Chapter Text
Rudo stood at the center of everything as the dust settles around him, the wolf transformation falling away into dust, its purpose in this world served.
Mymo is dead now.
He had torn his head off. Something had cut his torso, and weakened him enough to get the shot.
He stared at the head on the ground, mouth agape and staring up at the cloudy sky. Beady black eyes glazed over. In the end, he was still a human.
Rudo had taken his life for the greater good.
A sudden wave of exhaustion hit him like a truck. He needed to go find the other cleaners, but everything suddenly seemed hazy, like the world had been settled in a thick fog he couldn't see through. He fell forward, and everything went dark for a moment.
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The first thing he felt was soft sheets beneath him, not the scratchy ones like in the Cleaner's HQ. When he breathed in, the air felt so light and clean it nearly choked him. All the aches and pains in his body were gone, as if something had drained it out of him.
"Rudo?" A familiar voice called out to him, and his eyes shot open. He was laying on a bed, and Regto was hovering over him.
No.
Regto smiled widely, that dumb crooked grin he gave him whenever he teased him.
No.
"Glad you're finally awake, bud. You've been out of it for days."
No.
Regto was supposed to be dead. He remembered it so clearly. He remembered the feeling of the warmth draining out of him, sticky blood coating his hands and clothes, being beaten and tazed by the apostles.
Regto was dead.
But here he was.
Grinning at him like nothing was wrong.
First, there was fear.
I'm not supposed to be here, he thought. i'm supposed to be on the ground.
He stared at Regto for a moment. And stared. And the fear went away, and he felt a diffferent feeling he couldn't quite place.
Rudo reached out, grabbing Regto by the front of his coat and slamming himself into him. He seemed surprised by the action.
"You alright, kid?—"
Rudo couldn't hold back the sob in his chest. Regto's eyes widened, and he wrapped his arms around the boy tightly.
"Hey, hey, what's the matter?"
Rudo hugged him tightly, nearly screaming from how hard he was crying. Regto rubbed his back as he cried, concerned but patiently waiting for him to calm down. He had never seen him like this, ever. Even being the one who raised him, he usually just got angry at things.
He ran his hands through the boy's hair, letting him cry it out. Even through his thick clothes, he could feel the dampness of his tears and snot seeping through.
"Regto, I— I thought you— you were g-gone, I thought you were dead!" Rudo wailed through his tears. Regto's eyes widened as he stared down at the blubbering blob hugging him.
"What? Why would I be dead?"
Rudo sniffled hard, pulling back from him to look up but still gripping his shirt tightly, as if he would disappear when he let go.
"Someone killed you— but.. No I— I remember it. Someone in a mask stabbed you and— and they blamed it on me and.. " Rudo looked around. He was in his room, in his house, on the Sphere. Not in the pit. He stared at his gloved hands holding onto Regto's clothes, suddenly jumping up out of the bed. One hand was still holding onto his jacket while the other went to his shelf with his collection of fixed and to-be-fixed garbage. He picked up something at random, and tried to activate it. He focused so hard he thought he was gonna pop a blood vessel, yet nothing happened.
"All your stuff is still here, kid, and so am I."
Rudo set the object down. He stared at his gloves, stared at the mark on top of them, the Watchman series. He thought of all of the people he had met, all of the things he had seen, bullshit so unbelievable it couldn't have possibly been his imagination.
He slowly let go of Regto, wiping his damp face on his gloves. Regto knelt down to his level, noting the sensitive state he was in.
"Rudo. Did you have a dream while you were out?"
He nodded. "I guess so.. It just.. It felt so real. I really thought.. That you were gone.."
Regto sighed, rubbing his head and messing up his hair even more than it already was. "What am I gonna do with ya... Do you even remember passing out?"
Rudo shook his head.
"Well, a few nights ago, you were doing one of your little trash raids, and ended up hitting your head trying to escape. Then I had to pay a fine so you wouldn't end up in jail, and make sure you wouldn't go do something stupid like that again. Does your head feel better now? "
"I guess, but.." his stomach growled loudly, cutting off his sentence. Regto grinned.
"Sounds like someone could eat. C'mon, I was just about to make some dinner. "
Rudo nods, following him out of the room. His legs felt like jello, taking quick steps as they trembled after Regto.
"Chiwa will be glad you're up and at it again. She's been worried, ya'know," Regto mentioned as he watched Rudo settle on the stool at the table. He seemed to stiffen at her name.
Regto frowned. Rudo was on edge, more than usual. He kept his eyes drilled into the older man, like he would blink and he would be gone. He turned his back to him, focusing on making something filling for the boy considering he had been passed out for three days.
"You wanna tell me what your dream was about? You seem on edge, kiddo."
Rudo hummed, looking down at the table. He ran his hands over the flaky, beaten wood.
"Dunno. I still can't.. I'm just not sure if I even believe this."
Somehow, the Ground felt closer than it ever had, like one wrong move and all of this would fall away and he would wake up, and the people he found would be around him.
He had started to think of them as a bit of a family.
Rudo felt something hard in his throat, but swallowed it down.
"Well, just for the record, I am alive and well, and nobody in a mask has stabbed me."
Rudo stared at the table.
"Okay. Can I have some water?"
Regto hummed, taking out a glass and filling it from the filter pitcher by the sink. He set it in front of the boy, patting his head.
Rudo stared at the glass. Regto turned back to the stove.
"Let's talk about it some more when I'm done, kay? Tomorrow you can go talk to Chiwa."
Rudo nodded. Dinner was finished quickly, a light soup with noodles and chicken. Rudo took a bite of it, and hunger hit him like a freight train. He practically inhaled it, Regto watching him across the table with a smile.
"You can slow down a bit. Don't push yourself too hard."
He nodded again, slowing his bites a bit.
"So, tell me about this dream you had."
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At some point between dinner and the end of his long, long story, they had transferred to the couch while Regto changed his bandages, listening intently.
"—so Mymo, he used his microphone to turn himself into this like huge monster thing—"
"And Mymo was the big T-shaped news reporter, right?"
"Right. It was huge, and it had a huge ring over its head like an angel, and he said he was a god. But I used my gloves to turn my costume into like — me, I guess? I turned into a big wolf. Which are like dogs but bigger and they kill things. And then everyone started attacking him, and everything was kinda a blur, but I remember Zanka getting really hurt and some big dude I didn't recognize pick him up. Something happened while we were fighting, and he got cut, and I.. ripped his head off."
"So you killed him?"
"Yeah.
"Then I went back to normal, and..woke up."
Regto stared at him,"That's it?!"
Rudo raised a brow, "Was there supposed to be more?"
"Well, ya got me invested in your little story! Geez, it really felt real to you, huh? Shit, kiddo."
Regto ran his hand over his face, watching Rudo flex his hands after putting his gloves back on.
"Y'know, if you ever need to talk about it more.. I'm here. You know that."
Rudo nodded. He yawned, stretching out.
"I'm gonna go to bed.."
"You sure? It's still a bit early."
"Yeah, my head hurts. Good night."
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Rudo stared up at the roof of his bedroom, sleep not coming to him. He felt exhausted, but he couldn't believe he was really just.. here. All the anger that had kept him motivated suddenly left his body, and he was back where he wanted to be.
Was it really that easy?
He felt like it was all some cruel joke on him. That if he fell asleep now, he'd wake up tomorrow and Regto would be dead and he'd be on the ground, and everything would go back to normal—
When did the Ground become his normal?
The Ground wasn't even a real place if Rudo wasn't dreaming.
It could be.
Rudo stared at the ceiling for a bit longer, forcing his eyes shut. He curled up around his pillow, trying to fall asleep. Tossing and turning, he couldn't keep his mind off of the slim possibility that maybe there really was a whole civilization down in the pit.
He squeezed his eyes closed, cramming his face into his pillow and trying to get it out of his head. He needed rest.