Chapter Text
Tubbo let out a sigh as he finally left the discord call for the night – or, morning, more accurately, seeing as it was past 5 a.m. – and leaned back in his chair. His cheeks ached from smiling so much and when he sat up his belly cramped with the echoes of laughter. That had genuinely been the most fun he’d had streaming in a long, long time.
The whole lot of them were lovely – Aimsey and Serena and Bill, even Finn, who he'd talked to for the first time that night; unlike how it often was with smaller streamers, he'd never felt like they were clout chasing or sucking up to him. It had just seemed like actual, genuine friendship, like teenagers hanging out and playing a fps into the early hours of the morning.
But now it was time for this teenager to go to bed. With the chaos of the call nothing more than a distant ringing in his ears from the sudden lack of noise, the exhaustion of the night finally sunk in. Tubbo went through the motions of getting ready for bed with heavy limbs, finally flicking off the lights and climbing up the ladder to the loft a few minutes later.
Tubbo padded over to his bed on gentle toes, conscientious of his sleeping bedmate. He lifted the duvet carefully, trying his best not to disturb Ranboo, whose form he could make out in the shape of a grey lump curled up under the blankets. Tubbo froze when, despite his best efforts, the Ranboo-sized lump let out a low groan and turned to flop over on its side facing Tubbo. Still clearly mostly asleep, he made an inquisitive noise, high and raspy, like a confused cat.
"Hi, Boo," Tubbo whispered, smile creeping into his voice as he slid onto the mattress. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you up."
"S'all right," Ranboo slurred, not even opening his eyes. "Didja 'ave fun?"
Tubbo pouted as he burrowed into the blankets, unconsciously inching forward into Ranboo's warmth. "No dude, they destroyed me,” he whined. “Wrecked my life. Literally!"
"Thas good," Ranboo mumbled.
Tubbo melted at the sight of his boyfriend – his sleep rumpled face, half-crushed into the pillow, and absurd bedhead caused butterflies to erupt in his chest. Tubbo felt full to bursting with amusement and affection alike.
In the next moment, Ranboo's arm reached blindly, interrupting Tubbo's thoughts and patting around the bed. When he found Tubbo's smaller form, he latched on tight and shuffled forward at the same time as he tugged Tubbo in close, tucking him in close to his chest like a plush.
The sudden movement started Tubbo, but the weight of Ranboo's arm was sleep-warm and comforting where it found its way around him, and it only took a second before he found a comfortable position and relaxed into the embrace. When he settled in, Tubbo felt a rush of warm air tickling at his scalp as Ranboo sighed in contentment, humming a low note that Tubbo felt in a rumble in his chest.
Within seconds, Ranboo was asleep, steady breaths making his chest rise and fall where Tubbo's forehead was pressed against it. Tubbo knew he'd be quick to follow, eyes heavy and grainy with sleep and the consequences of staring too long at a bright screen, but he forced himself to stay awake for just this one extra moment. He wanted to savor this: The smell and feel of his boyfriend around him, the small noises he made in his sleep, the simple domesticity of coming to bed to find someone waiting for him.
Just months ago Tubbo couldn't have imagined having this, and now it was a daily occurrence. There were lots of things in his life that felt like fake luck, fragile truths that, if he even looked at too long or hard, would shatter before him. His tenuous hold on fame, for one, or some of his newer friendships, all felt like that.
But this, holding Ranboo in his arms in the early morning, warm cocoon of blankets around them, felt more real than anything ever had. The last thought in Tubbo's mind before finally succumbing to long-overdue sleep was that he would never fight for anything harder than to have this for the rest of his life.