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“Honey,” Tubbo jokes as he climbs up to the second floor of his house, “I’m home.”
Some of the rungs of the ladder are loose - probably from overuse or the cold - and in the sliver of space left by the answering silence, Tubbo reminds himself to ask Foolish to take a look at it.
Assuming he’s alone, Tubbo makes it up to the top, but once he gets there he’s mildy surprised to see Ranboo, sitting on the bed with Michael.
It’s a rare sight; Ranboo relaxed, even slightly. His usual crown is set carefully on the nightstand and he hunches his body into a crescent moon in order to be closer to Michael. Purple particles spark around him and Michael reaches up to bat at one with a tiny trotter before it disappears.
“One of those days, huh?” Tubbo laughs, taking off his coat and hanging it on one of the hooks along the wall.
Ranboo nods.
“How’s he been?”
The only response Tubbo gets is a softer version of an enderman’s cry, a hum-chirp-crackle that he used to associate with oncoming danger, but now can’t help but find fond.
Tubbo pulls up a chair to sit across from them and reaches for Michael, who snorts and lets himself be swapped onto his other dad’s lap.
“If only I understood you,” he murmurs lightly, watching Michael wrinkle his nose and pull a face. He leans forward to tug at a strand of Tubbo’s hair and Tubbo tries not to wince.
Ranboo stills, then begins to shake, his body visibly trembling on the fringes of Tubbo’s vision. This isn’t the first time - he has no idea how Ranboo does it, the thrum of energy that pulses through him looks tiring - but it is an uncommon habit, always accompanying some kind of distress.
Tubbo glances up, concerned, only to freeze when they lock eyes.
No matter how many times Tubbo observes the random shifts Ranboo goes through - some days he wanders aimlessly for hours, seeming to lose all want or willingness to speak - his power of paralyzation is impossible to get used to.
Frozen veins and locked-in bones; it’s too abrupt to become normal, but Tubbo doesn’t ultimately mind much. He’s transfixed by Ranboo’s heterochromatic gaze and the familiarity is almost comforting.
These same eyes met his in a blackstone vault, and from across the nether, and as he suggested they tie themselves together for life.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he amends, staring into red and green. “I just want to talk to you.”
Ranboo makes a noise, of affirmation, most likely, before looking away, his motions slowing. Tubbo rolls his neck lightly while Michael babbles something, shaking off the stiffness.
Endermen speak more through tone than sound, Tubbo has learned. A hundred iterations of similar clicks and whirs, each with only minute difference.
He’s grown to recognize some, the specific pattern of lifts and tumbles - that one for when Michael is doing something dangerous, this one for when someone is coming - but most remain in the back of his mind like any other language; sharp with the knowledge that there’s meaning there, but entirely unsure where to begin.
“I know I can,” he adds, “but it’s not conversation.”
Despite Tubbo’s best efforts, Ranboo just frowns and plays with the fraying edge of the blanket - an old one Tommy had shoved into his hands with some mutterings; he might like it, I guess, shut up - and Tubbo sighs.
“Not that-” Tubbo struggles with how to phrase things at the best of times and the hurt in the set of Ranboo’s mouth has his brain working overtime with effort.
Michael chooses that moment to start squirming, so Tubbo lets him go, watching warily as he slides off and runs over to his favorite spot by the window.
“I don’t want you to talk if you’re uncomfortable,” Tubbo explains, tone mild. “Really. I just feel bad if I talk for ages and you just have to listen.”
They’ve never actually discussed the abrupt changes, even when Ranboo does feel like talking.
Tubbo was caught off guard the first time it happened - no one prepared him for marriage, especially not the bit where your husband is magically almost a meter taller and distinctly more mob-like - but after a couple instances he kind of assumed it’s just one of those things.
There’s plenty of stuff Tubbo hasn’t brought up either.
He doesn’t really have any behaviors other than what he does every day, but he does have secrets. Not because Ranboo can’t know, but because Tubbo’s never able to unravel the constrictor knot that ties the loose ends together in his throat every time he thinks about them.
The web of scars criss-crossed down his arm. Dreams that burn in vibrant color. The memories: the burden of them from war after war and loss after loss.
Sometimes he envies the way Ranboo forgets, but he knows that’s a cruel way of thinking.
Making another sound, Ranboo reaches out for him; Tubbo lets himself be pulled up and over to the bed. Long limbs wrap around his torso and he half-heartedly pushes them off as he settles in.
Ranboo’s grip loosens, but he moves to drape an arm across Tubbo’s shoulders instead, tapping three beats in rapid succession, just above the elbow.
Tubbo tries to imagine what Ranboo would say on an ordinary day - something about perception or perspective or perseverance, or something - but he lets that train of thought fall off its track.
It doesn’t ultimately matter; Ranboo is Ranboo, even when he’s non-verbal and all particle-y, and Tubbo loves him for it.
“Want me to tell you about my day?” he asks, feeling the slightest rumble against his skin, a distant tremor somewhere deep inside of both of them.
Vrrrp.
Tubbo leans his head against Ranboo’s side, letting his eyes flutter shut for a second. When he opens them, Michael’s hoisted himself back up onto the chair, eager to listen with his chicken by his side.
“So Tommy wanted to get diamonds-” Tubbo begins.
Soft auburn shines through the windows and Tubbo lets himself ramble through the smile that rises as he tells his story - to two sets of attentive eyes, to the extensions of his steadily beating heart - to his family.