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Tommy seemed intent on stopping him in his tracks. Tubbo knew his husband needed a funeral.
“This isn’t going to end well,” Tommy warned, as Tubbo gathered the flowers. “Nothing on this server ever does. Whether it’s happy, sad, straight up fucken weird- it all ends in pain. Remember the festival? Or all those spats I started over discs?”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to do nothing,” Tubbo spat, ripping up daisies and poppies from the ground. He’d already crunched a few of the flowers in his death grip but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter anyway. Nothing truly mattered.
“You didn’t do anything for me-”
Tubbo stopped. He put aside the fact that that wasn’t even true, given a few more days Tubbo would’ve done the exact same thing. That didn’t matter. He just turned to Tommy, and said, “I think you should leave.”
Tommy balked. “Are you serious? But- but Michael.”
“Bring him here,” Tubbo said. He’d called Tommy here in the first place to have someone to babysit, he thought it would do well for his state of mind. He was wrong. He never wanted Michael out of his sight again. Not when he’d only found him again so recently. He couldn’t lose another person.
“Are you sure?” Tommy asked. It was a stupid question. So Tubbo didn’t answer, just kept ripping up flowers and waited for Tommy to scurry off.
Tommy returned with Michael held in his arms, and Tubbo took him. Despite the movement Michael was sleeping peacefully. Good. Children deserved to be blissfully unaware for a little while.
Tubbo forgot to tell Tommy to return tomorrow at noon for the funeral. He decided not to bother. Ranboo’s funeral was going to be a private affair anyway, Tommy would’ve been the only other person there. Tommy could grieve in his own ways, he didn’t need this.
Damn it, Tubbo didn’t know what he was doing. He had enough flowers, but what now? Dig out a plot and smelt some cobble for a gravestone? How did one plan a funeral? Did he even know where Ranboo’s body was?
Tubbo grimaced, holding back for Michael’s sake. He would not cry in front of his son, even if he was sleeping.
“A gravestone,” Tubbo muttered to himself. He wouldn’t dig a grave until he found Ranboo’s body, but he could make a gravestone. “Need to find a furnace…”
Tomorrow, an hour before noon because there was no point in waiting with no guests, Ranboo’s funeral commenced. It began with an engraved stone being rested on the ground and pretty much ended there. Tubbo wasn’t a very creative person.
After the stone was set down, Tubbo sat on the cold, frozen earth of Snowchester and pulled Michael into his lap. Michael squirmed, leaning forward to try and read the engravings. They’d been working so hard to teach Michael to read. He regretted it instantly as Michael read the carving.
“Ran- Ranboo,” Michael read slowly, tripping over his own tongue. “Dada’s name?”
Tubbo nodded. “That was your dad’s name, yes.”
Michael ran his fingers over the carvings. “Where?”
“Where’s Dada?” Tubbo asked, dreading Michael’s impending nod. When it came, he tried to say He’s not here right now. It wouldn’t be a lie. But he wanted to tell his son properly.
How could he explain death to a child barely old enough to say his own name right?
“Do you remember when I told you what happened to uncle Tommy?” Tubbo asked, voice wavering.
“No.”
“Shit,” Tubbo swore under his breath, abandoning the badly held promise not to swear in front of Michael. Ranboo wasn’t here to yell at him about it anymore.
“Don’t cry, dada!”
Shit, he was already failing his other promise. He wiped the tears away, and just said, “My eyes are a bit watery. Gets like that sometimes, just the scar tissue acting up.”
“I thought you were a better liar than that,” a familiar voice said from behind him.
His blood ran cold.
Tubbo had been through war. Wars, plural, he’d lost track of how many by now. He’d been blown to bits multiple times now, had his life threatened on the daily. He knew shock. He knew anger. He knew pain.
Now it all hit him the same way it did years ago, before he got accustomed to it. The shock he got from that voice sent him back to being a kid again, standing in a newly sewn L’Manburg uniform, watching as Eret betrayed him.
He covered Michael’s eyes and ears as he slowly turned around, to see his husband’s eyes boring into his.
He didn’t know Ranboo’s eyes very well. Ranboo never liked eye contact after all. But he knew these were different. Clouded over, gray like the sky in a storm. Everything else was different as well, from his smirk to his torn and tattered clothing.
This wasn’t his Ranboo.
“Tommy told me some sort of funeral was happening?” he asked, but it wasn’t a question. He had too much finality in his voice. His husband never had that. “This doesn’t look like much of a funeral, maybe he was mistaken-”
Michael broke out of Tubbo’s tight clutch. “Dada!”
The ghost’s neutral expression broke out into a large, bright smile. The uncanny valley emerged from his lips and came to swallow Tubbo whole as he greeted Michael. The ghost spun Michael around then clutched him close to his chest.
The moment the ghost held Michael out just a little bit, Tubbo snatched his son back, with a snarl of “Don’t touch him.”
The ghost stared at him. “But Tubbo, it’s me.”
“You’re not him,” Tubbo snarled. “I- I don’t know who you are. But you’re not Ranboo.”
“You can call me Boo,” the ghost offered. “Or Ghostboo, that might get a bit confusing with ‘Ghostbur’ though. Guess it doesn’t matter since that dude is dead. Or you can just call me Ranboo, I think that’s what Tommy’s doing.”
The ghost, or, or Boo or whatever just proved his point. This wasn’t his husband.
“Why are you here?” Tubbo asked as he stepped back. He needed to get Michael away. Would his house be safe? No, nowhere here would be safe. Nowhere but his own arms.
“I want to see Michael of course,” Boo said. “And you. Tubbo, I know that I’m… different to say the least, but I still love you.”
Tubbo backed up but hadn’t accounted for the headstone. He screamed as his foot caught on it, and with Michael in his arms he couldn’t break his fall. But he never touched the ground.
Boo’s arm was around his back, the other pulling him up by his shirt. He gently lowered Tubbo to the ground as Michael began to wail. Boo soothed him with a hand through his hair. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he muttered to Michael.
Michael leaned into Ranboo- no, Boo, Tubbo cursed himself. Boo kept up his mantra, and if Tubbo closed his eyes…
If he closed his eyes, Boo still sounded so undeniably different. Less… timid? But he’d still muttered the same nothings to Michael before. He’d muttered those nothings to him.
“You can’t be here,” Tubbo said, more to himself if anything. He curled his own hand around Michael’s fragile head, pushing away Boo’s. “I can’t do this again.”
“Mourn someone?”
“I was prepared to mourn.”
Boo cocked his head, staring so carelessly into Tubbo’s eyes. He was still above him. Tubbo needed to get up but couldn't force himself to move.
“I was prepared to mourn,” Tubbo gritted out again as he shifted Michael to a one armed grip in an attempt to get up. “I was- I was prepared for that, I was prepared with Wilbur, and I was with Tommy. What I wasn’t prepared for was for them to come back worse.”
Boo frowned. “I don’t know about them, but I’m feeling great.”
“You’re not him. I want to know what my husband is going through.”
“... I don’t think he’s having a fun time,” Boo said, and Tubbo let his head hit the ground.
“No- no don’t cry,” Boo stuttered, and for once, Tubbo let himself. Just to spite him.
“Dada?” Michael whispered, oh so oblivious to the world around him. He probably thought that his father was home.
What the hell could he say? He didn’t- he didn’t want to be holding Michael. He shouldn’t see him like this. But he couldn’t let him out of his sight, not after Techno worked so hard to find him again. But the squirming toddler on his chest was too much.
“Can I take him?” Boo asked softly, and Tubbo nodded. He needed Michael off. And Michael needed his other father.
He curled up, turned away from the other two. Boo’s soft coos to Michael echoed around Tubbo’s own mind.
When he turned back, minutes, hours, days later, Michael was bouncing in Boo’s lap. He had those little giggles he got when he wanted to run around but also wanted to be held. Boo was smiling too.
“What are we…” Tubbo muttered, a whisper against the dead grass, muffled into the ground.
“What?”
Tubbo took a deep breath. “What are we, Ranboo?”
Boo hesitated. “What do you want us to be?”
“You’re not my husband,” Tubbo said to make it clear. His voice wavered.
“Well, are we at least friends?”
“... We’re coparents,” Tubbo said. Michael looked too happy in Boo’s arms to deny that. And Ranboo had died for Michael.
Boo seemed to hug Michael tighter, and their son squealed in delight. Boo smiled. “Good. But Tubbo, what are we?”
“I don’t know. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Well, if we’re coparents, let’s start by doing that. Can we take Michael home?”
Tubbo began to stand. “We’re in the middle of a funeral,” he muttered, knowing as he said it that it was an excuse. This was never a proper funeral. Ranboo deserved so much better.
“Home,” Michael started to repeat though, sealing their plans. It was probably too cold for him anyway. Begrudgingly Tubbo set off towards his house, looking behind him to make sure Boo was following. He was, dutifully.
It was so hard to not see his husband when he looked at him.
Boo set Michael down in his bed, and sat with him as Michael dug into his toy chest. Tubbo watched Boo play with their son, making the boy giggle and yelp with happiness. There came a point where he couldn’t watch anymore. He descended the ladder, and set about making himself a cup of tea. He made it black. He never did that, but he needed to taste the bitterness clearly and harshly.
Boo came down when he was halfway done. He caught Tubbo with a sour face, the tea was so bitter it tasted like coffee.
“Can I be honest about a couple things?” Boo asked, leaning against the counter. Tubbo averted his eyes as he nodded.
“I remember. Everything.”
“I figured ghosts weren’t all the same. Didn’t think you’d forget the bad memories like Ghostbur did,” Tubbo said as he took another sip of tea.
“I meant that I remembered everything I forgot while I was alive.”
Tubbo froze. “Wait, so do you remember-”
“I remember the times you confided in me,” Boo admitted. “About the execution, about your pain, about all those things. I remembered times you’ve cried harder than today.”
Tubbo threw the half full cup of tea in the sink, and rounded the counter to push Boo away. “I think you should go.”
“It’s not a bad thing. I’m not judging you.”
Tubbo opened the door. “It was nice to see you-”
“Tubbo, if we had just been honest none of this would’ve ever happened.”
What the hell did he mean? How was any of this his fault?
“I lost my first two lives back in December, ” Boo pressed, and Tubbo stopped. His hand fell from the doorknob.
“Or was it January? Who remembers the fine details like that anyway,” Boo continued. “I ended up forgetting those deaths, of course I did, but there was a period of time after each one where I could’ve told you. And in the back of my mind I always knew I had one life, I was just too afraid to tell you. Because Tubbo, I love you, but we had some problems. We were not honest. We should’ve been.”
“Ho- honesty wouldn’t have stopped those deaths,” Tubbo said, trying desperately to process it all at once. January? December? How the hell had he been married to Ranboo for so long and not known?
“Maybe not. But Tubbo, tell me, was that funeral for closure?”
Slowly, he nodded. He hadn’t thought about it. But closure sounded nice.
“You wouldn’t have gotten it there, trust me. Do you know why ghosts stick around?”
“I don’t.”
“It’s because we have unfinished business.” Boo pointed up to Michael’s room. “Our son was mine. And you. I couldn’t just leave you.”
“Tommy didn’t have a ghost,” Tubbo thought aloud.
Boo sighed. “As wrong as it sounds, Tommy… Tommy didn’t need closure. His death wasn’t meaningful, definitely, but he really had nothing left to do here. Everybody remembered him the same way they think of him now. We would’ve never gotten closure Tubbo, because there was so much we just didn’t say. I have so much left to tell you.”
“Well what do you even want?” Tubbo asked, gritting his teeth. “Because you’re not the person I knew. I don’t trust you.”
Boo stopped, staring off. Lost in thought.
“I think I want to stick around,” he eventually said. “I’m having a fun time here. All I have to do is not sing a little song and do a little dance-”
“What?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ranboo said ominously. “Anyway! I like death. It’s so much more carefree. And I want to stick around, and I’d love to do it with you.”
As Michael raced around upstairs, he remembered his son’s smile. How bright it’d gotten when he spotted his father, uncaring of his ghastly complexion.
“I’ll give you a chance.”
Boo smiled. “I’ll take a chance.”