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About a hundred or so meters below the earth, Branzy’s communicator pinged.
He spared a glance towards it, a short break from the monotony of his digging and the heat of activity, stone dust swirling around him with only faint curiosity. He already had a few guesses as to what it was, and the answer was basically what he'd expected.
Death messages were common in the chat, even more common was to see that ClownPierce was the cause of them. That was like, an average day on the Lifesteal server, not even worth a sniff for Branzy — beyond perhaps, a vague sense of relief at the victim not being him, once again, and even fainter a spike of delighted blood-thirst for his alliance. He tapped at his communicator, scrolling up through the comments to see if he’d missed anything else, a brief intermission from where he had until that moment been busy with a quick and dirty branch mine for diamonds.
A few droplets fell on the screen, interrupting him with a pause, and Branzy promptly decided it was probably a good time that snack break he’d been looking forward to, taking a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow. He leaned on his pick, arms still twitching in the motion they’d been following for the past however long he’d been there, and pulled some baked potatoes from his inventory — still warm, and smelling wonderfully of carbs and chopped herbs to his wearied soul. A short cheer, it had to be said, for extra-dimensional spaces! He braced himself comfortably between the wall and his axe, the precious few spoils he'd already discovered sitting tucked away safely in the pocket space also, glittering in his mind’s eye.
Clown would either be chasing them down — Branzy mused, munching on his well-earned starch — well on his way to making them regret ever being born, or on a return trip to their in-progress casino to lick his wounds, and sit pretty and smug in his victory.
In the latter case of which, Branzy figured he should also be getting back, to explain his latest exploits and prove he hadn't been off consorting with the enemy — an unfortunately well-known Branzy trait — but maybe first, he could mine just a little longer, for by the power of starchy goodness he’d been granted a fresh bout of energy, and something good was close, he could feel it!
o0o
So, as it turned out, something good was not close, and his feelings were geriatric and in need of gentle guidance back to the care home to prevent further yelling at the clouds.
He’d mined another 200 or so blocks and nothing. Zilch. Nada. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. All he had gotten was peepholes in every direction, a sweat-ruined nice shirt thank you — though really, that was past Branzy’s fault for poor wardrobe choices — a rain of gravel that had sent him into a coughing fit, and naught but a handful of gold, lapis, and a little redstone — which admittedly, he’d never turn down — but still no diamonds to show for it.
Just what was this luck?! At that point, it seemed he was more likely to strike lava, and consequently burn and die in a horrible freak caving incident than he would ever be to seeing that sight for sore eyes sparkle in the dark again.
Branzy was so caught up in huffing about his misfortune, swinging with extra force to vent the indignancy, and his attention diverted to sorting his inventory, that he didn’t even notice when his pick broke through into something decidedly more open below. He stepped forward, his left foot connected with nothing, and Branzy fell the few blocks to the deepslate base of someone else’s dig.
He’d liked to have said he didn't shriek at a very impressive octave, but down there he would only be lying to the mirror. Or to the shingled floor, as it were.
Branzy scrambled back up onto his feet. Cat-like reflexes, of course. He had at least landed on his feet, but his knees had shortly followed, then his hands, and then very nearly his face. Mercifully nothing was broken, but his palms were a little grazed from where he'd abruptly tried to slap the shit out of the ground. He clutched his pickaxe close — then winced, as the grazes angrily announced their annoyance at yet another poor choice by Branzy — a few pebbles ringing out piercingly through the silence as they continued to fall around him, skittering across the stone.
Who else would have been digging through here anyway?! Was it someone else’s branch mine? Doubtful, he deduced, studying it further, this was angular. Someone digging down then, he could track the path up and see where it’d been blocked by cobble. This was still relatively close to the casino though, had he stumbled onto a plot against them, accidentally? It wouldn’t be the first time, he mused haplessly.
Branzy pulled his shield from his inventory in an act of caution, probing deeper into the descending dark. Geez, whoever made this really didn't know how to light their handicraft, Branzy bemoaned, debating the value of slapping down a couple torches to deter any surprise creeperage, versus keeping the element of surprise on any potential assailants ahead. The continued racket of stone on stone behind him made that decision a little simpler, and Branzy cautiously lit a few sticks, wedging them into the cracks in the slate, the light thrown out illuminating the throughway that much more visibly.
It didn’t drop much further. Branzy had been mining relatively low to maximize his diamond finds to burn and die in magma ratio, and whoever this had been could only go down to bedrock before tunneling straight. He could see where the passage widened out into a larger space up ahead, with the distant glow and warm scent-of-burning air that suggested lava, combatting the cold that crept up from being this close to the void below.
Branzy crept along near silently, confident at least in his ability to sneak the last mile, if whoever or whatever was ahead hadn’t already been alerted when he fell — if there even was something — and also his chances to turn-tail and run if whatever was ahead called for it. If it was a plot against them, he already felt the gears cranking into motion on a counter-plan, and if it was someone who might be a bit sore about being found, and might decide to do something about the finder, well. The start of his branch mine had always been trapped, like any sensible person would. He peeked through the entryway.
Whatever was ahead probably would have called for it actually, for anyone that wasn’t a Branzy. It still made him stop short.
Hidden in that rough-hewn space, deep under the earth in the slowly shifting lowlight, was, of all things, a ClownPierce leant against one of the corner walls. A small well of lava sat low and solidifying on the other side, blocking where the tunnel might have continued. Branzy didn’t take the time to dwell on the small burst of relief that came with realising it was only the most dangerous person on the server, the guy he was sort of indentured to, and the potential ally he was definitely very scared of.
“Oh! It’s just you, Clown! I thought I’d stumbled onto a plot or something,” Branzy sighed in relief, grip loosening on his pick as he stepped further into the room. “You know, if I had a gold bar for every time I'd accidentally found..” he trailed off, stumbling over his words as he realised something was.. off.
Clown hadn’t reacted. Had barely moved, in fact.
That was.
Not normal?
Huh.
The guy had better reactions than Branzy. Like, a lot better. (Better, to the point where Branzy had briefly considered whether he had some sort of spidey sense. Test results had said no, and Clown had never seemed to figure out who had put the bucket of water there, but Branzy still Lived in Fear) He should have at least reacted to someone bursting in right? Branzy squinted at him in the dim glow of the magma, half crusted over and not as bright as it could have been.
Bloodied, and smelt like it too, under the general sulphur smell choking the room, but that wasn't cause enough for concern by itself. The guy often came back bloodied, and Branzy had well learned by that point that it generally wasn't his blood. It was like seeing a fish in water. Normal, commonplace, and actually more concerning to see it without, because then you were wondering how long it’d take for the fish to go find some water, and where it was going to get it, and yeah the metaphor kinda fell apart at that point, but Branzy had never claimed that to be his strong suit anyway.
Slumped, with a slack grip on the scythe over his knees, that was a little weirder. His scythe wasn’t even that great in tight spaces, wouldn't he have generally switched to his rapier in a tunnel like this? Clown didn’t make mistakes like that.
“ClownPierce?” he questioned, suddenly hoping for some sort of answer.
A minute flick of the blade, and not much else. Oh, Branzy really didn’t want to get into stabbing range, not if Clown was half out of it. What if he thought Branzy was someone else?! He’d probably apologise, after brutally murdering Branzy sure, feasibly even give the heart back, but that still didn’t mean it’d be fun.
He inched a little closer. Actually, Clown looked more than simply ‘a little out of it’. Was he asleep? Branzy couldn’t see any tension anywhere. He looked like he’d been braced for something, scythe in hand and ready to jump up from the shadows at any moment, and then sort of just.. drifted off. But Branzy had actually already been unlucky enough to see Clown asleep and the guy awoke on a hair trigger — which had, at the time, led to a scrambling apology by Branzy and a quick step back out of the obscure corner of redstone guts for the funhouse he’d found the guy crammed into, the clown just watching him all the while. Goddamned contortionist.
Nothing of the sort seemed to be waking him here, Clown looked dead unconscious. Or maybe just dead. Branzy leant forward, actively listening as all his instincts screamed this was a stupid idea, and then actively ignoring them anyway, as he poked the jester’s cheek with the back-end of his pick.
A ceramic-sounding tak, and Clown’s head slumped to the side. Oh he was like, unconscious, unconscious. Or dead. Branzy subtly checked his communicator, just on the slight chance, but it was still only full of obituaries caused by murderclowns and not for them. Was the fight that serious? He’d literally just seen the death messages again, Clown had clearly won. But why was he just.. knocked out after? It couldn't have been just after the fight, he’d managed to tunnel down to bedrock! Which wasn’t exactly a ‘quick, be done in the blink of an eye’ activity. Or had the tunnel been already dug, and Clown just took advantage? A lot of questions flitted through Branzy’s head, even if realistically he knew he wasn’t going to get an answer anytime soon, or maybe ever. Not when the only one that could confirm could be obnoxiously tight-lipped about his motives and was as of that moment playing a rousing game of count the sheep.
He squatted down in front of the jester to get a better idea of the picture. Some general scruffiness and stone dust that came with moving at speed along underground mineshafts. A few large rips in the fabrics along his midriff that looked wet, actually, so some of the blood was his? Being that close, he could also suddenly smell gunpowder and faint charing — which could technically just be the lava again, though it had a distinctly burned cotton scent — and the faint something-spice he couldn’t place that always seemed to follow Clown around, which always seemed to trigger a pavlovian response of fear and admiration in Branzy.
Beyond that, there were some small damages to the tips of the trail-y bits of his clothes, a few notable blood sprays across his chest that were definitely not belonging to him, a missing bell that Clown was not going to be happy about when he realised — if he hadn’t already — and some empty vials hidden by the shadows to his side. Now that was a point of interest. Branzy picked one up and sniffed. Vaguely sweet, Melon-y. A healing potion, then. He dripped the small remnants on his palms — ever efficient — then sat back on his haunches to muse further. He was starting to get an inkling of what might of happened, and was fully embracing his sudden career change to detective. But before that...
Best to get the big knife off the killer clown, just in case. Branzy nudged at the scythe, Clown reflexively tightening his fingers in an admirable effort, but it was entirely too easy to pry from him in the end. And then he was stood, a downed ClownPierce at his feet and the Jester’s own weapon in hand, just the two of them buried deep in a dark forgotten corner under the earth.
He had to say, for a fraction of a tic, he kind of liked that picture.
Branzy leant forward on the scythe, contemplating. There was a certain point, you see, when it came to drinking health potions, where they just sort of…. Lost effectiveness. Too much healing magic and not enough healthy flesh and blood in the system. You weren’t gonna bleed out or anything sure, you’d just be regenerating the blood as quickly as you lost it, and true, you would heal up eventually, but it was slow. They were really designed to be more one-off quick fix solutions, not long-term repair, and definitely not recommended to be taken over and over as you accumulated damage. In a race against actual rest, recovery and proper medical treatment, the potions would fall before they even touched the finish line.
Not to mention exhausting if the injury was anything serious. They sped up the healing process, yes, but they also sped up the rate that energy was consumed — though admittedly, the potion was designed to try and help supplement for that — and Branzy had always found taking one to feel like a brief period of invincibility, and then being hit with a very angry godhammer of bone-ache and sleepy time. The tingle of his palms, by contrast, had been brief and then nothing.
If Clown had gotten into a fight and won, but at the cost of downing potions like a drowned man — with, presumably, some golden apples in the mix for the sake of it — then likely this could be the result of him managing to get some distance away, hitting the brick wall when the adrenaline/gapple high wore off — and then, lacking that rush — with the relative security of being out of the open and nothing else but the healing magic fumes to run off, his body had promptly decided for him that he needed actual rest to recover, and sent him near catatonic.
If he’d had to guess of course, and not from experience. Haha.
Still, he’d never thought he’d see Clown like this. It wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration, he mused, to assume that no one had ever seen him like this — even if realistically, he knew Clown had lost fights — but definitely not Branzy. The trap guy, the one who was decent at redstone sure, but not a fighter by any means. People weren’t generally at his mercy, not like this, poised over them, weapon in hand. It was different to having someone trapped in his metaphorical redstone web, more personal, and who could blame him if he took a moment to savour it?
It'd be so easy to strip a life from Clown like this. Barely hanging onto his hearts as it was, and no fight at all. Oh sure, the jester would hunt him to the ends of the earth after — the respawn would wake him up right quick — but it’d still be a victory against the scourge of the server by Branzy and Branzy alone (by killing a downed man certainly, but who would know?) and that was a prestige that the others would have to recognise. He could make up any story.
It would be so easy, petty vengeance for all the stress and demands, and a betrayal ClownPierce had to be expecting, knowing Branzy’s reputation.
He considered it, a temptation, l'appel du vide: The call of the void, for just a moment.
And then instead, popped the scythe into his inventory safe and sound, and squatted back down to attempt to sling the jester over his shoulder. Void below, he was a heavy bastard, Branzy huffed, attempting to hoist him up. The hell did he even eat?!
Probably nothing but gapples and the souls of the innocent or something, actually. Probably not a question Branzy should seriously look into for his continuing mental wellbeing, if that was even still a thing for him.
He nevertheless managed to get the jester secured in the end, after a short struggle and some leveraging against the walls. The deadweight of him was almost alarming, bells jangling discordant at the movement, and Branzy counted himself down then hefted himself back to his full height with a huff. He could feel the weight of the clown heavy across his shoulders, muscles straining, and a wet patch already soaking slick into the back of his neck.
With a second to steady himself, Branzy tested his balance with the new unwieldy ballast, adjusting himself to try and better brace the guy through all his loose damn layers, and took a step towards the entrance and only exit of the space. And then, almost as an afterthought, turned and kicked the vials into the lava with a faint pop and a hiss, and set about erasing any traces they’d ever been through there.
o0o
What Branzy had done, apparently, was successfully drag ClownPierce to a hastily dug bolthole made previously near the casino, a relatively safe respawn room they had prepped for 'just in case' or as a relatively hidden space to spend the night, though Branzy had always disappeared to his any number of hidden warrens that only he knew of, and had assumed Clown did much the same. Or maybe he was still sleeping in increasingly ominous places around the casino, ready to burst out at any moment like the world’s worst nightmare bat, what did Branzy know? He was still nervous about checking on his redstone these days.
This was still nicer than a lot of those hidden spaces, generally little more than a bed and a lightsource entombed in the earth. There were like, actually nice beds and stuff. Chests of supplies. A well spring bubbling up in the corner. One relatively dust-swept floor, and steady lighting from a redstone lamp installed in the stone ceiling. It could even be called habitable — definitely more so than the deepslate hole he’d found the jester in.
Why couldn't he have just left him there, actually? He didn't have to kill him to just leave him. Clown would probably react worse to it, waking up in a room he hadn't been in before, and more importantly he’d immediately know that Branzy had found him unconscious, and actually dared to parade him around, which was probably an offence to him or something, Branzy didn't know.
He heaved Clown like a sack of sad potatoes onto the closest bed — the one with lilac sheets — and rubbed wretchedly at his shoulders, suddenly feeling a thousand times lighter with a groan. Thanks to that trip he was now also covered in other people's blood, and that was always a bitch to clean out. Not to mention a health risk, one that people on this server always seemed to forget.
He couldn’t deny the aesthetic, however.
On the contrary though, his poor back. Branzy would like to have said he was a pretty solid guy, but he still didn’t regularly carry dead weight over hundreds of blocks. Inventories tended to negate that issue. He pushed his thumbs into the sore muscles of his shoulders, massaging them as he considered his next steps, and gazed blankly at the jester jingled miserably over the bed and some of the floor.
He would never describe even an unconscious ClownPierce as frail and waifish, the guy was forever in intimidating scary mode, and he’d seen his strength in action enough times to not underestimate him ever, but it did bring out some of the generally less noticeable details to his features. He was tall, sure, no doubt helped by the boots (Yes, Branzy had noticed the bit of heel to them, but that’s not just something you can point out, el mano to much scarier mano, you know? Maybe a dude just thought about it more than he should) But under the general poofy-outrageousness of his costume, crumpled awkwardly over the side of the bed with no motion to help disguise him, Clown seemed actually kind of, well. Gaunt. It didn't suit him.
It was mostly only noticeable where the costume pinched in though, at the elbows and shins and around the waist, Branzy thought. ClownPierce had very delicate wrists, actually, is that a weird thing to suddenly notice?
Branzy set about arranging him better, in favour of acknowledging prior epiphanys and feeling a bit bad for how he’d left the clown, so he was actually entirely on the bed and less like someone’s sorry laundry pile chucked vaguely in that direction.
Right, that was task one down.
He should probably actually set about treating the injuries? True, by his first assessment there was nothing actually deadly there and again, given time he’d eventually heal up just fine with all the residue potion magic, but Branzy was nothing if not an overachiever.
If it had the secondary effect of making Clown more amiable towards forgiving him for feeling up the jester's unconscious corpse — which he’d like to make clear, was strictly by necessity! — then all the better.
That slash in his side was probably the best place to start. It was the most serious of the damage Branzy had seen, and where he’d probably been bleeding all over Branzy’s nice waistcoat from.
He poked around the room, washing his hands in the water source in the corner, and gathered a few strips of bandages and the sterile shears, a few vials of saline water and some clean cloths, then carried them all over in one of the buckets he’d found. Having Placed down some scaffolding he’d found chucked away and seemingly forgotten there, Branzy sat with a sigh, using it as a chair, and leaned down to place the bucket on the ground while bracing himself on the side of the bed, and rummaged around in there for one of the vials.
A cold glove wrapped around his wrist.
Branzy did not squeak, because he was cool and calm and collected, and jerked back up again in alarm.
ClownPierce stared him down, hand closed firm and cool around Branzy’s wrist from where he’d apparently pushed himself up to a half sitting pose with some very enviable core strength, which was probably not helping the gushing blood out his side thing, but Branzy was too busy being focused on the costume claws that tipped the clown’s gloves, that were suddenly looked very much not all for show after all, pressed so very close to the rather important tendons and veins of his wrist.He hadn’t even heard the bells.
Clown’s faceplate was dead blank as he looked at him, eyes narrowed. He’d never been quite sure if it was a mask, paint, or his actual face, and had never quite had the courage to ask. It wouldn't be the first mask he'd seen be enchanted to move like that anyway.
Branzy was frozen, vial caught forgotten between his fingers as Clown released his wrist, and slowly trailed his hand up Branzy’s arm to hang at the lapel of his shirt, those claws dangerously close to the pulse point at Branzy’s neck. Void below, he could probably feel how fast Branzy’s heart was racing.
"Uh, Clown?" Branzy laughed apprehensively, an unfortunate nervous tick for him. "We good buddy?"
"Mnfwh," ClownPierce replied, quite intellectually.
Oh. Well great. Branzy not only had an injured clown on his hands, he had an injured delirious clown, high on health potion on his hands. At least he was coming to. That was a positive, right?
Branzy slowly moved to grab the hand at his chest, ClownPierce making a deeply offended noise as he made to remove it, but not fighting him. Branzy thought he’d won, gently placing Clown’s hand back on the bed, until he tried to then let go.
And couldn’t. Why was this guy stupidly strong like a leech?! Branzy shook his hand limply in disbelieving dying hope.
“ClownPierce, dude, I kind of need that hand.”
Clown glared at him. Or maybe squinted, it was kind of hard to tell.
“To treat your wounds,” Branzy continued bravely, because he wasn’t lecturing a known killer, “where you are absolutely bleeding all over your horribly intricate costume and these nice clean sheets.”
The clown did not relent.
Branzy accepted his defeat, as was pretty much the only option when in battle with ClownPierce, and set about trying to do everything one-handed. Smug bastard.
He’d actually managed to get one of the vials and open it — with his teeth, which probably wasn’t the most hygienic option, but it wasn’t like he'd been given a lot of choices here, was it?! — and dampened one of the cloths, but was then faced with the conundrum of he still couldn't really get to the laceration above Clown’s hip (with some examination, he was guessing axe) not as it was then. There were strips of cloth from where the fabric had ripped threaded over it and kind of in the exposed gore, which was pretty gross, but Branzy was rather used to being faced with pretty gross, and was unphased. He turned to Clown.
“Actually, gonna be honest dude, I think I'm going to need to cut through some of your outfit. It’s kinda,” he wiggled his free hand for emphasis, “in there, which is really just the opposite of great, and I can't clean it. I need to get it out of the way.”
Clown nearly crushed his poor hand. “No,” he frowned. Oh! Ow! They were at words already huh? And violence, apparently! Ow again!
Branzy yelped. Clown’s grip slackened immediately, and his frown got longer.
“Sorry! Ok, no cutting! It’s still gotta come off dude, I can’t help you with it like this.” Branzy grimaced, pained.
If Clown was going to get an infection from anywhere, it was going to be from his own damn clothes, and it would be his fault for wearing something so impractical — Branzy would be ignoring questions about his own choice in wardrobe at this time — he’d probably tide the stupid thing over anyway, stuffed full of health potion as he was at the moment. Still, let the wound heal over his clothes then, and see how he likes it.
Clown was distractedly staring at their interlocked hands. He was still frowning, and then worse, he managed to drunkenly swing his other hand over, and start rubbing at Branzy’s still kind of throbbing fingers — now caught between two sets of costume claws — like he was trying to do something about it.
Branzy felt a bit of heat rise to his cheeks. He coughed, trying to divert Clown’s attention.
“I’m uh, gonna need you to take the vest off, buddy,” he repeated, voice pitched up a notch.
(And wasn’t that also a thing; It wasn’t a vest, it was a corset. ClownPierce wore a corset and high heels, with the rest of his elaborate fucking costume with all its bells and lace, and one day Branzy would have to take some time to internally address that, but preferably never.)
Clown blinked at him then arched himself in another stupidly impressive display of core strength, flexibility and just plain stupid when one had a leaking abdominal wound, and — thank the void — abandoned Branzy’s abused hand with his other in favour of picking at something at his back. A few moments later the fabric slackened, and Branzy was able to shimmy it loose from his side.
Beneath it, he was wearing some sort of loose poofy shirt, but that was easy enough to tug up, ClownPierce grunting as it pulled some of the trailing threads with it, and. Well.
He’d always been pretty sure ClownPierce wasn’t human, but it could be kinda hard to tell, with how covered he was all the time. He didn’t quite move like a human at least, the body language had always been a touch off.
The skin underneath was pretty much confirmation. True black, as black as his costume — reminiscent of it, in fact — smooth but for a few faint linear grooves, with a faint sheen and a slightly harder texture. The word exoskeleton comes to mind, but not quite; there was still a bit of give to it? Warm, too. It brought him to mind of ender-hybrids actually, but Clown had never really given him those vibes. Or maybe clowns were just a subclade of bugs, all along?
Still bled the same though.
(Branzy did, however, have a brief vision of clowns and spiders and decide maybe there was some weight to the server conspiracy theory that Clown had just sprung up fully formed one day from someone’s worst nightmare, specifically to ruin their day. Someone’s, but not Branzy’s. That was a different sort of dream.)
He drifted back out of his thoughts to Clown looking at him again with an expression that was impossible to decipher. Branzy realised he’d probably just been sitting there patting Clown’s stomach in avid fascination, and promptly cringed so hard he took psychic damage.
Branzy whipped his hand away like it was burnt, suddenly frantic to explain. “Sorry! Sorry, you’ve just.. never taken off your costume? So I’ve never actually seen what you look like, and I got curious?” Oh gods he was just making it so much worse. Branzy decided his best option here was probably to stop trying to eat his foot, already well past his mouth and halfway to his stomach, and just shut up for once, face burning. He set about cleaning the gash in silence, almost reluctantly bringing his hand back. Clown was still holding the other one. Fuck.
At least he could get himself lost in the task of it. Branzy flushed the laceration with the saline to get rid of any loose debris, which was just so much bloody fluid honestly — the mattress underneath was kind of wrecked at that point, anyway — and intensifying the metal smell in the air. He then set about cleaning it gently along the edges with the cloth, before picking at the tiny bits of fabric still clinging to the exposed tissue. Branzy wouldn’t say he really knew much about actual first aid, but he’d dressed wounds before, and that had always worked well enough for him, and had the added bonus of leaving him pretty immune to some fairly serious gore, or he thought this might have made him sick. Maybe it said something about Branzy that it wasn’t bothering him?
Hmm.
Clown had barely moved the whole time. A first instinctual flinch at the water, and then nothing.
“It’s like you can’t even feel this.” Branzy griped, forgetting his vow of silence as he picked out bits of thread, setting them to the side in wake of his lack of foresight to have gotten any other sort of container.
“I can.” ClownPierce’s response was almost instant. “It hurts,” he added, plaintively.
“Oh,” Branzy paused, suddenly lost for words. “I’m sorry,” he said, and was surprised to find that he meant it. A pang of guilt ran through him, low and heavy through his chest. Had Clown been trying to stay still, just for him? He squeezed the jester’s hand unthinkingly.
Clown shrugged, in a slow exaggerated motion with his opposite shoulder. Branzy could suddenly see where his other hand had been balled in the sheets. “It wasn’t you.”
“Yeah, but…” He was the one currently poking at it. He was the one always hiding back when Clown went and finished their fights, because it was agreed that what they were better at. “...Yeah.”
Branzy got back to his work in silence, suddenly too aware of how every pulled filament must feel.
When he was pretty sure he’d gotten everything he could see, he uncorked the rest of the vial and paused. “I’m using the water again,” he warned. He felt Clown’s hand tense by just a fraction.
Branzy took the lack of any other reaction for the likely permission it was, and flushed the injury again, absent-mindedly tracing circles with his other hand, waiting a minute for it to dry just a little before pulling out the bandages. He paused again.
“Clown, I really need two hands for this.” Branzy said a little helplessly once more, tugging slightly.
Clown, who had relaxed again, but still decided that day of all days was the one to be stubborn, still refused to let go, and let himself be flopped around like a dead fish without a care in the world. He actually seemed kind of amused about it, but he did at least let Branzy tug around both their hands, which was sort of effective, he guessed? Couldn’t he just let go?? Did he have to threateningly hold Branzy’s poor hand prisoner with his knife fingers in case he screwed up or something?! Fine, then Branzy had no choice but to push his luck!
That in mind and with a huff of frustrated courage, Branzy dared to lean fully over him and haul Clown upright, the jester going stiff and staring at him again as Branzy steadied him with a raised brow. “Hold,” he ordered, pressing Clown’s other hand to his own shirt, and directing him to keep it raised above the gash on his side, the jester following along compliently enough, seemingly at a loss to do anything else. Branzy patted his shoulder, glibly. “Good, now stay like that.” He said, just relieved that had worked, and started winding the bandages around as best he could with a hand and a half.
It, well. It wasn’t his best job, but it would do, he thought, pinning them into place carefully. It wasn’t like he could do better at that point anyway. Clown let his shirt drop again in an oversized billow as Branzy leant back with a sigh, nearly tugging the clown after him.
“Well that’s the main one done, finally,” he said, pleased. “Did they get you anywhere else?”
ClownPierce shrugged, very helpful once again.
Branzy could complain about Clown's overwhelming helpfulness here, but he still had some sense of self-preservation, and frankly was already past that stage of grief. And sure, the potion would do just fine everywhere else, but he’d already committed. He’d already committed!
He set about checking ClownPierce over carefully, thumbing over which rips were just fabric, and which were deep enough to actually connect with flesh, which would then warrant a careful swipe with a clean wetted cloth, while trying to ignore the other still watching him with the lack of distance between them and his other hand still in a cool grasp. The silence between them became too much far too soon, so he set about his favourite distraction for himself; rambling to a captive audience — in the can’t move sense, rather than the rapt — about his latest redstone projects and trap ideas. Branzy opened his mouth, turned his brain off, and ran from there.
“—so basically, it's an observer watching an observer, and it sends the signal along two tracks, one with a few tics of delay, and the other feeding into a...uh, Clown?” He stilled at the soft jingle of bells accompanying a movement beside him, and the feeling of another glove on his arm.
Clown was tracing the red and black tattoos running over Branzy’s bicep, seemingly entranced.
Well.
They were pretty cool if Branzy said so himself. He still thought his current engineering idea took precedent, but anyway.
They shifted sometimes, his tattoos. A neat bit of spellwork that had taken him and the artist a while to perfect, and a fair amount of arguing over the differences and similarities of redstone coding and magic. Sometimes they were tangled snakes, sometimes rose thorns, and once a curling twist of data Branzy had never had time to decipher before they’d changed again. The shape they took was apparently intrinsic to him, his artist-enchanter had said, so he’d no idea what had been written for the world to see in that time, and still wondered about it sometimes. It had still been a surprise to him when one night they’d apparently decided to up and move residence from one arm to the other.
Right now, they were two twin trails of hearts, black for every one he’d lost, and red for every one he’d gained, curled along his ring finger to right over his shoulder. It had taken him the morning after they’d appeared to work that one out.
“They’re not glowing,” Clown mumbled.
“Ah, What?” Branzy replied baffled, staring at him in growing concern. The tunnels had been narrow, sure, but he didn’t think he’d whacked Clown’s head that hard.
ClownPierce frowned and traced the red line back down, tapping at the hearts at Branzy’s wrist with sharp but light fingers. “I’ve seen them glow.”
“What? Oh!” Branzy paused in realisation, “when I’m doing redstone? I’m surprised you noticed that, it's pretty faint. I thought it was only visible in the dark,” he glanced down at the hearts pensively, “it’s because we used really, really fine redstone dust to get that particular pigment. So, if I’m holding a torch, or touching something with a positive signal, I guess the ink itself reacts.” Most people just used flower dyes to get their colours, he knew, but most people weren’t trying to make magic ink that would hold and react to enchantment.
“I’ve seen it when you’re on fire too,” Clown added helpfully, like that was a perfectly normal thing to say.
It probably was, actually, this was Lifesteal.
“I’d guess because flames cause a current, too,” Branzy laughed weakly. “Is that really all you took from my rant?”
ClownPierce turned and looked at him with the distinct look of someone of which all redstone techno-babble went immediately over their head, and went back to single-mindedly tracing the hearts up Branzy’s sleeve.
Well, that sure sorted that. Branzy rolled his eyes, exasperated and a little bit fond, and went back to tending to the smaller cuts and grazes already slowly sealing under his hands.
By the time he was one hundred percent certain Clown wasn’t going to keel over of an open wound or gruesome infection, Clown had progressed from tracing his tattoo to just fully leaning on him, a heavy weight on Brenzy’s shoulder once again, seemingly drifting off. If he wasn’t already aware Clown wasn’t exactly on his game here, he’d be quite concerned that the guy was so readily falling asleep in the presence of someone else, even Branzy.
Especially Branzy. Didn’t he know his reputation?
Also, he wasn't well equipped to deal with the fear-fondness it was causing.
Branzy shrugged a little, trying to stir the clown awake. “C’mon big guy, you gotta move.” Branzy glanced at the mattress below, beyond ruined by water and other fluids, the sheets now gone a muddy colour, with a bit of stone dust caked in for good measure. Yeah, that was gonna need replacing. That was like, beyond saving and into burning and forgetting about territory, now. If Clown insisted on taking a nap, he could at least not ruin Branzy’s hard work by moving to a surface that wasn’t a flaming pile of biohazard. The jester stirred a little, but only to hum something illegible and shove his faceplate harder into Branzy’s shoulder (Hard! Cold! Doubtedly his actual face, but who knew when it came to clown biology! Not Branzys, that’s for sure!) and wrapped his other arm around Branzy’s already captured side.
Branzy patted at him more insistently. “Up, up.” Don't murder me for this whole fiasco. “I’m not letting you choose to die on a filthy bed just because you insist.” Something about his incessant nagging appeared to get through because Clown seemed to consider, before obligingly sliding off the bed, bells barely making a whisper. Branzy still didn’t know how he did that.
He took advantage anyway, pulling Clown (Still wrapped around Branzy’s shoulder but whatever. Maybe he didn’t want to make it apparent he still wasn’t steady upright. As long as he kept the claws off, they were cool) over to the other bed, yet to be ruined by saline water and blood — though its remaining lifespan was probably short — and gestured to it. “You, sit. You’re already drifting off, at least use an actual bed, since this one isn’t immediately going to reinfect you with three mystery diseases.” He snorted, letting some of the inner monologues slip out. “Or my shoulder, cause trust me, you’ve definitely still got some recovery to go, and neither of us would enjoy that disaster when you woke up again.” Clown narrowed his eyes at him, but sat on the black sheets obligingly, using Branzy to steady himself.
“You too,” Clown said suddenly. He seemed to consider his words, then lost them, and went for the bluntest option instead. “Some recovery to go, I can help,” he insisted.
Branzy was, once again, left speechless. “...What?”
Clown frowned at him, “there's blood in your hair.”
“It’s not mine,” Branzy snorted. That was all you, buddy. And probably some of your mystery victims, for spice. “Maybe I’m trying a new look,” he joked.
Clown shook his head slow, bells chiming softly. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“What, and it suits you?”
“Yes.”
Way too direct! But also exactly like Clown telling a joke. Was Clown telling a joke?
“And here I thought you’d be into the bloodied look,” Branzy sighed dramatically. “Way to burn hopes and dreams.”
Clown considered that for a while. Branzy was pretty sure he could see the gears turning, just through a lot of cotton wool. “It looks too much like it’s yours.” He settled on, nothing like blunt honesty.
Branzy glanced at their still linked hands, then at Clown a little hopelessly. Definitely not in his right mind right, then. That wasn’t the sort of thing you worried about here. You didn’t survive on this server if you thought of anything but yourself.
This was Lifesteal. Attachments only meant leverage.
“Okay! Okay, I’ll wash it off. Later.” He emphasised when Clown attempted to get up anew, “when I have access to hot water, and an actual bath, and a chance to get out of these clothes because oh god it’s gross in here. I’ll survive until then, Clown, cause you’ve really gotta sleep this off.”
Clown sat again, still looking discontent. Branzy sighed, switching tactics.
“Honestly man, I promise I’m not gonna stab you in your sleep,” he said jokingly. He’d had a million opportunities already anyway, and hadn’t taken one.
Clown snorted at that one too, disarming the tension — which was really Branzy’s goal all along. “You couldn’t.”
“Hey now!” Branzy squawked. “Are you doubting my ability? Don’t actually tempt me!” Sure, maybe his self-preservation instincts were too strong to ever actually think that’d be a good idea, but he didn’t have to call him out like that!
Clown smiled something mysterious and fond, eyes narrowed to slits like that hadn’t been quite what he’d meant. He still hadn’t let Branzy go.
“Then you’ll keep watch?”
“I'll keep watch,” Branzy promised.
“And you'll stay,” Clown added, seeming satisfied as he settled down.
“Well,” Branzy stalled, glancing shiftily at the other bed. “I was actually thinking of trying to deal with that mess over there—”
The vice grip on his hand tightened (Claws! Again! Digging in! Maybe he needed to invest in full gloves too after this) but this time Clown said nothing, just looking at him.
Branzy stared back. “Fine!” He said, throwing his other hand into the air, and sitting on the mattress. “Fine, I’ll stay here, because apparently I'm just openly being held hostage now, and everything’s going to get all crusty and gross, and you’re going be the one dealing with the laundry after.”
“...kay,” Clown mumbled, already crashing again, shifting so he was back to back with Branzy.
Branzy stopped short. He hadn’t been serious about any of that, just complaining. “Okay,” he agreed, quietly.
Once again, It would have been concerning how easily Clown seemed to drift off behind him, back pressed into Branzy’s, if he hadn’t known how out of it Clown really was, for how eloquent — relatively! — he’d been acting. He’d never once seemed to wonder where he was, where his scythe had been, or why Branzy was there, which were really just big warning signs, one after the other.
His grip had started to weaken too, but Branzy didn’t pull away just yet - at this point half resigned, half used to it, and a little something else. He really only needed the one hand to write anyway, pulling his notebook from his inventory, the small book a closely kept secret for Branzy, though it really only contained quick jotted down thoughts before he lost them from his mind's eye, logs of particularly notable days, and loose sketches of various redstone and trap ideas. Some other sketches too, but he’d burn the book before admitting to those. Branzy pulled out a small charcoal stick to go with it.
That day’s log ended up being a bit… Chaotic. Disjointed. He surmised the events of it in a paragraph or so, then spent however long trying to grapple with his actual feelings on it. Writing a start to a sentence, then ruling it out. Frustrated, he started doodling absently in the margins, trying to get a handle on his introspection. Circus tents and spider webs and overly complicated skull designs bleeding into hearts. He’d started a sketch of Clown’s Scythe, and then blackened it out, annoyed that he couldn't get the proportions of the blade right. He could feel the steady rise and fall of Clown’s breathing at his back, and the blood drying at his nape, sticky and tickling. Branzy snapped the book shut with a defeated sigh as it popped out of existence once again, safe in the pocket space, and leant back against the grounding weight behind him to just think for a moment.
o0o
He was idly plotting out his newest trap idea, something involving floating dripstone and entity cramming, when he felt Clown starting to stir again behind him, fingers twitching as Branzy quickly drew his hand away and leant forward again, bones clicking as he moved from the stasis he’d been keeping for so long.
High on potion fumes ClownPierce might have been stubbornly clingy, but if Clown was back to himself, he doubted he’d appreciate it.
He definitely knew the moment Clown properly woke up, feeling as the figure behind him tensed, then almost intentionally relaxed again. The breathing was just a touch too evenly measured. He still decided to let Clown initiate that conversation, slightly unsure of what to even say.
“Branzy,” Clown said finally, voice still rough with sleep, lower than he’d heard it in a long time.
“Good morning to you too, sleepyhead,” Branzy said teasingly, deciding then to play it off with his usual bravado. Surely if he played it like everything was normal, Clown would follow.
Was it even morning? He didn’t know, apparently the one thing they’d forgotten was to put a clock down here, and he hadn’t been to the surface in void knows how long at that point. Time had seemed in a limbo, down there in that room.
Clown shifted further behind him, turning over and pushing up to sit with a grunt, before glancing around. “The bolthole?”
“The bolthole,” Branzy confirmed, fiddling with his glove even as he plastered his usual easy grin on.
Clown’s expression went slightly glazed over in the fashion of someone sorting their inventory, and then tensed immediately. “Do you happen to have my—”
“Scythe?” Branzy questioned, already pulling it from his own inventory, “one step ahead of you.” He held it out in both hands as an offering.
Clown paused, then took it from him, almost tentatively. Branzy could feel his gaze wash over him piercingly, taking in his somewhat bloodsoaked appearance, and the trashed bed behind him. It disappeared into Clown’s own inventory, the rapier appearing on his hip shortly after. Branzy felt somewhat vindicated. “...Thanks.”
“No problemo!” Branzy chirped, fluttering a hand. “So, we should probably head on out then huh?” Branzy continued chattering, already hopping up and trying to disguise his eagerness to get out of that room, “make sure no one’s tried to attack the casino in our absence?”
“They’d know better than that,” Clown said, like he entirely already knew that the people on this server wouldn’t, but stood like a dark shadow to follow smoothly anyway. He diverted just a second to collect his vest — corset! — from the other bed, refastening it deftly, then the jester stepped musically after him, seemingly nonchalant and never injured at all by the way he was acting, though Branzy suspected it had yet to heal fully, or even halfway.
“Then lead the way,” he offered, standing to the side and waving Clown past with a dramatised half bow and a grin.
Clown grinned something entirely teeth back.
o0o
“I didn't realise,” ClownPierce said, out of the blue on their way through the rough-mined stone, breaking the silence.
Huh?” startled Branzy, from where he’d already been dreaming about hot water and no one to bother him if it was his wish to return to submerged and primitive roots. “What?”
Clown startled himself, like he hadn’t quite meant to say that out loud. “That you hadn’t seen me before, out of costume,” he added, after a pause. “You could have asked.”
Branzy most definitely could not have asked and stayed breathing. “Huh,” he said, like that was the most fascinating thing he’d heard lately. Did that mean Clown remembered all of the bolthole’s events? Hello, anxiety his old friend!
Clown sighed. “It's not like I wear it to bed, Branzy, that would be impractical.”
Branzy stayed silent.
Clown continued on in the silence also, before pausing. “Branzy.”
Branzy stayed silent.
“Branzy, you didn't think I slept in this, did you?”
Branzy wasn’t saying a fucking word.
ClownPierce rounded on him, leaving him with no path but facing the clown forwards or a long tunnel and a dead end behind. He didn’t even get the option to choose before Clown oh so smoothly boxed him in against one of the walls. “Branzy,” he said, unhurried, “do I have to ask again?”
“I kind of thought you slept in full netherite?!” Branzy blurted.
ClownPierce paused, seemingly going through several realisations at once before he settled on something and nodded, patting Branzy on the head, then spun on his heels with a cheery jingle, leading the way again without another word.
Branzy followed, in utter shambles.