Chapter Text
the _Beloved household was out of charcoal. again. which meant tubbo would have to go out and get more wood. again. which meant that tubbo would probably see his dead husband floating around. again. tubbo considered just making do with old wooden tools and saplings, but michael was getting cold, even in his winter coat. he was still getting used to snowchester’s frigid climate, to be fair. sometimes tubbo wondered if michael would ever get used to the snow, being from the nether and all.
tubbo put on his own winter coat, as well as ranboo’s old cloak he’d showed up to new l’manburg in, slung his axe across his back, called out a goodbye to his son, and stepped outside into the frigid evening air. he closed the door behind him, and stepped forward to rest his arms on the railing of the house’s deck. he looked out over the ocean, the moonlight reflected on the ice, and the waves where the water was warm enough not to freeze over. he sighed, and his breath materialized in a small, warm cloud in front of his face. ranboo used to love these kinds of nights, tubbo thought to himself. then he shook himself from the thought and headed down the front steps of his house. his hoofs crunched in the days-old snow. he glanced around and sighed again, this time in relief. from what he could see, “ghostboo” was nowhere to be found. tubbo turned toward the spruce forest and started walking.
--
tubbo must have been chopping down trees for at least an hour and a half when he felt a cold wind pierce his being, and an audible gust blow behind him. he briefly stopped his work as he mentally prepared for what was about to happen. he didn’t turn to look at the figure he was certain was now behind him, but the echoey version of his dead husband’s voice rang in his ears anyway. as if not looking would have stopped anything. what a stupid fucking thought. he kept splitting the logs.
”aw, is that my cloak? that’s sweet of you!” the specter cooed.
the use of the word “my” really rubbed tubbo the wrong way. bad enough to respond, which he knew was a mistake, but he couldn’t stop himself. he stopped cutting the wood, and turned to look the living sheet in the eyes. fabric strips. whatever.
“it’s not yours, it’s-“ he cleared his throat and glanced at the ground as he stopped to correct himself, “was- ranboo’s.”
“but I’m-“ the ghost started to reply, cocking their head to one side.
“you aren’t.” tubbo shut him down, looking them straight in the green and red strips of linen sewed onto the black and white sheet covering their lack of a physical body.
tubbo turned around and went back to cutting down trees. he felt the ghost move behind him as they lazily drifted to the other side of tubbo, still behind his back.
“okay………” they drawled. tubbo couldve sworn the wind perked up as the ghost picked what to annoy him with.
“you know, that cloak came all the way from the end! it was such a mess, but I held onto it for some dumb reason.”
one of tubbo’s ears flicked in irritation. it wasn’t a dumb reason. if it mattered to ranboo, there was never a dumb fucking reason, no matter what this fucking impostor said. at the very least I t wasn’t dumb to tubbo. the prick behind him was still talking.
“I think tommy got fed up with looking at it because one day I just woke up and it was completely patched! I kept asking him about it but he always said it wasn’t him and to go away. he didn’t say it that nicely, though. that was still when he said he didn’t like me though, so-”
“YOU’RE NOT RANBOO!!” tubbo screamed, whipping around to face the thing pretending to be his husband. it stayed silent, staring him down with those fake fucking eyes. tubbo felt himself breaking a little, tears welling up in his eyes as the silence started to get to him.
“ranboo wasn’t like this.” tubbo said. might as well fucking say it. his eyes drifted from the thing in front of him as he remembered them. “they loved life. they loved watching the sun rise over the water in snowchester. he loved the pretty colors the clouds turned at sunset and the glint of the sun on the snowdrifts.” tubbo was fully crying now, but he was smiling, too, remembering the calm look on ranboo’s face as the two of them laughed, michael sitting between them, on the beaches of snowchester. their smile was something tubbo missed so badly. his laugh, too. gods, he missed them.
tubbo continued through his tears, “he loved his pets. they loved the snow and the cold and the sky and the stars. he loved michael. he- he loved me.” he choked out. he let out a small sob, then quickly locked it away and looked at the ground. he’d process that later, or maybe never if his mind would let him. the ghost was still in front of him, anyway. he couldn’t show that much weakness in front of something like that. the spirit still hadn’t fucking said anything.
“…tubbo, I-”
tubbo jerked his head father from the ghost. tears continued to stream down his face.
”stop saying “I”! you’re not him, you’re just- you’re just a fucking sheet!” he yelled, falling to his knees in the snow. gods, he was pathetic. thinks of his husband once, he’s a fucking mess. he wrapped his arms around himself as he started to really sob. he was still looking at the ground. if he was going to be this stupid about all this, he sure as hell wasn’t going to look its cause in the eye.
“…tubbo, look at me.”
tubbo turned his head to face forward again, still not intending to look at this bringer of hell, but something at the top of his vision caught his eye. a half-black, half-white sheet was lying on the snow. like it was… shed. tubbo looked up. his breath caught.
there was his husband.
sort of. but it was definitely them. their skin was faded. and see-through. their legs faded away and tubbo couldn’t see his feet. well, if you could call them “feet” at all, even when he was alive. they were wearing summer shorts, a black and white shirt stained with their own duo-colored blood, and over it a loose, frankly ugly button-down pattened with allium flowers, stylized doodles of ghosts, and headstones. they weren’t wearing any of their old earrings, his long ears looking strange without any of their familiar decorum. his tear scars were more pronounced, and he didn’t have pupils anymore. well, they never really did, their scleras were always colored red and green respectively, but now there was no distinction at all. it looked like their eyes were entirely sclera. his hair was the same, just more messily parted. his right horn was broken, but he still wore his little gold wedding ring. he still wore his wedding ring!
“oh… oh-” tubbo laughed. he wiped the tears from one eye as he pushed himself up off the ground. he looked his husband in the eyes - their real eyes - without a trace of anger. just remorse, grief, and love.
“I’m sorry, bossman.”