Chapter Text
“So that’s the story of the time Tommy died fighting a camel!”
Ranboo claps politely, but Tommy crosses his arms and trains an irritated glare on Tubbo. “Hey! At least I didn’t lose a life!”
Tubbo giggles, shrugging playfully. “Yeah. Guess it was too lame for the Goddess to count it as anything big.”
“HEY!” Tommy shouts, swatting at Tubbo’s hand, but Tubbo only laughs more in response, swiping his arm away with a grin.
“I’m just teasing, Tom. You are obviously very cool and not lame.”
“And I get lots of women.”
“That too,” Tubbo concedes, but his face is twisted up into a grimace that makes Ranboo’s heart twinge with homesickness. He knows that grimace. He knows this banter, hears it every Friday at 5 when Tommy shows up for pizza night.
One thing he’s realized in the past hour — Tubbo and Tommy have changed, but Tubbo-and-Tommy has not. Them together, as a singularity. It’s astounding how similar this teasing of theirs is to the way they speak to each other in the present, especially considering how much time has passed since then — now? He’s not going to get too caught up on semantics.
“How long have you two known each other?” Ranboo asks, crossing his legs as he sinks deeper into Tommy’s (vaguely comfortable) couch. He knows the answer to this question — he’s heard it more times than he can remember — but he enjoys the stories, and anyway, he wants to make sure Tubbo and Tommy don’t remember the real reason they’re keeping him there. They’d untied him from his chair about halfway through their explanation of L’manburg’s origins, at which point they decided that they needed an “extra” to stand in for Eret in a scene and Ranboo was the only possible candidate. Since then, they’ve recounted various stories outlining the rise of L’manburg — their arrival to the server, Wilbur and Tommy’s camarvan, their construction of the walls — and now, it seems, whatever embarrassing anecdotes they can conjure from their memories.
“Gosh, it’s been…” Tubbo looks away pensively, trying to count some quantity on his fingers, but giving up once he reaches ten and has no fingers left to put down.”Ugh, I dunno. It’s been, like, ages .”
“Dadza says he found Tubbo in a box on the side of a road when he was a kid,” Tommy butts in. “So he decided to take him in. And now Tubbz’s my best friend.” Looking around his room, he dramatically leans in to Ranboo and whisper-shouts into his ear. “You better not be thinking of stealing him away, by the way. I’ll kill you if you do.”
The funny thing about whisper-shouting is it’s not exactly…quiet. And maybe Ranboo would have been threatened by this in another time — but he knows Tommy’s particular brand of bravado far too well to fall prey to it now. Both he and Tubbo keel over laughing, and Tubbo’s brown bangs fall across his face, eyes crinkling into a genuine grin for the first time all day. Gosh, he’s pretty.
“You’re not killing anyone, Tommy,” Tubbo smiles, jutting a thumb towards Ranboo, who is quickly snapped out of his momentary reverie. “This guy’s okay.”
“I am?”
“He IS ?”
“Yes, he is,” Tubbo continues matter-of-factly. “I’ve decided. He’s too nice to be a spy.” The warm feeling in Ranboo’s chest returns. Too nice to be a spy. He can’t imagine his Tubbo trusting someone so quickly, much less a suspected trespasser — but he has to admit, there’s a part of him that feels giddy at the sight of his husband, young and hopeful and unafraid, gazing at him with what seems like complete and utter trust in his eyes.
“Yeah, but…but what if he’s being nice to trick us, Tubbo? Wilbur would kill us if we let down our guard and a spy got away with val-u-ab-le info!” Tommy retorts sharply.
“Oh, come on! What valuable info? S’not like we told him anything Dream doesn’t already know. Plus,” Tubbo continues, whipping around to face Ranboo on the couch. “Randall. Are you a spy for Dream and the Greater SMP?”
“Um. No.”
“See?” Tubbo says triumphantly, plopping down on the couch next to Ranboo. He’s close enough that his arm grazes Ranboo’s leg (Of course Ranboo notices. Gods, is he like this all the time? Is this what two hours of separation from Tubbo does to him?). “Told you. And besides, this guy can’t lie to save his life.”
Tommy rolls his eyes as he looks between the two of them, frowning — that is, until an idea seems to strike him. His eyes light up and his mouth twists into a wry smile as he settles into a chair to the right of the couch.
“Fine, man. Sorry I accused your crush of trea-son.” Turning to Ranboo, his expression is suddenly stern as he continues. “Treat him well or I pummel you.”
“W-what?” Tubbo splutters. “Are you insane?” Tommy laughs hysterically, and Tubbo’s face is splotchy and red (if Ranboo didn’t know any better, he’d say he was blushing. “Fuck you, man,” Ranboo’s husband-but-not-yet huffs, standing up and pointedly moving away from the couch, where Ranboo is still sitting. Darn. He’s so cute.
“And you!” He glares at Ranboo now, whose eyes go wide as he stiffens on the couch. “Stop looking at me like that!”
“Like…like what?” Ranboo replies through giggles. Tommy notices him laughing, which only makes his cackles longer and louder and higher — which, of course, only makes Tubbo more exasperated.
“All soft-like. Don’t think I didn’t fuckin’ notice.” Ranboo can feel his fact heating up as Tommy decides to laugh at him now, his face glowing brilliant shades of green and red. Gods, I probably look like a freaking - a freaking Christmas tree.
“I didn’t—I wasn’t—“ he stammers, before he is very rudely interrupted by a loud THUMP against Tommy’s door.
“ATTENTION! THESE PREMISES ARE UNDER LOCKDOWN BY THE TIME POLICE!”
The rickety wooden doors to Tommy’s house burst open, and two heavily-clothed figures skulk into the small space. Both wear thick tan winter coats buttoned up to their mouths, with hoods that leave nothing but their eyes visible. Their gloves seem to be made of sealskin or some other animal-based material, based on their shine and thickness. One of the figures is tall and lanky. The other is short with a nonetheless strong build. The two would be indistinguishable, the way they’re clothed, if you didn’t already know them — but luckily, Ranboo doesn’t have that problem.
He recognizes Tubbo’s voice before he even lays eyes on his favorite coat.
“Attention,” Tubbo continues, low voice muffled by the thick fabric pressed up against his mouth. “This man is a fugitive who has escaped from Time Prison. We have been sent to bring him back to his cell and…um…re-prison him.”
“Re-imprison,” the taller figure whisper-shouts in a breathy falsetto — Tommy, evidently. “The word is re-imprison.”
“Oh, fuck off!” This time Tubbo uses his normal voice, spinning to glare at Tommy through crystal-blue eyes.
“I’m sorry, but what the fuck are you talking about?” another Tubbo-voice shouts. When Ranboo turns back around, he sees that Tubbo — past Tubbo? Old Tubbo — or, rather, young Tubbo? — has stood up from the couch, hands trembling just above his sword hilt. L’man-Tommy — that’s it — is standing, too, but his expression is more giddy than Tubbo’s, whose eyebrows are furrowed in confusion as he glares at the intruders.
“Oh. Um. Right,” Ranboo’s Tubbo continues, voice dropping to a strained baritone as he looks L’man-Tubbo up and down awkwardly. Ranboo has to admit, Tubbo’s voice sounds oddly nice that way. It brings a warmth to his chest that he’s not sure what to do with. Really, it’s embarrassing how lost in his own mind Ranboo gets when he looks at Tubbo. But — back to the voice. Ranboo hopes Tubbo doesn’t injure his throat doing that voice. He’s busy wondering what the right ratio of honey to tea is for a homemade throat-ache remedy when Tubbo — his Tubbo, the one cloaked in beige and brown and downy lining snaps a finger in his face. “Big guy,” he grumbles, but his voice is fond in that subtle Tubbo way, and oh, Ranboo realizes, I missed him. “Were you listening to anything I just said?”
“I - well -“
Tubbo sighs, because “I well” is as much of an answer as he needs. He looks around the room anxiously, and Ranboo follows his gaze to find L’man-Tubbo-and-Tommy staring back, something like defeat in their eyes. How long was I spaced out? “Fine. We…shouldn’t stay here too long. Would fuck with…time. Too much. Meet me outside in 5 so we can take you to…to the Jail of Time.”
“TIME PRISON!” Tommy shouts in a high voice. “It’s called time prison, Lord Blorgus!”
Tubbo glares fiercely at Tommy, but still nods in affirmation. “Yeah. What he said. Bye.” He waves curtly, dragging Tommy out the door with him, and Ranboo is left alone with the other Tommy and Tubbo in the Embassy, his tail nervously brushing against the floor as the three of them stand in silence.
“Guess Randall really isn’t a spy, huh?” Tommy cracks with an anxious chuckle, hands fidgeting at his side. Neither boy is reaching for a sword now, but Tubbo looks vaguely frustrated, and Tommy is whistling as he looks around the room, refusing to meet Ranboo’s eyes.
“What did- um- what did he tell you?” Ranboo asks slowly. To be honest, he’s not thrilled to hear what kind of lie Tubbo came up with to get him out of this situation. Tubbo’s lies always border on ridiculous, and Tommy’s far surpass it; the two of them combined can’t be anything good.
“To be honest,” Tubbo says, looking down at the ground. “To be honest, I’m not sure. Something about a Time Lord and interwoven timelines and…uh…a space unicorn?” Undoubtedly Tommy’s doing. “Is that…is that true, Randall?”
“Yes,” Ranboo says quickly, blinking three times (According to his Tubbo, it’s his tell; he’s an absolutely terrible liar, but this Tubbo doesn’t know it yet, so (mercifully) he doesn’t notice). “It’s…yeah. True.”
“So you lied, then,” Tubbo presses, staring up at the wall above the couch. “About not knowing how you got here.”
“Also yes.”
“And I’m assuming you can’t tell me anything about…the future, or anything like that? No advice or warnings?”
“…Nope,” Ranboo replies, after some deliberation. What else can he say? Never stop being like this; never stop caring? Caring doesn’t mean you’re weak, it means you’re strong enough to be vulnerable? I care about you, and it hurts to see you still caring so much about everything because I know what happens next? Better to just stay quiet. Ranboo drums his fingers against his thighs in a nervous rhythm as heavy silence hangs over the room.
Tubbo settles for a sigh and an “Alrighty then,” gesturing towards the door as nonchalantly as he can. “Shame, but I get it. Preserving the space-time continuum and all. Anyway, door’s that way. I reckon those fellas are out there waiting for you, and they seemed pretty impatient.”
“Yeah, door’s that way!” Tommy grins, finally speaking up. “Nice meeting you, Randall! Good luck in Time Prison!”
“Um…thank-thank you?” Should he - should Ranboo be thanking Tommy? He isn’t really going to Time Prison (he hopes) but he can’t quite tell them that, can he? Tubbo looks up at Ranboo one last time as he rises to his feet, as if he’s assessing him to gauge what else is fake.
“I’m still me,” Ranboo offers politely. “Sorry about the lies.”
“It’s fine,” Tubbo shrugs, standing up beside him. “Really. Hope you liked the stories.”
“I loved them. Thank you for sharing.”
“Any time.” Tubbo tries to seem nonchalant, but a tiny smile creeps onto his face and Ranboo grins giddily. Probably suspiciously. He should stop the grinning, but it’s already started and really, his Tubbo grin is not an easy one to get rid of. Gracefully, this Tubbo doesn’t notice. He and Tommy wave Ranboo off as he exits the house, trying his best to act like a person being sent to prison.
“Finally,” his Tubbo grumbles once Ranboo makes it outside, “Took you long enough.” He seems unfazed when Ranboo launches himself into his arms, though Tommy, standing to Tubbo’s right, feigns throwing up at the display of affection.
“You guys are G-R-O-S-S gross,” he says as they begin the walk back towards the walls of L’manburg. “Please get a room. There are other people here.”
“Ew, no, Tommy, we’re not like that,” Tubbo says, but instead of looking at Tommy, he smiles up at Ranboo, and it’s his Ranboo smile. Ranboo is still grinning his Tubbo grin, and all seems right with the world.
“Hi,” Ranboo murmurs into Tubbo’s side as they begin walking.
“Hello yourself,” Tubbo replies warmly. “You got into a bit of a sticky situation, huh?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“You suppose?” Tubbo raises an eyebrow and stops mid-path — whether to appraise some landmark or Ranboo, he can’t tell. He hopes it’s the latter. He thinks it would be nice to be appraised by Tubbo. “What d’you mean?”
“Well, I kind of did what I was here to do anyway, didn’t I? I learned about the war from the best source available — the people living it. Plus,” Ranboo adds, with as even a tone as he can manage, “plus, I got to see what you used to be like. Which was a bonus.”
“A bonus,” Tubbo coos sarcastically, and Tommy laughs from beside him. “I mean, good for you, man,” he continues, “but I don’t get what’s so appealing about talking to me. You know you can do that any time.”
“I know,” Ranboo responds, and when Tubbo smiles again a warmth blooms in Ranboo’s chest. “I know. But I guess...I guess you were different.”
“Different how?”
“Different, like…more open? More naïve,” Ranboo corrects quickly. “You seemed to trust me even though you barely knew me. And, like, I don’t know, you were still curious, but you were less private about it. You let yourself care about things.”
Silence. Bad response? Oh gods, bad response. Maybe implying that Tubbo is a closed-off untrusting hermit wasn’t the best game plan. Ranboo’s attempt at honesty is met with nothing but an unreadable expression from his husband. Hurt? No. Anger? No, not that.
Wistfulness?
“You’re not the only one who noticed differences,” Tommy picks up, quickly redirecting the conversation. Thank Gods for Tommy. “Everyone here still is fuckin’… in love with Wilbur. Even us. Even me.” He scoffs as if to emphasize his point, kicking at a few stray pebbles along the path’s edge. “S’weird." Ranboo silently recalls L’man-Tommy’s tirade about being invisible to his brother, and wonders if what Tommy calls love more resembles fear. He chooses not to bring up the question, instead settling for swinging his arms at his sides and listening as the discussion continues.
“Yeah,” Tubbo notes. “We passed by Niki on the way over here. Said something about hoping we weren’t on patrol again.” He glances at Tommy, hands fidgeting at his sides. “Were we really that busy back then? Doing shit for him?”
Tommy doesn’t respond. They all know the answer.
“Anyways. I guess I got what I came for too,” Tubbo admits, nodding towards Ranboo as Tommy looks on, confused. “Watching past-us — talking with Niki — I don’t know. L’manburg was fun enough at first, but what happened was always going to happen. It was ine-ineti-invetiteble.”
“Inevitable,” Ranboo murmurs.
“You think so?” Tommy says in a small voice. He wants to believe that it wasn’t, Ranboo thinks. More than anyone.
“…Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Tubbo comes to a full stop in front of one of the back walls of L’manburg, pulling out his communicator to check an application that blinks neon green.
“Maybe,” Ranboo interjects, gently touching Tubbo’s shoulder, “maybe not.” Tubbo flinches, and Tommy looks at him expectantly. “Maybe the war was avoidable, but…it still happened. Like, um…we’re people and we made choices, and sometimes those choices were, like…bad? And,” he gesticulates vaguely, “and it’s okay to take responsibility for that. Because maybe that is what led to- to everything. But that doesn’t mean it’s - it’s our fault. Because we cared, a lot. And we tried. You cared,” he says, voice lowering as he looks Tubbo in the eyes, trying desperately to make him understand. Please, just understand. “I can tell you did. Both of you.” Tubbo doesn’t speak — he just looks at Ranboo. He looks at Ranboo so long and hard that his gaze seems to burn Ranboo’s skin.
“We did,” Tommy finally admits, voice cracking. “We cared too fuckin’ much. God, I - ugh,” he whimpers, breathing heavily as Tubbo slowly reaches out to pat him on the back.
“We did care,” Tubbo says, simply and quietly. “And — we’re never gonna stop. Caring.”
“That’s - that’s not a bad thing,” Ranboo murmurs. “That’s not a bad thing.” He offers his hand to Tubbo, and to his surprise, Tubbo takes it. He runs his thumbs gently over Ranboo’s scarred knuckles, his other arm wrapped tightly around Tommy’s shoulder.
Ranboo thinks he could stay like this forever.
“How’re we supposed to get home now?” Tommy says, breaking the silence as he shrugs off Tubbo’s arm and moves to sit on a small ledge of rubble by the wall. Ranboo and Tubbo follow him, hands still intertwined. “That machine thingy isn’t anywhere near here.”
Tubbo shrugs casually, staring at his device’s screen and scrunching his nose at something that scrolls across it. “Walk, I guess? My communicator’s telling me the machine’s back in Snowchester, but since the water tunnel doesn’t exist yet and we can’t use our tridents, there’s no other way to get there.”
“You’re kidding me. Walk? To Snowchester? That’s like — a million miles away.”
“What, you in a rush?” Tubbo asks, mouth quirking up into a smile. “S’not like the machine’s going anywhere. Besides, we used to walk there all the time!”
“He’s got a point,” Ranboo adds with a grin. His palm is warm in Tubbo’s hand as he looks up into the sky, milky wisps of clouds drawing lazy circles in the air above him. The sky is tinged with a pale yellow — the first sign of sunset — and a warm summer breeze tangles itself in Ranboo’s hair. A part of him wishes he could stay here forever — sit on Tommy’s ledge, stare off into the distance, soak up the warmth of the sun as it melts into the horizon.
Winter always comes. Ranboo knows this better than anyone.
They will return to Snowchester. To the present. They’ve already begun the journey — which won’t be any longer than a couple of hours, plus whatever time Tommy’s grumbling and foot-dragging takes up. Snowchester — and the present server, as a whole — may be cold and bitter, Ranboo thinks, but it is home. L’manburg before the war seems to him to be a fragment of the past; it is a memory colored in gold, for those who lived it. L’manburg, which nestles itself in warm summer days, in a shining sun, in children running in grassy fields, in air abuzz with the sense that something big is coming.
And it is.
Or rather, it was. It did.
“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” Tubbo mumbles from beside him. He, too, is staring at the sun, and so is Tommy, bright gold flecks of light reflecting off of their clear blue eyes. Tommy’s are murkier than Tubbo’s — a deep blueish gray — but Tubbo’s are a true blue. An ocean blue. Ranboo could look into them forever.
“Everything. Nothing. L’manburg. Snowchester. Warmth. Cold.” He shifts uncomfortably under the sun’s gaze, which has blossomed into a brilliant red-orange against the pale, pink summer sky. “What - what about you?”
“Home,” Tubbo murmurs.
“Family,” Tommy adds, almost bitterly. “Promises.”
“You’re quite a bit more complicated than us, aren’t you?” Tubbo teases, shielding his eyes from the light of the sun. “Must be hard try’na sort out all that shit in your big ol’ noggin.”
“I don’t think about much,” Ranboo replies sheepishly. This is a lie. He thinks about quite a bit, like the summertime, and the wintertime, and the past, and the future, and change. Like growing up. His son. His husband. Tommy. He does not voice any of these thoughts; instead, he holds them close to his chest, secrets never to be uttered aloud.
“Mmm,” Tubbo’s eyes shutter closed, and his face arches ever so slightly towards the sun. It’s just now dipping below the skyline, a thin sliver of white fading to a pinprick and then to nothing. “Sure you don’t.”
Ranboo almost protests, but the tranquility that beams from Tubbo’s face is something he doesn’t want to take away — not just yet. Instead, he just nods, lets his head fall onto Tubbo’s shoulder, takes in the subtle, silent glow of twilight. Yes, they’ll go home — eventually. They have to. They all have responsibilities to attend to — and besides, Michael needs somebody to watch over him. If Ranboo is anything, he thinks, he is a good father. But as he stares far in the distance, into the wintry tundra that separates L’manburg and Snowchester, he allows a small grin to slip onto his face. His eyes drift closed. He thinks can appreciate this not-so-perfect fragment of the past for a little while longer.
There is something he has learned about L’manburg, a knowledge he has uncovered over weeks — no, months, of stories, arguments, nightmares, daydreams, secondhand memories he cannot understand, firsthand memories he cannot forget. This is his ultimate conclusion:
L’manburg may have been terrible, but gods, it was terrible in a terribly beautiful way.