Work Text:
Ranboo looks over the land he was given from the porch of Technoblade’s house. It was a lot of space, and he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Building wasn’t his strong suit, and he didn’t know how comfortable he is with stuff like this, specifically how close his house is to Techno.
He trusts Phil, he really does, but just because Technoblade doesn’t want to kill Ranboo doesn’t mean he won’t kill someone else, or even change his mind.
“This is home now,” He whispered to himself, “The other one’s gone now, remember?”
He closes his eyes. The sun gives him snow blindness more often than the other two that live here. His eyes work better in the dark.
Ranboo thought of the book in his pocket. The new “Do Not Read.”
Friends: Phil. Technoblade.
The list feels so short. Ranboo tried to keep it long. Now Niki and Fundy care more about hurting others than anything. And Tubbo…
His head stung as he tried to remember. He betrayed Tubbo, right? How did he do that? What was in the original Do Not Read?
Remembering things has been getting harder. He’s been trying harder to remember in retaliation against his own brain, but it does nothing but cause his head to ache.
He would look into his book, but didn’t want to be caught by Techno or Philza thinking that he’s writing stuff down about them. They’re all he has now, he wants them to trust him.
Speaking of, Phil had just popped out of the house to check on Ranboo.
“Hello,” He said cheerily, “It’s cold out here, innit? You alright in that suit?”
Ranboo looked at him for a split second, confused.
“Ah- Uh, no. Yeah. I… I like the cold.”
“Well, don’t get sick,” He laughed.
Ranboo laughed as well, but couldn’t carry the conversation.
Phil glanced at him.
“Whatcha doing?”
The other licked his lips behind his mask.
“Thinking… Of- Of my house,” He said, which was still the truth, but not all of it. “I like… dark oak, but it might look funny… next to spruce.”
He bowed his head, pretending that the wood was all that was eating away at his thoughts. Lying on the spot was becoming too easy, it scared Ranboo.
Phil smiled, “You don’t have to use only spruce, I’m sure your build will be great.”
This brought Ranboo to think about his other home. He didn’t build that place, but it felt cozy and made for him. You could feel how it was a homemade-home, but not in a bad way.
Ranboo didn’t know how to replicate that. He was a pretty good builder, sure, but his plans for homes were always a bit more than he could manage. Having a small house was nice, but easily cluttered. He remembered the feeling of losing the book, and looking around the whole server for it in a panic. It ended up being back in his own home. It might not have been Ranboo’s fault, because that’s not where he left it, but it would have been nice if all of the chests were easier to access. He had a habit of collecting more than he needed.
Phil let him out of his own head with, “Well, I’ll leave you to thinking, I’ll be in doing some curing an’ trading.” He stepped into the house. “Holler if you need anything,” He said with a smile, closing the door.
“Right,” Ranboo said, knowing the other couldn’t hear him.
Needless to say, he forgot what he had been thinking about before. He tried to follow his train of thought back, but to no avail.
He rubbed his eyes and adjusted his mask. He could remember this insanely white snow burning into his eyes, for sure. His headache wasn’t going away.
Ranboo hunched over, bringing his hands to his temples to massage them.
“Deep breaths, it’s not gonna kill us.”
There was the sudden feeling of something crawling down his face, right above his lip.
He plucked off the mask hurriedly, swatting at the feeling with his hand. Instead of leaving, that crawling feeling spread and warmed, and for a moment, Ranboo worried he had just killed a bug on his mouth.
He wiped it with his left thumb, thoroughly grossed out. When he pulled his hand away, however, all that showed up was a spot of red.
Blood. Red blood, warm blood. It made sense, it was his left nostril that bled.
He brought up his darker hand, wiping the other on his pants. Deep red showed up too much on the white of his left side. When he pulled away, green accompanied the spot of red. There goes the other side.
He stared at it, wide eyed, for more seconds than he realized. The headache zoned him back in. A hard blink tried, and failed, to shoo it away. He wiped his nose with the darker hand, and kept it plugged. It wasn’t stopping. The headache, the nosebleed, any of it. His eyes squinted shut. This was getting to be a bit much.
His hand was getting covered in blood, and he was breathing heavily through his mouth, trying not to panic. He used his other hand to stop the blood now.
Ranboo stumbled to the side, having lost stability from the fence. His left arm shot up so he wouldn’t hit the wall as his legs failed him. The wall was further away than he thought, it hit his forearm harder than he intended, an ache rushing through his elbow. His fingers dug into his palm, the pain in his head pulsing through him.
Cold air filled his lungs as he breathed heavily through his mouth. There were no puffs of his breath, his body doesn’t get warm enough for that, but his nose felt burning hot, and the splitting ache in his head was tearing him up. He tasted blood.
His eyes stayed squinted shut, keeping out the blinding light of the snow. He seemed to twitch violently. Violet sparks flew around him, though he couldn’t see them.
“Phil?” He called out, his voice muffled and nasally from plugging his nose, “You have tissues?”
He opened one eye, seeing a very dark, deep purple room. Particles still lingered outside his vision. His eyes needed a second to adjust. Signs were plastered all over the walls, droplets of some purple-y substance fell from the low ceiling. His hand left his face in terrified confusion, allowing the blood to drip further.
The room was quiet, and very still. Once he’d moved his animals, it felt so dead.
He wiped his hand and covered his nose again. It’s not the time to think about how he got to the panic room, it’s time to leave the panic room.
The signs on the walls seemed to stare at him. The book was deep in his inventory. He knew if he stayed there a minute more, he’d start hearing… things.
The crown on his head was removed and replaced with a water-repelling helmet. He took a deep breath - not for the water, rather for calming himself down - and swam to the surface.
He jumped out of the ocean and ran along the shore to the edge of the L’Manberg crater.
“Why does the portal have to be so dang far,” He grumbled.
The sun was setting, which was kind of annoying. It’s hard to fight things when you have to use one hand to plug your nose and obscure your vision. He sprinted around the canyon, twitching every so often and screwing up his walking speed. It was odd, like a shudder throughout his whole body, making him trip in the middle of a step and send a chill up his spine.
Ranboo had made it up the large portion of stairs on the Prime Path, and caught a glimpse of Tommy’s house, of which Tubbo and Tommy were working on. Tommy was outside facing in, and Tubbo was vice versa, so he saw Ranboo speeding past. They said something to Tommy that the ender couldn’t make out, and Tommy nodded, apparently allowing Tubbo to come running out.
“Ranbo’!” He shouted, trying to catch up, “Wait up, where you going, big man?”
Ranboo slowed to a stop, now not having a choice, saying awkwardly, “Uh. Hey.”
“Why are you plugging your…” The smaller looked at him, humor in his voice, before noticing the red and bright green and exclaiming, “Are you bleeding!?”
“Um, maybe a little?” The other looked around, uncomfortable with the eye contact. His response came off as more of a question. “You have a tissue?”
Tubbo thought for a split second, then began to fumble with the jacket of his presidential suit, now tied around his waist. They pulled out a yellow handkerchief from one of the pockets and handed it to the other boy.
“Are you sick? Get inside, get inside, you look awful,” He said, tugging at his friend’s wrist cuffs into Ninja’s house, the closest empty room.
“Tommy’s building, this’ll be fine,” He mumbled his reasoning.
Ranboo has a hard time saying no. In general, for sure, but more so to Tubbo. He followed the other in and sat on the bed he was gestured to. Tubbo looked around a few chests for tissues or cloth, only finding a few pieces of paper.
They turned to Ranboo, saying, “What happened? Did you hurt yourself?”
He stood in front of the bleeding boy, at eye level. Worry furrowed his eyebrows and curved his lips downward.
Ranboo met their eyes for a split second, but couldn’t maintain it.
“It's just… One of those random nosebleeds, y’know?”
A half-truth to Phil, a half-truth to Tubbo.
Why are you like this, he scolded himself.
“You’re bleeding everywhere! Gonna need a new handkerchief after this, it's fuckin’ drenched!” He whispered a shout. He didn’t intend it to sound harsh, it was more meant as a “Surely it wasn’t just “random.””
“I- I’ll get you a new one. It's fine, you can go back to Tommy.”
Tubbo seemed taken aback.
“You’re bleeding, Ranbo’.”
“Uh. Yeah, that I am, indeed.”
The smaller stared, as if personally offended.
“Why would I go back to Tommy if you’re bleeding?”
It was worded as a question, but he sure wasn’t asking anything.
Ranboo tried to meet his eyes, flicking his focus to them repeatedly, but still not able to hold contact. In what seemed to be as a punishment, his head pulsed in ache. It had stopped for a minute, but it was back now. His eyes shut again.
“I’ve just got… A headache, Tubbo.”
The other quieted, contemplating.
Their hand plucked off the crown from Ranboo’s head, coming to a decision.
“Hold this,” He said.
Ranboo took the crown from the other, thoroughly confused.
“Um,”
“Trust me, I’m a witch doctor,” Tubbo stated, before the other could get a word in. His tone made it unclear if it was as a joke or not.
Before he knew it, Ranboo felt small fingers in his hair, massaging his head.
Oh, he thought, That’s nice. Gosh, human hands are warm.
And Tubbo’s were, for once. Ranboo relaxed immediately. He hadn’t felt comfort like this in a while. Hell, he hadn’t felt warmth like this in a while. Even his comfort room, filled with netherrack, couldn’t get the genuine feeling of a person. His eyes closed gently, relishing in it.
The enderman part of him made the cold feel liveable, but that didn’t mean heat wasn’t comfortable. Something in Ranboo missed it, he missed being warm like this.
Tubbo was warm, even when his hands weren’t. His body radiated heat, Ranboo could feel it across his head and on his legs. He didn’t realize how cold he was before now.
He twitched again, then shivered.
Tubbo fluffed the monochrome hair back, raising an eyebrow.
“What was that?” They asked.
“Uh,” Ranboo said, “I’ve been all twitchy. I can guarantee it is much more annoying than it seems.”
The room was silent as Tubbo thought, still rubbing the other’s head.
“There were a bunch of ender particles though, is that normal?” He said.
Ranboo’s eyes opened slowly.
““Ender particles”?” He echoed. It felt awkward still, with the napkin still plugging his nose and making his voice funny.
“Yeah,” The other said, absentmindedly, “Like in front of an ender portal.”
“That’s… not normal, no.”
Tubbo looked at him, and they locked eyes. Ranboo didn’t seem to notice.
“Where do they come from?” He asked, looking down at his hands.
Tubbo followed his gaze, explaining, “Well, like, when you twitched, it kinda just… Fell offa’ you. Off of your skin, where you moved.”
Their hands came off of Ranboo’s head. He sat down next to him, paying careful attention.
They both stared at the mismatched hands for a second.
“Can you- Could you do it again? The- the hair,” The taller stuttered awkwardly.
Tubbo, understanding immediately, reached his hand up and ran it through the other’s hair, flipping it over.
Ranboo let himself twitch again. He blinked as it happened, but he saw the effect. Little purple particles fell off of him, across his arms and legs.
Why was that happening? What did it mean?
Tubbo seemed to reach a conclusion first, looking at the other and shouting his question, “Are you teleporting!?”
They shot up to their feet, now at eye-level to their friend again.
“Teleporting...?” Ranboo mumbled.
“Like, into the same place? Is that a thing endermen do?”
Ranboo looked up from his hands into his friend’s excited, curious eyes, before blinking away.
He shakily brought his left hand to his nose to adjust the handkerchief, now thoroughly covered in mismatched blood. He seemed scared of doing it again, scared to feel anything from his own hands.
“Is it?” Tubbo repeated his question.
“I-I…” He stumbled over his words, “I don’t know, I don’t… I don’t remember…”
The smaller softened his demeanor, recognizing his friend’s pain.
“Hey, hey, It’s alright, big man,” He spoke softly.
Their hands came up again to hold Ranboo’s head. Ranboo would have argued against it, saying it made the twitching worse, but at this point, it did more good than harm.
He felt bad. He took Tubbo away from building his house with his best friend. He hated being so dependent, but the feeling of those fingers feathering through his hair kept him from saying anything.
It’s not gonna happen again, a selfish little bit of him whispered, Cherish it while you can, while you’re still a priority.
“No,” He responded, barely audible.
“Hm?”
“I’m sorry,” Ranboo began to sit up straighter.
“Ahp-“ The other cut him off, “Save your dumb apologizing. I’m gonna get you tissues, because that handkerchief is doing nothing.”
“Tubbo,”
Their hands came down from Ranboos hair to holding his face and squishing it, silencing him.
“Ranboo,” He said, mocking in a lighthearted tone.
Ranboo’s face burned in response, his lips taught into a line.
Tubbo left the small hut and he watched them go into the dirt lump across the path.
The shoulders of the ender fell once he realized they were stiff. His face felt all warm, and even warmer where it had been held.
He watched his hands, attempting to stop them from twitching again, but failing.
Ranboo needed to go back. He needed to leave. Tubbo’s gonna come back and ask questions, and Ranboo is supposed to tell them the truth.
He doesn’t know if he can do “truth.” Even if he wanted to.
“It’s better to…” He said to himself.
To not talk about it. To run.
“To…”
Back to the cold.
He shivered.
If Tubbo knows, then he’ll get hurt. What if he tells Tommy?
“He wouldn’t. Tubbo trusts me.”
Why?
“I… Why?”
Ranboo looked around the empty home, paranoid of something, looking for an answer.
He shouldn’t.
“He shouldn’t… trust me. God, I’ve done nothing but be a liability. Here he is, building a house for his homeless friend, and I rush in all “Oh help my head hurts, oh no” and he helps me even though he was obviously with his- with a friend that won’t freaking backstab him…”
The rambling boy had teleported around 7 times during his whole monologue, and not stopping there. He felt so mad, so disappointed, in his own self.
He heard a door across the path open, and forced himself to calm.
“Ranboo, what are you doing up walking around?” Tubbo asked as he came in, “You need to chill out, if you’re bleeding ‘n you’ve got a headache.”
A bit of blood fell past the handkerchief, now completely useless. Ranboo took it out of his nose. Tubbo offered a box of tissues and began to bunch them up to be used as blood stoppers.
Ranboo sat on the bed again, so very lost in his own thoughts. His nose burned, it must be from teleporting such a distance and so many times.
Tubbo stayed quiet, for whatever reason. They had lost the haughty air from before, and their aura was thin with fear and thought. Ranboo always thought he had been familiar with Tubbo’s aura colors, but a new one would always show up that he couldn’t understand. Right now it was a steely blue, and barely visible. Blue was a calming or logical color for most, but how did Tubbo feel about it?
Spots of red floated around them. The distraction was soothing. Tubbo was fidgeting with a tissue. Ranboo’s nose was plugged, but the tissues were quickly dirtying.
“Why do you want me to leave you?”
Not a question Ranboo was prepared for, nor one was he zoned-in enough to answer immediately.
“Uh, sorry?” He blinked.
Tubbo tilted their head and looked away, shrugging, “You obviously want me gone, or to go hang with Tommy or something.”
Ranboo turned away, grimacing.
“He’s your friend. You guys have stuff to do- I don’t wanna get in the way of- of anything.”
“Ranbo’,” Tubbo raised his voice, not really shouting but enough to make himself seem bigger, “You’re my friend.”
They looked away, realizing they were staring right at him. Ranboo had begun shivering again, but it slowed down.
Ranboo shook his head, trying to find the right words as he spoke, “You’ve got… A big thing soon, I don’t want to… Distract you from Tommy or…”
He ducked his head down and shifted to get to his feet again. Before he could, small, strong hands gripped his shoulders and held him still.
“Ranboo.”
Tubbo wasn’t looking into his eyes, but above him, apparently at his crown. Ranboo looked back into theirs, though. Tubbo’s tone was stern, almost angry, and probably disappointed.
The warmth of his hands was felt once again, now on Ranboo. The taller accidentally zoned out thinking about them, fixated on how the heat seemed to drip through the fabric of his suit and contaminate his skin.
“You are one of my best friends,” Tubbo said, his tone seeming too pissed off for his words.
Ranboo bit at his lips as his face flushed. He knew that already, of course, but hearing it in that tough love sense -not the fake “tough love” that the adults of the server tried to justify, but the genuineness of the statement- pulled at his heartstrings quite a bit.
Tubbo continued this lecture, “As far as I know, Tommy isn’t bleeding and teleporting around right now. I know my priorities, Ranbo’.”
Their face softened, and their eyes closed. He slouched forward, and his forehead leaned onto his friend’s. Ranboo flinched. His face can get warm naturally, but Tubbo’s skin burned.
“Don’t… decide them for me,” He mumbled.
A breath was let out through his nose. Ranboo would have followed if his own wasn't plugged, so he blew out of the side of his mouth.
Tubbo’s grip on his friend’s shoulder tightened, and he stood up straight.
“And I’m gonna stay here and tell you how happy I am to have you ‘till you understand it,” He declared. His eyes shone with determination. How he spoke changed from serious to that fake anger that Tubbo usually jokes around with.
Ranboo started to laugh, but was cut off by his friend throwing their arms around him, attaching themself to him as a cozy hug.
This was nice. It felt… homely. He hugged back. Ranboo never had a home that felt complete. L’Manberg felt unsafe and on the brink of destruction. Out in the arctic, it’s cold and untrusting. Tubbo was warm, though. Kind of like assurance. Knowing things might not always be the best case scenario, but that’s okay. The world can be worked on, people can be worked on.
The two of them sat in silence for a while. Ranboo sat in a cross-legged position, and Tubbo was slung over and around him, holding on tight. Ranboo noticed their heartbeat slowing down, and tried to let his own follow.
It was very quiet. After a few minutes, Ranboo noticed just how slow Tubbo’s heartbeat had gotten. He blinked his eyes open as he realized what that meant.
“Tubbo?” He said. He wiped the bit of blood from his hands on his pants and tapped the other’s back lightly. They were asleep.
Ranboo laughed as quietly as possible, trying not to move.
“I think I get it now, Tubbo,” He joked.
His white hand rubbed the brunet’s back, both as soothing and trying to wake him up.
Tubbo shifted, their hands clenching and unclenching the back of the other’s suit. He inhaled through his nose, waking up. He leaned back, now kneeling on the bed in front of Ranboo.
“Ah,” The smaller smiled, a shade of red covered his sleepy face, “Maybe I shouldn’t hug you for too long, then.”
The ender boy grinned in return, shrugging one shoulder. Closing his eyes slowly, he nodded.
“Thanks, Tubbo.”
The other lolled his head to the side, tired but content. He reached over for the tissue box, and handed it to Ranboo.
“For the road,” He giggled.
Tubbo hopped off the bed, tiredness still rather evident. Ranboo got to his feet as well.
“Alright,” The smaller boy said, voice strained as he stretched the tired out of him, “I’ll let you be on your way. You feel alright enough to get home, right?”
Ranboo nodded, “Yeah, yeah.”
His friend sighed happily. The two of them headed outside, onto the path.
“See you later then, Memory Boy,” Tubbo said, looking up at the other with a smile.
“See ya’, Tubbo,” Ranboo replied.
“One more hug,” The smaller one demanded, wrapping his arms tightly around the other.
Ranboo laughed, but wasn’t able to hug back, as his arms were pinned to his sides.
As they let go, Tubbo beamed.
“Byeee!! Feel better, Ranbo’!”
They began to go their separate ways, Ranboo continuing along the Prime Path, and Tubbo going back into Tommy’s house. They waved at each other until their name-tags were out of view.
Ranboo took the nether route back to the arctic, happier than when he accidentally left. He didn’t notice how little he was teleporting, if at all.
Tubbo went down a ladder into the room that was planned for training, to see Tommy looking over their supplies.
“There you are,” The blond exclaimed upon his friend’s arrival, “You’ve been gone so long, I thought Ranboo’d killed you, and I just missed it in chat.”
Tubbo chuckled and rolled his eyes.
“Oh come on,” They laughed, “Ranboo would never.”