#i have a couple of decked out ficlets in my head. we'll see if i get to writing them all.

[slashmagpie]

Look, he’s no idiot. He’s no cheater, either. He knows that it’s extraordinarily unwise to be sneaking around the dungeon of Decked Out when you’re not playing the game itself. But the thing is—the thing is, is that Bdubs dreams. And when Bdubs dreams, he can’t always control where he goes, and sometimes—sometimes that’s right into the heart of the dungeon.

Here’s the other thing: Bdubs sleeps a lot. More than most. Sunset to sunrise, he’s curled up under the covers of his bed, fast asleep and dreaming. Others—other people, they stay up all night, attract all the phantoms. Not Bdubs! He’s the only sane, rational person on this server. He sleeps. But the others—they stay up all night.

Recently, they’ve been staying up all night playing Decked Out. 

Bdubs doesn’t know if Tango sleeps anymore. He certainly hopes Tango sleeps, but the man is too engrossed in his redstone for his own good sometimes. Maybe now that the game is done, is launched, is actively being played, he’ll take a nap or two. But right now, Bdubs is dreaming, and Tango is in the dungeon, and Bdubs, against his will, is here too.

Tango is not-quite-solid, ephemeral, and Bdubs gets the sense that if he were awake and standing where he is, he wouldn’t be able to see Tango at all. Tango doesn’t seem to see him, either, back turned as he approaches a ravager on the bank of the River of Souls. 

Ghostlike, Tango presses his forehead against the (unknowing, unseeing) ravager’s, a smile on his face. The ravager slips through Tango’s form, leaving Tango pressed against its side, but he seems unfazed, patting affectionately at its flank with a hand. “Good job, Pumpkin,” he says, and Bdubs can hear the pride in his voice, the hint of a laugh. “Good job. You listened. I appreciate the effort.”

In his dreams, Bdubs can’t feel the chill of the dungeon; he’s toasty and warm under the blankets of the waiting room bed. (Okay, look, he may also be spending the night at Decked Out, but at least he’s sleeping—if he pays attention, he can hear the faint, unintelligible babble of voices in the waiting room, see the soft golden light through his eyelids. He flinches away from it, back into the dungeon, back into his sleep. The others may be content to spend the entire night waiting and dying to ravagers, but Bdubs needs his beauty sleep.) And—hey, what was he thinking about again?

Oh, right.

Bdubs can’t feel the chill of the dungeon, but a chill runs down his spine nonetheless as Tango looks at the ravager with cub’s blood on its teeth with affection and pride. And—okay, the whole point of the game is getting killed (or, preferably, not killed) by ravagers, they’d all signed up for this, they knew what they were in for—but did Tango have to look so… happy about it? So fond of the murderous beasts he’d wrangled for their entertainment? Did he have to look so—

Hm. Now that Bdubs is looking—

Tango’s ghostlike form doesn’t have a shadow, but it trails off towards the end, less him and more ghost, an echo of some sort, and the ghost tendrils stretch into the snow and the water and the stone of the walls. It’s almost like a spider’s web, Tango’s consciousness at the centre of it, flickering and ephemeral. Tango lets out a contented sigh, and Bdubs swears he hears the dungeon sigh too, and out of the water where Cub died the blood starts to drain, though Bdubs can’t tell where it’s draining to. It’s just—there, and then smaller, and then gone, and Tango swipes his tongue across his pointed canines, and Bdubs feels cold. Colder. The tendrils stretch long, and the more Bdubs looks, the more he sees, and he can’t quite tell anymore where the dungeon ends, and Tango begins, and hang on, is Tango a spider on his web or are those tightening more like puppet strings as Tango turns—

His eyes land on Bdubs, and he frowns, the smile slipping from his face. The dungeon feels darker than it did a second ago. Bdubs flinches back, because Tango shouldn’t be able to see him, even if he’s also not in his body right now—

“You shouldn’t be here,” Tango says. “Cheater.”

Bdubs opens his mouth to defend himself, but he doesn’t even get the chance before he’s gasping awake in bed, covered in a cold sweat, shooting straight upwards. The movement draws Scar’s attention, and he looks over, one eyebrow raised.

“You’re up late, Bdubs,” he comments, teasing.

It takes Bdubs a moment to find his words. “Hard to sleep with all this racket!” he grumbles, scowling as he pulls the covers back.

“Oh.” Scar blinks. “Do you want us to be quiet?”

“Yeah, we can quiet down for you man, if you need us to,” Jevin offers.

Bdubs shakes his head. “No, no, I’m up now.” In truth, he doesn’t think he could sleep again after that even if he wanted to.

And now that he’s thinking about that, he’s thinking about—

“Hello there,” Tango greets, dipping past Scar and into the room. He glances at Bdubs, and then just past him, not a hint of what just transpired on his face. He’s back in his body, solid and whole again, and he looks—fine. Frosty and blue, like he’s been all season, basically, at this point, but—fine. Tired, maybe, but they’re all tired. It’s the lack of sleep.

(Does Tango even need to sleep, anymore? Dungeons don’t need to sleep, after all. Ravagers don’t sleep. Do spiders sleep? Do—?)

Tango turns away from greeting Jevin to look at Bdubs, a grin on his face. “Bubbles, how you doing?”

Bdubs jumps, startled from his thoughts, and doesn’t get an answer in before Tango is distracted by Jevin once again. The two of them talk game mechanics, and Bdubs stares at Tango, trying to find any hint on his face, in his body language, of what exactly he is, but—

He’s too awake, darn it. If he’d still been sleeping, maybe he could have seen something, but it’s late, and he’s awake, and Tango looks as ordinary as ever. 

“I saw you petting a ravager down there,” he says at last, and Scar gives Bdubs a weird look, but Tango doesn’t seem surprised. He just laughs, shaking his head.

“No, no, no, no. I was reprimanding them.”

“Yes, you were!”

“—for their vicious attacks—”

“You’re rooting against us!”

“—on my… friends, here.” 

There’s a weird pause, a solid second or two where Tango seems to struggle to get the word friends out of his mouth, and when he does the tone is flat, insincere. Scar is still frowning at Bdubs. He doesn’t notice the way Tango’s expression flickers. Bdubs notices. Bdubs can’t tear his eyes away.

Hey, is it cold in here?

“I’m starting to learn something dark about you, with all the laughing and smiling you’ve been doing while we’re strugglin’!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tango says, then smiles, turning away to Scar, changing the topic of the conversation. They move on, teasing Grian for being AFK, and Bdubs—

God, Bdubs needs more sleep.