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hum--hallelujah · 1 year ago

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don't want to kill time like it doesn't matter - 3.5k words, (platonic) funkobra hurt/comfort

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Ghoul is actually younger than Kobra. They always forget it though.

At least, they usually do.

Kobra's stopped shooting upright and reaching for his blaster whenever someone wakes him up at night. Stopped two years ago, honestly, when him and Ghoul started sharing a room. That was a collective decision that is very much not discussed. It left the old office as a perfect room for the Girl, in the end. Between Ghoulie and Girlie, the former of whom has wild, sleepless tendencies and the latter liking to scramble her way into bed with somebody else every other night of the week, Kobra's knee-jerk reaction has become more of a lack of reaction.

"Yo," hisses a pitchy voice. It's dead daylight, the heat of the day. This is the time of the year when you sleep while the sun's up, wait until the darkness falls to do anything or else it's too miserable or too dangerous. "Kobes."

Kobra utters a verbose "Hrrmngg?" and rolls over. He cracks an eye open to see Ghoul standing at the end of his bed. If it hadn't been light out, he'd be doing a good job of living up to his name. His hands are shaking, but when aren't they?

"You good, man?" Kobra asks groggily. He's half awake, half asleep, drifting in between the two states of being. Ghoul is shifting his weight back and forth on his feet. It makes the floor creak. It makes him look even smaller than he is. "Ghoulie?" He mumbles again when he gets no reply.

Ghoul makes a noncommittal half-whispered sound. "Wanna go for a joyride?" He asks instead of an answer.

Kobra blinks himself more fully awake and pushes up on one elbow. "Mirage or the 'Am?"

Ghoulie shrugs. Won't meet his eyes. Oh shit, that's not good. Something's got him worked up. It's too late for this. This is why they share a room now. They didn't used to, but Kobra refuses to let him sleep alone anymore. Kobra knows how he got that wicked scar that runs from the corner of his mouth nearly to his eye.

"Either," Ghoul says. "Doesn't matter much to me."

"Mirage," Kobra decides. He'll never say no to a late-night joyride. Not this kind. Party'll have his neck for sneaking out on the bike without letting anyone know, but the 'Am is too conspicuous when strange crews are out and from the look of him, riding double on the motorcycle will be good for Ghoul.

It's still too hot to be out. But going for a spin won't take too much exertion, getting to someplace with shade, so long as it's away from here, won't take too long. Ghoul's gonna get sunscorched. Maybe that's the point. While Kobra covers up with his jacket, Ghoul is still in the loose, half-covering clothes he sleeps in.

The sun glints painfully off the sand when they climb quietly out the window. No reason trying to get past Party when they've got an exit right here. Ghoul clambers out first with a probably accidental but surprisingly graceful roll and then flinches, violently, when Kobra jacket catches on what's left of the glass in the window and he tumbles haphazardly to the ground. They both hold still for a long dozen seconds, Kobra staring at the diner wall and straining to tell if anyone heard them, and Ghoul staring at Kobra and shaking.

When Party doesn't come along, eyes glinting with annoyed amusement, and yell at them for sneaking out, Kobra sits up and checks the hem of his jacket where it caught on the sharp edge. "Great," he mutters when he sees the tear in the lining. He'll have to sew that back together later. "Ghoul, you good?"

Ghoul shrugs and stands up. "Aren't I always?"

"No."

They stare at each other for a few seconds while Kobra rubs his palms together to clear the sand off them and reaches into his pocket for his gloves. "You're wearing a helmet," he says flatly.

Ghoul rolls his eyes and sneers. It crinkles the scar running up his face. "No way."

"Fine." Kobra doesn't push. Half the time he doesn't even wear his helmet. He's the driver. He'll keep them safe. It was worth a try, though. "Come on."

The heavy bay door of the garage makes too much noise to open without being caught. They slip in the side door and Kobra brings Mirage carefully back through it. He wears a helmet this time. Ghoul stands and waits, bouncing impatiently on the balls of his feet, while Kobra starts the bike and, out of habit, does a couple checks.

"You ready?" Kobra says, with the visor of his helmet flipped up.

Ghoul grins, but it's lacking in heart. So often, Kobra thinks he's not all there. So often, Kobra thinks this is his best friend. "Born that way," he replies.

"Come on then," Kobra says and nods for Ghoul to get on the bike with him. "Hey, hey. Hey, Ghoulie-" he says, when Ghoul is standing right at his shoulder, about to throw a leg over Mirage and climb on. "You okay?" He asks again, because he needs to know how safe any of this is.

Ghoul doesn't respond. Just settles himself behind Kobra and wraps his arms, tight, around Kobra's middle. Kobra stays there a second, until he's sure Ghoul's grip is solid, so that he can feel Ghoul breathing against his back, before he kicks off. He doesn't care if Party and Jet wake up now, they won't catch them. The bike's tires kick up a fountain of sand as he spins a loop, leaning into the turn until Mirage tilts close enough to the ground that Kobra could touch the sand if he reached out. Ghoul asked for a joyride. This is that.

"What the hell, man?!" Ghoul yells over Kobra's shoulder, muffled by the engine noise and his helmet. Kobra feels Ghoul's hands grab at the fabric of his shirt as he pulls around the first turn, bringing them around the back of a sand dune at full speed.

"Trust me?" Kobra shouts back. He's getting into it now, relaxing into each wide, showy swerve and fishtail. He slows down just a bit when he can feel Ghoul's fingernails start to bite into his skin. It makes him edgy when Ghoul is like this.

Ghoul sniffs sharply. "Well, yeah, but I've seen you crash out enough times at the track-"

"Aw, shut up," Kobra snaps back, without venom. Ghoul's his mechanic. He's seen his best wins and worst losses. "Where you wanna go?" He asks, after a few random turns, just drifting around in the sand. Ghoul is quiet. Kobra reaches back with one hand and smacks him on the leg after awhile. "Ghoulie, where we goin'?"

"I'm thinki-" Ghoul cuts himself off and when he speaks again his voice is flat and so quiet Kobra has to strain to hear him. "Turn right up here."

There's the remains of a road cutting across their path and Kobra hops Mirage up onto it, swings right and follows the pavement. Ghoul's grip around his chest has loosened, but Kobra can feel the fast, shallow rhythm of his breathing and the shaking of his hands even still. The road goes on for ages, long enough that it starts to feel infinite. This must have been a highway, back before the wars and BL/ind. At some point, Ghoul leans forward and puts his forehead against the back of Kobra's neck. Kobra can feel him pressed just below where his helmet sits.

"Get off at this turn," Ghoul mumbles suddenly, but not soon enough because Kobra completely overshoots the exit. He flips around the empty lanes of the highway, admittedly showing off mostly just to make himself feel better.

The group of buildings along the former highway off-ramp isn't really a ghost town. It's a cluster of old stores and restaurants, like the diner but mass produced, and down at the end is an ancient truck stop and gas station. Kobra slows the bike to a crawl as they drive down the street, struck with an eerie sense of deja vu. He's been here before. They both have.

He pulls over and stops in the middle of the road, beside what used to be a coffee store. Coffee is usually made in the form of compressed, dried out shots now, called Motor Juice in the Zones when rehydrated. They don't have coffeeshops in the City. They have prescriptions.

Ghoul is off the bike and Kobra's back suddenly cold even under the heat of the sun before Mirage even comes to a full stop. "Ghoul-" Kobra snaps, angry for reasons he can't even say and unsettled in ways he doesn't want to. This is a ghost town. Just not in the normal way. "Ghoul. What are you-"

But Ghoul is walking away, his back to Kobra and the bike as he moves toward the gas station as if it's a magnet and he's the blade of a knife, trembling so hard with the pull that it might break. Kobra hesitates, then swings his leg over Mirage and bumps out the kickstand. Ghoul is standing stock still, or as still as he can, on the faded pavement of the gas station parking lot. Kobra's glad it's faded. He doesn't want to see the bloodstains.

Ghoul looks small as he approaches, absolutely miniscule. He's got his arms wrapped tight around himself and Kobra can hear the harshness of his breathing even from several strides away. He doesn't want to get too close too fast. Ghoul's enough like a wild animal that it could turn out badly, and Kobra for once really doesn't want to fight him today. Not out here, at least.

They're within two years of each other, Kobra and Ghoul. They usually forget they're not the same age. But right now Ghoul looks so small and so, so young and Kobra doesn't know what to do.

"Gh- Ghoul. Ghoulie." Kobra calls carefully, stumbling over his tongue. He clamps his teeth together, takes a deep breath. "Ghoul."

Ghoul doesn't turn, doesn't look away from the door into the gas station he'd been found in, back when Kobra and Poison and Jet were a crew of three and Ghoul'd been even more feral than he is now. The gas station where Ghoul watched his entire family die and he was helpless to do anything about it. He still thinks he hadn't done enough. Kobra knows that. Ghoul always thinks he didn't do enough. That one kid with a blaster and wild eyes could take down a full squad of Dracs and two Crows.

Kobra doesn't know how to tell him that if he'd tried, he would be dead too. Kobra doesn't know how to tell him he's glad he didn't. When it comes down to it most, Kobra finds he can't speak.

"Ghoulie," he says again. "Hey. Hey." He moves closer, pulls off the helmet he'd almost forgotten he still has on. "Ghoul," he tries, one more time, as gently as he knows how even though it's not that gentle. He's never been good at this. Some of the scars scattered across Ghoul's body are from him. But Kobra had stitched up Ghoul's face and he's not going to give up now.

Ghoul finally turns and Kobra breathes a sigh of relief. Just a response. Proof of life even though he's still standing. And then Ghoul steps toward him and suddenly he's right there, shaking but otherwise just as eerily still as this entire place, like he's trapped in frozen time just like the rest of it, and he collides with Kobra's chest in a way that's both surprising and yet entirely expected.

"Oh." Kobra drops his helmet, dangling from one hand, and his arms hover uncertainly in the air for a moment before he carefully closes them around Ghoul. "Oh. Okay. Okay." He says quietly, startled, but not really. He'd felt the way Ghoul was holding onto him as they rode Mirage all the way out here.

Ghoul unfolds his arms from around himself and grabs onto the unzipped sides of Kobra's jacket. He doesn't cry, not out loud at least. He's just shaking, so much, and so, so small. Kobra's not good with words. He's even worse with them under pressure. Anything Jet or Party could say to make it better, that kind of stuff gets stuck on his tongue when Kobra tries to say it. So he doesn't. He just holds on.

"You plan on coming here?" Kobra asks eventually, even though he has a feeling the answer is no. Unless it's an engine or a bomb, Ghoul never really plans on much. Ghoul shakes his head, hair scrubbing against Kobra's shoulder and neck where his head's pressed. "You wanna... y'wanna go inside?" He asks then, against his better judgment. But then again, he's never been known for that, has he.

Ghoul tenses, but it momentarily stops the shaking. "Can we?"

Kobra huffs. "Nobody stoppin' us, and even if there were, we'd do it anyway, wouldn't we?"

Ghoul pries his fingers from their hold on Kobra's jacket and turns back toward the station. "Should we?"

"Dunno." Part of him thinks it might help. Part of him remembers exactly what happened the last time they were here. It's the Killjoy way to call death ghosting. It means some part of you lives on even when you're gone. There's a lot of ghosts in this pavement. "It's your-"

He can't think of what word goes there. Choice. Past. Grief. Place. So he stops talking. He shrugs, bends to pick up his helmet. "I can." He sucks a breath through his teeth. He's going to say it again. "I can... I can go with you. If you," he shrugs one shoulder again. "If you, uh, want to. I'm not- I'm not trying to force you," he adds, like it needs to be said. "It's your... yours."

Because that's all that really can be said. This place, the place that made Fun Ghoul what he is. The journey, however brief, that brought them here. Even, kinda, Kobra himself. It's all for Ghoul, here and now. Kobra drove, but he's just along for the ride. Weird how that happens.

Ghoul steps toward the station. Magnetism, again. And Kobra follows, because how could he not. He feels sick at the though of letting his friend go in that place alone.

The doors are gone. Shot out years ago. It looks to Kobra exactly as it did back then, but Ghoul probably remembers better. There are shelves toppled and glass and plastic broken all over the floor. Whatever hasn't been scavenged is broken and shattered. Ghoul walks toward the back of the store, the corner that's not so much a mess. Kobra stays back a bit, trying to give his friend space.

It's where they found Ghoul. Or, where Pois had found him. Ghoul was half in shock, terrified and scarred and fighting, and Party was the first one of their then three-strong group to notice the dark shape watching them hopelessly trawl the carnage for any survivors. It took Pois physically restraining the much smaller kid to keep Ghoul from going for all of their throats.

Kobra has a lot of bad memories of Ghoul. None are as bad as remembering the way he'd screamed when they first met.

"Y'okay?" Kobra asks after a while.

Ghoul has his moments. They all do. Sometimes, you wake up bad in the night and it's hard to pick yourself up. Sometimes you just gotta hit the bottom before you even can. But Ghoul's a fighter. "Yeah," he says, walking back and forth between fallen shelves once stocked with food and stupid trinkets. He crouches to pick up the shattered remnants of something once made of colorful glass and when he looks back over his shoulder at Kobra, he doesn't seem quite as small.

"'M sorry," Kobra mumbles, not knowing what to say now. Somehow, the shaking and the touch are so much easier than having to talk about it. He's never been the talker. That's Party. And he knows his brother regrets not getting there — here — sooner that day, but there's a sick, selfish part of Kobra that's too glad to have Ghoul to want anything different. But really, it's all he can say. If there's remnants of bones that haven't been carried away by carrion-eaters, he doesn't want to see it.

Ghoul slowly stands up from his spot on the floor, staring intently at the broken knick-knack in his palm. It might have been a glass teddy bear, once, something a parent might grab up for a child waiting at home. It's partially shattered, though. Half of its cartoonish smiling face is gone. The heart shape it once held in its paws is cracked down the middle. Kobra isn't great with metaphors, but this is pretty fucking obvious.

"I didn't save them," Ghoul says quietly, his voice grating through the charged, silent air. "I didn't save her."

Something clicks into place. They all know that the crew he lost was Ghoul's real actual biological family. He's a sandpup. He was born and raised in the Zones. He doesn't talk about it much. Kobra's shocked he even came back here, let alone with anyone else. Ghoul doesn't talk about his family, but they've all figured for a while that he had a sibling. You can see it in how he treats the Girl.

"Your sister," Kobra says. It doesn't sound like so much of a question when he says it out loud, but he knows Ghoul will understand it as one.

Ghoul nods. "Yeah." He steps over some toppled displays, sun-bleached ads that used to be bright colored, and slips the shiny piece of broken glass into one of Kobra's pockets since he doesn't have any of his own. Kobra can already see the sunburn forming on his friend's shoulders and the tops of his knees. "She was like, eight."

That's all the more he says about it, but Kobra slips his hand into the pocket and runs his fingers over the broken glass toy still warm from Ghoul's hands, and hears the years of grief and bitterness in the few words. Ghoul's more talky than he is, but he's cagey, too. Kobra can hear him, though. He gets it. Doesn't mean he knows what to say, though.

"Shit," he spits. He wants to say I'm sorry again, but that feels fuckin cheap. He wants to say stop beating yourself up about it, but that sounds even stupider. "Fuck." Sometimes that's all he can say.

"Yeah," Ghoul replies. "Fuckin shit."

"Exactly," Kobra agrees, fiercely relieved that Ghoul gets all the shit he's trying to say. "Hey, uh. Y'know I'm-" He stumbles over the words, cringes at himself for the inability to get past a stupid two-letter word. "I'm glad I know you." He manages, as selfish as it sounds standing here in the ghosted wreckage where Ghoul's family was killed. But if that hadn't happened, they wouldn't be here now. They wouldn't be friends. And Kobra needs Ghoul to know he's glad that any suicide run to save his family failed. The pain sucks, but he's grateful for the outcome. He hopes Ghoul can understand that.

Ghoul doesn't reply. His acid green eyes bore straight into Kobra's for a few seconds while Kobra's heart hammers in his chest. Then he kicks at some dust and looks at the floor and shrugs. "Let's go, man. I don't wanna stay here."

"M'kay."

Kobra's almost tempted to reach out as they walk back out into the glaring sun, grab onto Ghoul like he's a ghost, too, and the light might evaporate him. But he doesn't. He can't.

He thinks the feeling of Ghoul hanging onto him as he steers Mirage away, back up the ramp to the road they came down in the first place, will make him feel better. It doesn't. Ghoul holds on much looser than he had on the way here, and it makes Kobra nervous. He wonders if he should have made him wear a helmet, and steers more carefully around the turns.

And then Ghoul adjusts his seat and throws one arm up over Kobra's shoulder, loosely hooking around his neck. He leans up forward and shouts, "C'mon, Kobes, let's play with it!" Like he's itching for the risk that a couple hours ago had had him holding on for dear life. Kobra's used to thinking his best friend isn't all there. But he's also familiar with the times he is. Sometimes, he forgets they're not the same age because Ghoul is so larger than life.

He tips his head to the side in acknowledgement, and punches the throttle. He even pulls a couple of tight, quick loops. He can't slide on the pavement the way he would on sand, but he can catch a little air when there's a thermal bump in the highway. Ghoul clutches onto him, but it's not scared. Something's cleared up in the gas station. Maybe it was closure. Hell if Kobra knows.

When they pull Mirage off the highway and the diner finally comes back into view, just a small glint of signage, Kobra slows his pace and can feel Ghoul sigh more than he can hear it. His friend's arms stay firmly around him. "Hey, Kobes?" Ghoul says, just barely loud enough to be heard over the engine.

"Yeah?" Kobra says, a bit louder to be heard past his helmet.

Ghoul hesitates, then says in a rush, "I'm glad I know you too. Like, really glad." And then he squeezes Kobra a little tighter for just a second and Kobra can't even say anything in reply. It's been a long night at the wrong time of day. And they're almost home.

#yes I know kobra is doing that annoying ''r u ok'' thing very repetitively he's like me he repeats himself A LOT it's ok. we still love him #I cannot express this enough. kobra has a stutter. literally sometimes the only word that will come out is just. F bomb.#the others have gotten very good at translating him skskskddkfj #btw wrt kobra's speech patterns just know I'm cutting WAY back on the amount of repeating I do irl #like I'm giving him my (mild) stutter but cutting down the repetitions by a lot bc it looks weird on paper #so whenever he's repeating himself and stammering? yeah it's a lot more like a scratched CD than how I typed it out #in my head it's like SUPER noticeable. like everyone knows this happens and that sometimes he has to stop and be quiet #and take a minute before he can get on with what he's saying. it's just a thing #ok now that I'm done rambling about kobra kid having a stutter- :)#btw they're like 16 and 17 here. they are children trying to navigate these very big emotions and I love them so so dearly #next time I need to emotionally or physically hurt kobra skfjfnskdn I keep going after poor ghoul #ok I think that's all I have to say for now #she speaks!#she writes!#danger days #the true lives of the fabulous killjoys #danger days: the true lives of the fabulous killjoys #ttlotfk #kobra kid #fun ghoul #this isn't really funkobra just bc I don't actually ship ANYONE here skskfjdghkdjgfkd #I'm much more compelled by platonic relationships that are kinda the Secret Third Thing than I am by romance. so. yeah

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aaaaaaaaagenloser · 1 year ago

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(Tw: kinda transphobia? Use of it/its for a character who hasn’t declared what their pronouns are yet. Arguments over whether a character is a person or not; that ties into the pronoun thing here. Bonus points for descriptions of canon-typical gore yipeeee)

An update from after writing this: oh this. Got. This one got away from me?? I think I started this at 4 minutes past the hour. It is now 43 minutes past the hour. shitt.

Update; it is now 17 minutes after the NEXT hour. 26 minutes after th last update. I have seen god in the past hour and she shook in fear of both my power and audacity. I have lunch with my family scheduled in like 6 hours and I have not yet slept. This wasn’t meant to be as long as it is but I was possessed and this is the result. I may edit it and make it smoother later but I’ll make that a separate post, I want this sleep-deprived chunk of words to be here as like a monument to the fact that I could have been playing stardew valley during this time but I chose to do this instead

TLDR: long ass story ahead written by a sleep-deprived and hyperfixation-driven author. Who is now going the fuck to BED

“We can’t just keep it! What if it has a tracking device? It won’t let us fucking touch it so there’s no way of knowing it has one unless it leads them right to us!”

“Ok, I hear you but think. That hasn’t happened yet. It’s been about what, three days? and that hasn’t happened, and they haven’t been violent towards any of us at all. They haven’t tried to go back either, so there’s no risk of them telling or leading Showfall where we are.”

“Why do you keep calling it ‘they’?”

“Well they can’t be an “it” now can it? …wait.”

“Ok can we figure out the gender of the thing in the other room after we figure out if it’s a threat to us or not. It’s not even a fucking person, you remember what those things did to you back there, don’t you?”

“Those people were not themselves, they were just doing what he wanted them to do—“

“They’re not fucking people! Those things are all part of Showfall, just like Hetch was! It’s just waiting for the right time to turn us in, or pull some shit on one of us like they did before.”

“They weren’t… they weren’t in control.”

“Yeah like fuck they weren’t, I saw it fucking happen!”

“You can’t just… Ok. Sneeg. Stop. You don’t speak for me, the one who, oh I don’t know, was the one that shit happened to? They were being controlled just like us—“

“No, no, not like us. We were wandering around and not knowing what the fuck was happening. None of us knew what was happening. We just went along blindly. Those things—on purpose—dragged you to that stupid wall and sewed wires into your hands—“

“Shut up, Sneeg—“

“No you shut up! You didn’t see it fucking happen! I saw them and Bitchface literally hold you down until you passed out! They were fucking choking you, they fucking—they nearly fucking killed you with just their hands, that’s not a little suggestion in the back of your brain, that’s on purpose! That is fucking deliberate, that is a thing those machines chose to do! You don’t remember, you weren’t conscious when they fucking stapled you to the wall and strapped your head in—“

Sneeg glanced at Ranboo for a moment in-between pacing as he ranted, and the far away look in their sibling’s eyes shut them up immediately. Ranboo was still present, thank fuck, but they were looking at their brother like he was holding up a knife to their throat.

“Fuck, Ran, okay, okay—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… shit. Do you need Charlie?”

“You don’t know when to shut the fuck up.”

“…okay. Okay. I’m sorry. Do you need me to get Charlie?”

“No, I’m fucking fine.” It did not sound like he meant that at all. His voice was less steady than before. “I don’t want him to worry about our… hitchhiker. He’s worrying enough about… well, everything.”

“The fact that it’s here, so close to us is the reason I’m trying to get you to see, Ran. What if it turns on him? What if it does that shit to him when we aren’t there?”

“We will be there.”

“And when it tries anything, we can kill it?”

“Sneeg!”

“You wouldn’t kill it, even if it hurt our fucking brother?”

“Of course we wouldn’t keep them around if they did that, could we at least just… just leave it behind? …wait, no, they couldn’t take care of themselves. If we had to leave it behind, maybe we should…”

Silence lingered for a bit too long.

“We should what, Ran?”

“…Sneeg, I was about to say that killing it would be a mercy.” The Hero laughed. “Doesn’t that sound familiar?”

The Taken didn’t reply.

“We have to help them. I don’t… I don’t want to be on the other end of a mercy killing. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.”

“Okay. I’m—are you okay?”

“…m fine. It’s fine. Just. Can you stop acting like they’re any different from us? Please.”

“What do you want me to think then?” His voice was softer than it had been a few minutes before.

“Just assume that they… that they were someone. Just like we were before. And they didn’t… they didn’t do anything on their own, it was all Showfall.”

“Okay. Fine. Let’s assume they were controlled, they didn’t mean to, so on and so forth. Why haven’t they talked yet.”

“I don’t think any of the drones even could talk. Wait, should we really be calling them a drone—“

“Shut the fuck up, Ranboo, we have got to figure out what to do with it. It probably doesn’t even know what is happening, what the fuck does it matter what we call it.”

“It matters to me! Do you want me to call you by your title? Do you want to call me by mine? …No? Then why are we treating them like all they are is what Showfall made them? We had lives before, we were someone, so they must have been too. They might not realize it, or… or act like it, but they used to be someone. They are a whole person, Sneeg. We have to help them, we can’t just leave them behind because that would mean we are giving up on someone just like us, and we cannot give up on each other. They… they would have hurt us by now if they were going to. And Showfall hasn’t found us since… you know, which means there aren’t any more trackers.

…okay, Sneeg?”

“…okay. If it,” he sighed at the look Ran gave them, “if they try anything, we have to leave them behind. I’m not letting a dumbass puppet be the reason we get taken back.”

“If they—ok, whatever, you’re not understanding. You can’t say one of us somehow wanted to be controlled, and they’re a ‘puppet’ but those rules don’t apply to the rest of us—“

“There is not an ‘us,’ Ran! That thing isn’t like us!”

“Guys?”

A sleepy voice shut the two of them up instantly. They had a split-second conversation with their eyes before looking to their brother. ‘We aren’t done talking about this’ ‘You’e absolutely right, so later?’ ‘Later.’ ‘We’re telling Charlie nothing happened?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Ok good plan.’

“Why are you two fighting? I’m tired, can we please go back to sleep?”

“We weren’t fighting, we were…”

“…talking about plans for tomorrow. And you can go back to sleep.”

“I don’t want to be by myself.” Charlie looked at Sneeg pointedly, who sighed to Ranboo with a playfully annoyed expression.

“Well I guess I gotta go be a teddy bear again.”

“Have fun”

“Absolutely not.”

Charlie punched Sneeg in the shoulder lightly for that, who just giggled in response and led his little brother back to their room.

Which left Ran by themselves.

Some nights, he would join them, but some nights Charlie couldn’t stand to be anywhere near Ran, and the three of them had made a silent mutual agreement that Charlie trusted Sneeg more than he did Ranboo.

…Ranboo was okay with this. He wasn’t hurt by it. He didn’t cry on the nights he slept by himself.

He didn’t wish he could be the one Sneeg comforted sometimes. They were just fine.

They were fine, which is why they went to the living room where their… well. Their hitchhiker? They weren’t exactly a brother, or a sibling, more like a fourth wheel on a tricycle. Or a flyaway hair. Okay, maybe Ranboo needed to get tbr fuck to sleep, alone or not.

But he found himself in the living room, where their hitchhiker slept. Or, didn’t sleep, as they seemed to not need to. They would sit on the couch and stare idly at the tv. That was what had started the whole conversation with Sneeg in the first place; Ran wanted to leave some kind of entertainment for the fourth person so they wouldn’t be made to sit in the dark for hours. Sneeg took this remark as a perfect opportunity to explain all the reasons why the former drone should be abandoned, but Ranboo would have fucking none of it. Maybe the couch potato (shit, he really needed to come up with a name for them—) didn’t seem to sleep, barely ate, and stayed still unless actually verbally told to move, but they were still a person. Ranboo was sure of it.

Their hand wandered up to the fresh scabs where their mask had been. The fourth person had a mask, one that hadn’t been touched. Despite usually staying still, the person—(Ranboo thinks they might just call this person Couch for now. Maybe it’s not accurate, and they’re tired, but it’s something. C, for short.)

C would back away any time the others would try to get near them. And they did in fact try, but despite how creative or sneaky they got, C always ducked away. It reminded Ranboo of the drone who had followed them with a camera, always one step away and never letting the Hero get too close.

The mask turned to Ranboo, who stared back quietly. C hadn’t talked at all, so Ranboo didn’t expect them to suddenly start now. He wasn’t even sure if they understood what was said to them, but Ranboo wanted to try anyways. Better to be polite.

“Do you like the show that’s on? I think it’s called Lucy, or something. I don’t know, Sneeg said it was funny. And it didn’t seem, uh- scary or anything.”

The mask didn’t speak.

“If you want to change it, the remote’s right there, um, I showed you how to use it before. And there’s like, instructions drawn on there. You can thank Charlie for that one.”

…

“I think I’m going to head to bed.”

…

“Fuck it, can I stay here?”

The mask still didn’t speak, but the head hidden behind it tilted a bit at the sudden change in tone. Ranboo took this as an absolute win.

“So I just. I don’t want to be by myself. And I don’t think you sleep, I mean if you just sleep when everyone else is asleep that’s cool, but also if so how do you even? function? on that much sleep? It really isn’t that much but to be fair you don’t do much so maybe you don’t need it. …do you sleep sitting up? And just somehow wake up when we get close? I know, um. Sorry about that, again, we were just worried your mask had a tracker like mine used to.”

Ran laughed nervously. “I think I did convince them that it doesn’t, so that should stop now. If um. If we make you uncomfortable you still don’t have to be touched, it’s, it’s fine.”

Other than the head tilt before, there wasn’t a reply.

“Okay, since. You can’t talk, I’m just gonna… I’ll sit down beside you. On the couch. And if you don’t want me to be that close you can uh- you can leave. Or like, get up, and then I’ll leave. This is the only room with a tv, so I’ll let you stay here, but I can’t tell if you want me to be here or not, so. Okay, sorry, I’m rambling. Just… move if you want me to leave, okay?”

Ranboo waited for a response that didn’t come, then sighed. “Okay.” He kept his hands up and open while sitting down, waiting for a few moments before tucking his feet under himself to get more comfortable. “I’m just gonna stay here, okay? Like I said, just move if you want me to leave.”

The mask had tracked them to where they sat now, but the person—C—didn’t make a move to leave. Ranboo turned their attention to the tv, keeping an eye on their couch partner in their peripheral vision. During a moment of audience laughter in the show—I Love Lucy, they remembered—C turned their head back to the television as they had been before Ranboo walked in.

Seeing as how C (they needed a better name than that—) didn’t speak, this was the closest Ranboo could get to being told “you can stay here.” So they did. A few episodes later, his head was on the arm of the couch and his eyes were closed.

Five turned its attention to the Hero, who was now asleep. He had said it was a person, which was almost hilarious. And the Taken and the Hero seemed to think it couldn’t talk? They had to know it needed to be given permission first: any handler of a Drone or Prop knew that basic rule. It would wait until permission was given: it knew how to obey. It wasn’t meant to speak to a superior unless it was told it was allowed. It would wait.

…in the meantime, it studied its handler, the Hero. The other Actors, their two other handlers, called him ‘Ranboo’ but Five knew that wasn’t his actual label. The Hero was his character in the last show, and so that is who he was. Five didn’t know if Actors had a number, but he had been called the Hero in the script, and so the Hero he will be until the script changes.

It hoped to get new instructions, a new script for itself, something, soon. It was tired of simply watching the Actors go about their incredibly off-script show. It was sometimes told to participate, and since no other superiors were nearby, it had to obey its current handlers. But it was told to participate, to stir eggs, to help clean the kitchen, to attack small webs in corners with a stick with soft spikes on the end. Those sorts of things weren’t it’s usual directive, and so it found itself…

It didn’t resent its handlers. They were doing their best, and they at least knew that they were meant to give it orders. It simply wished they were familiar orders. It wished the Hero had told it to play dead, or play chase, or play camera, or caught, or prop. It would even listen if it was told to power down until needed. At least then it wouldn’t have to be conscious in this boring and unfamiliar set.

Y EA I know they probably don’t like tvs. Shhhhhh. I didn’t think about that until like. I had already written the tv part. At this moment it is 55 minutes past th hour and I want these characters to go the fuck to sleep so I can go thr fuck to sleep /lh

And yeah Five only uses “he” for glran. That is intentional. It’ll be talked about and shit later. Something about being put into a role, something about showfall being transphobic, something something I want to go to bed

Powering down = “sleeping” for a drone. Different but similar. I’ll explain how it works later?, anyway The others hav e told Five to “sleep” but it doesn’t understand because it is only ever told to “power down” so it’s like error.sleep_not_found and it stares at them like “bitch you said the wrong. Thing. You’re supposed to know how to control me so you don’t want me to power down I fucking guess” and it’s gonna be really funny after that miscommunication is taken care of.

If you remember the Five Gets A Cold And Wants To Throw Hands With Everyone post, this is wayyy before that. These motherfuckers are fresh out of showfall. Don’t ask how they got a house. I’ll figure it out

I am! Tired! I’m not proofreading this!! Goodnight please give me your thoughts if you have them. I need to know I didn’t sacrifice tbis much sleep in vain /nf /lh (I appreciate words but you are Not required to give them. Love you have a good nigt/p)

#five the genloss blorbo #let’s not talk about how many tries it took me to spell unobserved. let’s simplynot #update like 5 years into me writing this: i also cannot spell the word peepohe it would seem #that. that was meant to be the word People. you can see m #h my point stands #it is late as fuck yet I Have to make this. it has to exist so I must make it exist #I’m hamilton writing like I’m running out of time but I’m writing g #writing 51 essays in which assorted characters get the physical and/or emotional shit beaten out of them #and me running out of time is running out of sleepy. I am a sleep y man #take a break and get away says my pillow. I am Hamilton my pillow is upstate and this goddam mess of a short story I am trying to write is M #this story is Mariah Reyndolds leading me to her bed .#I haven’t slept in a while and I’m hyperfixationed on Hamilton so that metaphor makes. 0 sense #if you’re reading this far I’m so sorry. have a cookie! and fun fact an old lady held my hand and s #she said my (Very Androgynous!!) haircut is perfect. she used those words #i almost cried right then and there. genuine compliments from people make my fucking day . ok I need to go back to editing thisthing now #I wrote it. changed a plot point. started to rewrite it. changed ANOTHER plot point #so now I’ve got several s #several layers of Oh Shit I have to untangle #im. making my own goddam escape au apparently????? it won’t make any fucking sense but I will explain it later.#and! feel free to ask questions!’ and tell me if it make’s absolutely 0 sense #I do in fact want to be able to tell the story in a way you will understand. so ask questions! give a feedback! /gen /pos #I accidentally. deleted a tag so whatever I was going to say is fucking gone now. oh I think I memerbr #they are out of character ye. I’m sleepy and I’m making their escape au up as I go.#so far I have 1) the box scene was somehow Worse #2) they kidnapped Five (yippee!)#3) Charlie is the most traumatized out of the three. I don’t. I don’t know why.#I think that’s mostly because I didn’t feel like writing a conversation between Three characters. so my brain was like this :#why isn’t Charlie here? sleeping. why are these two not including him in conversation? protectiveness.#why protectiveness? he is the most upset out of the three of them and the other two have basically taken up the caretaker role. great plan #great plan hit the showers. I have reached. max tags. shit oh well back to writing tumblr says so!

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