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Ranboo thought that Death would be simple. It’s the end after all. The jig is up, his story is over, no more tomorrows.
Death is an absence of everything except pain. It’s almost like being alive, but without the hope. At first he tried to keep track of the time. Counting, counting, counting the seconds after the tears stopped. A hundred. A thousand. A hundred-thousand . He loses track eventually. There’s no cues to follow. No sunset or sunrise, not even the ticking of a clock. It’s as though his eyes are glued shut. The darkness is so great.
Sometimes there’s lights, distant like stars. He wonders if they’re people like him.
Sometimes, when he is very still, he catches glimpses of what he left behind. He knows there’s a ghost now. He sees snapshots of heartbroken faces. Mostly all he knows is pain, feelings with no context. Anger is most often, Anger that curdles his stomach and burns his chest. Part of him hopes he never learns who it’s directed towards., but he can’t stop his mind from wandering.
All Ranboo has is time to think.
Think about his ghost. He remembers Ghostbur. He remembers the pain he caused to everyone around him. He hopes Tubbo hasn’t seen him yet. He feels like he’ll vomit at the thought. There’s been no glimpses of his face.
Ranboo misses him desperately.
Imagines what he touches is his hair instead of the freezing stillness of Limbo. Pretends he hears his voice instead of the ringing in his ears. Stomps and stomps and stomps down on the creeping loss of faith. On the voice in the shadows that taunts of being forgotten.
Death is emptiness and agony and pain and terror.
Revival is worse.
Even as time slips by like sand in an hourglass, he stands firm. Dead things stay dead, that's how it works. Fact shouldn’t be tampered with, not for anyone. And especially not for someone like him.
He tries to block it all out, talk to the air about anything he can think of, with his head between his knees, his hands against his ears.
How is it that being dead makes you want to die?
So many voices grate at his skull. Some his own, some no ones. Some familiar, yet just out of reach. At first he doesn’t realize that one of them is real.
“It’ll get easier.” Someone says, tangible in a way the voices are not.
When he lifts his head there’s a star beside him. Something finally fell. It’s almost impossible to adjust, but he makes out a figure. Floating just out of reach. It’s ringed with brilliant white light, a child.
“Are you real?” If he was alive, his voice would be hoarse and ragged. Instead it's flat and stale and wrong.
“That depends.” The child hums, “Do you think you’re real?”
“Yes.” Ranboo says, it’s reflexive. Because he doesn’t think about how his hands float through his body when he tries to hold himself.
“Maybe.” They’re easier to look at now, the light not so strong. “You’ll have to decide, I think.”
Before Ranboo can ask what that means, he’s alone in the dark. Somehow a mix of heartbroken and relieved.
More and more often, he’s forgetting. There’s no book to write anything down, there’s no one to call for him with fondness in their voice. Sometimes he doesn’t remember who he is.
“Who are you?” He says, crying out in the black.
“Someone.” A voice says. If he had one, his heart would likely skip a beat. “Probably. I don’t know for sure.”
The light is back again, out the corner of his eye.
“I don’t remember my name.” He says, no matter where he looks the light remains just out of sight.
“Dead people don’t need names.” The child says, “Who is there left to say them?”
“You’re here.” He responds.
“Am I?” Says the darkness. Then there’s nothing once more.
More often now, he doesn’t feel anything. Nothing beyond an ever present ache in his chest. He’s not sure whether it's a positive change.
“How long has it been?” He says, when the light returns. This time it’s soft at his side.
“Forever.” Says the child. “Or no time at all.”
“Which is it?”
“Up to you.” He can imagine the child shrugging. “Everything in here is up to you.”
“What about you?” He doesn’t want the child to leave again. The cyclical confusion is all there is left.
“Everything here is up to me.” The light stays. “Except for when it’s up to you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” He says, this time when he turns his head he can almost see the outline of a face.
“If that’s what you want.”
“I want to live.” He says, stubborn and sure.
“What’s stopping you?”
It’s so casual, and he has no idea how to respond.
“How long do you think it’s been?” He asks instead, because perhaps all he has to do is understand how this child thinks.
“Longer.” He hums, the light floats higher in his peripheral.
“Longer than what?”
“Than short, I assume.” The child hums, “More than an afternoon. Perhaps before midnight.”
He wonders why he’s even still trying to understand.
“When were you alive?” He pushes anyways,
“Eventually.”
With that, he’s gone again. And all there is left is time to think.
“Do you remember flowers?” The light shows up more now.
Ranboo. He remembers his name now: Ranboo. Ranboo misses the light when it’s gone. He wonders if there’s questions that make it stay longer.
“Of course.” Says the child, “Don’t you remember how you died?”
Again he feels the white hot pain through his spine.
“Flowers killed you?” He tries,
“Flowers made it colourful.”
Ranboo is left alone to consider what that means.
“Does everyone have ghosts?”
Ranboo keeps seeing his son through the eyes of whatever twisted mirror walks the earth in his place. Michael doesn’t look back at him. Ranboo can’t remember what colour his baby’s eyes are.
“Only the unlucky ones.” He can almost see the child's face now. Round and pale and alive. He looks younger than he sounds. Barely a teenager. Ranboo wonders how old he was when he died. Now he knows better than to ask.
“Is it a punishment?” He knows he wasn’t a good person. But he doesn’t think he was a bad one either.
“Maybe,” Says the child, “If you think it is.”
The same answer as always, there’s a strange form of comfort in the repetition.
“I think it’s a punishment for the people I left behind.” He admits, all he knows is the pain of rejection in his chest.
“Do they deserve it?”
It’s been so, so, so long and he’s still here. In limbo. In hell. He doesn’t want to be revived, but it hurts all the same.
“I don’t think it matters what anyone deserves.” He says finally.
The light fades, but there’s a body still at his side.
“You’re learning.” It’s almost like praise. For the first time, he knows the source of the feeling inside.
"When I was alive," Ranboo says, "I didn't ever learn my lesson."
"Maybe it was a bad lesson." The child offers, "Maybe you were in the wrong class."
Ranboo mulls this over, "I never went to class, not a real one."
"Neither did I," He responds, "Soldiers don't go to school."
The child hardly talks about his life, but every small glimpse is horrifying.
"Was there a war?" Ranboo asks,
"Everyone thought so." The child hums, "I always figured a war meant both sides stood a chance of winning."
"And you lost?" Ranboo’s never been in a real battle. He's always run away.
"I'm not sure it's over yet." Says the child.
"There was no war before I died." Ranboo promises, perhaps he can bring some closure.
"That's too bad." He muses. "I was hoping I didn't die in vain."
Ranboo doesn't remember much about war. He remembers turmoil and bickering and injustice, but nothing so horrific.
"Whose side were you on? Maybe I know how it ended."
There's silence for a stretch. He assumes the child ran off again. He always does, when the questions get too much.
"The wrong one." He says finally, "Depending on what you think is right."
That's something Ranboo knows intimately. "Do you believe it was right?" He asks. But this time the void doesn't respond.
"Did you ever go to a festival?" Say the child one day, one of the few times he doesn't wait for Ranboo to speak first.
"Once." Says Ranboo, "I decorated it."
"How did it end?"
The child never sits in front of him. Only ever at his side. And sometimes he swears he can feel someone against his back.
" Explosions ." Ranboo tells him, "Lots and lots of explosions."
"I think everything ends in explosions." Says the boy, this time Ranboo can even tell a hint of dejection. He thinks about the flowers.
"Only if you choose to believe that." Ranboo tries, echoing the many times he's been told that same thing.
"Ranboo," The child says, even though Ranboo doesn't remember ever telling him his name. "Some things just can't be avoided."
"What do you mean?" When he looks at the child, the child is looking right back.
His eyes are a piercing blue, almost colder than the hell around them.
"Some things are never meant to be."
Ranboo can't look away, and suddenly he can't tell what colour the child's eyes are. Hazy and blurry and dead white.
"What happened to you?" Ranboo whispers,
"Life isn't fair." He says. "Most people don't get what they deserve. But more people don't deserve what they get."
For a moment it's too bright. Brilliant, blinding white light. Then smothering darkness returns.
He's alone for a long time. He doesn't see anyone even through his Ghost's eyes.
He does what he can to stay sane. Or perhaps he lets himself wallow in his insanity. He talks to people left behind.
He tries to guess when it's night. He tells Michael stories, stories about the dark and the silence and the pain. Michael isn't around to get nightmares.
He talks to Tubbo as well. He wails at the darkness and asks why he's been forgotten. He sobs into his hands and apologizes for leaving him behind. He stares at nothing and begs for Tubbo to be okay.
"I hope I never see you again." It's venomous and desperate and unlike him and painful.
"Who is Tubbo?" Says the child, for the first time in forever.
Ranboo can't feel his own hands, but it still burns to cry.
"Someone I left behind." Ranboo manages.
"You don't miss him?"
Ranboo curls in on himself, there isn't a body to hurt but he hurts all the same.
"I can't breathe without him." He sobs, "I know dead people can't breathe anyways, but it's true." The last thing he wants is a snide logical remark. "I miss him more than anything."
"Then why don't you want to see him?" The child's voice is soft, there's no notes of patronizing.
Ranboo thinks about every reckless moment Tubbo ever had. He thinks about every night he didn't sleep and every meal he didn't have. Every wound he pretended not to feel. Every day he hid himself away.
"Because I love him."
It's one of those things he always knew but could never say. Like the thousands of apologies and every secret he shouldn't have kept.
"I love him and I don't want him to die, I don't think I could handle it."
It's a twisted, ridiculous hypocrisy. But Ranboos always loved harder than he's been loved back. He can handle that. Tubbo is logical and intelligent and everything Ranboo isn't. Tubbo doesn't need him.
"I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't think about being alive, but I can't help it."
The light doesn't go away, even as silence stretches on.
"When I was alive, I fought for a cause I didn't believe in." Ranboo stiffens as the boy speaks. "I died for a cause because the people I loved believed in it.
"So I get it, love is complicated."
"Do you ever regret it?" Ranboo whispers, "Letting your emotions control you?"
"What's the use of regret?" The child looks at him, "I'm already dead, it can't get any worse."
Ranboo thought that dying would mean no one can make him sad anymore.
"How old are you?" He says, " Were you?" He amends.
He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't leave either. The child plays with his hands, Ranboo has never noticed how faded the boy is. He's transparent.
"It was a long time ago." The boy finally speaks, "I'm not sure I can remember."
Ranboo wishes he could give the kid a hug.
"You were a soldier." Ranboo tries to think. "So you must have been at least 18."
Even if he looks 12, Wilbur is a 25 year old man that came back geriatric. Age means nothing here.
The boy laughs, but it sounds so utterly wrong in limbo.
"I only remember one of my deaths well. The second." He explains. "It was during the war. We were trapped, injured. I remember I was 16 when the sword went through my stomach."
Ranboo grabs his own chest, he can feel the echo of a sword and pain.
"I don't think I lived much longer than that."
"L'manburg."
The child whips around to look at him, blank eyes wide.
"You know it?"
"I lived there." Ranboo nods. "Well, New L'manburg. I was almost president."
"New L'manburg? What happened to the old one?"
Ranboo winces. "It was blown up, but it was rebuilt." He explains, "By Tubbo, he was president when I arrived."
"Your Tubbo was president." The child says with awe. "Is it still beautiful?"
"It was. But it didn't last." The child's face falls. "No one has tried to rebuild it. More trouble than it's worth."
"You don't know what it was worth!" The boy snaps, light flares and for the first time since he died Ranboo feels Fear. "Don't pretend to understand it because you don't"
"All it caused was hurt!" Ranboo argues back, because he can't help it. Because all he has is righteous anger bubbling in him and none of the rationality. "It ruined him, it ruined his friendships, it killed you!"
"It was my home!" The child screams, "Wouldn't you do the same for yours?"
Ranboo rocks backwards, assaulted by the memory of a picture of his son. A threat. A knife in his back.
"I-"
"That's what I thought." The child crosses his arms.
He doesn't know what to say. It's different because… because L’manburg is a place. But he thinks of the times he lied to Wilbur about Snowchester so he wouldn't go looking around. So he would let it be. To keep it safe because it mattered to Tubbo, like L'manburg mattered to so many.
"You must have known him." Ranboo realizes. "I don't know much but I know L’manburg was small."
The child blinks at him, his eyes like marbles.
"Wilbur, Tommy, Tubbo, Niki, and a few others I think." He continues,
He racks his memory, but there's very little anyone has told him about the history of L'manburg. Most of it he had to glean for himself.
"The final control room. You said your second death was in the final control room." He remembers the museum. The plaque explaining what happened. Erets numerous attempts at making right.
"But all the people killed in there, their names are engraved. Their first lives."
His head is swirling.
"It was their first lives. They're all still alive." He finally looks back up at the child. "Who are you?"
The form flickers. So faded and dull but he can make it out. Older. Weathered. Scarred. Familiar.
" No ."
"You weren't supposed to find out."
"No. You can't- this isn't- no!" If he wasn't already dead, Ranboo would think that he's dying.
"I'm sorry."
"But you're still alive." He scrambles. "I've seen you! I've- I've spoken to you! I've held you! You still have one life!"
The child, now a man, hugs his knees to his chest.
"That's what everyone thought." He says, "That’s what I thought, too."
This is a hallucination. It has to be. He's been in limbo too long. He got too comfortable. It had to up its game. Make it worse. So much worse.
But it's not real. It can't be real. Because Tubbo is alive. Tubbo is alive.
Tubbo isn't dead.
"Get away from me." He says, ragged and afraid.
"Ranboo-"
"Go away!" He screeches, pressing his palms into his skull as though that will make it all stop. "Leave me alone!"
There's no response, and when he finally looks up there’s nothing. Only then does he let the tears fall.
Tubbo is complicated. He's overly logical and he rationalized everything he does because he's strange. Not because he's a ghost. Because he's Tubbo. He's not the same as everyone else.
And sure he doesn't really sleep, so much as lays down silently for a bit. Plus he doesn't really eat at all, not unless Ranboo practically forces it down his throat. And somehow he manages to stay weirdly strong despite it all. But he's just Tubbo.
He's Tubbo. His best friend. His husband. The father of his child.
He's Alive .
Tubbo died in the final control room. And he died at a festival, where Technoblade blew him up with a rocket. A colourful rocket.
But he came back after that. And maybe Tommy says he's been different since then, but trauma changes people and they're both so hurt.
Ranboo is dead and all he wants to do is die again. Because maybe finally it will all go away.
In the world of the living, there's turmoil. A dead man screams that he's invincible. A person who just wants peace finds themself free falling.
In limbo, two intertwined hearts tear apart with agony.
You lied. Someone cries.
You lied! Someone screams.
Why did you lie? Someone pleads.
I'm sorry.
It doesn't matter what anyone deserves. None of them deserve what they have lost.
"Why did you never tell me?"
He knows Tubbo is watching. Even if he can't see him.
"For a year. You lied to me."
It's like limbo exhales.
"He doesn't know." Tubbo says, "No one does, not even my ghost."
Ranboo scoffs, his face burns.
"You're telling me a Ghost that's been dead for over a year has no idea it happened." He says, "I know I'm not as smart as you are, but I'm not an idiot either."
"I swear to you." Tubbo begs, "I still don't remember losing my first life. If I even ever had three!"
Ranboo doesn't respond. He just stares at the ground.
"The Tubbo you know, he's still Tubbo. Just the Mind."
"So you're the heart." He snaps. "The heart’s been in limbo since before I even met him. And I fell in love with someone that can't even feel."
The thing that is supposedly his husband isn't hiding as a child anymore. He looks like the Tubbo he knows. Somehow he looks more alive even. With his glassy white eyes and his still oozing burn scars he still looks more alive then the man Ranboo married. And it might kill him all over again.
"None of it was real."
He's not sure what he's feeling. The anger of his ghost? His own heartbreak? Somehow someone else's pain?
"My ghost doesn't lie." He swears, "And maybe he couldn't feel it but I could and I know that was real. Is real!"
"This is why he never revived me." Ranboo ignores him. "Because he didn't actually care about me at all."
For the first time in so, so, so very long. Ranboo feels someone else's body against his own. Tubbo’s hands against his cheeks are cold. Freezing. He forces Ranboo to look him in the eye.
"You know me. You know that isn't true." He stares down with such intensity Ranboo feels like he's burning. "Ever since I died, all I ever knew was pain. Conflict. When everyone thinks you're still alive, they can be horrible. So much that even my mind could barely take it."
Ranboo has stopped crying at some point, Tubbo lowers himself to be at eye level but he doesn't let go.
"Then at some point things started to feel better. I had less sadness. Less anger. Less fear. For the first time in fucking ages I felt happy. I felt loved!" Ranboo searches Tubbos eyes. "Because of you, you oaf. And ever since you showed up here that pain is back and it's so much worse."
"How do you think I found you? This place spans for eternity and I came right to you."
"You knew where I was?" Ranboo breathes.
"A heart to a heart, dumbass." But he's crying now.
"My Tubbo would never tell me this." He stammers. Tubbo doesn't talk about his feelings. Tubbo doesn't admit that he cares about anyone.
"I am your Tubbo." He says, "that's what I'm saying!"
"You don't even know me." Ranboo hiccups, even though all he wants is to sink into Tubbos embrace.
"Just trust me." Tubbo says. "We can meet all over again. And maybe this time neither of us will die."
Ranboo can't help laughing. This whole thing is so unbelievably ridiculous. And maybe he doesn't know what the hell they're going to do, or what this mess will turn out as. But he's dead for God's sake. Like Tubbo said. What's the use of regret?
Being dead was finally, finally, freeing. Now all Ranboo has is time to get to know Tubbo. There's a number of things they still won't share. Just because they're the embodiment of emotion doesn't mean they're ready for that just yet.
Ranboo learns that most likely, Tubbo died as a baby. Abandoned for weeks before Phil found him. And no one knows.
In fairness no one expected Ranboo to be on his last life either. Not even himself.
At least Michael will grow up with one dad. One that can't get hurt or die. Even if he is a bit of a mess.
Tubbo wants to meet Michael badly. He makes Ranboo swear that if somehow, someway, they are finally alive at the same time, they'll have a real wedding. The whole shebang.
Tubbo tells him that in early L’manburg, Tommy had this strange fascination with being a flowerboy.
Dead men don't sleep, and all they have is time. Time together, even if it's in darkness.
Darkness becomes almost comforting, after all those years. Like a weighted blanket of certainty. Visions from his ghost grow few and far between. All he gets is an ache of loneliness.
In the darkness there are stars. Distant visions of souls that have been there far far longer than him. Brighter and brighter as time goes on. When they're not talking, he watches them. Some of them streak across the sky at light speed. Maybe moving to their next life. Some of them flicker out. He doesn't wonder why.
"Ranboo?" A voice calls for him. The stars are fuzzy.
"Ranboo?!"
They're obscured, it takes him a long, long moment to realize it's by someone's head.
All he can manage is a grunt. One he actually feels twang his vocal chords.
"Holy fuck, it worked."
For the first time in a decade. Ranboo_Beloved breathes.