Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Clown had asked him join him as he trained.

how could he say no?

They were- at least he would say- friends, not just allies.

Branzy wondered if this meant he would be getting involved, trained in combat (even if he wasn’t exactly willing to do that against clown, but who knows?) or just watching. Whatever happens at least he was safe from the harm of others. The only person he had to worry about was clown, who could simply choose to strike him down at any moment. He wouldn’t do that though, at this point he was sure! He wasn’t sure that Clown wouldn’t just beat him up during training, but eh; deadliest players protection from everyone or the rest of the server and deadliest player against you. What choice is that. Plus, getting beat up meant clown would get him a healing potion or lunch without being asked. As with any time he was invited to do something stupid and definitely dangerous.

Come on, by this point they were friends, and quite close friends at that. He checked his communicator, Clown said he was going to show up and then they would go somewhere remote and ‘train’, thinking about it now, Clown hadn’t said much about what training it was going to be, maybe clown wanted to train himself on redstone. 

Yea no. Clown was likely not doing that.

a message appeared, ‘I’m two minutes away’

he typed out a reply ‘I’ll meet you outside,’

he walked out into the blinding sunlight and spread out his wings, flapping them once and-

“Clownpierce- where are you?” His voice echoed through the forest without answer, if he had to find the other, this would take a while. Not like they both didn’t have plenty of time to do so.

He walked back to the house, sharp eyes scanning each tree. Another buzz from the communicator, another picture, this time from the side, he turned his eyes that way but saw nothing, he traced a path across the forest, yet no clown.

Another buzz. This one was really close, either Clown had zoomed in, or he was effectively breathing down Branzy’s neck right now. His wings puffed up at the thought of danger.

He kept his eyes on the communicator and saw another photo, again from close to behind him, this one had a caption; do these pictures creep you out branzy craft?

“No,”

He looked over his shoulder expecting a scythe to be pressed against his throat, maybe even just clown standing there, but no, neither, just empty forest.

He turned back and- “hello branzy,” Clown said, mask tilting to the side.

“Clown! Didn’t see you there,”

Clown hummed and branzy smiled at him for a moment. Only a moment until he decided he had enough of the stupid gloves as a whole and started removing them.

That was so much better.

“So, where are we headed?”

“Just follow me,”

He put on his elytra, “we’re flying?!” Branzy asked happily and outstretched his wings entirely, splaying them behind him.

As clown got his rockets ready, Branzy took off and gained some height, doing a few short loops. As soon as Clown was in the air he followed, he let the air currents allow him to glide as he waited for clown to go in whichever direction he intended. The heat had subsided now they were in the middle of a gust of air.

They started gliding somewhere, with clown in the front, using fireworks every so often. They fell into a rhythm, they’d go from being in line to clown using a rocket to boost forwards, then branzy would surf where the trail of the firework remained before speeding up to catch up, either going above or below Clown as he went back down to a normal speed.

“Down there,”

Clown dived and branzy joined him, wings carrying him smoothly to the ground as Clown had to take a few circles to slow down enough.

A snowy biome?

A SNOWY BIOME!

He picked up some snow, it was so fluffy. He compacted it and hurled it at Clown, it hit his arm.

And then he realized he threw a snowball at the Clownpierce.

His head cocked. Haha, time to go fly again.

He took off again, the air was not being pulled under his wings fast enough. He saw some snow about to hit him in the middle of the eyes. He tucked his wings and just missed it, spreading his speckled wings and speeding up to not get hit.

It was tough because Clown was following his every wing beat; running at pace with him, he had to take sharp angles to not be hit. He hadn’t yet failed, but he almost felt one clip one of his flight feathers. Oh shit.

He switched directions before another hit him, diving for a tree and hiding behind it.

He looked out at the cold tundra, clown wasn’t there, his breathing heaving, with each exhale his wings shifted.

“Boo,”

“OH MY GOSH,” his voice raised by an octave. How did clown get behind him. “I think you got some down my shirt.” He shivered and his wings flapped to get the remained out of them. “Wait don’t hit me again-“

“Don’t start something you don’t want to finish.”

Branzy jumped off of the tree and rolled his eyes fondly, “so training?”

Chapter Text

“Yes branzycraft, training.”

He pulled out his scythe, the ruby red detailing glinted from the white of the snow.

He stepped closer to Clown, eyes fixed on where the thought the other has mesh to see through. Not that he would know if Clown was holding eye contact. The mask was always staring forwards.

“So, what are we doing? Or you doing I guess,”

“You’re a snowy owl Avian Branzy, correct?”

“Yea, I am!”

“So you can fly in silence, and your hearing is above that of a human?”

“I can hear you breathing when you aren’t focused on keeping it silent,”. He commented, Clown started breathing noticeably quieter, “Clown, no one else hears it, they don’t exist around you with your guard even slightly down, I promise you don’t have to worry about breathing,” he laughed but clown tilted his mask to the side again, and slightly down to stare at him.

Too close. He closed his wings around himself, blocking his face from Clown’s mask.

“But- I, Yea, I fly in silence, if there’s one thing I actually train as a skill, it’s that”

Clown hummed.

“Can you shoot with a blindfold on?”

“What?”

“Just a question,”

“I uh, Yea, I can do that..”

“Perfect!~”

“What are we doing?”

“I want to do a little test. I’ll see how silent you are and if I can hit you with a snowball without seeing, and then you’ll be blindfolded and try to shoot me as I also remain silent,” Branzy concidered for a moment, but Clown added on, “and you can shoot me with arrows if you want,”

Clown was very confident. Branzy tilted his head before squatting down, he pressed a single talon directly into the snow, it crunched pleasantly. “Sure!”

“Wonderful!”

“How about you shoot at me first Clown, so I can get it over with,”

Clown pierce gathered snowballs into his arms, about a stack if Branzy was counting. Was he not meant to wear an eye cover, or a blindfold, wasn’t that like the whole point of the exercise?

He didn’t want to say it because Clown was staring at him waiting for him to give the ready or take off, which usually was audible, he should practise that. At least he wasn’t one of the elytra users who took off with rockets. Rockets were so loud. Actually this whole stupid server was loud. Sometimes it wasn’t unpleasant. But as someone raised to be quiet any time there was danger, he felt like every piece of danger was so loud that it didn’t even matter.

That was of course, Clown. Clown was silent when he was most dangerous.

Clearly, when they first met, he must have wondered if Branzy wasn’t all that weak- really, it was sweet that Clown knew danger should be silent and thought that he may be bluffing but he was in fact not all that dangerous. He was weak. And the server had been right.

But Clown still saw a danger in him, the traps for one, but for the other, he guessed Clown had little to no peripheral in that mask. So, his silent movement must have tripped Clown up.

“aren’t you going to blindfold yourself?” he asked, and clown chuckled but obliged, placing a strip of black fabric around the eyes of the mask.

“Ready Branzycraft?”

Rather than answer he took off, a snowball came pelting at his face, it hit its mark and he spluttered, falling silent as he saw Clown aiming again. He flew up and started gliding around, wings making no sound as he circled above Clown.

Below the other kept trying to orient himself. Where was branzycraft? There was no way someone could just disappear. It was so infuriating. To start with he wanted Branzy dead. Everyone kept saying he was the weakest player. And yet Branzy seemed like the only person on this server who could get me, with some cleanly places attack and arrows I’d be downed.

And yet not even Branzy himself made the connection. He doubted Branzy was aware that Clown couldn’t even see through his mask. Or that he had believed that he was, without a doubt dangerous.

He’d since learned that Branzy wasn’t prone to fighting. Or sneaking around.

But the fact he still lost Branzy, that he couldn’t hear him was terrifying, but also kind of- Oh that was Branzy’s wings. He’d absolutely lost his train of thought, but the sound of Branzy swearing under his breath as the wind disturbed him gave Clown the perfect out to hit.

“Ow,” Branzy said, before moving out the way of another snowball aimed at him

“Oh come on,” he whined, directly over Clown before moving when snowballs were thrown, “I make one sound and you catch. Me. Out.” He mad the effort of flying faster, wind picking up as he used it to cahnge directions and avaid the pelted snow. The faster he moved the less oriented Clown seemed. He was still flying in silence, and was managing to make sound deliberately when he wanted to bait Clown. It was nicem it was like for once Clown had let go off the need for it all to go right or to be the most dangerous ever, just training.  

Branzy held his breath, listening to clown who was looking around, truning on the spot to look for where Branzy would next be. He slowly got closer, the wind made it so Clown didn’t feel the cold air he was fanning at him.

Payback?

He was behind clown..

He placed his hands on Clown’s shoulders as he said, “Boo,”, he was about to take off again but no.

Ow. Clown had grabbed his arms and thrown him over his shoulders, his head hit the ground.

Fuck, that didn’t feel too good.

He lifted a hand from the soft snow and pressed it to his skull, had there been a rock beneath him? It came back with blood.

His wings hurt too, they’d been crushed under his body.

“branzycraft?”

“mmhm?” he replied woozily, maye he could just close his eyes, the cold was so nice..

“okay you may need that healing potion sooner than expected.”

“don’t wanna get up, my wings, fucking- ow- sore.” Yea he only swore outloud when he was concussed as clown had learned.

Not good.

He sat Branzy up, taking off the stupid piece of cloth from his mask, it didn’t do anything either way. He took out a healing potion and tipped it down Branzy’s throat. Waiting for the wound on his head to heal over. One of his wings didn’t look too good, it had bent under him at a strange angle.

Branzy was still concious, but he wasn’t talking. He’d probably messed up, Clown did that to him all the time- touching his shoulders that is, but it wasn’t the same thing. Clown was probably mad he’d done that, he was meant to be flying around for training. And not doing that. He was so screwed.

He didn’t want to open his eyes, admit he was awake enough to talk about what happened and how he wouldn’t do it again.

Clown was patiently waiting for him, a hand on his lower back, leaving his wings untouched. With the other he was checking the the wound had closed over, the feeling of Clown’s clawed hands moving through his hair was so nice. His wings hurt. Like bad. If they were broken they would take so long to heal.. Ugh. He was such an idiot.

“You okay Branzy?”

He opened one eye and saw the familiar mask of Clownpierce.

He tried backing away, but the hand on his back keeping him upright wasn’t about to allow that. “Look, Clownpierce, I’m sorry I-“

“Are your wings broken?”

He stayed speechless for a second.

He tried to move one and flinched at the atteampt.

“They.. they might be a little broken,”

“I’m sorry,” He sounded genuinely sad. And he apologised.

“It’s fine, come on let’s just go back… did you uh, learn anything about fighting blind then?”

Clown thought for a second.

“I’ve learned that you could be scary.”

“To someone who’s wearing a blindfold, sure, but so could a snowy owl,”

“Don’t discredit yourself that much, now come on. Let me help you up and we’ll walk back,”

Clown extended a clawed hand down to Branzy, he took it with this own taloned one, standing up unsteadily and mumbling about how he was dizzy. Clown took a step closer and allowed him to lean against him, gently holding him as he let the Avian wrap an arm around his neck to support himself.

He really wanted a nap.

Once he was home, Clown owed hike more than that healing potion, he’d need something better for the wing, both pain relief or even healing.

Once he was home.

it would be a long walk.

Chapter Text

Clown helped him patch up his wings before leaving, now he was stuck to his own devices.

He wanted to make some wing jewellery to place on the injured wing. Whether to distract people from the fact that they were unkempt because he still hadn’t gotten the time to preen them, or to show that he wasn’t flying right now, who knew. He didn’t.

He should be preening them now, combing through them one at a time and straightening them out, now he was in a warm biome all the snow left on them had melted and made them very uncomfortable. If they also remained unpreened for too long the soft edges of the feathers that allowed for silent flight wouldn’t work anymore.

All in all he was uncomfortable.

And he was pretty sure Clown had told him to rest and not go back to go fix any broken machines or anything.

He didn’t like doing nothing.

He didn’t like being unprotected and alone.

And he really, really did not like preening.

On occasion he’d gotten Rek to help, Rek would help with his flight feathers annd any he couldn’t reach, while he would tackle the smaller ones. Alone it could take about five hours.

Sure he had that time, but he didn’t have the patience to use that time on something like preening.

He got a message on his communicator, ‘do you want me to bring any more health potions or anything else?’

He wasn’t running low on potions or anything.

He may need some twine for the feather jewellery. He was sure he had some amethyst lying around. He’d seen the other avians do this too, adorning their wings with gems and braided twine to show its healing, lacing it with their favourite colors and the colours of people who helped patch them up.

And at the bottom, raw crystals in the colors of whatever hurt you.

He hoped clown would maybe get him some, ‘You don’t have too, but could you get me a couple types of crystals and some string? I need redstone ore and some quartz-‘

He stopped typing. He should also make sure he did have any amethyst to make this, he was going to use purple for his own color. No he was out. Oops.

He went back to the message and finished it:

‘You don’t have to, but could you get me a couple types of crystals and some string? I need redstone ore, some quartz and some amethyst if you don’t mind’ he sent and put it down.

He didn’t want to preeeeeen.

Oh a buzz, Clown replied! ‘How much?’

‘A little of each, I only need the broken down versions for it. A lot of string though.’

‘Okay’

‘Tyyy’

Okay he was done messaging, he could just.. do a little procrastination and make some food.

Clown didn’t eat often around others, but he seemed to not mind taking whatever food Branzy offered him. So he decided to make him something, as a thanks for bringing all the stuff. Branzy wanted to be at the tent, ‘resting’ until Clown would leave for some errand and he could go back to whatever he’d been doing, fixing a machine probably.

He started making a few things, baking potatoes and cooking some steak, simple food they both ate pretty often regardless, but if he added a few spices, used the fat rendered from the steak on the potatoes and plated it up with some herbs it would look good.

After the steaks were done and he put the fat ober the potatoes, he didn’t have much to do, so he started doing stretches with his wings, hoping that even if the movement hurt it would aid with healing.

A knock echoed at the door and Clown stood there with the items, “come in, I made food,”

Clown stopped from where he was about to leave, food didn’t sound like a bad idea.

He got inside and sat down, ‘watching’ as Branzy plated the food, hearing the clattering of some silver wear and plates.

He’d sat down on a chair to the side as he waited, for the food to be done, once it was Branzy pulled up a stool directly behind him, “I don’t want you running off like you do normally, I’ll sit behind you until you’re done eating so you can take off your mask!”

Clown concidered for a second, Branzy worried he’d just refuse entierly, but he heard the click of a class being undone and a fork being picked up off of the table, his good wing curled around him as he started eating too, the other being set behind him gently as it had been all day.

Clown hummed as he ate, he must have enjoyed the food.

Once Branzy heard the click of the mask he turned to face the other.

He was turned around on the chair, legs on either side of the backing and arms resting on the top of the backrest. Why was he so close.

Branzy’s wing moved, he wrapped it around himself and curled the ending feathers to keep clown from coming closer. He did that when he was nervous, but clown never seemed to get the message. He still needed to preen them, they looked terrible, at this point most of the feathers had crumpled, some had dust in them and he felt how unpleasant it was.

“If that’s all, I enjoyed visiting you branzycraft,” clown got up to leave, hands brushing oast Branzy’s good wing as he left a hand on his shoulder.

“I- uh- I.. Could you maybe you know- help me with something-?”

Clown’s mask tilted.

“I really need to preen my wings, but I can’t really do my bad wing and some of the other one because my movement is a little limited…” clown made no section, but nor did his hand move, Branzy started backpeddlinga little, voice raising in pitch, “You don’t have too of course, you know I get that you’re busy and such but-“

“Sure,”

“What,”

“I’ll help. But theres one condition,”

Oh no.

What is it?

“I need you to..”

Chapter Text

Okay, what.

Well, at least Clown had agreed!

He asked the other to sit on the bed as he went to get a comb for his feathers.

“So what do you need me to like, use?”

“Any kind of blindfold will work,”

“Alright,”

Why did he need a blindfold?

Uh.

No idea.

Clown said he needed the mask off, but that he wanted to make sure Branzy didn’t see his face.

Why did he need to take the mask off! That’s what he didn’t get, but he could ask if he didn’t get distracted by the feeling of preening. It was like someone was petting your hair while detangling it gently with their fingers.

It was much more satisfying if someone else does it.

He placed a blindfold around his eyes tying it gently and closing his eyes beneath the fabric as he sat down, Clown was leaning against the headboard while sitting cross leggged and he scooted back until he had no idea where he was, waiting for Clown to help direct where he should go. He felt a hand on his shoulder adjusting so he was slightly closer. He extended the pained wing, wincing from it and letting out a breath.

Click.

Clown’s mask.

He heard the small clatter of it being let go onto a nearby table. He so desperately wanted to ask about why Clown needed the mask, but he’d already gotten this help, help Clown didn’t need to agree too.

He started on the first feather, using the comb to rake through and straighten out the long flight feather. Branzy felt his hesitancy but Clown continued, going to another one but trying doing it with his hands instead. He seemed to like doing it by hand better. Branzy sure wasn’t complaining.

Clowns claws carded through speckled feathers. They hit a particularly stubborn spot and slowly smoothed it, pulling it between his thumbs and forefingers to remove all the imperfections. Branzy felt like he could just melt, he tried not to lean into it, but the feeling so so comfortable that it was hard not to.

“You still with me Branzy?”

“Mmmhm,” he replied, eyes remaining shut beneath the blindfold, he was slowly leaning more and more against Clown. Clown assumed he was already almost asleep, talking mostly to himself.

“Your feathers are so beautiful, I don’t get to see them much you know, and I did’t think I’d get to feel them either,” Branzy didn’t react, but he didn’t know what clown was talking about, “that may be the worst part about the mask; I can’t see the fear in peoples’ eyes, the way they recoil when I threaten them, but it also means I can’t see the eyes of the people I care for or their smiles,” He said the last part more quietly. His touch was light, fixing each of his soft rounded slight feathers, allowing him for silent flight. Could Clown not see out of his mask? Was that what the issue was? The way he always seemed to stare, or be attracted by noise, or lose Branzy when he was mid air?

The question swam through his brain, but even more so the words felt under water, he could feel everything beneath him, how warm he felt- it was pleasant for once, cozy, and his brain was fuzzy and unbothered in the revaluations of the world.

 Branzy at this point had his head in Clown’s lap, slightly to the side resting on his thigh because it gave him easier reach to his injured wing. He didn’t mind much, he could see the small smile on the other’s face, the way his wing would twitch when he managed to detangle a difficult portion or smooth out a flight feather. Hearing the words but the world too far gone to reach his ears anyway.

He cared to deeply for Branzy.

The man who started as a threat. As the only thing that could remove his title as the most deadly. And yet widely regarded as weak.

He’d tried to end him, that was the plan. But things go so easily off course, and when he helped Clown by doing the redstone, well. He just so happened to stop being a threat to him in a different way. He was an ally.

And he was afraid. To a degree, they were both afraid.

But then, things changed again, Branzy was still afraid. But now it was trust that backed the two of them up. Branzy trusted him to train with him, and handle injuries with the same hands that caused them.

And Clown trusted that he would turn away when they ate, or that he would keep his blindfold on with no doubts or questions.

Clown knew he was curious, but he didn’t question him in such a way that it felt as if he didn’t want to do so. He just wanted to know if there were any reasons.

“Branzy?”

“I’m awake,” he didn’t really sound awake. But whatever he said.

Would you like to know why you have to remain blindfolded?”

“It’s because you took off your mask,” He cleared his throat slightly and sounded way more awake, even in the blindfold, his head tilted further back so he could effectively look up at Clown, it felt like watching a mirror, he’d done that because he knew Clown was looking down at him, not because he could see.”I just wanted to know why you take it off, not why you don’t trust me, trust can earned and lost, I’m not going to blame you with not being comfortable with something like that, you don’t show any of your other allies your face. If you ever show me, it’s because you chose too. Not because I ask,”

He was speechless, hand pausing in the soft feathers.

Branzy’s Hand gently reached up to his wrist, pushing him to keep moving in a ‘I didn’t tell you that you could stop petting’ sort of gesture.

Branzy’s voice was soft and quiet, “Why do you have to take off the mask for this?”

It took Clown a second to start talking, “there’s no eye holes in the mask, the fact you keep talking about how it must have some great quality mesh that you can’t see it makes me chuckle because I can’t see through.”

Branzy moved to sit up all of a sudden but was pushed down by hands on his shoulders.

“That’s why..” he stayed in awe, not saying all his thoughts, likely he was having a million of them saying different reasons he should have realized, “Oh.”

 Clown chuckled and ran his hands through the last of the feathers of the damaged wing. They were puffed up from Branzy getting embarrassed.

But his wings were so stunningly beautiful. Large sweeping platinum white feathers with little peppery accents, they were large and when preeened they flowed smoothly, the small movements of Branzy breathing and speaking tilting them and causing a soft sound.

The way he held his wings, like a blanket around himself or to hit someone infront of him. His mask had been hit a hundred times over when he got just close enough that Branzy pulled his wings infront.

He took pictures to remember, sometimes Branzy’s wings were covered in redstone dusty in the dark glowing with faint red, it was like there were particles shedding from them, motes of dust seeping from his wings and leaving a small red trail behind.

Like a firework; when he flew after getting some in his feathers.

“Why do you not have viewing holes?” He couldn’t stop himself.

Clown stayed silent, hands still moving through the feathers. His other wing was in the same state as the other had been, why did Branzy not take care of his wings?

“Can I do your other wing?” Replying to a question with a question. Of course.

“Yea, by the way you don’t have to an-“

“Here, sit up a little so I can reach your other one, I don’t mind if you keep your head on my leg,”

He layed down slowly, feeling Clown once again begin to meticulously help clean up his feathers, they remained silent for a while, Clown concentrated on the tangles left.

It wa fine if he didn’t answer, he wasn‘t owed the explanation.

The feeling was heavenly though, his wing could remain extended more comfortably, so it wasn’t long before he zoned out again.

“My eyes are the reason,”

He wondered what color Clown’s eyes were.

“They’re sensitive to light, and even if they weren’t I wanted to give the rest of the server a chance,”

Clown could be more scary.

He could fight with his vision.

Fuck he was terrifying. Every battle had been done with no sight.

“My eyes can’t handle light all that much, but I still miss it sometimes, I miss seeing the world and the colors in it, I would never have gotten a mask until I realized that I didn’t truly need my sight for fighting. I could quite literally fight with my eyes closed. And if I could sooth the pain, seeing wasn’t a huge sacrifice at the time.”

“But..”

“But I miss being able to see the world around me. I want to see when your eyes lighting up how they did when we got to that snow biome in real life, not with some picture I took.”

“All those pictures you take of me and send are just how you see me don’t you?”

Clown was silent, claws still methodical, cleaning, petting, soothing.

He hadn’t realized he was crying.

He wiped away the tears in his eyes with his sleeve.

Branzy heard it, of course he did. He could hear when Clown was breathing.

He sat up and turned around, keeping his blindfold still on. He hugged Clown. Hands pulling around him and dragging him down. He couldn’t help but enjoy the feeling of how fluffy and curly clowns hair was as he lifted a hand to move through his hair. What color was it?

He wondered. And he wondered everything about clown. But he was content not to know.

He was okay not to see.

And perfectly fine to never stare into his eyes.

But as Clown pulled back from the hug he saw Branzy smiling and him and he felt okay with this.

They should do this more often.

He should ask Branzy to do training more often.

Well.

If he ever agrees to train with him again that is.

Chapter Text

Did Clown have anything to do? Actually no, he did not.

He was making himself busy when Branzy messaged him, so being stuck with the other now sleep with his head on his leg and a wing draped comfortably to the side was perfectly fine.

He didn’t need to engage in the chaos of the server, he could just stay there with Branzy and relax. And finally see. Even if it was only for a couple hours.

He heard a communicator buzz and he knew it was Branzy’s, he woke up from the sound, hand moving to get it before realising he still had a blindfold on, Clown reached for his mask.

“Can you check it for me?”

“Hm?”

“Pleaseee? I don’t want to get up.”

Clown picked up the communicator silently. Branzy trusted him so much. This just showed it.

If he were conspiring against Clown ever, he would never do this, and he could also look through all his messages with all of his friends. The trust he was given was mutual or at least it had to be; he wouldn’t read any apart from the message there.

Branzy trusted him enough to cover his eyes, even after he’d harmed him.

Branzy waited expectantly, “what the?”

“Oh?” Branzy ‘looked’ up at him, head further back so he’d be facing towards clown. He

He read it out, a question dieing in his voice as he did, “ ‘Please please please please please’? ‘You can kill clown pierce just follow what I say’???”

“Oh just reply for them to fuck off, scroll up whoever this is has been begging me to go against you,”

Clown sent the appropriate message, ‘fuck off , shut up’  and looked at the earlier messages from the person.

Begging for Branzy to do so.

Telling him how.

Trying to point out exploitable weaknesses.

Asking about how to kill Clown.

And Branzy’s messages.. they were..

Well.

Threats?

Violent, unserious, swears he didn’t even know existed in the English language.

Branzy had come up with a trap that couldn’t be evaded whether or not the person would know about it and detailed it with extreme precision. He’d said that if he learned he had to bandage up his ally because of them, that they would never see peace again and by the time it was over every shift of grass in the wind and press press of a button would remind them to be afraid, and to know who they afraid of.

Some of them weren’t threats.

Some were promises.

Some where pictures of the person which came with replies asking about how he’d known where they were.

Branzy had relaxed again, breath even. He had a small smile on his face. “So?”

“Have you ever done any of the stuff you said about in these messages?”

“I’m still the weakest person on the server, it didn’t really work to make them stop when I threatened them,” he was grinning, as he sat up and turned so he was cross legged and facing Clown “They seem to try be a little more vigilant now, I didn’t do anything lasting.”

“Have you always been like this?”

“I picked some things up from how you act,”

“I am so proud of this,”

Branzy laughed, changing positions to be sitting on his thighs, it made him just slightly taller than Clown who was still crosslegged.

Clown smiled at him. Even if he couldn’t see it.

“Could I ask you a question about the mask?”

“That depends,” he didn’t mean to sound so hostile out it, but he didn’t like answering about the mask much,

“It’s nothing about why you wear it, more just, how do you go about day to day? How do you read messages?”

Ah, yeah, he’d answer that, “I use a text to speech thing, I constantly have to have a headphone in but it reads whatever I press on.”

“Is that why you always ignore the images until you are sure you’re alone?

He nodded but realised that branzy couldn’t see it.

Oops.

He said yes.

They stayed in silence a moment.

“Wait, why did you never think of using a mesh for the eyes? I’ve mentioned it multiple times before-“

Clown was starting to be glad Branzy couldn’t see him, his cheeks had gone red and warm.

“Shut up,”

“Oh come on! I’m being serious,”

Clown pulled Branzy forwards by the shirt. He normally did that when he threatened the other, but instead Branzy just yelped as he was dragged, his hands planted themselves on Clown’s legs.

He wasn’t wearing his mask.

This probably wasn’t as scary as it normally was.

Branzy also couldn’t see him.

Why had he done that.

Branzy swallowed, waiting for something to happen a knife against his throat, a threat.

Anything really.

The silence was more unnerving than any threat would be.

Did he go too far with that question?

A hand caught his chin and tilted his head down, likely towards where Clown’s own face was.

It took all of his self control not to pull his good wing forwards and hit Clown in the face with it. His wing twitched.

“Shut up branzycraft,” the tone was somewhat light, the threat behind it looming with the edge in Clown’s voice. But Clown didn’t sound hurt.

The threat was the same tone he always used for Branzy when he tried to intimidate him. Clown really liked making him stutter over his words.

Clearly, the fact his fear was so audible made threatening him entertaining.

Branzy opened his mouth to say something, voice an octave higher than it just had been, he was not fucking sleepy anymore.

But clown stopped him, a clawed finger pressing just above an artery, the pad of his finger rested against where his pulse was the strongest to feel.

He wouldn’t kill him. 

He wouldn’t risk doing that to Branzy.

But all the same it made his heartbeat spike beneath Clowns hand.

He leaned forwards, his hair tickled Branzy’s cheek.

He spoke right in Branzy’s ear.

“I said shut up.”

Yea no fuck that.

Branzy hit him with his wing, not a gentle tap with his feathers, Clown got a face full of feathers and Branzy backed up.

Clown stood there a second, he’d just been hit. With Branzy’s wings.

He laughed.

Fucking laughed at him.

Branzy stuck his tongue out which only made him laugh more.

The audacity.

He lunged at Clown who was making a show to absolutely no one of wiping a tear from his eye.

Clown let himself be toppled.

Pulled down and to the side so he didn’t hit his head on the backboard.

Branzy was ‘attacking’ him and yet he still made a point not to let Clown hit his head.

“You are so rude for laughing at me. Just so you know.”

“Oh I know,”

Branzy’s talons were sharper than Clown’s claws.

He knew that.

He wasn’t afraid of Branzy hurting him, not because he couldn’t but because he knew Branzy didn’t want to.

He wanted Clown to stop laughing.

Tackling him hadn’t helped with that and as Branzy’s taloned hands stopped right next to his pulse point. There was no way it was fear that made his heartbeat spike.

Clown was pinned underneath Branzy. But he’d stopped laughing now, he was smiling up at the other, who was still blindfolded.

He tipped them to the side so that he was instead on top of Branzy.

“Rude.”

“Yea well, you wanted me to stop laughing and I’m not laughing anymore.”

Chapter Text

Branzy muttered something, Clown didn’t hear it but he decided to let him up. And -because he was done helping Branzy with the preening- put his mask back on.

“Give me a second, then you can take off the blindfold.”

Branzy nodded and sat up, he ran his own fingers though his wings, and low and behold his wings were in a better state than they had been in a while, it was difficult to see and perfectly clean each feather.

That’s why most did it with friends or family. Or lovers.

They were friends.

But Clown did just spend like four hours helping him and brang him what he needed for a project.

I mean, he didn’t really mind how close Clown always got to him. And well. Clown had given him an apology.

That wasn’t really calculated was it.

That was just an apology.

That was the thing, when he and Clown first became ally’s, he always asumed every action was calculated to get him right where he needed him.

But he started making physical contact.

And picking up Branzy’s stray feathers when they fell off.

And giving him redstone stuff without asking, read into it as you will, but to Branzy who knew Clown was not a redstone fan to just get everything without question or knowing before he asked seemed really sweet.

Clown had found a mirror, he looked back at his face.

Veins of skulk seemed to grow across his face like ivy, it got to his eyes making his pupils bright blue and his scalera black, that’s what made them weak to light. The dark blue lines carved into his face. The soft light emitted from it ebbed the more he stared. The pattern of it started on one side of his neck, moving up and leaving a line adjacent to his mouth and going even further up where it curled up over itself and climbed over his nose, surrounding both of his eyes.

He was born like this, but the visibility of it had gotten worse as he got older. The skulk slowly moving over his whole body. It had stopped growing for the most part now.

He looked down at his hands, covered by the gloves but he could still feel the outlines of it.

Skulk was soft, easy to break.

Removing it felt like scooping flesh from his arm.

But sometimes he looked at the patterns of it, took off his gloves and mask for just a moment too long and saw how beautiful the shifting bioluminescence was, how it flared when he cried. When he removed his armour and undershirt to see the way his chest was covered and how the outlines of his ribs were glowing with a dull yellow.

He hated the color blue.

So he wore mostly red.

But even so, the skulk made his skin.. beautiful?

He so desperately wanted to trust someone enough to see that. Branzy probably, if anyone.

He’d just told Branzy about his mask, something that he’d never told anyone else.

No one had connected it. Branzy never asked about his Claws.

At the tip of each ear he had small antenna, they honestly made hearing and knowing where things were easier.

Most people put it down to his footsteps being silent, but he also didn’t have to sneak around in deep dark areas, the skulk actually sent signals towards him in such a way that he could hear throught the whole biome.

And luckily enough. Wherever Branzy had set up skulk sensor traps.

He had to pull the antenna behind the mask, he clipped it on and bent them back where he would tuck them under the elastic.

“You can take the blindfold off now,” 

He stood infront of the mirror, getting in the headphone for his text to speech. He didn’t need a mirror, and they both knew that.

Branzy walked up, he heard his footsteps and how he stopped about a meter away.

He got the device in and clicked a button on his communicator. He heard a small noise that meant it was on and the monotone voice read out “battery 15%”

Well that was annoying.

“Are you staying here or leaving now?”

Did branzy want him out?

“If you need help with anything else I can stay, if not I can go,”

Well, he needed to make the wing jewlery, he was dead set on doing it.

Mostly because he estimated that the wing would take at least three weeks to heal.

So he wanted to try it. it was a tradition of sorts and he hadn’t done it in so long; if someone in his family couldn’t fly for whatever reason, they wore jewellery on top of their wings. Him and his sister wore them before they learned to fly. They only had to do so for special events though.

When they learned how to make them, him and Ivory were sitting together, he remembered the memory vaguely, their parents running through how to measure how many they needed and how to get the stones they used to the perfect size.

They both worked together, neither of them understood it at first, but they got it after a while. The first time they both injured their wings, they’d done it while practising flying together, their parents had not been happy at the siblings, but they both knew that it would be a while till their next flight lesson, so why not create one of the pieces of jewlery .

But hey, it had been a while.

“Do you want to help me with something?”

Branzy was sure he would say yes since he’d offered as much. Man, Clown was helping him with a lot of stuff today.

“Okay well, I have this piece of jewlery I want to make for my wing, it’s meant to show that the wearer is unable to fly. Normally when it’s made, you either make it with the help of the person who hurt you, as a show that they have received an apology or of the person helping you with the wounds. And if you have neither usually a family member or partner can help,” he started ranting about the jewellery, what it meant, how it was meant to sit and how to make it lay correctly so the wing could be extended or held against the body.

“What do you need help with?”

“Well, because I forgave you and you’ve been helping me with the injuries, you can help me if you want- just helping me with making the knots that surround the gems I guess,” he paused, it was kind of a stupid thing to ask, Clown had just been helping him because he couldn’t do some stuff himself.

“I’m pretty good at knots, you’d be surprised what I can do without seeing.” 

“I would be surprised wouldn’t I?” He managed to fight without vision and not walk into doors and traps when branzy set them. A knot was not that difficult.

..

Right?

..

“Clown.”

“I’m trying Branzycraft,”

“Look-“

“Can’t do that.”

Branzy’s mouth fell open.

This was not going to work.

Branzy had taken the crystals, making the amethyst into small pillars.

He placed down the redstone ore and carefully took out the pieces left in it without crumbling them into dust and compacting them.

Well, he asked Clown to help since he kept complaining about not doing anything.

He’d learned how to do that when he was messing with a block of redstone, when you compacted enough of it, the rock would stay together, and when in ore form, it wasn’t immediately dust, it only crumbled when it was hit enough, so if you took it from the rock and compacted it, it eventually became like a little marble of redstone held together by hopes and dreams.

He didn’t mind if any of the dust got into his wings, he normally didn’t like the feeling but having redstone in his wings was fine, it wasn’t often his wings did not have a tinge of red.

If the tips of his flight feathers weren’t black, he’d probably have them smothered in red from when they dragged on the floor.

Clown was messing up the knot again and again. And again.

“Here let me help.” He grabbed one of Clown’s wrists, using the other to direct where to put his fingers. “Feel for the knot at the top, there should be the a loop which is wrapped around at the part facing away from you,” he watched as Clown found what he was talking about, mask faced towards the rock instinctually even if he couldn’t see, “I think you pulled the string through it and pulled it back up on the wrong side.”

Clown had not a clue what that meant.

He nodded slowly.

“Okay, pull back on the string that’s pulled through that loop,” that was easy enough, “then pull it through the loop again but this time instead of adding it into the knot how you did before, thread it through the smaller loops on each side by pulling them under the long parts keeping the rock trapped, then pull through the loop and- oh you did it!”

Not sure how but he managed.

While he’d been struggling on just one, Branzy managed to get the rest of the stones into the casings- how he learned to do something like that from string amazed Clown. He couldn’t see them, but he picked one up after Branzy had finished explaining to him what he had to do, the string beneath his hands was just intricate, he didn’t know how to describe it, maybe like braids? He couldn‘t quite tell.

(This was so annoying to write, shout out to my memory cuz I was taught how to make like intricately patterned bracelets with string, and the person also made me a pendant using string to surround a fossilised shell. And I don’t remember any of it, but I do know how to pretend that I do!)

“You look like you need a break, and I’m going to need your help with something after so… you hungry?”

“Are you offering to cook again? Yes.”

“Sure, why not, how about some pastries?”

Clown nodded vigorously.

(This is an actual recipe we make in my family, it makes delicious pastries, I use pre-made dough but you would not believe how good they taste!! This probably won’t be a good recipe to follow since it’s in a story but if I had a recipe I would give it-)

Branzy had made some pastry dough earlier since he was planning to make himself this for a snack, but he didn’t mind cooking for Clown.

It was pretty simple, just meat (he was using ground beef) spices, two or three eggs and some sesame seeds.

He put the meat into a bowl and added an egg to it, talking about what he was doing as he did, he added the spices; a more than generous amount of salt, slightly less paprika and freshly ground black pepper. He mixed that and rolled the dough out flat, cutting it into small rectangles.

“How long does this take?” Clown was okay with just pretending to watch Branzy. Actually no, no he wasn’t, he lifted his mask, hair falling out past it. Much better.

Watching Branzy cook was just, he was so concentrated, talking though each step and working.

“It will take longer if you ask again.” He said, not looking up. He tasted the meat (yes he had it raw, he was part snowy owl, a carnivorous bird that ate stuff raw, he’d done this a million times). He hummed and moved the bowl over to the counter where he had put down the dough. This felt very.. domestic.

Running around a kitchen cooking in his own home while his ‘just an ally’ stood behind him, looking over as he placed a spoonful of the meat into the middle of the pastry and folded it over.once he was done he cracked two more eggs into a bowl and gave each pastery an egg wash before sprinkling a lot of sesame seeds onto each one.

Then he put them into the furnace to cook.

Cool. That was that.

He took some towels and cleaned the counter tops, almost forgetting that Clown was still there.

He leaned on the counter for a second before he felt clown hug him, hands wrapping around his waist and leaning over to have his head placed against Branzy’s shoulder.

His soft hair was tickling Branzy’s neck as he nuzzled his forehead against Branzy’s neck.

When did he take off the mask?

His wings had definitely puffed up a little and his uninjured one stretched out behind him. A shiver went down his spine from the feeling of Clown so close.

“Clown?” He managed to stutter out.

No answer.

He felt Clowns lips against his neck and a shiver went down his spine faster than he could think. Actually, his brain had just seemed to malfunction at that.

Did Clown just kiss his neck?

So. Uh.

Clown smiled, pulling a hand over Branzy’s eyes and gently making him turn his head.

What was Clown doing. What was Clown doing? What was Clown doing??!?

“Can I?”

Branzy nodded beneath the cover of Clowns hand. Eyes closed so he couldn’t see anything regardless.

Their lips connected and Clowns hand fell from his eyes and cupped the back of his head.

When he stepped back, he slid the mask back over his eyes, leaving his mouth exposed to the smile he had on his face.

The Skulk on the side of his mouth as fully on display, sneaking beneath his mask and his neckline.

Branzy was beet red, his face hit the counter and after a few seconds (minutes) of calming down he looked back up and saw Clown grinning down at him. His head hit the counter a second time, and this time his ears went red aswell.

What just happened?

Chapter Text

Clown was still smiling ear to ear. Even as he realized what he’d done. That was on multiple levels: stupid, uncalculated, possibly insane. But he couldn’t say he was upset and he also wasn’t sure that Branzy was upset about it. That was considering that he was still bright red and had his head down on the counter.

Nah, that was fine!~

He was keeping his mask up, at least for now. He didn’t care if some of the skulk veins were still on display. Not anymore.

He could smell the pastries, probably golden brown by now. “Branzy, I think the pies are done cooking,”

Branzy lifted his head and started laughing.

Ah yes. Because that’s what he was worried about right this second. Making sure some food doesn’t burn after Clown Pierce just kissed him.

He smiled to himself and sighed, taking out the snacks.

Clown reached for one and he swatted the other’s hand away. “Those are hot clown. You’re going to burn yourself.”

He reached for it again and branzy stepped infront of the plate he’d placed them on and grabbed his wrist, staring up at him, Clown couldn’t see it. And honestly it wasn’t very productive since he just ended up staring at Clowns smile. His canines were sharper than normal, not enough that it was inhuman, but just enough that when he was smiling this widely- and smugly- it was noticable. His smile was wide; it reminded him of the mask, almost creepy with how wide he was smiling even as he held his wrist. The left side of his face- mostly along his jaw- was covered in what looked like skulk which seemed to climb up, it was almost like an old scar, the skin seemed to dip slightly where the veins of it were spreading.

“Ow,”

Clown had picked one up with his other hand and got burnt.

“Okay that was deserved. I told you that would happen Clown,”

“Rude,”

“Says you?” You snuck up behind me and kissed me.”

“And I’d do it again,”

He kept talking before thinking.

And clearly he’d keep doing it again.

For the deadliest player, he was pretty much losing all leverage over the only person who could possibly kill him.

That was the problem.

He knew what he was doing.

And it had a name, one he was often unfamiliar with the full meaning of; even if he knew how it worked. Even if he had it.

Trust.

He trusted Branzy, trusted him with his secrets and his identity. And his weaknesses.

And Branzy trusted him with his life story, and his safety, trusted him to remedy what he had done and-

Using the same hands that had caused the harm to make life easier.

He knew Branzy trusted him, but the thought still made warmth bloom in his chest.

Branzy kept staring at him. His stupid fucking smile, the way the mask sat just low enough to cover his eyes, casting a shadow on his face that allowed for the emanating blue light on the left side of his face to be just that little bit more visible.

He wanted to lift one of his hands to Clown’s face. Did the skulk spreading hurt? Did getting XP make it spread further over his body? Digging into his skin and slithering up and up and up.

The grip on his wrist fell and he felt Clowns claws brush against his palm lightly.

He did have claws, Branzy almost forgot about them, not as sharp as his, but still painful, still dangerous, still belonging to a deadly assassin who could kill with his bare hands.

He didn’t pull away as Clown’s gloved nails pulled at his gloves. Just raking his fingers over the leather. If either of them wanted to, they could shred most fabric and destroy the gloves, but Clown knew that Branzy had these fingerless ones custom made and the leather was high quality. Branzy wouldn’t risk shredding Clown’s because he wasn’t sure what he would find, Clown had never said, so he didn’t need to find out.

He’d already learned way too much today, he may go insane if anything else crazy happened.

He reached behind him and grabbed one of the pastries, he took a bite, finding that even if the middle was still burning hot they were too good not to have one. He covered his mouth as he spoke, “you can grab one now, be careful the inside may still- Hey!?”

Clown grabbed the pastry straight from his hand and took a bite, as soon as he did he just stopped and lifted a hand to his cheek, humming happily as he ate.

Branzy grabbed another of the pastries, leaning back slightly against the countertops.

Okay Clown was a realky big fan of his cooking. He looked so happy.

Once this both finished eating- which Branzy was surprised had happened because he thought he may have to tear Clown away from the food before he finished them all.

They went to sit back down on the ground where all of the gems were still on the floor.

All he had to do now was measure cut and tie the twine so that he could fit it over his wings comfortably and with enough parts hanging down to attach the stones

He’d left all the amethyst untied because it went in the longer top part, effectively braided into it as he worked.

Then the first layers of hanging parts were going to be redstone, and the very lowest ones and the ends of the strings would be raw quartz. He set everything down after measuring, he needed about three times as much as one length of his wings, and adding a little for every gem, then he needed layers of hanging rope to go off of the main part, then small loops to add onto those. Then the last details were a small loop used to secure the jewellery to the base of the wing.

He worked on it alone.

Mostly because it would otherwise take another two hours.

But finally, it was done.

“Can you help me put it on? I’ll blindfold myself if I need too, but it’s such a pain to do alone.”

“Just close your eyes,”

He did.

He felt Clown pulling a hand through his feathers, gently smoothing them down again before he put on the first loop, he used the clasp Branzy had attached and moved on to dripping the main thicker part into his wings gently, it sat on top of his wing comfortably, then draping the rest of the gems gently and sliding them around a little.

“Done, Let me take a look then you can open your eyes,”

“Do you just want a moment to stare?”

Clown hummed.

The wing jewellery made his wing look all the more stunning, it was almost regal.

He backed up and just couldn’t help himself from staring.

Branzy was wearing a backless shirt to make it more comfortable, because of that he could see the gentle fade of feathers on his back, right where his wings ended, the feathers didn’t stop, they faded into puffs of white, and as he looked up, just along his shoulder blades the feathers continued upwards, mixing into his hair with small whisky feathers that were almost indecernable from his soft hair.

With one wing out stretched, he could see the muscle of his back moving with its extension, he had it angled up, feathers splaying to one side and spreading apart from one another to outline the full extent of his wings, the silhouette they created was slightly rounded, but even so, each feather looked how a blade might, each feather held with sharp confidence, the black detailing along his wings adding specks of color that painted the edges of the uninjured wing.

But that meant nothing to how majestic the injured one looked with the Crystals inlaid, each and every color just reflecting off of the white feathers. The contrast of the black rope, held in small swoops that were weighed down by crystals each creating arcs that moved in the opposite direction to the downwards facing feathers. Even curled up behind him, the wing was large, and no matter how scared Branzy seemed, his wings always seemed to show that he wasn’t being backed into a corner, no matter what was happening they were held behind him in striking pride and a silent escape that loomed far over any threat he could make. The injured one was now held in such a way that just gave off comfort, he was safe to have Clown standing behind him.

Safe.

Branzy’s feathers being curled up made them hang just shy of the ground, moving gently with the breaths he took. Clown was mesmirised,- but more importantly- not surprised to see red already leaking into his pristine feathers. As if it were the blood of some enemy.

The enemy had likely only been a comparator, but what did Clown know, perhaps that was a fierce battle that ended up with more red tinged feathers than not. Either way, his wings, clean and shining from the light paired with the Crystals was in its own world, colors that wouldn’t have been clown first choice both blended seamlessly and created a striking pop of color that just attracted his eyes.

Red was his color; branzy had explained he was using it to show forgiveness. Purple was his, and he wasn’t quite sure what the pink tinged quartz meant, but the light it gently caught from within the mass of surrounding white just brought his eyes back again and again.

It sufficed to say he could stare forever. However, without any want to do so at all, he slid his mask back down over his eyes.

“You can open them now,” Branzy did so and went to a mirror, it looked good, some of his best handiwork.

Nice!

He could see specifically which piece he’d gotten Clown to do. He’d cherish this work, it was nice.

And finally, his wings looked okay enough.

He smiled in the mirror and took advantage of the fact Clown couldn’t see him, jumping over and hugging him, it almost toppled the two of them but he didn’t care. He wrapped his arms around clown’s shoulders.

“Thank you!”

Clown smiled beneath his mask, putting his arms around Branzy’s waist.

A buzz came from his pocket, in his ear he heard ‘power off’.

And then, at full volume the text to speech from his comunicator started reading out the messages from general chat.

“What the fuck is that?!”

Chapter Text

.

Clown pulled the headphone out, no use keeping it in if it had run out.

The text to speech was still going, and in general chat who knows what was going on.

Actually, they could both hear what was going on.

‘4-c-v-i-t’ -okay yes, the text to speech was a little broken and didn’t exactly know how to say anyone’s names. ‘HELP ME-E-E-E-E’

So broken.

The problem was, the audio was doubled up, he could hear it in his ears since it hadn’t run out yet (thought they were low on battery) this happened when they got on low battery.

“Clown, do you want me to fix that?”

“You can fix it?”

“I mean-? Maybe? It depends if it’s redstone or copper based,”

“They make things this small with redstone?”

Branzy stuck his hand out and picked it up, putting it up to his eye to try and figure out what it was, “redstone is normally used for larger scale, because it isn’t mulled down to be thin, it has clumps in it, so it’s used for most mega machines, something that needs to stretch in for metres on end, when it gets mulled down it works in the same way but smaller scale.”

“Why doesn’t copper work for large scale then?”

Branzy had placed it down on a work station, unscrewing a tiny little panel Clown had never seen.

“It gets too expensive, anything copper based also needs gold and more specially created pieces, we have a mix in our communicators. Even if the materials are common enough, making them into something like that takes more skill than redstone. This one seems to be..” he stared at it for a second, “copper based, I don’t have the materials and tools to fix it here sadly,”

“Is it even fixable? Wouldn’t it be an issue with the actual text to speech?”

“I’ve fixed a pair of these before, they come in two types, the redstone and the copper ones. This one is known for a glitch where the in built text to speech goes wrong pretty often.” He pointed at a small part of it with the tool he’d use to unscrew it, “or at least the copper ones do; the redstone ones have a simple fix and it’s normally just a software issue”

Clown thought for a second and nodded. He knew what that meant but not what he had to do about it, tech was magic to him. Wires here and there and suddenly branzy made a something or other powered by a skulk that helped both of them

That wasn’t accurate but still.

He heard Branzy typing a couple things up and he heard him briefly laugh before scrambling, someone was calling him.

Before Branzy got onto the call he gave clown a warning, “Don’t talk, I need this idiot to actually agree, Hi Rek!”

Clown tilted his head and waited.

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m giving you something for the trouble, yes, it’s me using the components. Yea, my sister mailed her’s in, one keeps getting that stupid glitch. I swear you’ve- okay, yes. Copper. Yes. You are an absolute life saver. Can I come get the components alone? Uhh- so you remember how I got my wing injured randomly by my own stupidity. Well, I currently am not trusted enough to be left alone.. soooo. Clown may have to come? That’s fine! Oh perfect!” The slight edge to his voice said anything but okay.

“Thanks Rek,” he smiled and got ready to hang up the call, “NO WAIT WHAT NO NO NO, YOU CAN’T LEAVE AFTER SAYING TH-at. Okay.”

“We’re going to meet Rek.”

“Wait we? You could have just told him you were going alone.”

“Well~ to late for that now, get ready and let’s go.”

Clown was ready in a matter of seconds, he picked up his scythe, which Branzy had not noticed had been placed down in a corner. And they both set off. The walk was uneventful, but Branzy kept watching him out of the corner of his eye, how was Clown walking like that, so unworried about hitting any trees? He was just walking confidently; Branzy guessed that he had to, had to keep up the appearance of it.

He was now watching him so closely that he didn’t notice when he walked into a tree.

“Branzy.”

“Yea?”

“You’re going to have to go back to pretending you think I can see. I can’t have you watching me as if you are taking care of me, I’ve been doing this for a long time, you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Okay.. sorry,”

“It’s fine,”

They kept walking in relative silence, Branzy’s footsteps could be heard and now that it was almost silent, he swore he could hear a slow heartbeat, it didn’t match up with his own, he wondered if it was from Clown, how a warden had an echoing heartbeat.

He actually didn’t try to imagine Clown shirtless with this new discovery because he was entering a place with people where he had to be normal.

That image wouldn’t fit under any of those standards.

Up ahead he finally saw Rek and started moving towards him. Clown said pretend he though that he could see? He was going to run straight off how he normally did.

“Rek!”

“Branzy! And-“

“Shush, no need for introductions and frankly I think you shouldn’t continue that sentence for the sake of your safety- I will trap your bed so you repeatedly die until you are on one life and then give you all the lives back so I can do it again.”

Clown was going to pretend his antenna hadn’t just picked that up. To Rek’s credit, he didn’t even seem to flinch. And from the way he responded, his smile hadn’t dropped.

Wow Branzy actually talked really scarily when he wasn’t stuttering or fighting.

Eh.

Clown liked it better when he was stuttering.

He hung loosely behind Branzy, ‘watching’ as Rek handed over all the materials and reminding Branzy of what he had to do.

“Branzy, can I talk to you in private?”

Branzy looked back to clown, or at least Clown though he did by the was his clothes shifted. Clown nodded.

When they came back, Branzy was clearly annoyed, the jewellery in his wings was shifting as he walked and he just seemed annoyed, not angry though, and unharmed.

“You got everything for your sisters headphones?”

“I do!” His voice sounded forced, but he made no comment.

Once they were out of reach Clown didn’t even have to ask.

“I hate Rekrap. I hate that man.” He couldn’t tell if Branzy was serious or not. “All he did was ask me why you were guarding me so closely, and if that wasn’t annoying enough he started suggesting about how my jokes aren’t exactly jokes.”

“Which jokes?” He asked.

“The homoerotic ones.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, in-fucking-deed Clown.”

“I mean I did kiss you.”

“If you say no Homo now I will start crying.”

“No, no, no ,no” he started giggling and placed a hand on his mask, it would ‘t help to calm his laughter down but the act seemed appropriate. “Absolutely not.”

“Good,” Branzy said joining him in laughing as they walked.

They heard Clown’s comunicator go off and the text to speech was normal again (because he’d given up on the headphones since they place it in his ear and outloud anyway.)

“Rekrap whispers to you: those materials are absolutely for you.”

He typed back a simple, ‘yes, and?”

No more buzzing.

When they got back into Branzy’s house he set the materials down.

“Now the kind of fun, kind of annoying part.”

“Putting it together?”

“Yes.”

Branzy dragged a second chair over so that Clown could sit next to him before sitting down and hitting his head against the table multiple times. His undamaged wing out stretched widely and then he flapped it once, sending the paper he’d left strewn nearby to fly across the room.

Great, time to actually do this.

Chapter Text

It was a relatively simple fix, he’d done it before.

By the time he was done, Clown had all but fallen asleep, face down on the table. Branzy didn’t know if he had the heart to actually wake Clown up.

Welllll~

Maybe he could risk it.

Maybe.

 He could wake Clown up, at the risk that he would wake up and hit Branzy.

He could also mess with Clown a little bit. But that could also end in injury and one wing not working left him even more vulnerable than usual.

Which was the the very least annoying. And the the worst; dangerous.

Fuck it, that was obvious, wow, this fucking server? Dangerous! Who. Would. Have. Guessed..

The again, he could also leave Clown to sleep peacefully or wake him gently and get him to go somewhere more comfortable.

Or he could compromise and watch Clown while he slept.

Did that sound creepy. Yea.

Did he care, no.

Clown looked way too peaceful for Branzy to care about it.

It was cute. His chest rising and falling gently, one hand bracing the upper part of the mask, and the other resting on the table infront of him.

The light of the torches in the small house was dim, leaving warm yellow to cover the wood and shadows to occupy one side of the house.

He couldn’t help himself but get caught at Clown’s appearance again.

He’d returned and took of the jesters hat, whatever it was actually called.

So his hair was peaking up just slightly over the mask, a curl or two falling infront of it, his hair looked incredibly soft.

Because of it, he could see the slightest bit of skin, covered in black and blue shifting tones, the skin glowing like a galaxy of dim teal and dying cyan sparkling back and forth in a fight between light and dark upon the patches of infection.

His mask was the biggest contrast, whether to the slithering skulk tendrils that formed patches of Blackened skin or to the red outfit, stained with more blood than not, the black fabric having the occasional sheen of old blood- a dark brown that soaked straight into the material.

It was porcelain white, expression carved into it, at this distance he could see that the black patterning was slightly indented into the mask, just enough that it was a design choice, could that be so Clown knew where his hand had landed on the mask? Like to tell if his hand covered his eyes or if it had landed just shy.

It was smooth, the surface not shiny by any means but still, if it shone it would look like plastic, his looked undoubtedly like ceramic. Wouldn’t one hit wreck it? Likely not ceramic then.

Being the deadliest would never mean no pain.

Or never being hit.

Hell, sometimes it didn’t even mean not dieing.

No, even physical power was political here.

Your reputation counts more than your kills.

Clown muttered something and his free hand started pulling at the band of his mask, Branzy readied to close his eyes and gently wake clown, but to remove it he would normally click the backing clips and let it fall off. When he shifted a wing he heard the sound of a sensor going off. That noise was familiar, Skulk littered the casino and he was the only one to know exactly where the sensors were located.

Clearly not but he’d thought that Clown was not part skulk.

Back to the noise, he opened his eyes and saw small antenna on his ears, hanging down slightly, shit would that disturb Clown.

He quietly decided if he wanted to reach out and touch them.

He really, really wanted to.

Bad idea though.

He was sitting close enough to clown that he could simply reach out and touch them, or even his hair.

It was so risky.

But like.

Look at himmmm.

….

Clown was very much awake, he’d woken as soon as Branzy had stilled, he was half lucid before that, and when he heard the tech was done he was simply too hazy to lift his head.

He felt like eyes were watching his every move. Which meant that Branzy was staring at him.

He felt how itchy the headband was on the little sensors.

And decided he had nothing left to lose since Branzy already knew.

It felt so much better to not have them locked underneath an elastic. That was a sensory nightmare since they were also bent back at an angle all day and were sensitive to touch since they picked up on sound waves.

When vibration was sent to them they would move as well as picking up audio, they were constantly receiving signals that were ignored until they hit a certain decibel level and large enough vibrations were also turned into a signal, it sent a small wave of sound that bounced off of the target and back to know what it was.

Basically echolocation but slightly uncontrollable and really annoying.

He’d learned to control the noise most of the time.

Otherwise someone would have guessed.

But that was part of the reason why they’d been tucked behind his mask straps.

The thing was, the noise was something he let off on command. That was what he’d trained himself to do.

But it was an incredibly satisfying noise, reverbarating through his throat satisfyingly. Many like him couldn’t see so being able to make out faintly where someone else was because the noise was unrestricted was a show of trust. Sometimes it was curiosity like how a cat my make a chirp noise at birds. Or a show of danger, when aimed it was like a warning. They can see you, they know you are there before they make the noise so they aim it at you.

Making noise had its uses.

So control over it was power.

Control was power. As if he hadn’t heard that phrase before.

It was a pretty stupid thing to live by, when you love someone it’s not control you need, its trust.

Trust was power just the same as control was. Granted differing types.

But to so many, power was power all the same.

He had both.

Right now in fact. He had control over what Branzy could see of him, of what would happen in the next second as he felt Branzy’s hand hovering over his hair, he could control that. But he also had trust, that he wouldn’t be harmed and that Branzy wouldn’t bypass any boundaries he’d set.

Oh yea.

What on Earth was Branzy doing. He had been sitting there for so long. If he was going to touch Clown’s hair he better do it. Like soon.

Branzy gently picked up one of the strands of Clown’s hair between his thumb and forefinger. Okay it actually was as soft as he had believed.

He gently let the strand fall and rested his head on one hand, elbow just placed onto the table without any sound, he was quiet by nature, but he showed it less than others.

Or at least Clown did a better job at keeping dead silent.

Once sure Clown was not stirring (which to be fair he wasn’t since he was laying as still as he possibly could be) he placed a hand on top of his head, fingers slowly threading through his hair, untangling the knots just as he had done on Branzy’s wings.

Every thread untangled with care.

Branzy smiled to himself, registering the feeling of Clown leaning into the touch, he made sure his talons weren’t pressed directly against Clown’s scalp. He didn’t want them getting in the way, he vaugely wondered if they held hands if either of them would accidentally hurt the other.

His talons were slightly curved and a shiny, ending in a point that was set ever so slightly lower than his fingertips. He’d tried cutting them before but he liked them so since he’d joined the server he kept them long, it gave him an advantage of fighting.

Not much.

But if he could find an artery they’d serve well.

Clown’s were longer, sharp on both sides and coming to a knife point. Branzy had personally seen him ripping out someone’s throat with them, through his fucking gloves he may add, they tore into a flesh and broke skin.

Branzy continued petting Clown’s hair as he thought, it was nice to have someone who related in that same way, by far Clown was the only other person he’d met who regarded his nails as his last measure of attack.

Many either trimmed them short for practicality, didn’t know how to use them, or simply only used their claws.

Clown and him had different uses for the ‘last measure’ Branzy used them instead of another weapon at any given moment he needed a fight. A sword didn’t quite feel like an extension of himself, he’d tried to train himself to be able to feel like that. To move a weapon as if were his own.

But no.

For him, the only extension of himself that he could use for a fight was a physical extension of his hands.

Clown was uniquely terrifying with whatever he used to fight. Following sound and vibration, evading his enemies in ways they could never understand. But importantly he could use other’s weapons to fight, he could use anything. His scythe was a show of that, they weren’t the most practical of weapons and yet you were considered stupid to not flinch when his scythe came down upon you.

It always stopped a hairs width from his eyes, resting against his heart softly, point pricking his chest.

Never any closer.

Clown hadn’t tried to do that In a while.

Branzy’s hand brushed Clown’s exposed antenna, they both shivered and the lights on them flared, he heard the noise from earlier again.

Clown moved, free hand clumsily reaching over and grabbing one of Branzy’s.

His talons were just shy of touching Clown’s hands.

Clown’s Claws rested away from Branzy’s gloves.

Their hands intertwined naturally, the avians closing around the other’s hand.

Clown’s hand was still open but held in a relaxed position.

Branzy couldn’t move could he.

He’d just have to accept that.

As silently a possible he moved closer to Clown, their chairs were almost touching. He placed an arm around Clown’s waist and rested his head on his arm, which was outstreched since Clown had dragged his hand up a little.

They would talk again im the morning.

This would not be a comfotable way to sleep.

But Branzy was too stubborn to let go.

And Clown was too stubborn to ask.

so they would sleep there.

Chapter Text

If you had asked either of them today about sleeping like that would have been a good idea, they’d have said no.

If you asked them last night… they would have still said no.

What had possessed both of them within the last couple minutes of consciousness to just stay there, well, they didn’t know what it was but their necks were sending complaints in the form of aches from having done that.

Clearly, not a smart decision.

But had either of the really ever claimed to be smart.

Well they had done that. They were wrong though.

Their backs could attest. (old. Anyway. -the author)

Clown had been the first to wake, hearing Branzy’s wings moving while he slept.

He tucked the antenna behind his ear as if nothing had happened last night and started making breakfast, he was by no means a great cook, but he knew how to not mess up scrambled eggs.

He also saw where branzy kept his spices so he added in some seasoning to the egg make sure it wasn’t fully plain

After some searching, he found some mushrooms and sliced them into strips before adding them aswell.

Branzy got up slowly, rubbing his eyes and stretching his good wing out to full length before curling it back to sit behind him without taking up as much space.

He checked his communicator; something he always did when he woke up incase  someone had left a message he cared enough to reply to.

As there were none, he simply checked the time and continued on with his morning.

He went over and leaned against Clown, who was plating the scrambled egg up.

Clown was the one to speak first, “No one’s on.”

“Hm?”

“There’s no one here, not one of our allies or our enemies” (that’s a cranewives reference I’m sorry.) he watched as Branzy, who was still half asleep, processes what he was saying, “just.. no one.”

“Cool,”

“So, would you like to spend the day together since theres no danger?”

“You’re still here..” Branzy muttered and leaned even further against Clown, falling asleep standing.

“Yes, but you seem to like danger being here.” He laughed as Branzy didn’t reply, had he even heard what Clown had said? He placed a finger under Branzy’s chin, lifting it gently and leaning his head against the other’s. “I made food,” he took a fork and stabbed some, offering it to Branzy.

He hummed and Clown wrapped an arm around him, moving him to sit down and carrying both plates in one hand.

Branzy looked slightly more lucid as he ate.

As Clown pulled up his mask as he sat down at a stool. He never noticed that none of Branzy’s chairs had a backing. He hadn’t really been in here all that much, at least not more than sitting at the table before this. It made sense, his wings needed space.

When he had his mask off, he did take a few glances at the house, there were a few things to notice which he’d never thought about. Every wooden surface had a few light scratches, obviously he had talons but why were those everywhere?

There was also a picture frame up on a far wall, and a small frame.

It showed a picture of Branzy when he was far younger, a few of his feathers were dark grey and puffy and he was wearing wing jewlery, purple string with white beads.

He had his arm around a girl, their hair colors the exact same and her wings in the same fluffy condition, they were both smiling.

The nearby frame held two feathers, both snowy owl ones, medium sized.

Branzy’s house was filled with all sorts of things.

It was nice.

His own house- if that’s what you’d call it- was plain, all the furniture was bolted down so he could move around with his mask on easier.

The floors had red and black carpet with skulk under them.

Nothing on the walls and nothing special.

But Branzy’s place was homely, in a place like this he managed to make somewhere that was normal in a way.

“Hey Clown, I have an idea… you know! For what we could do today!”

That was an evil tone. When did Branzy wake up enough to sound that lively.

“Sure, what do you want to do?” He asked, hesitancy creeping up into his tone.

“Oh you know! Just some caving!” Why did Clown doubt that they would be doing ‘just some caving’.

They got a few items together, Branzy could see in the dark with relative ease because of his eyes, and since Clown didn’t have to see, neither of them brought torches.

A few materials, crafting stuff, pickaxes, buckets.

Branzy led him to a cave, it wasn’t particularly explored by what he could tell.

He let off a noise every so often to he could map out the cave.

Branzy found the noise entertaining, he saw that when Clown let it off his antenna lit up from behind his mask.

“You could take those out, you don’t need to hide them,I don’t mind.”

Clown did just that and even if he knew Branzy was staring, he didn’t care.

They just faintly glowed.

Actually, Clown quite literally glowed, close to his ribcage light snuck its way through the fabric and he could see it. Just dim enough that he made no comment but in the cave he could see it. Had he never noticed that?

Branzy struck a creeper and yelped as it exploded him into the air. He took the chance to fly a little, circling back to be nearer to Clown. Safer.

“Do you know where we’re going Branzycraft?”

He laughed and landed right next to Clown, more than once he’d been tempted to land on his shoulders. Branzy was by all means very light. And he’d practised landing easily.

Practise didn’t mean he was especially good though, so he made the split second decision not to.

“Come on, its only a little longer!”

He dragged Clown lower and lower into the cave.

When Branzy felt wet clay slipping under his feet, he knew that they were almost there, then the lights started.

Swaying in the breeze that always followed this cave.

Glow berries lined every wall, draping across the surfaces. Emerald green growing on every surface avaliable.

“Hey clown?” He gained the other’s attention and smiled even if he couldn’t see it, “have you ever seen a fire?”

“Of course, what-“

Branzy took out a flint and steal, the noise made Clown distinctly uneasy, who allowed Branzy a lighter.

“I always thought fire was beautiful, stunningly so, that smoke with all its spiralling pillars and curling tendrils to be endearing. The way it lapped at life and scored the earth with scorched wounds.”

He felt like he was being threatened.

But like.

“You know how you can use your echolocation?”

Clown nodded.

“I’m going to fly up to a ledge, I’m gonna need you to stand there and not question me.”

“Uhhh,” Branzy was already flying up, and who was he not to trust that man. At this point, what could go wrong, up there it seemed to be nice and inflammable stone, which made him feel much much safer.

Once they were both up there, Branzy turned away from him. “I want you to see this.. you know?”

He didn’t have to be asked, he pulled the mask up and off of his face, running a hand up and through his hair.

Branzy smiled at the click and closed his eyes, turning around and stepping form the small ledge, he turned around mid-air and gave one clean swoop to land easier.

Clown crouch he sat the edge, watching.

Branzy walked to the middle of the soft moss, wings shifting with his movements and his purple vest caught the yellow light of the glow berries, the colours lighting his white hair and feathers like a sunset’s light, soft yellow accenting each feather.

the whole biome catered to his colors, the magenta flowers withered to a deep purple that matched his vest, the green yhat made him the single brightest outlier in the whole clearing, but matching with the pale clay,

His movements were fluid, hands outstretched to hit every plant as he made his way to the ‘middle’ of the cave area.

With the flint and steel from earlier it only took one spark, just a single one.

The whole biome set ablaze in seconds, billowing ash and smoke with angry heat raking through every blade of grass and tuft of moss.

Branzy was right, as he flew up to admire his work, standing beside Clown.

Fire was beautiful.

In some devastating way, as it ate at the life and killed the creatures, and filled his lungs.

Smoke rose.

He coughed and looked at branzy who looked largely unaffected, he was pulling the soot from his feathers, eyes flickering back to the fire every so often as if he was waiting for something to happen..

Clown started to put the mask back on to spare himself from the smoke.

“What now?”

“Now you trust me!” Branzy grabbed his hand; he let it happen, and jumped off the edge.

They decended through smoke, but that drop was short before this. What had happened?

They fell into water and Branzy lifted his wings to get them away from the splash.

Where were they?

As soon as he stepped out of the water his foot connected with something and noise came alive in the biome.

A deep dark.

The skulk reverberated the noise back to his own sensors, and in just a second he was minutely aware of everything going on within the biome.

What. Why. How. Any answers at all.

“Branzy..”

“Look before you say, you took me out to do training in my favourite place, I had the advantage. And well, you knew the risks and you still brought me somewhere that would make me more comfortable.. so I wanted to repay the favour! And maybe do some training?”

He was left speechless.

Branzy wasn’t looking him in the eyes, he had yet to so much as sneak a glance at his face. He was staring out at the ancient city, rambling on about how he’d found it under his based and used it for redstone stuff for a while, just with another enterance. And how he hadn’t planned any of that until when he was eating.

Clown took Branzy’s chin between two fingers, tilting it up to make him stare Clown in the eyes.

A movement that was already familiar to the day. He’d done that earlier, the difference being that Branzy couldn’t see his eyes.

Clowns eyes were always Glowing.

Even with the black Sclera they were as bright as possible.

Branzy stopped talking.

He went red, trying to pull his wings infront of him, but this time Clown didn’t allow it, he pulled an arm around Branzy’s waist and pulled him closer.

Their height difference was very clear like this, Clown had always been on the taller side. And even within the server he was considered to be almost eerily tall.

Their faces were inches apart and Branzy’s breath caught. He could see in excruciating detail the way Clown’s cheeks stained in pink- almost as bad as his would be, but he wasn’t sure. The side with the skulk was glowing, veiny blue shimmering beneath the skin right where blush would be.

Clown was smiling, in a way it looked almost terrifying, but it was also endearing, the way he held Branzy, leaning him down just slightly. As if dancing.

They’d danced before once.

At some event they went to which was a masquerade, of course there was no hiding who everyone was, Branzy’s wings were covered in gold leaf for a night yet anyone nearby knew his mask was covered in real feathers he’d dyed purple and gold.

Someone was trying to kill Clown, he didn’t forfeit his normal mask so it truly was obvious it was him, but to try distract them, he’d swooped Branzy into a dance, stabbing someone as he twirled Branzy with one hand.

Branzy could admit that was a fun night.

Clown didn’t let go, he simply stared down at Branzy, he was so used to wishing he could see the other, pretending to be staring for just long enough to make the other squirm. But now it was different, he could see Branzy. And he was transfixed. This close. So close, he could see the small white feathers that rested on his cheek bones, just tiny enough to be unnoticeable normally, Branzy’s eyes were wide in surprise and his breath was uneven.

Clown laughed and said Branzy turned a further color of red, now his ears were tinged with pink.

“Clown-“

“Yes?” His voice was far calmer than he felt internally. But at least he wasn’t freaking out as badly as Branzy.

“Training!” He squeaked, oh yea, that’s why Branzy brought him here.

He hummed in concideration, hand falling from the avians chin. He wrapped his other hand around Branzy, lowering his head and placing into the crook of his neck.

Branzy was incredibly warm, and he’d done this already but he couldn’t help himself, nuzzling closer.

Branzy concidered it. For just a second.

Clown was very very fucking clingy.

He hand both hands in Branzy’s wings and he honestly doubted that Clown could breathe.

“Clown, you can’t even breathe there, come on,”

He didn’t budge.

But his antenna twitched in what Branzy could only assume was annoyance.

“Clown pleaseee,”

He felt like Clown was about to topple him over. Which was not a fun feeling since Clown was about half a foot taller and if they were honest about a million times stronger with no debate.

And yet, he stayed up on his feet, and with an annoying, stupid -adorable- smile, Clown let him go.

Branzy took a step away, smiling at Clown, because despite all his stubbornness that was cute.

A sensor went off nearby, and he could hear in the shadows the sick squelch of skulk parting with a tear to let up what he only assumed to be a warden.

“Fuck,”

“Great!”

“Clown what the-“ Clown had already run off, drawing his scythe in a single fluid movement.

He was going fight the warden straight on..

Chapter Text

Clown ran at the creature, swiping at it and clawing at its health.

The skulk around the two figures was alight, dots of light tracing every fast paced foot fall of Clown and an outline of living light radiated from and up the wardens feet.

He thought Clown was gonna die, quite honestly.

The amount of hits that got him square in the chest, or that pushed him off balance.

It was like the warden could sense his movements before he could.

Branzy didn’t get it, how could something like that happen?

Clown realized it too, he wasn’t losing, he was just, so to say. Getting hit the same amount as sending them.

The armour he wore tanked most of the damage, allowing him a better chance of survival, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. However, like the warden, this place gave him advantages, all his wounds healed over faster in this biome and he could sense everything going on around him.

He realised then what he could do. The biome granted more than he expected.

He’d learned that some time ago.

He ducked under a hit, dropping to the ground and placing a ungloved hand on the skulk.

The warden stopped dead in its tracks, swaying slowly.

Just stopped.

There was something so insanely wrong about it, the way it no longer did anything, it didn’t even try to be docile, it just, stopped.

“Branzy, have you ever killed a warden?”

“I- uh, No? Who does that” his eyes flicked down to the claws of Clown’s hands, a white bone like material hugged his wrists and clearly moved down his arm beneath the sleeves. His fingertips were blackened and the claw didn’t shine like Branzy’s talons, they were matte and almost dagger like.

“Well, for start, me. And like half the people on this server probably.”

Clown was overestimating him, there was no way he could kill that thing, what if it snapped out of its trance?

“Come on, I can control it through the skulk, you can just crit it until it dies.”

Branzy walked over, the thing was tall. Taller than Clown. He took out a sword and swung, it was not knocked back and it did not attack.

Did it take a while, yea, but wardens had a whole lot of health and he lost no health. He still had all his hearts.

Which was to say, pretty insane.

He wanted to explore and loot this place.

It was always so cool in deep dark biomes, he could fly around and loot the place with little to no issue, that was if he kept wool on his person at all times. He had none right now but he also had Clown with him, it made him just a little safer in this place.

He wondered how one could learn to do that. Stop a creature like that.

He started walking, the feeling of eyes on his back, now actually present, not just a lie to breed fear.

Footsteps following with care, no disruption. Almost in time with his own step but whike he walked next to the skulk, shoes landing on rocks of deep slate, the sound of light steps just behind traced his every move with safety.

Watching.

The noise echoed through the cave, bouncing from the walls. That’s one thing machines could never do, all the walls were cushioned and soft, wood that stole the sound from the air itself. The woollen carpets blanketing it. Machines malfunctioned with daily life. Skulk wasn’t adapted to life above where vibration reigned from the rain and towered from thunder, it couldn’t tell apart the waxy brush of deciduous trees frantically holding on to their wilting leaves against the sound of the bristling pine trees with their ever lasting, all consuming towers of viridescence.

Skulk was sensitive to every noise and knew nothing about the world, it activated with any hint of life, fury at the world's survival against the creeping black and blue. Infection seeping into stone and skin alike with sharpened edges and choking holds. Metre by meter of land, inch by inch of flesh overrun by a mindless hive of ink.

“Would having more rocks in a base with skulk sensor traps and machines work better than wood or wool?”

“Now where did that come from,” Clown asked, speeding up just the slightest bit to be looming behind Branzy he leaned down to be closer, but Branzy’s eyes were locked dead onto a sensor. Staring but perhaps unlooking.

Branzy began to try and explain his though process, detailing his ideas about it and his observations of the way skulk seemed to work and its adaptation to the world. He ended off the rant, going back and asking again, “You are skulk, or have skulk- or just.. you know more about it! Would that work? Would that make it easier for your detection aswell, what if I placed them through the walls of the casino,”

“Maybe, yes and no. Wood doesn’t do anything to stop skulk, it is better to use through a wall then solid stone but makes no real difference, wool is the issue. Please do not lace the casino with skulk, you will scare away the customers and without seeing I am still perfectly fine.

“Oh, Okay!” Branzy still looked deep in thought, ideas creeping up and he simply nodded and smiled.

They reached one of the structures of the city, rising tall into the high roofed cave.

“Lets split up, we’ll meet back after getting loot, send a message if you need anything Branzy,”

They split up, Branzy still and to be pretty careful not to summon a secondary warden, stepping onto wool and collecting some to use as he went, flying wherever he could to be more silent.

Clown was quite literally at home. Walking through the cave with no changes.

Last time he was living in one of these.. well.. he couldn’t remember it.

The lower level beneath the portal had always been where all the children were effectively schooled, they were taught the ins and outs of redstone (he didn’t listen), reading and writing. Their eyes not yet accustomed to life in the dark; they had lanterns littered around to use. Hence why there were always a few in the chests.

Those whose infections moved faster than others tended to start training to fight.. Ancient cities were all made generations prior, but the present day families still used the ruins as homes. Some used as a safe place to live until the infection spread thoroughly enough for the child to be at no risk from wardens, some lived there because they felt like it, some were pushed away from the rest of humanity and found solace in the old cities.

Many humans had seen the overtaken -that was what they called themselves- seen their eyes covered in blindfolds and ceramic masks and cried gods, long ago at least.

That was how the myths of watchers began.

He didn’t pay much attention but he at least knew his own history.

Carding through a chest he picked up an enchanted golden apple and an armour trim.

He traced a hand over a wall, covered in the vines of skulk, he could feel the rest of the biome, and through the sensors heard Branzy swear as he tripped over himself, his wings flapping loudly. He could be silent by practise, but if he just whipped his wings around to not fall over it was still loud like any other avian’s wings.

It reminded Clown of when he was younger, still living in a city like this one with his cousin.

He and Kab had spent their whole day fighting wardens and each other.

Practising getting the summons of skulk to fight at their will.

They inevitably killed one of them. Then let go of the control and killed the other one.

Their parents marvelled at their training, the control they had over skulk and the fighting they did both against each other and together.

Kab managed to keep all the skulk invisible, she was always better at controlling its movement over her body.

But Clown had better management of the wardens.

After that Kaboodle had gone to find something to eat, declining the glow berries and golden carrots that Clown was having. He was alone, both their parents had gone off to collect some materials from the surface and so he was left alone with his thoughts and the darkness.

At that point only one of his eyes had been infected. The other a warm fiery ruby, scalera white and shining with candlelight. He heard a noise, sensors all going at once, he could have set a shrieker off manually and summoned a warden. But something made him not. He was young, and over excited for something to happen.

He jumped up, climbing the skulk vines to stand on top of a pillar and to watch.

Someone was at the side of the city, eyes sparkling with delight at the find. They had the strangest colors of feathers, bright purple with red streaks. They looked slightly older than he did and he couldn’t help but watch as they moved through the skulk. Mining it for experience.

The overtaken taught their children how to manipulate skulk, create it and change how it looked over the body, however if you weren’t manipulating it, it took XP, and lots of it.

But at that time he didn’t know much about enchanting, he was only taught about what the best ones were, not how to do so. He was convinced that the other was just like Kaboodle, hiding it.

Any creature could become an overtaken, but most were born with the infection, marked by the yellow plating on their wrists (which was as a child more maluable) and the same on the torso. He assumed that the person had simply gotten infected, those wings..

But the other kept looking around frantically, looking afraid every time a sensor went off.

And he had no antenna..

Clown jumped down, landing in the Skulk.

But as soon as he did, the other looked up and stared running away.

He and Kaboodle were problem children.

But he still wondered about that avian.

The world called him back to reality as another warden summoned.

Branzy didn’t even have to call for him. He used an ender Pearl to get there.

He kept his voice a soft whisper so it would not hear, “How did you summon another one?”

“I- shush”

Clown laughed and dealt with the thing.

“Are you done being attacked in the deep dark branzy?”

“Yes, yes, I am thank you very much.”

Chapter Text

After leaving the cave they parted ways, both knowing if they continued spending time together they would get nothing done.

Leave it to Branzy to forget he had an injury in his wing and overuse it.

It stung and ached almost as badly as when he first hurt it.

He was an idiot.

What was new?

When he got back to his home he got out some paper, a pencil and his communicator.

Once a week him and his sister called.

And they had arranged for today.

“Branzy,” her voice came through warm but tired, he let out a breath and extended his wings, wincing with the pain of it. He had to explain what he’d done today to make the injury worse.

And what Clown had done.

“Ivory! How have you been?”

She hummed for a moment and talked about how it had been, she was doing good, better than last week apparently. Apparently had to deal with some idiots this week, not that he ever got context of what she was doing. But she was dealing with them nonetheless.

He wondered out loud if he was one of the idiots.

She told him to shush and tell her about what he’d been up too. The recaps were the quick part, then they just talked.

She knew he’d gotten hurt, Clown had left him for about a day and a half before returning and well.. what happened happened.

As he sketched, he talked, hours of it, she added things, gave him ideas for machines.

He didn’t mention anything about Clown being skulk.

He did say he kissed Clown pierce.

She called him an idiot. But her voice was soft and she asked him more about Clown, more about what he thought of him and how they acted together.

She was not impressed at how he had carelessly hurt Branzy.

But she could forgive him, especially with all the care Branzy talked about him giving.

“I should be calling you an absolute and total idiot.” Ivory was not one to swear, Branzy had picked up the vulgar language from god knows where (because he was swearing since they were both kids much to his sister's dismay, so he couldn’t even blame anyone on this server)

“And instead of that you’re telling me that Clown and me would be really good together,” he somehow ended up on his bed kicking his legs back and forth like a schoolgirl colouring on the floor. He was technically still coloring, but he was creating some sort of copper and redstone mixed thing. He could cross their wires directly because it was two types of signal but have them do two different things.

“Sadly,”

“Don’t be so sad about it, you’ll be the bridesmaid at the wedding Ivory,” he rolled onto his side and raised a hand to swipe at the air in some gesture which probably meant something, but Ivory couldn’t be sure given that she couldn’t see him.

She laughed and quite fondly replied, “I better be, and you better be wearing a long white backless dress with off the shoulder sleeves that have feather motif lace.”

“That’s your dream wedding dress, how about a white ball gown with wing slots that are physically impossible to move your wings in and with full giant puffy white sleeves and a hoop skirt underneath.”

“First of all, I’m not getting married in general, let alone to my dream guy who killed me at least once.

“Hey!” She muted him over the call so she couldn’t hear him and he went silent.

“And second of all, are you describing a nightmare to me Branzy craft-Cello”

“You cannot be using my government name Ivory Craft-Cello.”

“That dress is almost as bad as the dye job you were in your words rocking at eighteen.” She teased at him, he heard the quiet noise of wings flapping in the background, she always did that when she was making fun of him to mirror what he did when he got embarrassed.

“Hey! You were matching me-“

The call went silent for a second.

“You had purple wings with vibrant red streaks. I had soft pastel pink with purple ends.”

“And you dyed my feathers and told me the pink would be the same.”

“You had royal purple, I was not giving you a soft pink, they would have looked blood soaked you idiot.”

“Meh meh meh meh,”

“Branzy you are such a child,”

It was his turn to go silent.

“Ivory we’re twins. You and I are the same age.”

“You looked like a parrot.”

“You looked like a flamingo,”

“I’m going to end the call now.”

He scrambled and back tracked, laughing while she didn’t end the call, “no, no, no, no wait, I take it back, your pastel-coloured wings were very stylish.”

She giggled at him and replied with, “yea that’s what I thought.”

They talked for a while more, somewhere during the conversation she managed to find a picture of his wings when he was at that age, they were patchy royal purple with neon red streaks that looked honestly terrible.

He couldn’t argue that had been bad.

Avians treated wings like hair, having special dyes for the feathers that would be nonpermanent.

So what did two twins with some spare time and avian feather box dyes do?

Three guesses.

After a while they parted, both still laughing and smiling from the stupid call.

That was funny.

He checked his messages, a few death threats here and there, nothing new. Maybe that should be a concern that enough people were seeking him out for it, but he was like the only person Clown trusted implicitly and that put a target on his head. Luckily he didn’t have to take care of that target himself anyway, it was not his problem because Clown would handle it.

Cords from someone he didn’t care to know the name of. He would not  be going to them. And he couldn’t even fly so he wouldn’t be going half the map just for someone’s word. It was probably a trap.

People in chat had their normal things, people were back online now.

Clown was talking to someone.

Zam was around somewhere.

Rek was finally back online.

Oh wait, Rek was online.

‘Rekkkkkkkkkkkkk, do you wanna hang out while I work on blueprints?’

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘Cords plz’

He didn’t need the cords, Rek was in his base. he walked to Rek's house, passing no one as he went.

The sky above was looking grey and he would not be happy if it started raining. His feathers would soak through and it would be a total disaster. And he just got help preening them.

‘Branzy, don’t come, something came up,’

Now that sounded like a serious message.

‘Do you need any help?’

‘No’

Branzy didn’t believe that. But he had a bad feeling about going to help.

He should stop. He had stuff to do at the Casino.

Work.

He walked over there, grass softly caving under his feet as he went. He knew how to get there just as well as he knew how to find Rek.

So, without having to look up. He went off to the casino again.

Last time he was here he broke something. And lost the blueprints.

So now -with nothing to do- was the prefect time to make new ones and fix it.

Cool!

He sent a message to Clown, telling him he was probably going to be there soon.

Clown felt the buzzing and pressed for it to text to speech what Branzy had said. He smiled behind the mask and went back to the menial task of strategising.

He knew exactly who his enemies were, who Branzy’s anomie’s were and everything in between, but right now he couldn’t be bothered.

He could go wait for Branzy amd check up on him.

Clown admitted, since the point when he had hurt Branzy’s wing when they were training, he hadn’t been able to leave him alone. Whether that was checking in. Or everything else that happened in the last couple days.

Kab would probably bury him in Skulk if he told her everything.

But.

She’d want to hear something.

He should talk to her soon. Probably.

Maybe.

Perhaps.

Okay he’d message her and they’d talk about it at some point.

Clown messaged back and forth, rolling his eyes at her atteampts to break his text to speech or make it sound annoying. No one needed to know his ‘only weakness’ was terrible grammar.

He so happened to lose track of time.

And when he next checked what time it was, he realised two things.

Number one, he and Kaboodle had been talking for three hours, it was like five minutes he swore it was five minutes, like come on it was not that long.

The call log said otherwise and he couldn’t argue with the tech since his text to speech meant it could kind of argue back. Depending on who sent the next message.

Oh and the second thing.

Branzy hadn’t been here for three hours when he said he would be there.

Where. Is. Branzycraft.

He got a communicator buzz, why was Rekrap talking to him privately right this secon- oh.

‘I think something happened to Branzy, he isn’t answering my messages and he’s either with you or somethings wrong,’

‘Something is wrong.’

Chapter Text

Branzy’s head spun with an overzealous headache, making the world difficult to concentrate on. He could feel his wings tied behind him, rope pushing into the feathers and rubbing against an unbandaged injury.

He made an effort not to move the wing, keeping them still to prevent more injury.

And made double the effort not to move. He couldn’t see but he couldn’t be sure whether someone was with him in the dark.

Who had done this?

One second, he was walking to the casino, already considering the sketch he was going to create for the broken machine. HIs mind wandered over the events of the last days and he was almost considering going back to that snowy biome, he only really needed a few pictures of the redstone to work on it. He was smiling, communicator in hand and texting ivory back- she'd sent a meme or something. In his distraction he saw a message pop up, that unknown person who’d been sending Clown death threats.

He didn’t even get the chance to read it. He was already on the floor.

Scrambling to get up, fight, fly. At least view who it was attacking.

Blinding pain struck his face, a boot print that would absolutely be leaving a mark to redden his face.

In the struggle he then made; trying to get up and kick at their ankles, wings fluttering with the effort of it all. Another heavy foot step. This one hit his wing; the injured one, he felt something crack, white hot pain moved down the length of the bone, crawling up his spine with fire that made his head hit the ground.

His hearing was swimming. But someone was laughing, saying words that drowned behind the ringing that plagued his ears.

He heard the sneer in their voice and smiling tone as they moved him, turning him onto his front. He reached a hand out, clawing at the ground in front where he could see through black spots that his communicator waited. He could send one of his quick SOS signals to someone. Clown or Rek or his sister.

But his hand stopped just a breath away from the buttons, he felt the blade of a sword press down into his back, pointing into the very edge of his wings. Just where the cross between his back and wings connected. The person leaned over him. Then it all went a little fuzzy.

He knew he’d resprained the wing though.

He hoped silently that Clown was alright.

Maybe he should be wishing to be saved. But there was a high chance he was already done for. They would farm him for his hearts. And then dispose of him for information about Clown. They may even torture him for info. Not great.

He could feel the eyes watching him. He didn’t -quite honestly- want to be awake, everything was aching and his wing felt cold and hot all at the same time. It took far more willpower than he thought he had to keep his wings perfectly still. He always slept without moving a muscle so he had to remain exactly as he was now or face getting caught. Who knew what they would want to do when he woke up.

Was Clown coming to get him?

Clown was panicking. Outwardly not a single thing changed. Though he and Rekrap had accumulated a hundred and eight messages all together in the last hours. And with those messages. They'd gotten nowhere.

Rek said someone with invis had attacked, so he told Branzy to shy away.

The timeline matched up with when Branzy had told him he’d be by the casino for some fixes.

Something must have truly gone wrong. Branzy had an SOS feature he kept on his comunicator. Clown wasn’t meant to know about it. But he caught the other asleep after working on it for hours, he’d taken it from Clown to ‘check if worked’ a few months ago. He couldn’t help but see the blinking program left open.

He’d left after saving the program so his progress wouldn’t delete, and placing a blanket on Branzy’s shoulders, carefully so as not to bother his wings.

Whoever had made it their decision to take his engineer, his friend, the person he protected out of love away. Well. Imagine what happens then?

With his mask off, his eyes were glowing with black and swirling blue. His eyes locked onto himself in a mirror as he passed. The skulk had grown, overtaking more of his face with its tendrils of angry dancing galaxies.

He itched to loose his claws over someone's throat.

For now, he needed to at least learn who’s throat he needed to tear out.

Clown left the casino to go find any sort of sign of Branzy. He told Rek to check the path between his own base and Branzy’s cottage. He’d check between the casino and Rek’s base. Then if that didn’t work the cottage and casino, just in case.

He had to find some sort of remanant of something.

After a short while he got a call and picked up, it was Rek, “Haven’t seen anything on my path, you so far?”

Clown couldn't see.

But, he had his mask half off, although people were on, no one wanted Clown to act on the threat ‘if you see me I will tear out your throat and cut off your fingers so you can never tell anyone about it.’ At least not in their general direction. So everyone was steering clear of him.

Even Rek.

It wasn’t hard to tell when Clown was angry. Or at least when he wanted to seem angry.

He looked out from the very edge of the mask, staring at the floor perhaps more intently than he should have.

“Clown, you still there?”

“I’m fine.” The tone was forced because of course he wasn’t fine. Rekrap wasn’t fine either.

In the mud something stuck out, he ran over to it, small white feathers, doused in mud. The area looked to be covered in marks of struggle. He’d found where whatever happened had happened.

As he walked around he slipped, as he looked down he realized that the mud was a sickly red. Like it had been blood that spilled into it to make it slippery like that.

“I found something.”

“On my way.”

Branzy decided it was time to do something, he lifted his head, slowly, blinking away the haziness that came with sitting still for that long.

Just as he’d though someone entered the room. He tried struggling against the bonds. The friction on his wings gave an aggravatingly painful sensation, the ones around his arms set tightly and his legs planted with no leeway on the ground.

His head was free but the room had no lights, the walls could be anywhere.

Normally, the owl night vision would come in handy, but this time there was no light for even his sensitive pupils to take in. Just pure ink. The person walked over to him, footsteps unidentifiable to him. It had to be someone he knew. Someone who would have had motives.

Likely, it was the person who’d been threatening Clown. Likely having gotten tired of the .. uncooperative language he used.

But there’s no way if they had done all of that- like kidnapping him, being invisible, injuring him multiple times and whatever else- that they were just some player.

Lots of people hated Clown.

But not many hated him enough to kidnap his engineer.

Well, the engineer he cared for, had kissed and revealed his face to.

But still. The public knew nothing of that.

To everyone he was in fact Clown’s tech guy.

“Who are you.”

“No need for a why am I here? Or a where am I?”

Okay, he did know who this was.

“You’ve been sending me messages for months, and repeatedly been threatened. I traced your com and set up traps in your base. What made you decide this right now?” His voice, despite hurting, carried all the anger and sarcasm he needed.

“A fake base.” He corrected, Branzy felt as he walked over, looming over Branzy. “You could have done so much. Been more powerful than the deadliest assassin. Yet you chose this.”

“I chose a person. Not a life, or a goal.”

“I choose people. The people I love. But you’re just Clown’s pet engineer.”

Branzy wanted to lunge at the person. But tied back as he was, he had no power but to try and move.

Just try.

A blade came dangerously close to his eye.

Then it traced down, leaving a scratch on his neck, before moving down and putting just a little more pressure on the socket of the wing. Both had been dislocated, surely by the pain. One was broken, bleeding and the socket was covered in flakes of dry blood.

“Don’t even try it. I could remove those wings from your back,”

The threat was a serious one.

Branzy stilled in an instant.

“What do you want from me, Ash.”

He could feel the smile radiating from the other at his relenting. Breaking so easily. Under any pressure.

Because, of course, he was so weak, the weakest on the server.

This could work, he just had to play it right and endure. Though terrible, the wounds he had would heal.

Ivory would kill him when he got out.

She knew the server was dangerous and chewed him out every time he got too battered.

She’d be so mad.

“I’ll let you figure that out, for now I have some one to see, you know, the person I chose and can save. Unlike yours right?”

Clown was coming to save him.

Sooner rather than later.

He hoped.

Chapter Text

Clown stood impatiently there, with his mask put back down, he couldn’t see, but by now he had gotten ever so used to memorising areas with just a glance. It was a skill. One he and Kaboodle had to master- though she was better at keeping the skulk from her eyes and she didn’t wear a mask.

He couldn’t move anything, he needed Rekrap to see what happened first and get his judgement before they looked for things, but he was sure he saw Branzy’s comunicator on the ground. He’d have to pick that up.

He’d have to get a moment to look through it too.

“Clown”

He didn’t actually acknowledge the other, just angled his mask down to the mud.

He pointed at all the stuff he’d seen.

Struggle marks in the mud.

Blood mixing into it.

Feathers strewn with chaos.

And his communicator.

Clown picked it up, still silent, his body language perfectly curated to show nothing. He could be looking at any single object.

And not the traces of the person he valued most at that point left behind after getting kidnapped or killed.

He wasn’t dead, at least not permanently.

Or else Branzy would have reached out off server, asked him to get his stuff.

Just once before, Branzy was not only convinced, but dead set on the idea that he would die.

He asked Clown, as they worked on two different things side by side, if he could take the picture frames from the wall and get those to him.

A small request.

But the way Branzy choked as he asked made something in Clown boil, wanting with all his desires to keep Branzy alive.

They’d made it out of that. They could do it again. He could do it again.

But Branzy was gone with no trace, something must have happened if he didn’t even get to type out an Sos signal. Once Rekrap was gone he’d have to check out what happened. Did Branzy’s communicator record audio?

He was now regretting not asking and not checking.

Not knowing.

If Branzy was truly gone.

If he had to go permanently..

Clown found himself wishing with his corrupted heart that he had spoken to Branzy about any of this. Any of it, all of it.

They’d kissed and yet he as an idiot refused to bring it back up, to talk. To ask.

Now what?

If Branzy came back and he hated Clown? What if he regretted it? What if by the time Clown met him again he didn’t want to know him anymore.

He couldn’t do this.

He had to save Branzy.

“I’m going to his cabin.”

“I’ll come with yo-“

“No, you will not.”

Clown walked away. No argument, just a shut mouth and anger seething.

Rek didn’t get it.

And he clearly didn’t approve of how Clown and Branzy got close to each other in the last few days.

He got to there and sent out a single message to the only person he knew he needed to tell.

‘Something happened to your brother, can I meet you somewhere? This is Clown pierce.’

‘What did you do.’

‘I will explain just please meet me’

Ivory typed for a minute longer then a single message came, ‘fine’

He opened the rest of the communicator, no audio, no nothing.

Maybe some messages?

Branzy had a couple unread messages.

One stood out.

He’d read that text chain, that person with the death threats.

“I promise you’ll find him alive. Sort of.’

Something in his stomach curled, wanting to rake claws through flesh and gouge eyes. Who would dare do this to Branzy.

The message was aimed at him. No one else.

Another below it.

‘I’ll make my demands soon, you’ll just have to wait and see,’

Whoever this was, they were so dead.

Branzy felt…. How to describe it.. like he wanted to die.

His wings locked for hours on end with no chance to move, injured battered, blood had soaked into them. His jewlery was ripped to shreds and with every other breath a small bead fled to the ground where the noise was louder than he wanted to hear. The joints were painfully itchy, like they were coated in a think layer of crusted blood. His wings were probably dyed, not red like at eighteen, not pink with redstone dust. A sick, sad groutesque fleshed out red, that marked his wings and hung in the shadows petting through his wings with unwilling aches and pains, pins and needles, fire burning under skin.

Every creak of a floor board make him want to tense.

The door opened.

“Hi Branzy,”

Squiddo?

“I’m just here to give you some food and water, don’t want you dieing here now do we,” Gentle care folded into their words, but all the same she wasn’t really doing much to help. He was great full.

But he wanted out.

Trapped was not something a bird of prey ever wanted to be.

In the wild they were predators, and although taken into captivity, and displayed in bird of prey centered like some pet.

They had talons and sharp hearing, eyes that bore through snow to find life that they could shred apart.

He wanted out.

So badly.

He wanted to see Clown pierce, to say goodbye. What did they want from him?

Why?

Why did they have to break his wings?

His just preened wings soaked with blood and crumpled.

He’d never lost this many feathers in one go.

What could he do though? He needed to be saved.

He needed Clown to figure it out. Soon. Soon.

Sooner rather than later.

He’d pray to the watchers that he’d be saved.

Chapter Text

Prayers were always rarely answered. Those gods people hoped for were lies created by lack of knowledge.

Clown wished right now that he could be the god people hoped for when they thought of a watcher.

But they weren’t real. Watchers were lies stemming from people who didn’t know or care.

Else he would be a god and he would have long since answered his own prayers.

Ivory met him in Branzy’s cottage at midnight. How she’d gotten onto the server was beyond him.

But at least she was there.

He walked in and was already met with her anger, not a step into the room, and with no regard for who she was attacking, Ivory had a dagger to his neck.

He raised a hand in surrender, using a fingertip to hook onto the blade and move it away from his face, what regard should he have for if it cut his gloves. He had failed to protect Branzy and his twin sister was here to remind him of it.

“What. Did. You. Do?” Her voice tight and filled with rage as she insistently pressed the blade closer.

“Branzy got kidnapped. I don’t know who it was and I needed to tell you,”

He could feel her hesitate, before hearing the ruffle of feathers as she shifted them. Loud in the silence that followed both of their pains.

The sound was familiar in his ears and that almost made it worse.

Once a while ago, Branzy and Clown were talking about their families, Branzy mentioned how alike him and his sister looked. Or that they did now. Apparently, they were a little different as young adult.

But he didn’t even have to see her, he could hear from the way she shifted from foot to foot, hand still gripping a dagger she wasn’t sure she could use to fight him.

He raised a hand, hearing the rustle of her clothes as she tensed again. In a slow movement he slipped the door shut with one hand and undid the mask with the other.

And now she saw his face.

He could see the way her eyes shifted with pink color, bright eyes ran in their family.

“Why would you do that?”

He should be asking himself that but he didn’t. He was sure of the decision.

“I want to prove that you can trust me,”

“That doesn’t prove anything. Find Branzy and get him back, Clownpierce.”

The way she relaxed slightly showed it did mean something, she beckoned him over, sitting on a stool and staring at him. Waiting for his excuse. For his words.

He sat across form her, a hand on the table. He placed his scythe down to the side, and she in turn placed her dagger on the table. The warm lantern light cast yellow onto the weapons.

“So you have a plan? Or any idea of where he is?” She asked, voice smaller than previously.”

“I’ve been trying to figure it out. I can’t tell anything about who it is, I know they messaged him and have been doing so to get to me,”

“What do they want with you?”

“They want me dead or trapped, everyone does. I’m not sure you’ve met someone who doesn’t”

“Branzy didn’t.”

Branzy’s sister was surprisingly intimidating.

“I need to figure out if I can track down their communicator, since they sent messages to Branzy”

“Can’t you reverse search it?”

..

“I’m not to good with redstone, I don’t know how much Branzy told you but that’s why we became partners,”

“Oh yes, when you threatened my brother,”

“Uhhh,”

She smiled and laughed at him, “The big scary Clown Pierce is scared his boyfriend's sister won’t like him.”

“He’s not-“

“I can reverse search the communicator for you.”

He stared at her for a second, disbelief crossing his skulk shrouded face.

“You’ll help me?”

“I want my brother back, of course. Give me his communicator and yours please,”

Clown handed them both off without any protest. Leaving his open to allow access.

He watched over the table as she pressed a few buttons, laying them side. As she worked her wings curled closer to her back, almost in the opposite to how Branzy’s did when he focused, he always lost track of them and they ended up outstretching and hitting his redstone. But Ivory’s curled closer, leaning down over the tech with her.

She didn’t speak, too occupied for any conversation.

“Here, they match up with five of your contacts. From there you need to figure out who it is,” she slid the devices over, pointing at a list. He screen shot it and checked who they were.

All enemies.

All people who would do this.

What kind of twisted fate chose that?

What showed on the screen was what kind of communicator was being used, those five were all of the same kind.

Five enemies.

Well, three, a few of them were neutral or even friendly with Branzy.

Or maybe they weren’t?

Yes five.

“Any idea who it is?”

“I’m trying to narrow it down still,” he replied simply, leaning an elbow on the table and studying the names, as if something within them was going to give it away. He didn’t even specifically realize it as he started chewing on his fingertips, or well, gloves.

Ivory asked questions, it was helpful, she pointed out things he didn’t notice, like who Branzy had seen most recently and who was already saved to Branzy’s contacts.

He got a message on his comunicator.

It was Ash.

‘Can you still meet up for that discussion I asked you about?’

Earlier, before the time when Rek said Branzy had messaged, he had been talking to Ash about some deal he wanted to make.

Talking to ash was never a good thing.

And he was on the suspect lis-

Ah.

“I know who it is,”

“Good,”

He got up, picking up his scythe and getting his mask again, it always stayed conveniently on his waist when he had it off. He replied to the message simply, ‘yes’

With in seconds he was gone.

“Branzy!”

He flinched at the sound of Ash shouting. Too much joy for his state.

He found out from Squiddo that he’d been here for about fourteen hours.

It hadn’t even been that long.

She’d given him food and water, but that didn’t help with all his pain. His wing ached.

She didn’t have to say they looked damaged. She flinched when she took out a torch. He could only imagine.

He could see if he tried, but the idea of his wings crumpled and drowning in light red.

Almost pink.

No.

His head was down, not wanting to know what Ash wanted. It had been down since he drank and ate. Almost having refused. But he knew he had to be strong for Clown. As long as the food wasn’t drugged, but it had been a little bit and he felt fine.

“Branzy!”

At least that headache had stopped.

“Oh Branzy, I have some great news,”

He didn’t reply, a tear rolled down his cheek and landed on his leg.

“Aw don’t tell me you aren’t even awake for this, I just got Clown to agree to meet up!”

Branzy lifted his heads gaze lifted to see Ash standing infront of him.

Ash grabbed Branzy’s hair, pulling his head back painfully.

“And it only took mention of his name.” Ash laughed and let go. “I wonder, what would you tell me about him? If I asked really nicely.”

“I- I won’t tell you anything whether you ask or torture me!”

“Well, we can test that later, for now I just need a little gift from you to Clown.”

The tone made panic root itself to Branzy’s chest.

Ash moved behind him, just out of his vision. Not leaving.

What was he doing?

Clown arrived to the meeting spot.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

The text to speech told him that Ash was going to be here ‘soon’ in his words.

Enough time to figure something out.

They were meeting in a cave, actually, on the edge of a deep dark.

Not an ancient city, but hm. He could do something with that.

He walked over and stood on top of the writhing skulk. The sensation wasn’t new.

But even stepping into the biome sent it shivering with angry energy, pulsating energy and travelling XP orbs.

Coils of living skulk anchored to his legs, enveloping his whole legs, he moved a step and it receded and climbed straight back the second his foot planted.

He had to calm down, he could trigger a warden summon like this alone, the skulk was not meant to be this active, it was still, slowly clawing its way over corpses and dragging them into the masses, right now it was different, using the anger that coursed through his black tinged veins it was predatory, almost an extension of him. He could sense a bat perch and felt the skulk drag it down into its depth, suffocating the little thing and working its way into its tiny lungs.

Oh how he wanted to do that to Ash.

He heard noise and stepped off of the biome, the soft squelch turning into hard stone, it didn’t follow him or keep, instead falling still and dead as soon as his heel crossed the boundary.

“Glad you could make it Clown,”

He drew his Scythe without hesitation, silent as he knew his words would turn into death threats sooner than later.

And he needed to know where Branzy was, needed something before he could find his partner. Work partner.

“Well, straight onto it I guess.” Ash said cheerily, now standing in front of Clown. “How about some peace huh?”

“Yes, peace…”

“Oh come on, I just want some hearts, and some information!”

Clown tilted his mask, barely enough to be visible. He was looking down at Ash. He knew how tall Ash was and where he’d be standing at height wise.

“Ooo, now that interests you, doesn’t it. Look, I just want a few hearts. How about five?”

He remained silent again. Didn’t move a muscle. That was doable. But he needed to know abo-

“Don’t worry, you get something back. He misses you, by the way, he has a gift for you.”

Something about the tone made Clown halt. What had he done to Branzy.

Ash walked forwards, Clown almost rushed forwards with his scythe, but he held.

He held out a hand and felt feathers being placed into his outstreched hands.

He felt down them, long and rough, not as clean as when he had them. Was that. Clots? Blood.

Blood on his feathers.

And his flight feathers, he remembered Branzy saying that if those were removed he couldn’t grow them back. And that they were painful to remove.

What had Ash done to Branzy’s wings, these were all of the longest flight feathers of one wing.

“What. Did-“

“See, a gift! He’s alive now for my information. Now listen to me,”

Ahd started walking forwards. His footsteps loud in the cave.

Clown backed up. He didn’t Ash any closer. He put away the feathers, careful not to crease them. He had to fight. But what if he gave the order to hurt Branzy. What if he was lieing and had already killed the avian?

“I don’t want much, I just want to know if I’m right,”

Clown couldn’t touch the skull. Now right now.

He anchored the scythe into the skulk, it pressed into the soft flesh like material and hooked onto a rock.

“Right about what?” He held his tone, hiding any panic he may contain.

“Oh just give it a second, How about you just watch,”

What?

The skulk climbed up the handle of the scythe, it made a grasp for his wrist and with a blink behind the mask, he could feel the whole of the biome, feeling the way it rippled to life behind him. Two different segments ranging to either side. Almost like flaring wings of his own.

“And there it is,”

Ahd laughed and Clown took another step back, directly into the centre of the biome. This was on purpose. No.

No no no no no.

“I happen to know a thing or two about the overtaken.”

Ivory couldn’t help but feel restless. If that man didn’t bring her brother back soon, she may have to find her brother alone.

She could.

But she didn’t want to, she didn’t want the trouble of being noticed or to cause any issues for Branzy, she had to stay put.

In the meantime, she looked around the cottage.

And there, in a cage that glinted with lamplight , two feathers framed.

One was hers, the other her brothers.

Had he really kept that?

She got up, running a hand over the glass case. Her stupid brother and keeping their feathers.

Branzy closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. His wings were chained, not just held together now, with pins that were cut directly into each side, they were strung up to full size, almost to the point where it was too painful to extend them.

He couldn’t move without risk of dislocating them far far worse, he could feel the joints threatening to pop out and muscle held at stinging tension.

Ash had plucked his flight feathers, from his injured wing. He’d removed all the traces of the jewellery and burnt the rope, singeing some of his lower feathers.

And then he left.

He fucking left.

Smiling as he said he’d say hi to Clown for him.

Smiling as he said that ‘his little skulk protector couldn’t do anything now,’

When did he learn. How?

It had to be his fault. It had to be. He’d done this and oh no. Clown would think it was his fault and hate him. He struggled against the bonds but now all limbs were tied. He looked back at his wings. Neck sore but not overtaking the pain that radiated warmly from where the chains pierced straight through skin and cracked bone.

His wings looked decimated.

He was forced to watch as they were burnt.

And then Ash just left.

He was so screwed.

Clown was so screwed.

And Ivory would be here, sooner than later picking fights she couldn’t handle because she didn’t know anything about life steal.

But she knew that her brother was here somewhere.

She was searching.

Clown was too.

Maybe he was fighting and trying to kill Ash.

Trying.

Oh they were so screwed.

Chapter Text

Pieces were falling perfectly into place now, as if that was how they were always meant to be.

He’d found out, and really it wasn’t that hard. Clown wasn’t half as smart as he seemed.

And branzy wasn’t even a third as powerful as Clown made him out to be.

Well, oh well, delusions. All those aside. Things were going to be smooth sailing. All he had to do was imprison Clown, use Branzy against him just enough to make him break but not enough that he’ll get desperate to come back and then he’ll have exactly what he wants.

He wanted to take Clown down.

To farm him and the bird again and again for all the hearts they were worth.

And once they’re off the server take everything of value to them and burn it.

Because the server was a game.

It was friendly competition. To start.

But everyone knew that if you brought something here it was fair game.

Personal items.

Even people to an extent.

Ash had learned, and that was so long ago now, that his partner was possibly more evil than he was.

Actually, they definetly were.

He could day dream each day about their evil smiles and laughs.

“I’ll kill you,” Clown said at him, but he was currently tied up, limbs all secured at a corner of a wall. Ash was holding his scythe, swinging it in a circle, hey this was a pretty fun weapon. “I’ll kill everyone you’ve ever loved.”

“Sure you will Clownpierce. You may try kill them, but I’ve already got everyone you love ready to be strung up if you even decide to look at them wrong.”

That caught his attention.

“How’s your cousin doing by the way? Heard from her recently?” Ash said with a laugh, going for the hundredth time to tighten the bonds. Metal, with spikes lining them to make sure he couldn’t get out.

“Kaboodle..”

“How did you think I knew?”

Clown didn’t answer, but Ash laughed, walking out of the room. Closing the door on him.

Squiddo was standing outside of the room, smiling as they saw him and jumping forwards to hug him. He lifted her and spun them both. He placed his partner down and

“Hi,” he said, staring at her, smiling now.

“Guess what I got from Kab!”

He took one of her hands into his, “oh?”

“Clown’s worse than she is with the skulk, he can’t even control it. But he can summon and command wardens better. I think that he can’t summon them if the room is too small so make sure the roof is lower. Oh and noise machines.”

“Noise machines?!” Holy shit he hadn’t thought of that.

“Thinking about it, they’d work on Branzy too, he has very sensitive hearing, we just have to hook them up to a skulk sensor outside of the room, they can’t control what signals they get. And I also learned their regen comes from Xp, so the more harm you do to each of them, the more energy it takes from their body, and especially if you torture clown. If he can’t control it then his body may waste extra energy on it.”

“Wow, that’s so cool! Perfect!”

“Yep! I’ll install them soon, for now Kab’s tired, you should see their room. Branzy seems to be asleep and last time I tried giving him water he wouldn’t drink it, and you were just with Clown,”

“I’ll see how Kaboodle is doing then I’ll cook some lunch if that sounds good?”

Squiddo nodded enthusiastically and kissed his cheek.

Ash walked into the room, the door after Branzy’s. Through the gaps in the door, letting just enough light in to see the light catching her blue hair as it flowed limply down, she had her head down and was panting, arms up behind her uncomfortably.

Skulk grew up the walls and crawled across the floor, like a blood stain.

The shine from it dieing as he stepped onto it, crushing the thin layer under his boot.

She made no reaction, her stomach- which remained uncovered from the last round of torture- had red flowing down, mixing with the skulk that had been torn of into a sickly thick substance. Her chest heaved, glowing yellow ribs stuttering in movement. There was no skin there as much as there was plating, he assumed Clown would be the same but there was no knowing until he looked later. Their torso’s wouldn’t have any normal skin, instead black plating that looked almost like deepslate. Tiling up to the middle of their chests. He was hoping to check if Clown had a chest cavity and ribs like Kaboodle. They weren’t exactly bone, but sat where each rib would, they were like cartilage that gripped onto their sides.

“What do you want Ashswag,”

“Nothing, just seeing my partners handiwork. You sure seem to be letting out a lot of roots into the wall there, that’s not anything like you trying to escape is it?”

“Fuck off.”

“I could burn those for you if you need, I heard recently that Skulk can be pretty flamable.”

Her eyes widened, pink iris and white scalera slowly being consumed by an uncontrollable climb of skulk.

It had gotten bad enough that her eyes were being taken over, one of her iris’ was half corrupted, jagged lines of blue taking over her eye color.

He made sure her bonds remained tight, then turned and left. Proud of Squiddo’s methods.

Kab watched as he left, the smug fuck had gotten Clown, she knew it. What the hell were they meant to do now? She was on the edge of running out of XP. This had never happened, she wasn’t even sure what happened when one ran out.

They weren’t really taught that much. History sure, how the myths of watchers came to be and how it coincided with humans finding their cities. But. Rich history didn’t help when you needed a god to save you, or maybe an Angel?

She hoped the others were doing okay.

Branzy couldn’t feel his wings anymore. That was the scary thing. They’d gone so numb he couldn’t feel them. Only the constant ooze of blood loss making his head fuzzy.

He didn’t have the energy for this. To drink, or want.

Or to pray and hope.

Clown had been captured. He’d over heard them talking about Kaboodle too.

Were they going to get Ivory?

If they did, oh he didn’t know how but he’d do something.

Maybe Rek would come help.

Anyone.

Anyone at all.

Clown had given up before it started. If he could find a way out, it would have to be soon and not right now. The watchers knew how long Kab had been in here. Oh wait, he was a ‘watcher’. Perhaps the stories of the ancient overtaken and their powers from the heavens would prove true.

But he’d never know.

He had to get Branzy out. He could handle it. Handle torture.

Everything and anything.

Bu poor Branzy. His flight feathers.

Oh he’d kill ash.

And he’d kill Squiddo while he was at it.

He’d burn everything they had together.

But he also had to get out first.

Maybe if he could just…

It might work.

It might,

Actually,

Work,

Please.

Chapter Text

Branzy could hear a surprising amount from the cell. He could hear ragged breathing, he’d heard Kaboodle’s screams, he heard liquid dripping onto the floor. Though he could feel that it was his wounds that were letting a slow trickle make noise as they hit the floor.

He heard the conversation Ash and Squiddo had.

They were gone now, both of them.

His wings ached.

But that breathing, that had to be Clown.

He moved, chains screamed against his wanting and pulling.

“C-clown,” His voice was rough, broken from screams he wasn’t sure were real or not. He’d been in too much pain. He couldn’t feel his wings but he could feel the fire that swallowed every nerve, unable to decide if the pain should be a plunge of bitter frost bite or an angry fire that spread down his back.

Some of his feathers had been scorched.

By now there was no avoiding it, he didn’t want to look but he had, his wings looked disgusting. Once he was off server, well, he’d have to do something. There were treatments for stuff like this. Not all flight feathers refused to regrow.

But if he didn’t keep his feathers healthy and kept staying here, the stress may keep them from healing over. His sister knew about that stuff.

She used to constantly pick at her wings, and it was a wonder but hers grew back. The doctors had said they couldn’t. Too much stress.

But she managed to use lots of different products on the skin which made them grow back eventually.

She had the softest feathers he’d ever felt. Pristine and almost silk like, you’d never think she was told she’d never be able to fly again.

Something like that would be amazing for his wings.

But, he had to get out first.

“Branzy,” Clown’s voice hissed back. “Branzy listen, I can get you out, but I need you to cooperate completely okay?”

“Of course,” he voice sounded unsteady, unsure, but he had to.

“I’ll send a tendril of skulk over to you. It will hurt, but I’ll break the chain then you have to go.”

“But what about you and Kaboodle?”

“Well sort ourselves out, once you’re gone shes the only leverage they have over me.”

“But she stays in danger and so do you.”

“Stop argueing.” Kaboodle called out.

Clown sent a tendril, it slithered and grew like a hungry mold and once it made it to Branzy’s leg, he flinched, it was cold, but it stung intensely, like it was trying to burrow deep into his veins.

He felt it climb, slowly weaving up into his wings, he watched as the tiniest layer of blue and black coated them in ink.

Then it got to the chains, his wings itched and burned from the skulk, but the chains broke. And so did the wraps on his body.

He got up, shaky but able to walk still, they’d only touched his wings.

“I’ll come back for you two, I promise,”

He got out of the room, it only had a single button on the inside and levers outside.

Kabs and Clown’s didn’t have any at all.

He went to the bars of Clowns cell and saw eyes enchanted with those mystical blues, “I love you,”

He ran, he was deep under ground and managed to find a pick, he dug up, replacing every block as he did.

There was skull in his system, he felt so off, like it was eating him alive. When he got to the surface he chose not to look at the damage.

But, he couldn’t really help it

From fluffy and white, now they were murky flirty reds, staining the whole wing, feathers that remained an ugly pink ran though and long stains with almost black blood clots covered them. There was a large hole on either side, and one of them looked to be twisted up at a terrible angle.

His wings were ruined, they were ugly. Disgusting, unclean. Stained.

He never hated them more and never wished he’d savoured the moments only redstone tinged them red.

He knew where he was.

He started the trek to his home. No comunicator, no coords, no idea if he was being chased.

All he knew was that he was going to make it.

He collapsed at the door, not expecting anyone in there, he stayed for a full minute, side against the door because it would be too painful for the base of his wings to be trapped against the wood. Then the doors opened.

He looked up to see Rek and Ivory standing there.

They helped him up, Rek carried him on his back so he could be placed down on his bed and his sister started getting out what she needed.

Potions, Bandages, water.

“Who.”

“Rek, it was ash, he’s got Clown and Kaboodle and they’re still in there and-“

“Slow down Branzy, we’ll get the, back, but you look like you are about to pass out and I need to do some serious medical work on your wings. Please. Sleep.”

He shut up. And it wasn’t hard. With his face buried in a blanket that smelled like Clown.

“Skulk?” Rek said just louder than a whisper.

“Clown, and Kaboodle I assume,”

“So you knew about Clown? How on earth-“

“He revealed it to me before he went and got himself captured like a lover boy protagonist.”

“Right, so your good with Clown and Branzy dating?”

“First of all, it’s my brother, you’d know if I didn’t like him, and yea, I think Clown’s dedicated, he seems kind and loyal to Branzy and the people he loves. And I don’t know if you noticed, but since Branzy can fly without noise, he’s truly the only thing that can beat Clown here,”

“Oh, right,”

Clown made the right choice, no matter what happened to him, he’d saved Branzy. He just needed to get kab out.

“Kaboodle,”

“Clown,”

“What are you tied with?”

“Some metal, I can’t eat through it with skulk though.”

“I can’t either. Do they let you out at all?”

“So far? No.”

Clown swore under his breath.

He didn’t swear.

Why did he just?

It was because of Branzy.

Oh he hated this, he needed to conserve energy but all he wanted to do was release anger right now.

Branzy had said I love you before he left. And Clown didn’t eve;get the chance to say it back.

He couldn’t stop the tear that fell down his cheek, warm and uncomfortable. He didn’t say it back.

Hours later Branzy woke up, wings bandaged and everything in a better state but still not the best. Now though. Now he wanted revenge. He wanted to kill Ash. He needed to get Clown back.

To save Kaboodle.

“Drink Branzy, we’ll save them, together. But you can’t even stand.”

They were right, his sister often was.

He cared a hand through his feathers, slowly removing the ash and blood, Ivory had left a comb and some oil for him to use.

“So what can I do for my feathers to grow back?”

“Those lower flight ones don’t look like they are going to grow back. All the burnt ones you may have a chance. Your best bet is using something else for those feathers, maybe fabric plates and find a way to keep them on.”

“What about metal? Like a blade?”

“It could make you less quiet but that depends on how you make them..l but that could work..”

“What do you have in mind Branzy?” Rek asked.

“Oh nothing.” And then he smiled for the first time since he got back.

Chapter Text

Hushed conversation started outside of the cells, they couldn’t see each other but if they could Clown and Kab would be exchanging looks, they strained their ears to listen for what they were saying, it was a bit easier to hear because of the skulk but it was so difficult.

They’d seen Branzy escaped. He just had to hope now that Rek would protect him, he should go off server, for a while and get his wings in better condition.

That was the issue with servers, harm wasn’t a crime in any respect, but off server they would be.

Torture was an option.

Murder was an option.

And war had no limitation.

Sure it was an issue sometimes, but people loved it, places like Lifesteal were greatly sought after.

Off server, potions and enchantments weren’t allowed, but he could hope that Branzy would go off server and get some serious medical attention.

The door opened, and Ash walked in, smile brandishing his lips and a shine in his eyes that would have sent shivers down Clown’s spine if he wasn’t too busy scowling back.

Squiddo walked in behind him, eyes unseen behind her glasses, their tint strong in the dark of the room.

Their smile was so very wrong. He gazed for a second and watched as the hands- previously kept behind her back- had shifted infront to show something small, he assumed he’d see a sword, a dagger something of that sort. No.

A small, perfect, metal, medical grade scalpel.

Ash stopped short. Crossing his arms.

Clown’s stomach dropped and he paled, watching as the still smiling Squiddo approached as one would a scared baby animal. He was strung up on a wall, head held so he could see her, eye to eye. He was leaned forwards in the restraints, uncaring for the bite of the metal cuffs with their teeth on the inside.

Squiddo brought the scalpel up, its blade shining in the room, though it was dimly lit.

She looked back, as if waiting for permission, Ash gave a supportive thumbs up, she smiled and brought the blade down. Gently.

It’s edge found purchase on the edge that came between the skulk and his normal skin. They inched it up, as far as he could feel it wasn’t cutting into him yet. He tried to move his head away, closing an eye.

As if that would help.

Ash stepped closer and his partner stepped back. Clown’s head met the wall, harder than it needed to. He felt it immediately, dizziness.

And then he didn’t move when Squiddo used her other hand to stabilise his head, going back to tracing his skin with that damned scalpel. Hands steady as a surgeon and eyes behind those glasses focused on the glowing skulk. He didn’t need to look to know all the skulk around was glowing brighter, angrier, or at least it had been, freckled with shining blue that was now splotchy and sickly.

The metal pressed and he felt in his cheek. Felt it slowly rip from his flesh. She traced the whole thing, and with agonising slowness he could feel it being torn from his skin. Veins removed with precision.

Footsteps to the side, he tensed, breathing halted, he didn’t want whatever pain he was about to be in to make him move forwards into the edge. He expected physical pain, some that would be bad but manageable. This was just that. It was bad, but he could manage the pain. It was the scars that would be a pain, but Skulk tended to form over scars anyway, having better chances to spread and making the tissue below better.

Skulk didn’t just sit on top of skin, it -in every way- acted like part of the body, veins filled with blood that passed right through the body and to where it needed to, it made it easier to bleed, when taken out, the skin below wasn’t like scar tissue, it was like talking off a layer of skin.

Open wounds to open air.

Then.

Noise.

From a room over, where Branzy had been. He heard Kaboodle shoot up, but he couldn’t afford to.

Ash was making sound with a bell.

Then he heard Ash placing something down and then, again, the bell.

And then again.

It drummed into his ears and set off the sensors. It hurt, again and again, amplified and torturous. Screaming and ringing and drumming into his skull.

The knife pushed ever closer. It traced up his face and he almost moved when it sunk deeper right next to his eye. Flesh gave and blood leaked like it was his tear ducts responsible.

Squiddo only smiled, her laugh melodious over the bell as Ash shouted praise over at her.

The knife slithered up, she left his eyes, one had to remain closed and with the other he could see the way her eyes moved faster than the knife, her glasses at the tip of her nose as she moved the blade up.

To his antenna.

It wasn’t super painful, it wasn’t difficult, they had no bone, only a small layer of cartilage which the blade sliced through with ease.

But the second both were removed something in him broke. It didn’t go silent but the world fell under water, his head slumped forwards and no more breath entered his lungs by the burning choice to breathe. He simply continued. Head down, not even tears.

He heard though the fog of human normalcy his cousin struggling, before, when the noise had started, their antenna fed back off of each other, sending signals that were uncontrollable with their current states.

But now her antenna were sending off signals into nothing.

The skulk on his skin prickled.

Squiddo used the blade to lift his head up, he cooperated. Else the blade would have split his chin too.

Squiddo smiled, they looked to be filled with genuine joy.

She left and Ash came in.

Staring for a second at the ground where all the cut off skulk was, then to his face, to the ebb of blood.

“So, how did Branzy escape?”

He didn’t respond. His eyes were dead. Empty.

Ash blocked the noise maker as if that was what made him not reply.

All the skulk around him no longer glowed. It didn’t change, shift, shine or burn with any intensity.

Like his eyes, it was dead, no shine, black and empty.

His face remained expressionless.

Eyes unfocused.

He saw Ash look back at the door as if to get Squiddo.

“I broke the chain on his wings, same with his back and leg ties.”

“I knew that, there was a little trail of Skulk from this room to his, but Clown, what I wanna know is how you broke it? What does skulk really do?” He rambled and circled the room a little, talking animatedly as if he was so curious, “Can skulk eat through metal, wood? Can you control it how Kaboodle does?”

Branzy closed his eyes and sighed, biting on the inside of his cheek to stifle what would almost be a flat out scream.

“Shut up, I need to do this,” Ivory muttered to him, though, she did give him a piece of cloth to bite down on. She stretched his wings to their full extension, that already made him let out a strangled noise of pain, he knew he had to but it put his wings back into that sore position they had been in for so long.

The potions hit his skin and let out a sizzling noise, his skin itched and burned and pain wracked down his spine, but it was slowly fading, and with it the holes should Be closing, and with the bone set to sit correctly those should heal correctly.

Regen potions were incredibly powerful.

Once that was over with, he put on a backless shirt. He didn’t want to risk making another pair of the twine jewellery pieces, so he just hung a necklace around his neck. Pink and purple. He still needed his wings preened, so Ivory was going to help with the burnt ones to get them back into better shape.

He wished that necklace could have a red gem in it.

Red had slowly become his second favourite color. And then that teal blue he got lost in when staring at Clown’s skin.

Marbled with it.

He had it now- the skulk- he could feel it, still on his leg.

Still threaded into his wings.

Was this… permanent?

Ivory got out bandages, they’d been left on the side by Rek earlier.

“Tell me a story while I work, it’ll distract you,” she told him softly.

“Remember when I got grounded for the rest of my life by our parents that one time?”

She hummed and laughed, starting with his wings.

“They told us to behave while they were out, and like the idiot I was-“

“Still are-“

“Was. I went out, I was out mining, looking for an axolotl in a lush cave. They didn’t want a pet, I did. I didn’t end up getting one, I mean, it wasn’t hard but I really wanted a blue one!”

“Knowing that was never gonna happen?”

“Knowing that was never gonna happen, I still went. I ended up breaking down a little far, maybe a bit too far. So me, with my bright purple and red wings, ended up in a deep dark. A huge ancient city. Their was skulk lapping at my feet the second I jumped down, that was the first time I’d seen one, I mean, I’d heard of them and we’ve both seen skulk, but that was my first time with it so.. alive?”

Ivory hummed and apologised shortly when her brother flinched.

“It was amazing, beautiful, great, but it was scary, it was like the skulk knew I was there. I set off one single sensor and then crouched. And flew. And even if it didn’t detect me as I moved, all of it seemed to follow me somehow. Then it happened. I saw something moving, I almost left immediately. I’m such a coward, but right that second I decided not to be.”

Ivory seemed interested to hear the end.

“Then I saw them, a figure covered in skulk, not as tall as a warden but taller than me, they had dark hair and skulk that shifted up their skin, like an infection. I learned recently that they’re called an overtaken, the same thing Clown is. I thought they were a warden or something and with that…”

The comb stopped in his feathers.

“I flew the fuck out of there like a coward.”

“Wow. That was…”

“Don’t finish that thought, I think I got a message back about that weapon.” He looked at his communicator, and a smile crossed his face, just the same as earlier, one that Ivory hadn’t often seen. It was just the same smile that crossed his face and lit his eyes when creating traps. But no, this was different, it was cold and as if he was just picturing what he could do. Vengeance.

‘Okay, that’s not really my specialty but I’m sure I can try?’

‘Thank you so much cube, I owe you a life. (Not really)’

‘Damn I wanted a heart for payment. You good btw?’

‘I’l be fine’

‘Well then!  When can you meet me to fit a prototype?’

‘I’ll give you some coords to arrive at, be here whenever you can’

‘Give them and I’ll be there now’

Branzy smiled at the comunicator and sent off the coordinates.

“Sometimes I wonder how you would have turned out if you were scary,” Ivory mused. Reading over his shoulder, there was a blueprint on screen, detailed exactly like his missing flight feathers, he was missing all eight of his primary flight feathers on one wing. The whole outer edge. And the blueprint held details for metal versions, made with a netherite alloy, mixed with copper to make it maluable enough to be thin. But strong enough for an edge. The new ‘feathers’ attached down to the main part of the wing -like with many tech based prosthetics- to the skin. This didn’t look comfortable, but Branzy would work on it, she was sure.

“Hey! I can be scary.”

“Sure”

Ivory combed over a difficult part of the feathers and Branzy twitched, his wing almost hitting her. He stopped it short for the sake of not hitting her.

She was being nice, he would not be hitting her.

“Once cube gets here, I recommend you hide, the less people know you’re on the server the better,”

“Fine, but I want a weapon,”

Branzy pointed at a chest, Ivory stopped preening for a second and went to pick up a sword, a diamond one enchanted with sharpness. She raised it to her face and nodded, putting it down next to her as she want back to preening.

“Thank you by the way,”

“For what? Preening’s no big deal.”

“For being here, and for wanting to help me save him,”

“Branzy, you’re my brother. You’d kill for me. And I’d do the same for you. Plus, I like Clown, he’s good for you.”

“You wouldn’t try kill him for dating me?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Branzy laughed, head back as he thought over her threats.

When cube got there, Ivory was already gone, there was a small part of his roof that only those who could fly had access to. It led up to a window on his roof, and on the inside it led to a small upper part on his ceiling, it was a decent space and when he wanted to sleep up higher he went there. Ivory had invisibility potions, enough to last a while.

“Branzy. Your wings are..”

“Don’t.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Cube, I need a fitting, not a health evaluation. I need a weapon and I need to be able to fly again.” He dropped the tone he held, sighing, “soon, I need to let them heal, healing potions am I right?”

Cube rolled his eyes, pulling out a pre-made prototype and leaving it on Branzy’s work bench, he had the blades, then the fitting parts separate, the fitting was leather. Meant to be comfortable and not rub against the wing too much. It had metal workings in the side, allowing for the feathers to naturally fold or lock up into place for flight. The system worked with the fold of his wings. It would take some getting used to, but the main feature was implemented, when he extended his wing fast enough, it snapped the feathers into place like blades.

Each feather was very nice in his opinion, he’d carve them a little nicer later on, but for now they were great. Slightly raised in the middle so they had a better point at the ends for stabbing, and curved blades around the edges that tapered.

“Not to alarm you, but there are invis particles in your roof,”

“I know, I have some security.”

Cube laughed.

He started fitting down the prosthesis. Adjusting it to fit and tightening and loosening it.

Until it was comfortable.

Then Branzy wanted to test it.

Cube held up a shield, letting him stab a few times with a sword before he turned to the side and snapped his wing up, the extension sent an ache down his wing but the blades lodged themselves into the wood of the shield. When he removed them and relaxed his wing, he could see Cube’s eyes through it. He looked both shook and excited.

“They’re lighter than I thought.” Said Branzy with a smile.

“I’ll be excited to see what you do with them.”

“Thank you,”

A fire ran rose into his eyes. He smiled, wings laying behind him in a crowning force, the coppery black feathers hidden in the mass of them, charred edges and anger all around.

Ash and Squiddo would taste the edges of his blades.

And he’d get Clown and Kab back.

Chapter Text

Branzy could at least tell that Clown wasn’t being killed, he’d see the death messages if he were. It was almost worse, the idea that he was still alive through all the torture those fucked up people were subjecting him to.

Clown was strong, he had to remind himself again. Just because he was in trouble, or just because he cared for Clown, didn’t make him weak. Being in need of saving or protection in the end meant nothing about ones power.

The deadliest assassin in the whole server and far past it was at the bay of Squiddo (As well as ash, but for all intensive purposes, he only interrogating, she was the one who seemed to be the expert in the torture side of things). It didn’t make him weak.

And Branzy saving him wouldn’t make him strong.

Clown was still the scariest thing on the server, but the server hadn’t ever been met with his or Ivory’s anger.

Assassins were quiet, precise, deadly.

Snowy owl were too, the perfect predator.

And Branzy was sure that if he put any of that effort at all, the same effort he used to fly in perfect Silence, better than his sister and her silk wings that molded the air around her. His wings cut through the air, but with all that practise he was inaudible, breathing stilled and silent whether he was gasping for breath or even hyperventilating. The slash of swords through the air but he fought with no noise. He set off not a single sensor of skulk.

When he wanted to.

And now, he wanted to fly to them and blot out the sun. To slice them down and sever arteries and airflow with a staunching plug of blood. The dead made no noise.

The dead were silent.

With a single flick of his wings, he was in the air, he’d taken potions and decided it was time. He went from his seat on his roof, wings taking off with practised movement, all that was left was a single, tiny, loose feathers that sat on the shingles where he had just been.

The clouds above were frigid and it cooled the fire in veins, dark and grey as he swooped in and out of them, a familiar dance between them paraded by the anger of thunder that screamed with him too.

A figure appeared in the clouds, using fireworks to catch up, they stopped just short and glided in the air that trailed behind his wings.

“We’re flying?” Ivory asked over the noise and gave a powerful wing beat that set them both flying side by side, spiralling in air riding the very same air currents with different movements.

Branzy smiled at her. Wings spread to their full length, his wings span encompassing the air and blanketing him.

The large primaries made of metal working with him, silent. But grazing the air and striking fear that the gods and the clouds felt in their own right.

Both of them had changed into pure white clothes, Branzy knew why, but Ivory seemed to have done it without notice of what she was wearing, she just changed into better clothes for flight.

Branzy dove wit h no signal, followed straight on by his sister, they decended and landed onto the soft tundra snow, miles in each direction of white with a small bank off to the side, a tree and a stones shore he’d so recently been to.

“This is where…” she didn’t finish the sentence, she found a patch by the river, and within an instant found a patch of dried blood, there had been nothing here, no storm over it and no snow. Nothing to cover it and no animals had gone for the blood. She was crouched lookinh at it.

Just a cold tundra.

While her back was turned Branzy ran at her, wings pulled around his shoulders as if in comfort, but she wasn’t caught off guard, she turned and pulled her sword up, his talons struck and pushed the sword closer to her throat. She threw t he swords and attacked with his own.

Their claws pushed and they fought in silence, Branzy was scowling and fighting with all he had left, whike Ivory was calculating ever move, she was smiling a little, seeing her bother again, passion showing up in that different way than it normally did but it was still him.

With a swipe an inch to close his eyes he turned his back. But why?

What use would that do, she was on the floor, why not keep pushing, had he learned nothing from Rek and Clown’s teaching.

She laughed and got up for the chase, but the sceond she was standing, she realized it, he wasn’t trying to fly away, or really even run, he was scrambling over ice. She’d never known him to scramble. And it clicked, this was what he would be doing to Ash and Squiddo, she took the bait with a smile. Seeing the way his wings were poised to an attack.

He did a full spin, locking the weapons out to be extended and it worked. Had he not have stopped them an inch from her throat, there would be a single long slit perpetuated by the multitude of blades.

She gave him a smile and he took to the air. Another idea it seemed?

She followed on, losing him in the clouds. Over the biome, they were soft and white, fluffy and beautiful. Oddly nice to fly through.

But she lost him in an instant. No auditory cues at all. Not breathing or anything just… whistling wind and her heartbeat.        Got it.

Branzy was probably going to bait them somewhere, somewhere that he would have a advantage. The sky was the best place for that, white fog that covered unknowing eyes and smothered hearing in a deafening whistle. And they used that, She remained in the same place mid air, going up and down with each wing beat. Preparing.

Unknowing.

Where was he then?

Branzy tackled her, straight towards the ground they plummeted. Right before hitting the ground she turned them over and gave a flap of her wings, grabbing her brother by the front of the shirt. He let himself dangle, comfortable in the air, his wings hung towards the ground, those metal feathers hung perfectly. Mirroring the other side, thought their movement was a little awkward. The plates curved with the natural contours of his wings, and as he straightened them and let his wings sit back, the plate sat slightly extended, but for the most part lay in just the way gravity set hus other feathers, anchored onto his wings.

They exchanged smiles and finally, Branzy made a noise when Ivory dropped him. They weren’t that high up so he ended up just flapping his wings once and landing into a crouch with his wings up.

“What’s your plan?”

“Plan?”

“BRANZY,”

“Okay, I do have a plan. I’m not going in blind.”

Clown let out heavy breaths, both of them gone, for another while or something. Not that he could hear it.

Not well at least.

His world felt under water and he felt sick.

Kab had been trying talk to him for so long already but he needed to focus on her voice to hear anything at all.

“Clown, please, I need you to hear me please!” Her voice was going raw.

“Kaboodle, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess, no one should have known you were related to me, I’m sorry,”

“CLOWN?? SHUT YOUR BITCH ASS UP. WE’LL GET OUT OF HERE. Now, Where. Is. Your. Scythe?”

“It’s in the room with me, on the other end of the room, sitting on the wall, Ash was trying to use it on me, but he’s an idiot and doesn’t know how the weighting works.”

He heard her laugh, not hollow like he was, like his voice, she was tired and angry and she sounded hurt with every movement and a little delirious from loss of blood, but her laugh echoed between them, on a normal day it would hit his sensors and he’d wince at how loud she was being, because when it was them two, he could react and see the world and he wouldn’t at all worry.

Now he heard her laugh and it didn’t make his ears hurt.she just laughed.

He smiled a little.

The skulk around him relit with it’s angry flare, the color he so hated coming to life as he got over himself. He’d heard of this happening to overtaken before, it wasn’t something that even left a scar. He just needed like, forty levels. Maybe more.

Branzy and Ivory got home, she stretched her wings and then folded them, entering infront of Branzy to see Rek sitting at Branzy’s table.

“Where have you two been?”

Branzy collapsed onto a stool. Breathless and laughing. “Fighting,”

“Training,” Ivory corrected, sitting next to him and stealing a glass of water Rek had just put down on the table, left untouched. “And some planning.. and then more training,”

“Ivory remembered that I used to drill silent flight, I should have never taught her my silent drills-“ Branzy complained out of breath and was shushed.

“I only heard one pair of wings arriving,”

“That’s because I was behind him forcing him to fly in total silence for the whole ten minute trip back,”

“Why is he out of breath?”

“Half of the drill is a silent breathing exercise, it makes your breath wildly shallow for hours at a time so when I stop my everything hurts.”

“Sadly he’s good at it, so he’s been practising,” Ivory added softly, offering him a drink of water aswell.

After a moment of silence Rek asked, “How are your wings?”

“They’re not sore anymore, but I won’t say they feel great.”

Ivory threw a potion at him, one he barely caught, “Illegal shit my dear brother,” she joked.

He sighed and downed the whole bottle in one go, it burned and he coughed once.but otherwise he was alright now.

He stared at the empty bottle, he could feel soemthing, something crawling oddly, as if under his skin, but he wasn’t sure what.

He looked outside the window, searching for something.

“Rek. Rek put that down,”

“But, does he realise it?”

Ivory gave him a death glare, but let him do it.

Rek placed down a skulk sensor, it shivered and the second it did, Branzy’s head snapped, he looked down at it and something seems to click. Without any warning at all- and they should have expected this because they placed it down wondering what he would do- Branzy got up, he carded through a chest, eyes flitting between them, purple eyes focused on the contents, then he picked it up, a bunch of large bottles, “I always watched Clown splash himself with something after he fought, I thought it was some custom potion for healing, I never go close enough to know,”

 He smiled and opened the lid on one, delicately pouring the contents down into his wings, one side had more, the one without the prosthetics, the other one had been further so less skulk had accumulated.

The feeling of XP orbs pouring over the skulk was amazing, it was like a cool breeze and frigid water on hot skin and clammy palms. It grew, a cold pinch sinking into his skin, but the feeling good in a way..

Darkling blue and black climbed.

He poured some down onto his leg, feeling as the skulk wrapped around his ankle. It consumed his XP, he felt like he should be able to stop it, so he could enchant, but the more it grew over his body, even with just a few bottles, the less XP he had stored.

He’d need help.

He’d get it.

“What the,”

“I think,” Branzy began, turning to show off his back, littered with a lightning strike shape of the growth, “That I’m like them now.” The wing without the prosthesis, layered with more of it, doused in Creeping skulk. The wing felt better like this, but the more it moved, and it was still moving and adjusting, he could see the way it was enveloping every single feather and covering them, not just enveloping the whole shape of the wing. He had always concidered dying his wings black and going for a super gothic style, it would be fun. But also, his sister had things to say about that when they he suggested it. Namely: “No.”

“I think I’m an overtaken? Or maybe that I could be? I’ll ask. I’ll learn once we save them.”

“Of course, and we’ll help.”

“We’ll what.”

“Rekrap.” Ivory said, her tone filled with more anger than necessary.

He agreed.

Branzy saw the comunicator on the table, Clowns, and his, side by side. Where they had been left.

He opened Clown’s and sent a message to Ash.

‘Go to these coords, I want to work out a peace deal with you.’

‘You want me to hand myself over like that?’

‘Bring Clown and Kaboodle. I won’t do anything to risk them and you know it. Plus, I’m the weakest player on the server, what’s the risk? You already have Clownpierce,’

‘Deal,’

‘I’ll meet you there in an hour,’

“We better get ready then,”