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Searing flames and a violent burst of air was all they felt before the world ended.
Then Ranboo woke up.
Ranboo gasped as they came back to the world with a jolt, the sharp movement sending pain all down their back. Their lungs couldn't seem to hold a single wisp of breath.
It was dark, wherever they were, softly colored light filtering through large windows that they couldn't see, but that they somehow knew were just behind them.
... Ranboo knew the room he was in. He was in his bed, in his room, in his house.
Ranboo shivered and blinked slowly, trying to piece together the fragments of their nightmare. They remembered Wilbur, and Quackity, and- and they remembered Tubbo — wait, Tubbo was in danger, Tubbo was- they had to-
Ranboo floundered to get free of his blankets, ignoring the searing pain across his skin from the movement, and still struggling to breath as memories of before flooded back. It wasn't a nightmare. It wasn't a nightmare and Ranboo had died. Tubbo was there and Ranboo had been blown up in front of him.
Ranboo felt sick.
Hot bile burned their throat, and they fought back a gag.
Be Ranboo didn't have time to be sick, he had to go find Tubbo! Was Tubbo safe? Was he hurt? How big was the explosion? Did it reach the ladder where he had been? Tubbo had to be alright, he had to be.
Ranboo tossed their legs over the side of the bed, scarred paws clumsily finding the floor as they got to their feet. It was only a second later when Ranboo stumbled, unbalanced and disoriented. The world spun so violently that they had to catch the wall to keep from falling forward, stomach doing flips as a wave of nausea crashed over them.
They had barely a moment to brace themself and then they were retching onto the floor, their body fully refuting their attempts to move. The taste on his tongue was vile, almost nothing but acid coming up, a reminder that they'd been too stressed to eat since they woke up that morning.
… Or yesterday? Was it even the same day anymore? Ranboo wasn't sure how long it took to respawn… It must have been hours at least; a glance out the window as he fell back into bed told him it was late evening. He could see the sunset.
Ranboo felt exhausted, all the panic and adrenaline of the moment before washing away in an instant. They blinked slowly at the window, shivering atop their blankets.
They were too sick to help Tubbo. Tubbo… their husband… he was on his own. Ranboo wanted to cry.
A whine built in their throat, guilt and fear combining in a pathetic warble they didn't have the strength to suppress.
Their back ached and stung from being pressed against their shirt and the mattress, and they didn't even have to look to know that there were burns mottling their entire back. That's just what happens when you get blown up, they supposed.
A disconnected part of their mind laughed genuinely at the thought of the scars, realizing that they and Tubbo matched now. They shouldn't be happy about that, but they kind of were anyways.
Ranboo closed his eyes, the world spinning around him from pain and exhaustion induced vertigo. He probably had a fever, if the way the cold air seemed to nip and tickle at every inch of his skin meant anything.
… He needed to call someone for help... Where was his communicator?
Ranboo lifted his head to glance around, dizziness blurring the edges of his vision as he tried to locate it on one of the nearby surfaces.
It took longer than it probably should have for Ranboo to remember that they probably still had it on them. They hadn't had the chance to put it away yet, after all.
Ranboo reached into their pocket and fumbled with the device, almost on autopilot as they found the call button next to Philza's name. It only rang for a second or two before the man picked up.
"Hey Ranboo!" Phil greeted, the familiar friendliness of his voice sending a wave of relief down Ranboo's spine. It almost made them smile.
"Phil, I need help." Ranboo said, ignoring how rough and shaky their voice sounded in comparison to Phil's.
"Are you in danger?" Phil's tone shifted to something more serious in an instant. "Where are you?"
"I'm in my house. I, uh, I think I'm safe, I just…" Ranboo paused and trailed off, trying and failing to find any words to explain. "Please…"
The last word came out as a breathy whine, faint enough they weren't certain the communicator picked it up.
"Okay. Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes," Phil said after a beat, and Ranboo was immeasurably grateful that he didn't seem to care about the lack of explanation. "You want me to stay on the call or hang up until I get there, mate?"
"Um…" Ranboo wavered momentarily between desperation not to be alone, and fear that he was already bothering Philza so much. "... staying's good. Staying's good."
"I'll be right here then," Phil responded without hesitation, the shuffling of movement accompanying his words. "So, you doing okay, Ranboo?"
"I… I don't know." Ranboo ran a hand through their hair, blinking back tears. "I don't know."
"Mm. Think you could try to fill me in on the situation until I get there?" Phil asked, his voice staying even and level as he spoke.
"I think, I… Tubbo, he was — and, and Wilbur — I think- I don't-" Ranboo muffled a frustrated groan into the heels of his palms.
His thoughts wouldn't seem to fall in line to form a coherent enough story for him to communicate to Phil, but… it really did happen, didn't it? It all happened. Ranboo really had lost a life, hadn't he?
"... Wil was involved?" Phil asked, something off in his voice.
"Yeah… yeah, he was," Ranboo mumbled, before falling silent.
They could still hear Wilbur shouting as he fought with Quackity, too caught up in his own rivalries to remember Tubbo, still stranded in the middle of a room rigged to explode.
They could still see Tubbo's eyes, wide as he stared up at them from across the room, curled against the ladder while Ranboo had taken their place on the pressure plate.
They could still feel the fire enveloping them when they jumped.
Ranboo felt sick again. Still, maybe.
"Just reached your house, mate," Philza's voice dragged Ranboo back out of their memories, and they peaked over at their window trying spot him outside. "I'm going to hang up now, see you in a second."
"See you," Ranboo reciprocated without thinking, feeling oddly dazed.
The door unlatched downstairs, and vaguely it occurred to Ranboo that the polite thing to do would be to get out of bed and meet his neighbor in the main room.
He didn't, though. He couldn't. Instead he pushed himself into a more upright position, still sitting firmly on the mattress, and wrapped his tail around his waist.
They tried not to cry out at the pain that rippled across their back from the movement, burn wounds screaming as the damaged skin stretched and chafed against fabric. They mostly succeeded, only a small warble of discomfort escaping their mouth.
"Hey mate," Philza greeted softly as he stepped into the room, eyes hovering over Ranboo. "... Are you hurt?"
"... Yeah." Ranboo's voice came out weaker than he meant it too, and muddled by teary wetness, so he nodded as well. "I, um, I have some burns," they elaborated, speaking a bit louder. "My back."
"I can take a look at them." Phil hummed lightly, sliding a bag Ranboo hadn't noticed off his shoulder as he crossed the room.
The bed dipped as Phil sat down on the edge, turning to examine Ranboo more closely, brows furrowing on his otherwise carefully calm face. After a moment, he reached out and pressed the back of his hand to Ranboo's forehead.
That felt… nice. Ranboo leaned closer, eyes half closed but still just able to see Philza frown. Hm, that probably wasn't good.
The hand was removed too quickly, in Ranboo's opinion, as Phil turned to the bag he'd placed on the mattress beside himself. "Think you could get your shirt off so I can see those burns?"
… That seemed doable. Ranboo reached up to undo the buttons of their jacket with shaky hands.
After a few moments of struggling more than they should have to remove their shirt and jacket, Ranboo finally managed to get it off with some help from Philza. The air felt strange and far too cold on their damaged skin, sweat drying quickly now that it was exposed.
"Oh fuck," Phil cursed, his previously steady tone wavering as the wounds were uncovered. His hand came to rest on Ranboo's shoulder as he examined the burns etched across their back. "You just went to bed without treating these? Ranboo mate, you're- fuck, you're gonna lose a life one of these days if you keep being so careless!"
Ranboo stiffened, his breath catching on Philza's words.
It had hurt so much. He could barely remember anything else that happened that day, the experience of dying taking up almost every moment of his memories instead.
"Mm," Ranboo squeaked out, voice strained and head barely dipping in a stilted nod.
Philza was silent for just a bit too long.
"Mate…" he breathed, and his voice was so soft, why was his voice so soft?
"... Yeah?" Ranboo stared hard at the wall, unable to face Phil. Their eyes stung like pools of molten metal.
"Never mind." Phil didn't say anything else after that, only releasing a breath before turning to dig through the bag of supplies Ranboo had noticed earlier.
"Right, I'm gonna have to clean everything first," Phil began after a few moments of quiet, "then I'll have to apply some burn cream. It should fight off infection, but it's going to fucking hurt. A lot."
Ranboo braced themself as Phil pressed a barely damp cloth to their back — it wasn't water, of course it wasn't, but they weren't sure what it was. Ranboo took deep breaths to distract from the pain, now staring at the ceiling to keep their watering eyes from spilling down their cheeks.
"So… You eaten dinner yet?" Phil asked lightly, helping to draw Ranboo's attention away from the pain.
"Uh, no." Ranboo shook their head, sending a wave of dizziness across their vision in doing so. "I, um, I think I've been asleep since noon at least?"
Phil made a disgruntled noise. Ranboo decided not to mention that he'd skipped breakfast as well.
Instead, he remained quiet as Phil eventually moved on to talk about other topics, keeping a steady stream of stories and commentary — interrupted by occasional explanations of what he was doing — as he spread burn creams and healing potions across Ranboo's back. It stung just as badly as he warned it would, but once he was finally done, the wounds didn't hurt as much as before, dulled to a more bearable level of discomfort.
Ranboo, not really paying much attention to Phil anymore, gazed down at his feet, wiggling his scorched toes experimentally. After a moment, he reached down to lightly touch the pads of his paws.
The skin was raw and sensitive, but Ranboo couldn't quite pull their attention away from poking at the soft pads — beans, he remembered Tubbo calling them when he would pinch and prod at them teasingly on quiet nights in Snowchester. The soft squish and tickly sting of the action was inexplicably mesmerizing to their hazy mind.
"Ranboo?" Phil asked after what must have been at least a few minutes, leaning over as he prompted Ranboo to tune back in. "You alright there, mate?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." Ranboo, blinked and pulled their hands away, letting their foot fall back to the floor. "Just spaced out, I'm fine."
Phil hummed in acknowledgement, standing up from where he'd been sitting on the mattress.
"Well, I've got your back all cleaned and bandaged up, so you can lie down now, if you'd like." Phil said, setting the bag of medical supplies down on the floor to make space in the bed. "I just need you to drink a regen pot for me, and then you can rest while I check over the rest of you — your feet look pretty scuffed."
Ranboo nodded. He did that a lot when feeling stressed or anxious. It was easier than talking.
A glass bottle was pressed into his hands a moment later, the almost salty smell of regeneration potion wafting from the uncorked opening. Phil encouraged him to drink the thing, so he lifted it to his lips and sipped at the pink liquid.
It did not taste great. Potions never did. Still, it had to be done, so Ranboo tipped the bottle back and tried to gulp it down without tasting too much of it.
It still made him want to gag reflexively, the salty, bitter taste washing down his throat and settling in his stomach. The only thing in his stomach he noted vaguely. Phil had wanted him to eat something, hadn't he? He'd mentioned something about soup earlier… he probably wanted Ranboo to stay awake for that.
Despite that thought slowly processing in Ranboo's mind, they didn't bother to fight it as their eyes slipped shut, lids to heavy to keep open any longer.
If Phil wanted them awake, he'd just have to wake them up again.
Ranboo drifted off to the faint shuffling of Phil wrapping bandages around their paws, still talking to the air as he did so.
… It felt nice, compared to how Ranboo had woken up.