i reread one of my favorite spiderman!Tommy fics today (by Drhair76, everything they have is GREAT), it was good (just like the last nine times) and you should read it. Its on the shorter side.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I got some new watercolors for Christmas, so I figured I’d break them in by making some fanart of @fathermooshroom’s Spiderinnit from their fic Guided Evolution (It‘s seriously so good go read it now!)
I figured the way watercolors spread would make visualizing the Sense look very cool, and I was right!
Bonus sketch of the full design (that I will probably digitize later):
Oh yeah, click the photos for a better quality/ full view
CWs: Emetophobia mention, (very) minor body horror
In which Tommy tries to lay low. Keyword 'tries'.
-
Tommy was the best at keeping a secret, obviously.
In fact he was so good at it, that the only reason anyone might think otherwise would be just because he was just such an upstart big man that was honorable and didn’t like lying. Obviously.
…That, and it was really, really fucking hard to keep super-spider powers a secret.
Tommy had gotten the hang (ha) of his strength and sticking, but other problems with his new powers arose very quickly and very obviously.
A very annoying thing that his new super-cool-super-spider body had acquired was the super-sensitivity that came with it. Tommy could hear fucking everything. If he closed his eyes and focused, he could hear a car turning on from three blocks away, which sounded cool as hell, but when he was trying to sleep it was much less awesome.
And of course, Phil noticed that Tommy was sleepy and sluggish, so he not-so-subtly tried to get Tommy to fess up to late-night gaming or something, which irritated him. Tommy was genuinely trying to sleep, he wasn’t even doing anything fun, which he complained to Wilbur about at length.
(The next day, though, Wilbur came back from his band practice and handed Tommy sensory headphones. It made something warm bloom in his chest, not that he’d ever tell Wilbur that. He’d never hear the end of it.)
Tommy also smelled way more than he used to—as in olfaction, not stinking, he may be a proud raccoon boy but he made sure to shower every day.
Anyway, he olfacted way more than he used to, which was…a mix of good and bad. Good, because now he could smell Phil’s dinner way better, but bad, because he could also smell coffee so strongly now that it ice-picked into his brain.
Tommy knew spiders didn’t like coffee, but he was super bummed about it affecting him—though, fortunately, it seemed his super-spider senses weren’t nearly as averse to Coke, thank Prime, so Tommy still got his caffeine fix.
The most difficult thing to hide was his appetite.
After he’d fully recovered from the bite, Tommy was fucking starving, all the time. He’d even gone as far as to beg Phil for more food at dinner, which his dad confusedly agreed to, but it didn’t seem to be enough. But he couldn’t just run around shoving food in his face at every moment, because that would make people suspicious, and that was the opposite of what Wilbur asked of him.
So Tommy had to just amble through the next few days like normal, and act like he wasn’t shriveling away at every moment that he wasn’t eating.
During that time, Techno approached him, and monotonously offered to teach Tommy how to make gnocchi. Tommy thought it was way out of left field at first, but still agreed, because cooking with Techno was always fun, even if it sometimes ended with Techno chasing Tommy out of the kitchen with a spatula after he’d accidentally lit something on fire.
(To be fair, Techno should have told him not to put aluminum foil in the microwave before he did it that one time. How was Tommy supposed to know everything exploded when that happened?!)
It was after several hours and a few whacks on the head (that Tommy had to let happen—it wasn’t really discreet to dodge every attempted blow), that Tommy finally realized why Techno went through the trouble with him. Gnocchi was fucking good, and more importantly, it was very filling.
Tommy finally had leftovers, after days of scarfing down anything he could get his dirty little crime boy hands on. It was a welcome relief to not have to worry about starving anymore, especially since Techno never badgered him about why he was so hungry like Phil kept trying to do.
But…now that he was properly eating, Tommy swiftly noticed a new issue. The underside of his wrists had started to ache, and no matter how much he rubbed them, it only seemed to get worse.
Painkillers did absolutely nothing for him, a new discovery that would have probably caused him a lot more concern if he wasn’t so distracted with how badly his fuckin’ wrists hurt.
The day after Techno taught him to make gnocchi, Tommy was sitting on his bed, glaring at his wrists, as if he would be able to get them to stop hurting just by will. It looked like the biggest zits Tommy had ever seen were growing there, red and angry, something that Tommy would have believed if it weren’t for the fact that both ‘zits’ were in the exact same place on either wrist.
Fed up, Tommy firmly pressed the thumb of his other hand on his right wrist to try and ‘pop’ the upset, raised skin.
He swore and flinched when fucking something shot out of the ‘zit’, with so much force that it hit the opposite wall with a ‘thwap’.
Tommy’s eyes went wide as saucers when he saw what looked like a spiderweb had been shot at the wall.
“Wh-what the-” His eyes went down to his wrists again, and he squinted to look at them closer. He had to squint close, but he saw-
Holy. Shit.
He could recognize those anywhere, he’d looked at enough cool pictures of spiders to know. The ‘zits’ were fucking spinnerets, just like what was on a spider’s bum.
Tommy looked back up at the spot where he’d shot a fucking web at his wall, his mouth dropping open.
He hesitantly flexed his wrist, and a laugh was startled out of him when another fucking web came out of him and hit the wall again. “H-holy shit!”
Tommy jumped out of his bed and ran to the webbed wall, hesitantly touching the silky strands. They were sticky (gross), but when Tommy experimentally pulled on one of the strands between his fingers, it was like trying to pull steel apart, even with his enhanced strength. Tommy stared at the webs with wide, awed eyes.
“...I am so glad those didn’t come from my ass,” He mumbled to himself.
-
Tommy was finally allowed to go back to school after Phil kept him for a long weekend (“just to be sure”), and that just came with a whole new slew of problems.
Thanks to his new super-senses, Tommy smelled every bit of gross B.O. and Lynx Africa and other colognes and perfumes that the other students wore, so potent that it almost had him throwing up when it all smacked him in the face when he crossed the threshold of the school’s entrance.
However, though, because he was a badass big man that would rather die than let some damn Lynx Africa do him in, Tommy managed to get ahold of himself and just took shallow breaths as he navigated the crowded halls to find his friends.
He finally noticed Eryn and Tubbo chatting by their lockers, and Eryn lit up when he noticed Tommy.
“Holy shit, there he is!” Eryn immediately ran to Tommy and clapped him on the back, grinning widely. “We thought you died, mate!”
“What the hell happened to you?” Tubbo asked, his eyes concerned as he looked Tommy up and down. He wasn’t in Tommy and Eryn’s class on the field trip to the bug museum, and Tommy belatedly realized he didn’t even text his friends over his extended weekend, which, to be fair,Tommy kind of had other things going on.
“Oh, I passed out,” Tommy casually tried to breeze past the question. Don’t be suspicious. “Phil kept me for a long weekend to make sure I wouldn’t fuckin’ keel over or something.”
“That sounds like him.” Eryn huffed, shaking his head amusedly. He roughly mussed Tommy’s curls, laughing at his resulting squawk and shove. “Glad you feel better, Tom.”
“Yeah, yeah, fuck off me, you prick-“ Tommy fought to not smile. Fuck, it was good to be with his friends again. He missed this normalcy after the crazy fucking weekend he had.
“Did you see Ranboo on your way in?” Tubbo asked Tommy, standing on his tiptoes to try and see through the crowd. Tommy rolled his eyes.
“No, I didn’t. How bad is your fuckin’ separation anxiety?” He asked flatly, and dodged a swat that Tubbo threw at him.
“It’s not separation anxiety, she’s just not answering my messages.” Tubbo sniffed haughtily.
“Maybe she broke up with you,” Eryn yawned boredly behind his hand, only barely managing to jump out of the way of Tubbo aiming a kick at his shin with a squeaky laugh.
“Ranboo wouldn’t ghost me if she wanted to break up, that’s not like her,” Tubbo frowned as he scanned the crowd of students again. Tommy groaned.
“Tubbo, you’re bein’ clingy again,” He pointed out, and Tubbo gave him an unimpressed look.
“Says the one that had a meltdown when I wasn’t able to text over spring holiday.” Tubbo flatly said. Tommy’s cheeks went red, and Eryn barked a laugh.
“That was different! You were vacationing in fuckin’ America, dickhead, I thought you got shot!” Tommy vehemently defended himself, and Tubbo just rolled his eyes.
“No American has the balls to shoot me, Tom-“ Tubbo started with a huff, but he was cut off by the school bell ringing.
Tommy’s hands flew to his ears with a choked sound, the bell almost making him fall to his knees. It felt like there were thirty-eight million ice picks drilling into his brain all at once-
“Tommy-?!” That strange tingle in the back of his head again, there were hands coming towards him-
Tommy ducked before he could be touched on complete instinct, gritting his teeth hard enough to hurt his jaw as he tried to get ahold of himself-
He almost sobbed in relief when the bell stopped ringing, and he was finally able to think past the pain in his head. He gasped a few desperate breaths to calm himself before he raised his eyes to see Eryn and Tubbo worriedly staring at him, Tubbo helplessly gripping the emergency inhaler he always kept on his person in the rare case that Tommy forgot his.
“W-what the fuck was that, Tom?” Eryn asked shakily, obviously hesitant to touch his friend. Tommy took a careful breath.
“H-headache,” He lied, massaging his temples as he straightened again. “Sorry-”
“That didn’t-” Eryn immediately went to protest, but Tubbo sighed and pocketed the inhaler again to wordlessly interrupt him. Tommy noticed that Tubbo was looking at him strangely now, and that tingle in the back of his brain briefly pinged.
“Do you need some drugs*, Tommy?” Tubbo asked, and Tommy shook his head with a little laugh.
“Uh—I’m alright, it’ll—it’s probably just a caffeine headache or something-” Tommy lied again, sweating a little when Tubbo barely narrowed his eyes.
“...Alright,” Tubbo finally relented, and Tommy really tried to not look too relieved. “Come on, we’re gonna be late.”
The three of them headed together towards the lower sixth wing of the school, where they regrettably had to part ways until lunch, though Tommy was internally grateful to get away from Tubbo’s suspicious glances. Tubbo knew Tommy better than he knew himself sometimes, and that meant that Tommy was a hundred-percent-sure Tubbo knew he was lying.
He had to be cool. He had to act like nothing was wrong so Tubbo would lay off.
Tommy took his seat at the very back of the class, struggling with trying to get his act together. He couldn’t have another freakout like that when the bell rang…that would be way too suspicious.
Tommy ended up watching the clock on the wall more than he paid attention to the teacher, so he could tense everything in his body to not react when that horrible, torturous bell sounded off again.
And then he had to do it again, and again…Tommy didn’t learn a single goddamn thing for the first half of the day, and took a second for himself to fuckin’ breathe before he forced himself to head to lunch.
Don’t. Be. Suspicious.
Tommy regretfully headed to the cafeteria, putting on the sensory headphones he got from Wilbur. He wasn’t allowed to wear them in class, but he’d snatch every bit of muffled hearing he could get outside of it.
On his way to the cafeteria, he happened to pass the window to the front of the school, and then he almost tripped over his feet when he felt that strange sense in the back of his head spike out of nowhere, more powerful than it had ever been up until this point.
Tommy whipped around, expecting something coming at him, but there was nothing, no students throwing things or visible dangers to avoid, though he did get a few odd looks from passing students.
Tommy’s skin prickled. Unease felt like a physical blockage in his throat, but he couldn’t see whatever that sense was warning him about.
After a few more seconds of just standing there with nothing happening, Tommy hesitantly decided to just focus on getting to the cafeteria.
He felt simultaneously glad and exhausted when he got to the cafeteria—there were so many students, so many smells, and so much noise, though Wilbur’s headphones really helped. Tommy quickly located his friends and sat down with a sigh.
“Still no Ranboob?” Tommy asked Tubbo, glancing at the empty seat at the table. Tubbo kicked him under the table, and Tommy had to make an effort to not instinctively move out of the way before it happened.
“Don’t call her that.” Tubbo grouched. “And no, I still can’t even get a hold of her…” He frowned concernedly at his phone. “Maybe I should ring Niki.”
“You are so clingy.” Tommy groaned, pulling out the first tupperware of gnocchi from his bag. “No wonder she’s not picking up-”
“Will you shut it with that?” Tubbo snapped. “I’m genuinely worried over here-”
“Tubs, c’mon.” Eryn said around his mouthful of sandwich. “Niki’d tell us if sum’n happen’d-”
“Yeh, she would.” Tommy agreed, shoveling pasta into his mouth. “So chill, would ya?”
Tubbo huffed and grumbled, but he stopped outwardly fretting over Ranboo. Instead, he focused his attention on Tommy, and Tommy froze. He knew that look.
“What was up this morning, Tom?” Tubbo asked pointedly. Eryn was still chowing down on his lunch, but he glanced Tommy’s way as well, clearly wanting to hear an answer.
Tommy swallowed his bite.
“...Headache. Told you.” He replied, as nonchalantly as he could. Tubbo’s eyes narrowed.
“Even when you’ve had migraines, you’ve never freaked out at the bell so much.” Tubbo pointed out, his eyes going to the headphones on Tommy’s head. “And you’re wearing-”
“I lost a bet.” Tommy interrupted, internally sweating. “With—Wilbur. So now I have to wear his dumb smelly headphones.”
Tubbo still looked unconvinced, but Eryn snickered.
“Misfortune just follows you, huh, Tom?” He joked. “Never a dull day in your life.”
Tommy forced a laugh, that strange unease still prickling in the back of his head.
PART TWO!!! This one took me a while (both because of life stuff and difficulty with writing) and it's a little shorter than last chapter, but bear with me! We're just getting started >:)
CWs: (Slight) body horror, emetophobia, mention/depiction of illness, depiction of a panic attack, dissociative amnesia
-
To be absolutely fair and honest, it really was all Ranboo's fault she was in the situation she was currently in.
It was her choice to follow a streaking comet into the woods at night, not bothering to keep track of her way, since she was confident she knew the woods behind their house like the back of her hand.
As it turned out, she must've not known the back of her hand at all, because she was well and truly lost with only her phone flashlight to guide her.
"Niki's gonna kill me..." Ranboo muttered to herself, squinting her eyes to sweep over the woods once more. "Can't even find the damn thing-"
She didn't really have a plan when she decided to chase after the asteroid. She just knew that it was cool, and she maybe wanted to brag that she found a meteor from outer space in her backyard.
Ranboo huffed in annoyance when her second sweep offered up nothing new. She was still just as lost and confused as before.
Time to bite the bullet, then.
Ranboo turned back to her phone to text Niki and ask her roommate to try and find her, but right before she tapped on Niki’s contact, her phone—and her surroundings—went completely dark.
Her phone died.
"Oh, shit."
Ranboo squinted through the trees again, desperately searching for any hint of light through the dark woods. Maybe she could see their house lights better now that it was dark?
As the thought crossed her mind, she noticed an orange glow through the trees. Thank God.
Ranboo carefully moved forward, her arms ahead of her, making her way towards the glow with minimal tripping and bumping right into a tree or two. Damn it, it was dark.
Ranboo became steadily aware of the sound of hissing as she got closer, and after dodging through a few trees, she realized why.
It was the meteor.
Its crash caused the glow that guided her, as the earth around the crash site was still orange with embers from the meteor’s entry. The ground smoked and sizzled around the meteor, undoubtedly reacting to the heat it brought with it by breaking through the atmosphere.
Ranboo found it.
She wished her phone wasn't dead so she could take a picture. For a moment, she let herself forget she was lost, and leaned as close to the small crater as she dared to get a better look.
It moved.
Ranboo jerked back and fell flat on her ass.
The meteor crumbled as something seemed to crawl out of it, all tendrils and slimy in the low light.
"What the hell." Ranboo whispered fervently, desperately scooting back as the thing started coming closer. "What the hell, what the hell–"
Ranboo scrambled to her feet, her vision already fading into the darkness the farther she got away from the crash site.
She heard the thing moving closer, so she turned around and moved as fast as she dared through the trees she couldn't see.
Predictably, she only got a few feet away before her shoe caught on an unseen root and she pitched forward with a startled yelp, seeing stars when her head collided with a tree trunk.
Ranboo blinked open her eyes on the ground, flat on her back. She let out a groan at the throbbing pain radiating from her temple.
Then something unpleasantly cold and wet touched her leg, and she screamed, jerking away from it. The thing stayed fast even as Ranboo desperately kicked her leg to fling it off, and started moving up her leg towards her face at a terrifying speed.
Ranboo couldn't see anything, but just the feeling of the thing crawling up to her chest was enough to make her start truly panicking.
Her breaths came in terrified gasps, and she on instinct tried to grab the thing to fling it off of herself, gagging at the feeling of its cold and slimy form wriggling against her hand.
It slipped out of her grasp easily, and it felt like the frigid expanse of space incarnate settled inside her very bones as the thing dissolved into her chest.
Ranboo let out a choking scream, and—
—she was in front of her house, her head in Niki's hands.
"Ran!" Niki gasped as Ranboo fell to the ground, on her hands and knees. Ranboo retched, her throat searing with pain like fire as she ejected what felt like her entire being from her stomach.
"Oh my god, Ranboo–" Niki panicked as Ranboo heaved and coughed for breath, throwing herself away from the mess to lay on the wet grass. She was trembling uncontrollably, feeling feverish and ice cold all at the same time. She desperately tried to suck in a breath that wouldn't come.
Niki's unclear visage appeared in her range of view. It was dark, and she couldn't see her roommate’s face at all with the harsh orange light of their porch bulb at her back.
"Ranboo, you need to breathe," Niki ordered shakily, and she felt Niki’s hands on her shoulders. "In through your nose, remember?"
Ranboo desperately tried to focus on her voice, but she couldn't get her body under control long enough to take a proper breath.
"Ranboo, please," Niki pleaded, sounding near tears. Ranboo coughed and closed her eyes, clamping a hand over her mouth.
With her main airway blocked, she was forced to breathe through her nose, and her panicked gasps very quickly slowed as she just plainly couldn't hyperventilate with that small of an airway without passing out.
"There you go, there you go-" Niki breathed, rubbing gentle circles with her thumbs into Ranboo's shoulders. Ranboo's breathing heaved slower and slower before she felt it was safe to remove her hand from her mouth.
"W-wh-what ha-happened-" Ranboo stuttered, her voice raspy and breathless. Niki made a noise of despair.
"I just—I just found you stumbling out of the woods," She said, her voice breaking. "Were you attacked-? You look—oh, Ran-" Niki cut herself off and pressed a hand to her mouth, sniffling. Ranboo tried to sit up with trembling limbs.
"I-I need to go—inside," Ranboo said unsteadily. Niki sucked in a breath.
"Oh my god, of course—can you stand?" She asked shakily. Ranboo didn't honestly know the answer to that question, but she nodded anyway.
She ended up almost entirely bent over Niki as she dragged her to the house, their considerable height difference probably not doing her any favors. If Ranboo didn't feel like she was literally about to die, she would've tried to help Niki out more, but all she could manage was moving her feet with agonizing clumsiness.
Niki laid Ranboo as gently as she could on the couch, and Ranboo sank into it, her entire body protesting. It felt like she'd been put in a human-sized dryer. Every part of her ached down to her bones.
"Ran, tell me what I can do for you," Niki pleaded, wringing her hands tearfully. Ranboo was truthfully just trying to stay conscious at this point.
"I don’—dunno," Ranboo replied thickly. "It hurts."
"What does?" Niki asked, panicked, but Ranboo was already slipping away.
-
Her dreams were....weird.
It was all flashes of color and the occasional bite of bitter, freezing cold, colder than anything Ranboo had ever felt in her life. She also saw flashes of her own memories, her life, moments gone as soon as she recalled them in her unconscious state.
Then she was...flying? Falling? She couldn't tell, but it sent a surge of terror through her so potent that it wrenched her out of the dream immediately.
She hissed as she flinched at the light coming through the window, her body protesting, though the pain wasn't nearly as bad as last night. As she became more aware of her surroundings, she realized Niki was still by her side, asleep with her head laid on her crossed arms against Ranboo’s legs.
Ranboo could see where Niki’s mascara ran from crying the night before, and she winced.
"Niki," she whispered, nudging her roommate gently. Niki mumbled incoherently and buried her face into her arms.
"Niki, wake up." Ranboo pleaded weakly, nudging Niki more insistently. She roused enough to blink open an eye at Ranboo, and for a moment sleepy confusion muddled her expression.
Then, her eyes flew open and she jerked upright, grabbing Ranboo's wrists as if to ensure she was still there.
"Ranboo! Oh my god—are you okay?!" Niki asked fervently, pale and scared.
“I—I think so,” Ranboo uttered, her mind still confused and foggy. Her body ached like she just completed a triathlon, but she could ignore it. “What…happened?”
Niki’s expression went strained and distressed. “Y-you don’t remember? You came stumbling out of the woods, y-you looked like you’d been attacked-” Niki teared up again, and she pulled Ranboo into a tight embrace before Ranboo could even react.
Ranboo froze up, but hesitantly returned the embrace. She really must have scared Niki if she was acting like this…
“I…I’m alright, Niki.” Ranboo said carefully, not wanting to divulge exactly what happened, or at least what she remembered. She was sure that would just make Niki freak out even more. “I just…I got a little lost out there. I’m fine.”
“Why didn’t you call me? Oh my God, Ran, you looked like death-” Niki sniffled, squeezing Ranboo tighter. Ranboo felt an uncharacteristic pang of guilt in her chest.
“My phone died. I was just about to call you, I swear.” Ranboo quietly replied, trying to assure Niki so she stopped crying. It made Ranboo’s chest twist when Niki cried.
Niki exhaled and clearly had to force herself to let go, wiping under her eyes and smearing her mascara more. Ranboo cringed slightly.
“...How about we both go get cleaned up?” Ranboo awkwardly reached out to pat Niki’s shoulder. “I need to brush my teeth, and shower, and…you should freshen up, hm?” She tried to not sound mean, she really did, but Niki still uttered that exasperated chuckle that she always replied with when Ranboo lacked tact once again.
“...Yeah…that’s a good idea,” Niki sniffled and rubbed her face. “And I’ll—I’ll make breakfast. Do you…think it’s a good idea for you to go to school today?” She asked, her voice still a little wavery.
“I-” School? Ranboo just came into contact with an unknown lifeform and Niki expected her to be worried about school?
Ranboo shook off the thought. She had to act normal until she had all the information she needed (or wanted) to share with Niki.
“...We’ll see.” Ranboo replied vaguely, standing up from the couch with a small wince. Her body really hurt, God…
She left for the upstairs bathroom—her bathroom, explicitly—with the intent to have a nice hot shower and debrief with herself.
Ranboo got to the bathroom with a change of clean clothes before a deep, growly voice halted her in her tracks.
RANBOO.
Ranboo dropped her clothes, whipping around, but there was nobody in the bathroom with her, obviously.
“W-what the-” Ranboo whispered, her hushed voice pitched. “Who-”
FOOD. WE ARE HUNGRY.
“What the fuck,” Ranboo stumbled back, knocking over bottles from her extensive skincare routine when she hit the bathroom counter. “W-who’s saying-?!”
HUNGRY!
Ranboo choked on a strangled noise when her arm suddenly moved on its own, her breath sticking in her throat in horror and confusion. She grabbed her arm with her other hand, jerking her arm back to her side.
“What the fuck is going on?!” Ranboo whispered shrilly, keeping her voice down so Niki didn’t hear her. Her heart was racing so fast that she felt dizzy.
WE. ARE. HUNGRY. The voice was so close, practically in Ranboo’s brain, but there was no one there. FEED US NOW, OR WE WILL DO IT FOR US!
“Who is us?!” Ranboo asked frantically, on the verge of a panic attack. She was going crazy, hearing a voice that wasn’t there, she had to be going crazy-
Ranboo uttered a strangled cry when her arm moved out of her control again, what looked like black slime crawling out of her skin. Her arm jerked unnaturally, clapping her hand over her mouth before she could make another sound.
The black slime coalesced into a strange mass the size of a football, milky white eyes and rows and rows of jagged teeth manifesting into a twisted visage of a face. Ranboo stared in horror with wide eyes as the mass moved closer to her face, her own arm not obeying her impulses to release its position over her mouth.
“WE ARE VENOM.” The mass growled out, its terrifying voice finally external. “RANBOO IS OUR NEW HOST. RANBOO WILL FEED US. UNDERSTAND?”
Ranboo’s legs shook under her, her mind almost whiting out in utter terror. She felt that same black slime crawl down her legs to strengthen her stance.
“NO PASSING OUT. WEAK.” Venom growled, narrowing its milky eyes and leaning even closer. Ranboo was trembling, her eyes wide and fearful as she still couldn’t make a sound through her own hand. She forced herself to nod, the action jerky and shaking.
“GOOD.” That horrible, toothy mouth twisted into an unmistakably smug grin. “RANBOO IS LEARNING. RANBOO WILL BE A GOOD HOST. RANBOO WILL FEED US. RIGHT?”
Ranboo inhaled a shaking breath through her nose. She was completely at this—this thing’s mercy, and she only saw one way out of this right now.
She forced another small nod, trembling uncontrollably.
Venom’s terrible grin spread wider.
-
Niki felt a lot better as she exited her bathroom, rubbing her face with a small towel. What happened the night before was terrifying, but Ranboo was okay…they’d be okay.
Niki rounded the corner to get a start on breakfast in the kitchen, and froze up completely.
The kitchen looked like a tornado had blown through it. The cabinet doors were practically ripped off their hinges, and there was mess all over the surfaces and floor, remnants of packaging and pieces of food strewn about.
In the center of it all was Ranboo, hunched over on the floor and desperately digging through the trash can like a woman possessed. She looked disheveled, which never happened to her; it was well known that Ranboo would rather die than be caught looking anything less than immaculate, and now she was on her knees shoveling through garbage.
Ranboo snapped her head up when a floorboard creaked under Niki’s feet, and after a long, long silence of shared eye contact, Ranboo swallowed.
