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“Daaaaaad,” a squeaky voice sounded in Tubbo’s ear. He grumbled and heaved a pillow over his head, the fabric pillow case getting caught on his horns.
Little hooves pushed at his arm, and then there was a weight on his back.
“Michael, are you sitting on me?” He mumbled through his pillow. Awkwardly he flailed his hand backwards through the air until he found his son's small shoulder. “How many stairs did you have to climb to get up here?”
“I dunno. But Dad, I really wanna go to the beach today!” Michael cried, and Tubbo admired his enthusiasm this early in the morning.
“Ask your father,” Tubbo muttered. Ranboo was more of a morning person than Tubbo. Or so he hoped anyway.
Tubbo felt the weight move off of his back, and after a rustling of sheets he heard his husband make a noise of muted surprise.
“Father can we go to the beach? Dad told me to ask you,” Michael pleaded.
An enderman noise slipped out of Ranboo and then he said, “I don’t know about the beach Michael…”
Tubbo knew his husband well enough to know when he was uncomfortable. What about the beach would make him uncomfortable?
Tubbo changed his position from lying on his stomach to lying on his back, adjusting his blankets so that they weren’t stuck under him. Sleepily, he cracked his eyes open to look at his family.
Michael had taken up a seat on Ranboo’s stomach, his front hooves pressed into Ranboo’s skinny chest. Ranboo had his hands wrapped around Michaels stomach, and was giving him a worried expression.
“But father, I really want to go to the beach~” Michael whined, his one pig ear flicking in distress.
Ranboo cast a glance at Tubbo. He shrugged, as if to say “It’s your decision big man,” .
Ranboo looked into Michaels pleading eyes, which Tubbo knew would be a big mistake if he didn’t really wanna go to the beach, as Michael’s puppy eyes were fatal to any mortal.
And obviously Ranboo fell prey to them, because he sighed and said, “Let’s go to the beach then, Michael,”
The overjoyed look that crossed his face made Tubbo know that it was worth it.
Two hours and a lot of preparation later and they were at the beach.
“Michael, make sure that you come back to us if you need a touch up on sunscreen, alright? Sunburns are big owies,” Ranboo worried, the dark side of his face pasty with high SPF sunscreen.
“I’m going with him Boo, I’ll make sure he’s all sunscreened up,” Tubbo said, rubbing a bit more on his exposed arms.
“Okay, good, good,” Ranboo muttered, half to himself and half to Tubbo. He still sounded very nervous, which worried Tubbo immensely.
“Hey, Boo, you know you didn’t have to come if you didn’t want to. I could’ve brought him by myself,” Tubbo said quietly.
Ranboo fidgeted with his ring.
“Yeah, but he seemed so excited to come and I just couldn’t not come—he’s my son, and I want to spend all the time I can with him, even if it has to be from,” he gestured with his hand, “a distance.”
He didn’t explain why it had to be from a distance, but he didn’t push Tubbo about his explosion scars, so he would push him about this. There were boundaries here that they shouldn’t cross.
So Tubbo went to go play in the waves with his son, and Ranboo stayed on the shore, a very safe distance away from the water.
Ranboo leaned back in his beach chair and dropped his sun hat over his eyes. Pretty soon, with the sounds of far off splashes from his family and the warm sun streaming down on his skin, Ranboo slipped into sleep.
Which appeared to be a mistake, because what seemed like moments later he was being shaken awake by a very frantic Tubbo.
“I look away for two seconds, ” he was mumbling over and over again.
“Tubbo, Tubbo, what happened?” Ranboo asked, his hand coming up to stop Tubbo’s incessant shaking.
He wrung his hands in the air.
“I looked away for two seconds because I thought I saw—well it doesn’t matter because I lost track of Michael —Boo I can’t see him anywhere I’m super worried,” he blurted out in a rush.
“What— okay Tub where were you last?” Ranboo asked, already scanning the ocean for any sign of his son. They had given him floaties, but depending on how far out he was they might not be much help.
Tubbo pointed, and as soon as his finger was outstretched, Ranboo was running towards the water.
“Boo!” Tubbo yelled, but Ranboo was already diving into the water.
Call it instinct, call it precognition, call it whatever you want, but Ranboo just knew that he had to find his son.
The water wasn’t bothering him too much yet, but it would in time.
In time it would burn.
But Ranboo had already somehow made it to the place that Tubbo had pointed to, far out into the ocean. His tail flicking anxiously through the water, he yelled,
“Michael! Michael!” But heard no response.
Hissing slightly he sucked in a breath and sunk under the water, his arms pushing through the clear water to keep him under. The scars that ran down his face ached.
The first time, Ranboo didn’t see anything but a couple of scared fish and some seaweed. He came up spluttering, his hands automatically coming up to wipe at his face to try and get the water off. Of course, it didn’t do anything, as he was literally in the ocean.
The second time, he achieved nothing but plaster his hair to his head again and get his eyes more irritated.
Come on, Tubbo always said that it’s ’the third times the charm’, come on, Ranboo thought, looking back to the shore for a moment to see Tubbo wading through the water to him.
But the third time, he still saw nothing.
So with one last look at Tubbo, Ranboo swam even further out, and then ducked under the water once more.
And there he was, there was his son , struggling to get to air. The floaties they had given him as protection had somehow filled up with water and were dragging him down.
Lightning fast, Ranboo swam over to Michael and pushed him to the surface ahead of him, then surfaced with a gasp.
Michael was coughing and spluttering, but he was alive and he was breathing . With trembling fingers Ranboo yanked his floaties off and tossed them away, pulling Michael up onto his chest and shifting to float on his back. He didn’t even care that he felt like he was crawling in his skin, or that a purple blackness had started to cloud his vision.
His son was safe , and that’s all that mattered.
He breathed a sigh of relief, and then promptly blacked out.
Tubbo was surprised when Ranboo darted past him into the water, and shocked at the incredible speed at which he moved through it. He thought Ranboo hated the water, but his eagerness to jump in and his expertise in swimming suggested otherwise.
Well, it was their son that was in danger after all.
So Tubbo followed him along the shore, and began wading in after him. He saw Ranboo go under once, twice, and then cast a look at him before diving under a third time.
Tubbo couldn’t stop a bleat of alarm from escaping his mouth when he saw Ranboo go even deeper into the water, and his heart beat faster when he didn’t resurface as quickly as he had the other times.
But when he came back up with Michael, all the tension seeped out of him. Michael was okay. He was okay.
“Michael! Boo!” Tubbo yelled, paddling even faster through the water. When he reached them he realized that 1) Michael was crying his eyes out, and 2) Ranboo was not responding to his calls.
He tried to take Michael off of Ranboo’s chest, to ease some of the weight, but Ranboo hissed vehemently and held Michael closer, flipping himself into an upright position.
“Come on Ranboo, let me help,” Tubbo sighed, looking at his husband.
His eyes were a deep purple.
That couldn’t be good.
Ranboo didn’t seem aggressive towards Tubbo, at least not at the moment, but he seemed extremely protective of Michael.
“Hey, Ranboo,” Tubbo murmured in a low voice, hoping that his words weren’t drowned out by Michaels sobbing. Prime, he wanted to hug him so close right now. “I’m your husband, Tubbo. I’m not going to steal Michael away, I just want to help.”
A gargled sound escaped Ranboo’s mouth, and he blinked. Still, he didn’t give Michael to Tubbo. He just started swimming back to shore, making sure that Michaels head was above the water.
“You’re okay,” Tubbo reassured, half for Michael and half for the distressed Ranboo’s sake. Tubbo had never seen him like this before, so obsessively protective. Was it something to do with the stress of the situation? Was it something to do with the water? But Ranboo was fine with the dolphin tunnel that led to Snowchester. He didn’t try to protect the dolphin with his life.
When they were back on the shore, Ranboo straightened, still holding a crying Michael close. He was...much taller than he had been before. And was he steaming? His unnatural purple eyes stared at Tubbo, as if daring him to come closer. Which he did.
He inched nearer, and whispered,
“Boo, it’s me, Tubbo. I’m your husband, and you’re holding our son Michael. I’m a goat hybrid, I’ve got these horns, see? Do you remember?” He slid his fingers over his still wet horns. “It’s okay if you don’t. You’re Ranboo, an enderman hybrid, and you’re my husband. You like alliums, you like skating with me on the ice, and you like helping people. You even brought Michael here to the beach today even though you aren’t fond of water, and I’m grateful for that.”
A strange gargled sound came out of Ranboo’s throat, but nothing more happened. Tubbo continued.
“You made sure Michael would be safe in the sun and in the water, and you saved him when things went wrong. You always save me too, whether it be from an experiment gone wrong or just sleep deprivation. And I thank you for that too. Ranboo, you don’t have to be strong right now, because I’m here. I’ll always be here.”
A clicking noise emanated from Ranboo, and then his eyes dimmed to grey. With a swirl, his eyes were green and red again. He even shrunk noticeably.
“You okay Boo?” Tubbo murmured.
“Take Michael,” Ranboo muttered, and Tubbo just barely caught Michael by the armpits as he slid out of Ranboo’s hands.
“Here, lean on me,” Tubbo offered, balancing Michael on his hip while stroking his hair.
Ranboo didn’t argue and laid his head, not on Tubbo’s shoulder, but on his head because it was higher up.
Together, they headed back home.
When Michael was comforted and Ranboo was resting in bed, Tubbo sat on the edge of his mattress and looked at him.
“You wanna talk about today, Big Man?” He asked.
“...maybe tomorrow,” Ranboo replied wearily.
There was a moment of shared silence. Then Ranboo spoke up.
“Thanks for being there,” he whispered.
Tubbo laughed. “I’m your husband idiot; it’s what I’m here for.”
“Well thanks regardless. It really...it really helped,” Ranboo said.
“Like I said, it’s what I’m here for. And I am here. And I always will be. You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he teased.
Ranboo smiled.