Chapter Text
Ranboo was a dreamer.
Not in the literal sense; In fact, he rarely recalled his dreams until recently.
Ranboo was, however, a dreamer in many other senses of the word. He had hopes and goals and wild aspirations. He was an active thinker; He had thoughts running through his head a mile a minute and rarely shut them down. He was also imaginative, letting himself dream of the wonders his life could hold through whatever lens he saw fit.
It was therefore no surprise to anyone in his life that he would turn out to be such a hopeless romantic.
Ranboo loved to love, and wanted to feel that feeling for himself. From the moment he saw the image of a couple happily dancing across his screen, twirling among beautiful gowns and glimmering tuxes, Ranboo had his heart set on finding someone to love him the way that people loved in movies and novels and fairy tales.
True love, as it were, often seemed a rarity. Both on screen and off, people often spoke of finding the fated ‘one.’
Ranboo was a dreamer, and one day, he was that in the most literal sense of the word.
Through a sleep induced haze, he saw a distant figure. Nothing seemed quite real; Everything was both in its place and too far off it all at once. He wasn’t quite sure at the time that he had been dreaming, in that way dreams often are, but he knew something hadn’t felt quite right just enough to allow himself to not indulge fully in the beauty of his surroundings.
Well, to say it was his surroundings that infatuated him truly wasn’t quite correct. Specifically, that distant figure was what held his gaze in total. He looked past the fountains, the waterfalls, and the streams. He looked past the glimmering far off towers, and the gold and marble archways lined with leaves of the purest greens. He looked past the flowers of every colour lining the stunning white brick path and the clouds that seemed to shift shape and size to both everything and nothing all at once. None of this dream world’s beauty could capture his attention quite like that distant figure.
The boy in the distance wore a pale white suit, with chain accents of gold and a mismatched silver crown atop his brown mess of hair. Looking down at himself, Ranboo became aware that he, too, was adorned in formal wear. His suit, however, was black with silver accents, and as he passed a falling stream of water he saw in his reflection that his own crown was golden. Two perfect parallels.
The boy in the distance seemed to glow with an inhuman light. The whole world around him seemed to light up despite the night sky standing out above them. None of the stars in that sky shone quite as brightly. Ranboo, by contrast, didn’t give off a beam of light of his own, but rather reflected the light of the boy ahead of him, which rippled off the deep black of his suit and cast lightly against the path as he walked. After all, the moon needed the sun to glow, Ranboo supposed.
Ranboo stopped a few paces short of the glowing boy. The boy turned to face him, reaching out a hand and gently placing it against Ranboo’s cheek, but as Ranboo tried to gaze into the eyes of the figure before him he realised the boy’s features were blurred and murky. The only thing that stood out against the moving cloud of melded colour was the boy's smile. Though no other feature was entirely visible, his gentle grin was clear, kind, and patient. Ranboo in turn reached up to the other’s hand resting on his cheek and placed his own hand over it, gently caressing each of his fingers before taking the hand in his own. He removed the hand from his face, but interlocked their fingers and pulled the boy hesitantly closer, as though any wrong move could shatter the fragile and unclear image before him. The other boy took his hand gladly, his smile looking fond, and guided Ranboo’s other hand to his own waist before placing his own hand upon Ranboo’s shoulder.
Despite not holding the traditional leading pose, the smaller boy began to lead the taller in a dance. The pair was careful and hesitant, but continued their waltz around the garden to the faint orchestral music playing throughout the scape of Ranboo’s mind. Ranboo felt clumsy, only narrowly avoiding stepping on his dance partner’s shoes with each passing minute. The other boy however, now seemed calm, confident, and in control, continuing to lead their dance with minimal effort. The dance continued for what felt like hours, when in the reality outside of ranboo’s mind it had probably been barely a moment.
The dancers parted for a moment, still with loosely interlocked hands, and looked into eachothers eyes, unable to break their gaze. The smaller boy reached out his other hand to rest upon Ranboo’s face, but as soon as he did, he faded into oblivion, leaving Ranboo alone in their beautiful garden.
Though, the garden looked a lot less beautiful without him there.
He took a few steps back to where their dance began and looked up. High above, there was a dome glass roof, with a shimmering transparent clock adorned with golden detailing. Both hands rested firmly upon the marker of twelve.
Out of time, huh?
Ranboo was aware that his relationship - though that word didn’t hold as much weight as he wished it did - with Tubbo was one constantly reliant on time. The seconds of time paid for in the media share stream that truely introduced his presence to the boy he cared for; the hours he and Tubbo spent on call until both were too exhausted to talk anymore as much as they both wished to continue; the weeks spent growing closer; the months he has had to spend waiting to meet him in person. It was scary, how much time weighed a factor. It was much scarier knowing he didn’t have much time until he would have to confront his feelings in person. The scariest of all was that if he didn’t do something about it, maybe his time would pass and he would never have a chance with him at all.
After all, there was nothing more significant to him than the years he wanted to spend with his favourite person in the future.