fabric behind him. Martyn was there, looking over his shoulders.

“Is everybody ok?” he called.

“I’m okay,” Willow called back almost immediately

Crow managed to untangle its limbs from Owens. It rubbed at its head with a paw, claws parting strands of red and black fur until Scott could almost make out its eyes. “Owww-ow-ow-owww,” it groaned. “That really hurt. I think you bruised my tail. What were you-”

Its words were cut off by a drawn-out, wet cough. While Willow and Crow brushed themselves off and stood up straight, Owen only rolled over. He curled up into a ball, pulling his knees up to his chest but unable to keep them there. His arms wrapped around his heaving midsection as his whole body shook.

His coughs were like nails on a chalkboard to Scott. Wet and shaking, they wracked his friend’s lungs and rattled his ribcage with each one.

It was easy to forget that Owen wasn’t at one hundred percent until moments like these. They weren't short either. The gaps between stolen intakes of breath were long and drawn out. The coughing fit seemed to last an eternity if eternity could be packed down and contained in the span of minutes.

“Are you okay, Owen?”

“Try taking deep breaths.”

“My mum used to say it helps to put your arms up over your head. If you can hear me, try that.”

Owen did try. It was a feeble attempt, but his arms only left his torso long enough for the tips of his fingers to reach his shoulders before another wheeze sent him curling back into himself.

So yeah, Owen had a cough.

Martyn whistled. His voice was quiet in Scott’s ears. “He really is getting sick. I suppose that’s what you get for not drying off after a dip in the pond.”

He didn’t answer. Only slipped off the edge of the table to rush to his friend’s side.

Let the others think that. If Owen hadn’t told anyone else about going past the plastic sheets in the basement, then it wasn’t Scott’s place to tell that story. Owen would be so angry if he thought Scott went around telling people things he might be too embarrassed to talk about.

“Come on now, Owen. Let’s get you up. You’re okay.”

His friend didn’t protest as he looped his paws under the taller rat’s armpits and pulled. Now he could feel firsthand the way every muscle in Owen’s body tensed and untensed with the dwindling coughs. The way his lungs practically vibrated around the fluid there. Getting Owen upright helped. His lungs didn’t have to work so hard to keep up. Scott let him go to see if he could stand on his own, and the hacking noises subsided. He looked tired out from all that effort, but at least his breathing had returned to normal.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better.” He sounded tired too.

“Ya sure,” Crow asked. There was still an edge of annoyance in its words, but it was duller now. Its tail was no longer whipping around frantically. Rather, Crow and Willow were standing close and shifting uncomfortably from side to side.

Owen nodded. The corner of his lips pulled back into a half smile. “I’m sure. Just needed a second, but I’m good.”

“Good. Then apologize.”

“What!?” Owen looked affronted. “Why?”

Crow crossed its arms in front of its chest. “Because you cheated.”

“Did not.”

“Did so!”

“Did not! I was just being creative and came up with a new way to beat you both.” Owen’s smile lengthened to a full-blown grin as he looked from Crow to Willow. “Besides, neither of us made it to the attic so it’s not like I won at your expense.”

“You could keep going,” Martyn chimed in from where he was still standing on the tabletop.

“Ah… I think it would be a good idea to call it a day,” Scott insisted. He wrapped a paw around Owen’s arm and gently tugged. “Let’s get behind the tub and up to the attic.

To his credit, Owen didn’t argue back or struggle. He looked too tired for that. Instead, the bigger rat let him tug him along and then kept going toward the top as Scott let him go. The tile was cool underfoot. The smell of floral soap was sweet and fresh. The path behind the tub was clear, almost like the bathroom itself was welcoming them home.

“I think that might be for the best. It’s been a long day,” Owen finally admitted, standing a little straighter as he strutted across the room. “It doesn’t really matter who wins anyhow.”

“Yeah, but I totally would have won,” Crow muttered, and Willow giggled.

Scott smiled. This was much better. He and the others were just about to follow Owen when the sound of scrabbling caught their attention. It was coming their way. Everyone tensed, turning to see the source of the noise.

So help Scott, if that was a cat on its way-

A familiar purple shape came bobbing down the hall towards them. Scott felt himself let go of the breath he hadn’t meant to hold while the others began to relax around him.

“Took you long enough, didn’t it,” Martyn shouted with a bark of a laugh.

The rat came to a stop behind Scott and doubled over. His breath was coming in heavy pants, despite the slow jog. The loser of the race that was no longer taking place. “Hey,” Acho finally managed to sputter as he reigned in his breathing. “What did I miss?”

___________________

Scott padded down the steps leading from his home to the main floor of the attic.

His flower garden was still alive, despite the incoming cold, and the vegetable patch he had managed to throw together was one of the rats’ main sources of food now that snow covered the ground. The sunlight coming through the attic windows was just enough for his plants to keep growing, and it made his new home feel a little bit closer to his old one.

Now that he had more than enough food for himself, he was consistently helping to keep everyone fed. Just earlier this morning he and Owen had sat down together for lunch. Scott had thrown together all the food. Now he was stepping away from his cooking pots with chicken soup, ready to be passed out to anyone looking for a warm meal.

He handed out full bowls to Oliver and Sniff, then Shelby, then Jimmy. With each rat fed, Scott had a nice chat to catch up before saying goodbye and moving on. When he stopped by Eloise’s art gallery, he was surprised to find El and Bek arguing inside.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that,” Bek was saying. She leaned against the wall in between frames of paintings, watching El pace back and forth.

Not daring to say a word, Scott reached out and wrapped his knuckles against the side of the open doorframe. Thump thump thump.

The two rats looked up in surprise, only to relax as they realized it was only him. “Hey, Scott.”

“Hi!” He stepped into the room. “Brought some chicken soup.”

Bek’s ears perked up. She pulled away from the wall with a smile. “Oooh! That sounds quite good right now, actually.”

“I brought plenty for both of you. Here.” He held one bowl out to El. “And here.” Then he shuffled across the hollowed-out room to pass another to Bek. Both brightened as they took it.

“So, is everything alright?” he asked, glancing back and forth between the two. “You two looked pretty serious a second ago.”

Bek shrugged. She slurped loudly, drinking the broth directly from the edge of the bowl in loud gulps. Scott tried to offer a spare spoon, but she didn’t take it when he held it out.

“Bek, please…” Eloise groaned.

The shorter rat lowered the bowl and smacked her lips. “Sorry. I don’t think anything’s wrong. El’s just being weird about things again.”

“I am not,” the taller rat snapped. “If anyone’s being weird, it’s Owen.”

Scott rolled his eyes. “Is it his cough again?”

“No.” She said immediately, then hesitated. She silently weighed her words in her head, tail flicking restlessly before she amended, “Okay, yes, technically. He was definitely still coughing today, but that’s not the real issue this time.”

The cough wasn’t the issue? What scheme could Owen possibly be getting up to this time?

Scott folded his arms in front of his chest. “Then what was the issue?”

“He’s being weird. He’s acting really weird and I don’t like it. Me and Bek got back from a pantry run and when we walked into the gallery, Owen was just… I don’t know. Sitting in a corner in the lower level?” She flung her spoon towards the open door leading to the scaffolding platform and still bare white walls that were waiting for future masterpieces. “Like, there was nobody else here. He just had his head resting against his knees, arms wrapped around his legs, like he was taking a nap. The light was off too, so I didn’t see him right away.”

Bek shivered. “Gave me a real fright, when you turned the light on and he shot to his feet. You screamed.”

“So did you,” El shot back. “Neither of us saw that he was here until the light came on.”

Scott tilted his head. That certainly was… unusual. “Okay. Yeah. You’re right, that’s weird. What was he doing?”

“See!” Eloise straightened. She dropped the spoon back into her soup so she could scratch at the side of her head with free claws. “That’s what I asked him. All he said was that the dark felt nice, and then he rushed out.”

“Felt nice…?”

“We’ve been trying to figure out what he meant by that for the past half hour,” Bek added. “Eloise’s convinced the human girl slipped him some potion that’s turning him nocturnal-”

“We’ve already had to deal with potion issues. I don’t understand why you think it’s so far-fetched. I still vividly remember getting turned into a CAT of all things!”

“But I think whatever cold he caught is just making him tired.” Bek finished.

He waited patiently for either of them to continue. For them to take the conversation somewhere else, or break into laughter and call it all a joke. When they didn’t, he awkwardly twitched his tail. They were both looking at him expectantly, waiting to see how he would reply. “Uh, I think Bek might be onto something.”

“See!”

Eloise was still balancing the bowl of soup in one paw, but she threw the other into the air and groaned. “Fine. Sure. I know mine sounds crazy in comparison, but neither of you saw his eyes. I swear, they were glowing when he looked at me.”

Bek scoffed. “Eyes don’t glow.”

“His did,” El insisted. “I swear, they really were glowing. Owen’s eyes aren’t supposed to be bright blue like that.”

Her words sounded sincere. There wasn’t a teasing bite, or smile pulling at the side of her lips. No twitch in the corner of her eye from struggling to keep a straight face. She was serious.

Scott’s tail went ramrod straight. “Blue? You’re sure?”

She nodded. “Absolutely.”

“Did either of you think to go after him to check if he was alright?”

The two girls exchanged side glances before turning back to him and answering in unison. “No.”

Of course they hadn’t.

Scott brought his paw up to his forehead. He pressed his palm against the center of his forehead as if it could chase away the headache that was starting to develop there. He took a deep breath in and sighed. “Which way did he go? I think I’m going to go check up on him and make sure everything’s alright.”

“He turned right when he ran out the door,” El said. “Not sure where he went, since he didn’t stick around long enough to let us ask. We’ll go with you and help you look for him.” She stepped forward. The now cold bowl of soup was placed on a nearby shelf next to the bowl Bek had just finished emptying.

“We will?” Bek asked.

El nodded once more. “We will.”

Scott was grateful for the help. He didn’t argue as both girls followed him out of the gallery. With more eyes searching, they checked high and low across the attic. As they went, Scott dropped off more bowls of chicken soup and asked around if anyone had seen which way Owen went. It was Oli who eventually pointed them in the direction of the little food mart.

Sure enough, Owen was inside the brick build rummaging through the chest inside. He pulled out a rather limp-looking bunch of lettuce leaves and began to nibble as they spotted him.

“Owen,” Scott called. He rushed to the door with Bek and El hot on his heels. His best friend turned, eyes wide. They were notably not blue.

“Hey guys,” he greeted, waving the lettuce in his paw at them. “What’s up?”

“We were looking for you.”

“Yeah!”

Eloise shoved her way forward. “What is wrong with you?!?” She had to squeeze into the small mart to do it, and the room was starting to get too cramped. Bek tried to follow, but she was too wide to fit in the small space and quickly gave up. Instead, she pressed herself against the glass window and watched with ears pinned back against her head.

“Wh-” “Eloise and Bek told me that they saw you napping in the art gallery,” Scott supplied.

“Oooooh, so that’s what you mean…” He looked a little sheepish as he put the leaves in his paw on top of the chest. “I wasn’t napping. I was just, you know… enjoying the dark.”

Eloise planted one paw on her hip. “You know that makes no sense whatsoever, right?”

“Don’t know what to tell you. It just felt nice. Good on the eyes, and the wall felt cool. It’s not like I thought much about it-” Before Owen could finish his sentence, Scott could hear the breath catch in his chest and rattle. The big rat doubled over, and both Scott and El backed away to give him space. Owen kept his elbow firmly over his mouth as the watery coughs took hold. When he finally managed to reign his breathing back in, he lowered his arm and opened his eyes.

Scott could have sworn he saw the briefest flicker of blue. Or maybe green? Something bright and alien to Owen’s dark eyes. But the color was there and gone in the blink of an eye. Had he just imagined it? Perhaps it was a trick of the light?

“Well, maybe you should go back to your clock and take a nap,” El snapped. She looked disgusted as she backed out of the room. “Get some good rest and get over that cold.”

Owen let himself slump against the side of the food chest. “That… that might not be a bad idea,” he admitted. “The going back to the clock part. No promises on the nap.”

Where seconds ago Owen had seemed content and full of life, the sudden coughing fit appeared to have drained all of that out of him. He looked tired now. Drawn out. Like some of the color had leached right out of him. It hadn’t even been that violent or lengthy of a fit. He often had much worse as of late.

Not to be put off by Eloise’s reaction, Scott readily offered his paw out to Owen. “How about we all go back to your clock? I’ve got plenty of chicken soup you can have if you get hungry.”

“That does sound pretty nice...”

Owen took his offered paw, and Scott tried not to focus on the way Owen’s fingers felt clammy and cold between his claws.

____________________

Christmas time was getting close and the attic was abuzz with excitement. Plans for a Secret Santa gift exchange were underway. All the rats were finding themselves a part of the holiday season rush as they prepared their gifts.

Martyn had taken charge of this one. He had set up the whole event, convincing everyone that the best way to celebrate the Christmas season was with homemade gifts from the heart. He had set up the raffle to decide who would be giving their gifts to whom. He was the one who had set up the post box outside of the bar for everyone to submit their names for the event. He had even done up the entire building in some of the most over-the-top seasonal decor Scott had ever seen and the farm rat was loving it.

Tis the season, and Scott was embracing it as much as anyone. He had already planned on giving a gift to everyone, but there was no way he was going to turn down the opportunity to join in on a Secret Santa. That just meant that the name on his list would get two presents instead of one. Scott was ready to go all out for it.

Yes, it seemed like the holiday season had started to help some of the rats calm down and put to rest some of the old squabbles that had been going on for some time now. They had something to focus on, nice deeds to do, super cute decorations to put up, and the occasional visitor coming in from the cold outside to make their day a little more topsy turvy. That was where most of the excitement came from nowadays: the random people who just sort of showed up. Other than them, life in the attic was pretty peaceful.

So Scott was surprised when, late one night when he was ready to drop off his note at the bar post box, he heard frantic shouting and horrible retching noises.

He froze about ten paces away from the bar. His fingers clutched tight around his book as something slammed and there was another shout. What on Earth was going on?

He swiveled his ears to get a better listen. That was Martyn’s voice. What he thought was incoherent shouting turned into panicked, somewhat broken words.

“Oh geez. I can’t believe… Ugh! Oh, come on! Why you… I just- You know, you’re lucky I don’t bar you from the bar again. Keep it in the can. That’s it. Deep breaths… There you are. Oh! Uh… Good lord! That’s so gross. You know, I’ve already got one crime seen taped off at this establishment! I don’t need another!”

Martyn’s babbling was repeatedly broken up by the sound of someone gagging and the splash of something wet hitting metal.

Scott crept forward on soft paw steps. He was not sure what he had stumbled upon, but Martyn sounded close. Keeping his tail low to the ground and book against his chest, Scott inched his way around the side of the building until he could make out Martyn’s back in the dim lighting.

Martyn’s ears were pinned against his head. His tail twisted with discomfort, and his eyes were looking everywhere but at the figure slumped over the tin can next to him. He was rubbing his scarred arm back and forth along their back like he was trying to comfort them, but the motions were stiff.

Another retch split the air. Another sound like a garden hose being switched on, and the figure’s shoulders heaved. Martyn flinched.

“You didn’t even have anything to drink,” the barkeeper mumbled.

“Is everything alright?” Scott called.

Martyn patted the other person’s back once more before turning to face him. He looked queasy himself. “We’ve got a bit of a mess in the bar right now,” he said with a grimace. “I wouldn’t suggest going in there at the moment.”

“And who is that? Are they alright?”

“It’s Owen,” Martyn said simply.

Sure enough, the next gag turned into a cough so ragged it sounded like ripping fabric.

“And I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know if he is alright,” Martyn continued. “He came here asking about details for the Secret Santa. Seemed fine one moment, and then threw up all over the entryway the next. And the counter. And my back room when I tried to bring him out here.” He gestured towards the bar’s back door. There were a few wet spots near the doorway that Martyn pointed to that Scott didn’t want to focus on too closely. “And before you ask, I didn’t pour him so much as a glass. Alcohol’s got nothing to do with this one.”

“I can believe that,” Scott nodded. He dared to inch closer. A sour smell hit his sensitive nose when he came within a tail’s length of the two other rats. Sure enough, it was Owen. His goggles had been tossed to the side, out of the way as his head hung in the tin can Martyn was using as a rubbish bin. His clothes looked crumpled and wrinkled. His tail and ears hung limp. “Oh, Owen,” he breathed, already pitying his poor friend.

“Hey, Scott…” Owen’s words echoed and warped around the edges of the can. His voice sounded small.

“Are you feeling worse?”

“I’m fine.”

Martyn snorted. “Tell that to my carpets.”

Owen’s ears drooped a little bit lower. “Sorry about that.”

The apology seemed to take Martyn off-guard. Owen didn’t normally apologize so easily. Not without a couple of jokes or light teasing mixed in for good fun. It made Scott want to ask his friend ‘What’s wrong with you,’ but he knew he probably wouldn’t get an honest answer, let alone an honest one.

“That’s alright,” Martyn finally said, giving Owen another gentle pat on the back. “I’ll just clean it up-” Owen pitched forward into the can again and dry heaved. Martyn yanked his paw away and stuck his tongue out, clearly struggling not to gag as well. “I’ll clean it up later. Blegh!”

Scott stepped up to place his paw on Owen’s shoulder. His grip tightened slightly when Owen’s heaving stopped and his friend relaxed into his grip. “You go ahead and clean up your bar now, Martyn. I can stay out here with him for a while.”

Martyn’s blue eyes narrowed at him. He almost looked relieved as he glanced back and forth between Owen and Scott. Only the twitching of his tail tip hinted at his hesitance to leave Owen while he was still like this. “You sure?”

“It’s fine. He’s my best friend. I can watch him.”

That seemed to be enough to convince the barkeeper. “Thanks, Scott. I’ll come back out here once I take care of Owen’s mess.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Owen grunted into the can.

“I know,” Martyn said before stepping back into the bar and pulling the back door closed behind him.

The back of the bar was quiet for a moment. The only noise was the slight scrape of Owen’s nails against the bin and the rise and fall of their breathing. Scott was half afraid that if he tried breaking the silence, the pause in Owen’s coughing and retching would end and all of his troubles would come rushing back. Instead, Scott lowered himself onto the floor where there didn’t seem to be any suspicious-looking puddles. He crossed his legs out in front of him and pressed one shoulder against Owen’s side.

It was Owen who broke the silence first. “Why are you here, Scott?” His voice didn’t sound so small this time.

Scott shrugged. “I was going to turn in my book for Secret Santa when I heard the commotion.”

“Oh…”

“You?”

“Something similar. I wanted to talk to Martyn about the chances of someone not being able to make it to the gift exchange.”

“What did he say?”

“That a gift could be given to someone else who can give it to the right person on the day of. Or we could just arrange to swap gifts with a delivery. I didn’t get the chance to ask him about when it would get delivered.”

“Oh.”

They fell into silence once more. A moment passed where Scott could feel Owen shiver. His muscles locked up and claws dug into the rim of the can. Scott braced himself for the sound of gagging, but it never came. Owen’s breath quickened, then gradually slowed back down. His muscles untensed, and the threat passed. As he relaxed, he let himself slide down the side of the can to sit next to Scott.

When Scott looked over, his dark eyes flickered blue-green in the low light.

“I really think I might be okay now,” he said slowly. “I think the worst of it has passed.”

“You should still stay right here, just in case. I don’t think you should be taking any chances right now.”

Owen winced. “I think that’s fair.”

“You’re sick.”

“Maybe,” Owen huffed. Even now, he couldn’t sit back and accept that it might be true. “I could have just had something bad to eat.”

“What have you eaten so far today?”

Owen’s face instantly fell into a regretful frown. “Or maybe not. It probably wasn’t the food.”

“Why? What all did you eat?”

“The last thing I ate was the dinner you offered me.”

Scott had prepared a nice picnic basket with cabbage rolls, fruit salad, and ratatouille. They had enjoyed a nice outing on Owen’s balcony, bundled up against the brisk winter chill. They were all dishes Scott had made countless times before. None of them could possibly have made Owen that ill.

Before Scott could ask him about lunch, the other rat hunched his shoulders and started coughing once more. It was gargled and sharp. The ripping noises that shook his lungs were enough to make Scott want to pull his chef’s hat down over his ears to keep the sound out. As the sound of Owen's hacking grew weaker and eventually died out, Scott watched Owen turn to spit into the can.

“Your cough doesn’t seem to be getting any better,” Scott mused.

“I know…” he said, annoyance and exhaustion evident in his voice. “It’s such a pain and it won’t go away.”

“Have you been resting?”

“As much as normal.”

“Any more weird instances of hiding in dark rooms?”

“Scott…” Owen’s tone was bitter.

“I’m not going to complain. Getting a few more naps in would be good for you. So have you?”

“Maybe, but it’s not napping.”

“Uh-huh.” Scott didn’t believe him. “It’s winter, Owen. You never really stopped to slow down after you went into the basement. I think if you want it to get any better, you should take a few days and stay in bed.”

Rather than complain, or wave Scott off and say that he was fine, Owen seemed to seriously consider his words. His arm snaked over his waist. He clutched at his stomach like it was threatening to spill its contents again. “Do you think that would help?”

“I don’t think it would make anything worse to try.”

Owen brought his head up only to let it fall back against the can. Thunk! “Aw, but it’s going to be boring staying in bed all day.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll come to visit. And so will the others. We’ll keep you busy while you take it easy.”

“You promise?”

“Promise.”

“Good. Can we get out of here now, then? I think I want to go home.”

Scott pointed to the paw still wrapped around Owen’s waist. “Are you feeling any better?”

“Honestly…yeah,” he said. The grip he had on his stomach loosened. “It doesn’t feel like my stomach is on the edge of bursting anymore. It kind of feels stable now, you know?”

“Mm-hm,” Scott hummed. He bumped his shoulder once more against Owen’s and then unwound his legs so he could stand up. “I’ll go tell Martyn we’re going to get you home.”

The barkeeper hadn’t made his way back out to them yet. Scott had a feeling it would be a while before Martyn finished cleaning his bar up. While Owen and Martyn didn’t always see eye to eye, Martyn would probably appreciate being told that they were leaving. The alternative would mean heading out without saying a word and letting Martyn come back to an empty back of the bar and no clue whether Owen was alright. Considering how he had been trying to comfort Owen when Scott first got here, it was probably safe to assume Martyn would appreciate the heads-up.

That and Scott still had his book to drop off. He was already here, after all.

Owen thumped the back of his head against the can once more. He tilted his head back so he could smile appreciatively up at Scott. “Thank you.”

“And I’m going to ask if he has a bag or something we can take with us, in case you get sick again on the way back.”

The smile fell into a frown so suddenly, that Scott couldn’t help but laugh.

He brushed his dungarees off as he stood. His tail, cramped from being sat on for so long, gave an experimental wave to work the pins and needles out. Then he picked his way past Owen and the can.

Some morbid curiosity took hold of Scott at that moment. Before he reached the door, his gaze passed over the rim of the rubbish bin. It was still pretty dark, but he could make out the wet shine of the puddle at the bottom.

Scott was no doctor, but he guessed that the dark red tinge to it wasn’t natural. Not considering what Owen had claimed to eat most recently. Nor were the fleshy, glowing cyan chunks floating on top.

___________________________

Owen was finally getting some rest.

Scott didn’t even have to beg him to stay in bed. He didn’t have to pester his friend with apologies and nervous requests to stay put. Owen didn’t fight him on anything anymore and didn’t complain about being cooped up in his room at the top of the clock.

That’s how bad it was.

It had Scott on edge.

The farmer rat couldn’t sit still. He busied himself coming over to visit all the time. Owen’s clock wasn’t messy, but Scott busied himself trying to clean some of the lower levels. He chewed on chunks of wood and wool, shaping them into nice things he could work into his Christmas gifts for the others. And when he ran out of ideas for things to do with what was already here, he took it upon himself to bring his hobbies closer and reduce his number of trips away from the clock.

Owen didn’t have a kitchen, but that didn’t stop Scott from hauling over his pots, pans, or even an entire stove so he didn’t have to stray too far to cook up a few meals.

Most bowls and platefuls went to the many rats who came to visit their bedridden friend. It gave them a chance to stick around longer if they had a meal at the ready. Some meals were brought up to Owen. Soups proved especially difficult to carry while climbing up the gears to Owen’s room, but Owen was always grateful to Scott for bringing them. A few dishes were whipped up purely for himself. A rat’s gotta feed himself, too.

Every time he poked his head into the dark bedroom, he would catch a flicker of blue-green before Owen registered that he was there and would greet him. Once, Scott made no attempt to make his presence known when he entered the bedroom. He didn’t knock against the door frame or call out, assuming that Owen would simply spot him in a moment or two. He did not. Scott waited, and waited, and watched as Owen simply stared at the blank wall. There was nothing to see. It was too dark for him to make out the natural grain of the wood. His unfocused eyes stared, and now Scott fully believed Eloise’s claim that Owen’s eyes glowed in the dark.

And yes, Owen still had the cough.

A couple of days on bed rest seemed to have no effect on the malady. If anything, it was worse. They kept a thimble on the side of the bed at all times now. When Owen felt a coughing fit coming on, he would reach for the bucket and hold it close. As the coughs shook his body, he would sometimes cough up… something.

The first time Owen coughed it up, they hadn’t thought to have the thimble nearby. His friend had done the best he could and leaned over the side of the bed when something solid and wet went splat against the wooden floorboards. Scott had to clean that one up. Whatever it could have been was solid. Soft, but solid. Pulpy. It was always an unnatural mix of teal and orange.

Funny. He normally liked those colors together. Now though… This wasn’t cute.

The night behind the bar had been dim, but he still recognized it as the stuff he had seen in the tin can.

Scott had no clue what it was supposed to be.

After that, Scott made sure Owen had a thimble at all times. He instructed his friend to cough into it whenever he could. Then Scott could take care of the mess later.

That proved to be somewhat difficult. Not even trash rat would bother with it. They were banned from tossing it in his dumpster. Scott was left to try digging shallow holes in the frozen ground outside to bury it or burn it in the family room fireplace when the coast was clear of cats.

He came back from one of those expeditions to find Eloise and Bek standing outside Owen’s clock.

“How’s he doing?” El asked as he approached.

Scott shrugged. “He’s still sick. Still coughing.”

“That bites.” Bek kicked her bare foot against the floorboard with a frown. She cast her gaze across the rest of the attic, eyes lingering on their neighbors’ homes. “It’s a shame there are no doctors up here.”

“I agree. None of the home remedies that we used on the farm are working.” He patted his palm against the thimble. Claws clicked against its side on impact. “I just got done emptying this for, what? The fourth time today? You don’t suppose the humans downstairs have some medicine?”

Eloise tilted her head. “That work on rats? I doubt it.”

“Want some help?” Bek offered.

El reached into her pocket and pulled out something that looked like a covered bowl. Through the see-through top, Scott could make out a bright red-ish orange liquid sloshing around. It was thicker than water or juice. As she held it out towards him, something spicy made his nose twitch. “Yeah. As I said, no doctors here, but I had a thought,” she said. “How about a home remedy? Back in the city, there were these places that sold food. And in their kitchens, they had all these pretty bottles of tasty sauces. There was one my family would use whenever we got sick. Called it hot sauce. Burned going down, but it helped clear the sinuses.”

Scott tilted his head. “He’s coughing, El. Not sneezing or blowing his nose. I’m not sure that will work.”

“Aren’t those things normally connected?”

“Are they?”

“Probably,” Bek chimed in with a noncommittal shrug.

Scott’s tail lashed as he considered his options. That stuff smelled pretty strong. She called it a sauce, so it was like food. “He’s supposed to eat it?”

Eloise nodded. “We would put it on our dinner.”

At worst, they could run to get Owen some milk if it was too hot. He didn’t think a bite of something spicy would necessarily make the cough worse.

“Sure,” he relented. “I guess it’s worth a shot. Come on. Let’s run it by Owen and see what he thinks.” He waved towards the opening at the base of the grandfather clock and started padding towards the entrance. The three of them shuffled inside, only to be greeted by the muffled sound of coughing. Scott sighed. “There he goes again.”

“He sounds worse,” Eloise said, tipping her head to look up past the levels of gears lining the inside of the clock.

“It’s dark, too,” Bek noted. “Is he doing that thing where he hides in the dark?”

“He’s still in the bed. Not hiding,” Scott supplied. “But the dark seems to help.”

She clicked her tongue. “Rather odd.”

He wasn’t about to disagree.

The two girls waited long enough for him to grab a bowl full of chicken soup from his pot. They could put the sauce into that for Owen to try. Then they scrabbled up the gears to the sound of Owen’s hacking and wheezing. It drowned out the sound of their claws scraping against brass and nickel. It took a few leaps, and both El and Scott had to help Bek pull herself up the last ledge.

Owen was still coughing as they reached to top. Scott’s ears drooped as he heard a pained wheeze between intakes of breath. He could tell the sick rat was getting tired.

“Owen!” Scott called as he led the two girls toward their friend's room. “You alright? Eloise and Bek came by.”

“Hey th-” Owen couldn’t even finish up the greeting as they stepped into the room. He was curled up in bed, gripping the covers as he leaned over and shook with each raspy breath. Scott picked up the pace until he was at the bedside, holding the thimble out for his friend. Owen took it with a shaking paw. He gripped it in his lap, but this bought appeared to only be a cough.

When it finally began to slow, Owen took a deep, deliberate breath, and breathed out a “Hi.”

“You look worse than something one of the cats coughed up,” Bek said bluntly. El smacked her shoulder and Scott pinned back his ears, but Owen smiled at the jab, so the farm rat didn’t audibly gasp in horror like he wanted to.

“I’d rather take getting chewed out by the cats at this point,” Owen said, his voice all but shot.

“No you wouldn’t,” Scott corrected. Owen didn’t argue.

“Well,” El started, holding out the covered bowl of hot sauce for him to see. “I brought something with me, that might be able to help.” Again, she explained what was in the bowl. How it was spicy and full of flavor. How at her old home they would use it to help clear their stuffy noses and make it a little easier to breathe.

Then Scott showed him the bowl of broth he brought up. “I brought some soup we could mix it into if you think it’s worth a shot. It should tone down some of the flavor and make it easier to eat.”

Owen wrinkled his nose. “Not the biggest fan of spicy food, but if there’s a chance it’ll work then it’s worth a shot.”

“You sure,” Eloise and Scott asked at the same time.

He nodded and reached out towards the bowl in Scott’s paw. “Got a spoon?”

Of course Scott brought a spoon.

Eloise popped the cover off her bowl and tilted it. Scott brought the broth underneath the rim to catch a few drops before swirling the angry orange sauce in. Since El was the one who knew about the home remedy, he let her judge how much to put in. She let a few more drops dribble into the broth before pulling back her bowl and covering it back up.

“That should probably be enough,” she said with a flick of her tail tip. “Don’t want to overdo it.”

“How spicy is it,” Owen asked nervously.

“It is hot sauce, so pretty spicy.”

Owen slunk a little deeper under the covers. “What if it’s too hot?”

“Well, you want it to be hot if it’s going to work.”

“Uh… Actually… I don’t know about this anymore, guys.”

Bek snorted. “Don’t be such a baby.”

“I am not! Fine.” In the blink of an eye, Owen snatched the soup bowl and spoon out from Scott’s paws. “This better work,” he grumbled, before ladling a spoonful of the liquid into his mouth.

Scott held his breath for a moment as he watched Owen swallow. His friend blinked rapidly at the taste, clearly uncomfortable. But he went for another spoonful and downed that as well. He handed it back to Scott with more than half the broth left.

“Feeling any better?” Bek asked brightly.

He held up one claw as if asking her to wait. His face contorted against the heat. His breathing became heavy and drawn out, but that was good, wasn’t it? Those were the deepest breaths Scott had heard Owen manage in a while.

“Did it help?” he pressed when Owen didn’t answer.

In less than a second, Owen’s demeanor changed. He went from tense patience, face screwed up with discomfort at the taste, to twitching and thrashing silently. So silently, in fact, that they even couldn’t hear him breathe.

Scott’s blood ran cold.

Owen wasn’t coughing anymore. Wasn’t gagging. He was wheezing. Gasping. Ribcage rattling. Convulsing. his back arched. He writhed beneath the blanket so wildly that it knocked the covers from the bed entirely. Both paws went to the base of his neck and gripped at the soft tissue there, claws raking along the exposed surface. Angry red marks flared up against his skin, visible beneath his fur.

“Oh my god he’s choking,” Bek shrieked.

Her words hit Scott hard, knocking his brain back into action. “H-how?!?! It was just chicken broth!” He didn’t understand. There weren’t any noodles or chunks of chicken or vegetables to worry about swallowing.

He dropped the bowl and spoon in his paws, not caring when they clattered to the floor and sent broth splattered everywhere. It didn’t matter. What mattered was getting his best friend breathing again. Scott reached under Owen’s armpit and hauled the other rat closer to the side of the bed where the rest of them could reach him more easily. He bucked in Scott’s grip. He almost completely lost his hold on the other rat’s arm as Owen kept reaching for his neck. Not sure what else to do, Scott started pounding on Owen’s back with the base of his palm, praying it would knock his airwaves free. “What could he possibly be choking on?!”

“No no no! You’re doing it wrong.” Bek shoved him to the side and took over, wrapping her arms around Owen’s chest from behind. The back of his head nearly smashed into her forehead as he struggled to breathe, but she gripped tight. “You gotta do it like in the movies.” With that, she started pounding her fist up and in just below his sternum.

Scott was grasping at straws. Reacting instinctively without knowing what would help or why. Let alone how this could have gone so wrong. He rushed around the bed to the other side so he could face Owen. He passed El, who still stood shaking against the wall. He’d ask her to help, but what could she do, really?

Scott crawled up onto the bed with Owen. He intended to hold Owen’s paws to keep them from knocking into Bek as she continued to attempt to force out whatever was caught in his throat. Before he reached out, though, Owen shifted his paws from scratching at his throat to clawing at the sides of his mouth.

There, just visible past the foremost incisors, something was glowing at the back of Owen’s mouth.

Something teal. Something orange.

Thoughts of the fleshy thimblefuls Scott had been doing his best to throw away swam to the forefront of his mind. The glow shook and strobed with every desperate attempt for air. The lumpy shapes the glow emanated from shook and wobbled as Owen opened his mouth wider and wider. Scott’s muscles locked up. He couldn’t have willed himself forward if he wanted to. Couldn’t think straight enough for it to occur to him to try. He watched as Owen tried reaching into his own mouth with desperate claws and scraped at what was inside.

Bek gave another heave, knocking Owen’s paw away from his mouth with enough force for his flailing claws to rip a tear in his lip. Something hooked on his claw came loose, and with a wet plop, it fell onto the bedspread in front of Scott.

It looked like part of a mushroom cap.

A very familiar teal mushroom with glowing orange splotches.

Something clicked in the back of Scott’s numb mind that this was probably what had been in those thimbles, although less smashed up and not swimming in bile. This cap was far more sturdy. He could still make out the delicate edges of gills lining the underside. The damaged end was blackened and wilted. The entire piece still glowed, despite being severed from the rest of the larger body.

He had warned Owen about those awful mushrooms.

Why couldn’t his friend have just trusted him and gone through with burning it?

“It’s not working,” Bek cried. She let go of Owen, cradling her wrists. Bruises were already becoming visible there beneath pale fur.

Scott blinked.

Owen was reaching with one paw for his mouth again. The glowing shapes there were clearer than they were a second ago. More sharply defined. Larger. Scott could hardly believe what he was seeing as caps pressed against the backs of Owen’s teeth, threatened to grow out right past his lips. Owen was grabbing at them. Clawing at them. Pulling fistfuls of crushed mushroom stems and caps. Scott reached forward with a half-baked thought to help rip more away, but Owen smacked his paw away before he could get close. Owen’s other paw was reaching up towards some unseen point on the ceiling with eyes that were glassy and blank. Color flickered in the pupils.

Orange, teal, orange, teal, orange, teal…

Scott whirled to look at Eloise. “GO GET HELP!!!”

She hadn’t so much as moved from her spot by the wall. At Scott’s words, her shocked face blanched. She was shaking in fear and reached for Bek like the smaller rat was a lifeline. “WHO DO I GET!?!”

“I DON’T KNOW!”

POP!

Owen fell limp.

Scott turned back to stare down at his best friend, too frozen in shock to move, dread pulsing through his veins where his heart stopped beating. “Owen…” he whimpered. The name sounded fuzzy to his ears through the radio static of his own thoughts.

Owen’s chest was moving. Barely, but it was. Scott could see it rising and falling with short, shallow breaths.

“Owen, please…”

Please what? Answer? Survive? Be okay?

The two girls gripped at each other. They stood in front of the entrance, their shadows falling over Owen in the bed. Through their quivering dark shapes, Owen’s eyes blazed.

Orange, teal, orange, teal, orange, teal…

“No more of that.”

Scott pealed his ears up away from where he had pinned them flat against the back of his head. “Owen?” His voice cracked. Owen’s voice sounded… hollow.

The fallen rat’s chest twitched. His arms drew in closer to his sides. His legs spread out over the sheets. Scott scrambled away to make room for his friend as a foot passed by where he had been kneeling on the bed. Every movement was agonizingly slow. Pained.

“W-what d-do you mean?” El stuttered. “Y-you gave us a r-real fright, there.”

“I mean no more of that.” Owen’s voice sounded empty. Distant. Scott couldn’t make out his friend’s mouth moving in the dim lighting. Not at this angle. Considering what he had just seen, it was shockingly clear considering all the mushrooms he had to be talking around. “Whatever that was, it burned. No more burning us.”

One of Bek’s ears swiveled. “Uh… ‘us’? What do you mean ‘us’?”

With a long, labored heave that looked unnaturally limp, Owen’s head lolled back as he pushed himself up shoulders first. He sat up.

Orange, teal, orange, teal, orange, teal…

“Us.”

It wasn’t just Owen’s eyes that glowed anymore. They were vacant. Glassy, empty eyes with irises that flashed back and forth. But below his eyes, crawling out from the cracks in his mouth, flowing down with the line of blood escaping the cut on his lip, curling around his front teeth, were mushrooms. Many, many, many mushrooms.

“We won’t let you burn us again,” came Owen’s voice, but it wasn’t Owen. It couldn’t be. His mouth didn’t move. His shallow breathing, now growing even shallower, hadn’t hitched or changed. Rather, with each rise and fall of the syllables, the glowing orange splotches strobed brighter.

“No more heat. No more burning.”

Orange, teal, orange, teal, orange, teal. Bright, dim, bright, dim, bright, dim.

“Just the damp. Just the dark. Like me. Like you…”

He turned to Scott, but he didn’t actually look at Scott. Those eyes stared straight ahead. The pupils were so dilated, he couldn’t be focusing on anything in front of him. His head tilted, ears falling limply with the motion.

“Hey Scott.” The mushrooms blinked with the hollow words. “You were helping me. Now I think you should help us…”

Owen lurched forward, reaching out for the nearest one of them. His claws brushed Scott’s arms and Scott leaped back.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

He shrieked. Behind him, Bek and Eloise screamed as well. They scrambled back as Owen pushed forward out of the bed. Every movement was sluggish and stilted. His muscles quivered with distress and his legs shook as he stood up, but he WAS up. And he was coming right for them.

They bolted. All three dropped onto all fours and scrabbled through Owen’s house as fast as their paws could carry them.

This was a nightmare. It had to be. Scott knew the mushrooms were dangerous, but whatever this was had to be something else. However, when Scott slipped on the carpet in the hall and slammed shoulder-first into the wall, the pain sent dark spots dancing across his eyes.

Dreams weren’t supposed to be this painful.

The three of them were halfway down the gears when Owen’s distant voice met their ears. It still had that hollow ring to it. “Come on Scott. Come on guys. You wanted to help me, right? Then come back. The dark is better.”

Scott clenched his claws and dared to look up. He couldn’t see Owen past the ledge.

“Scott… Eloise… Bek… I thought you wanted to help?”

A shiver passed down Scott’s spine. Owen didn’t sound any closer. He wasn’t chasing them. He let go of the gears, allowing himself to drop the rest of the way to land heavily alongside the girls. The three of them looked up

“Are you still there, guys?”

El placed a finger over her lips and glared at Scott and Bek. She flicked her eyes off to the side and waved in the direction of Owen’s mudroom. It didn’t take much to figure out what she meant. Scott and Bek shared a glance, then nodded and followed her around the corner.

As soon as they were all packed into the cramped room like sardines in a can, Scott pulled the door closed behind him. She dropped the finger from in front of her mouth.

“What do we do!? What do WE DO!?!?” she whispered frantically.

“I DON’T KNOW!”

They all scrambled, moving back and forth as much as they could in the small space as they talked over each other in a panic.

“Is he coming!?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It didn’t sound like it.”

“I don’t think we can be sure.”

“The door’s closed even if he was.”

“That just means we’d be trapped.”

“I don’t think he’s coming, though.”

“What even happened?”

“It’s those mushrooms,” Scott babbled, words flowing out of his mouth as quickly as they passed through his head. “Those were the mushrooms from the garden that we burned. I’d recognize them anywhere. They were in him! My god, his mouth was full of them. He was coughing them up all this time and I didn’t even realize-”

Eloise cut through his panicked rambling to grab him by the shoulders and give him a shake. “You’re the expert here on those things. Did you know they could do that?”

“Of course not!”

“Okay,” Bek started. “So a bunch of angry mushrooms were making Owen sick and now he’s…” She opened and closed her mouth a few times, but could not find the words. She helplessly gestured to the mudroom’s ceiling, approximately in the same direction as Owen’s room. “That. Now he’s like that. Didn’t the mushrooms from the garden get burned?”

“Yeah,” El hissed. “That took care of them last time. Should we try that again?”

“And do what?” Scott wanted to shout, but he strained to keep his volume down low. “Set Owen on fire?!?”

El blinked, her face going blank. “Right. Might need to think of something better.”

“What about what he said,” Bek said, her whisper now bordering on becoming a shout. “He said that something burned.”

“Yeah, the hot sauce,” El said dismissively. “I’m sure it was spicy and hot and everything I said it would be but that doesn’t actually help us now because it doesn’t actually burn things like a fire, now does it?!”

“But he- it- they- whatever that was- I don’t know?! It didn’t seem to like it.”

“So you’re saying it caused this?”

“Those mushrooms were already in his system,” Scott admitted. “He was throwing them up for a while now. Whatever this is was already in him.”

“So the hot sauce made it worse? It pissed some bloody mushrooms off and made Owen…” Eloise didn’t even know how to finish her sentence. She threw her paw up in the air and turned. She pressed one of her knuckles against her forehead.

Scott ran through everything he knew about the fungus in his head. From his early days on the farm, where he had seen the brightly colored caps from afar, to the blight they caused, and the wildlife that choked on their spores until they couldn’t breathe. The awful way it spread in the dark, closed-off spaces. Places like the basement.

Places like Owen’s lungs.

He shook his head. Now was not the time to dwell on that.

At the farm, the only thing the farmers could do was burn it. Gather it up in a neat pile and set the whole thing ablaze. Even if there were a few mycelium roots below the surface, if they set the fire close enough to the patch, the heat still managed to leach through the topsoil and kill it off.

Hot sauce didn’t put off real heat. Not like that. But the mushrooms reacted to it. He didn’t know if his parents had ever tried any irritants against something like that. Acid wasn’t necessarily available to a family of rodents working the field.

He thought of the partially blackened piece of mushroom Owen had clawed out of his mouth.

“Okay… I think… I think your hot sauce might have helped, actually.”

El pulled her knuckle from her forehead and looked at him from the corner of her eye. “You’re joking.”

“That’s what I was saying,” Bek exclaimed. All pretenses of keeping her voice down were tossed out the window. “It was mad about how hot it was. What if hot flavors work just like hot fires.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Probably. But I saw a piece break off that looked burned, and I know for a fact Owen hasn’t been around a fire for some time. I don’t know if it works like some sort of acid, but it did something.”

“Yeah,” El huffed. “It made him like THAT . Worse!”

Bek rolled her eyes. “That just means we didn’t use enough.”

Scott pointed to the smaller rat. “What she said.”

Bek didn’t seem to be prepared for him to agree with her so easily. Her eyes flew wide and her tail went ramrod straight. “What?!”

“I think you’re, right, Bek. I think we need to try using more.”

“But you- I thought- I can’t believe-” Eloise sputtered. Her paws waved uselessly in the air, grasping at straws. Finally, she gave up on trying to find an argument and slumped forward. “Fine.” She pulled the small covered bowl out. “I suppose it doesn’t hurt to try.”

“Great! Now we just need to figure out how to do that,” Scott said as he leaned his back against the door.

Knock.

“Is it nice and dark in there?”

All three rats stiffened at the sound of Owen’s voice filtering through the cracks in the door. Scott’s heart outright skipped a beat as he pushed off the door, trying to put as much distance between him and the door as he could. Considering the small mudroom, it wasn’t much. He hurtled into Bek and Eloise, who were pressing themselves through the hanging coats and boots against the furthest corner of the room. Something fell at his side. He tore his eyes away from the door long enough to see Eloise’s covered bowl of hot sauce bounce once off the floor and go rolling.

Squeak… click!

The doorknob turned and swung open. Blinking orange lights strobed across the room as Owen stepped inside.

“Well, would you look at that?”

Orange, teal, orange, teal, orange, teal. Bright, dim, bright, dim, bright, dim.

“It is dark in here. I knew you guys wanted to help.”

“O-Owen…” Scott said shakily. He pressed himself further into Bek and Eloise’s sides. “I-I thought you were upstairs in y-your room?”

“But you guys came down here,” he said through a mouth that did not form the words. His blank eyes passed over the room. “You can’t help when you’re down here and I’m up there.”

“Help with what,” El demanded.

“Us. And you.”

He took a stilted step forward, and every fiber of Scott’s being screamed at him to run.

“Go! Go! Go!” He squeaked, shoving Bek and El aside. Owen stood between them and the door, but he couldn’t stop all of them if they tried to go around them.

Of course, that didn’t mean they would all be able to get out scot-free.

Because Owen’s claws wrapped around the strap of Scott’s dungarees before he could make it past.

His best friend’s paw gripped like a vice. His grip was so white-knuckled tight that it shook as he yanked. Scott was too busy trying to run forward to get a good grip on the floor with the soles of his feet. They slipped out from under him and the farm rat found himself suspended for a moment, staring at the retreating backs of the girls before his back hit the ground.

Owen’s flashing eyes appeared over him.

Orange, teal, orange, teal, orange.

“Hey, Scott,” the mushrooms glowed down at him.

Scott tried to pull away, but Owen still had a grip on the strap. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the bowl Eloise had dropped. It was still covered and clean on the wooden floor, right there next to a set of boots. Scott reached for it. His claws brushed the rim, only for the strap of his dungarees yanked back once more. He couldn’t budge an inch as Owen forced the strap down against the wood planks, pinning him to the floor. The bowl rolled uselessly out of his line of sight.

“What are you doing,” Scott squeaked, voice small. His ears tried to swivel back to lay against his head, but they could only press uselessly against the floor.

“Helping us,” the mushrooms in Owen’s mouth blinked. “Don’t worry, Scott. It’s not so bad. A little time, a bit of coughing… you’ll barely notice.”

Dread clawed at the pit of Scott’s stomach. Owen was still looking at him blankly, but the mushroom caps in his mouth flared. The gills widened, revealing dotted dark pores between their inner layers. Scott could make out the dark spore particles between them. The dread dug those claws in and yanked.

“Owen! Owen please- I don’t- I- I- Please don’t-”

“Take this!”

Owen tore his glowing eyes off Scott. The moment his head tilted back, the open end of a bowl hit him square in the center of his face. Rivulets of red-orange liquid sprayed out along the side of his head. It caught in his hair and dripped down his jaw, and when the bowl fell away, his entire face was covered in Eloise’s hot sauce.

Bek stood in the door frame, wide-eyed, arm outstretched in front of her, utterly shocked that she had hit her mark.

The squeak of pain Owen let out made Scott flinch. He wanted to curl into a ball and cover his ears against the sheer agony that would have shredded Owen’s voice box if he was actually using it. Scott instead dug his heels into the floor and slid back as far as he could. Claws wrapped around his shoulders. To his relief, Bek had rushed to his side. She and El each took an arm and helped him up while Owen backed away. The slow, pained movements were now even shakier as he reached to wipe at the sauce covering his face.

Wherever the sauce touched the mushrooms, the stems and caps twitched and shriveled. Steam hissed, bubbles popping along their wet surface as the lukewarm liquid wreaked havoc on them. Burnt, dried-out stems fell from between his lips and crumbled against the floor.

A rather large mushroom broke free, falling to the floor. Owen let out a gasp. The sudden breath was heavier than what he had managed since the mushrooms appeared, and it triggered a cough. The same kind of heavy, burdened, full-body cough Owen had been struggling with for so long now. Scott could see flecks of hot sauce get sucked in from the edges of Owen’s lips, and full splatters of reddish-orange peppered the walls as the air was forced back out. He was gripping his throat again, but it wasn’t the desperate, clawing grasp from before.

With each cough, more and more blackened bits came tumbling from his mouth. With each cough, his chest expanded more and more. He managed to pull in more air. Let out more ragged breaths.

Bek and El’s grips on Scott’s shoulders tightened when Owen collapsed down onto his knees, shoulders stooped, and his stomach heaved. Scott didn’t react. Only watch. He had been around Owen’s vomiting spells longer than the two girls. He watched the puddle of bile and fleshy lumps that spread across the floor with cold recognition.

The chunks of what he now recognized to be mushroom pieces bubbled and boiled in the puddle, withering away amidst the swirls of undigested orange hot sauce.

Owen heaved again. And heaved. He kept going until there was nothing left, and even then he dry-heaved once or twice before he fell back into a weak cough. It was an exhausted cough. One that barely even managed to shake the rat’s shoulders. One that made his elbows waver as he tried to hold himself up off the messy floor. A few more flecks of orange and teal fell from his lips.

The coughing stopped.

It felt like an eternity passed in the time Scott, El, and Bek sat there, watching Owen pant. They were holding their breath. Didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t react in any way, as if the moment was so jagged and sharp that any change might cause it to break. Or to break one of them.

But if nobody broke the moment, than there was no way to know if it could be fixed.

“O-Owen?” Scott flinched as the sound of his own voice startled him. It cut through the quiet like a knife. He would have reached out to his friend. Risked that bit of movement, but Bek caught his wrist before he could go far.

Both she and El held him back. Their eyes were brimming with fear and concern, both emotions warring over what was best. Should they help Owen? Stay away from him?

“Are you back to feeling like yourself?” Bek asked carefully.

Owen looked up.

Orange, teal, orange, teal, orange, teal…

“I…” He took a deep breath. A small, tired smile pulled on the corners of his mouth as the flicker in his eyes finally guttered out. “I feel better…”

Thump!

Owen’s shaking arms finally gave out. He slumped down to the floor. Eyes fell closed. His body went still outside of the rise and fall of his chest.

And for the first time in a long time, Owen’s breathing sounded normal to Scott’s ears.

#mcythorrorgiftexchange #horror #body horror #mcyt fanfiction #rats smp #scott smajor #owengejuicetv #bekyamon #soupforeloise #alternate universe canon divergence #hurt/comfort #and then some more hurt #sickfic #vomiting #nonconsensual body modification #mind manipulation #unconventional use of hot sauce #embedded art #it's at the end

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