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It was practically a routine, at this point.
Branzy would making himself busy around the base, try to stay inconspicuous, try not to let his heart race at every unfamiliar sound. One thing he’d learnt, if nothing else, was that Clown didn’t make sound, not as standard.
He’d go like this for a day, maybe two, waiting. Then his business partner would stumble back inside, a mess of potion effects and wounds, and collapse on the floor. Which left Branzy to get him cleaned up.
This first time, he wasn’t sure Clown had even noticed. Branzy had still been terrified of messing with him, even slightly, so he practically just dragged his partner to a sofa and left a glass of water and some bread to ease the potion effects.
Then he’d started getting bolder.
There were a few things Branzy had quickly learnt, a few limits even he couldn’t push. The first was his actual muscle capacity, which, it turned out, wasn’t enough to actually carry Clown any noticeable distance.
The second was what he could and couldn’t do while his partner was unconscious- which he almost always was. Clown fought hard, then he crashed. Every time. It was honestly exasperating, given Branzy was sure he had time while fighting to just moderate his output, enough that he wouldn’t pass out the second his adrenaline fell.
Still, it gave him the chance to get a few things done.
Like now, as Branzy heard the familiar sound of armour and weapons collapsing to the floor, and sighed, turning away from the bookshelf he’d been organising.
“Coming, coming…”
He didn’t even know if he was really helping. But it felt incredibly wrong to just leave Clown, and Branzy couldn’t help his own frustration with his partner’s inability to regulate his energy. Someone had to take care of him.
Branzy’s own shoes clipped against the floors of the circus tent, nice and loud. He’d tried something quiet, at one point, mimicking Clown’s silent movement, only to get an axe to his throat and a growled command to make himself a little more known. Since Branzy didn’t particularly feel like getting a collar with a bell to announce his presence, he’d just changed his shoes. It seemed to have done the trick.
He was already checking his inventory as he rounded the corner to the main lobby, organising the standard array of potions, food and medical supplies he carried as a matter of course these days.
Branzy glanced up at Clown, entirely unsurprised to see his partner in a heap on the floor, visibly breathing, but also visibly bleeding from several places.
“Right. Nurse Branzy, reporting for duty…”
Crouching next to his partner, Branzy rolled him over, pressing two fingers to the side of Clown’s neck to check his pulse as he scanned for obvious injuries. Nothing looked visibly different to the usual, but he reeked of potions, and the cloying cloud lingering around him made Branzy’s heart sink. Of course. Potion overdose.
It wasn’t fatal, not by a long shot, but it was still meant to be avoided, and for good reason.
“Idiot.”
Branzy swatted at his partner’s horns, rolling his eyes. Still on his knees, he set about relieving Clown of anything that seemed particularly dangerous, carefully removing the sword still clutched in his hand, and the more bloodstained parts of his armour, storing it in his own inventory.
Of course, if Clown had been awake, Branzy would never have been being so bold. These moments were a chance for him to vent his frustrations, if nothing else, safe from retribution or the threat of imminent bodily harm that always lingered in his partner’s presence.
But for now, Branzy didn’t hesitate, carefully and efficiently interfering with Clown’s gear in a way probably no one else in the server would ever dream of doing. It felt nice, in a thrilling sort of way. Dangerous and special, still at once.
Once he was satisfied Clown was neither bleeding out, nor about to inadvertently stab either of them on adrenaline-fuelled instinct, Branzy gathered his partner in his arms, hauling the jester to his feet with no little effort.
Look, he was strong. Decently so, probably above average. But the fact remained that Clown was five foot something of solid muscle, weighed down by however many stacks of golden apples he still had buried in his inventory, and Branzy was not made for the sheer type of bodybuilding the people on this deranged server dedicated themselves to.
Comparatively, he felt like a child, despite Clown being a solid inch or two shorter than him, especially without his boots, which were one of the things Branzy always took care to remove. Not out of any enjoyment of their height difference, but mostly because he was aware Clown was going to end up on a sofa, or drag himself straight to his bedroom once he was conscious, and he doubted his partner would remember to remove his footwear before tracking blood and dirt all over the place.
Branzy didn’t normally stick around, when Clown did wake up. He just did what he could, did it quickly, then hurried away before he had time to regret it. It was just basic decency, really, so it was odd for him to be so skittish. But around here, even that felt dangerous, empathy a concept so alien as to be a risk.
Still, for now his partner was entirely out of it, slumped on Branzy’s shoulder, and making his body weight very known.
Branzy managed anyway, dragging Clown to the small room he’d practically built for this, a dark little cubby hole with a few sofas and a coffee table, looking just normal enough that Clown wouldn’t freak out on waking up. He’d learnt quickly his partner didn’t take kindly to place that looked like medical facilities, and it was best for everyone involved to make his transition back to consciousness smooth and unremarkable.
Laying Clown as best he could on the sofa, Branzy settled on the floor next to his head, beginning to sort through his supplies. First of all, Clown’s stuff went in a chest. That was very important, he didn’t want to go walking off with any of that. Then he scanned his partner again, removing the rest of his armour, and checking for any stray potions clutched in his hands, or clipped to his belt.
Thus mollified, Branzy leaned in closer, carefully rolling Clown onto his back to examine his injuries.
It was a peaceful sort of work, once the initial shock and adrenaline died down. Just cleaning wounds, removing the glass shards Clown always got stuck in his hands and legs from smashing potions on himself. Those potions were going to be the death of him, before any player, if he kept using them like he did.
Still, it was hard to Branzy to hold on to his frustrations. His partner looked so human in the low light, mask still in place- he wasn’t a fool- but otherwise entirely vulnerable. Just another player, devoid of armour or weapons, with only injuries to show for his battles.
Branzy didn’t notice, when Clown shifted the first time. He mumbled things sometimes, distorted by his mask and too indistinct for Branzy to really pay attention.
He paid attention when his partner sat bolt upright, kicking him against the table in one fluid motion as he reached for a weapon he didn’t find.
Branzy cried out, yelping slightly as his back hit a wooden edge, immediately reaching up to rub his head where Clown had kicked him.
“Jesus- Clown, ow-“
“What…”
Clown was still casting around for his weapons, then his armour, growing more and more irate. Branzy managed to refocus his vision, and leapt into action, extremely aware of the importance of calming his partner down before one of them got hurt.
Holding his hands up, Branzy pressed himself further away, trying to look as non-threatening as he could manage.
“Hey, I- I’m just trying to help. Your stuff’s in that chest, I didn’t…” It seemed stupid, now he was forced to say it out loud, but Branzy swallowed, and closed his eyes in case he was about to die. “I didn’t want you getting hurt.”
Clown was silent for a long moment, and Branzy resisted the urge to open his eyes. He just breathed steadily, hoping beyond hope he survived the night. His partner had never woken up before. Maybe he didn’t know him as well as he’d thought.
“…you were… healing me?”
Branzy opened one eye, letting out a soft, shaking sigh of relief as he saw Clown looking at the antibacterial wipes he used on grazes and cuts.
“Yeah. That’s all.”
“Huh.” Clown stared for a moment, and now he was looking, Branzy could see him swaying slightly, in a way that was more than unsteadiness. “Yeah, I- I think I need that.”
With that, his partner promptly collapsed, much to Branzy’s horror.
Once the shock had cleared, Branzy cursed, leaning forward to check Clown’s breathing and pulse again with shaking hands. Still there. Steady, but weak. The idiot, this was why you didn’t overdo potions.
Branzy had a bad feeling about this, actually, originating in the knowledge he hadn’t asked permission to do any of this, and blossoming into terror with Clown’s initial reaction.
But he wasn’t leaving his partner to die now, so there wasn’t much left to do but carry on working, wrapping the deeper gashes in clean bandages and checking, every five seconds, that Clown was still breathing, and still unconscious.
Branzy realised, maybe belatedly, that he was hyperventilating a little himself, quietly turning hysterical, became his partner wasn’t ok, and he was in so much trouble, and this life they lived seemed so much more dangerous when he was reminded of both of their mortality.
He knew, full well, that their mortality was practically linked at this point. If Clown died, Branzy knew full well he wouldn’t survive a day. Which, admittedly, was one of the things making his hands shake. The other was the knowledge that if he died, either Clown was going to kill everyone on this godforsaken server, or it would finally be his breaking point.
Branzy was the greatest assassin’s weak spot, and he knew it. That was why he didn’t go anywhere, not that he had anywhere to go, and why he always felt like he had to take care of Clown, as best he could. Which wasn’t much, but anything would do so he didn’t feel quite so useless.
Like now, as Clown’s breathing stuttered, and Branzy felt a lump in his throat, because he wasn’t sure how to help him. Potions. How did you fix potions?
Milk. Shit- obviously. Branzy cursed himself, then laughed hysterically, because he had milk in his inventory, for this exact purpose. He’d thought about it earlier, when it seemed like such a simple idea, when he could actually think straight and his every other thought wasn’t about his partner either dying or murdering him.
He needed a moment. Branzy leaned back, just for a second, exhaling in pure, exhausted terror, closing his eyes in an effort to just relax. He was no use to Clown panicking too much to think.
Moment over. His partner was going to wake up again soon - hopefully - and Branzy would prefer not to be there when he did. Nothing against Clown, he just had a tendency to kill people.
Branzy forced himself to open his eyes, to relax, just a little- not dead yet, after all- and just finish doing this. It shouldn’t take long. He’d like to be there when Clown woke up, really, but that felt… very dangerous.
He did his final checks with his teeth digging into the inside of his cheek, blood spilling across his tongue as he wiped a smear of Clown’s off his shoulder.
Branzy left a glass of milk and some bread on top of the chest, as usual, mentally running through all the places he could hide, just for a little while. He wouldn’t abandon his parter. That would be a death sentence. He just wanted to crash somewhere himself, destress a little.
Then it was done, and Branzy found himself checking Clown’s heartbeat one last time before he gathered everything, and hurried off into the corridors.
It was ridiculous, really, running from his ally in a base they’d built together. But Clown was terrifying, and Branzy really didn’t want to die just yet, and maybe it would all be ok. Maybe his partner wouldn’t even realise how long this had been going on for.
Maybe he hadn’t spent so much of the last few months of his life helping the person most likely to kill him.
Still, he didn’t regret it. Not really. Clown needed someone, that much had become painfully obvious, and Branzy couldn’t help but feel that being remembered by the most powerful person on this server wasn’t the worst way to go.
Not that he wanted to go at all.
Branzy slammed the door to his room behind him, stumbling on his bed before he realised everything about that was stupid, this was the first place Clown would look for him even if he hadn’t just announced his presence.
But he knew Clown. He hoped he knew Clown. After this long, all Branzy had was the terrified, desperate hope that his partner still wanted him alive.
Even as he hugged his knees to his chest, staring at redstone contraptions littered across the floor, all Branzy could think was how he’d been trying to learn how they worked for Clown. He hadn’t been trying to make trouble.
He really did just want to help. And he wanted to have fun, and he wanted to survive, and it wasn’t his fault that living with a man who’d dedicated himself to death made him feel more alive than anything else.
Branzy stared at nothing for a long time, longer than he ever really had before, trying to find the words in his mind to apologise. How did you say sorry for saving someone’s life? Or maybe Clown had a system, and he’d been disturbing it, and that was why his partner always came back so hurt.
The knock at his door was gentle, when it came. Branzy still flinched, that age-old terror rearing in his throat, the primal fear of how anyone and anything could be about to kill him, and he couldn’t even hope to defend himself.
“Uh- come in?”
He hoped his voice didn’t shake as badly as he suspected it did.
Clown let himself in quietly, seeming a little uncertain of what to do, and standing in the doorway for a few seconds. Branzy just stared at him. He didn’t look murderous. But that rarely counted for anything, around here.
Then, when it became abundantly clear his partner wasn’t going to make a decision about why he was here any time soon, Branzy took pity, and patted the bed next to him.
“Are you-“ His voice broke, and Branzy blinked furiously, not looking as he felt a weight on the mattress beside him. “Are you angry?”
“No.”
Clown’s voice sounded strange. Restrained, even more than when he was backed into a corner.
“Did- did you drink the milk I left you?”
“Yes. Thank you, Branzy.”
Branzy blinked. Looked at Clown, the only way it ever seemed safe to, in the corner of his eye.
“You- don’t need to-“
“You’re saved my life. Several times, I think. I… should thank you for that.”
“But- I moved your stuff, and- and you didn’t want-“
“You took initiative, when I wasn’t taking care of myself.” Clown hesitated, finger tapping on his leg sporadically. He still smelt of potions, but his voice was a little less hoarse. “My teammates do that. But- I had to ask them to do that. I- haven’t really had a friend before.”
This felt dangerous. In a new way, one so, so much worse than merely partners. Branzy could already feel laser sights settling on his chest, and felt like he could see someone watching them, in his mind’s eye. Clown shouldn’t be doing this. If it didn’t kill them now, they’d kill each other to forget it.
“…you’re not going to kill me?”
“I- I have never intended to kill you. And I feel I should repay you for not killing me, if nothing else.”
That was… a way of looking at it, certainly. But Branzy had never thought of it as holding Clown’s life in his hands. Just helping his partner, or occasionally taking care of an idiot who couldn’t do it himself.
“And… we’re friends?”
For a moment, Branzy let himself believe anything good came with that notion. That all it meant was someone to talk to, depend on, help and be helped in return. Not a target painted on his back, and a glaring weakness in Clown’s persona of invulnerability.
“Yes. If- you want to be.”
“I mean- sounds good.”
“Sweet.” Clown sounded like he was grinning, but sounded exhausted too, and Branzy was very aware of his drawl that suddenly seemed more than normal. “‘Cause I’m about to pass out again.”
Without much further ado, Clown half collapsed, half lay down on Branzy’s lap, who was left once again astonished at the sheer amount of self control his partner possessed.
Then incredibly freaked out, because ClownPierce was thoroughly unconscious in his lap, and Branzy apparently was now officially his only friend and designated caretaker.
This man was going to be the death of him, one way or another.