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Tubbo, like always, is a blur of energy and words, his hair a wild auburn-and-platinum mess spilling out of its braid as he loudly complains about his goggles digging into the meat of his face, and even more loudly complaining about all the metal he’s hauling from the DXD back to Snowchester.
Ranboo isn’t proud of the fact that he’s been stalking Tubbo for miles, standing as still as a tree when his friend happens to swivel his gaze Ranboo’s way, but there’s something that draws Ranboo to the fact that Tubbo is just as eccentric and semidomesticated as he is when he’s in front of Ranboo.
Techno treats him as if he were a particularly entertaining oddity; Phil treats him like a ticking time bomb. No matter how much they try to mask it, Ranboo, unfortunately, can smell their insincerity. It’s somewhat foul, like the smell of a pick handle when it’s been held in a sweaty palm.
He can only console himself by the fact that they are trying, which is more than Ranboo can say for most.
They’re not bad men; they’re just not used to who Ranboo is. He can’t be trusted, he knows that; it just hurts when people don’t even try.
Even his own kin had left him for dead; his standard for affection and goodwill isn’t that high.
A high, frustrated screech brings Ranboo back from his musings, tail lashing in worry as he tries to keep up with Tubbo, who has managed to push the sled of aloy farther than what Ranboo would imagine a boy of his stature could achieve, his hood pushed off his head, some of the buttons of his half-cloak undone, revealing a forest-green shirt underneath.
His seax is hanging limply at his hip, the pommel golden and laced with dark obsidian, visible even in the quickly darkening night. Ranboo lets out a small huff of relief to see him armed. There are bandits in these forests; it’s one of the reasons why Ranboo began following Tubbo, and it’s the reason he’s going to give his friend should he find out that Ranboo’s been tailing him like some creepy… man.
For the next minutes, only the sound of Tubbo’s nonstop cursing and the crunch of snow underneath his boots is the only thing that keeps both of them company.
“Oh,” He hears Tubbo whine, melodramatic even when he’s by his lonesome. “Great! I forgot about this—” Ranboo peeks from the tree he’s hiding from to see Tubbo kick at the sled, “—fucking ravine!”
Ranboo narrows his eyes, his vision making it distinctively easier for him to see the six foot gap that lays between Tubbo and Snowchester. His friend huffs, loud enough to startle the birds from the trees, and sits on top of the sled.
For a second, Ranboo thinks that Tubbo might just stash the sled somewhere safe and come back for it in the morning, quickly scolding himself for even thinking that his friend was capable of self-preservation. He listens to Tubbo go on a quiet rant about Jack Manifold and Tommy and being as he bends down to tighten the thick ropes around the tarp that covers the sled, pushing his fringe away from his eyes at erratic intervals.
With a deep sigh, Tubbo straightens, absentmindedly playing with the blond ends of his stubby braid as he lets out a small whistle as he stands before the ravine, peering at how deep it was. It must have been deep enough to shake Tubbo, because the younger boy shakes his head, taking a handful of steps back.
Ranboo’s tail wraps comfortingly around his own thigh as confusedly watches Tubbo rid himself of his thick winter gloves, revealing skinned knuckles and burnt wrists hidden underneath a poor bandage job.
“Alright,” Tubbo tells himself, faux-optimism lacing his words as he hops from one foot to another as if to hype himself up, “Alright. If I somehow fuck this up, it was just three stacks of diamonds and fifteen netherite. Nothing too expensive.”
Ranboo’s eyebrows furrow. Nothing too expensive? A whole family of nine could live comfortably for the rest of their lives off of a hundred and ninety two diamonds, as well as fifteen netherite ingots. He’s pretty sure some of the nobles across the Mesa don’t even have that much money. It took Ranboo the better part of a chilly year in the Nether strip-mining for netherite, and even then, he’d only gotten ten ingots.
Tubbo nods decisively, pushing back his hair over pale white ears, revealing his filed-down-to-the-nub horns.
With a huff, he holds his hands in front of him, eyes squeezed shut in concentration. Ranboo’s tail tightens around his thigh when something vaguely green and gold sparks from underneath the sled, eyes flicking from it to Tubbo, who curses a streak so blue that it makes Ranboo flush red.
“Work!” He hisses impatiently, and only then does Ranboo notice that the green-and-gold wisps of light are coming from Tubbo. “I’m hungry, and I’m cold, and I want to go home.”
Ranboo bites down on his knuckles as the sled is airborne for a few stubborn seconds, before thumping mockingly back against the snowy forest floor.
In hindsight, he should have known that Tubbo was capable of magic. Between all the things that he is in his very impressive repertoire, it would have made sense for Ranboo to add that major detail into it.
“Is this how it’s going to be, then?” Tubbo threatens the sled severely, pointing a dangerous finger at it. “You’re going back to Snowchester one way or the other.”
Ranboo sees it before Tubbo could take another breath, something metallic glinting in the distance, quickly diminishing distance between itself and Tubbo—
His heart stutters, tail whipping against the air as he stumbles from behind his tree. “Tubbo!”
Just as quickly, Tubbo whips towards the direction of the gold-tipped arrow, one meant to immediately, fatally injure hybrids like Tubbo or Ranboo. He flinches, hand coming up to brace his arm against the arrow.
Ranboo’s breath is ice in the middle of his throat as blood ekes its way down a pale forearm.
“Oh, so now you work?” Tubbo sneers, waving his injured arm as if he wasn’t just shot at, a sheer of green-and-gold wrapped around him, a sheen so opaque that not even Ranboo could really see it.
Ranboo has his crossbow loaded out before the bandits could even drop down from the trees, dashing to Tubbo’s side, who makes a face that Ranboo could only shrug at.
His ears pop as if he were descending from a particularly tall mountain after an arduous night of sleepwalking, peering at Tubbo, who returns his shrug at him, though this time with a small smile on his lips.
He notices when he braces his crossbow against his shoulder, the fine hairs on his skin standing up as he watches that green sheen rippling over them both.
One of Ranboo’s arrows makes a sharp, squishy noise when it embeds itself into one of the five bandits’ eyes, frowning when the body tips over a handful of feet away from them.
Tubbo unlatches his recurve bow from behind his back, plucking three arrows from the quiver at his hip and firing at them in quick succession, all of his shots hitting true at his targets.
Sometimes, Ranboo forgets just how much Tubbo is capable of doing—and being. He was, after all, once a thegn, once a rebel, and now the marquess of a duchy he’d built with his own two hands.
Once the dust has settled, Tubbo is cursing again, plucking his arrows from the corpses as Ranboo watches him.
The other boy raises an eyebrow at him as he wipes the blood off of the arrowhead on his trousers, lips pursed as he narrows his eyes. “You really need to learn how to be quiet.”
Ranboo rolls his shoulders, letting an easy smile form on his face when Tubbo leans his hip against the sled, playing at being haughty. “Oh, yeah? I thought I was doing pretty good, actually.”
Tubbo shakes his head, the goggles that are now around his neck swinging gently from it, the blond tips of his friend’s hair caught in it. He wonders if Tommy was the brains behind the idea of Tubbo dyeing his hair that sordid blond colour.
“No, I heard you scuttling about a handful of yards from the DXD.” Tubbo flicks his stubby braid over a shoulder, leaning properly into the bit, now. “Abysmal. Absolutely appalling. That’s all I can say. If you were one of my spies, I’d probably fire you.”
Ranboo’s tail curls happily around his own waist, tucked safely away as a helpless smile makes its way from his lips up to his eyes. “Whatever will I do without employment?”
Tubbo’s delighted face flips from happy to terrified in the drop of a penny, a shout escaping his lips as one of the apparently still breathing and alive bandits wraps a hand around his ankle, tugging with a shallow, bloody cough that makes Tubbo stumble—
Ranboo scrambles onto his hands and knees just in time to wrap his hand tight around Tubbo’s wrist as he dangles over a sheer hundred foot drop, closing his eyes when the heat from a nearby lava pool pushes against his face.
Tubbo’s dark blue eyes are wide and panicked, his other hand pitifully finding purchase against the cliff.
“Ranboo—” He pleads breathlessly, “Oh, god, pull me up.”
Ranboo’s tail whips and wraps around one of the legs of the nearby sled, huffing as he tries to pull Tubbo up.
The sled creaks and shifts forward, pushing both Ranboo and Tubbo closer into the drop of the ravine. Both of them scream when it does, Tubbo letting out a shrill, terrified curse.
“Stop! Stop it!” Tubbo screams unhelpfully, “Stop moving!”
“I’m trying to get you out!” Ranboo’s hands are beginning to grow tired, his grip slacking. Tubbo stares straight into his eyes.
“I will kill you if you let me fall to my death, Ranboo,” Tubbo tells him, though the threat falls short against Ranboo’s ears, seeing as they’re both close to their deaths.
Tubbo lets out a yelp as he starts slipping from Ranboo’s grip, blue eyes wide. “Ranboo,” He whimpers, and Ranboo removed his free hand against the lip of the cliff, wrapping it around his friend’s wrist.
Now the only thing keeping them both from falling is Ranboo’s tail around the sled.
“I’ll—” Ranboo licks his lips, his throat dry. “I’ll try pulling us up again.”
With that, he tugs, igoring the sharp pain at the base of his spine as his tail works to pull them upward, his teeth gritting hard against the pain of trying to heft up two whole people.
It’s all useless as the sled begins sliding forward again towards Ranboo and Tubbo.
Tubbo looks down for a few seconds, tamping down on a scream as he jolts farther from the cliff and towards his inevitable death. “Okay. I—If you let go, I can catch myself on something. Probably.”
Ranboo is somewhat sure that there’s nothing down there soft enough to catch Tubbo. “No,” He grits his teeth, his sharp nails digging into Tubbo’s soft skin. He stares into his friend’s eyes. It’s so odd, seeing Tubbo so fearful. “No, I can do this.”
He hisses and lets out a short yell as he hears his own muscles rip from the exertion, face all but slamming against the muddy snow as he freezes up, pain coursing through his whole body as his tail hangs limp and useless behind him. His nails pierce through Tubbo’s skin, drawing blood.
Tubbo must have shouted his name, but Ranboo couldn’t hear much of anything through the roaring of his own blood in his ears, tears beginning to well up in his eyes as he tips forward, his body slumping into the ravine with Tubbo pinned underneath him.
Without much preamble, something warm envelops him, a kind of warm he’s never felt before.
Then there was nothing.
**
Ranboo wishes he could dream about his mother. Or his father, maybe his siblings, if he had them.
But he can’t.
“Oh, Jesus, Ranboo, you’re awake.” Tubbo swims into his vision, blood on his chin, dirt on his forehead, his hair out of its braid and wildly curling down to his cheeks. His hands flutter towards Ranboo, warm as he pushes back Ranboo’s hair. “Christ, you fucking scared me, big man.”
“Tubbo,” He slurs, wondering where all the pain was.
Tubbo slumps in front of him, a small smile on his face, shoulders untensing. “Apparently, stress makes me do really, really cool shit with magic.”
“What did you do?” Ranboo opens his eyes a little bit more, roving his gaze around the small alcove Tubbo dragged him into, the haphazard torches. His hand twitches beside him and into the soft fur of the cloak Tubbo was wearing, realising that his friend is down to his ratty button down and his undershirt, and that was why he was shaking. Because he gave his only source of heat so Ranboo could be more comfortable.
God, he thinks, I wonder what Tubbo will think of me after this.
“I don’t know, but I put your–erm. Your tail… back.”
He licks his lips, shifting higher up the cave wall so he could look at Tubbo eye-to-eye. Surreptitiously, he tries moving his tail, keening internally when it barely moves at his command. “Are we still in the ravine?”
“Yes. But—” Tubbo is quick to reassure, “I called Tommy. I called him, and he’ll come help us.” He reaches out, endlessly kind and oh, so trusting, and Ranboo can feel his small hands shake as he wraps it around Ranboo’s hands, rubbing lightly, as if to keep them warm.
Ranboo feels warm. He feels nice.
“I’m sorry,” Ranboo finds himself saying to the tune of the embers popping from the sad little fire pit.
Tubbo freezes, straightening so he could furrow his eyebrows at Ranboo, a scoff escaping his mouth. He stares at him, his eyes unwavering as his gaze to and fro Ranboo’s mismatched eyes.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” He breathes, his hands tightening around Ranboo’s, a subversion of their roles the night prior. After a long moment of uncomfortable silence, he mutters, “You’re sorry?”
Ranboo shifts his gaze—or tries to, because Tubbo forces his eyes back onto him, one of his hands light against Ranboo’s face. Absently, the younger boy traces a cut high on Ranboo’s cheek, before letting his hand drop.
He smiles sadly at Ranboo. “It wasn’t your fault, big man.” He tells him, point-blank with no room to brook any argument, dark eyes severe and warm. “We just have shitty luck.”
Despite himself, Ranboo begins to believe him.
Tubbo ducks down to catch Ranboo’s eyes. Ranboo’s tail twitches weakly at his side. “Yeah?” Tubbo asks softly.
“Yeah.” Ranboo agrees. “Yeah, man. Shitty, shitty luck.”
“That’s the spirit.” Tubbo grins toothily, reaching behind him to pass Ranboo a water skin, before settling in to take Ranboo’s limp tail between his hands, “Now. Have you ever had spit-roasted silverfish before? Because I haven’t, but I reckon it’s better than bats.”
Ranboo’s eyes flick from Tubbo’s gentle hold on his tail to the roasting silverfish a handful of feet away from them, shivering when Tubbo works his magic—quite literally—on him, his green-and-gold magic shifting to a lighter, more vividly green colour, like that of grass on the first day of spring.
“Silverfish is fine.” Ranboo concurs. Hesitantly, he drags his hand across the soft ground out to press the tips of his fingers against Tubbo’s knee. “Thank you.”
Tubbo tilts his head, taking a second to drag his eyes away from the task at hand to stare up at Ranboo, lips curled into a soft smile. His hair drapes wildly across his shoulders, and Ranboo worries if the other boy had worried for him to the point of haggardness. “No problem, big man.”
**
Ranboo never thought he’d say this, but he’s so damn glad to see Tommy Innit’s shock of hay-yellow hair peeking over the side of the cliff, his sword sliding dangerously towards his head as he tries to spot Tubbo, who is shivering minutely at Ranboo’s side despite his cloak being fastened back on him.
“Tommy!” Tubbo yells happily, waving stiffly at his best friend.
The other boy’s demeanor visibly brightens when he finally sees Tubbo from hundreds of feet away, lips splitting into a toothy grin. “Tubbo, my friend!”
Ranboo’s tail—now good and brand new—twitches anxiously behind him, the only outward indicator of his worry.
“How’d you fall into there, bruv?” Tommy shouts incredulously, “It’s a fucking hundred foot drop!”
Tubbo smiles, cupping his hands around his mouth as he lifts himself on the balls of his feet, “I’ll tell you if you get us out!”
“When I get you out, dipshit.” Tommy informs him snobbishly, pointing a finger at Tubbo. He scrambles back, disappearing from sight, though his voice still echoes through the ravine, a small reassurance that he wouldn’t leave Tubbo here, alone. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do!”
Tubbo echoes his friend’s grin, whipping his head behind him and right at Ranboo. “Truly, we do.”
His smile dims when he faces Ranboo, eyebrows furrowing in worry. Wordlessly, he steps closer, reaching out to hook his pointer finger with Ranboo’s.
“You alright there, minutes man?” He asks, soft and considerate. Ranboo wishes he wasn’t such a burden to someone as bright and kind and soft and beautiful as Tubbo.
“I—” Ranboo hesitates. He wishes he could scribble this down, this gnawing, consuming feeling of guilt, or burden, to have put himself and Tubbo in grave danger.
Tubbo takes the initiative to step closer, confident as he peers up into Ranboo’s eyes, mischief in his grin.
His snow-white ears flick backwards as he tilts his head in curiosity. “You…?”
“Thank you,” He blurts, surprising both himself and Tubbo when he surges up to put his hands awkwardly on the smaller boy’s shoulders. “For—for being my friend.”
Tubbo arches an eyebrow, letting out a brilliant laugh as he reaches up to pat the back of Ranboo’s hand.
Without much thought, bedazzled by the ardent grin on his friend’s face, Ranboo’s tail lashes forward and wraps around Tubbo’s thigh, tightening minutely.
That makes Tubbo’s eyebrows almost reach his hairline.
“Sorry,” He begins to step away, though his tail stays where it’s found a home around his friend’s leg, the tip of it swishing. Sheepishly, Ranboo pushes his fringe back behind an ear. “Sorry, I can’t help it.”
Tubbo narrows his eyes at the limb, reaching down to prod at it. Ranboo impishly swats at the offending hand as Tubbo teases him, “Has a mind of its own, does it?”
Ranboo knows his face is tinged almost a dark purple from embarrassment. “Stop.”
The smaller boy only laughs, a full-bodied giggle that makes Ranboo’s ears twitch towards his direction.
“You’re a weird one, Mister Boo.” He admits with a friendly grin, “I’m not sure what to make of you.”
“Uh,” Ranboo begins his reply stupidly.
Thankfully, Tubbo is there to save him from himself.
“Friend, hm?” He muses, ocean-dark eyes glinting with mirth as he gears himself to poke fun at Ranboo once more. “Friend sounds nice.”
“Oi, idiots!” Tommy’s voice cracks through the ravine as a long, thick rope with a wide knot at the end drops down from the side of the cliff. “Heading my way?”
Ranboo lets out a quiet sigh as Tubbo’s attention is diverted from him, an equally quiet thanks to Tommy for saving him from further embarrassment at the hands of one Tubbo Smith.
His tail peels itself from Tubbo as he moves away, hands tugging at the rope.
The hiss that comes from Tubbo is loud and it makes Ranboo stiffen, fear lacing his veins as he hurries over to his friend’s side.
Tubbo shows him his palms, which are scuffed, skin peeled almost down to the muscle. It looks painful.
“Before you ask, no. I can’t heal myself.” Tubbo murmurs. Absently, Ranboo wonders if he’d hurt himself catching both of them as they fell down the ravine. He probably did.
Impatiently, Tommy shouts at them to hurry it up.
“Alright, uh…” Ranboo situates his feet around the knotted rope, before looking back at Tubbo, who is staring at him suspiciously. With an awkward shrug, Ranboo extends his free arm, a small ‘ta-da…?’ on his lips.
“I’m too heavy,” Tubbo immediately declines, taking a step back. “No way am I—”
Tommy, who has been watching all this time, makes a hacking noise, before spitting the phlegm out over the side of the cliff, narrowly avoiding Tubbo. “Hop on the fucking half-enderman, Tubbo. I don’t have all day.” He announces boredly. “I will leave you here.”
“No you won’t.” Tubbo snaps back, but still, he reaches out for Ranboo’s hand, his grip deathly and his pallor sickly. Tommy scoffs as he watches his best friend try to balance himself on top of Ranboo’s feet.
Absently, Ranboo’s tail wraps itself around the smaller boy’s waist, keeping him secured as Tommy yells at them—the world’s most useless warning ever—and jolts them upwards as if they were a pebble being catapulted over a moat.
High, unmanly shrieks rip themselves out of their throats, Tubbo’s grip on him growing painful as Ranboo clings onto the rope for dear life, eyes widening as they shoot up and over the cliff, a good ten feet off the ground.
Tubbo loudly curses the delightedly manic braying pouring out of Tommy’s mouth, his eyes squeezing closed from laughter as they plummet towards the ground.
They never hit the ground, though, as Tubbo, again, manages to cushion their fall with his weird magic, wrapping around him warmly.
Ranboo flops onto the snow, hair a wild mess and lightheaded from their impromptu flight. “That’s convenient.”
Tubbo, still breathing deeply as he recovers from shrieking so loudly, puts a hand over his chest as he tries to keep himself in check. He meets Ranboo’s eyes, “It really is.”
“It works!” Tommy crows from somewhere behind them. “Holy shit, Sam’s going to love this.”