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23 December, 2020
—
Ranboo thought that today was going to be a perfectly normal December day. Just a pleasant festive time. And, if something did go astray, the worst it could be was dropping the Christmas pudding on the floor or something along those lines.
Never in a billion years could he have predicted this.
He was chilling in his room, scrolling through Twitter; something he knows probably isn’t good for his general mental wellbeing, but that he does anyway. Besides, the nice tweets from fans sometimes overshadow the ever-present negativity cloud that haunts that hellscape of a social media platform.
Then it started; a loud, metallic screeching noise, like the sound of someone trying to drive a car with the breaks still on. Despite only one window being open a small crack, harsh wind suddenly whips around the room, sending loose paper and empty packets flying everywhere, blowing Ranboo’s hair all over the place. He yells in surprise, jumping to his feet as the outline of a blue box becomes visible, slowly materialising right in the middle of his room.
My parents go out Christmas shopping and the fucking TARDIS from Doctor Who appears in my room. What the hell?
Before Ranboo has any time to recover from the shock, the door of the police box lookalike cracks open and a head pokes out, the face of which almost legitimately causes him to faint.
“Ah, it worked then, did it?” The far-too-familiar voice says cheerfully as the door swings wide open and a figure maybe an inch taller than Ranboo springs out, grinning at him. Ranboo can’t help but laugh deliriously as he takes in thin grey eyes, the wide smile that wrinkles their whole face up and mussed hair that is only a slightly different shade to his own.
Of course the only person I ever meet who is taller than me is myself, is the first coherent thought he can form, because that’s him. Standing in front of him is a slightly older-looking version of himself, who had just appeared in his room with the goddamn TARDIS. You know, the fictional time-travelling machine.
What the hell?
Hey, say something, you’re making me nervous,” The other Ranboo says, nudging the actual Ranboo’s arm. He can only gape at them, mentally convincing himself that he’s dreaming because there is absolutely no way this is real.
“What… what the hell is happening?” He eventually manages to croak. The other Ranboo looks around the room and seems to be struck with some self-awareness for the first time, taking a step back and holding their hands up by their head in a ‘surrender’ sort of gesture.
“Okay, this is probably very weird for you,” He says. “I mean, having myself show up in my room in a fictional box thing would make me freak out. But you are me, so you probably are freaking out right now then, huh? Shit, uh…”
The other Ranboo gestures vaguely towards the blue box.
“You know what this is, right? Well, you’re me, and I know what it is because I watched Doctor Who, so…”
“Yeah, the TARDIS,” Ranboo finds himself muttering on instinct, eyes darting between the box and himself. “Time And Relative Dimension In Space.”
“Right, yeah. I forgot I used to be even more of a nerd than now. Anyway, long story short, I used this baby to travel a few years back in time to pick you up! Pick me up? I don’t know how to refer to you-slash-me, really.”
Ranboo shakes his head, trying to force it to vaguely process this ridiculous situation.
“Where the absolute… fuck did you get this?” Is the first statement that manages to arrange itself in a coherent-enough manner to tumble from his mouth. Future Ranboo rubs the back of their neck awkwardly.
“Eh, we don’t need to talk about that. I’m gonna return it later, of course, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
“…return it? To who?”
“As I said, we don’t need to talk about it. The important thing is that you need to get in it, we’re on a tight schedule!” They tap their wrist (which has no watch on it) for emphasis. Ranboo rubs his hands over his face.
“What do you mean?” He mutters, head aching slightly. “Why did you come here? What do you need with me?”
“Oh, well, technically, I don’t need anything,” The older version of him says, casually attempting to lean back against the TARDIS and almost falling over backwards. “We just thought it would be really awesome if I could like, bring my past self forward in time to see what the future is like.”
“‘We’?”
“Me and my friends! Our friends. Well, your future friends—if I’m correct, you haven’t really met them yet. Err, what year is this? Just to be certain I wasn’t off by a bit.”
“…2020.”
“Ah, perfect! Got it exactly right!” They clap their hands together, a devilish grin painting their face. “Alright then, Me, time for us to go back to the future!”
“…was that a-“
“Yes, that was a pun. Now come on, get into the box.” They gesture to the TARDIS enthusiastically.
“No, I’m not getting in the box!” Ranboo says, frazzled. “I don’t know you! And I don’t know where the hell you’re taking me, I’m not just going with you without knowing anything!”
“Okay, first of all, you do know me, I’m you. Second of all, I already said, I’m taking you to the future, where I came from! December 23rd of 2023!”
“But… why?”
“I already told you, we thought it’d be a cool, silly thing to do! Are you even listening?”
“And how do I really know that you’re me?”
“What, do you want me to list things that only you would know or something?”
“Yes, actually.”
“Geez, I was so paranoid when I was younger. Okay, I’ll humour you.”
They start to tick things off on their fingers as they talk.
“You’re Ranboolive, otherwise known as Ranboobutnot, Ranaltboo, Ranboosaysstuff, Homealone2, Bobertothedilf and various other aliases. Technically you have a real name but for the sake of the fanfic, we’re pretending that you’re only known as Ranboo because the author doesn’t know your real name. You’re currently… 17, right? If it’s 2020 then yeah, you would be 17. Your gay awakening was Superman, you used to play volleyball, you nearly drowned in a pool as a kid and you also nearly died at birth because you got tangled in the umbilical cord. You love horror movies, you accidentally ate raw chicken at a Mexican restaurant and you once tried to put lettuce in brownies. That enough for you?”
Ranboo gapes at the person who is surely himself, because everything they had just said was correct on every single count. This was all a bunch of incredibly niche stuff that he had not told anybody about before—not even his parents or closest friends knew some of this stuff.
So he really is just talking to himself right now. Literally.
“Okay, okay…” he mutters, pinching his brow. “You’re me, I get it. I’m still not gonna just… go on some wild magic adventure out of nowhere.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll bring you right back here!” The Future Ranboo assures. “I mean, I kinda have to, because if something bad happens to you then something bad also happens to me.”
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Maybe, but it’s awesome. Come on, you know you want to!”
Ranboo hated to admit it, but they weren’t wrong. If the offer was legitimate, he couldn’t deny that the chance to take a glimpse at his future was tempting. His future self seems so different, and yet… not that different. And they mentioned future friends… come on, anyone would be curious if they were in the same situation, right?
So much could go wrong. But he’ll (probably) never get another opportunity like this in his life. Plus, he’s always wanted to ride the TARDIS, which had been purely fictional up until a few minutes ago, so…
“Fine, I’ll come with you,” he says with an only partly forced air of exasperation. “But only for a bit, and only if you know that you can get me back.”
“HELL YEAH!” Future Ranboo punches the air, slinging an arm around Past Ranboo’s shoulders and marching him into the TARDIS. “This is the best early Christmas gift I could have ever asked for!”
Past Ranboo wants to make a quip, but he can’t help but be awed by the TARDIS. He knew that it was gonna be bigger on the inside, obviously, but it doesn’t change how bizarre it is to walk into a vintage police box and instead find yourself in a massive futuristic room. However, he doesn’t get too much time to admire his surroundings as he’s shoved inside rather forcefully and Future Ranboo leaps past him, scampering over to what appeared to be the console in the middle of the huge room, pressing a bunch of buttons and making various sound effects with their mouth as they did so.
The metallic screeching noise immediately started back up again, unfortunately far louder inside of the machine than out. Past Ranboo hastily covers his ears with his hands while Future Ranboo leans casually against the console, very nearly accidentally pressing some buttons.
“Watch it!” Past Ranboo snaps. “I don’t want to randomly end up in the Jurassic Time Period or something!”
Future Ranboo says something, but he can’t hear it because he has his ears covered. Probably a good thing.
A split second later, the TARDIS jolts violently, and the screeching stops abruptly. Future Ranboo wastes no time in skipping merrily towards the door, flinging it open to reveal three unfamiliar wide-eyed faces.
“I DID IT!” Future Ranboo yells, grabbing Past Ranboo by the arm and yanking him out of the TARDIS. “I got my past self!”
“NO FUCKING WAY!” One of the three yells excitedly, black braids flying all over the place as they jump up and down. “From what year?”
“2020!”
“Holy shit, he hasn’t even met me yet!” A brown-haired one with a vaguely Welsh accent says in awe.
“I hoped that younger you would be shorter,” A pink-haired one comments, looking up at him with a barely concealed grin.
Past Ranboo, feeling mildly overwhelmed, can only stand still and look bemused. The brown-haired one, who is comically short in comparison to him, seems to notice this as they flap their arms to shush everyone else and move to stand next to him, putting a hand on his arm.
“Guys, he’s probably a little lost right now,” They say kindly. “We should all introduce ourselves. Michela, you can go first.”
“Oh, uh, right!”
The one with the dark hair tosses their braids over their shoulder, grinning at Past Ranboo.
“I’m Michela, otherwise known as DarkEyebrows. I’m the coolest one here, FYI.”
“You wish,” The pink-haired one snorts before flashing a bright smile at Past Ranboo. “I’m Guqqie, nice to meet you. Is that right to say? Technically I’ve met you but you haven’t met me yet, so…”
“And I’m Aimee,” the short, brown-haired one says, patting his arm. “Welcome to 2023, mate.”
“I… thank you?” He says, still very lost. “I don’t know how to feel about all of this.”
“Oh, we’re just getting started,” Future Ranboo chirps, draping an arm around Past Ranboo’s shoulders. “There is so much that I want you to see!”
As he’s marched onwards with the three future friends in tow, Past Ranboo actually takes in his surroundings for the first time. He’s being lead through an extravagant house, from a fancy kitchen (where the TARDIS had apparently landed) to a humongous living room with various nice-looking couches and tables in front of a ridiculously huge TV.
“Where are we?” He mutters as his eyes dart all over the place, trying to find something familiar that would give him the answer to the question before anyone else could.
“My house!” Future Ranboo answers cheerfully. “Well, our house, I guess. Though you don’t live in it yet, so it is technically mine.”
“This is our house?”
“More like your mansion,” Guqqie pipes up. “It’s huge.”
Past Ranboo has to agree. It’s massive.
“And we just… live here alone?” He says, looking around with wonder. “No roommates or partner or anything? Do these, uh, friends live here?”
“Nope to the partner thing, still single unfortunately,” Future Ranboo says mournfully. “And these three don’t live here, though Aimee and Guqqie do live pretty close by. And I don’t think I have a roommate. At least, the author isn’t sure if I have one or not, so I guess we’ll just pretend that I live here alone even if I am supposed to have one.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Aha, now this is where the magic happens!”
Future Ranboo flings open a door and flicks on a light switch, revealing a room packed with a wide assortment of items. The main focus of the room is a PC setup, complete with lighting equipment and a microphone. It’s not massively different from what Past Ranboo’s setup is, though it is noticeably more impressive.
So this would be my—our—office. Huh.
Past Ranboo’s eyes fly around the room, finding so many new things to catch onto in every corner. A whiteboard, an Undertale Flowey plush toy thing, a… pillow with Batman and Superman kissing?
“Guys, I told you to hide this stuff!” Future Ranboo yelps, snatching said pillow off of the shelf it was on as well as a body pillow and tossing them into the far corner of the room.
“Yeah, but we figured that it would be funnier if we didn’t.”
“Was that a Spamton body pillow?” Past Ranboo says, bemused.
“One of the two that they have,” Aimee snickers.
“It was for charity!”
“Yeah, buddy, we believe you.”
“Shut it. Anyway, besides that… whaddya think of your future office, Past Me?”
“It’s… odd. But it weirdly feels… home-ish, I guess? Like a home, I mean.”
“Well, it is. It will be. Come on, the computer’s where you’ll find all the interesting stuff!”
Past Ranboo finds himself being pushed towards the computer setup and shoved into the chair.
“You don’t have to be so rough with your past self,” Aimee says reproachfully.
“I’m not being rough, I’m being enthusiastic. Come on, Past Me, start it up!”
Past Ranboo looks over his shoulder at Future Ranboo, then back to the computer. Inhaling deeply, he powers it up, typing in the password…
And is immediately rejected.
“Oh, right. The password. You wouldn’t know that,” Future Ranboo muses. “Uh, just type in BigBalls63. Both B’s are capital, rest are small letters.”
“BigBalls63?” Past Ranboo says in disbelief, looking back over his shoulder once more. Michela and Guqqie are giggling amongst themselves while Aimee shakes their head, looking disappointed yet unsurprised. Future Ranboo simply grins at him, completely shameless.
“Yep, that’s it! Capital B’s!”
Past Ranboo stares at Future Ranboo judgementally for a few seconds before turning back to the computer, reluctantly typing in the given password. The monitors flash to the home screen.
“Right! Where do we go first?” Future Ranboo says enthusiastically, clapping their hands together and rubbing them like a cartoon villian.
“Twitch? Or Youtube? So that he can get a look at the subscriber count,” Guqqie suggests.
“Nah, let’s head to good ol’ Twitter, so he can see the current trending controversies,” Michela says with a snicker.
“Twitter is good, we can show him some of your recent tweets. Or search your name and see what comes up,” Aimee adds.
“Twitter sounds good to me! Alright, past me, open the X tab!”
“X?” Past Ranboo snorts, suspiciously eyeing an open tab at the bottom of the screen which, with an X in its URL, does not look like something family friendly.
“Oh, right. Twitter gets rebranded to X,” Future Ranboo says, sighing dramatically.
“…what? Why?”
“Ask Elon Musk. Just open it!”
“Are you sure you’re not just making me open some type of porn site?”
“I told you the X thing looks sketchy,” Aimee quips.
“I promise that it’s not anything weird, just Twitter. Come on, open the tab!”
With a last wary look behind him, Past Ranboo clicks on the ‘X’ tab. To his relief, it has the same general layout as Twitter, proving he wasn’t being tricked.
“Alrighty! Should we go through my recent tweets-slash-posts first?”
“Yeah, on main and alt.”
“No, we are not doing alt Michela, that’s too much.”
“We ARE doing alt, it has better stuff than your main. Open your profile, past Ran.”
Past Ranboo does as instructed, opening his main account profile and jaw immediately dropping when he catches sight of the follower count.
“Three million? Holy shit!”
“And your twitch has over four million,” Guqqie commented. “I don’t know about your YouTube, though.”
“3.8 million, if I’m remembering correctly.”
“What- but- wha- how?”
“We got very lucky,” Future Ranboo says wisely.
“And you deserved absolutely all of it,” Aimee says in a way that makes Past Ranboo vaguely emotional.
“True. Even though you’re a massive loser,” Michela adds.
“Hey, don’t bully my past self, only I get to do that!”
“I’m not just bullying your past self, I’m bullying you both.”
“Fuck off. Anyway, don’t just focus on that, Me. Look at other stuff!”
Past Ranboo, still slightly in shock, tries to oblige, running his eyes over the screen.
His header and bio have changed, now that he thinks about it—and so have the pronouns in the bio.
“They/he?” He says curiously. “Since when?”
“Well, we came out as non-binary some time last year and have been using he/they since then. The change to they/he was a more recent development,” Future Ranboo explains.
“Wait wait wait… we’re non-binary?”
“Yep! Takes us a little bit to realise it, but we get there in the end.”
Past Ranboo stares at the little ‘they/he’ on the screen, his mind whirring. So many pieces that never quite fit now click into place, so many feelings and experiences and identity issues that never made sense lining up with each other…
However, before he lets himself be swept away by these various trains of though, he is rudely interrupted when he’s smacked across the back of his head.
“Hey, that hurt!”
“No time for an identity crisis!” Future Ranboo proclaims. “Onward we go! Scroll!”
Past Ranboo frowns but obeys, scrolling down. The most recent tweet is a merch giveaway of five 100 dollar gift cards and 10 small… particle plushies?
“Particles are what we call our fans now,” Future Ranboo explains, seemingly sensing his confusion. “And the plushies are like little personifications of them.”
“Oh. The design is cute.”
“I do like it a lot. It’s one of my favourite of the merch items. Now, let’s go on!”
The next tweet is a picture of themself, captioned “MAKING GINGERBREAD HOUSES AGAIN!!!!”. Past Ranboo squints at the various bits of stream overlay in the picture—all very different to what he currently used—and does a double take when he sees that they’re wearing a short, red christmas dress with a belt and white fluffy trimming.
“Like the outfit?” Future Ranboo says jubilantly.
“It’s… why did we wear that?”
“Because we just dress like that now,” They say with a shrug. “It’s a lot more fun and comfortable.”
Past Ranboo stares at the picture for a few moments, unsure if he was more confused or in awe; because damn, they looked awesome in the picture. The only fault he could see was that the phone they were holding was only barely covering their eyes, and there were no glasses in sight—but they could just be on the floor beside them or something, right?
The next tweet was a thank you tweet to multiple people, namely @aimseytv (was that Aimee?), @Slimecicle (the actual Slimecicle? Like, Charlie Slimecicle? Holy shit!) and @cellbit. It thanked them for making their first time “dming” so much fun, whatever that meant.
“DMing like, dungeon mastering,” Future Ranboo explains yet again. “Like, you know, Dungeons and Dragons.”
“Oh, that’s really cool!”
“Yeah, it was,” Aimee says, confirming the theory that Aimee = aimseytv. “It was so much fun!”
“Yeah, hoping to do it more in the future,” Future Ranboo says enthusiastically. “Now come on, scroll more!”
The next tweet made little sense to Past Ranboo, and generally seemed to be sarcastic, so he decides not to dwell on it. The tweet before that one confirms what Future Ranboo had said about Dungeons & Dragons, announcing the stream where the dnd oneshot “The mystery of the TRAIN” would take place. And then there was a tweet announcing the start of a Ranbathon, with various goals listed, including “easy bake oven day”, “christmas album”, “tweet colon three” and…
“Face reveal?” Past Ranboo almost shouts, stunned. “You- you’ve set face reveal as a subathon goal?”
“Well, yeah, might as well,” Future Ranboo says casually. “We’re comfortable enough to do it now, so why not use it as a fun subgoal thing? We’ve already done an eye reveal, anyway, so it’s not that huge of a deal.”
“Eyes reveal? What?”
“Yep! Been without the glasses online for, like, two years now.”
Past Ranboo pinches his brow, a billion different thoughts running through his head all at once.
”How? How the hell do we get here?” Is all he eventually manages to come up with, shaken by the idea of any type of face reveal, let alone one at the mercy of a subgoal.
“We grow. We get more comfortable in ourselves. We have people to support us. Things get better.”
Future Ranboo puts their hands on Past Ranboo’s shoulders comfortingly, giving them a squeeze. Past Ranboo swallows, disliking how this was making him well up.
“Really?” Is all he finds himself able to say in response.
“Yeah, really. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve still got a long way to go—but we’ve changed and we’ve grown, and we’ve found people who will stand by us no matter what.”
“Like us,” Aimee says, putting their hand on top of where Past Ranboo’s sat on the mouse.
“Yeah, like us,” Guqqie agrees, patting him on the head.
“Like us!” Michela ruffles his hair affectionately.
“Like them,” Future Ranboo says, a smile in their voice. “You’ve barely gotten started yet. The future has so much in store.”
Ranboo—Past Ranboo, that is—never tried to think too much about the future. Sure, he had dreams and goals, but thinking of specifics and imagining possible outcomes was too anxiety-inducing. He had decided long ago that there was no better place to live than the present, and that what would happen next is not something for him to dwell on.
But now he sits, three years in the future, and his future self seems a billion times happier and more confident and proud. Proud of him. Proud of them both—their past and current self, for getting to where they were now. For all they had seen and done, and for all Past Ranboo was yet to see and do.
For maybe the first time ever, the future didn’t seem quite so terrifying.
Past Ranboo turns around in the chair, eyes tracing over four smiling faces, and he feels a grin start to unfold on his own face.
“You know, I’m really itching to see that alt right now,” he jokes, watching with an odd sense of fondness as his future self turns pale while the three others shout their support.
Though it’s three years in the making, this already feels like home.
—
”Annndd we’re back!”
Past Ranboo rushes to the TARDIS doors, relief washing over him as he opens them to find his room exactly how he had left it—if not a bit windswept, due to the various arrivals and exits. The clock on the wall also tells him that he’s back at exactly the time he had left.
”Told you I’d get you home,” He hears Future Ranboo say from behind him. He turns around, arching a brow at them.
“I’d say I have pretty good reason to not trust you after that mini pizza story.”
“Hey, don’t say that like you’re any better than me!”
“Still can’t believe that I’m gonna get flipped under a goddamn golf cart.”
“Well, you’ll be trending for a bit, on the bright side of that.”
“Yeah, and I’m gonna get comments mourning my supposed death in a tragic and lethal golf cart accident.”
Future Ranboo laughs, stepping towards Past Ranboo and putting a hand on his shoulder.
”You know that we gotta wipe your memory now, right?” They say, voice softer than it had been a moment ago. “You can’t remember all of this, it’ll screw everything up.”
Past Ranboo nods, though a lump rises in his throat at the thought. He’d had the time of his life looking at various clips and videos, being told stories and eating Christmas cookies and pizza with himself and his future friends, having gotten vaguely teary-eyed when it was time to bid them goodbye and Aimee had hugged him for a good long while.
But his future self was right. If he remembered this, he could ruin his chance of ever getting any of that again one day. Of ever actually living it.
“Hey.”
Future Ranboo squeezes his shoulder, smiling at him in a way that made Past Ranboo feel just a little bit better.
”You’ve got this, kid,” they say encouragingly. “This is cliché as hell to say, but you are tougher than you think you are. Really.”
Past Ranboo bows his head to conceal damp eyes, somewhat embarrassed as to how emotional this was making him.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “Thank you so much.”
“Hey, you’re the one I should be thanking. You’re the one who’s gonna get me to where I am now. Plus, this was the funnest early Christmas I’ve ever had.”
“Me too,” Past Ranboo says, laughing despite himself. “It was the best.”
“It really was. Come here, now.”
Past Ranboo couldn’t help thinking how odd it was, being pulled into a hug by yourself. But it was weirdly therapeutic at the same time (maybe partly because he was finally hugging someone of a similar height to him).
“You’re gonna be okay,” Future Ranboo whispers to him. “You’ll get there. Just keep on going.”
Past Ranboo feels like he mights cry if he tries to say anything in response, so instead he just hugs them tighter, hoping they’ll understand. They pat him gently on the back, and he knows that they do.
Eventually, they both break away from the hug. Future Ranboo smiles at their younger self, a tear rolling down their cheek.
“You ready?”
“…yeah. If you’re sure you know how to do this.”
“I do, trust me. Had to do it to the person I took the TARDIS from so that they would forget I took it. Here…”
They press their fingers to the sides of his head, flashing him one final grin.
“Love ya, Me.”
And then everything was black.
—
”Hey! Wake up, sleeping beauty!”
Ranboo blinks his eyes open, squinting at the figure leaning over him.
“Hi mom,” he says drowsily. “Done with Christmas shopping?”
“Mmhm! Was just coming to ask for your help unpacking but you were fast asleep!”
“Was I?”
Ranboo sits up, rubbing his eyes. He didn’t really remember falling asleep, but he must have, because his clock had moved forward over an hour from when he had last checked it.
“Must’ve been really tired,” he says with a yawn, stretching. “Yeah, I’ll come help unpack.”
Ranboo follows his mom to the kitchen, something unexplainable nagging at him in his head, images and pictures that he couldn’t quite grasp on to floating through his mind. It continues to nag at him while he unpacks various festive foods, like gingerbread cookies and brandy pudding.
“I think I had a dream,” he finds himself saying aloud.
“Oh, did you? What was it about?” his mother asks, back turned as she extracted various bottles of champagne—presumably for the upcoming family dinner.
“I’m not sure,” he mutters, trying to wrangle fuzzy bits of memories into something coherent. “I think I met my future self.”
“Oh, that sounds like a lovely dream to have! What was your future self like?”
“I think… he was cool. More confident. Kind.”
“You’ve always been cool and kind,” his mother says, looking back over her shoulder at him with a smile. “Confidence is still lacking, though.”
“Ha, yeah. But it was just a dream. Dreams don’t really mean anything.”
Ranboo would never think about that dream again. At least, not until three years later.