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They’re not quiet, as much as they try to be.
Ranboo and Tubbo’s footsteps are loud on the Prime path, their little laughs echoing through the night as they pass Tommy’s hole in a hill he calls a home. They don’t even notice when Tommy himself cracks his door open and smiles warmly– they’re too caught up in each other, too caught up in a stupid idea that started as a joke.
“You know,” Tubbo says as they pass the museum, and the Holy Land comes into view, “My dad would fucking hate this.”
Ranboo spends the next five seconds very confused, trying to recall if he knows who Tubbo’s dad is. Apparently it’s very visible on his face, because Tubbo breaks out into laughter.
“Is that…” Ranboo tilts his head, “…a good thing?”
“It’s a terrific thing,” Tubbo answers, his grin totally contagious. “My dad fucking sucked.”
“Uh-huh,” Ranboo uncertainly agrees, “Good riddance?”
“That’s the spirit!” Tubbo playfully punches his friend’s abnormally long arm, which has been shoved into his pocket their entire walk.
They enter Church Prime with their arms lopsidedly linked up. Tubbo can’t contain his laughter as he bows to the Master Oogway mural. (He was never particularly religious, anyway. That’s Tommy’s thing, really.)
“You know how this works, right?” Ranboo asks, silently half-hoping he wouldn’t have to do something like stick his hand into the Holy Water. He’d do it, of course– a few seconds is a small price to pay– but still. He’d rather not.
Tubbo looks up then, his blue eyes meeting the heterochromatic ones of the taller figure. “I figured we could say our vows and just move on, right?”
“Our vows? Were we- supposed to have those written down?” Well. Did Ranboo forget something?
“I didn’t,” Tubbo shrugs with a toothy grin. “I was just gonna wing it, honestly.”
“Oh, well, before we do that– can I…” Ranboo pauses, attempting to gather himself but fumbling with the little objects in his pocket like a stupid bitch, causing him to chuckle awkwardly. “I have something for you.”
“Oh, really? What is it?”
“Oh, uh–” Ranboo finally pulls out his white hand out of his pocket. “Rings. Matching ones. Like we talked about.”
Tubbo is speechless as he gazes at them for a second. They’re nearly black, with a violent tint that could only mean obsidian. They contrast Ranboo’s hand very nicely. After a moment he takes one and observes it between his index finger and his thumb.
“You actually made them?” Ranboo nods.
The rings are unlike anything Tubbo has seen. In the Overworld gold rings are quite popular, usually encrusted with a diamond or (more recently) an emerald. Instead, the rings he holds have no gems but instead engravings on the outside; just a few symbols that shimmer a magical type of purple.
In fact, the more he studies it, the more he realizes they’re entirely enchanted. More letters are carefully lined with lapis on the inside– that must have taken time, precision, and a fuck-ton of effort, he assumes.
“Which enchantment is on it?”
“Unbreaking.”
“The letters on the outside, are they in Ender?” Tubbo can’t tear his eyes away from them. “What do they say?”
“What we agreed on. It says the same thing on both rings.”
One day they’ll sit together and attach a sound to them. Tubbo can’t pronounce most things in enderspeak; he simply doesn’t have the vocal chords for it. But he knows this. It is easy to say.
The obsidian feels familiar in Tubbo’s hand. He twists it around a few times, even tosses it once or twice, getting a feel for it before he recognizes it. Wait, yes, he knows this piece of obsidian. He’s held it before.
(But hold on. You have to go back to the beginning.)
For the first time since it was destroyed, it snows in L’Manberg.
As the president looks around the rebuilt nation, blanketed in a thin layer of frost, he is reminded of the war. The good parts of it.
He remembers Wilbur teaching them all a tune as if they weren’t huddled around a fire for survival when the heating in the van stopped working. He remembers when Tommy complained about being cold so much that he snapped and knitted the entire group blankets.
Tubbo remembers how he and Tommy stayed up really late that night, talking about the war. They talked about what they’d do after it. Tommy didn’t have a plan for after the war; he said he wouldn’t mind as long as he had his family with him.
(At some point in their conversation, a small distance away, Eret woke up from a nightmare in a sudden panic, and Tubbo could have sworn he saw Eret’s eyes glowing before they quickly put their glasses back on and tried going back to sleep, having never noticed anyone saw them at all. Tommy and Tubbo agreed to never speak of it. That promise has remained unbroken.)
Tubbo doesn’t know any of those people anymore. In one way another they are all gone, or irreparably different, but he will keep who they were alive in his memory. Since no one else is willing to try.
The only thing lighting up the night is the lanterns littered throughout the sky. Tommy would have loved to see them; Wilbur too. But they’re not here.
What pulls Tubbo out of his bittersweet longing is someone calling his name. A new voice, but one he is already very familiar with.
“Hello, Ranboo,” Tubbo greets, as the half-enderman takes a place beside him.
Ranboo fiddles with an unknown object in his hand. “Hi. Uh, I wanted to give you something.”
Tubbo furrows his eyebrows, grinning with confusion as he asks, “Okay, what?”
Ranboo takes half a step back. “Well… isn’t it your birthday? I didn’t get the date wrong, did I?”
Tubbo’s face falls. How could he possibly forget?
(He knows. Between meetings in a broken down van, fucktons of papers that need signing at all times of day, and a hundred-foot-tall pillar, his birthday was the least of the president’s worries.)
“No. It’s today. What do you have?”
“It’s, uh…” Ranboo uncurls his hand. “A bracelet.”
Tubbo doesn’t say anything for a minute. “It’s beautiful.”
He isn’t lying. It has to be pure obsidian. It isn’t precisely cut, not like the gold jewelry that people in the Overworld are quite fond of. It slips onto his wrist easily and fits comfortably. (Silently, Tubbo thanks that it is not too big. He has far too much experience with that.)
On the outside, there are point that jut out, some that are sharp enough to cut if given enough force, but most not. There are symbols on the inside, crudely engraved. It is imperfect, and for that Tubbo only gazes at it for what he wishes can be forever.
When he looks up at Ranboo, snowflakes gently falling between them, he can only find adoration in his friend’s eyes.
“So…” Ranboo prompts uncertainly, “Do you like it?”
“Do I like it?” Tubbo’s voice begins to rise in disbelief, “Ranboo, I love it!”
Tubbo doesn’t wait another second to close the space between them, wrapping his new friend in an embrace. After a moment of doing nothing awkwardly, Ranboo leans into it, hugging back. Tubbo mumbles some thanks; only verbally do they go unanswered.
As he gazes upon the rubble of his own nation, now twice destroyed, Tubbo’s hand habitually travels up to his wrist.
To his dismay, he finds his wrist bare. Burned, scarred, but most importantly, bare.
He takes a few aching steps in each direction, eyes foolishly flickering across the scene as if he still can’t practically hear the sky falling.
After a minute he realizes it is no use. His bracelet is gone.
Tubbo looks around. The Camarvan is gone. The L’mantree has been burnt to a crisp. L’Manberg has been reduced to a crater. Ranboo is somewhere unknown, Tommy still hates him, Dream has both the discs– and somewhere in the distance, he can hear Technoblade laughing. (But maybe that’s just in his head. Maybe it permanently accompanies the ringing in his ears.)
L’Manberg can’t be rebuilt this time around. Tubbo has failed so spectacularly– that much is clear in what he can hear: around him, people cry, many yell words, and others just scream to do something. It’s grief in a thousand different ways, all at once.
He doesn’t even have the bracelet to keep him company in this lament. It’s in the rubble somewhere. He tells Ranboo that the gift has been lost through a slightly trembling voice, expecting some sort of negative reaction. But that never comes; in fact, Ranboo just shrugs.
It’s confusing, because, “It was a gift, Ranboo. Aren’t you upset?”
“No…?” Ranboo says confusedly. “Why would I be?”
“It was valuable.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“And now its gone,” Tubbo slowly repeats. “Are you not familiar with Overworld etiquette around gifts?”
Ranboo’s eyes widen in realization. “Oh, is this an Overworld thing?”
“If you value someone’s gift, you keep it safe because it’s important to you,” Tubbo explains. “Is it different where you’re from?”
“Endermen don’t usually gift things of high value outside your family. But even if we do, it’s a gift. We’re not obligated to give it to you, so you’re not obligated to keep it safe. It’s yours, anyway, so what you do with it is none of my business. You could destroy it, and I wouldn’t consider it rude, so…” Ranboo shrugs. “I’m not upset that it got lost. Especially if it’s by accident.”
“Oh. Well,” Tubbo’s eyes fall to the ground. “Good to know.”
To say the words are unconvincing is an understatement. If Ranboo can tell anything, it’s that this loss upsets Tubbo. It doesn’t compare to the other cards he has been dealt, but… you know. It isn’t hard to let something small send you off the edge.
Tubbo said it himself upon receiving it: he loves it.
So Ranboo travels to the bottom of the crater that was their country not too long ago, and he finds the two halves of obsidian, largely unharmed. He keeps them in his new home with Technoblade and Phil, awaiting the right moment to regift it to its rightful owner.
“I mean- you know, Snowchester isn’t particularly rich,” Tubbo says as he gestures with his hands. “Like, taxes won’t be a detriment, but they’re in no way convenient.”
Ranboo hums sympathetically. With a nudge of his elbow, he snickers and says, “You know I’m rich, so- we could always just get married. It’ll help with your taxes.”
It had entered Ranboo’s mind and left Ranboo’s lips as a joke. Tubbo loves to tease Ranboo for being so rich, but he never means it seriously. This is part of that, right? Something that… isn’t serious?
“Yeah, we could get married,” Tubbo says with a shrug. “It would definitely be beneficial.”
And, well– Ranboo knows that tone of voice. At least for Tubbo, it’s obvious. It means he’s spinning the idea around in his head; considering it logically, considering it seriously. And as both their footsteps sound softly on the Snowchester snow, it kind of sinks in that… oh. Tubbo is actually serious about this?
“I mean…” Ranboo says, cursing how the words spill out sounding more panicked than intended, “I don’t even know what the customs for marriage in the Overworld are like, I mean. So.”
“Well, you’re not from the Overworld. Who says we’d follow Overworld customs?”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s a- I guess that’s a good point.”
“Exactly!” Tubbo grins, “Some of the customs in the Overworld are kind of stupid, anyway. Gold rings are the big trend right now, and like… I mean, the band on my horn is gold, but horn decoration is meaningful in a whole different way. Gold is absolutely not my choice for a wedding ring.”
“Well… what would you rather it be?”
Tubbo is silent for a moment as he thinks about his answer. “Obsidian. It’s much less fragile.”
“Yeah!” Ranboo agrees far too quickly for comfort, “Yeah, that would be my choice, too. Obsidian is… meaningful in the End. So- uh, yeah. Obsidian would be good.”
“Don’t get all worked up about it, boss man,” Tubbo grins, doing a similar nudge of the elbow, though it only reaches the other’s hip. “I know you’re joking.”
“Yeah,” Ranboo says as if trying to convince himself of that, tension slipping away only the slightest bit. Not enough, though, so he turns his (admittedly flustered) face away as he says, “Just joking.”
And then the subject of the conversation shifts, but his mind refuses to do the same. It stays fixated on Tubbo’s voice– steady, calculating, perpetually analytical– and his… lack of shock at the suggestion.
Of course Ranboo keeps thinking about it. He thinks about a lot of things very hardly, actually, but this is different. Marriage would be beneficial, right? But not just– not just financially? Because Ranboo is very rich, so… he’s not the one benefitting from this. Not financially, at least, but… he still wants to.
That is the realization: he still wants to. He’s fine with marrying Tubbo, and not for tax benefits.
And that epiphany follows him home. It raises some feeling in his chest (a good one, a feeling that he knows for sure is not anxiety), and that feeling is the way he clutches his memory book tightly to his chest as he makes certain he returns home to the Arctic on record time, and it is the way he barely gets inside his little home when he frantically flips through his memory book to find the first entries about Tubbo.
It is the way he arrives at the first page and he reads the hastily scribbled compliments in the margins dated the twenty-seventh of November; and then the crudely written notes about how tedious bracelet making is yet how worth it the finished product will be; and then the side note about how much he enjoyed the hug he received after giving the former president his birthday present, and then the anecdote of his extremely, incredibly awkward encounter with Technoblade when he was making the “hey sexy ;)” mat out of complete spite (Tubbo thought he wouldn’t, so he did, and now it’s in Snowchester).
Yes, that conclusion sticks with him. The more he ponders it, flips it around in his head, he finds that the concept of being married to Tubbo just fits into his reality in a way that few things ever have before.
He gets to work on the rings two days later.
Obsidian rings, found in the rubble of a city. The ones Tubbo’s voice had cracked over, and he explained that if you value a gift, you keep it safe. These rings, Ranboo has kept safe. It’s almost poetic to look at them– split in half, almost perfectly. The symbols engraved in them are split down the middle, a term of endearment in a language Tubbo doesn’t speak.
(Maybe the whole marriage epiphany is not so surprising. Maybe Ranboo needed a little nudge from the universe to realize, hey: this epiphany was standing in front of him the whole time, and he’s just recognizing it now that it’s punched him in the face and given him a nosebleed. This was always there, written into a book and a bracelet, and now he’s finally taking in the words instead of skimming over them.)
When he finishes work on the rings– and by work he means fixating on them for so many hours a week it makes even Technoblade scoff– the first person he goes to is Tommy. It feels right. He can’t think of any reason not to, and he can’t think of anyone else to bring this to, so… yeah. He’s here, at the door of Big Innit hotel, which he is currently building.
When he calls out to Tommy, the boy hangs off his scaffolding in a way that is certainly unsafe, and he yells, “Hey, Boob!”
Okay, maybe this Ranboob joke is going too far. Normally he would sigh (extra loudly to account the distance), but he needs to be on Tommy’s good side as much as possible. So he ignores it and asks, “Can you come down?”
Tommy sighs dramatically, and he begins to make his climb down. After he lands on the ground and cracks his knuckles (and his neck, surely that can’t be good), he asks neutrally, “Wha’sup?”
“Uh…” Ranboo keeps his voice steady, because come on, this isn’t even the hard part. “I need to… ask you something.”
Tommy gives him a… confused look, but an open-minded one. “Okay, what? Advice on women? Because you’ve come to the right guy,” Tommy pokes his finger into Ranboo’s chest, “I got plenty of that.”
“No. Not advice on women,” Ranboo stiffly replies. It’s ironic when you think about it. “No, I guess– well, there’s no not suspicious way to put this.”
“Spit it out, big guy. I gotta keep up the construction or Sam Nook will have to postpone the hotel opening. So come on, what is it?”
Okay. Now the hard part. This is the part that’s valid to be anxious about. That, and Tommy’s stare is intentionally intimidating. Geez. Pull it together, Ranboo. Or at least try to.
With a calming breath, Ranboo closes his eyes, opens them, and requests: “I want your permission– or a blessing, I guess is a better word– to, uh. Marry Tubbo.”
Tommy analyzes him for a second, raising an eyebrow.
In the next moment, he bursts out laughing.
He’s curled over, one-hundred percent belly laughing, like this is literally the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “You? Marry Tubbo? Huh?”
“For tax benefits!” Ranboo defends himself. “Tubbo said it would help with Snowchester’s taxes!”
Of course that doesn’t help his case– Tommy continues to laugh unnecessarily hard, obnoxiously loudly. It makes Ranboo the slightest bit frustrated, actually, because he didn’t come here to get laughed at. Tommy must think he’s joking or something.
Or at least, he did, until he catches a glimpse of the way Ranboo doesn’t share in the laughs the slightest bit and straightens up.
Almost like a switched has been flipped, his tone lowers. “Oh, you were fuckin’– you’re serious?”
“Yes, I am,” Ranboo asserts. “I made us rings. I haven’t given them to him yet, because I wanted to run it by you first, so…”
Ranboo shrugs like it’s nothing important, and he reaches into his pocket. He pulls two rings out and holds them in the sun. They’re obsidian, and what light they don’t absorb shimmers off them.
Tommy takes a step closer, shoots a glance to Ranboo as if asking for permission, and then takes one ring and holds it between his index finger and his thumb.
“Very well made,” Tommy comments. “You’re really not messing around, I see.”
“I made them from his bracelet. He seemed upset when he lost it, so I found it and made it into something new. Tubbo’s passionate about that kinda thing, you know?”
Tommy’s face twists slightly in confusion. “Bracelet? Since when did he have a bracelet made of obsidian?”
“The one I got him for his birthday,” Ranboo answers like it’s obvious. Because it is, until he sees the flash of something in Tommy’s eyes, and it dawns on him– “Oh. I guess you were still gone when I gave it to him.”
There’s a pause. Something closes off in Tommy; his gaze falls all the way to the ground, to the wood path they both stand on, and then it comes back up. Simply, he asks: “When did it get lost?”
“During Doomsday. He thought it was destroyed, but really it just split in half,” Ranboo explains, careful not to say anything unwanted. “I knew he liked it, but I didn’t want to give it back in two halves, so I saved it for the right moment. And I think this is the right moment.”
(He had almost recalled what Tubbo had told him: if you value something, you keep it safe. But he doesn’t think Tommy would take that very well.)
“Yeah,” Tommy softly nods, “Yeah, this is good. He’ll like this a lot.”
“So…” Ranboo urges, “That’s your answer?”
“Yeah, marry him,” Tommy shrugs, and it appears that he can’t hide the beginnings of a warm smile that appear in the corners of his lip, so he says: “But I swear to fuckin’ Prime herself, you even think about hurting him and I’ll be kicking down your goddamn door, ‘kay?”
Ranboo eagerly nods, because he knows it’s true. Yet before he can confirm it out loud, Tommy says one more thing: “But I know you won’t. I can trust you with that much.”
Tommy begins to walk back to the Big Innit construction sight, in all its messy glory of damp red concrete and poor scaffolding. After two or three steps he turns around to toss back the ring, and it is then that Ranboo catches his wide grin that’s spread across his face.
Ranboo carries the rings in his pocket for a few days after that. Whenever he sees Tubbo, whenever they strike up a conversation (every one easier to float through than the last), Ranboo fiddles with them in his pocket, and he tells himself that now will be the moment he brings it up again. More seriously.
However, Ranboo is a coward and never follows through. There’s always something more important that they’re already talking about, or there’s always the plague of doubt that befalls him and yells that Tubbo would never possibly agree to such a thing. It’s always there, and it always causes the words to get caught in his throat and the rings to remain tucked in his pockets.
Of course, that is until Tubbo himself brings it up– because Tubbo is not a coward.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about, Ranboo?” Tubbo asks, as he’s curled into his seat by the fireplace.
Ranboo, who is sprawled across the couch (literally), would love to hear what he’s thinking about. “What?”
“Obsidian rings,” is the answer, which makes Ranboo’s heart stop.
“Yeah,” Ranboo drawls, trying his hardest not to let his hand reach into his pocket. “We were talking about them, like… a week ago. What about them?”
“They’d make good wedding rings,” Tubbo admits. “Just been thinking about it, I guess.”
“Well…” Ranboo urges him to elaborate, because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if this feeling isn’t reciprocated. “The other day we were joking about getting married.”
Tubbo looks at him– blankly, it would appear to anyone else, but Ranboo can see the glint of calculations in his eyes. He can hear the analytical undertone of his voice when Tubbo says, “Yeah, we were. What are your thoughts on it?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Ranboo answers– which is admittedly an understatement. “For tax benefits. Or, if you just want a ring, I could always make you one.”
“I don’t just want a ring,” Tubbo says, just the slightest bit defensively. He opens his mouth to speak, but he clamps it shut. Then he opens it again, and says, “What would it say?”
“It could say something in Ender,” Ranboo suggests. “So it’s like… our own. Nobody else’s.”
“So nobody can use it against us,” Tubbo mumbles, and it goes all but unnoticed. Then, louder, with a twinkle in his eyes: “I love that idea. Are there any words or phrases that are significant?”
Ranboo throws out some things, and their translations, but the words in Common just… don’t feel the same. They don’t bring just the right giddy grin to his face, so… it takes them a while. They go through a hundred phrases in just a few hours– terms of endearment, greetings, different pretty words that sound nice but don’t necessarily have any significance, even their names are considered, but none of it fits.
That is, until one phrase. For better or for worse, the rings will say. The little piece of obsidian has persisted through the worse, and it will last through the better, no matter what either entails. Tubbo and Ranboo are disliked by powerful people– these rings will be enchanted with unbreaking, Ranboo decides and scribbles down into his memory book.
These rings will serve as a little piece of who they are, and a glimpse of what they are meant to have, if not for… everything. But that is fine; these rings will not be destroyed, even when their bearers are long gone.
(Okay, sweet. You’re caught up. Which brings you back here.)
When Tubbo finally puts the ring on his hand, both him and the one that stands before him are reunited with a sense of pride that they have not felt in its entirety since the first day it snowed in New L’Manberg.
Everything imaginable is so much different now, except for one single thing: the look of adoration Tubbo receives.
“Okay, boss man. Put on your ring, and we’ll say our vows,” Tubbo beams. But then his eyes slightly widen in a lightbulb moment, and he adds: “Or should I say, beloved?”
“That’s my last name,” Ranboo attempts to deadpan, but it’s completely foiled by the snickers they both break into a second later.
“I don’t care! Put the ring on and say your vows!” Tubbo tries to keep a steady, stern voice, but laughs break out between each syllable. “Oh- fine. Want me to say them?”
“You’re better at speeches,” Ranboo says as he slips his own ring onto his middle finger. The wrong finger, according to Overworld tradition, but Tubbo doesn’t even think to correct him. Fuck that.
“And you start chittering in enderspeak when you get too nervous. So fine, I’ll say them,” the shorter boy clears his throat, but not without muttering under his breath: “Pussy.”
“Hey! I heard that!”
“You were meant to!”
“Oh- just say the stupid vows and we can get home.”
Tubbo pauses. He takes a breath in, and then… he holds it there. His eyes dart around the room, until he finally admits, “I’m blanking.”
Ranboo raises an eyebrow. “You’re blanking.”
“Yes, I am!” Tubbo defends himself. “This is stupid. Why do we need all that sappy sickness and health bullshit? Can’t we just promise to like… live?”
“Just… to live?”
“Well, yeah. Until we die. Nothing more, nothing less.”
That’s simple, and it’s wonderful. No grand guarantees, no love letters verbalized. It is not too little, and it is not too much. It is just enough: simply live until we die. Nice.
In a feat of brilliance, Ranboo thinks of what Tommy taught him two days ago: he puts all of his hand into a fist except for the smallest finger, and holds it out.
Just one problem. “What do you call this again?”
Tubbo’s eyes light up. “Are you insinuating our marriage becomes official through a pinky promise?”
“Yes!” Ranboo exclaims, though admittedly it’s out of joy that he finally remembered the word for pinky. He forgot it, and it has been nagging him all week.
Of course, it also doubles as the answer to the question.
Very aggressively, Tubbo completes the pinky promise (but not in a mean way, in an excited way). When the two lock eyes again– for longer than Ranboo can with anyone else– there is an identical glint of pride, of ecstasy and elation and euphoria that builds for the shortest of moments–
Until they finally clash in an embrace, and they spin. With no eyes on them except the wise, kind gaze of Master Oogway, they spin around twice. It’s dizzying, and that only adds to the very long list of things to giggle about on their way down the path.
They don’t care to be quiet. Their footsteps on the Prime Path make it whine and creak, and they do not care.
This time, they notice Tommy. Well– not the boy himself, but the bright red, hand-knit blanket he has left just before his door, and the sign next to it that says in all capital letters: “DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT TOUCHING IF YOU ARE NOT RANBOO OR TUBBO. DIE.”
The blanket is very soft– magnificent to curl up next to one another and fall asleep under. They know from experience.