Chapter Text
Ranboo didn't know where he was, or why he was there, all he knew was the forceful kick to his side that flung him into the cell and he heard a key screech in a grate as the door was slammed and locked, and angry echoes of a voice coming through his thoughts. He couldn't remember what he had done to deserve this, being locked in a dark, dank room, and lay trembling on the cold stone floor with his hands still raised protectively over his head. He couldn't remember he couldn't remember he couldn't remember- breathe in and out, in and out, slowly, yes, that was better. All he had to do was remember where he was, why his master(yes!) had thrown him in here, and what to do.
He could figure out the first two things pretty easily after he had calmed down and unraveled his pent up body from the floor, but the third was tricky. As he leaned his head against the smooth stone wall, he realized that his ear was throbbing very painfully, and his nose sparked with pain when he wiggled it. Hmm, let's see, he was in one of the normal holding cells that his master would normally put the slaves in when they had disobeyed, and he was lucky that it wasn't the usual one he got put in whenever he had panic attacks-. He stopped his thought on that. The reason for his being there was that the way he had groomed the horse and cleaned up the stall wasn't to his master´s satisfaction(?). He thought so, but his brain wouldn't let him remember the details clearly.
Ranboo squeezed his eyes together and brought his hand up to his face, brushing his nose and letting out a soft whimper of pain as his hand came away with some sticky fluid on it that he didn't recognize as blood at first. He was very skinny for someone his age, but nobody cared for the half-breed, he rarely got fed, and he was generally met with disgust. It didn't help that the enderman part of him enhanced his skinny-ness.
Now he remembered! Master had been very angry because today special guests were coming over and everything had to be as nice as possible! In his eavesdropping on conversations behind closed doors, he had gathered that there were going to be at least four of them, 2 being very special and important. Ranboo nodded to himself, yes that was right. After a moment of silent pondering(if it hadn’t been silent before), he shifted his position against the wall and pinched his nose with his fingers to stop it from bleeding. Master didn't want a bloody slave in front of his guests now did he.
After who knew how long, the door to his cell creaked open and silhouetted against the bright light from the hallway stood Master. Master walked in, roughly jerking Ranboo to his feet, explaining mockingly like he was a very small child, that Ranboo was to be a servant for the dinner, and that he was to dress in nice clothes(better than the ones he had on now) and that he would not tolerate any misbehavior of any kind. Ranboo knew that tone of voice and quickly nodded his head, not wanting to be beaten again. Master showed Ranboo the room where he was to change into better clothes, and left him there with a silent warning. The clothes laid out before him were much fancier than Ranboo was used to, and he stared at them in shock, his brows furrowing together in confusion. Surely, no slave was allowed to wear these? Yet Master had told him to wear them, so these people must be of great importance.
Hesitantly, he slipped into the clothes, a little big for him, since he was so skinny, (stupid Ranboo, being stupid and misbehaving and not getting his normal share of food) and stood admiring himself in the mirror for a while. He wore a light, crisp white shirt with a red tie and black jacket and pants. Sort of like a three-piece suit! Wait, what WAS a three-piece suit? Ranboo shrugged to himself and turned around, not liking how his tail stuck out awkwardly from the pants, but thankfully the jacket was big enough to cover the way his tail made the pants sag down in the back.
Soon after, when Ranboo was sitting on the counter, swinging his legs, one of the higher ranking slaves poked her head in the door and announced for Ranboo to follow her. She showed her what he was to do, and he nodded, keeping silent and trying to remember everything she said. It would be very bad if he forgot something important he was supposed to do, but most of his tasks were just to stand around and look nice and answer to his Master. Waiting around as the servants gathered together and spoke in low whispers, Ranboo felt like he wanted to curl up on himself, as he stood at least a foot taller than most of the people in the house and everyone always seemed to look at him because he was the tallest.
The sound of talking came from outside the room as the guests arrived, and everyone fell silent, waiting for their respective cues, not wanting to upset their aggressive master. A couple of claps came from the room linked to this one, and Ranboo along with several others of his Master's unique specimens opened the door and walked silently out into the room, taking up their positions.
Ranboo stared at the floor, not daring to look up, but he could feel one dark red gaze boring into him, and his tail twitched. He fiddled with his claws as his Master pointed each of them out to the guests, his claws having long ago been filed down to their core to avoid him scratching people, and were only halfway grown back. Coming out of his trance in fiddling with his claws, he saw his master point to him and start explaining how he had gotten Ranboo. Ranboo looked up so the guests could see him clearly and his ears flicked as he tried not to start and flinch at his Master's words.
When his natural curiosity took over he finally noticed what the guests looked like. There were five of them, two sitting close beside each other, one with blonde hair, the other with brown, a third with massive jet black wings (which Ranboo couldn't help but admire and step on his tail to stop it from moving), the fourth, a young adult with curly brown hair and glasses. The fifth was the one that Ranboo assumed made everything important. He was dressed fancily, almost like a king, and even wore a crown, but he had deep red almost black eyes that would drill into you and pick you apart like... like...
Ranboo's eyes snapped over to his master and realized it had been ten minutes since Master had showcased them and that Master wanted Ranboo to go get something. He hesitantly stepped towards the door which earned a glare from Master, so he hurriedly walked where his legs took him, towards his Master's work room. Nobody was usually allowed in there, but Ranboo felt like Master had wanted him to get something from here. With shaking hands, scared of what would happen if he brought back the wrong thing, he opened the door and walked around the room. On the desk to one side was a neat stack of papers and written letters clipped together with a paperclip. That looked important!
He hesitantly picked up the neat stack of papers, making sure none would fall out. He passed the kitchen and heard the other slaves murmuring to each other about how important the guests were as they cooked. He entered the room and cringed slightly as the guests turned to look at him. He slowly approached his master and hesitantly held out the stack of papers, praying that he had retrieved the right thing, his heart pounding in his throat. Master took the stack of papers from him without giving him a glance, and started to leaf through them, frowning as he came to the end, his eyes smoldering even more as he looked back through the sheets. Ranboo stood frozen, his heart beating wildly in his little chest as his master turned to him. Master grabbed Ranboo's arm, yanking him down to eye height and whispered in his ear in a threatening voice.
"Where are the reports."
Ranboo's legs quivered as his instincts told him to take himself far away from this man, into the other corner of the room. He looked in desperate confusion around at the room, gaze landing on the walls, door, the man with wings, who seemed very attentive, and the blonde boy who sat fiddling with his hair like he was bored. He opened his mouth, exposing his fangs, which he normally didn't do, and closed it again, severely unsure as to what to do. That was a mistake. Master gripped his wrist hard, and twisted his arm so much that Ranboo was nearly bending to one side, and he could feel heat rising behind his eyes. He couldn't cry, not in front of the new guests, especially not in front of Master.
"I- I don't know sir," Ranboo replied quietly, choking back a whine rising in the back of his throat. The pressure on his wrist vanished, but as soon as he looked up a fist smashed against the side of his face, sending him stumbling backwards, hand to his face, tripping on the floor, feeling the blood trickling down from his nose. His nose was bleeding again, and the heat behind his eyes grew to an intense fury, and he choked back a sob, covering his nose and mouth with both hands, cringing backwards. His breath came in quick, short gasps, not even enough to fill his tiny lungs, and he struggled to breathe. He was weak, surely normal people didn't have this much trouble breathing when people made their noses bleed. There was a shocked silence, and then the first drop of blood from Ranboo's nose fell on the floor. All of a sudden there was a commotion, he heard a chair screech back from its place, vaguely saw the blonde boy standing up shouting at Master, the winged person both trying to calm Tommy down and stealing glances at Ranboo, and the important man still seated at his chair, quite and still as death.
Little stars danced around Ranboo's vision as he struggled to breathe, panting until he was lying on the floor curled up, surely the guests were fine with this, and their yelling just meant that they were laughing, having fun in his pain. He didn't want to get put back in the special room he didn't want to get put back in the special room want to get put back in the special room back in the special room special room- Ranboo opened his eyes as something touched his skin, scrambling back, breath hitching in his throat as tears threatened to spill from his eyes. The young brown haired boy was sitting next to him with a weird look on his face, as the blonde boy continued to shout at Master. The young teenager extended a concerned(?) hand towards Ranboo's face and he violently scrambled backwards, slamming the back of his head on the wall, not wanting the boy to touch him, no more hurting today no thank you Ranboo was perfectly broken without it.
Black crowded around at the edge of his vision, he normally got dizzy like this in his bad panic attacks, and there really was nothing to do about it except wait. He panted with half-closed eyes, forgetting about the boy next to him, still trying and struggling to draw breath, and faintly heard his master angrily shout something like, "He’s yours", and the blonde boy shout some slur back at him. He heard the thud of feet against the floor and yellow hair bobbed into his vision.
"Geez man, you alright?" The question made Ranboo's eyes snap open. Who was talking? Were they talking to him?!? He noticed the two young teenagers squatting next to him, and made some garbled sound at the back of his throat, churning his legs, wide-eyed, to move himself farther away from the hurt.
"Hey, come back!" This noise from the blonde boy made Ranboo's pupils dilate to little slits and his tail whipped around him like some cat protecting its kittens. Ranboo scooched as far away from the people as he could before his back hit the wall and his legs gave out, lying before him, trembling.
"What the heck, man!?" Ranboo couldn't breathe, they were going to hit him after all, he had been bad, and disobeyed their orders, he was a slave and should be punished. Through his haze of thoughts he heard a brusk conversation being held between multiple voices.
"Tommy!" An exasperated sigh followed this.
"Wh- what?! Why did he run away?"
"Tommy, I had just-"
A new voice interjected, deep and rough, and with little sign of emotion. "Do you like it that much?"
"What do you mean? He just got beat up by that stupid little p-" The voice was presumably smothered by a hand.
"I feel bad for him, he didn't really do anything wrong did he." Oh, but he had. He had been a stupid little moron slave.
The deep voice again. "We can take it home if you want."
Silence followed and for some reason Ranboo could tell the muscular man with the cape was staring at the winged man.
Another sigh. "Sure, Tubbo looked like he liked 'im right?"
"Oh, yes!"
"What do you think Will?"
"Eh. Why not. He's not really getting treated nice here is he."
Ranboo's mouth was filling with blood and as he tried to breathe he kept inhaling some of his own blood, and as the winged person came over to him, he looked up, and proceeded to choke on the blood from his nose that had trickled its way into his mouth.
A hand reached for him, black curling around behind him and gently lifting him up, waiting for him to stop coughing before moving off again. Still surrounded in the warm-cool darkness, it wasn't at all like the room he used to be put in, dark and musty. This darkness seemed bright, if darkness could be bright. He heard quiet murmuring that kept fading in and out of his hearing. At one point he opened his eyes, to make sure that they weren't taking him back to the cells, but there were too many faces surrounding him, and his eyes felt heavy, the darkness wrapping around him like a soft cool blanket, but also one that could lash out at any time. Ranboo could faintly sense danger in the darkness, but he didn't care. He couldn't think to care, because he was suddenly asleep, falling, falling, falling.