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Amsterdam had been great so far–Tommy had been having an absolute blast up until he smacked his head–hard, might he add–up against the underside of a concrete bridge. That definitely was not his best moment, especially since now the world was just a tiny bit fuzzier, especially after the whole meet-and-greet. Plus, he had this dreadful ringing in his left ear and a rather bothersome headache to top it all off. But he would be fine; Tommy and company had gotten it checked out and the results found that he just had a minor concussion, so no worries.
Yet for some reason, Ranboo kept insisting that Tommy needed rest and recovery, which yes, the doctor had recommended, but that stuff was for schmucks (said schmuck being Ranboo, apparently).
As soon as Tommy had returned with the news of his minor (minor!) concussion, Ranboo had immediately gone to his side and spoken in that stupidly soft voice and if it were anyone else Tommy probably would have told them to piss off, but it was Ranboo–Ranboo! His buddy, his best friend!
And therein lies the issue.
See, Tommy wasn’t sure exactly when or how it had happened, but he had rather recently come to the indisputable realization that he, Tommyinnit, woman-lover extraordinaire, was in love with his best friend.
And, yeah, okay, maybe the entire world (including said best friend) thought that he was actually straight–hell, Tommy had thought the same up until a couple months ago–and maybe Tommy had no idea how exactly to address that situation, but it was fine, it was good, Tommy was thriving.
...
Alright, maybe Tommy wasn’t exactly thriving, especially since he’d been forced to back out of the rest of his planned activities for the next couple of days. He couldn’t go to any crazy streamer parties, or play video games, or even watch people play video games because apparently, that would just make his head worse.
Then on top of all that, Ranboo was the one who took up the mantle of playing nurse to Tommy until he was deemed better. Wilbur had offered to help but Ranboo had insisted, and before Tommy knew it the taller teen had moved all his things up to their (now shared, not that Tommy got much of a say in it anyways) hotel room.
Tommy was busying himself staring at the intricate patterns of the ceiling while Ranboo made himself at home in one of the chairs next to the bed, long legs stretched out in front of him casually. “Are you hungry?” The older teen asked, breaking the silence.
With a noncommittal hum and attempt at a shrug, Tommy replied, “not like, starving, but I still haven’t really had dinner, with all the concussionizing and whatnot.” To tell the truth, food was the last thing on his mind–he was much more preoccupied as to how he was going to survive being in a room with Ranboo for over twenty-four hours at the least.
Ranboo didn’t seem to pick up on Tommy’s barely concealed gay panic, or he’d at least decided to ignore it for the time being because he was listing out dinner options from his phone not a minute later. “The internet says meat is good, is there anything specific you’re craving?”
“Maybe Indian food?” Tommy spoke after a moment of consideration, “I’d kill for some curry right now, honestly.” As soon as he’d said that, Tommy’s stomach grumbled and he realized that wow, he actually was pretty hungry. "Huh," he murmured.
Nodding, Ranboo stood up from the chair and delicately sat on the bed next to Tommy, on top of the covers. The brunet had his phone in hand, the website for a local Indian restaurant pulled up as he gestured for Tommy to come closer, “here, come look at this menu with me. We can order delivery or something.”
Tommy ended up picking a basic chicken curry alongside some plain naan bread, and Ranboo had gotten fried rice. The order went through, Ranboo quickly paid through the app, and they lapsed back into silence. “It says the order will be delivered in about 45 minutes,” Ranboo told him. “What do you want to do until then?”
“Shit, uh…” the blond murmured, “I don’t really know. Are you sure we can’t watch like… a stream or anything?”
Ranboo shook his head, “you’ve been prescribed rest and relaxation for the next couple of days, alongside no watching streams and stuff.”
With a groan, Tommy brought his hands up to his face to rub at his eyes. “This is so dumb!” He complained, “never let me get concussed ever again, Ranboo, it’s boring as fuck.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” the older assured. “Here,” Tommy was handed a water bottle, “you’re supposed to stay hydrated.”
Tommy accepted the water, immediately lifting the bottle to his mouth and chugging down a few gulps. Ranboo watched intently, and Tommy decided to pointedly ignore that and the blush that was growing on his cheeks. It wasn’t necessarily bad being taken care of by Ranboo, but it was weird and different and, in Tommy’s opinion, bound to end in disaster. He parted from the water bottle, putting the cap back on and setting it on his bedside table. His arm bumped into Ranboo’s as he did so, and he apologized under his breath.
Nothing could deter the fact that he was painfully bored, though, which he reiterated to his companion. “Is there literally anything we can do, then? Let’s just spitball for a bit. What if we went on a walk?”
“It’s still kind of bright out, and it’s going to be super loud and chaotic outside, so that’s a no,” Ranboo told him. “What if we just… talk?”
Tommy made a face. “Talk?” He repeated, “We're doing that right now.”
“I mean like, intellectual conversation,” Ranboo clarified. “You know how people always have those crazy emotional talks at like 3 AM? Let’s have one of those now.”
I mean, this is probably the most exciting thing I could possibly do in this condition, Tommy figured. “I’m game,” he finally said, “what should we talk about, though?”
Ranboo hummed before deciding, “let’s start with something tame, yeah? Like… what’s been your favorite part of Twitchcon so far?” He added, “or just Amsterdam in general, honestly.”
After a moment’s contemplation, the younger answered, “probably meeting so many fans, if I’m to be honest. I know that this is cheesy, but it’s always so damn jarring how much of an impact we make on others, you know? Like… it was just so cool interacting with fans and making their day. They gave me so many cool gifts and told me how much I’ve helped them and it’s just really, really awesome. I don’t even understand how that many people would actually be fans.” Tommy was fully grinning by the end of his small tangent, recalling all of the cool people he’d met.
Ranboo smiled back, “that’s really awesome, Toms. I get why they’re fans, honestly. It’s impossible not to love you.”
And if Tommy went a bright red at that statement, it was for him and him alone to know. He’s saying that as a friend, you dumbass, he chided himself for reading too much into it. “Thanks,” he stuttered out. “What about you? What’s been your favorite part?”
“Ooh, gimme a second to think about it,” Ranboo said, and Tommy watched as the brunet’s hand– oh, he has really big hands, I wonder how they’d feel in mine– came up to scratch at his nape in thought. “Okay, I’ve got it. Even though Twitchcon was, like, super fun, it was also very overwhelming at many times, so it probably hasn’t been my favorite part. I think that my favorite part of this trip has just been hanging out with everybody.
“You, Bill, Aimsey, Tubbo, Niki… it’s been so cool. I know that we hang out back at home, too, but there’s always something so novel about being in a different country with friends. It’s like an adventure.” Ranboo finished, hands folded in his lap as he met Tommy’s gaze intently.
Tommy nodded his understanding, “oh yeah, for sure! I’ve had such a great time hanging out with you.” He said, and then added, “and everyone else, of course.” Ranboo shot him a stellar smile–that was another thing, actually. Tommy would never get tired of seeing Ranboo without the mask; it was breathtaking every time. He was just so handsome and Tommy would always end up staring at his friend's lips for just a little bit too long…
“I’m glad,” Ranboo said, snapping Tommy out of his hopeless pining, “I really enjoy spending time with you.” And proceeded to then send Tommy back into his hopeless pining. Did Ranboo even understand how much of a flirt he could be?! Or maybe Tommy was just reading too far into things–he was concussed, after all.
“Thanks,” was all the blond could muster up in response, and he shuffled in the bed so that he was no longer facing Ranboo and could instead hide his blushing face between two pillows.
From his pillow shield, he could hear his friend’s breathy laughs and just proceeded to bury himself further into cotton and feathers. A weight lifted from beside him–presumably, Ranboo getting up from the bed–before plopping back down right next to him. Tommy startled out of his pillow shield with a shriek, “aye?!”
A large hand pressed against his forehead before Tommy could react. “I wanted to see if you had a fever on top of a concussion since you seem pretty out of it,” Ranboo stated before pulling his hand away, “but I think you’re fine.”
“Well I’m concussed, you idiot,” Tommy scolded with no real heat, “of course I’m going to come across as a little loopy, my head’s all out of sorts.”
“Yeah,” Ranboo agreed, “that’s true.” A moment of silence, before–"maybe I just wanted to sit closer to you.” His hand patted Tommy’s shoulder amicably.
And Tommy groaned because there was no way that Ranboo would just keep doing this. Sure, the guy was friendly and all but Tommy and his larger-than-the-entire-fucking-planet-Earth crush on his fellow streamer would simply not survive the next few hours if this continued! Tommy was just a man; he would combust! And so he snapped, “stop doing that!”
To his credit, Ranboo did actually look rather confused at Tommy’s sudden upset. “What do you mean, that? Are you okay, Toms?"
And, well, Tommy wasn’t fully to blame for what then spilled out of his mouth (some of it could certainly be attributed to his minor brain damage) but before he knew it he was sitting upright in the bed and ranting to Ranboo about things that he definitely did not want to be ranting to Ranboo about. “That fucking… thing you do where you’re all friendly and you compliment me and are nice and gentle and you do these small little fucking touches that drive me mad because I have a rather stupid amount of feelings for you and therefore have to overthink everything you say and do to me because I desperately want you to like me back and–”
Tommy, then, was finally able to stop himself when a knock sounded at his hotel door. Ranboo got up, sparing Tommy an apologetic glance (but other than that Tommy really couldn’t get a read on him) before asking, “who is it?”
“Delivery for a…” a pause, “Rahn Boo?”
Supposed “Rahn Boo” sighed before opening the door and collecting the food from the delivery person, fishing for some cash in his pocket before handing 5 quid over and shutting the door with a hurried, “thanks.”
Then, wordlessly, he returned to the bed and sat back down across from Tommy, who had watched the whole exchange from the bed. “Uh…” the blond said, at a loss for words.
“So…” Ranboo replied in turn, adding just as much to the conversation as Tommy just had.
Another moment of quiet captured the two, and Tommy pointedly began to eat his curry while Ranboo processed the past five minutes. Tommy, internally, was panicking more than he thought he’d ever had before, but he elected to ignore that in favor of his curry.
“Was all of that true?” Ranboo finally broke the tentative silence, looking Tommy right in the eye.
Swallowing a particularly big bite of curry, Tommy winced and answered, “yeah. Sorry if I just made things super awkward between us.”
“No, don’t apologize,” Ranboo told him, “I’m just a bit shocked. Like… I’ve been flirting with you this entire time to try and get over my crush on you since, well, I thought you were straight and I, therefore, didn’t have a chance.”
Tommy decided to not spit out his rice at the information that Ranboo had been flirting with him and that Ranboo did like him back, and instead decided to say that “Ranboo, even if I were straight–which I’m evidently not, shocker–I think I probably would have made an exception for you regardless.”
That managed to crack a laugh out of Ranboo, and suddenly all the weird tension in the room broke. “Holy crap,” the brunet exhaled, “that was the weirdest confession I think I’ve ever done and borne witness to.”
“The delivery guy was a paid actor,” Tommy deadpanned over a bite of his curry, and both of them broke out into giggles. “Start eating your food before it gets cold, by the way,” he gestured to Ranboo’s unopened carryout, which sat lonely on the bedside table.
Ranboo shuffled closer to him once more, reaching from Tommy to grab the food. “Can I, uh, ask you something first?”
Tommy furrowed his brow, “yeah, of course. I literally just spilled my guts, you can ask whatever at this point. I doubt I have anything to hide.”
With a shake of his head, Ranboo said, “no, nothing like that. I was just wondering if–” he looked away and coughed into his hand before continuing, “–I was wondering if I could kiss you.”
Well, Tommy near choked on his food, just managing to hack it down before responding, “uh, yes. Thank you for–thank you for asking, by the way.” He scooted a bit closer to his friend(?), “so how do we go about doing thi–”
Ranboo had shot forwards and gently taken one of Tommy’s cheeks with his hands, using it to tip the blond’s head up so that their mouths met.
It wasn’t a perfect kiss–far from it, actually, since they were both sitting kind of awkwardly and their noses bumped together a couple of times, but it was better than anything Tommy could have ever asked for.
When they parted, after a few seconds, Ranboo asked, “was that okay?”
Dazedly, Tommy replied, “I should get concussed more often if it ends up like this.”
The older teen smacked his shoulder lightly. “Don’t you dare,” he chided, but before either of them knew it they had each leaned in for another kiss.
Ranboo’s supper did, in the end, get rather cold.