Ranboo Adoption AU (A SBI Fic)

Chapter 10

Ranboo awoke to the sound of rushing water, which he nicely assumed was the waterfall from the pool. However as he opened his eyelids he found himself in a much different place. A...forest?

He pulled himself off of the mossy ground and adjusted his Hawaiian shirt. The creek he was hearing came into view as he wandered across the clearing. While the scenery was relaxing, what happened earlier soon dawned on him, and the anxiety began to set in.

"I really did it again. I...I did it again." He slumped himself against a tree. "I hurt him." A few small tears trickled down his cheek and began to irritate his delicate enderman skin. "I- I can't go back can I!? Not after this!" The enderman hybrid began to wonder if he could even manage surviving out in the woods on his own.

"Whatever...I'll figure it out. Maybe I can find another home? No...who would wanna adopt me after this...I should probably just find my way back to the orphanage." The hybrid continued to mindlessly wander through the woods, hoping to find some sort of civilization. He leaped over rotting logs, made his way over lichen-covered boulders, and tried his best to find their neighborhood.

However, he quickly realized that he was lost. And as he looked upwards towards the forest canopy, anxiety set in as Ranboo realized the sun was starting to set. "Oh shit oh shit oh shit. How long was I out!?". He began to panic. After all mobs start to come out at this time. And with no gear, he wasn't sure how he would survive.

The familiar clank of bones rubbing against one another split the petrifying silence in the air. Before he could react an arrow barely grazed by him, hitting a nearby tree with a twang. The gangly enderman hybrid whipped around and came face-to-face with the skeleton. It drew back the bowstring, arrow locked in, and was preparing to fire. Ranboo clumsily ducked for cover, dodging the arrow but falling flat onto the dirt.

He tried scrambling upwards before a sharp pain began to overtake his shoulder, he'd been shot. He yelped out in pain. Quickly he stumbled to his feet then ran through some bushes and away from the skeleton. More mobs seemed to be appearing as he ran. Spiders, zombies, even creepers. That one lone skeleton was now the least of his worries. While he was able to keep pace and run away from the mobs, he wasn't sure how long he could keep it up for.

Ranboo's foot got caught in some sort of vine stretching across the ground, causing him to tumble down a grassy slope and into a clearing with sparse trees. With no mobs in sight, he let himself collapse to the ground out of sheer exhaustion. The shot of pain in his shoulder was now just a nagging ache, which he had no idea on how to ease. After all it's not like he could just brew a healing potion in the middle of the woods.

Suddenly, a rustling could be heard from the shrubbery above. Ranboo tensed, expecting mobs to emerge. Instead there was a human-like silhouette; though the head was hard to make out.

"H-hello? Dad?".

"Hehh? I don't mean to disappoint you but it's just me." The voice was rough and flat, which Ranboo could easily identify as Technoblade.

"Oh, Techno?" Ranboo curled up into a ball. "I- I'm really really sorry about today. It's just the enderman in me got-".

"Don't worry about it, not like I'm any better." Techno crouched down next to the flustered and ashamed enderman. "I have literal bloodthirsty voices in my head I have to deal with. Some instincts you just have to learn to ignore. Not all of them of course, just the ones that hurt yourself or others.". Ranboo looked up at the piglin standing over him. For a piglin who stays in his room all day he gives surprisingly good advice. "Phil helps me a lot with it, he probably will with you too.".

"Thanks Tech, that makes me feel better.".

"I'm picking you up now." He said bluntly, swinging the hybrid over his shoulders. "You have an arrow in your shoulder, we really need to get that checked out.".

"Heh, yeah, arrows in your flesh probably isn't good for your health.".

Phil was the first to run over when Techno returned, fretting over Ranboo like a mother to a toddler that scraped their knee. Wilbur and Tommy were also close by, the former constantly apologizing despite having a large bandage on his cheek from the attack. The family left Tubbo's house and returned home, where Phil and Techno helped treat Ranboo's wounds.

And now he lied awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling fan. Feeling restless he got up and walked over to his desk, pulling out a pad of sticky notes. He then grabbed a pen and started to write. Once he wrote something on a sticky note he then stuck it to the wall above his desk. What he wrote? Goals.

Of course there were the basic ones:

'Get to know people in town'

'Participate in more family activities'

'Go outside more'

But all of these circled around one sticky note in the middle, framed as the center of it all.

'Learn to let go'