Sabre and Goblin stared at Orange in the doorway, Sabre with his hands out in front of him as he smiled awkwardly. Orange had his hand behind his back, the other still on the doorknob.

"Sabre. Sabre that better not be what I think it is." Orange says, tense. He slowly brings his hand out from behind his back, revealing he's holding a stick.

"It's not! He isn't! I'm not! I promise!" Sabre replies, standing still. Goblin hides behind his shoulder. "This- This is an entirely different thing! It just looks similar!"

"How do I know?!"

"Like I just said, I can explain!"

"Well start explaining then!" Orange says, taking a step closer.

"I would if you'd just let me talk-"

"Sabre, if you don't start explaining a very good reason for this I'm going to smite you."

"Okay, man! Chill!"

Sabre takes a deep breath, lowering his hands and begins crossing his arms. Goblin still hides behind him, the current stream of thoughts and feelings being shared with Sabre being a tangled mess.

"Okay, I'm... not entirely human like I said I am. I-I only lied about it to protect myself and Goblin." Sabre starts. "We were already used to pretending and we weren't sure if we were safe around you guys yet, so I just kept saying I'm 100% human, but then we were scared of what would happen if you guys knew because of the Darkness being similar to us. Goblin's just the same color, and that's it. We're entirely different from that stuff."

"...Prove it." Orange says, his stick pointed at Sabre.

"How?!"

"I dunno, just- prove you won't infect anything with- whatever that thing is!"

Sabre stands still, Goblin coming out of hiding for a moment. He slinks to the floor and mooshes his face against the wood boards for a moment, coming back up after and making a presenting motion at the still uninfected floor. Orange lowers the stick a little with a suspicious look, as Goblin retreats to hiding behind Sabre.

"See? We can't 'infect' anything. This is a part of our body, not a sickness." Sabre smiles nervously.

"...'Our'?"

"It's both of our body. We share it. Ours. Whatever one of us feels, the other one feels it too... including pain. We were... scared we'd be attacked. Just- please. I swear, Orange, neither of us are Darkness. This is just... what we are. I- I don't know how else to really explain it, but please. Please trust us on this..."

Sabre stared with a pleading look as Orange stared back, thinking, still holding the stick like a baseball bat. Orange then takes a slow, careful step forward.

"...Let me test something." He says in a suspicious tone. Sabre shrugs.

After a few more steps, Sabre and Goblin staying still the entire time, Orange cautiously reaches a hand towards Goblin. A bit shakily, he slowly brings his hand closer as he inches forward. Goblin glances up at Sabre with a concerned look. Sabre looks back.

Threatened, worried

"No, it's alright." Sabre responds, in a way that only Goblin can hear. "Let him do this. If we want him to trust us, we have to trust him too."

Turning their gazes back to Orange, he seems to have stopped in his tracks when he noticed the two looking at each other. Once he sees them looking back at him, he continues slowly reaching towards Goblin.

Closer.

Closer.

Orange quickly places his hand on Goblin's head, grabbing him. Seconds later, Sabre feels something like tingling electricity run through his body. Not painful, but a strange static feeling. He and Goblin both shudder as it passes just as soon as it started, then look at Orange.

The three stare at each other, waiting for something to happen. After a minute, Orange looks surprised and stands up straight, letting go of Goblin, and taking a small step back.

"It's... really not Darkness." He says quietly, sounding both in awe and relieved.

"Uh- what was that supposed to do?" Sabre asks, while Goblin stares curiously.

"You were telling the- Ohhh crud, I'm so sorry!" Orange exclaims, quickly putting the stick away with an apologetic expression. "I was just so worried, I'm sorry Sabre!"

"Woah, hey! It's alright man!" Sabre smiles, also relieved. They weren't going to lose another friend. "We completely get it, dude. We understand why you'd be scared."

"That was still really mean for me to do-!" Orange says, burying his face in his hands out of embarrassment.

"Orange, buddy, it's fine." Sabre laughs. Goblin smiles too, clearly very happy their friend is so accepting of him. "We're just happy you're not mad about it!"

"Why would I be mad??" Orange looks up, confused. "This is just you actually being you, what on earth makes you think I'd be mad?"

Sabre is quiet for a moment, frozen in place.

"...You are a lot more accepting than other humans." He says after a moment.

Goblin excitedly moves closer to Orange, making happy-sounding chirplike sounds. Orange laughs a little, waving at him, then looks back to Sabre with a concerned expression.

"Well uh- I still really want an explanation to this. Y'know, one that isn't... panicked." He says. "Like- how much of this has been affecting our mission with the prophecy and stuff? How much of this affects you? I promise, I'm not gonna freak out this time."

"Yeah... that's fair. You deserve a better explanation about this." Sabre shrugs. "I'll do my best to make it understandable."

Goblin makes a noise.

"Wha- no! Not the time, dude!"

"What? What'd he say?"

"...He wants snacks."

"Didn't you guys get the lef- Oh."

"Yeah, those are already gone."

—————————————————————————————————————

They stood on the balcony of the house, talking under the stars.

As Sabre finishes telling his story to Orange, both leaning against the railing, he sighs. It was so wonderful to finally tell someone about what he is and his struggle with it, lifting a burden off his chest. Goblin sat on the railing like a perched parrot, being distracted from interrupting by a bowl of chopped carrots.

Orange listened to every word Sabre said, taking in all of the new information with an open mind. He even didn't react that much when he took his blindfold off for the first time. Sabre was more excited about the fact that someone was actually listening.

"...Woah." Orange says as Sabre wraps up. "That's... a lot."

"Yeah, it is. But I've been managing so far." Sabre replies. Then, he chuckles. "Just need to remember to watch out for people that forget how to knock."

"Okay fine, that was on me." Orange laughs. "I was just worried because I hadn't seen Gerald yet after we got back."

Sabre looks out into the Hub for a moment, squinting. Then points.

"Isn't that him back there?"

Orange looks, and after a minute, gasps.

"GERALD!" He shouts, the named pig looking up at him from across the Hub. "Stop eating the flowers! I just planted those!"

Sabre laughs as Orange continues to scold Gerald for a moment, who soon after trots off to avoid it. As Orange sighs, he looks back at Sabre's happy expression, and starts laughing too.

"...Hey, Orange?" Sabre says, calming down. Orange looks up at him.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you... for listening to me. About this."

Sabre looks down at his hands, his gaze soon tracing the black vines on his arms, still exposed.

"...You're the first person that's ever done that."

Orange looks surprised, then smiles.

"It's no problem, Sabre. You two don't have to be alone anymore."

There's a long few seconds of silence.

"Didn't it... hurt sometimes?" Orange asks. "I mean, you're almost constantly starved. You always have to fight somehow to survive. Sometimes literally..."

"Of course it did. But... what else could we do?" Sabre replies. "I've been like this for as long as I can remember. What few memories I have from before Goblin are too... fuzzy to really understand. It's not our fault we're a monster."

Sabre places a hand on Goblin's head, making Goblin look up. Sabre smiles.

"We just have to learn to survive in a world not meant for us."

Sabre puts his hand down and looks back at the Hub. It's a quiet night, soft chirps of crickets accompanying the sound of the Hub's small river.

"...I don't think you guys are monsters." Orange mumbles.

"Hard to escape who we are, bud." Sabre says. "I don't mind rolling with the one thing the world I'm from gave me."

"You're not in the world you're from anymore, though."

"Eh, yeah... gotta admit, 'Catalyst' does have a better ring to it. And, I... actually really like being more than just a thing some dudes in lab coats made."

"Good, 'cause you're stuck with that title now." Orange says, jokingly nudging him.

"Ha! yeah. And now that you know about this, I can use my other abilities to help with the fight. Nightmare isn't gonna know what hit him."

"Nightmare? Dude, the Darkness in general isn't gonna know what hit it. Actually, could you and Goblin kind of go undercover and hide in the Darkness to listen in on stuff?"

"Ehhh, not sure I wanna test that, chief."

"Fair enough."

The rest of the evening is filled with laughter and joy, as the two heroes continue to joke about this revealed secret. As if the shock and worry is already a distant memory.

Tomorrow is a new day, filled with opportunity.