Nightingale - Dreamnotfound

||To Fight a Losing Battle||

TW // suicidal thoughts and panic attack (uh ohhh lol)
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My body ached under the dim lights in the moody apartment. My head throbbed, my nose bled, my entire body ached, and yet it still wasn't enough to hide the pain that, although I couldn't physically feel, still had me wrapped in a chokehold I couldn't escape.

I sat curled up on my cot, Techno staring darts at me from Sapnap's bed across from me. Blood dripped down my face and onto my black Specialty uniform. Bringing my finger up and touching it, the bright red liquid illuminated under the minimal light. It was proof that I was alive and that everything that just happened actually happened. It wasn't some sick nightmare I found myself in.

Wilbur appeared from the bathroom with a wad of toilet paper and handed it to me. "Pinch the bridge of your nose for five minutes with this. It should stop the bleeding." I took the paper and did as he told, pinching the bridge my nose with the toilet paper.

He sat next to Techno, both of them staring at me as if I'd be the one to start the conversation.

Wilbur caught on quickly. "Dream—"

"No," Techno abruptly cut him off. "Wilbur, you have talked to him enough. You know, my students don't act like this. They don't break the law and pick fights."

"Yes, but my students are at the top of the Specialty. Dream's at the very top overall last time I checked," Wilbur said. "Let me talk to him now and we can discuss a punishment when we're done. For now, you can go check on Fundy. He's in his apartment."

"Fundy's not the one I need to talk to."

"Dream is not going to talk with you around. He's more open with me than he is with you."

They both simultaneously looked at me. Talking alone with Wilbur was the second to last thing I wanted to do, the first being getting yelled at by Techno. So I reluctantly nodded, and Techno got up, grumbling as he did so.

"Grab me when he tells you everything."

Wilbur nodded, "Will do."

Techno left with a slam of the door, and I sank in my seat.

"Alright, Clay, what's wrong?" Wilbur asked as soon as we were alone.

"Have you not been paying attention?" I retorted.

He sighed, and I could tell he was not in the mood for my smart remarks. "I'm going to need you to cooperate with me, okay? Just for tonight. You can slander me with your friends later. What's wrong?"

It was a brave assumption that he thought he was the one my friends slandered. Everyone I knew talked so highly of him. Fundy saw him as a father figure, Sapnap saw him as a close friend, Tommy and Tubbo saw him like an older brother. I was the messed up one. I saw Wilbur for who he was: a cold hearted killer.

"One of my closest friends just stabbed me in the back and beat me."

"Yes, but why did you pick the fight?"

"Because I trusted him with everything I had left and he betrayed me."

Wilbur frowned as he observed me. "To be fair, Clay, you broke the law. Now, I'd be able to let you off with a warning if you had just befriended a random Common, but you took romantic advances with your target."

"We're not together," I corrected, my heart stinging as I said so.

"Either way, Fundy claims you kissed him. Kissing is illegal with commons and you know that. And that actually segway's into my next thing: You're not acting like yourself. Techno's right. You don't usually pick fights let alone break the law. What happened?"