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Ranboo was different.
He looked taller. His hair was longer, wavy and immaculate - a small braid is curled behind his right ear, and from his left, freshly-pierced, is a golden chain with a glittering emerald dangling from it.
A spectral blue cloak, lined with white mink fur, hung from his shoulders down to his calves, the front linked together with three neat golden cords. Beneath, a high-collared dress shirt, and a rich navy cummerbund spanning his waist. Black dress pants, and polished, knee-high boots.
He looked like them. He fit right in - the cloaks, the emeralds, the braids.
He held himself differently. His back was straight, his posture adjusted. He shifted his shoulders back when he walked, and he stepped and moved smoothly, with purpose. He was... regal. Delicately vicious-looking.
His eyes were different. The way they swept across the room, glimmering with knowledge, was new. The way his eyelashes fluttered when he blinked in strange patterns, the way his tail swished, the way his ears flicked. The way he gripped his sword, twirled it in his hand. The pendant that hung around his neck, a glassy green eye, pupil slitted and glowing.
This Ranboo was different. More mature, wiser, experienced, and stronger.
At times, the former Ranboo shone through.
The smile on his face and the shimmer of mirth in his eyes when Technoblade set a hand on his shoulder. The way he hunched over and tilted his head downwards when talking to Tubbo and Puffy. The way he spoke of Fundy with such raw, subtle fondness. The way his eyes widened and his words came out jumbled after being praised or complimented. The soothing tongue he wielded. The spry, clawed hands. The razor-sharp wit.
The thing Tommy hated the most was that Ranboo was different now. This wasn't the Ranboo he had known, the Ranboo who had visited him in exile or the Ranboo that had turned a blind eye when he appeared in L'manburg with Technoblade. No; this Ranboo was different. Deadlier, more outspoken, and more versatile.
And Tommy hated him. Tommy hated him so much.
Because Ranboo was what he never could have been.
Ranboo was Technoblade's apprentice, in every sense of the word. Techno trained and taught and influenced him. Regardless of what the Piglin hybrid's intentions were, they were thick as thieves, and the weeks they had spent together in the tundra would not be easily forgotten.
Techno treated Ranboo like family. Like a brother or a son. The way the piglin stared at the ender hybrid was... gentle. The way he tousled Ranboo's hair, careful not to catch his nails in the strands, steering away from the braid behind his ear. The way he glanced and subtly doted. The way he smiled at him, so full of fondness.
Ranboo simply smiled and accepted it as Techno prattled on about something or other, and sprang into action when he was needed, and was always there at the perfect time, and always said the right thing, and was always flawlessly circumspect and self-sacrificing simultaneously.
Tommy hated him because he was the precise visage of something the blond could have been. He hated him because his own father seemed to love him more. He hated him because the person he thought was his friend, the person he had always seen as an older brother, had turned his back and instead picked up Ranboo.
Cowardly, arrogant, selfish Ranboo. But even in his head, the words sound wrong.
Ranboo wasn't cowardly, he was careful. Ranboo wasn't arrogant, he was impartial and decisive. Ranboo wasn't selfish at all, no. The ender hybrid was completely and utterly selfless.
And then there was Tommy. Impulsive, action-driven, complicated. So very broken. Defiant to the point of recklessness. Self-destructive and utterly worthless, but still vain and overbearing. Lazy. Crude. Unempathetic.
He could never compete. Ranboo and Tommy were nothing alike.
And yet, Tommy remained jealous, caustic and bitter.
He didn't hate Ranboo. He hated the feeling, the inescapable, all-consuming, painful feeling of being replaced.