#tedbo

Evbo’s waist twitches underneath Raymond’s fingers. His skin is an uncomfortable type of warm. The kind that frozen meat gets when sitting for too long. Evbo’s skin isn’t as soft as it used to be. It doesn’t mold nicely under Raymond’s hold, doesn’t have as much give.

He wants to hate it. Hates that he’s relieved by it. Evbo used to bruise so easily, pretty porcelain skinned marred by the simplest of things. He can’t bruise now. Not when he’s like this.

“Ray?” Evbo’s voice is soft. It takes a second for Raymond to register it, shaking his head to get rid of the fog. One of Evbo’s hands rest on his. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he mutters. He puts his head in the crook of Evbo’s neck. His hands move to wrap his arms around Evbo, pressing him closer to his body. “Just let me have this for a second.”

Evbo, mercifully, is quiet for a moment. There’s no hum of electricity in the room, just the quiet crackle of the candles they’ve lit. Cicadas sound loudly outside. In the distance, a few owls are hooting.

For just a moment, Raymond lets himself pretend. He pretends he’s some years in the future, in a nice quiet neighborhood in a nice quiet town. Evbo and him are waiting for Tabi to come home, another late night just to make sure she made it back safe. They’d hear the door open, and Evbo would leave his arms to go greet her. Raymond would stay behind to get their bed ready, because despite their best efforts it always ended up a mess.

For just a moment he can pretend he’s going to go bed tonight with his partners. That he’s going to go bed with a full stomach. That he’s going to go to bed happy, that he’s going to go to bed safe.

It’s just for a moment, and then Evbo drags him out.

“You…” He pauses. His hands hover awkwardly in the air, eventually settling onto the windowsill. “Do you miss him again?”

Him. As if he’s someone completely different. As if Raymond can’t see all the ways that he’s still the same, that he never changed. As if he hasn’t spent days, weeks, months telling Evbo that he’s still the man he loved, that he’s still the man he loves.

As if the person Evbo watches in those recordings (over and over and over) isn’t a reflection.

And maybe, Raymond thinks, it isn’t.

“Not right now.”

Evbo takes a breath. Big, whole, terribly dry. It stays there, far longer than it should be. Raymond squeezes slightly, and it comes whistling out. It fizzles out with a hiss, and suddenly Evbo is much more limp in his arms than before.

“Jesus-!”

It’s muscle memory that keeps him from dropping him. Raymond drags him over to the bed. His lower half is hanging off, and it’d be uncomfortable for anyone that was still human. “Dude, seriously? What was that?”

Evbo hums. He stays there. Silent, still, like he’s suddenly lost all the energy to do anything. Raymond wants to stay annoyed, wants to hold onto it, but he can’t. He’s never been able to.

He sighs, pulling Evbo onto the bed properly. He lays down next to him, pulling him closer. It’s like dealing with a rag doll: Evbo’s entirely dead weight as he maneuvers him into a more comfortable position. They’re chest to back, Raymond curled up slightly around him.

The silence that follows is suffocating, but not quite. Evbo’s not breathing, completely lax. There’s no indication that he’s awake. If he isn’t, Raymond wants him to rest. But someone has to make sure he doesn’t go off the deep end.

He ends up nuzzling the back of Evbo’s head, the ever present sweetness of death filling his nose. Evbo moves it back, grumbling too low for Raymond to make anything out. Good. He’s responding.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

He feels Evbo stiffen. Raymond closes his eyes, tightens his hold just slightly. Maybe it’s not the right thing to say. Maybe there’s different words he could’ve used, different actions he could’ve taken.

But it’s pointless to wonder about the possibilities.

“Me too.”

For a moment, Raymond thinks he’s hearing things. “Mh?”

Evbo never truly escapes the torture cube with this ending.

He has room to walk and cower and dodge now, but in a way, he’s never escaped. He just fell right back into another spot of torture for the rest of eternity- but now hes feeding millions of people instead of thousands. And that will take so, so much longer.

He’s doomed. He will never be able to save everyone no matter how long they or he waits to be farmed.

And we see zam get revived. The one who debatably tortures evbo the most. And tabi cannot do anything but watch

She was guards- teddys, role now in all of this. To watch as evbo cannot defend himself and live the way he should. To be tortured and killed over and over again.

Also. Evbo didn’t listen to Teddys message all the way. He ran immediately to go find him. He got hurt on the way. Badly enough to nearly die, even. Teddy might have heard him banging and screaming against the door too.

Clown also lied to everyone. Evbo- that violence would no longer be the answer and that things would be peaceful. That Teddy would be okay. Tabi- that the axes would be okay and she’d be back with them as family.

Who knows what he fully told Teddy. But he convinced evbo he’d be okay knowing he was the one that needed to die.

Clown could have wished for them to not have to live off PvP attacks

But he didn’t. We don’t know what he wished for. Not truly.