Work Text:
It’s not that Toby doesn’t know what parasocial relationships are. He knows they’re bad. Unhealthy. Stupid. Obsessive. He swallows, hurriedly wiping down a table filled with crumbs of blueberry muffin, trying not to stare at the boy sitting in the corner. Ranboo was on his laptop, occasionally making the most adorable sighs and groans at his annoyingly dim computer screen. He did that every time, and it never failed to make a grin spread across his face. Toby had never gotten the courage to ask him what it was he was typing, but he knew what it was. Of course he knew.
His lore.
Perhaps Toby had gotten obsessed with a Minecraft server’s roleplay plot, and perhaps he might have switched around his shifts at the cafe to ensure that he would be around every time the shy blonde visited, and perhaps he was at home by 8 pm everyday to make sure he could watch all of his streams live, and perhaps he might’ve developed the tiniest, tiniest crush on the sarcastic Twitch streamer with the low, velvety voice that he might be falling asleep to every night. Yeah. Perhaps.
Christ, he should really get a life.
“Toby,” Aimsey called, pulling him out of his thoughts as she peeked around the corner. Knowing them, they were probably just dragging him to chat about a random topic in that high-pitched, Welsh accent of theirs that never failed to make him laugh. “Can you help me clean up something?”
Toby desperately tried to ignore the feeling of Ranboo’s eyes on him, his heartbeat immediately racing. “Yeah, yeah, be there in a sec.” He folded his towel and placed it in the pocket of his apron, following Aimsey through the swinging door, past the kitchen and into the storage closet.
Ranboo watched as Toby walked away, his eyes darting back down to his computer despite the fact that no one was looking at him. Surely it wasn’t a crime to look at someone, right?
He should really stop coming to this place.
The point of going outside to work on his lore was to have a change of scenery, socialize, and be more productive. The only thing is, the same coffee shop three times a week was hardly ‘breaking his routine.’ While there, he certainly didn’t socialize—in fact, he barely spoke to anyone except to order his drink—and calling these ventures productive would be a complete lie. He could barely focus on any of his work any time Toby got within 10 feet of him. But he was such a nice distraction, wasn’t he? Sure, his small fanbase wanted lore, and he should probably write it down and give it to them, but… that hair. Soft and fluffy and, oh, Ranboo could just sweep him up in his arms and tangle his fingers in those lovely brown locks and shower his face with kisses until Toby pushed him away, giggling and laughing.
You are a creep. You are such a creep. You barely know him. Why are you like this.
He ignored his mind, wondering when he would ever be brave enough to speak more than a few words to the boy behind the counter. He wished he could project a fraction of that level of poise, that absurdly natural likeability. Toby was seemingly so confident and comfortable, always cracking jokes with the other waiter Aimsey, striking up conversations with other customers, funny and relaxed and so goddamn charismatic. So he was especially surprised when Toby came out of the kitchen, looking genuinely flushed and flustered for once, and even more so when Toby turned the corner and began walking towards him, holding a plate with a slice of banana bread and a mug of coffee.
“Hi, Ranboo,” Toby said. From the corner of his eye, Ranboo noticed Aimsey peeking around the corner with a sly grin on her face. “I—I was wondering if I could sit with you? There aren’t like any customers besides you right now, and I… I’ve just kind of wanted to, for a while now, to be honest.” The boy laughed, showing off a sheepish grin along with an awkward, fidgety stance, looking beautiful and bashful and mousy and… shy.
Shy. Toby. Shy. Was Ranboo doing that?
And Toby. Toby wanted to sit with him. He had wanted to, ‘for a while now.’
“Uh, yeah, yeah!” He said after a short pause, starting to put away his computer, nervous and giddy, unable to stop a grin from spreading across his face before he looked up at Toby. “I’d love that.”
“Cool,” Toby sat down next to him as Ranboo took a small sip of his own latte. Toby’s knee bumped into his, and in an instant all of his brain cells had travelled downwards, every sensation in his leg sensitized by a thousand times. “How’s your day going? I feel like I already know you really well, since we see each other so often.”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s going okay,” Ranboo said through a sigh, knowing how mundane, how monotonous the day had been up to this point. But this was different; it was something, for sure. “How about you?”
“It’s good,” Toby said, resting his forearms on the table and getting closer. “I had a class this morning on media theory that I’m taking at uni, which was pretty interesting, so my day’s been okay.”
The brunette’s voice lowered as he continued. “I’ve gotta be honest with you, though,” he said, leaning in, so close, close enough that Ranboo could feel the heat of his breath on his face. Toby’s eyes were very pretty from this angle.
“It’s a lot better now that I’m talking to you.”
Ranboo’s mind keyboard smashed.
“Uh—umm, yeah, I, umm… ditto.”
Ranboo’s mind facepalmed.
“Real smooth, man.”
They both burst out laughing, the initial awkwardness of the situation disappearing as they both became aware of the other’s equally perturbed flusteredness, trying to laugh away their own embarrassment.
“So, that didn’t happen,” Ranboo said, staring down at the table with bugeyes.
“Pretty sure it did, big man,” Toby said, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms.
“No, it—big man?”
“What can I say?” Toby reached over, affectionately patting the top of his head. “You are quite a tall man.” The incessant sparks of Toby’s touch began to quiet to a gentle, amber-like stretch in the pit of his belly, comforting and warm. And as much as he loved the feeling of fireworks, the calm was welcoming. It lasted. It made him long for it, the same way he longed for the familiar notes of his most-treasured song, or the warm reprieve of an intimate cafe and its inhabitants.
“Can I touch your hair?” he blurted out, not truly registering what he had said until he saw a look of surprise on Toby’s face.
“Sure,” Toby raised his eyebrows but shifted and scooted over so his chair was right to Ranboo’s, their sides brushing against together. “Go at it, I guess. You are also the ‘bossman.’”
He laughed at his remark, staring at the ball of sunshine and hair below him and began cautiously, as though he were trying to pet a stray cat. He gently threaded a few fingers through his hair, and—oh. Oh.
“You’re so soft,” he murmured, not really meaning to say it aloud. He was so wrapped up in the sensation of Toby’s hair in between his fingers that he could barely process the bright pink flush that spread across Toby’s cheeks.
“Feel like this should be the other way around, actually,” Toby said, fiddling with his thumbs. Ranboo leaned a little closer to him, and Toby’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “You’re the one with the whole ‘catboo’ thing, aren’t you?”
At the mention of catboo, Ranboo immediately laughed, his shoulders shaking. “We do not mention that ever, okay. It’s not my fault they—wait, how do you know about that?” He asked, realizing the implications of Toby’s knowledge.
Toby turned pale.
“Let’s not talk about that,” Toby replied, shaking his head with what appeared to be embarrassment. “Truly. Honest to God, we shouldn’t. Keep touching my hair!” Toby exclaimed, grabbing Ranboo’s hand where it had floated down to his lap and plopped it back onto his head, which was starting to get a bit too ruffled from all of the commotion. Ranboo was still backpedaling in his head, trying to get a grasp on what was going on.
“Do you, like, know… who I am?” He asked awkwardly. He wasn’t exactly the most famous Twitch streamer, and his popularity had gone down over the past year, but he supposed it wasn’t impossible.
Toby stared at a blank spot on the wall beside them and made a face.
“I mean… I might watch a stream now and then. Which is to say, every night at 8 pm?”
If it could, Ranboo’s jaw would have dropped to the floor.
“I swear to God I’m not a creep though! I’ve literally been subbed to you for over a year, and you started coming here a few months ago, and that was just really funny to me, and I don’t even know if you like at all, and look—”
Ranboo gently took Toby’s hands in his own, immediately halting the way they’d been flailing around moments prior. Toby blushed at the action, and Ranboo took a moment to study the calluses on his fingertips, to feel how soft they felt in his own, and to stare at the bony knuckles. Cute.
“Why don’t we start over, then?” He proposed, letting go of Toby’s hands to reach his own out again, posed in a handshake. Toby accepted the handshake with a firm and confident grip. Ranboo used his free hand to take a sip of his coffee.
“Hi. I’m Toby, and you’re the customer slash Twitch streamer that I’ve had a crush on for three months.”
Ranboo choked on the coffee in his mouth.
When he managed to recover, an amused look shining in Toby’s eyes, he mustered up all the courage in his chest to say, “Hi, I’m Ranboo, and you’re the cute barista I can’t get off my mind.”
Toby smiled a dazzling smile. Ranboo was sure by now that he would never get tired of it.
“Happy to meet you."