Work Text:
In the movies, three in the morning is for the lonely and the alone. It plagues your dreams with nightmares of closed doors and black voids you trip into- or keeps you awake with the restless ‘what if’ that hangs in the back of your throat. Movies don’t always imitate real life, and Ranboo wonders if there’s a hidden camera he has to cover up.
There’s a lump in his throat that won’t go away, and part of him feels guilty for it. Ever since he landed in the U.K, Ranboo had been nothing but a ball of relief and nerves. Where one emotion ended, the other intertwined and overlapped until his head ached with the effort of pulling himself apart.
He shuffles in the blanket laid out on the floor, sitting up on his elbows in the darkness of a foreign bedroom.
“Tubbo?” Ranboo speaks just above a whisper, debates on reaching out to touch his friend’s shoulder.
Tubbo rolls around in his bed until he comes face to face with the guest- and it takes a moment for both of them to search each other’s face in the dead of the night. Ranboo feels like his stare is lingering a little too long and he glances down at the floor.
“Is your jetlag acting up, big man.” Tubbo reciprocates the volume, and despite the time of day, his voice isn’t thick with sleep. Ranboo finds the tense knot in his shoulders loosen.
“Yeah, you could say that.” He half-laughs, but it just sounds like a scoff. The blanket is kicked off his body with a few moments of wriggling his legs around, and it feels like the wrong type of exposure. Ranboo tries to remember when the nerves warped into anxiety. “Blankie mode isn’t working.”
Tubbo sighs, but it’s not out of frustration. Ranboo can’t help but feel the way his heart picks up speed anyway, and he glances up to meet his eyes just in case. He’s greeted with a loopy smile. “I couldn’t sleep either to be honest.”
“You couldn’t?”
“Mm- no.” Tubbo shakes his head, and Ranboo watches his bed head bounce against his forehead. “I think I’m a little too used to you talking me to sleep.”
They both pause, wait for the weight of the words to sink under Tubbo’s tongue, and Ranboo watches his face animate in the moonlight. A thought in the back of his head scratches the word beautiful into his memory.
“I- er- in a good way!” Tubbo rushes out, waving a curled fist in front of his face out of embarrassment. “That sounded mean… shit.”
At least the reaction makes the lump in his throat a little easier to deal with. When Ranboo responds, his voice is soft. “I get what you mean, Tubbo.”
“You do?” Tubbo asks, and Ranboo sits up properly if only to ease the ache in his spine. Tubbo mimics his movements almost like a mirror until they’re both cross-legged and facing each other.
“I mean-” How was he supposed to word this? Ranboo setted for deflecting confession, answering something else instead. Something safe, to joke about. “We’re stuck with each other for 8 months. I’ve got to know you by that point, right?”
Both of them stay silent at that, because Ranboo’s words got jumbled up between thinking about them and saying them out loud- but he’s still right. They’ve been dancing around each other since November, and the hours that stretched between open seas never stopped them from spending hours together. If they didn’t know each other by now, it’d feel like a lost opportunity. Somewhere along the line, the butterfly effect tipped the scale and led them to… them. Here, now. Ranboo on Tubbo’s bedroom floor and Tubbo asking him a question he only half processes.
“Did you really mean what you said?” Tubbo says, tugging Ranboo out of his thoughts.
He clears his throat, wets his lips and tries not to be awkward. “What did I say?”
“On stream,” Tubbo repeats, making a random gesture in the air, as if it was projecting behind Ranboo’s head. “About- wherever-”
“Wherever you go, I’ll follow.” Ranboo interrupts, finishing his line from a few hours ago. He had cut himself off and changed subjects- not because he wouldn’t, but.. some things the chat was better off not hearing. The yearning can only go so far before it gets questioned.
“Yeah,” Tubbo nods, “did you really mean that?”
Ranboo opens his mouth, and then closes it. If he played his cards right, he didn’t have to spill his feelings out on the carpet at three in the morning. “Did you mean it when you said you’d live wherever I want you to?”
“Yeah- well. Within reason, of course.”
“Mhm.”
It sounds dismissive even though it isn’t, and Tubbo puffs out his cheeks in mock annoyance. “You can’t stay in the U.K. for very long, you know.”
When Ranboo furrows his eyebrows together, Tubbo rolls his eyes. The moon dips behind a muddy cloud outside. “The stupid fucking- visa thing. It takes too long. I’d miss you.”
The last three words are whispered in a way that makes Ranboo think he wasn’t meant to hear it- that he didn’t deserve to. He leans over to Tubbo’s bed, resting his elbows on the edge of the frame that poked out from beneath the mattress. Tubbo shuffles backwards to make room.
“It would be really funny if we actually got married for tax reasons, if you think about it.” Ranboo suggests, and it’s so blunt that it makes Tubbo laugh. One of their hearts skipped a beat- or maybe it was both at the same time. “It would be really funny.”
“Would it?” Tubbo counters, and he does that little rocking back and forth he does when the giggles get too much to contain. Ranboo watches fondly as Tubbo covers his mouth with the back of his hand. “To be fair, we probably will live together- that helps, doesn’t it?”
Ranboo blinks owlishly. “We- we’ve decided that?”
“I have!” Tubbo pats his own chest, and then snickers again. His grin is cheeky and full of sleep deprived energy. Ranboo wants to take a picture, just to let the moment last a little longer. “You’re just along for the ride, boss man. No choice.”
“I’m not complaining.”
He says it without thinking, rushing it out and letting it overlap the last of Tubbo’s words. Ranboo can see the way Tubbo flinches, and the pent up energy that churned in his stomach wilts away like a flower.
When Tubbo speaks again, it’s nonchalant. Like the exchange barely even happened- and Ranboo considers himself envious. “Who’d wear the dress between the two of us.”
“We don’t need a dress?” Ranboo snorts, and in the corner of his eye, relief fills Tubbo’s face. “Tubbo, we can both wear suits.”
“I reckon I could kill someone in a dress.” He declares, and Ranboo nods in encouragement. “I’m too powerful, I should wear one.”
“Okay, geez.” He did that thing again, agreeing with Tubbo before the rest of his brain caught up with his mouth. The lump in his throat is forgotten in favour of enveloping laughter. “You can- hah- I guess you’re the dress wearer then.”
“You think I’ll pull it off?”
“Tubbo, you- you look good in anything.”
“Really?” Tubbo sounds hopeful, wiggles in his spot a little just to expel a bit of excitement. One of these days, Ranboo would ask him where he got all his joy, and if he could borrow it sometime. “Awwwwwh.”
Ranboo laughs at that again, shaking his head and playfully hitting his head against the edge of the mattress. Tubbo gets set off by the dull thud of his head against wood, and falls to the side as he stifles his giggles. There’s an urge in the back of Ranboo’s mind to grab his hands and guide them away from his mouth, if only to see the way he smiles.
“Would you propose? Or would I?” Tubbo asks as they both wind down from the 3am giggle fit, cheeks flushed a light pink in the light. He lays back down, but Ranboo doesn’t move. Outside, the moon is pooling through the windows again. “I think you would, actually. Nevermind.”
“Tubbo, I-” Ranboo coughs, re-catching the breath that Tubbo stole from his lungs. He doesn’t pick up his head yet and speaks into the bed- muffled one way or another. “It’s gonna be a long time till then.”
“I wanna be prepared, boo.”
“I-” He really can’t argue with that, actually, “okay, hold on.” Ranboo picks up his head and unfolds his arms, reaching out for Tubbo instead. Surprisingly enough, one of Tubbo’s hands flops to the side and lands into both of Ranboo’s cupped palms. Neither of them pull away, and Ranboo’s fingers interlock with his. “Who said we were going to get married?”
“You did.”
Ranboo pauses. “I did?”
“You said it’d be funny.” Tubbo reminds him, and Ranboo doesn’t realize he’s tense until a thumb traces a circle against his hand just to relax his grip. As an apology, he squeezes Tubbo’s hand and lets go. Tubbo doesn’t let him. “Was it all a joke to you?”
“I- wow.” Ranboo barks out a startled laugh and directs his gaze to the floor. “Tubbo. Geez. You really just…” He shakes his head and sighs, “no, Tubbo, you’re not a joke to me. We’re not- like that.”
It’s moments like these that Ranboo pushes his internal debate past the quickened heartbeat and queasy stomach. This always happened around the Brit- an ocean apart or a hairsbreadth too close. Tubbo, he- changes Ranboo, somehow. A familiarity he couldn’t describe tugs at his heartstrings every time the boy’s eyes disappear as he laughs, and he would toss away the world just to keep hearing that sound. In a way, with his U.K apartment search history, he already has. Ranboo of a year ago wouldn’t dare step an inch away from his house. There is something hard to explain in what Tubbo means to him, or the urges he gets when his friend is around. It’s like nobody but him is watching, even in front of a camera.
“What are we like, then?”
Tubbo makes him brave.
“Something- something different?” Ranboo doesn’t know how to word this, trying to keep the shake in his voice to a minimum. “Yeah. We’re just- together. A duo.” He concludes with a small nod, and when Tubbo doesn’t confirm he heard him right away- Ranboo’s voice wavers.
“Is that okay?”
Tubbo waits a beat before speaking and when Ranboo looks back up to see him, Tubbo’s cheeks are rosy from smiling too hard. “You better not be hitting on me, man. You gotta ask me out first.”
“Tubbo!” Ranboo mimics his smile, snorting, “I wasn’t- no. What the heck, dude.”
“Awh, you weren’t?” Tubbo has the audacity to genuinely sound upset, and heat rises up to Ranboo’s cheeks. It makes his heart skip a beat, a flash of pressing his lips against Tubbo’s goes through his mind and he quickly shakes his head.
“No I would’ve-” Ranboo bites his tongue, stops himself before it goes too far. Three in the morning brings out the worst in everyone but Tubbo, he decides. “Psh, nevermind. It’s all good.”
“Ranbooo tell me.” Tubbo whined, turning his head to give Ranboo mock puppy eyes. He almost caves within seconds. “Please?”
“No, Tubbo.”
“Please?” Tubbo repeats, and he has to wiggle around until he’s laying on his stomach and facing Ranboo, who’s still on his knees at the edge of his bed. The position is cramped, but either Tubbo doesn’t care or his flexibility is making it so it doesn’t hurt. “I’ll do anything.”
Ranboo huffs. “Tubbo, I can’t.”
“Why not? Please? For me?”
“Tubbo I-” Ranboo pauses, but doesn’t backtrack. Tubbo makes him brave. “I’m not.. great with rejection.”
Tubbo doesn’t say anything for a second, and Ranboo could watch the cogs in his brain turn in real time. If he wasn’t focused on the way Tubbo’s mouth moves as he whispers his thought process, Ranboo might have gotten up and left the room out of fear.
“Who said I’d reject you.” Tubbo says finally, and he frames his words like glass.
“Psh-” Ranboo almost chuckles, but his heart sinks instead, and he doesn’t feel like making a joke out of this one anymore. “Who wouldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t.”
He’s so earnest it hurts. Ranboo shuts his eyes just so he can’t see the honesty written in Tubbo’s expression, and finds himself missing the boy within seconds. He squeezes his eyes tighter. “Yes you would.”
“Try me.”
“Try- Tubbo, I’m not going to ask you out.”
“Okay.” Tubbo shrugs, and Ranboo can hear it by the way the sheets move beneath his arms. Despite all of the movement, neither of them have let go of each other's hands quite yet. Tubbo clings to him a little harder, like he’s afraid that Ranboo would shrink away if they stopped touching. “Ranboo, go on a date with me.”
Tubbo was always the type to be out of pocket during serious moments, but out of anything Ranboo could have guessed to happen- it certainly wasn’t that. “Excuse me?”
“Go on a date with me.” Tubbo repeats, and it’s so casual that Ranboo feels like he’s dreaming. But the moon dips behind a cloud, and he watches shadows cast over his friend’s left cheek. “We can walk on the pier, if you’d like.”
“Oh-” Ranboo would be lying if he said he didn’t know what to say, but he could never say no to Tubbo even if he tried. “Okay.”
“See? Easy!” Tubbo finally let’s go of Ranboo’s hand and tucks them underneath his chest, and Ranboo’s fist closes around the warmth that Tubbo used to occupy. “Your turn!”
“Tubbo,” This was stupid, it was so incredibly stupid that Ranboo wanted to claw his way out of- out of this bit, whatever the heck it was. “Would you like to go out with me?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Oh.” Ranboo reaches out for Tubbo’s hand again, to grasp the familiar, and Tubbo smiles. Instead of another palm in his, Tubbo leans forward and rests his chin in Ranboo’s hands.
His skin is soft, and Ranboo feels big- too big, like he’d drop Tubbo and shatter his heart on the floor if he wasn’t careful enough. Tubbo pushes his cheek into the crook between Ranboo’s left finger and thumb. In a cheesy way, he looks like he’s home.
“Oh. ”
There’s a certain cusp between three and four in the morning, where jokes hold unspoken secrets and words taste heavy on your tongue. Sometimes- if you’re a lucky one- you can have someone to share the weight with. Ranboo's thumb pressed against Tubbo's cheek traces a little heart, and neither of them need to say a thing after that.