listen puppet boy, before you disobey

[generationlost]

There's a knock at the door.

The sound is startling, makes Ranboo suddenly bolt upright from where they'd been lounging on the couch.

Knock-knock.

They pick themselves up from the couch and, as quietly as possible, they creep out of the room, searching frantically for somewhere to hide; his frame is much too long to tuck away into a cabinet or something, but he does, with some internal amusement at the joke, find a closet to tuck himself away into. Thankfully the swords in there aren't taking up too much space.

Knock knock, Dirk! There's a knock at the door!

Comments

[themostempty]

"Great. Thanks."

It's hard to tell if Dirk is being serious when he says it. But he does, in fact, get right to work, stripping the bed and bundling the entirety of what he removes into a tight ball--nastiness inside, driest part outside. He even removes the pillow cases, which haven't really beeen touched by anything obviously disgusting--and after a moment of consiideration, he pulls the mattress protector off, too, and wraps everything else up inside of it. He drops it by the door, and disappears into his closet to retrieve the makings of a whole new bed--everything but the mattress and pillows themselves.

[generationlost]

Ranboo, for their part, remains an inert lump there on the bedroom floor, watching Dirk with a quiet anger that they're much too wrung out to actually voice in any way. They don't understand why he's bothering with this. What's the point. It seems silly considering what's going on, considering that they don't even want to be here anymore. Is he trying to... ah, they can't think clearly enough to even theorize.

Regardless, they simply sit there, still and silent other than their pained breathing, waiting for Dirk to finish his task so they can at least try to sleep.

[themostempty]

Dirk's motives for making his bed when he has so many other things to worry about--a decapitated corpse in his bath tub, a mutilated severed head in his kitchen sink, an unwillingly immortal would-be suicide in his bedroom--are not that difficult to understand when you consider two things:

The first is that it's doing something. Staying busy, mentally and physically, has been Dirk's primary form of handling stress and escaping (or at least coping with) his own thoughts since he was a child.

And unlike just about everything else listed a paragraph before, he can finish this task in an immediate and satisfying way.

The second is that, unbeknownst to Ranboo, he did finally get to cum for the first time in weeks, and he's trying to fight off the impulses that come after.

And, for a strictly practical third point, it saves him a lot of work later--decontamination and evidence disposal and the fact that he is going to want a clean bed to fall into when those things are completed, and he is not going to want to spend his time trying to force hygiene on Ranboo if he can just prevent a problem ahead of time.

So he's solving problems before they become problems, and disposing of those problems that can be easily disposed of, all in one chore.

He does get it done pretty fast, though.

Even he looks tired now--not the usual existence-deep angst and exhaustion that he radiates on a good day, or something restricted to the dark lines under his eyes (he still hasn't put his shades back on)--but something else. A brief lapse of his straight-backed posture and squared shoulders. A heavy sigh, dispelling the illusion of unflagging machine-like endurance he usually hides behind.

A silence that hangs over both of them, filling the bedroom and expanding to fill the entire apartment.

[generationlost]

Ranboo's eyes are closed when Dirk returns to the room, body slumped against the beside table and some puppets that just happened to be piled there. They look absolutely pathetic, pale yet dark around their eyes, their wild hair half-flattened and yet wilder even than usual in places; at least their breathing is a touch more quiet now, slower and more even, breathing approaching that of sleep but not quite there just yet.

They want to sleep. If left alone for any longer, they certainly could fall asleep right there on the floor. The full-body and mind exhaustion eating away at their consciousness is more than heavy enough to outweigh any amount of pain or discomfort with their current position.

They don't visibly react when Dirk reenters the room, re-dresses the bed. They're so close to drifting off into the blissful void of sleep...

[themostempty]

Dirk considers forcing Ranboo up off the floor. He considers it, but ultimately, Ranboo's future back pain isn't his problem. On the contrary--his past dramatics taught him some valuable lessons about at least lying flat, or sitting up, or otherwise accounting for the fate of the future self he can't escape becoming. It's a learned skill, though. One painful lesson at a time, until the weight of those lessons is sufficient to shift even the most deranged episodes of hate and grief, or sharpening the point until it penetrates the most vitriolic, forced-submission spite at being alive.

So, he leaves Ranboo there to learn a lesson, and to keep them from being wholly dependent on him to hold their hand through this... well, episode. That's how he thinks of it. An episode.

He isn't heartless, though. He really isn't. The pathetic crumple of a man on his floor angers him in a way he can't place--like Ranboo's exhaustion is somehow spiting him. Instead of being insane about it, he chooses to try and solve Ranboo's feelings.

Which he does via perhaps the least easily-explained gesture possible: carefully selecting two puppets (a hairy pink-and-orange muppet and a ventriloquist's dummy with absurdly long limbs and a fixed stare) and propping them up with Ranboo. The muppet he tucks against their body as though Ranboo's a sleeping child, and the ventriloquist's dummy he places in the space where Ranboo's arm lies, in the curve of their collapsed form.

Then, after surveying his handiwork and finding it satisfactory, he leaves the room.

[generationlost]

Ranboo awakens later, every inch of their body seeming to ache and burn in some way or another; it isn't until they move that they realize that they've been given some "company."

It's utterly baffling to them. Is Dirk trying to make fun of them or something...? Why the hell would he set them up with puppets like this...?

Their body aches too much to do anything dramatic, like picking one up and throwing it; Ranboo settles for knocking the one leaned against their arm over, and that satisfies them for now, anyway. He'll need a lot more rest before he can do anything more intense.


The days pass slowly, at first, and Ranboo spends much of them in a haze, sleeping and only awakening when Dirk forces them to; usually, it's to eat some kind of food, or to drag their aching body to the bathroom to tend to it however they're able. Dirk, inexplicably but somehow not surprisingly, "volunteers" to help with that aspect, whether Ranboo wants him to or not.

To Ranboo's surprise, though, he never tries to turn it into anything else; in fact, Dirk behaves himself far better than Ranboo's ever seen, at least sexually. They're quietly grateful for that fact-- for more than just the obvious reasons. Their body seems to've been very badly affected by the repeated deaths, the pain taking a lot of time, rest, and some very reluctant and borderline agonizing stretching to finally begin to fade from their muscles. Their breathing has taken on a touch of a wheeze at times, and they seem to get winded and dizzy easily; their heart and lungs are still in the process of healing, as well.

Their mind, likewise, recovers slowly; yet the days of hazy numbness gradually do give way to a more focused kind of misery, a depression and hopelessness that weighs almost physically on their body and mind. There's no escape from this-- not even death can free them. The first day that Ranboo's mind returns enough for them to fully process this realization, they lay in bed and weep, only stopping when they've exhausted their body's ability to create any more tears.

It takes a while.

[themostempty]

Dirk, for his part, was... not expecting this to be such a long haul project. He honestly expected Ranboo to get over himself in a few days. But it became apparent quickly that whatever was wrong with him wasn't just in his head. Or rather, it might have been, but it was a physical problem with his head and not just him wallowing in his emotions.

Ranboo stumbled. He slurred. He was sluggish and confused. There was a strained element to his breathing. Dirk was, honestly, a little afraid he was going to die.

He couldn't stand for that. Not after everything he'd done for him. Not after how much work, how much time, how much care he'd put into him. He wasn't letting Ranboo go without a fight. He wasn't letting Ranboo go. He was going to fight it. Whatever 'it' was.

So, he carried him to the bathroom. He checked on him while he slept, and woke up during the night to check on him. He researched nutrient dense foods in a way different from the way he loaded his own foods, studied metabolism and bioavailability, and woke Ranboo up to make him eat, even if "eating" meant "forcing him to drink Dirk-original smoothies concocted for their benefits to the body, taste be damned."

If it came to it, he was even willing to bribe Ranboo--if he was too fucked up for sex, maybe he could sway him by offering to buy him a candy bar.

Finally, there came a day when it seemed the dam broke. Dirk was home when the crying started. He could hear it, back there in the bedroom. It went on for seemingly hours; sometimes quiet enough that he could basically ignore that it was happening, or even start to wonder if it was over, sometimes loud enough to make the tension he was forcibly ignoring awkward on top of stressful.

He did not go in the room until things had quieted down, this time seemingly for good.

When he finally does, it's... weird. He doesn't know what to do about all that. He doesn't know whether he should have come in here at all, frankly. He stands silhouetted in the doorway for a good minute or so, staring wordlessly at Ranboo's ragged, weakened form on his bed.

Then, slowly, he walks up and sits stiffly on the edge of the mattress, his back to Ranboo. He still doesn't speak, silently hoping that Ranboo will say something first.

[generationlost]

Ranboo is quiet, other than their strained, painful breathing, rasping at the edges still with a touch of a wheeze. He feels hollow, as if he's cried out everything inside of him and is now left empty.

Dirk's presence, however, brings flutterings of thought back into his otherwise empty head.

Ranboo thinks they might hate him.

Dirk took advantage of them. Dirk gave them their first place of supposed safety, and then took it away all at once, with one selfish, violent act. And now, Dirk won't even let them die, instead forcing them to survive, to endure and it's all so unnecessary. It's not like someone is looking for them, or like they have anyone left to go looking for. What kind of life exists for them out here now? What could Dirk possibly have planned for them once they're healthy again?

Well. They have a fair idea of at least one use he has for them, and the concept of it, of being kept alive just to be used for that, makes their stomach turn. That can't... be it. Right? Would Dirk go to all this trouble to keep them alive just to use as a toy to play with? It could simply be an issue of control-- something that Dirk definitely struggles with.

"... what do you... want from me?"

His voice is weak, but stronger than before now, the thoughts behind the words more steady and coherent than they've been in days.

[themostempty]

He's so relieved that Ranboo did speak first that he doesn't even care that the question is a stupid one. He lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding--although his body doesn't relax at all.

"You keep asking me that," he says, which isn't an answer. "But you never believe anything I say when I telll you. I don't know what you wanna hear." He glances back at them, just for a second. Then he tuurns around again, staring at his own doorway. On some level, he just wonders what he's doing. Why he's trying so hard. He knows the answer, obviously. But why? Why is he like this? Why is this the only answer?

"I'm doing this for you."

[generationlost]

Ranboo frowns, pressing their face further into the pillow, long frame curling up more tightly there in the center of the bed. Just a little bit.

"... it doesn't make any sense," they murmur. "I don't want any of this. I don't want you to do this for me. Why don't you just... let me die?"

They heave a sigh, suddenly seeming exceptionally small in the bed where they're curled up tight-- almost more like a child than the young adult they truly are.

"It would be a whole lot easier for you. Like... whatever you want from me, it can't be worth all this."

[themostempty]

"Yeah." Dirk doesn't disagree.

"I knew this was going to be a hassle, but you've really pushed the limits of what I've got to give." He realised at some point that this is what his bros must have been through with him. Only it would have been years. A decade and a half of this, and worse. That made it easier, somehow. If they could do it, so could he. Pay it forward, or something.

Framing it that way sounds a hell of a lot better than 'refusing to let go.' But he committed to this.

"I told you not to make it easy for them. Remember? You don't get to tap out because that's their win. You keep telling me you want to die, but I know you don't want them to win. You looked me in the eye when I took bolt cutters to that mask because you'd rather have died free than live with their prison on your fucking face. But you didn't die there. You got to live. Now that's your responsibility, here. I keep you alive, you live, Showfall pisses their little pants in fury, we all keep going until one or the other loses for real. That's the game. I'm playing too, here. And I'm on team Ranboo."

[generationlost]

... that's right.

It feels like it was a lifetime ago now. Ranboo, beaten half to death, sprawled on Dirk's floor as the latter carefully cut away the mask-- let them feel fresh air on the face for the first time in... they don't know how long. How that felt-- freedom. For a single soaring moment, they felt free.

And then reality came crashing down around them.

Even so, that moment of recollection, of perspective does quiet Ranboo down finally-- their gaze drops thoughtfully, some of the anger fading from their face, instead replaced with something more thoughtful, almost sad.

"... yeah," they finally say, their voice softened now at its edges, lacking the wounded, angry edge from before. "Yeah. Okay."

It isn't a sarcastic response in the least. It's easy to feel like this must be hell... but the reminder of what they were running away from, of what came before is grounding. This might be hell for a regular person, but... for Ranboo, it's still, comparatively, freedom.

The sick pit of anger and disappointment still lingers, the pain of Dirk's betrayal of their trust... but at least they aren't trapped inside of the mall any longer. At least there's that.

[themostempty]

"Good man." Dirk voices his approval the only way he really knows how. Praise, the way he'd want to hear it.

He doesn't relax now, either, but he's glad to see Ranboo letting go of some of his... whatever it is that has him convinced that his is a tortured existence. Which it is, maybe. But it's not that bad, from where Dirk is sitting. Ranboo just isn't conditioned to it, yet. The looming threat of losing for real, knowing that it's coming, that it will come sooner or later and there's nothing you can do about it except push it back. To fight against it until ultimately you go to fight it and this time it wins.

It's not a great life, but for Dirk, that's what life is and he's always known that. It's less fair in Ranboo's case, though. As far as Dirk can tell, nothing about Ranboo earned this, or warrants it at all. He's never done anything except want to be free. Free from something he doesn't seem to have agreed to, and Dirk doesn't see anything inherently present in Ranboo that suggests it's needed or deserved. Maybe that's what keeps sticking in Ranboo's brain. The unfairness.

But if so, that's just... too bad. There's nothing anyone can do about that.

He sighs, tired of thinking about this already. Holding out until Ranboo stopped crying was bad enough.

"You ready to eat something? Or do you need to talk about your feelings some more?"