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Technically, it's a whole new day.
Technically, it's been hours since Dream was killed, imprisoned, defeated- since Tubbo and Tommy walked off into the unknown, armored up, one energetic and optimistic, the other afraid and remorseful.
Technically, it's been hours, and even if the waiting felt like days -what if Punz is lying what if he's wrong what if I blackout what if we're too late- the whole thing is still too close for comfort. He wishes it could be months behind him already, that Dream's voice could be gone from his head; then maybe the guilt and dread would stop choking him.
But it's been hours, not even a day, so here is Ranboo, valiantly not shaking in the ruins of the house he didn't destroy, after all.
"Oh," says someone, stumbling upon him, most likely. "Hey, big man. What're you doing here?"
It's Tubbo, which is a kindness in the sense that at least it's someone he knows. Tubbo's not harmless, full of harm, actually, unpredictable and a bit terrifying, but they like each other, Ranboo's pretty sure, and if there's one thing he is it's loyal.
He just picks unfortunate things to be loyal to, in Ranboo's humble opinion.
Tubbo's safe, as much as anything is. Quackity whispered in sad tones that he defended Ranboo last time. L'manburg's gone, so I won't go after you, had said the man, and Tubbo would be pissed at me anyway. Told me off the first time.
That'd been news to Ranboo; or perhaps he'd just forgotten it. He'd gotten his book out and added more question marks next to Tubbo's name.
"Ranboo, you alright, man?" Asks Tubbo. It's a fair question to ask, if one he dreads. Is he alright? Well. If you could give him a bit of time to think it over, please and thank you.
"Everything's fine!" He manages to get out, only it comes out high and a bit hysterical. Tubbo clearly doesn't buy it, and he doesn't even pretend to like Phil or Techno sometimes do, damn him.
"You don't sound like you're fine," he says. "What're you doing in the middle of the Community House? That's a bit strange, not gonna lie."
"Uh," hesitates Ranboo, searching for a way to say I was going to walk home but my panic attack got the best of me that isn't that precise sentence. "What're you doing here?"
"Man," says Tubbo. "The weirdest thing happened. Wilbur talked to us. I think it upset Tommy a little, honestly. He's had-" he laughs lightly- "a day."
They've all had a day, wants to point Ranboo, but it'd come out completely hysterical, he thinks. "Wilbur? You mean, Ghostbur?" He asks instead.
"Nah," waves off Tubbo. "Proper Wilbur. With the complaining and teasing and all that." He sounds nostalgic.
"Oh," says Ranboo. "I- never really knew him."
There's a silence.
"Wait, isn't Wilbur dead?"
Tubbo shrugs. "Yeah," he confirms. "It was weird, I tell you."
"I'm sure," agrees Ranboo faintly. "And- where's Tommy now?"
Tubbo shakes his head. "Wandered off. Gone to thank people, I think, for- well, saving our lives, you know. Thank you, by the way." He laughs again, armorless, soot and blood still all over him, visible even in the night. "Reckon I wouldn't have survived if you all hadn't been here. I mean, Dream was literally about to kill me."
There's this thing about Tubbo, where he says perfectly horrifying things out loud, and then moves on like Ranboo isn't helplessly concerned. Whoops, my sword just broke, as they fend off cave spiders, or aw, I just fell off the path, while traversing the nether, or Dream was about to kill me, just now.
"Are you okay?" Asks Ranboo, a bit belatedly he realizes. "I mean, you and Tommy were alone with Dream for much longer- I don't even know what happened."
Tubbo sits cross-legged in front of him. They make for an odd picture, two teenagers sitting in the middle of what had once been a home. What could be a home again, Ranboo supposes.
"Well," Tubbo says. "We got to where Dream was waiting, which was like, this huge mountain, and he started playing a disc, so of course we attacked him-" Ranboo shivers at the mere idea- " and we got it back, kinda, except then Dream went "oh I wasn't even trying" and almost killed me- that was still on the mountain, not in that creepy room he made," he clarifies.
"Uh-"
"And then he asked Tommy to choose between me and the discs, and Tommy chose me, which, no lie, huge relief, and then it turned out the discs weren't even the right ones? So then he blew up our things and took us to that creepy room and then he went all evil speech on us, it was really weird. He didn't seem to want to kill Tommy, though, so that was good. I mean, he wanted to lock him in the prison, which isn't great- oh yeah, and then he explained he was going to kill me, so Tommy and I said our goodbyes, and then you all arrived."
Ranboo kinda chokes on his horror for a bit.
"Tubbo," he enounces. "Tubbo, how weren't you terrified?"
Tubbo shrugs. "I mean, I kinda didn't expect to survive today, y'know," he says, which is majorly not okay. "And at least Tommy would have lived."
"Tubbo," says Ranboo. Horror isn't quite enough for the emotion crawling up his throat. "What the hell does that mean."
"Not that I'm not happy to be alive!" Exclaims Tubbo. "But he would have killed Tommy otherwise, so really it was fine."
It was not fine, thinks Ranboo. He has the distant urge to drag Tommy in here just so he can somehow manage to beat those ideas out of Tubbo's head, only he thinks that would be cruel of him, to confront Tommy to his best friend's blatant disregard for his own life.
"I was heading to Snowchester," says Tubbo, oblivious. "Wanna come with?"
Snowchester has too much water, frozen or otherwise, for Ranboo to ever properly like it. "No thank you," he declines rapidly. "But-" he lowers his voice even though nobody's around- "what are you going to do about-"
"Project Dreamcatcher?"
Tubbo shrugs a little. "I mean, it was a failsafe, just in case. Me and Jack have still been working on it for a long time, so I want to test it out, but it was never really meant to be used."
And there's a note in Tubbo's voice that rings as a lie. Tubbo's a good liar- not at inventing stories on the spot, no, but at slipping bits of information that aren't quite right into a whole and making you miss the part that's wrong. Ranboo doesn't know if he's always been that way, or if his tenure as a spy changed him. He certainly doesn't have the courage to ask. Still-
"You're lying," he observes. And now that he looks closer there's something off about Tubbo, ever so slightly.
"Well, okay. It was going to be used," admits Tubbo easily. "But it won't be anymore!"
"What do you mean," presses Ranboo. For good measure he grabs his friend's hands; Tubbo lets himself be grabbed, intertwines his fingers with Ranboo's soothingly.
"Well, if Dream had killed Tommy," he explains, then tilts his head. "Or you, I guess, but I don't see why he'd go after you. But, if he hurt any of you? Then Dream wouldn't have a server anymore."
Which. Again. Perfectly terrifying things that Ranboo can't process.
"Wh- why," he hisses. The hows are perfectly clear, unfortunately.
"What d'you mean, why? You're my friends!"
"Tubbo," hisses Ranboo. He wants to frantically move his hands but he's still grabbing Tubbo's a bit too tightly. "Tubbo, friends don't blow up servers for each other. "
"Well, no," says Tubbo reasonably, and Ranboo relaxes a bit. "They didn't have what I have. It's usually just countries. Just- just, oh, you know, homes or pets or anything you put effort into, anything you care about-"
And there's something off with Tubbo. There's something off with everyone on this fucking server.
"Tubbo," Ranboo says again, and tries to catch Tubbo's gaze. It's veiled, he realizes, distant, frigid. Their hands in each other's are equally as cold. "Tubbo, are you okay?"
He never answered the first time.
"I feel like I should be asking you that," laughs Tubbo, and his hands are so cold. How long had he been walking alone before he stumbled upon Ranboo?
"I'm asking," says Ranboo. "I'm- Tubbo, today was awful even for me. Come on, please."
Tubbo smiles up at him.
"I'm-," he starts to say, and his shoulders are trembling. "I'm-," and his smile is wobbly, his eyes starting to tear up, and oh, Ender, Ranboo wasn't prepared.
Tubbo collapses against his chest, sobbing in earnest, and it's all Ranboo can do to squeeze the hands he's still holding onto, and wish for someone better at this than him to be here.
"Oh," he says instead, gently releasing Tubbo's too-cold hands, trapped in between the two of them. Hesitatingly he puts his arms around Tubbo, holding his friend's smaller form against him. "So, not okay, uh."
Tubbo doesn't answer, just keeps crying, small and muffled like Ranboo's never heard him, because Ranboo's never heard him cry. Even during Tommy's exile, all he sounded was void, numb, and this is so real it could cut him.
He tightens his hold helplessly.
"You're fine," he says, trying for soothing but probably only sounding distressed. "You're fine, we're all fine, hey, we got rid of him-"
"I'm so sick of it," gets out Tubbo, hiccuping and sniffling. "I'm so sick of it, I just want him gone, we left him alive for Wilbur and he doesn't even want to come back, Ranboo, I'm- I'm-"
"Tubbo," whispers Ranboo. "I-"
Tubbo only buries his head further. "We won," he lets out miserably. "We won, and he's gone, I should be happy! but I'm so scared of people killing what I love- I'm scared of having rebuilt and then it getting taken away again- I'm scared of being the idiot again, the pawn, Ranboo, I was so scared that Tommy was going to die- that we were going to die-"
Ranboo makes a choked-off noise. There are echoes of Dream's speech from that day, in here, muddled with Tubbo's thoughts, and this is Ranboo's friend. It hurts, to have him hurting.
"You're not an idiot," he protests. "And it's fine to be scared, but it's okay now, it's-"
Tubbo shakes his head, and Ranboo cuts himself off. His arms are still around his friend. Tubbo pulls back a little, tears still flowing, and he lets him go.
"Remember how once I said L'manburg was a group of collective that believed in peace? And you said-"
"So, me and you," echoes Ranboo.
"Yeah," says Tubbo, and laughs hollowly. "Yeah. And we got it, Dream's gone, this is supposed to be peace- this is what we wanted. It's what we wanted, right? I know- I know we're not together anymore, but this is what we wanted."
"Yeah," swallows Ranboo. Peace has been so far-off that he doesn't even know its shape, in truth, but if Dream was the cause of it all, then surely this is peace. It has to be.
"What if it doesn't last?" Asks Tubbo. There's abject fear in his eyes. "What if- Ranboo, something's gone wrong every time things seemed to be fine- every time! It's not going to last!"
"Dream's gone, now," reassures Ranboo. "He was the reason-"
"What if he wasn't!" Shrieks Tubbo, pulling away completely. Ranboo feels cold. "There's still Techno- and Fundy- Ender knows what Bad and Skeppy and Antfrost have been doing- Sam built a prison that could hold all of us-"
"Tubbo," murmurs Ranboo as comfortingly as he can, which isn't very. "Tubbo, you can't just plan for the worst always." It sounds hypocritical even to him, but he perseveres: "Tubbo, peace isn't worth anything if you can't let yourself have it."
And Tubbo falls silent.
"Have it, uh," he echoes wonderingly, a bit bitterly. "I had L'manburg, and look how that turned out."
Ranboo flinches. "L'manburg was complicated," he counters, softly.
"And peace isn't?"
It's not supposed to be, Ranboo doesn't think. Otherwise what would be the point?
But then he and Tubbo are different people, so he just sighs. Tubbo smiles at him like he gets it. "Yeah," he says, still teary. "Yeah."
"I wish things were simpler," answers Ranboo. He feels exhausted all of a sudden; the weight of earlier fell on him all at once again. "I wish- I keep forgetting," he whispers.
Tubbo hums at him. "You said you didn't mind forgetting, sometimes," he points out.
"Yeah," admits Ranboo. It feels cowardly, but it's still the truth. "Yeah, but then I can't be sure of anything. I wish I could still be me without putting people in harm's way."
"S'okay, big man," comforts Tubbo quietly. "You'll figure it out. Or not, but don't worry, you're probably one of the least threatening people I know."
Ranboo splutters. "Thanks?"
Tubbo nods sagely. "You're very welcome."
Ranboo lets out a laugh. It sounds a bit like he's never laughed before, but it still counts. Silence settles over them slowly.
"Well, sorry," says Tubbo eventually. "I didn't mean to cry all over you. I know you don't like water."
Ranboo waves him off. "It's okay, Tubbo. It was a bad day. And a good day, too, but overall-"
"Weird," offers Tubbo. "Yeah, weird," agrees Ranboo. "Weird day. And I've missed this."
"You mean midnight mental breakdowns in the middle of ruins where everyone can see us?"
"...yes," confirms Ranboo. "Yes, that's exactly what I mean."
Tubbo grins at him. "Me too." A pause, and Ranboo focuses on breathing as Tubbo shifts, sending his hands behind him, tilting his head back to look at the sky above them. "I know you didn't like L'manburg much, but I miss it sometimes. Y'know. Us. Quackity, Fundy. Tommy."
"Hmmmm," says Ranboo, looking at him. "Well-"
"It's fine if you don't," interrupts Tubbo. "It was just- nice, you know? We were all friends."
Which Ranboo can't exactly agree with, given how Quackity always seemed so fire-quick to turn on people, how Fundy seemed sad and aggressive and bitter. He never really knew L'manburg's Tommy, either, but he doesn't point it out.
"We're still friends," he says instead.
"Are we?" asks Tubbo, genuinely questioning it seems, and Ranboo opens his mouth, closes it.
"Well, not the same way," he settles on. "But things have changed. It makes sense."
Tubbo stays silent, looking up at the stars. "That's sad," he says.
His silence after feels purposeful.
"I won't apologize," tells him Ranboo. The stars are very far and Tubbo feels too close to him. "For not staying."
"What d'you mean?"
"L'manburg wasn't- kind," he says. "It could have been, I think. But you wanted to make it about peace, and Ghostbur's books only ever talked about freedom."
"Ha," says Tubbo, and huffs a bit through his nose. "Man, I miss Wilbur. He explained it better than I do. He used to say-" he sighs. "L'manburg was supposed to be what we wanted it to be, he said. No more, no less."
He sounds like he's quoting something he used to believe. The weariness in his voice fits more than Ranboo would like it to.
"That's very vague," he observes finally, trying for non-judgemental but ending up reflexively wary. "Well, he was on our side," counters Tubbo. We trusted him lies unsaid beneath it. "And it wasn't all that messed up, before," he continues. "We fought and it meant nothing, you know? But then Eret killed us."
Ranboo hasn't ever died, so he can't know how it feels, or how you're supposed to feel about it. Looking at the ones that have (Tommy, Tubbo, Quackity, Fundy, Karl, all ranked by vulnerability in his head), the common denominator is-
It doesn't seem to matter. Except- this time apparently did.
But then Eret killed us, says Tubbo. It's a simple sentence but it speaks of a greater tragedy, Ranboo thinks; of the moment this stopped being revolution and became slaughter. Of the moment glory became desperation and trepidation turned into terror. Of the moment the game started, only war games make soldiers of children, and he'd know.
"I guess," murmurs Ranboo. L'manburg isn't for him to understand; too warped and too mangled, he never knew it shining and promising like the others must have.
Tubbo wants peace back and Ranboo wants peace, period, and that's what sets them apart.
"Wilbur used to tell us about constellations," explains Tubbo, head still tilted back. If Ranboo had the courage to lift his gaze they could be watching the stars together, but the darkness around them is a little bit too reminiscent of the panic room's. "He had stories about them, though I don't know who told him. And he'd sit us down and draw us those big paintings of how things had gone for people throughout history, you know? Tommy liked it, because sometimes he'd sing."
"Ghostbur sings," offers Ranboo. He's well aware; sometimes he finds the ghost singing a lullaby, and Phil, seated in the snow, unspeakable grief etched in the corners of his fond smile.
"I guess he does. He's not Wilbur, though."
"Well," drawls Ranboo. "I wouldn't know."
"That's better anyway," just says Tubbo. Ranboo doesn't press. Wilbur seems to be everywhere, sometimes, but rarely do people want to discuss him, and he's certainly not the right person to deny them their right to secrets or silence.
"What were the stories?" He asks instead. Tubbo shrugs. "Don't remember. They all ended well, I think."
"That's nice."
Tubbo shakes his head, scrubs at the barely-dried tear tracks on his cheeks absent-mindedly. "I guess," he says. "They ruined the stars for me, though."
"Ha," snorts Ranboo. "Well, find new ones," he advises nonsensically."The sky is vast."
"Don't want to," whines Tubbo, apparently giving up and laying down completely to stare up. Ranboo can't see if his eyes are open. "I want to go home."
Home, ha.
"Me too," murmurs Ranboo, and swallows past the sudden barrage of tears in his throat. "I wish-"
He cuts himself off, twines his arms around his knees, squeezes. The panic is rising again, some threatening black waves he's never learned to swim in.
"Sorry," sighs Tubbo, apparently sensing Ranboo's uneasiness. "Didn't mean to depress you."
"I'm fine," assures Ranboo, voice barely loud enough to be heard. Tubbo laughs a bit, blindly reaches a hand towards him again, which Ranboo accepts without much hesitation, releasing his knees.
"You should let yourself have peace too," he says, voice soft. " 'Cause you'd be better at it than me. I don't know how to, that's for sure."
"I think it's easier said than done," whispers Ranboo, focusing on Tubbo's still too-cold hand in his own. His friend doesn't have any armor on; at this rate he'll catch a cold, he notes distantly. If the Community House was still standing, that wouldn't be a problem.
"I think I might be better suited for war than peace," confesses Ranboo like a secret. He hopes it is; better yet, he hopes it's a lie.
"Ranboo," says Tubbo seriously, "you're incredibly ill-suited for war."
"Well-"
"No, seriously, big man. You're very bad at fighting. Like, really bad."
"Hey," huffs Ranboo. "I'm plenty good-"
"You scare at everything," continues Tubbo like he hasn't heard him. "You won't take off your armor-"
"That's just called self-preservation-"
"The rain hurts you-"
"I can't help that-"
"You have moral crises all the time-"
"You literally just had one with me-"
Tubbo explodes in laughter, and Ranboo follows along. His might be a bit hysterical, a bit panicky, tears mixed with laughter, but the water feels manageable now at least. Their hands separate at some point, and Ranboo presses his hands against his eyes and reminds himself to breathe in, breathe out.
They stay like this a long time, in the middle of what used to be the Community House, watching the stars in comfortable silence.
"I'm optimistic about this," says Tubbo suddenly, breaking the silence. Ranboo levels him with an unimpressed look, remembering his tears from earlier, and Tubbo just grins at him. "No, really, I am! Dream's gone, and if it sticks, which hopefully it will! Then we can solve everything and live in peace! And it'll be great, Ranboo!"
"Yeah," agrees Ranboo softly, endeared. "Just please don't blow up anyone over me."
"I make no promises," retorts Tubbo.
"Oh, no."
Tubbo hauls himself up. "Wow, it's getting early," he observes, watching as the sky takes on a red tint. "And hey, look at that! It's a brand new day!"
Ranboo gets up as well. "Oh, Ender, I didn't sleep at all. I'm going to fall to my death in the Nether, Tubbo. Remember me fondly."
"Nah, you'll be fine," dismisses Tubbo. "I should head home."
"Yeah," echoes Ranboo. He hesitates a little- oh, fuck it.
He sweeps Tubbo up in a hug. Since the other is definitely shorter than him, it puts him a fair bit of distance away from the ground. "Thanks," he whispers.
He can hear Tubbo's fond smile in his voice as he hugs him back and says, "Anytime, big man. Now put me down before I shoot you. I still have Dream's crossbow."
Ranboo lets out another short laugh and gently sets him down. Tubbo's eyes are still red but shining; Ranboo guesses his are too. Tubbo offers a handshake, a habit Ranboo knows he picked up as president and apparently still carries with him.
"To peace and kicking Dream's ass," he declares, which is something they can definitely agree on.
"To peace, and kicking Dream's ass," Ranboo repeats.
The sun rises over them. He inhales and feels it reach his lungs.
And guess what? It's a whole new day.