Chapter Text
“Welp, that's gonna be the stream for today!” exclaimed Ranboo as his minecraft character started to right click towards his invisible audience in the sky.
Tubbo sat thousands of miles away in his own chair and computer staring absentmindedly at one of his monitors. He had had an impossibly long day and was fully emotionally and physically exhausted. Filming vlogs with Tommy every couple of days was some of the most fun he has had in his life but Tubbo had known for a long time that he is not built the same as Tommy and most of their friends socially, these past weeks only confirmed it. He felt like his anxiousness had built up in his system so much he started feeling that same restless panic more and more after he came home after filming.
Of course he was going to still be there for Ranboo’s streams though, no matter how socially drained Tubbo ever seemed to get, he felt like he could never get sick of the other boy. Something about his presence felt safe to Tubbo, his generally collected and very caring nature made nights like these something that felt more stable and less panicky.
“-Do you wanna say bye Tubbo? Or are you already asleep?” Tubbo quickly zoned back into his friend's words and sat up a little.
“Yeah, Bye Boobers~” Tubbo softly sang, earning a soft chuckle back from Ranboo.
After a second he heard the click of Ranboo’s keyboard and a satisfied sigh from the other end of the call.
“Hi Tubbo”
“Hello Memory Boy,”
“I haven't heard that one in awhile, you must be really sleepy,” Ranboo chuckled, “you can go to bed if you want, I don’t mind.” The problem wasn't that Tubbo was tired, even though generally, yes, his body and mind were exhausted. The problem was the anxious restlessness that sat like a pit in his stomach.
“I am sleepy, but I know I wouldn't be able to sleep if I tried. I swear Tommy is trying to kill my poor introverted heart, “ Tubbo said with a quiet self deprecating sort of laugh.
Ranboo hummed, “ Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Not unless you can crawl into my insides and pull out my anxiety where it currently resides, which is all over” Tubbo said laughing softly. Knowing that they weren't on stream anymore made Tubbo feel a little better in his current mindset. He let himself relax more knowing Ranboo was there and he had nothing to worry about, but if he knew anything about his body, the anxiety was still stuck at ‘almost overflowing’ and he was starting to feel like he had no control over how it was going to finally boil over.
“Well sadly I cannot magic school bus my way into your body and pull out your neurons, but we can just chill and hang out on the SMP until it resides,” Ranboo offered calmly. Ranboo sat on his own chair, leg bouncing trying to finish off the last of his stream energy. He has noticed how Tubbo has been for the last couple weeks even if the boy hasn't been very honest with how much it has affected him. Surprisingly that was the first time he even heard Tubbo acknowledge that he was really feeling anxious. That worried Ranboo for a couple reasons, Tubbo wasn't one to talk much at all about his own mental health even if he was perfectly open about his physical health, and with that in mind, the fact that he had just said something about it now let Ranboo know that this was a big deal.
“Yeah we can just hang around snowchester, I think i'm just going to farm or something, maybe it will get my cogs moving better,” Tubbo’s voice came through the discord call.
“Okay, yeah, do whatever you think is gonna help,” Ranboo said, and went to start taking berry bushes down with his own character to have something to do too.
They started to talk about their respective days and other small things, the conversation having much less energy than their calls normally do, but Tubbo didn't think he could muster up much of anything right now. His mind kept drifting and he kept zoning out just to come back a few seconds later to Ranboo still quietly recounting stories from the day. Tubbo found himself getting more and more frustrated at himself for not being able to focus or calm down at all. He felt like his body was gonna burst with how much he was shaking. He wasn't even in the taxing social situation that had been over hours ago, he was perfectly fine having Ranboo there but it's like his body was just now catching up with these past weeks all right now. He continued to farm the wheat in the game, the repetitive motion both helping ground him but also continuing rapidly building up that restless feeling. He noticed he had gone completely silent and quickly spoke up, “Sorry, just feeling really spacey and restless, i'm trying to get my head back in the game”
“That's okay tubbo, is there anything I can be doing to help ground you or make the restlessness go away?” Ranboo was getting very worried at this point. He could hear the panic in Tubbo’s voice that he had never heard before. Ranboo has dealt with his own and friends' panic and anxiety attacks enough times to know when someone was right on the edge of one. Luckily he had always been good at staying calm and helping, especially if it's for his best friend.
“I don't know, maybe just keep talking, like telling stories or something,” Tubbo suggested with a much more defined shakiness to his voice. Ranboo immediately started recounting any story he could remember. Tubbo listened while continuing farming his wheat in minecraft trying desperately to get a hold of himself. He had felt an anxiety attack coming on before but something about what was happening now felt different. His brain felt almost cloudy, like his body was trying to calm the anxiety by putting a haze over his whole mind. He felt himself disconnect more from his body and feel more fuzzy but the anxious feelings were still there and he was still harshly tethered to reality, it wasn't him dissociating. He kept listening to the calming lull of Ranboo’s voice while he tried to focus on just planting and replanting, planting and replanting. He got to the end of his field and turned around in game just in time for a creeper to blow itself up, killing him, and blowing up half of his crops. The shock of the loud noise compared to the quiet hum of Ranboo’s voice was enough to fully startle Tubbo.
This must have finally been some switch in his brain to go off because after a few seconds of silence on the call, Ranboo having fully stopped talking after seeing the death message, Tubbo started to cry.