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Ranboo smiled through sleepy eyes, raising the palm of his hands against Tubbo’s. It was now a normal occurrence, something that Ranboo not only enjoyed because it bettered his memory but also because he was given words of affirmation that were usually forgotten. His hair was a mess, just like Tubbos that glistened through the window blinds.
“Good morning,” Tubbo greeted through a yawn.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Mhm,” Tubbo pulled away from his hand to scratch his arm before returning it, “Do you remember where we are?”
“Snowchester, right?” Ranboo questioned.
“Yup. Remember that we moved into the mansion?”
Ranboo nodded. The mansion had been something they had -- realistically only Ranboo -- commissioned. After Foolish was done with the building, they had finally gotten a little help from Phil for interior design as well as things for Michael.
“Michael is safely downstairs in his racecar bed,” Tubbo added with a smile, “And we both love you very much.”
“I love you too,” Ranboo said, his heart warm,
“We’re safe too.”
“I remembered everything.” Ranboo was proud of himself.
“I said I’d help you with your memory problems boss man, it’s good to see them improving.”
“Okay well you’re first idea of improving was putting me through experiments with an anvil-”
Tubbo laughed, “Shh, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You know what, maybe they did help.”
With that the brunette got out of their shared bed, fixing his hair and readjusting their wedding ring on his finger. They took them off every night so the important item wouldn’t get lost within the sheets. Tubbo had once held a story about how he had lost one of his earrings in his bed and was never able to recover it.
“Can you hand me mine?”
The gold band of the ring slipped on his finger and Ranboo finally got out of the cozy sheets.
“What’s planned for today? Does Tommy need us or something else?” Ranboo asked.
“Remember I told you yesterday that Jack Manifold wanted my help in testing the nukes?”
Oh, right. Tubbo had been planning for a while to test the explosives, something Ranboo was greatly worried about. Thinking about it, Ranboo figured that he had forgotten because of the stress it carried. That happened a lot, something making him even slightly nervous would suddenly quicken the pace at which he forgot.
“Isn’t that,” Ranboo stuttered a bit, repeating the words, “Isn’t that dangerous?”
Tubbo could sense his nervousness already and walked to Ranboo in hopes of calming him down. He placed his hands carefully but firmly on the other’s arms.
“I’m going to be fine. Everything is going to go as planned. The chances of it failing is less than the chance of you getting stung by a bee.”
When he was around Tubbo, it was easier to retain their memories together, “Whenever we were making the bee dome, the chances of getting stung were pretty high-”
“Ranboo.” Tubbo cut him from his rant. “Trust that I am going to be fine. Put faith into my work. I created the nukes so you bet they’re going to work.”
Ranboo made his attempt at a lighthearted tease, “The fact that you made them just increased my level of worry to one-hundred percent.”
Tubbo rolled his eyes, pulling them into a hug, “Everything will be alright.”
“I trust you,” Ranboo said, “Didn’t you say you’re gonna have to quarantine for a couple of weeks?”
They pulled away from the hug, “Yeah, I don’t want you guys to be affected by whatever radiation poison I may have. I know it's a lot of time, but it's with you and Michael’s safety in mind.”
“Okay, I’m going to make breakfast,” Ranboo suggested.
“What's on the menu?”
“Probably some eggs or pancakes.”
Ranboo was reluctant to eat sausage or bacon now that they had adopted Michael. Yeah, they're different but related species as a piglin vs. a pig, but the similarities were too close. So he usually made some eggs, pancakes or waffles, and bagels for breakfast.
He walked down the stairs on his way to wake Michael up. The kitchen was open with the living room, making it easy to cook while their son was able to play with his toys. They never had to worry about much considering he was fairly well behaved.
He opened the door slowly, relieved that Michael was in fact still sleeping in his bed.
“Good morning, Michael,” Ranboo said softly, gently rubbing his arm to wake him up without scaring him.
“Ranboo?” He questioned in a sleepy voice.
Tubbo and him had both decided to have Michael call them by their real names. They figured the idea of being called dad at such a young age was worse than their regular names. To Michael, they were just Ranboo and Tubbo, his dads. To them, he was just Michael, their son.
“Mhm, wanna help me make breakfast?”
“Can we have french toast?”
That was something Ranboo hadn’t made in a while, but he knew that Michael liked it the most.
“If you want,” Ranboo smiled with a nod.
“Okay, then!”
He lifted the boy, the both of them still in pajamas, into his arms and walked into the kitchen. Oftentimes, he would treat the journey like an airplane trip, holding Michael in his hands high above himself as the child giggled. For someone who was around six years old, Michael was already fairly good at the English language. Both him and Tubbo had spent multiple hours every day homeschooling him and occasionally Technoblade would help with the gradual learning of their piglin language.
“Can you hand me the eggs?”
They had already done this multiple times so Michael had no trouble bringing them out. He was also aware of how fragile they were and Ranboo would always laugh at how carefully he handled them.
After gathering the bread and soaking it in the mixture of eggs, milk, cinnamon, and syrup, Ranboo placed the slice in the pan. When Tubbo came down, the first batch of breakfast was finished and he handed the plate to his husband.
“French toast?”
“Yeah, Michael wanted it.”
The zombie piglin gave a giggle which sounded like a generic ‘hehe.’
“It’s good, thank you.”
Ranboo smiled while making more as Michael went on and on to Tubbo about some dream he had where big robots were attacking Snowchester.
“And then they were like ‘pue pue’ and I saw Uncle Tommy fighting them off and-” he got distracted by the plate placed in front of him, “Oo, french toast.”
Tubbo chuckled, placing the plate into the dishwasher, “Thank you so much for doing this.”
“Of course, I trust you and I know it’s to have greater protection for us.”
Tubbo shortly intertwined their fingers, giving a strong squeeze, “Don’t forget that Foolish volunteered to watch over Michael if you ever want to hang out with Tommy or someone else.”
“He says volunteer but you and I both know he's gonna ask for gold after the matter,” Ranboo laughed.
“I will neither deny nor confirm this statement,” Tubbo smiled, “I’ll see you in three weeks.”
“Be safe.”
Tubbo gave Michael a hug before grabbing his heavy coat. Before he walked out of the open door, he said his farewell, “I love you both!”
Michael attempted to make a small heart with his hands that probably wasn’t visible to Tubbo.
“We love you too!”
And with that, the door closed and brought on a period of life without Tubbo.
//
It started out with normalcy. Ranboo would get up, try his best at reciprocating the memory exercise, and retrieve Michael from his room. From there they would make breakfast together, Ranboo slowly teaching his son all about foods and how they’re cooked and not to touch the stove.
Michael had also just found out about Apple Juice and refused to drink anything other than that. So, Ranboo would have to find a different way to provide him with much needed dairy and his best bet was probably cheese. So every time they had eggs, which was probably two times a week, Ranboo would always add cheese into the scrambled eggs and started to make omelets. And when that wasn’t happening, he would make the daily snack cheese and crackers.
Everything went on as normal. He would proceed to give Michael a lesson on math or english or the history of the smp or a creative art session before allowing him to play in the snow of their backyard.
But as the days moved from one or two into a week, Ranboo was slowly forgetting. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but the moment he realized was whenever Michael had mentioned someone by the name Tubbo. The name felt so familiar, yet so far away. How can you know about something if you can’t remember who they are?
He had figured the person in pictures of him hanging on the wall of the staircase was Tubbo, but it wasn’t until Ranboo had retrieved his diary that he had fully remembered who Tubbo was.
He was his husband. They were married. They had been in L’manburg together. On valentines, they had adopted Michael together. They had worked to build the mansion together. How had Ranboo forgotten? It was times like these where he was lucky to have made a section of his memory book dedicated to Michael and Tubbo. He had never been so afraid to lose a memory before and the only reassurance was the sticky note in neat handwriting that stated, “Tubbo and Michael, we love you.”
He was reminded of his life back in L’manburg when he had first been so reliant on his memory book. He hadn’t felt like that in a while, but he found himself clinging to his writings and assigned pictures in the pages.
The issue only progressed whenever it was the second week. Or Ranboo thought it was the second week despite not even knowing why he was counting the time down. Ranboo had been pretty adamant about remembering his family, but the less conversation that was brought up only furthered his memory regression. And the fact he was completely isolated considering no one had talked to him for a week or two only made it worse.
When he was teaching Michael addition, the son’s question made Ranboo rack his brain for an answer he couldn’t give.
“When is Tubbo coming home?”
He could only respond in a fake response before telling Michael to finish some of the math problems and excusing himself in a desperate need to find his book.
He couldn’t remember who Tubbo was. He knew deep down that the person was important to him and it hurt even more to know that he had completely forgotten about whoever they were. There were pictures on the walls about that person, but he still couldn’t remember why they were so important. He could barely even remember who it was.
He had to find his diary. He could remember a place in the very back filled with people who were important to him. If he could find the journal then he wouldn’t have to panic. From there, he would keep it on him at all times so that something like the current situation would never happen again.
The problem was, where was his book? In a desperate need to find it, he turned the room into a mess, tearing apart the cabinets. Even after checking in the most bizarre places like under the bed or in his closet or in the room’s bathroom, the book was nowhere close to being found.
He knew Michael was unsupervised, but he also trusted him to be okay. Ranboo could remember him. He could remember his son. So he wasn’t his first priority. No, locating his journal and figuring out who Tubbo is was his mission.
As he continued looking with no luck, Ranboo felt the first sting slide against his cheek. Tears. The frustration had finally set in and the tears flooded his face with a strong burning sensation. Why? Why was he doomed to such a fate where he couldn’t remember the people he cared for the most?
He heard running footsteps behind him and wiped the tears away, only increasing the flaming liquid as it tore against his skin. He had to be strong for Michael. He wouldn’t show his tears. But the sound of a different voice made Ranboo realize it wasn’t his son.
“Ranboo, what the hell is going on?”
His vision was still blurry but he felt a pair of hands stationed around his arms. The person looked similar to the one pictured around the house.
“Tubbo?”
“Yeah? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
He let himself get embraced despite still being very confused.
“I can’t remember who you are,” Ranboo stuttered, “My journal it-”
More tears rolled down his face and Tubbo grimaced. He could understand what Ranboo had meant to say and the brunette knew that he couldn’t wipe them away.
“Hey, look at me, okay? Just focus on my voice,” Tubbo soothed, “Take deep breaths, in and out.”
Tubbo pulled away, grabbing the palms of his hand and recreating something that triggered his memory.
“Let’s do today's memory exercise right now, okay?”
Ranboo nodded.
“I’m Tubbo. Do you see the ring on my finger? We’re married.”
He looked at the drawers to see that Ranboo’s ring was sitting there perfectly fine.
“You see the other one on that counter? That is yours. Michael is our adopted son and we’re in Snowchester right now.”
Ranboo was finally able to stop crying, though his damp face still held pain. He was slowly picturing the pages in his diary as Tubbo went through more information. They are married. They do share a son. They are in the commissioned mansion. They are safe.
“W-where were you?” Ranboo asked.
What was the other doing that separated them for so long?
“I was quarantining after Jack Manifold and I tested the nukes, remember?”
Ranboo nodded, lowering his hands and opening his arms to signal he wanted a hug. Tubbo accepted, glad to have finally calmed his husband down.
“Why are you back so early? It's only been two weeks.”
“It’s only a day too soon,” Tubbo answered, "Almost three weeks already."
"Oh." Ranboo must have lost track of the time.
“Michael heard things being thrown around so he went out to find Tommy for help. Once Tommy learned about the situation he figured something was wrong with you and went to get me.”
Ranboo buried his face into Tubbo’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
Tubbo rubbed his back in slow circles, “It’s okay. Don’t ever be sorry for something you can’t control, okay?”
Ranboo nudged his head in a nod. He felt another pair of small arms around him and glanced up to see Michael.
“Don’t cry, Ranboo! There's so much fun to be had.”
He gave the lightest chuckle he could manage, finally feeling more at ease. He looked up to see Tommy standing against the doorway with a smile over his worried eyes. Ranboo would have to thank him later.