Work Text:
1
Ranboo has always been a single unit. He drifted through school, happy to take the minor roles, to fill out the background. He had plenty of friends, close ones even, but he'd never been part of a pair before. Being with Tubbo takes a little getting used to. It was like breaking in a new pair of boots you really liked. They'd been together in an official capacity since Ranboo's trip to the UK. Truthfully, not much had changed since he'd returned, not outwardly. Tubbo still flirted with him shamelessly, stayed on call until his words were syrupy and sleepy and schemed the best ways to fluster him on stream. Perhaps he was what changed. Instead of hiding his affection behind jokes and laughter, he returned it full-force. The viewers were caught between thinking it was a bit and wondering quietly if it was more than that now. He liked the upper-hand he had, how he could call Tubbo "adorable" and watch the chat dissolve into nonsense.
Ranboo misses Tubbo, though. He wants to see the hiccup in his laugh in person, the fan of his fingers across a keyboard up-close. He wants to feel the warm weight against his chest where Tubbo's head fits perfectly. How his hands cup Tubbo's cheeks completely when he tilts his head up for a kiss.
Ranboo doesn't know how to do long-distance. Arguably, neither does Tubbo, but he takes to it more easily. He'd taken every first step, Ranboo conceded, and he'd trailed along dumbly. But it's bearable between them. It aches, but when Tubbo's voice crackles through his headphones at 3am, he knows he's not alone. It's a pathetic can on a string across oceans, but it's something.
Tubbo rambles ceaselessly about the mechanics of Tekkit, keeping Ranboo's stream thoroughly entertained. He's clearly picked up that it's an off-day and Ranboo wonders if he's obvious. He reads out a dono, trying to keep his mind on the game. Tubbo quiets.
"Are you and Tubbo going to meet up again?" His voice is hoarse from being quiet, and he clears his throat. Somehow it feels like the chat has conspired to make him miserable. He quickly checks his in-game furnaces for ore and hums a miserable note. "Yeah. I hope. I hope."
"Of course we are, my beloved!" Tubbo laughs. "No ocean can separate us."
His voice is bright and sure. Ranboo leans back and rubs his hands over his eyes. He's been staring at his screen too long and blinking is starting to hurt. If Tubbo were here, he'd push the hair out of his eyes and turn the lights off. Put him to bed and stay up on his own.
Here, now, they can't be together that way. They both need to be up, awake and fully-present. Tubbo had fallen asleep on call a few times, breath puffing into the receiver, and that was nice. But in the morning, it was just a dead battery and an empty bed.
"My beloved?" Ranboo croaks, hoping his voice doesn't give him away.
"You heard me! Right, chat?" Tubbo chirps. "Ranboo, my beloved."
2
Ranboo felt a little pride tickle his chest when Tommy invited him for the next modded Minecraft video. He was well and truly in, he thought. They were trying out a flying mod, like "elytra on crack" Tommy had said.
He's sort of surprised how well he gets along with Tommy. Off-camera he's still well and truly chaotic, but he's also sincere and genuine. He talks about Tubbo like he hung the moon, and Ranboo wonders if he should be jealous. Then Tommy, nutjob that he is, goes off about women, and Ranboo reminds himself that pigs aren't flying yet and they won't in the near future. And with Tommy comes Wilbur and Sam and Phil and Techno. They're older and Ranboo feels the inklings of imposter syndrome whenever they speak to him. He tries at first for polite but realizes how much of an asswipe it makes him seem in the middle of a raucous game of jackbox. So he eases into it, bearing the teasing good-naturedly and enduring a surprisingly scary shovel-talk from Phil.
Which is how he finds himself swooping through the virtual clouds, armed with only a stone sword and a stack of beets. Tommy is on his tail, throwing fire charges he'd snagged from Phil.
"You're dead meat, Ranboob!" Tommy shouts as one lands. Ranboo tries to swerve to avoid it and smacks right into a cliff-face. The impact smashes his health down to a mere half a heart and he yelps.
"Mercy! C'mon mercy! What'd I do to deserve this."
"It's payback! If I have to hear one more time about how "lovely" your voice is from Tubbo I'm going to go insane for real. It'll be my villain arc or whatever." Tommy laughs like a hyena and tosses the killing blow. Ranboo's too surprised to dodge and watches as his avatar poofs out of existence.
"He thinks I'm lovely?"
"God, you're gross. Both of you."
"Hey!" Tubbo protests. "Don't listen to him, sweetcheeks. You're not gross."
"Gee." Ranboo's shoulders shake with laughter as he respawns. "Sweetcheeks. Maybe we are gross."
"Tubbo's the worst. Tubbo's the grossest." Tommy berates, and Ranboo listens as Tubbo squawks indignantly. The chat pops up with a message informing him that Tubbo died to Tommy's sword.
"Ha," Ranboo says. "Get good."
3
"Do you think we should keep it a secret?" Tubbo's voice is quiet and Ranboo knows it's well past 4 AM for him. It's the time when they talk about these things when their mouths keep up with their minds and the filter drops.
"Is it a secret?" Ranboo asks.
"Well, it's not like we've told them. And we cut that bit out of Tommy's video."
"True." Ranboo leans back against his pillows, pulling the blankets up under his chin. "You're not exactly subtle, though." He prods.
"I was never subtle, you were just purposefully obtuse." That, Ranboo could admit, was true. Willful ignorance was a powerful thing when you wanted it to be. He'd managed to convince himself right up until their meet-up that the fluttery feeling associated with Tubbo was just friendship. A friend-crush, he'd seen it called. When you want to be close to someone. More than anything, Ranboo had wanted closeness. He'd had it, completely, for two weeks. Two whole weeks of casual touches and just existing on the same plane as the person he cared about.
"I sort of thought that you were going to be the one to confess." He mumbles.
"When? If I'd done it before you visited you'd have clammed up and made excuses 'till the problem went away. You're very good at that you know." Tubbo's voice lilted, vowels long and teasing.
"Well—"
"And when you were here I could barely touch you without you freaking out. You don't show it much but you have your tells." He hears blankets shift on the other side of the call. "You get this tiny smile on your face like you've just gotten an extra helping of dessert. And your ears go completely red."
"They do?" Ranboo brings a hand up to his ear. It's warm. "Oh god. But then, you must have known. You knew."
"Of course I did, but you didn't." Tubbo sighed. "On the train, the window, you remember."
Ranboo nods then realizes that's not helpful. "Mhm, yeah."
"You practically no-homo'd me."
Ranboo splutters and presses a hand to his face in embarrassment. "Oh god, I totally did."
"It's fine, you made up for it." The memory of that night on the roof springs up full-force and Ranboo feels his heart twist. It's longing. More than a kiss, Ranboo wants to be held. He'd never felt so cared for. When Tubbo had tucked all 6'6" of him under his chin, he thought maybe they had something good going on. Now, he's sure of it.
"I miss you. So much." It's a confession, not uncommon or new, but vulnerable still. Ranboo stares at Tubbo's icon blinking on his phone.
"I miss you too, chickadee." Tubbo sighs, fond. "You know, I'm supposed to be the clingy one."
"Shut up."
4
Tubbo is hoovering down a slice of cheese pizza. There's sauce all over his face and he's never looked more pleased. "God, I can't believe I think you're cute." Ranboo laughs, and Tubbo's eyes widen in mock surprise.
"You think I'm cute?" Tubbo coos. "Lani, Ranboo thinks I'm cute."
Lani groans and a crumpled paper napkin flies at Tubbo's head. "You've got brainrot. He wore his jumper backwards all day yesterday and he drinks from the milk carton. Get help."
"All day?" Ranboo knows he's grinning and Tubbo has the decency to look embarrassed.
"It didn't have anything on the front. Not my fault I'm used to wearing merch with a logo blasted there."
"You dress like an eight-year-old." Lani peeked into the frame, a slice of droopy pizza in her hand. "Ranboo, please, I'm sure if you told him to dress better he would."
"But uh," Ranboo saw himself fidgeting in the viewfinder. "I like it?"
"God." Was all Lani said before disappearing again.
"It's 'cause I wear his merch." Tubbo looked pleased as punch. "Right?"
"Maybe."
"Flirting!" Lani calls off-camera.
"It's a free-country, woman." Tubbo retorts. "Leave off!"
"You were saying?" Tubbo ignores the frustrated groan of his sister and wolfs down another bite.
"I wasn't."
"No," Tubbo swallows his mouthful. "I think you were saying how cute I was?"
He buries his face in his hands and empathizes briefly with Lani and Tommy. Maybe they were annoyingly affectionate. "Uh-huh."
"Y'know Ranboo," Tubbo begins in that way that means mischief. "I'm pretty chuffed you've not done a face reveal."
"That's new," Ranboo lifted a hand to peek. "You're always on about stealing my mask."
"Right, but as of now, of all the people on the internet, I'm the only one who gets to see your face."
"And Tommy," Ranboo adds petulantly.
"Shut up. Anyways, I'm lucky. It's all mine. And it's a good one too, I think."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Ranboo wonders if his ears are red right now. "Anyways, I've got to go edit, can I call you back on my desktop?" Tubbo continues.
"Of course."
"See you in a minute, handsome." And he's gone. And Ranboo's not just red in the ears, his whole face is hot.
5
Spring rolls around and suddenly it's been two months since he'd last seen Tubbo. It hurts less. There's the whole business of distance making the heart grow fonder, but Ranboo thinks maybe it grows stronger too. The sleep calls have grown on him, and he figures out that if they both wear wireless earbuds, their phones can charge the whole night. And when Tubbo wakes him up, it's different than it was in the UK, but it's still good. It's a little shyer, which Ranboo doesn't expect. He wonders if they've fallen on opposite sides of the whole thing if they've traded places.
It's confirmed one night when Tubbo tearfully admits that his sweater hasn't smelled like him in weeks. Ranboo does his best to console him, even offering to mail him another, but Tubbo just sniffles. He's never had to be the one comforting and realizes suddenly how heart-breaking it is. To be able to do nothing at all except talk. So he does. For that night, Ranboo takes over the rambling, and explains the plot of the first season of Gravity Falls, pausing every few minutes until he hears Tubbo's breathing even out.
In the morning, he wakes before Tubbo. He's still sleeping soundly while Ranboo scours for flights from the UK to the US. Only when Ranboo sends off three different ticket options, and the ping of a discord notifications goes off, does Tubbo wake.
"S'it morning already, darling?" Ranboo hardly makes the words out through a yawn. "I feel like shit."
Ranboo hears the moment he opens the message. It's an intake of breath, held for a second and then released in a sputter. "Oh."
"You said no ocean could separate us." Ranboo smiled gently. "Or something cheesy, I don't remember."
"I did, didn't I." There's the sound of rumpling covers and Tubbo flicks on his video. He's got a pillow crease across one cheek and his hair is curling up in a thousand cowlicks. He looks tired and Ranboo wants to smudge the circles out from under his eyes.
"I want to see you." He says, and a little smile breaks Tubbo's expression. "I need content."
"Oh, shut it." Tubbo groans fondly. "Should I pack for rain, or no?"
+1
Ranboo likes being on this end of the airport much better. Fewer people are jostling around and he has an optimal view of the arrivals. Tubbo had texted him just once during his flight to inform him that Spiderman was "quite cute but not competition" and then promptly passed out. Typical.
He thought back to the first time when Tubbo had nearly knocked him over. The feeling was different now. No less desperate, but subdued. Certain. There is no question in his mind when Tubbo starts down the escalator, elbowing people out of the way as he bee-lines towards him. He braces himself for the impact and still very nearly loses his balance when they collide. Tubbo wraps his arms tightly around his middle and nudges his head under Ranboo's chin. Perfect fit. Ranboo squeezes back, arms gathering up around him and closing the two of them into their own world.
"Hey, honeybee," Ranboo murmurs into his hair. Tubbo's shoulders shake a little with laughter and he looks up, face emerging from Ranboo's hoodie.
"Hey."