additional notes: drabble, one shot, friendship, trust, dunno how to tag this (look its cleo thinking about how scared she is and how thats alright if shes got bdubs with her like thats it), canon compliant, missing scene (ig cause you could fit it in there with no problems), may contain trace elements of worldbuilding, god i love these folks, also! purely platonic okay!, not beta read, out of character (maybe), self-indulgent
summary: Right now however, even if they're both terrified out of their minds, she thinks that they're fairly content.
(Title from 'Hello My Old Heart' by The Oh Hellos)
finished, 1/1 chapters, word count: 581
original author's beginning notes:look i was watching 3rd life and wanted to write some cleo & bdubs friendship so here you go. ive gotten way too invested in this series lmao. this is set sometime around cleos ep.7 or so. like vaguely
also why is bdubs character tag so hard to fucking find?
Cleo is sitting guard on the roof of her castle. Her crossbow out, her sword at her side, and a bucket of water just in case. She is safe here because this is her turf and no one can harm her here.
She is so scared.
She's been scared for a while. Or well, she's been a mixture of scared, paranoid, and enraged for a while. The emotions mix together into an ugly thing that claws and churns in the bottom of her stomach, egging her on to cause chaos. And no matter how safe she seems, it doesn't go away.
She knows that as a green, it's not as bad as it could be. She's not stupid. She sees the way Bdubs zones out sometimes, the way he watches everyone except her like they might attack him at any moment, no matter their colour, sees the way he gets more reckless, like he wants to submit to the bloodlust already.
She's not sure if she should be honoured or worried that he trusts her so much that he doesn't even consider her a threat, that he trusts her to watch his back without being told to.
Not that she would ever even consider not watching Bdubs' back. He's the only person on the server she trusts completely and totally and she's not letting him die on her. She's not letting him leave her. She's scared to be alone, scared that if she loses him, she'll lose everything.
(She feels a little bad that she puts so much of her trust on Bdubs and so little on Impulse, who is part of their alliance and their castle as much as Bdubs is. But, well, can you blame her? She sees him so much less, while Bdubs is right there next to her at all times.)
She's sure Bdubs is scared as well, even if he tries to pretend he isn't. She knows him like the back of her hand at this point and some days, she can tell what he's thinking with a simple glance.
Right now however, even if they're both terrified out of their minds, she thinks that they're fairly content.
Bdubs joined her on the roof sometime during her musings and wonderings. Not a word is exchanged, but they don't need to talk to understand each other anymore. It's nice. It's peaceful.
And so they sit on the top floor of the Crastle, feet hanging off the ledge, pressed shoulder to shoulder. It's dusk, the sun just dipping beneath the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink that calm the ugly thing within her.
(Her and Bdubs could, theoretically, sleep. They don't want to though. Too much paranoia, not enough allies. Never enough allies.)
They sit and watch and wait.
Soon, they'll head inside to avoid the phantoms. Soon, they'll get back to making plans. Soon, they'll go back to filling the moat, and negotiating with allies and enemies alike, and a million other things they need to do.
But for now, it's just Bdubs and Cleo, sitting on the railing of their castle, thick as thieves, each other's closest allies by far, watching the sunset, simply enjoying the momentary calm and basking in the feeling of the other's presence.
They'll take it one day at a time, and if tomorrow brings betrayal and heartbreak? Well, Cleo wouldn't mind it too much if she still had her closest ally, her closest friend, by her side.
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