-Rehabilitating a Child Soldier-

Late Night Conversations

"Really Bad, another child?" Skeppy asked, taking a sip of wine as Bad examined his extended arm, scanning for any serious injuries that his partner sustained in the battle.

The house was dimly lit, and the cloud coverage offered no spare moonlight as an alternative. By now, Bad had placed Tommy in a spare bedroom, leaving him with his cape, the flag, and Wilbur's coat. He didn't have the heart to take anything out of the kid's grip.

"Why not?" Bad responded, using a pair of tweezers to pull chunks of wooden debris out of Skeppy's arm.

He had shrunken down to his human form so he could use the small utensils without difficulty. It was a form that he only took around his family, seeing as there was no need to use it anywhere else. Besides, it made him more vulnerable anyways.

"Well-" He cut himself off with a sharp, pained inhale as Bad pressed an alcohol soaked rag against his arm, before continuing, "- We already have Sapnap. He's turning fourteen in four months. What would he think of this?"

The smell of rubbing alcohol wafted through the air. The white dish that held it was stained a light pink as Bad cleaned Skeppy's wounds. The rag looked worse. There was a glass of wine on either side of the dish, along with two bottles. Each holding alcohol, and a different purpose.

Bad took a sip from his glass.

"Good news," He started, "Your wounds are shallow. No permanent damage."

"Of course there's not, I'm just that awesome." Skeppy smirked, which made both of them softly giggle, careful not to wake the kids. 

Bad eventually rolled his eyes at the sarcastic comment, while maintaining his smile, going back to work on cleaning Skeppy up.

"Yeah, of course you are. Oh, and speaking of Sapnap, did you get him cleaned up? He looked pretty rough when I last saw him."

"Yeah..." Skeppy sighed, "Well, I'm not as good as you. I did my best dressing the wounds. At least his demon half will heal him in a week, tops."

"I know." Bad smiled, moving his free hand up onto Skeppy's shoulder, "I'm proud of you guys." 

There was a noticeable flush to the ravenette's face, in response to both the comment and the comfortable touch. But it only took a moment for him to snap himself out of it, as he playfully shoved Bad with the arm he was holding.

"Whatever. Just get my flipping arm done so you can check literally everywhere else!" He scoffed, messing with the temporarily tiny demon.

"Alright, jeez! Jerk..." Bad giggled, continuing to move the cloth over the pattern of cuts and burns.

Skeppy took another sip of his wine, enduring the pain.

"So," He started, "Back on topic."

"Right." Bad agreed, his eyes drilled onto the trial of injuries, "I agree, I do think we need to focus on Sapnap. He's still growing and maturing, and he's going to need help with that. Especially since he's half demon, and he may be the only one like him on the whole sever. But Tommy entering the picture doesn't change that. There are two of us, and we are the greatest team that the smp has ever seen! Tommy needs help. Sending him away won't change that. He's all alone and has no one else to turn to. Sapnap and Tommy both need a healthy, caring environment, where they are given attention and affection to grow. But most importantly, they need a safe place. Tommy doesn't have that. The only home that he's basically ever know was just torn to the ground, with our help, I might add. We gave that chance to Sapnap, when I found him in the nether all that time ago. Maybe Tommy just needs that chance too..."

His voice trailed off as he began tightly wrapping Skeppy's arm with clean, white bandages. A few minutes of silence settled over the two of them. After a bit, Bad begin to get worried that his rambling may have upset Skeppy. But after a moment, Skeppy burst into a hushed laughter as he took another sip from his cup.