#i haven't even watched all of the new lore but i'm gonna make it angsty anyway

[zero-cycle]

Last to know

Fundy learns the truth on a late afternoon.

“....and now that Ranboo’s dead, we no longer have to…,” Quackity explains and Fundy’s heart drops.

“What?”

Quackity interrupts himself to stare at Fundy. “The Casino opening,” he repeats. “Tuesday. I told you that yesterday already.”

“No, Ranboo’s what?”

“Dead.” Quackity sounds impatient. Brusque. Like he’s talking about customers being an annoyance, not about the death of a person.

“When?” Fundy asks and he’s not sure if he could have formulated the entire question.

“A while ago. You really haven’t been around, huh.”

“I wanted….distance,” Fundy forces himself to say and his mouth feels like it’s burning.

“During the breakout,” Quackity explains offhandedly. “Sam killed him. Turns out he didn’t have that many canon lives after all!”

He laughs a little and Fundy’s veins fill with ice.

“Why, was he important to you? I don’t remember you two being close.”

Fundy swallows around the taste of ice cream and silly summer days.

“We were in the same cabinet, Quackity,” he reminds the other.

Quackity laughs again and this time it’s bitter.

“You do remember he was a traitor, right?”

Traitor.

The word echoes in Fundy’s ears and leaves him frozen in place just like during the election, after the explosion, during doomsday.

Traitor.

Quackity had called Ranboo that, he remembers, just before the TNT hit. Schlatt spit the word at Tubbo, back during Manberg, when Fundy was too weak to do anything but cower in fear.

Wilbur had yelled it, spit flying and the shadow of his coat making him feel more threatening, when Fundy had tried to join Pogtopia.

“Aren’t we all?” he mumbles, before he can stop himself.

“What did you say?” Quackity asks and the cold tone of his voice instinctively makes Fundy flinch, expecting bottles to fly at any moment.

“It doesn’t matter.”

The words taste bitter on his tongue, like defeat and sour ash in the aftermath of a war they could never have won.

Quackity looks at him, eyes clouded with something Fundy can’t read anymore, and then tension bleeds from his shoulders. “Alright,” he says softly. “You want to take the day off?”

“Is there anything you need me to do?”

“Not really,” Quackity admits. “The opening preparations are going smoothly and you’re not needed right now.”

“Good. Thanks.”

Fundy doesn’t wait until he’s dismissed and Quackity lets him leave without another word.

It’s not true that he and Ranboo are friends.

It was true once upon a time ago, in that glorious, golden period of time where Quackity had not yet had the scar and Tubbo hadn’t yet been crushed under the weight of a presidency he never should have inherited and Wilbur had been dead underground. Eret had still been around, Niki hadn’t yet hidden her soft core behind iron walls and Fundy himself…he’d still been able to sleep.

He remembers the ice cream shop. It’d been harmless fun back then, unlike the Burger Van currently at the borders of Las Nevadas.

Their friendship didn’t last long. It died amidst the broken ruins of both of their former home while the TNT was still falling.

Fundy doesn’t like to think about that conversation and the bitterness that comes with it. Even more now that he knows Ranboo moved in with Phil and Techno after they’d screamed about their feelings and shattered their former bond even more thoroughly than Phil and Techno did to L’Manberg.

Ghost dirt clings to his hands. Did Phil enjoy the replacement grandson while he lasted, after the first one turned out to be such a disappointment?

Fundy’s feelings on Ranboo are complicated but still, he would have liked to at least know. He’s used to being the last thought, being forgotten about, being left behind - after all, if not even your own family cares to remember you, then who would? - but usually at least somebody remembered.

He doesn’t expect much.

Tubbo and Quackity would have known that he knew Ranboo, even if they didn’t remember they used to be close.

Phil could have used it as a reason to visit his grandson.

Eret would have been notified as the Ruler of the Dream SMP.

Niki used to tell him all about what the rest of L’Manberg was up to.

He laughs, a bit shrill and bitterness and resignation dripping from the sound in equal measure.

Guess he’s overestimating his own importance after all.

#fundy #itsfundy #ranboo #dsmp #nare writes #i haven't even watched all of the new lore but i'm gonna make it angsty anyway #there is not enough content for my fox boy #so he gets angstified by me instead :)