Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This story takes place three years after the events of The Pact of Our Youth, and four years after the events of Where Do We Begin. You do not need to have read those, but they do provide a significant amount of context. Spoilers for those stories ahead. 

Sunlight danced on the other side of Tango’s closed eyes. He buried his face into the pillow with a grumble, protesting the oncoming morning. Tango didn’t want to get up, he wanted to stay here with Jimmy in their nice, comfortable bed, and forget about anything that wasn’t half-asleep cuddling. 

Eventually, Tango opened his eyes and sat up, running a hand through his hair and stretching his arms over his head. It was barely light out. The first tendrils of morning sunlight seeped through the curtains and onto the smooth wooden floors. 

Tango caught a glimpse of the sunrise through the window -blurry as it was without his glasses on- and took a moment to appreciate the hand life had dealt him. 

When Tango had first come to the overworld, summoned against his will, he was scared and hungry, and knew nothing but the harshness of the Nether. There, the sky was always choked with smog, and everyone except his few friends were mean and out for blood. He spent years in the overworld fighting for a better life. Fighting was all he ever did.

But now everything was different. For the first time in his life, Tango was happy. He was safe and comfortable. He didn’t have to fight for his next meal because he lived on a ranch, where there was plenty to eat and extra to share. Despite the years, he’d managed to reconnect with the friends he’d lost when he was summoned and gained many more. He stared up at the ceiling of the cozy ranch house he’d built, thinking back to the tiny shack in the coal-stained slums of the city that he’d lived in before. 

Above all that, he was in love. Real, genuine love that fit him like a warm blanket around his shoulders. Next to him, Jimmy mumbled something in his sleep and ruffled his wings. His hair was messy and there were marks on his face from the pillow, and he was the most beautiful thing Tango had ever seen. 

As much as Tango wished he could stay here curled up next to Jimmy for the rest of the day, the animals needed tending and the garden needed weeding, on top of all their other to-do’s. 

“Jimmy,” Tango shook his shoulder lightly, his voice still rough with sleep. 

“Whaaaaaaat,” Jimmy grumbled, shuffling closer until his face was hidden in Tango’s side. 

“It’s morning,” Tango tousled his hair, “We’ve got to get up.”

“But ‘m comfy,” Jimmy protested, “An’ you’re warm.”

Tango laughed and stood up, earning a small, dismayed noise from Jimmy.

“If you don’t get up, I’m going to have to make breakfast for us,” Tango threatened as he grabbed his glasses and wedding ring off of the nightstand, “And I’d rather our ranch not get all burnificated this early in the morning.” Jimmy glared at him, his face still half in the pillow. 

“Fine,” Jimmy groaned, hoisting himself out of bed and stretching his wings, “But only ‘cause I love you and not ‘cause I wanna.”

Warm sunlight poured through the open windows as they sat at the kitchen table, finishing off the breakfast Jimmy had made. Jimmy stared listlessly at the empty plate in front of him. He didn’t seem to register anything Tango was saying.

“Are you alright?” Tango asked, tapping his fork anxiously against the table, “You’ve barely spoken since we got up.”

“Hm? It’s nothing,” Jimmy looked up and shook his head, “Just got lost in thought.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“Really, it’s nothing. I don’t want to worry you with stupid stuff.” Jimmy’s eyes returned to the table, his wings twitching.

“Whatever it is, I’m not going to think it’s stupid. I promise.” Tango reached over the table and took Jimmy’s hand. Jimmy’s face softened into a tired smile. 

“It’s just- Me an’ all my siblings are cursed right?” Tango nodded, trying to remember what Jimmy had told him about when he, his siblings, and Bigb tried to harness watcher’s magic and had it backfire, “Martyn lost his eyesight, Grian’s got his visions and lost his husband, Pearl will always feel watched, and I…” Jimmy looked away, his hand loosening in Tango’s, “I was cursed to die young. I guess I’m just wondering when that’ll be.”

Tango got up and stood behind Jimmy’s chair, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and kissing the top of his head. 

“I’m not going to let that happen,” Tango said into his hair, “We’ve beaten fate before, and we’ll do it again.”

“Promise?” Jimmy leaned back into his husband.

“Promise.”

For a while it seemed like the day would never come. They tended to the ranch and greeted their friends, going into town to work and buy whatever they couldn’t get at home. Pearl, Gem, and Impulse often came by for fresh produce and good company. Tango still worked at his stall in the market and let the afternoons pass in conversation with Etho.

Everyone was happy. Grian had managed to get Mumbo back after so many years of him being gone, Zed worked with Doc and Shelby as a doctor at a new clinic on the edge of town, and Skizz maintained his title as head of the royal guard even if there hadn’t been any fighting in years.

Everything was perfect. 

Until Jimmy got sick. 

At first Tango thought it was just a cold. Jimmy would cough and lose sleep, and Tango would bring medicine from town. But as days turned into weeks, Jimmy didn’t get better. 

Some days he would be fine, laughing and helping around the ranch just as he’d always done. But most days he’d struggle to get out of bed. He started leaning heavily on the back of the couch and the countertops to walk. Jimmy would lie awake at night, starting at the ceiling and trying not to keep Tango awake with his coughing. 

Tango did everything he could think of. He went to Zed and Doc weekly in search of some way to help. He worked harder to bring in more money since Jimmy stopped being able to continue his job as sheriff two weeks in. It didn’t matter what Tango cooked, Jimmy could barely eat it. He tried to be comforting, to say he’d get better eventually, but there were only so many things he could say to someone who only got sicker by the day. 

Tango was helpless and it gnawed at him from the inside out. He should be a better partner, he should be helping his sick husband. But there was nothing he could do. He read everything he could find on strange illnesses, but found nothing that matched what was happening to Jimmy.  

He stared at the ceiling of their bedroom. Jimmy had managed to fall asleep next to him, which was a relief no matter how small of a victory it was. Tango rubbed his hands over his face and fought down the fear in his stomach. He didn’t want Jimmy to see it, but Tango was terrified. 

After a month, Jimmy’s symptoms started to change. For a moment they were both overjoyed, thinking that Jimmy was finally getting better. But they were wrong. 

The cough went away, but the lethargy only got worse. His feathers started to thin and grow in white instead of their usual bright yellow. Jimmy began walking around in a daze like he was sleepwalking. He wouldn’t respond when Tango spoke to him, he wouldn't sleep, he wouldn’t eat. 

There would be days at a time where Jimmy was all but a ghost. It was as though he was a stranger- a shell of the sunny man he once was-, and all Tango could do was watch.

It was lonely. Soul-crushingly, unbearably lonely to watch the person he loved show no recognition in his eyes. Tango started visiting Impulse more and more, always sure to keep Pearl updated on her little brother’s condition. 

“I made dinner,” Tango put a plate in front of Jimmy, who was sitting at the kitchen table, staring blankly at the wall. There was a purple sheen to his eyes that only made him look less like the person he was before, “Jimmy?” Tango sat down in his chair opposite Jimmy.

Tango sighed and put his head in his hands. Dread and loneliness weighed his stomach down. He wanted to fix it. That’s what he was good at: fixing what was broken and finding solutions to any problem. But this wasn’t a broken gear or a shoddy wire. This was a sickness without a cure in sight. 

“Grian stopped by today,” Tango said to dead air, “He dropped off some more pain medicine.”

Jimmy didn’t reply. He didn’t move or touch his food.

“We’re going to figure this out.” He said it more to himself than to Jimmy, trying to hide the shake in his voice, “I promise.”

***

A week later, Tango was awoken from a half-remembered nightmare by Jimmy sitting up in bed beside him. His eyes were glassy and reflected purple in the dim moonlight. A chill ran through Tango; something in Jimmy’s face, the deep determination and distance scared him. This wasn’t like the other times where he walked around in a blank, trance-like state. Now he had a mission, and it filled Tango with the coldest fear. 

Jimmy mechanically stood up and walked out the door, his steps jerky and uneven. Silhouetted in the dim silver light, he looked like a marionette puppeted on invisible strings. His wings dragged limply behind him as if his feathers were made of lead. It almost looked like he was trying to fight whatever was pulling him outside. 

“Jimmy?” Tango scrambled to his feet, still blinking sleep out of his eyes and rushing after him. Paranoia creeped under Tango’s skin as he followed Jimmy out of the ranch. The feelings of ever-watching eyes prickled down the base of his neck and into his very core. Something was wrong , “Jimmy, where are you going?”

Jimmy didn’t respond. He just kept silently wandering out into the field where they let the cows graze during the day. Tango watched from the porch, frozen in the starlight. 

A flicker of purple danced in the corner of Tango’s eye as an enderman blipped into existence in front of Jimmy. Its black skin was tight on its sinewy limbs, almost invisible in the night except for the otherworldly glow of its purple eyes. 

Everyone, whether they were born in the overworld or the Nether, knew not to look an enderman in the eye. 

Yet here Jimmy was, a hint of fear tracing his face as he locked eyes with the gangly creature.

Tango was running before his mind could process that he was moving. 

The enderman’s garbled cry tangled with Tango’s own scream, spiraling up into the crisp night air.

Black claws caught Jimmy by the chest. 

They cut from his chest through his throat. 

Jimmy hit the ground before Tango could reach him. 

Fire licked across the corners of Tango’s vision, through his hair and down his arms. His blazerods spun dizzily as he threw the enderman to the ground with a scream. Claws and teeth and fire ripped into the black hide. Purple blood splattered over Tango’s hands, teeth, and clothes. 

When the enderman was dead, disintegrated into soot and stardust, Tango dared to look over at his husband. 

Tango stumbled to the ground beside him. Desperate, shaking hands trying to stop the blood flowing sluggishly from Jimmy’s throat. 

“No-no-no-” Tango’s voice caught in his throat, “Please- no- STOP BLEEDING-” He pulled Jimmy closer to his chest, fire still flowing along his body as his blazerods continued to spin. His tail lashed behind him, scorching the grass. Hot tears dripped onto Jimmy’s skin as Tango found his pulse on the side of his neck, “No- Jimmy please! You’re not allowed to die, you were supposed to get better!”

Jimmy’s pulse slowed under Tango’s hand. 

Thump-thump…

Thump-thump…

Thump…

Thmp…

…

…

…

Tango stared down at the body in front of him, his breath coming out ragged.

Everything was silent except for his breathing and the soft crackle of his flames. 

Somewhere in the End, a watcher nodded. Its curse had been fulfilled at last. 

For a moment, all Tango felt was the cold grass under his knees and the warm blood on his hands.

Tango screamed. A brutal cry of despair and agony. His voice was raw as smoke poured from his mouth and spilled onto Jimmy’s body.

From the castle at the heart of the city, far from the ranch and its fields, Ren saw a pillar of flame shoot up into the night sky like a beacon.

Every blazeborne has fire within them, and though Tango’s fire still physically burned, the light in his chest died.

***

Doc bolted awake at the sound of desperate pounding on the door. He hurried from his bedroom on the second floor to the medical clinic below, throwing his lab coat over his pajamas. 

He lit a candle and wrenched the old door open to soundly chastise whoever made the mistake of disturbing him this late at night.

The anger died away instantly when he saw who was on the other side of the door. 

Tango, covered in blood and barely standing, was carrying Jimmy in his arms. His knees shook under the weight of the man, who stood a head and a half taller than him. Jimmy was pale and unmoving, blood still dripping from his chest and throat. 

“Doc, I need your help,” Tango pushed his way into the room, nearly stumbling on the floorboards. Doc lifted Jimmy out of his arms, his stature and strength as a creeper hybrid helping him not buckle under the weight. Doc wondered if Tango had carried him all the way from the ranch, which was miles away. 

“What happened?” Doc asked matter-of-factly, though his face showed compassion as he laid Jimmy out on the table at the center of the clinic. 

“I don’t know,” Tango rambled, raking his hands through his hair, “He just wandered outside and looked at and enderman and it attacked him and I tried to help him but he stopped breathing and-”

Tango continued to breathlessly explain as Doc examined the wounds. The cuts were deep and he’d lost a lot of blood. Endermen were powerful creatures with venom in their claws. One swipe could kill someone if not treated immediately, and Jimmy had been struck hours ago. There was nothing that Doc, skilled as he was, could do to save him. 

Doc struggled to look Tango in the eye when he broke the news

The next few minutes blurred by. Doc’s apologies and consolations fell on deaf ears as Tango sank to the floor. He didn't cry. He didn’t scream. He just stared at the floor and shook. 

Jimmy was gone. 

Tango would wake up tomorrow to an empty bed. 

They’d only been married for a year, their second anniversary was next month. 

How was he going to tell Pearl, Grian, and Martyn? All of Jimmy’s friends?

Jimmy wasn’t going to wake up. 

Tango would only be making breakfast for himself from now on. 

Tango was alone again. 

For the next several days, whispers followed Tango everywhere. He went to work the next day after letters breaking the news had been sent to Jimmy’s friends and families. He closed the red curtains of his stall and hung up a sign that read “Closed until further notice due to a personal emergency”

People he’d never met stopped him on the street to tell him how sorry they were, how good of a man he was. Tango always thanked them hollowly and disappeared into the nearest shadow. Everybody was talking about him, the widow of Jimmy Moon-Tekk. 

Etho, Impulse, Zed, and Skizz all hovered around him before, during, and after the funeral. Some part of Tango appreciated it, but most of him was too shut down to care about anything other than surviving to the next sunrise. 

Tango woke up for the sixth morning in a row in a cold, empty bed. 

The leaves rustled gently on an overcast day. Everyone stood around the grave, dressed their best. 

He watched the sun reflect on the kitchen floor as he lit the woodstove. 

The air smelled like rain as blurry faces with shovels dropped dirt over the bones.

Tango felt the condensation on his hand as he grabbed an egg from the basket in the window. 

He was asked to say a few words about his husband. He ended up telling the story about how they met, the words felt alien coming out of his throat. They were mechanical and soulless.

The egg made a sharp crack against the side of the pan, followed by a sizzle. 

Tango placed flowers by the intricately carved headstone. Bluebells, they were Jimmy’s favorite.

Tango pushed the egg around the pan. 

Tango sat quietly by a fresh grave

Tango was alone.

Tango was alone . 

Life, as much as it felt like it wouldn’t, went on. Tango started to go out more and more in the following months, and though there was still a deep pit in his chest where Jimmy used to lay his head, he started to grow around it. The hole never shrunk, there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn't miss his husband. But grieving became as regular as breathing. 

Slowly, he started to laugh again. 

He’d started to spend time with Etho again, who still worked in the royal gardens. Now the two of them roamed a small library tucked in a quiet part of the city for anything interesting to read. Grimy windows filtered light across the creaky wood floors and dusty shelves. The room smelled comfortingly of old paper and mildew. Tall wooden shelves were scattered haphazardly across the small space, allowing for many small nooks where readers could curl up with a book in a patch of sunlight. 

Most of the titles bored Tango out of his skull; Extensive lists of kings and their lineages, the history of carpet dye, and such. He’d read nearly every book in the library on redstone and engineering already, and needed something new. 

“Find anything good?” Tango’s voice carried between the dusty shelves. He ran his hand over the titles, the old leather smooth under his fingertips. He didn’t worry too much about the librarian scolding them for being too loud; Joe was far from strict and welcomed Tango and Etho like old friends whenever they came in. 

“I found something, but it’s a little advanced for you,” Etho laughed from the other side of the shelf. 

“Wh- hey now!” Tango slid around the corner to the nook Etho was standing in, glaring at him. He could tell Etho had a smug smile on his face under his mask, “What book is it?”

“Oh, you know,” Etho drawled, passing a large brown book between his hands, “ Redstone for Beginners . Might be a little above your head.”

Tango let out a mock scandalized gasp. 

“You do know I own a redstone shop, right? A very successful one?” Tango scoffed, smiling, “Meanwhile Etho ‘Has been working with redstone since it was discovered’ Slab is a gardener ?” Etho raised an eyebrow at him, eyes twinkling with mischief. He flipped the book open to the first page and cleared his throat theatrically. 

“Redstone is a course red powder found deep in the ground in the overworld,” Etho read slowly, dramatically, as if he was reading to a child, “Now pay attention ‘cause this stuff is pretty complicated-”

“Alright, wise guy,” Tango reached over to snatch the book from Etho’s hand. Etho ducked out of the way and held the book up, using his height to his advantage, earning a frustrated squawk from Tango. 

“A redstone wire is a piece of technology used-” Etho continued to read between laughs as Tango attempted to climb him in order to grab the book. They were tucked between two parallel shelves, and Etho’s back was to a wall where an ornate painting of a castle hung, so there was very little room for their scuffle. 

Through frustrated noises and curses in Blaze, Tango managed to knock Etho to the ground with a thud. The book flew from Etho’s hand on impact and skidded one of the bookshelves.

The space it had slid into was thick with cobwebs, and the dust was so thick it clung to itself like lint. Tango and Etho looked at each other like schoolboys caught by their teacher. 

“Not it!” Etho stood and backed away from the dusty shelf.

“What!?” Tango cried, scrambling to his feet, “You took it off the shelf in the first place!”
“And you tackled me in a public library. You’re getting it back.”

Tango grumbled but got down on the floor, taking a slow breath to steady himself before reaching his hand into the tangle of cobwebs. They caught on his claws and clung to his flesh like slender fingers. He shivered. 

The space under the shelf was larger than it looked, and Tango had to reach up to his shoulder for the tip of his claws to touch the spine of the book. As he was pulling the book back towards himself, his fingers brushed a patch of wall that didn’t feel like the rest. 

He slid the book out and reached back under, much to Etho’s confusion. Most of the wall was covered in a deep blue wallpaper, smooth to the touch, but there was a small patch of rough stone with a raised metal center. Tango gasped. 

“There’s a button under here!” He exclaimed, coughing as he inhaled dust. 

“What does it do?” Etho asked, kneeling beside him, “You probably shouldn’t-”

“I’m gonna press it.”

Before Etho could protest, Tango pressed the button with a shhhk-click . 

A metallic clunk echoed through the small space. Tango scrambled to his feet to see the old painting of a castle on a hill swing open on creaking hinges, revealing a dark corridor with bone-dry stone walls leading downstairs to… somewhere.

At his desk by the door, Joe smiled to himself. Someone had finally found it. 

“Woah,” Etho breathed, running his hand along the dusty edge of the staircase. Something about the tunnel made the hair on the back of Etho’s neck stand on end. He’d been around since the End islands began to float and lava started to flow in the Nether, and a singular space like this had rarely ever struck him as so wrong . Something unnatural, something wicked, lurked under this library. 

Tango stared into the darkness, and his expression put Etho on edge. It was determined, trance-like. Whatever was down there, it was pulling Tango closer, a siren's song. It was more than just his curiosity, though that pulled him just as hard. No, this was something much bigger, luring him in with an angler fish's light. 

Tango didn’t know how, but down to the fire burning in his chest, he needed whatever was at the bottom of that staircase. 

His boot kicked up dust as he stepped onto the first stair, and he heard Etho cough behind him. 

“Are you sure about this?” Etho asked. Tango shook his head and looked back down into the corridor.

“I have to know,” He said wearily as he grabbed an unlit torch from a sconce in the wall. Tango took one of his gloves off and pressed his palm against the charred tip of the torch. Heat welled through his blood, channeled into his skin until the wood began to glow red and eventually caught fire. 

“I’m not going in there,” Etho took a step back, “Yell if you need me, but that place isn’t right.”

He held the torch up and descended the stairs. The stone got damper the deeper he went, torchlight catching patches of slick water on the walls and in the corners of the steps. A smell rose too. An acrid, wet, almost rotten smell like decaying leaves and mold. 

After what felt like years of his footsteps echoing against the walls, now hanging with a dark blue-green sludge, the stairs stopped and the room opened up into a grand hallway.

Tango’s breath was visible as he moved unsteadily through, sharp eyes taking in the detailed carvings in the stone. They depicted hulking creatures with dripping horns and what looked to be teeth in their chests holding up various treasures. Intricate runes spelled out incantations in a language Tango didn’t even begin to recognize.

What struck Tango as the most odd was not the carvings, not the rusty water that steadily dripped down from the ceiling and into thin rivulets along the floor, and not the mold -the skulk that he could see more clearly now- encrusting every edge and crevice with thin tendrils and knobbly blobs of spores. It was the fact that wherever there was a depiction of anything but the beasts with the dripping horns, who were blind as far as Tango could see, every face had the eyes brutally scratched away. 

This was not a place of sight. This was not a place for watching . This was a cavern tucked away from the Watchers and their ilk. 

The hallway opened further, but all Tango could see was blackness. At least, until he stepped over the threshold of the pitch-black room, and his ankle caught on a tripwire. 

He tumbled forward, landing on his elbow hard. The torch hit the damp floor and went out instantly. Everything was black, so dark that even Tango’s superior night vision couldn’t help him, and all was silent, spare for the occasional drip of water and Tango’s heartbeat. 

FWOOSH

In a blinding flash, electric blue torches flared to life all around the room. Dazed by the lights and still reeling from his fall, Tango forced himself to his feet and took in the room before him. 

It was a library. 

Ebony-black shelves climbed up towards the ceiling far above, all filled with too many books to count. The torches danced sickly blue light across the rough stone and reflected the chains holding more teal lamps above. It made the room look colder than it already was. Tango shivered as he began roaming between the impossibly massive shelves, cursing himself for choosing to wear short sleeves today. 

At the center of the huge, circular room was a lectern with a book sitting closed on top. A lantern swayed gently above it, the soul flame flickering. Tango hesitantly reached for the book, checking under it for more tripwires or some kind of trap, but there didn’t seem to be any. 

The book called to Tango. A sweet song made of whispers just beyond his hearing and desperate secrets within its pages. Silver lettering glimmered against the rich cobalt cover, the leather pristine despite the fact that nobody seemed to have stepped foot in this library for at least a century given the amount of dust everywhere else. 

The main title was embossed in runes Tango couldn’t read, the same language as the carvings on the walls, but there was a series of smaller words underneath. They all seemed to spell out the title in different languages. Tango was surprised to see that one of them was blazeborne. He hadn’t seen his native language in decades. 

Though it was an archaic, ancient dialect, it was still readable. 

The title seemed to be: A Necromancer’s Guide: Volume 1

Twisted magic flowed under the dark leather as Tango ran his fingers along the spine. Necromancy . He’d heard of the practice but had rarely known of anyone actually doing it. There were many things that magic could do without consequence, but the act of bringing someone back from the dead was awful, unnatural in a way most magic wasn’t.

The only time Tango had seen necromancy performed was three years ago, when Ren became the Red King and swore to bring about Red Winter. It had been a complicated, bloody ritual that Tango couldn’t even begin to understand. Ren’s head had been cut clean from his body, and a moment later his hands were putting it back on his neck. 

But Ren had come back, and once the rebellion against him had won, he was the same Ren he was before the axe fell. 

Ren proved that it was possible to bring someone back from the dead. 

Realization sunk into Tango like ice water into his clothes, seeping into his skin and down into his bones, to his soul. 

Tango could bring Jimmy back. 

All the answers were in this book. 

He didn’t know if it was fate or blind luck that led him here; maybe it was Jimmy himself guiding his husband towards the solution to his impossible problem.

Tango grabbed a torch from the wall and turned back towards the door. He’d be back for the book later when he was more prepared. 

“I’m going to fix this, Jimmy,” Tango’s voice echoed back at him, sounding so completely unlike him that it was almost frightening, “I promised.”

Chapter Text

The afternoon sun streaming through the grimy library windows was painfully bright after the darkness of the cavern. Tango squinted and extinguished his torch, notching it in the wall for his next journey down. 

“What did you find?” Etho asked as the painting swung shut with a heavy click . 

“Nothing interesting,” Tango lied, “Just a big wet hallway into an empty room. Very disappointing.” Tango was not a very good liar, it never came naturally to him. So it was a surprise when the lie fell out of his mouth so easily. He couldn't explain the compulsion, but something deep within him was screaming that he had to keep that cold library close to his chest. It was his book, his secret to get Jimmy back. 

And he couldn’t afford people like Ehto getting in his way. 

That night, Tango didn’t sleep a wink. He sat up at his desk, books and papers covering it from end to end. Dark ink stained his fingertips as he scribbled notes on every available scrap of blank paper. 

The first step was understanding the book. He couldn’t perform the spells if he couldn’t even read the words, so first he had to find out what language it was written in. 

It seemed to be an ancient dialect of common, spoken almost exclusively by a civilization that lived deep below the surface of the world. Tango couldn’t discern much about them just from their language, and he still wasn’t any closer to understanding what the words said. But recognizing the runes in catalogs of dead languages was a start. 

Tango scribbled at his desk until the sun rose outside. He looked out the window at the fields surrounding their - his - ranch; it looked so pristine, almost ethereal in the dawn light. He decided to take a detour through the grass before heading into town. He had to go back to work eventually, and today was as good a day as any. 

As Tango wandered through the long grass, the dew dampening the hems of his pants with cold water, he was filled with a determination that he hadn’t felt since before Jimmy got sick. He had a mission and he wasn’t going to fail it. He wasn’t going to fail Jimmy again. 

His boot snagged on something and he stumbled, barely catching himself so he didn’t land unceremoniously in the dirt. Confused, Tango kicked at whatever he had tripped on. 

Jimmy had been the one to survey their land before the ranch was built. He must’ve missed something because Tango’s boot was met with a metallic clang . 

Tango got to his knees and brushed the grass and dirt out of the way, shuddering as cold dirt fell into his gloves. 

It was a trapdoor. 

Simple metal with a ring pull, utterly unremarkable if it hadn’t been in the middle of a field with no explanation as to why. When Tango hefted it open, he was met with a steep staircase made from the same dark stone as the library. He knew down to his bones that they were connected, and that he was somehow destined to find it. Whatever secrets that library held, they were Tango’s to uncover. 

He closed the trapdoor back over and kicked a few clumps of grass over it. 

I’ll go to work today, and come explore tonight , he thought to himself. 

Nobody has to know . 

Tango was surprised to see how many people seemed to have missed him while he was away. From the second he opened the rust-red curtains of his market stall and put his various trinkets out for sale, people came flooding in. Most of them didn’t buy anything -redstone contraptions were a niche market after all- they just cheerfully said how good it was to see him, so proud of him for coming back into town.

He would normally be very touched to hear all these kind words from people he barely knew. But his mind was elsewhere as he polished brass valves and activated the redstone lamps within his storefront. It was nearing twilight now, just a few more hours until he could investigate that trapdoor. 

“Tango! Good to see you,” Joel leaned on the countertop, eyeing an automatic card-shuffler with something between confusion and intrigue, “How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been alright,” Tango shrugged. He’d been asked this question so many times today that he was starting to get tired of it. There were only so many times he could give the same cookie-cutter answer, “It’s been hard, but I’m making my way back.”

“That’s good,” It was one of the first time’s Tango had seen Joel smile genuinely. Joel poked the card shuffler dubiously, “What does this do?”

“It shuffles playing cards,” Tango picked it up, pointing out each compartment where the cards went, how the button on the side activated a crank, and other details. He’d only realized that he’d been talking for five solid minutes about the intricacies of the inner workings when he noticed that Joel was smiling, but visibly not listening, “Are you interested in buying it?” 

“Nah,” Joel shrugged, “I just wanted to see you happy again. It’s what Jimmy would’ve wanted.” He spoke casually, but his shoulders were tight, and his hands twitched slightly. 

“Oh,” Joel’s words hit Tango like a brick. He knew that Joel had cared about Jimmy, but had rarely seen that compassion between them, especially with how much Joel teased him. Any onlooker would think that the two of them hated each other. 

“Y’know,” Joel said, inhaling sharply and picking at the wooden counter, “I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could’ve done for him. Obviously I know that there wasn’t anything I could’ve done, but… I don’t know. Maybe I could’ve been a better friend? Now that he’s gone I just can’t help thinkin’ about all the times I teased him,” He hunched his shoulders, “I also could’ve been more there for you though all of this. It must be so lonely.”

Tango’s face softened. Nobody had spoken directly about Jimmy, they only ever said how sorry they were for his loss, but they all treated it as if he’d just gone away for a while. Nobody addressed the fact that he was gone and not coming back until now. Tango reached across the counter and took Joel’s hand, squeezing it lightly.

“It is lonely,” Tango fought to keep his voice steady, “But that’s not any more your fault that it is mine. If it’s any consolation, whenever Jimmy would come home ranting about how much of a jerk you were to him, he’d always follow it up with ‘I love him, though’. You were a good friend to him. We have each other. We’re going to figure it out.”

Joel smiled up at him, then cleared his throat and backed away.

“Excuse me, I think I got some redstone dust in my eye,” His words wobbled out, “I’ve gotta get back to my patrol.” He straightened his chestplate and turned to leave. 

“Tell Lizzie I say hi!” Tango called after him, grinning.

“I will!”

With that, Joel disappeared back into the thinning crowd of people. For the first time in months, Tango did not feel separate from every other thing. He wasn’t grieving alone. 

Finally, after hours of benign conversation, Tango packed up his wares, tied the curtains shut, and began the walk home.

With the silver moon shining above and a crackling torch in his hand, Tango brushed the dirt off of the trapdoor and heaved it open. He shuddered as he descended the steep, dusty staircase and tried to fight down the feeling of being swallowed. The light from the moon disappeared, replaced by the torch’s glow licking the cobweb-covered walls. Tango shuddered to think of how many decades worth of spiders were crawling between the gaps in the bricks. 

The dusty staircase opened into an archway, the smell of damp stone and rot filling the air. When Tango saw what was behind the archway, his breath caught.

Buildings made of dark brick spiraled up towards the hanging stalactites of a truly mammoth cave. The same dark, sticky mycelium from the corridor crept up the walls and shimmered in the cold light of hanging blue lanterns. Cracked stone pathways wound between the crumbling structures, stagnant water pooled between the cracks. 

It was a city. 

A whole city right under the ranch.

As Tango wandered, he noticed that his torch had started to turn from orange to blue. All of a sudden he realized why one of the heavy smells in the cold air was so familiar, something he knew to turn fire blue. It was soul sand. 

For a moment Tango was in two. Half of him was nearly forty years old, standing in a crumbling city beneath the homestead he’d made with his own hands. The other half was a scared fourteen year old kid wandering the nether wastes for anything to eat and anyone who wasn’t hostile. 

He shook his head and continued through the city. Now wasn’t the time for this; he had to see if the library was connected. If he could reach the library without going through town, nobody had to know that he was researching necromancy. 

He could hear his friends scolding him already as his boots clunked against the stone. Unbeknownst to him, each step sent ripples of warning through the network of sickly rot; something shifted closer to waking far, far beneath the stone.  

  We all know how you can be when you have a mission. I don’t want to see you drive yourself crazy with this, buddy. Impulse would tell him, wringing his hands.

Listen, Top. I know you miss him, but you don’t even know if all this necromancy business will work! Skizz would sling an arm around his shoulder with a tired smile. 

This isn’t a healthy way to deal with this, Tango. Maybe you can find another way to take your mind off of it? Zed would adjust his lab coat as he spoke, playing doctor. 

Etho’s words still echoed in him as he reached what he assumed to be the library, the sloped Athenian roof held up by statues of those same hulking creatures with the dripping horns. Etho was as old as time itself, and even he was getting a bad feeling about this by just standing too close to the library. 

You can’t tell them, they’ll only get in the way, Something in Tango whispered, They wouldn’t understand . 

Tango paused, turning the urge to hide his mission from everyone over in his head. He loved his friends; he told them everything that happened in his life. The clawing need to keep them in the dark was foreign to him. It scared him. He knew that if anyone was capable of helping him bring Jimmy back, it was Etho, Impulse, Skizz, and Zed. They were some of the most brilliant minds he’d ever met. They’d literally been to hell and back together. They would help him through anything if he asked. 

But the sweet song of secrecy was too loud, and Tango pushed open the door of the library anyway. 

A sharp-toothed grin spread across Tango’s face when he saw the familiar interior of the ancient library. 

The library somehow seemed even bigger when Tango came through the front door. In the blue light, still heavy with the smell of old mildewed paper, it was almost beautiful. 

Tango reached the Necromancer’s tome and lifted it off of its lectern. Magic coursed through it, seeping into Tango’s hands and right into his bloodstream. It wasn’t the magic he was used to -magic that was bright, made of stars and growing branches- it was wicked magic made from withering leaves and sick heaves of dying breath. It was exactly what he needed. 

A sound caught Tango’s ear and he whirled around. It sounded like a whisper, barely audible. Tango’s heart beat, his ears twitching as he listened for the sound to come again. 

“Hello? Is someone there?” He called into the room, cringing at how loudly his voice echoed back to him. 

The library stayed as silent and still as it was before. 

Rattled and unable to shake the feeling that there was a presence here in the room with him, Tango retreated back to the surface, book in hand. When he had covered the trapdoor in grass and made it to his empty room at the ranch, he slid the book under his bed, just in case he had unexpected company.

Tango dropped off to sleep almost instantly, hope filling his chest for the first time in months. He was going to do whatever it took to get Jimmy back home. 

***

As days blurred by, Tango spent less and less time under the sun. He journeyed below the surface down into the ancient city almost every night. On the days he stayed above ground, he was up researching, paging through book after book. By the time a month had passed, Tango could almost completely read the dead language most of the books were written in. 

“What’s that on your hands?” Etho asked, leaning over the counter of Tango’s stall and gesturing to the smears of skulk on the backs of his hands. 

“It’s nothing,” Tango shrugged, securing the last screw in his newest trinket, “Just some ink; I was up late designing new blueprints.”

Tango didn’t know when he got so good at lying. He’d really spent last night down in the ancient city, hauling writhing masses of skulk and rot from a ritualistic altar. He needed the detailed circle of runes to be clear if he was going to use it, but some of the skulk had seeped into his skin and stained. 

“Hmm,” Etho raised an eyebrow at him. The stains on Tango’s hands didn’t look like ink, and his tail twitched nervously as he spoke. Anyone else would’ve believed what Tango said, but Etho had known him for long enough to tell he was lying, “Did anything else interesting happen last night?”

“Nope,” Tango said casually, popping the p, “I was just drafting.” He placed the trinket he was fiddling with on a shelf and picked up a redstone lamp, polishing it with a rag. 

“You sure?” 

“What?” Tango’s heart sped up. Nobody could know about the ancient city. Nobody could know about the ancient city . They wouldn’t understand, they would try to stop him and then he’d never get Jimmy back. 

“I don’t know, it just seems like you have something else going on. Is there anything you need to talk about?”

“I’m fine,” Tango snapped, setting the lamp down hard on the counter.

“But-”

“What is your problem?!” Sparks flickered through Tango’s hair, “I was working. That’s it. I don’t know what you’re talking about or why you don’t believe me, but if you’re going to freak out on me for no reason, you can get the hell out of my store.”

Etho flinched, eyes full of confusion and hurt, and Tango immediately bit his tongue. He knew that Etho was only trying to help, but he also knew that Etho would try to keep him away from the ancient city if he knew the truth. 

“Fine,” Etho’s face went cold, “I’ll be on my way then.”

“Wait, Etho, I’m sorry,” Tango buried his face in his hands, “I didn’t mean to lash out at you, I haven’t been sleeping much.”

Etho looked at Tango for a long moment. He looked like hell; his hair was unkempt, he hadn’t shaved, and the bags under his eyes were so dark they looked like bruises. On top of that, the ends of his hair and very small slivers of his irises had turned blue. 

“It’s okay,” Etho shrugged, “Just try not to make a habit of it.”

Tango gave him a weary smile, guilt pooling heavily in his stomach. He didn’t deserve Etho. 

Tango dug his nails into his palms, using every ounce of willpower he had not to spill everything to Etho; The library, the book, the whispers at the edge of his hearing, all of it. But whatever it was that forced him into secrecy was stronger than his friendship, and Tango kept his mouth shut. 

***

The fields around the ranch stretched past the horizon, grass swaying gently in the moonlight like rippling waves. A dome of stars blanketed the sky above Tango’s head, winking at him, watching him. He was all alone, and somehow that felt okay. 

He heard a rustling behind him and whipped around. 

“Jimmy?” Tango’s voice broke as he ran towards his husband. Jimmy looked just the same as he had the day he died; his wings hung loose behind him, hair blowing gently and eyes soft and dark as the sky above them. 

Jimmy took a step back when Tango approached, his face so profoundly sad that Tango’s heart broke just looking at him. 

“What’s happened to you, love?” Jimmy asked, his voice calling from every star and blade of grass, “Haven’t you been sleeping?”

“I’m going to get you back, Jimmy! I found a way!” Tango reached for his hands, but Jimmy pulled away. 

“Why would I want to see you?” The sadness in Jimmy’s face was replaced by anger in a heartbeat. Tango had only really seen Jimmy angry a couple of times, but none of that compared to the fury creasing his husband’s kind face, “You let me DIE, Tango.”

“But-” Tango stumbled in his attempts to follow Jimmy, hitting the ground hard, “I did everything I could! I tried to save you!”

“It wasn’t enough. You weren’t enough,” Jimmy spat, “Y’know, part of me is glad the Watchers finally got me. At least now I don’t have to be married to a monster like you.” He knelt into the grass in front of Tango, faces inches apart, “You should’ve stayed in the nether where you belong.”

Tango’s words died on his tongue. Jimmy had always loved him, fire and all. What changed? Did Jimmy really blame him that much?

Jimmy stood back up and turned his gaze to the sky, black liquid dripping from his eyes, nose, and mouth. His wings withered into ash as black and blue buildings rose from the field and blotted out the stars. 

The ancient city was rising around Tango, stones breaking off from each wall and archway. He was trapped in the city, and it was going to bury him alive.