Archive of Our Own ^beta

In a different life, a monster of wires and torn flesh would have killed Charlie, it would have sunk its claws into his vulnerable chest and pulled. In a different life, Ranboo, as he had always done, would have watched in horror before running, before pushing a red button and “ending” the Show. 

In a different life, Ranboo would have died less than an hour after Charlie, an hour after Sneeg, an hour and thirty-four minutes after Austin, an hour and fifty-two minutes after Ethan, and two hours on the dot after Niki. None of them would know what freedom tasted like. They would not live to see old age. 

In one life that is. 

In this one Ranboo is a little quicker, a little more prepared and the wire monster gets an axe to the face. Charlie is left with claw marks, his shirt stained with spreading red, but alive and breathing. They do not reach the button, stopped by an army of workers. Instead, Ranboo drags Charlie and they run, run, and run and run.

They run past a hollow Cabin that was their home, that was a place they haunted. They run past a corpse whose name they knew, who died without a choice, trapped and chained. They run past empty rooms and wire-covered halls.

They run until Charlie slows, his side now a darkening red, agony on his face. “Ran -” He heaved, footsteps pounding behind them. “I can’t do this for long.” He didn’t say I’m dying, or Leave me . He didn't have to.

Ranboo ignored both and threw one of Charlie’s arms over his shoulder. He gripped him tightly, careful of the wound, and looked around madly. They looked for any potential safe haven, any place to rest, to piece together Charlie.

His eyes darted past an empty bookstore, its windows covered with blinds, its door a solid oak. “Just a little further.” They held Charlie, limping towards the store, the footsteps growing louder and louder, matching their trembling heartbeat. Only a few more feet, Ranboo prayed they were not leaving a blood trail.

They made it in, shutting the door behind them and locking it. He carefully helped Charlie to the ground, leaning against a bookshelf and pale white. Ranboo’s hands were shaking as he waited, tense and taut by the door. 

The footsteps grew louder, a thundering beat of Death. They grew nearer and nearer, but they did not stop by the bookstore. They passed it, rumbling and darting by the blinds, but not coming closer. The workers didn’t know they were here, they were safe, for now.

Ranboo waited until the footsteps faded then he nearly collapsed by Charlie, kneeling at his side. Their hands wavered over the blood-soaked shirt, he gently shifted it up and Charlie groaned with pain. The claw marks weren’t an immediate death sentence, but they had cut through skin, muscle, and fat. They were bleeding far too much.

His thoughts scattered, breaking like a flower in the breeze. His hands were trembling, he had to - He had to put pressure on the wound, right? Wasn't that what you were supposed to do when someone was bleeding, pressure? 

They tore off the hem of their jacked and bundled it in their hands. Ranoo took a breath and pressed it to the mess of torn flesh and blood. Charlie screamed, his back arched as he tried to escape the pain and pressure.

Ranboo snapped his head up and met confused, pain-dazed eyes. “Hey, hey, hey it’s okay. I need to put pressure to stop the bleeding. You gotta let me.” It was like trying to calm an injured, hurt animal. 

Charlie took heaving breaths, and slowly leaned back against the shelf, flinching as they pressed harder. “Ranboo?” He sounded confused, he sounded scared. “What - we going to do?”

Blood was seeping through the hem of his shirt, there was too much and it was bleeding too quickly. Ranboo didn’t know what the hell to do, he didn’t know how to save Charlie, he didn’t know how to save anyone. The fear, the desperation must have shown in his eyes, in his shaking body, because Charlie, good, caring Charlie did his best to speak.

“S’okay. We’ve made it through worse.” Charlie was trying his best, Ranboo knew that, but it was little comfort when blood was rotting in their mouth and staining their hands. It was little comfort when Charlie’s breathing was slowing, his eyes going hazy as blood loss took its toll.

We have made it through worse. Niki had died in front of them, and they had watched, they had waited, they had held the still-warm gun. She had begged for help, to be saved and even that was an act, even then she wasn’t free. 

We have made it through worse. It was Sneeg next, they hadn't killed him but wasn’t being stripped of your mind and identity the same as death? Wasn’t being broken and erased, dragged back to hell kicking and screaming, wasn’t that its own sort of death? 

We have made it through worse. They could still hear it, the crash of the anvil and the sickening crack of Vinny’s skull being split open. Brain and blood had splattered, it had stained the podium that held the still-shining diamond. He had stepped over Vinny’s corpse and blood had stuck to the sole of their shoe.

We have made it through worse. Ethan screaming and screaming and they didn’t see him when he died but they could picture it. He could picture the twisted limbs turning purple, stained red, white bone splintering. He could picture it, he could hear it and he had watched without flinching. 

We have made it through worse. Austin fighting desperately, Sneeg’s peacefulhollow eyes and his unfaltering hands. Austin had wanted to live, he had tried to claw his way to it. Sneeg who wasn’t Sneeg had stopped him. Their bodies were crushed to nothing behind a wall. 

We have made it through worse. Ranboo wanted to scream, he wanted to weep and wail, he wanted to break against the weight of the world. We had made it through worse, but dear God why did we have to? Why us, why is the burden on our cracking shoulders, haven’t we given enough?

They must have let out a sound, an animalistic keening, a half whimper half scream, because Charlie reached up. He entangled their blood-stained hands, weakly holding on to the hand pressed to his wounds. Ranboo thought, a touch too close to hysterically, that they were the same size. That once his hands had been smaller, had fit neatly in Charlie’s and they were both young and happy and too damn young. 

Ranboo hates viciously that this was just another thing taken from them by Showfall.

Alarms were ringing, the mall turning a shade of red under all the red lights. Ranboo wanted to scream, he wanted to fall apart at the seams. To unfold and unravel, to turn to dust and mix with the darkening blood, to go back to the earth. 

Ranboo wanted to become nothing, instead, he dug his fingernails into Charlie’s hand, pressed harder against the claw marks, and maybe he'd leave marks but neither of them cared. They would leave this place, they would live, the others wouldn’t but Charlie was still alive and that had to be enough. Ranboo would make it enough. He opened his eyes, without realizing that he had shut them, and was met with a familiar face and oh - 

We have made it through worse. They had watched Charlie die, they had killed him twice. They had murdered their brother and wasn’t that delightfully ironic, wasn’t that fitting? Wasn’t a third time just as fitting? The third time's the charm. 

The mask burned, the back of his neck was on fire and Ranboo’s eyes widened. They had forgotten something, they had forgotten about the red and the flickering control. They had forgotten that in the end Showfall always won, and they never liked being tricked.

Ranboo opened his mouth to scream, to shout Get up and run - I’m sorry - I love you - GO - LEAVE ME - You can’t save me, you can’t save any of us - THERE WAS NEVER ANOTHER ENDING. 

The Hero said, his hand slipping off of Charlie’s wounds, blood trailing down his chest. “You were never going to escape us.” 

The world ended in red. (This time)

In a different life, Ranboo dies barely an hour after Charlie, an hour after Sneeg, an hour and thirty-four minutes after Austin, an hour and fifty-two minutes after Ethan, and two hours on the dot after Niki. In this life, Ranboo lives, and Charlie dies twenty-one minutes later than he should have.