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It wasn’t until they were standing side by side in the ruins, Tubbo turning his face to an overcast sky as his ukulele slipped from between his fingers, that Ranboo realised he’d never seen him cry before.
Ranboo had heard a lot of bad things in his life. Throaty whispers dripping ink and ichor, or screams sounding the final hour of an endless war. He’d heard women and children beg for mercy, and he’d heard his own voice spill the same pleas, a little book clutched tightly to his chest as he tried to hold onto his memories.
None of that could compare to this.
Tubbo was trying to hold back his tears, Ranboo could see it in the way he’d bitten his lip raw, his eyes squeezing shut from the effort. The wind was bitter, gales plunging into his ribcage and chilling his flesh so badly he couldn’t stop himself from trembling. It was why he’d dropped his ukulele, and why he was now crashing to his knees, locking his arms in a grip too tight for his body.
He was trying to shield himself from the cold.
Tubbo’s measly seventeen years of life were written so clearly on his face, his voice cracking at the edges; still sunlit, his adolescence not quite gone yet.
Ranboo wanted to hold him, to tell him it was going to be alright, to try and fix it somehow.
Please, he thought, let me make it better. Let me in.
But Tubbo was far, far away. His face was buried in his dirtied palms, hot tears spilling from in between the gaps in his fingers, no matter how hard he tried to force them away. He looked so small like this, like a child left to the fires. He was scrawny, the suit still a bad fit on him. Too boxy, too big. The colours didn’t flatter him at all.
He looked like a relic from a time that had left him behind. A place that did not exist anymore. The world was already reclaiming it, like vines to bone. The grotto hidden below them smelt damp, the soil and grass creeping around the remains of an old flag already succumbing to the humid moisture trapped in the air. Water trickled through the cracks, and soon the crater would fill up, its caverns ancient and forgotten.
Tubbo stood at the mouth of this basin, unwilling to move.
Like he wanted nature to take him away too.
He wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was meant to be a lazy afternoon in the middle of spring, grass pulled free from the soil and thrown over their arms and legs. He was meant to be questions at 4am and sleepovers, his hand tightly wound in Ranboo’s as he whispered secrets to him no one had ever bothered to learn before. He was honey on toast, he was the glow in the dark stars in Michael’s bedroom.
But right now, Tubbo was none of those things. He was a wounded animal – a fawn with bullet holes piercing its newborn breast, the waning moon its only witness as it decomposed in the weeds.
Ranboo felt his stomach constrict, his tongue tasting more and more like tar as the seconds collapsed to nothing.
That was how he left Tubbo, turning on his heel and scurrying after Wilbur, hands still shaking.
Tubbo’s cries echoed inside L’Manburg’s tomb.
…
Tubbo was slipping. Like memories. Ranboo was trying to grasp him, desperate to keep something for once. Anything.
But Tubbo was slipping.
First when he started working for Quackity, next when he appeared outside Wilbur’s van.
“He promised me a good life,” Tubbo said, leaning out the car window with a soft exhale. His eyes were closed, the soft summer breeze playing with his hair. It was late afternoon, the sky slowly giving into a pale blue dusk as they spoke between themselves. It was calm, peaceful.
But Ranboo was still shaking. The words repeated in his mind, slowly, deliberately.
He promised me a good life.
He promised me a good life.
He promised me a good life.
Ranboo carefully clasped his hands together, his throat closing. “Was your life not good before?”
Tubbo opened his eyes again, lashes fluttering over the tops of his cheeks before he shook his head and told him no, that’s not what I mean.
But that was what he meant, because now he was talking about L’Manburg, how it was amazing before, how he was so close to having it again, his fingers closing around its ghost.
Without Ranboo.
And all he could think was that Tubbo was slipping.
…
Ranboo didn’t know how to tell him. In his mind he imagined running up to Tubbo and grabbing his hand, begging him to stay with him for a little bit longer. In his mind Tubbo listened, nodding and letting him take him away from L’Manburg, away from Las Nevadas. In his mind they stayed together in Snowchester and Tubbo spoke to him about all the things he didn’t speak about. He folded himself in Ranboo’s arms, reminding him he was going to stay, that these quiet moments were worth more than a piece of land, more than legacy and purpose.
In his mind he made Tubbo happy.
In his mind he was enough.
But he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t bring himself to speak. To close the gap, to let himself fall to his knees. To tear open his ribcage and expose his heart.
If Tubbo couldn’t do it for him, then he couldn’t do it for Tubbo.
The days passed like that, where they slept in the same bed but didn’t look at each other, their backs turned and their house void of any sound.
Ranboo would wake after dawn and turn to reach for Tubbo, but Tubbo would already be gone, slipping from the house and heading for Las Nevadas. No note, no gentle goodbye.
And so Ranboo spent the mornings alone.
…
To Ranboo, Tubbo didn’t look any better than before. He did at first, like during that afternoon in the van, but as the weeks dragged on he only seemed to get more restless. He fidgeted with his fingers, tapped his foot lightly against their hardwood floors. He played with Michael with eyes that looked lost, like he was somewhere else in his mind.
But he didn’t tell Ranboo any of this. He didn’t mention the way his skin was growing paler, his hair disheveled from how he tossed and turned, his nights fitful and sleepless. He would wake up panting, eyes wide as they tried to adjust to the darkness, remembering where he was as he retraced the scars down and across his face.
Ranboo would turn over, fingers reaching for any part of him he could touch, but Tubbo would only shrink away, pretending to fall back to sleep, as if Ranboo couldn't hear the way his breathing refused to settle.
His sleeping had gotten worse ever since Wilbur had come back. Night terrors left unmentioned.
Ranboo wondered if it was his fault.
It didn’t take long for the fragile tension between them to snap. It wasn’t triggered by any big meltdown, or insomnia, or a fight. It was just like any other night, where they tucked Michael in and headed off to bed, Ranboo left waiting for Tubbo to follow him back to their room. But Tubbo didn’t show, the sound of his footsteps fading down the hall. Ranboo stayed on his side of the bed and waited up anyway, knees sharply cutting into his stomach as he stared at the wall, counting the minutes in his head. The mattress was cold, the night too quiet, the room dark and hollow and suffocating.
He wanted to go find Tubbo, but he also didn’t want to move at all. He wanted to ask him to come to bed, but he also didn’t want to seem needy. He wanted him to hear his thoughts without ever having to speak them. He just wanted Tubbo to know.
Tubbo finally slipped into their room some hours later, quietly treading the floorboards and shuffling under the covers, like he didn’t want to wake him.
Ranboo spoke anyway. “I waited for you.”
Tubbo jumped, hand flying to his chest as he tried not to choke. “Jesus fuck you scared me,” he said, laughing nervously.
“Where did you go?” Ranboo didn’t mean to sound harsh, but the words were sticky, coming out clipped.
Tubbo slowly laid himself back down, his back still turned. “I dunno, I just didn’t want to sleep yet. Why does it matter? Do I need your permission?”
Ranboo clawed at his palms, blinking away a rush of unshed tears. He should just back down, he told himself, should shrug it off and go to sleep. They were just tired. Tired and dumb.
He told himself this wasn’t worth the conflict. He hated conflict. He hated fighting.
But he couldn’t stop himself.
“Don’t talk to me like that. I don’t like it when you sound--”
He could see Tubbo tense from across the bed.
He quickly clamped his mouth shut.
Oh fuck, here we go.
“When I sound like what?”
Ranboo squirmed, his heart thundering violently in his chest. His thoughts were scattered, half screaming at him to stop, half telling him that this was the end, this was where it all fell apart, that it was his fault, all his fault--
“Like you’re not saying what you’re thinking.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck--
“Oh,” Tubbo mumbled, “I’m sorry, I’m just… I’m just tired.”
Ranboo’s mind fell silent, a broken exhale falling from his jaw. Anxiously, he let his hand wander, palm drifting across the sheets and coming closer to Tubbo’s back, where the half-moon lit where his shirt creased, the line of his spine bending towards the edge of the bed, so far away.
Ranboo didn’t let himself make contact. He stilled, his hand dropping only a few inches away from the warmth he could feel radiating off of his husband.
Something sparked gold in his chest. Whether it was bravery or desperation he wasn’t sure, but it was enough to force his lips apart, his voice breaking the boundaries his hand didn’t dare disturb.
“Talk to me,” he whispered.
Trust me, he didn’t say.
Tubbo sighed, sinking his face into his pillow. “I’m bad with words.”
Ranboo didn’t want him to slip anymore. He had him right here, so close. Without thinking he shifted closer, head leaving his pillow and softly landing on the edge of Tubbo’s. He waited to see if he would tense again, or tell him to move, but he didn’t say anything.
“Is this okay?” he asked anyway.
Tubbo nodded. “I’m sorry, Ranboo.”
There it was again, the same tone from when he’d cried on the summit of something too great for them to handle. Too big, too complicated.
“Don’t apologise--”
“But I am sorry,” Tubbo cut in, hands twisting into his hair. “I’m sorry I can’t ever say things right. I’m sorry that you don’t understand.”
Ranboo didn’t understand. That was the whole point. The issue between them. Ranboo didn’t understand what Tubbo had lost, didn’t know what he had to go through, not really. And equally so, Tubbo didn’t understand Ranboo’s brain, the way it twisted and broke apart and rotted, crumbling into forgetfulness, into fear.
Coward, coward, coward.
“I want to understand,” Ranboo pushed. He had to, for Tubbo. Anything for Tubbo. “Let me try.”
“I’m just,” Tubbo tried before stopping, hands tucked into the crook of his elbows. Ranboo waited, eyes never leaving the back of his head. He thought of the way Tubbo’s hair had grown out, each curl carved from moonlight, long enough to tie back maybe. Chestnut hair. Wild hair. Tubbo’s hair. It was innocent. So achingly familiar to him he couldn't breathe.
God, he just wanted to help him somehow.
“I’m just so tired,” Tubbo continued, finding his voice again, “I want something normal, something stable. I want my life back.”
New thoughts slithered into Ranboo’s mind, joining the old ones as they repeated that Tubbo wasn’t happy , that his life with Ranboo wasn’t normal, wasn’t stable--
“I’m scared,” Ranboo whispered. “Did you know that?”
Tubbo still didn’t turn to face him, but Ranboo saw him nod anyway.
“I’m scared too,” Tubbo answered after a few moments of ashen silence.
“What are you afraid of?”
Tubbo laughed, but the sound was stale. Dead. “Everything.”
“Are you afraid of me?”
Tubbo shook his head sharply. “Never.”
Ranboo caught the word in his fist, burying it in between his lungs. It glowed under his skin, thrumming to life like a heartbeat. It spread its wings, taking flight after a long winter, singing its sweet nightingale song. Something secret, something he needed to protect.
It made him braver.
“Do you trust me?” he dared to ask.
Tubbo didn’t answer. Instead, he shyly reached his hand out from behind him, meeting Ranboo’s halfway, where his palm was still lying abandoned in the middle.
Their fingers found each other in the darkness, alone, damaged, but still together, still intertwining.
“Yes,” Tubbo whispered, the syllables barely leaving his lips. “I trust you.”
“And do I make you happy?”
If Ranboo was being honest, he was terrfied.
The answer was going to be no, he could feel it coming. His hand would be ripped away and Ranboo would be left in their cold bedroom, another thing abandoned to nothingness. Unconsciously he held on a little tighter, the pads of his fingers pressing into Tubbo’s knuckles as he waited for the end.
“You mean everything to me,” Tubbo said simply, not tearing away but not facing him either, “but my happiness is not your responsibility. You can’t fix me, or make it go away, or--”
“Give you purpose?” Ranboo finished.
Tubbo began to cry, his sobs stifled by the pillow tucked against his cheek. But Ranboo could hear, feeling each one through his hand. He stroked his thumb up and down his skin, rubbing small circles where he could. Soothing, soothing.
“Quackity can’t give you that either, you know,” Ranboo said gently.
Tubbo rubbed his face with his free hand. “I know.”
“And Wilbur can’t. Not back then, not now.”
“I know.”
“Purpose is something you give yourself.”
Tubbo sucked in a breath, his voice hoarse from crying when he quietly admitted, “But I don’t know how much of myself there is left.”
Ranboo felt his heart splinter. “Oh Tubbo…”
“I’m stuck, Ranboo,” Tubbo blurted, the words suddenly coming faster, like a dam breaking. “I’m so stuck. I’ve never left L’Manburg. My heart is still there, and it’s gone. ”
Ranboo sat up, placing his other hand on Tubbo’s shoulder. This time he stirred, letting himself be pulled up, but his face was still tilted down, refusing to look Ranboo in the eyes.
“Hey, look at me.”
Finally, Tubbo lifted his face.
His cheeks were streaked with tears. Long, ugly trails dripping from the curve of his chin. He must’ve seen something in Ranboo’s expression, something hurt, because he brought his hand to his eyes, fresh tears coming too fast to control. His body racked with sobs, his other hand still clutching Ranboo’s tightly, bringing his fist to his chest and holding it there.
Ranboo needed to say something. He needed to push through, to finally use his words and say something. But his brain was swimming, his own voice faltering, anxious.
“Even if the whole world blows up, I’m still going to see you.”
There was a beat of silence, then Tubbo was laughing, shaking his head. “What does that even mean?”
Ranboo felt his cheeks burn. He wasn’t good with words either, never had been. But he forced the rest of it out. He needed Tubbo to understand, he needed him to know. He squeezed his hand, looking down at him and trying again. “Even if the whole world blows up, I’m still going to stay with you.”
He cupped Tubbo’s cheek, wiping away the tears. Tubbo had gone very still, staring up at Ranboo with wide eyes.
Ranboo took one final breath and willed himself to be brave, just this once. To open himself, to trust.
“And even if the whole world blows up, and we lose everything again, you’re always going to have a home somewhere because I’ll build one for you. Again and again if I have to. Brick and mortar.”
There. It was done. He said it.
And Ranboo felt like an idiot. He’d stuttered, gotten all the words wrong, he wasn’t--
Tubbo pulled him into a tight hug, throwing his arms around his neck and pushing his forehead into his shoulder.
Oh.
Ranboo patted his back, letting himself soften. Tubbo mumbled something, but Ranboo didn’t hear what. It didn’t matter. Even if his tears burned his skin, it didn’t matter.
This was his best friend. His heart. His entire life.
And Ranboo would hold him all through the end of the world if he had to.
“I’ll be here,” he promised, mouthing the words into his hair. “I’ll be here, I’ll be here, I’ll be here.”
…
They couldn’t sleep that night. They watched the night shift outside their window, the gales roaring outside and the trees breaking against the force of it, leaves rustling like wailing cicadas. They lay side by side, facing each other, quietly talking. It was like a sleepover.
It felt like home.
It was some hours later when Tubbo sat up again, twisting around to tug on Ranboo’s arm. “Come on, let’s go out.”
Ranboo snorted, but let himself be dragged out of bed anyway. He swung his legs out from under the covers, his feet finding his slippers before pulling them over his ankles, two fingers on each side. “What time is it?”
“Who cares? I wanna go out.”
They stole out of their room, careful to miss any loose floorboards and creeping down the hallway, into the kitchen. Ranboo switched the light on, blinking away the spots clouding his vision as a honeyed glow washed over their heads.
He eyed the clock pinned to the far wall.
“It’s 3am, Tubbo.”
“Mm, sounds like a good time for hot chocolate. Turn the kettle on.”
Ranboo rolled his eyes, but did as he was told, filling the pot with water before plugging it in. “So demanding,” he muttered warmly, unable to stop the smile spreading over his face.
The kettle whistled and Tubbo grinned back, his smile all teeth. “I know, it’s ‘cause I’m the boss.”
Ranboo leaned against the counter, raising an eyebrow. “Are you now?”
Tubbo looked him up and down, mischief lacing his voice. “Totally.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
Ranboo poured boiling water into each of their mugs, handing one to Tubbo before following him out to the living room. Tubbo ran past the couch, quilts and cushions still scattered over its back and onto the floor, and pulled the curtains open, peering out the front window where they kept flowers sometimes. They switched them around every few weeks. Ranboo remembered putting white freesias there when they first got married, how Philza had woven the buds into Tubbo's hair.
He smiled to himself, eyeing the sunflowers that took their place now. Michael had plucked from the fields, their petals warm and sunny, like morning light.
He sipped his hot chocolate, sugar filling his mouth.
“Look at the stars,” Tubbo said, interrupting his thoughts. “I wanna get a closer look.”
He turned to Ranboo expectantly.
Ranboo sighed fondly. “You did say you wanted to go out.”
“You got it, big man!”
They stumbled back into the main hall, giggling like children as they tried to shush each other, throwing their coats over their pyjamas and fiddling with the lock of the door. In their minds they were sneaking out, causing trouble, trying to convince the world that it was still theirs, that this night and this moment and their laughter was eternal.
They were only seventeen.
Tubbo grabbed Ranboo’s hand again and they stepped out, the wind immediately making them both shriek before collapsing into more cackling, hurriedly locking the door again and running out.
“It’s fucking cold!” Tubbo complained, the gusts swallowing his voice.
Ranboo pulled him along, staring up at the belly of stars overhead. It was massive, a thousand city lights reflecting against a black sea.
He kept running.
Eventually they made it to a lone hill, where the grass was long and dandelions peaked through the soil. They collapsed against each other there, shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm. Tubbo rubbed his cheek against his sleeve, a wicked grin splitting his face as he forcefully pulled him down, the two of them hitting the dirt with breathless laughter.
“Oww,” Ranboo groaned, but Tubbo shushed him, pointing up to the sky.
“Do you know any constellations?” Tubbo asked, still leaning against Ranboo’s forearm.
Ranboo shook his head. “Nah. Do you?”
“Not at all.”
“What the hell-- why are we here, then? You said you wanted to go stargazing.”
“I have eyes. I’m going to watch the stars and pretend I know what they mean, like in the movies and shit.”
“Tubbo!”
They snickered before falling into a comfortable quiet again, their breath coming out in white smoke. The stars were like scattered sea salt, piercingly bright and swimming in their eyes. It was a moment to keep in a locket, with the grass scratching their backs, the air too cold, and their coats not nearly enough to warm them as ants crawled over their fingers. And the stars. Always the stars.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Ranboo found himself saying, still staring up. “And I’m scared. All the time.”
He found it was so easy to be honest. Freeing, comforting.
Tubbo looped his arm around his, holding on softly. “I haven’t been sure of anything since Wilbur died,” he confessed quietly. “I’ve been spiralling ever since. I had no control, no security. Life just… kept going. And I wasn’t ready to keep going yet.”
Ranboo wasn’t there when Wilbur first died, but Tubbo told him a bit about it. Empty details, but it was enough to paint a pretty clear picture. Bombs, screams, a father holding his son, how they had to pull Philza away, force him into a bed. He said they had to wet a towel and press it to his forehead to soothe the fever, that Tubbo took care of him but Philza didn’t remember it. He was too delirious, asking where Wilbur was, that he needed to see him. Tubbo looked so numb when he told him about it, eyes glassy as he shrugged one shoulder. Told him about how they were forced to clean the body up, wipe the blood away and bear the smell of it, how Philza barely coped at the funeral either, laughing to himself as they watched Wilbur’s corpse succumb to the dirt.
Ranboo pressed his face into Tubbo’s hair again. He’d been through so much with no one to tell, no one to hold him, to tell him it was okay to scream.
“Did you know you’re the best thing to ever happen to me?” Tubbo said suddenly, sounding vulnerable.
Ranboo squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself not to cry. “I didn’t.”
“Well now you know.”
“Now I know.”
They stayed there for the rest of the night, curled against each other and waiting for the sun to rise over the horizon. It burst in strings of liquid gold, painting the world and holding it in ancient, calloused hands. Clouds swirled above their heads, the sky going from black, to blue, and then to lilac, and as the birds began to caw, waking the world from its frozen slumber, Ranboo turned to Tubbo and pulled him up, trusting he would follow behind.
“Let’s go home.”