Chapter Text
The next day was a similar swirl of instinctual calls and offerings of affection as all the others were before it, but there was something off.
It was the most Ranboo'd been out of the nest in a while, pacing throughout the house while their guardians watched them, one wringing his hands anxiously while the other remained impassive.
Ranboo checked the locks on all the doors and windows, which were all securely in place, so that wasn't it. They weren't hungry, they had eaten a solid meal of greens and meat not even an hour before, and reaffirming that their guardians weren't upset with them went smoothly, both of them releasing sounds as close as they could get to reassuring. They were both content, it seemed, and Ranboo hadn't done anything wrong. So what was it?
“You doin’ alright, mate?” Phil asked, concern lacing his tone as he pressed a hand to their shoulder. Ranboo gave a mournful chuff and buried their face into the soft folds of his robe, marginally relaxing as Phil’s wings came up to encircle them, but it still wasn’t right. “Maybe you should come back to the nest. You want to look over your stash? That might help, right?”
That did sound nice, but it also didn’t sound right. There was something missing, and the loss ached in their chest, but they couldn’t think, and they didn’t know what they needed and- they whined, shaking their head as they pressed themselves closer and Phil started running his fingers through their hair.
And unfortunately for them it seemed like their guardians were as lost as they were.
"Can you try usin' your words, kid?" Techno asked, pressing in close from behind them and bringing with him so much heat. Ranboo melted even more, but it wasn’t enough to dislodge the nagging feeling from their chest, the itching sense of loss that made them release a mournful rattling wail into the thick green robes of their guardian. They didn’t know if there were words to describe what this feeling was, or even come close to it. And it certainly didn’t help that they themself couldn’t confidently say what was wrong either.
“Iiiiimma take that as a no, then.” Techno said, his tone edged with nerves and his own concern, making Ranboo hunch deeper into themself.
Why was this so hard? Everything had been fine, wonderful even, but then they had just woken up with this pit in their chest…
Jerking themself away, they poked their head back in their nest room, making sure that their horde was still piled high at the head of said nest, just as it should be. They sorted through their treasures, running careful claws over every jewel and precious metal, but it was all there, everything accounted for.
Phil was hovering in the doorway when they turned, Techno’s hand on his shoulder probably the only thing keeping their guardian from smothering them with concern again, though that didn’t sound that bad. Especially not to their muddled, instinct-driven mind.
Why worry about what was lost when they could just ignore it all by burrowing into their nest while sandwiched by their two guardians?
Except that they had already tried that this morning and it hadn’t worked.
They whined, fingering over their horde again, but it was perfect, not a single jewel chip or gold nugget out of place. They checked the single window in the nest room, and no, no, nope, that was as secure and sturdy as Ranboo could ever hope a wooden window to be. They were going in circles again, though it felt more like their brain was being sucked into a whirlpool instead, circular and spiraling.
“-know, I mean, Wilbur was never like this…” Ranboo heard Phil fret behind them.
“You’ve gotta have some kinda idea. I know even less than you do, and believe me, it’s not a very pogchamp role to fill.” Techno insisted softly, his r's rolling a bit with his grumbling concern. "Shoats aren't ever this anxious when they're in bastions, and-"
Ranboo keened again, claws digging into the window frame until it creaked under the stress. There was something wrong, they could feel it, as clearly as they could feel the frigid glass against their forehead as they leaned forward, sagging under the weight of the emotions hollowness out their chest. Were they just stuck feeling like this, like someone had abandoned them out in the cold to starve?
Wrenched their claws free and started anxiously brushing and tugging at their hair instead, trying to force themself to focus, to form thoughts cognizant enough to figure out why this was happening. They'd been fine just the day before, right? And nothing- nothing had happened between then and now, they didn't think. No intruders, no thieves, no shortage of food. What could it be-
Their fingers caught on something smooth, an irregular but familiar circle around their left horn. With fumbling digits they tugged at it and it smoothly came loose, revealing a simple band of gold, one that suddenly felt incredibly misplaced sitting in their palm.
The ache in their chest immediately alleviated, but just as quickly returned tenfold as everything suddenly clicked into place.
Needmate:needbaby:familylost
They could distantly feel the burning tracks down their cheeks, the solid hands pressing on their arms and face, the desperate call of their name in their ears. The chuffing and warbles that soon followed made them flop limply back, cradled so similarly to how their guardians had first held them. They curled their hands around the ring, pressing it close to their chest as they closed their eyes, releasing plaintive and searching cries to the air. But there wasn't any way their family could hear them this far away, and they weren't - they couldn't just leave the safety of their nest and the guardians who were looking after them. Their chest ached as their instincts and thoughts fought with each other, warring loudly in their mind.
"-anboo! Ranboo!" Phil called, his voice slowly coming into focus as his cool hands pressed gently against their cheeks and attempted to wipe their tears away. "Wha-what's going on mate, how can I- can I-"
His voice devolved into his incomprehensible chirps, and as Ranboo opened their eyes, still cloudy with gathered tears, they could make out the shape of their guardian hunched over. He had his hand clasped over his mouth, shoulders hitching with suppressed chirps as his brows were furrowed low in clear frustration. Ranboo whine wordlessly again, reaching out toward Phil, who easily caught their flailing hand with his own free one and pressed it close to his chest. But that wasn't- that wouldn't- they warbled in frustration, trying to tug their hand free. They couldn't find the words, didn't have cognizance enough to actually voice what they now knew was wrong, but if Ranboo could just show them both-
"Phil, you need to calm down!" Techno commanded, sounding far more in control than either of them. Ranboo clung onto that voice, grumbling and consistent. Surely if their guardian was this calm, they would know how to help, how to fix everything, right? "Kid, I get that this is very overwhelmin', but I need you to also calm down. Like, most of whatever you've got going on, me and Phil can probably... well, I won't say we can fix it because I, personally, am not a fan of makin' empty promises, but we can at the very least try an' help you out, okay? So just relax. Deep breaths, there ya go."
They were trying to listen, sucking in deep breaths even as the sting of their cheeks and the pit in their chest just made them want to curl up and sob. But their guardian- Ranboo looked toward them for reassurance, for guidance, and was met with an unwavering calm, red eyes half-lidded and soft around the edges as he stared back at them. Another breath in, and another, following the steady rise and fall of their guardian's own breathing, they were finally able to uncurl their finger to reveal the ring. It shone in the low light, the worn gold band standing starkly against the pitch-black skin of their palm. Techno leaned forward to study it, brows furrowed in mild confusion, but beside him, Phil had already jolted in realization, staring at the ring with wide eyes.
"What's-"
"Oh, Gods, I know what wrong."
Phil didn't know what to do.
His thoughts were running around in circles. Nestlings were babies, with barely any life experience to support themselves, and therefore they needed to be taken care of. Ranboo, who was a Dragon hybrid, had just enough experience that they had started a family all of their own, child and all. Phil couldn’t allow strangers in the nest, for Ranboo’s safety, but… he couldn’t just separate a parent from their child, and that included Tubbo. For all the grudges between him and Tubbo, Phil knew that Ranboo wouldn’t have settled for someone who wasn’t worth their time, who didn’t care for their own child.
He trudged through the icy tundra, turning the problem over and over in his mind.
Keep his new nestling safe, needs to be near their child though, can’t just bring strangers here, are they really strangers? Around and around, working himself up into a stressed mess that was anxiously over-preening his wings again. He was leaving a breadcrumb trail of feathers in his wake, but he couldn't really pay attention to that right now. He forced himself to focus, to take this one step at a time. Techno believed he knew what he was doing, and so he would. He'd make a plan that would solve this issue.
And the first step was getting to Snowchester to begin with.
Which in of itself was already proving to be a herculean task. Every inch of him was screaming to go back to his nest, to sooth the still-distressed nestling that was swaddled there, be he forced himself to continue. Techno was there, he would make sure that Ranboo was taken care of and as calm as possible until Phil returned. Okay, okay, he just needed to focus, to wrap his mind around the problem and come up with a solution before he actually got to Snowchester with no plan at all. He'd never been so grateful that a place was so far away before, even while the bird in his was screeching in fierce agony at the distance with every step.
"Tubbo isn't a stranger." Phil said aloud to the frigid air, trying to convince himself and his instincts at the same time. "He isn't government anymore, because we blew it up. Ranboo is paired with Tubbo, and that makes him flock. Ranboo has a child with Tubbo, who is also flock."
It didn't sound real, even as he said it.
He knew that both him and Techno and Tubbo had some unspoken truce between them after doomsday happened, mostly due to their shared relationship with Ranboo. It had only become more solidified in Phil's mind when he'd been allowed to meet Michael, had seen how protective both Tubbo and Ranboo had been over their little ball of energy. Phil wouldn't have dared threaten that, at least not seriously, and though he understood Ranboo's hesitance when telling Techno, Phil doubted he would feel any different. They might've been anarchy-fueled terrorists, but that had far more to do with the taking-down of governments than the destruction of a family household that their neighbor-turned-chick was a part of.
Even with all of that unsaid between them, Phil still had a difficult time separating Tubbo from the government he'd been a part of. It was so easy to see his face there, after Wilbur's... departure, during the house arrest, during Techno's attempted execution... Tubbo'd been there for all of it, had been directing all of it. It was a tangled mess in Phil's mind, but one he'd never had a reason to pick apart before now. But now here he was, trying to convince his mind and his instincts that there was no threat to be wary of here, even while he still didn't feel confident in that summation.
So many people on this server seemed obsessed with the idea of revenge, even if it was so often to their detriment; putting so much stock in buildings and items that could all just be made again, instead of the people they were losing. Tubbo had gone off on his own and had started a family with one of the most neutral parties on the server, though one who had also been a part of the government for a time. Who'd also been peer pressured into taking part in all of those activities Tubbo had been, but was clearly apologetic about it, and was actively trying to make it better.
Phil sighed, forcing his mind to trace over those facts again and again.
He needed to at least give Tubbo a chance to prove he was better than the circumstances Phil had met him in. He was the same age as Ranboo after all, and Phil knew better than most that wisdom was not often bestowed upon the young. Gods, listen to him. If Techno heard him say something like that, he'd just call Phil a boomer again, and this time it wouldn't be wholly undeserved.
"Fuuuck me." He groaned, tugging at his hat. Sooner he could get this over with the better he supposed. At the very least it would be easy for his instincts to accept another child into the nest without much fuss, so he wasn't too worried about Michael. "I am way too old for this shit."
Ranboo was, in no uncertain terms, missing.
Or at least as far as Tubbo could tell.
While they hadn't necessarily said outright they were planning on visiting again, there was a certain routine they'd both fallen into, especially after they'd brought Michael home. Ranboo adored their son, and was loath to leave either of them, but they'd had appearances they needed to maintain and a whole second home to care for, so their time was often split between the two. And though, yes, he was aware Ranboo had memory issues and sometimes lost a day or two to them, it had never kept them away for a whole week, not without sufficient warning.
The issue now was, trying to figure out where they were, if they were okay, and how best to get that information without risking himself in the process. Because he and Techno were still not on terribly friendly terms these days, even after Tubbo had decided to just shore up north and try to live his life as peacefully as he could, and Phil still had some issues with him after the whole house-arrest-then-ransacking-his-house-to-arrest-his-friend thing. Which, you know, was fair, and he could admit that now, months out of office.
Gods, just not being president anymore had put so many things into perspective once he'd sat down and actually thought about everything. He'd never agree with the methods, and there would always be some part of him that missed L'Manberg dearly, but maybe Techno was right about how corrupting the government could be. Just a bit.
But anyways, the point was that he couldn't just waltz over to their commune looking for Ranboo, casual as you please, unless he actually wanted to get his face ruthlessly caved in with an axe or maybe even a wither skull if he was really unlucky. He'd started looking everywhere else first, the spider spawner, their still-being-constructed hotel, Ranboo's expansive mine, though that last one took more than a few hours and had resulted in a lot of nothing but added stress and frustration.
He really needed to talk to Ranboo about putting torches down there, it was a breeding ground for mobs.
He'd talked to anyone he'd come across, but no one had seen Ranboo for a week, same as him. No one had any clues as to their whereabouts either, or at least nothing he hadn't already thought of. He'd almost resorted to asking Tommy or Ghostbur to check in on the commune for him, but both snow and travel weren't great for Ghostbur as a whole, and Tommy was potentially on even worse terms with the two than even Tubbo was, so that idea was out.
The irony that the only person that he would've ever seriously considered for the job was also the one missing was not lost on him.
He collapsed into his chair in front of the fire while clutching Michael to his chest, already exhausted even this early in the morning. The toddler had been unreasonably fussy nearly the entire time Ranboo had been missing, had clung persistently to Tubbo's leg whenever he'd tried to leave to go search for them, and had cried whenever Tubbo had even made a move towards the door, as if he was afraid of Tubbo also disappearing.
Which was something he understood better than he hoped his son would ever have to know, But it also wasn't something Tubbo could remedy by sitting around, and it was still far too dangerous to even consider taking Michael with him anywhere. Gods, even just keeping him here was dangerous enough in and of itself, now that more people had become aware of Snowchester. But he was also really starting to worry for Ranboo, because the relative age of peace that seemed to have fallen across the server was a tenuous one, and one that could be upset at anytime, and with Ranboo having been missing for so long, with no evidence of their presence anywhere on the server in all of that time...
A knock at the door shook him out of his thoughts, and then immediately set him on edge when he realized the implications of someone knocking on his door.
Tommy, Foolish, and Ranboo would just walk in, already knowing they were invited. Most other members on the server that he could think of beside them wouldn't be eager to announce their presence so blatantly, and even if someone was looking for him for whatever reason, that didn't mean they hadn't done something, set some trap while Tubbo was distracted. He stood, shushing Michael, though it was unnecessary as his son was frozen in his arms, one eye fixed towards the front door with an intensity that would've saddened Tubbo if he'd had the time for it. Stepping lightly, he slowly nudged Michael up into his loft, pressing a finger to his lips before he closed the trap door behind him, summoning his axe to his hand with a flick of the wrist.
He didn't see anything suspicious when he glanced out the windows, but he wasn't stupid enough to think that really meant anything. He moved closer to the door as quietly as he could, almost jumping out of his skin when another series of knocks came, more insistent than before.
"Tubbo, mate?" Came a voice, familiar but also pitched with uncharacteristic panic, and Tubbo nearly opened the door right then and there because what in the Hells was Philza Minecraft doing here? They hadn't spoken to each other since he'd been over here with Techno and Niki, trying to see if Snowchester was some kind of government or something. And that... Well, at the very least Tubbo had made it very clear that he wasn't something to be fucked with, both because Snowchester wasn't a government and also because Tubbo was not afraid of retaliation. "Tubbo, are you in there?"
His fingers hesitated just shy of opening the door, wrinkling his nose as he considered his options. He'd never heard Phil sound like this, which in and of itself wasn't a good sign, but also Phil was neighbors, friends even, with Ranboo. Tubbo had been so worried about going to try and ask after his husband and now Phil was just at his door. He didn't know whether or not it felt too good to be true or completely expected.
Taking a risk, he hesitantly shouted back, "Phil? Did you need something, boss man? I wasn't really expecting visitors."
"I need your help." Phil called back, his voice sounding both relieved and pleading at the same time, and something heavy settled in Tubbo's gut, some emotion just left of dread. "It's Ranboo."