#remember that thing about guardians of ga'hoole leaping out of my past to grab me by the throat? this is that fic

[redwinterroses]

It's that time of night where I get the urge to randomly share bits of a WIP, so... have some Doc and some Ren and some moon-flavored hurt-comfort stuffs.

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Doc hadn’t seen Ren in nearly three days.

Three days and three nights, during which the moon loomed ever larger and a worrying number of phantoms spawned over Octotown.

<DocM77> Ren are those your phantoms? You’re bringing down the real estate value, bro

He stared at the communicator in his hand, tapping the top of its shiny case with an absentminded finger. None of his recent messages were marked as having been seen. While it was annoying when Ren left him on read while working on a project—the man was almost as bad as Doc himself for getting lost in his work and forgetting to respond to chat—it was more concerning that he apparently wasn’t even checking his messages.

Doc sighed and let the shulker he’d been holding under on arm slip to the sandy ground. He could afford to take a break and go check in on Ren. The strange urgency in his bones, the urge to build, build now, build fast, before it’s too late (though too late for what, he wasn’t sure) could be ignored long enough to check in on his base-buddy and business partner.

He donned his elytra and launched into the air, relishing the way the cool evening air ruffled his hair and wicked away the sweat of a hard day’s terraforming and carting heavy shulkers of materials from one end of Octagon island to the other. Rising high into the sky, he blinked up at the pale light of the moon peeking over the horizon.

Peeking wasn’t really the right word.

Looming felt more accurate.

He gave a little shake of his head and turned his eyes down, scanning the shoreline and the area where Ren had been working. No time for moon shenanigans right now. He’d just seen Ren a little while ago—no more than a bit of motion when he’d glanced across the water while snagging a drink of water, but the wolfman had been near the beach then. So surely he’d be somewhere nearby now…

Aha. Found him.

Doc spiraled down, skidding to a stop in the loose, grassy soil at the top of a dune. “Hey, man,” he called to Ren as he landed. “You are not checking your chat.”

Ren didn’t respond.

Actually, he didn’t even seem to register that Doc was there.

Doc squinted. Was he listening to music again? He had a tendency to pop in his earbuds and turn up his “tunes” so loud he wouldn’t hear a TNT block going off next to him. He’d probably died a dozen times this season alone from not hearing a mob until it was too close.

“Ren, turn off your music, man.”

Ren still didn’t move, his shovel held loosely in his grip as he stared up at the rising moon.Unease stirred in Doc’s gut and he forced his hesitant feet up the hill. “You’re freaking me out,” he called, trying to keep his voice light. “Ren? What are you—”

He moved around Ren to look him in the face, and froze in place.

“Oh,” he breathed. “Oh no.”

Ren’s eyes were fixed on the moon, the pupils shrunk down to tiny pinpricks and the irises filmed over with a milky whiteness. His stare was vacant, his skin pale, and his parted lips unmoving.

For a brief, horrible second, Doc thought he was dead.

He grabbed Ren’s shoulders, digging in to the fabric of his shirt, heart hammering in his throat. But under his fingers, he could feel warmth and the faint movement of breath. Ren wasn’t dead—of course he wasn’t, this was Hermitcraft: they respawned here. Death wasn’t a true threat. He was fine. They were fine.

Except Ren was clearly not fine.

Doc let out a trembling sigh and gave Ren a little shake. “Come on, man,” he growled, mingled relief and worry making his voice rough. “Snap out of it.”

There was no response. Not even when Doc snapped his fingers inches from Ren’s nose.

“Oooooookay.” His relief was quickly fading. Something was very, very wrong here, and—glancing up at the moon on the horizon—Doc had a creeping suspicion he knew what.

But first things first. The cry of a phantom echoed overhead and Doc’s lip curled in a frustrated growl. He needed to get Ren inside, and quickly: under a roof that blocked the light of the moon and the swooping menace of the night terrors.

“Right,” he said. “Yeah. Come on, then, Ren.” He tugged at Ren’s elbow, and was gratified when he followed easily, moving with the docile mindlessness of a sleepwalker. With the sounds of phantoms getting louder, Doc moved as quickly as he could without tripping Ren and led him toward one of the nearby buildings. The Odditorium, Ren was calling it. He shoved the door open with his hip and pulled Ren inside, leaving him standing expressionless while Doc went back to close the door on the phantoms and the moonlight.

“Okay. Okay.”

Doc gently pushed Ren to sit in a chair beside the raised central fireplace, and then stepped back, his brow furrowed. He needed help, much as he hated to admit it. He should probably tell Xisuma what was going on, but the admin had been acting… oddly the last few weeks, and Doc was reluctant to involve him. Besides, if this was what Doc suspected it to be—

No. There was no time for hedging around the bushes. Doc knew exactly what was going on, and if there was going to be any hope of bringing Ren back from whatever moonscaped wasteland he’d vanished into, they’d need the one other hermit who knew Ren as well as Doc did. Or better.

Pulling out his communicator, he dialed a number and waited for the connection to go through. A sleepy voice, tinny through the device’s small speakers, answered:

“Doc? Do you know what time it is?”

“Falsie.” Doc took a deep breath. “I need your help.”

#redwinterwrites #remember that thing about guardians of ga'hoole leaping out of my past to grab me by the throat? this is that fic #docm77 #rendog #hermitcraft #moon big