Que Sera Sera - BananaBro (2024)

Chapter 1: Moving In

Chapter Text

“Drop it over there,” Techno says, maneuvering around the few boxes scattered across the floor.

Ranboo complies, hefting it over to a free space and dropping it down with little consideration. The box thuds, as do the contents of it.

“Dude!” Techno says. “Careful!”

“It’s fine,” Ranboo says, opening the flap of the box. “It’s just some bedding stuff. Not the end of the world. I’ve been around this schoolhouse before.”

Both of them return for their fall semesters of sophom*ore year at Beach Coast University. Rooming together as freshmen was tolerable, so sticking with each other is naturally the smartest decision.

“Isn’t it wheelhouse?” Techno says, slicing the tape on the box and aggressively pulling it open. He handles the technology inside with care. “Not schoolhouse?”

Ranboo huffs. “Ooh, my name is Technoblade. Erm, actually, it’s wheelhouse instead of schoolhouse.”

“Haha,” Techno says with the roll of his eyes while he untangles all his cords.

“I know, I’m hilarious.” Ranboo walks past him to reach other box and pats him on the shoulder almost on instinct.

Technoblade presses his lips together awkwardly, hands pausing mid-action. “No.”

For a moment, Ranboo doesn’t understand what he means, then they look over their shoulder and notice Techno stiff as a board. Ranboo’s face takes on a flush of warmth, and they glance at their hand. “Oh. My bad. I forgot.”

“How?” Techno says, but the good-natured tone in his voice keeps him from sounding genuinely bothered. “It’s like the only boundary I have.”

“I’ve been at my parents!” Ranboo says, tossing down one of their shirts from another box in frustration. “Stop bullying me!”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever,” Techno says, plugging in his PC and setting everything up on his desk. “Excuses, excuses. I might have to cancel you for this.”

“Cry about it,” Ranboo says, pushing past the stirring insecurity in their heart.

In freshman year, Ranboo quickly learned (Technoblade said it outright, and very firmly) that Techno was touch-repulsed. Which sucks for Ranboo, since touch is their primary love language, but they learned to get over it.

It sucks even harder when their parents are also touch-repulsed, or at least it seems that way, but a little touch starvation isn’t such a big deal. They’re a grown adult. They can handle these things.

“You still have that gig at Silver Theaters?” Techno says, finally finishing with the computer setup. Ranboo always considered it a bit extra to bring an entire PC, but Techno is married to the grind.

Ranboo certainly isn’t. They pull out their laptop and plug it in, considering that to be good enough. “Yeah. Let them know I’d be a few hours south over summer, so I couldn’t work, but they let me keep the job. Only condition was that I come back the next school year. Apparently, reliable employees are hard to come by for a small corner joint.”

“I’m sure,” Techno says. “That’s convenient.”

“And Sundays are always off!” Ranboo says, pulling the chair back from their desk and lounging in it to take a breather. “It’s great.”

“It’s like a Chick-fil-a situation, right?” Techno says, moving past his tech to start putting clothes away in drawers.

Ranboo nods. “Yeah. It comes in handy. Plus, there’s that charity place down the street,” they say, gesturing with their head.

“Oh,” Techno says, shutting his first drawer and clapping his hands together to wipe the nonexistent dust off. “The one you went to every week last year?”

“That’s the one,” Ranboo says, watching Technoblade put all his clothes away. They decide it would be better to get it done sooner rather than later, so they push themself out of the seat and get to work. “Feed My Starving Children. It’s really fun, Techno. You should come with me.”

“Ehh,” Techno says, closing his bottom drawer with his foot. “I don’t feel like paying.”

Ranboo chuckles. “You don’t pay to help them, Techno. That’s stupid. The reason I go in the first place is to donate my time, not money.” Since, broke college student. “At least I can feel helpful like this.”

“If you say so, man,” Techno says, consolidating his empty boxes. “It ain’t for me. Lots of people in a small space.”

“It’s okay, Techno,” Ranboo says, instinctively reaching out again to pat his shoulder but stopping themself just in time. Techno ignores their arm and pretends like nothing happened, which Ranboo appreciates. “You can just say you hate the starving children.”

Technoblade erupts in a furious, yet humorous, uproar. “Huh?!”

Ranboo sets their hands on the counter to brace themself while they cackle.

-

On Monday evening, Ranboo attends their first lecture of the new year. It’s both good to be back and terrible at the same time. The atmosphere and people are familiar and something they missed, but all the work is not.

The first lecture is kind of boring, unfortunately. Their professor talks about the history of cinematography, which is probably pretty important to note for the film studies major of the group. Ranboo jots down a note here or there, but most of the information probably won’t matter.

Their second lecture is on English, and all they can think about during it is their theater course on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Ranboo walks into Silver Theaters with the old black-and-silver uniform, which thankfully still fits like a glove. The employees that recognize them smile and wave hello, and they smile back. After a quick training to refresh their memory, they get right back into it.

Today, they work behind the snack counter. Sometimes, they can’t tell if the counter job or the cleanup job is worse. There is some gross stuff sometimes, but at the same time, people can be gross too. Plus, if they get called ‘ma’am’ one more time, they’re going to lose it. (The looks of shock on people’s faces when they speak with their deep voice right after are worth it, they’ll say.)

The week goes about as well as a first week can, and the weekend arrives quickly. Techno and Ranboo spend Saturday together reading and signing the billion syllabi they were given (just five this semester, but why do they all have to be so thick?) before ignoring all assigned work in favor of playing Minecraft.

On Sunday, Ranboo does the minimal work they can before biking off the campus, heading a few blocks down to reach the FMSC establishment. They set their purse in one of the lockers, watch the instructional video that they have memorized by heart, take off their earrings, and fit the hairnet over their head. The gloves are a bit of a tight fit because of how large their hands are, but they manage.

A volunteer leads Ranboo, along with a group of strangers, to one of the stations that they’ve worked at dozens of times before. They would call themself a seasoned pro. With some final instructions, and encouragement to have fun with it, their team is off.

They have five people today: two people scooping the appropriate amount of food into the bowl, one person holding the bag under the funnel to catch the food, another person making sure the measurements meet the requirements, and the last one sealing the bag.

Ranboo, of course, rushes straight for the food platform, taking the first position and grabbing the scoopers. Another person slots themself into the spot next to them, and the rest of the spots fill themselves up.

It runs like clockwork. Ranboo pours his portion, the person next to them pours theirs, and the rest of the folks do their job from there.

“Goddamnit!” The guy next to them hisses, staring at his mess with a disappointed look on his face.

Ranboo peers over and sees a large pile of rice on the floor. They fill in the gaps from there. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” Ranboo says, garnering the guy’s attention. He turns to look, and Ranboo meets his eye. His eyes are blue, and his face is young. Maybe just younger than Ranboo. They see the frustrated flush on his face and wish to pat his shoulder in reassurance, but they can’t do that with the scoopers in their hands. “They’ll pick it up. No big deal. Just keep going.”

The guy looks back at Ranboo for a moment, like examining their words, and ultimately unwinds with a sigh once he decides that Ranboo is honest. He continues with his job, holding the handle much more firmly.

Ranboo looks around the room to see many students at other tables, folks who must have had the same idea as them. They all chant enthusiastically every time they fill a box, so Ranboo anticipates the moment they finally enter into the race.

“Table six, box one!” Their whole group shouts, even the timid guy next to Ranboo.

As time goes on, the guy gets more comfortable in his shoes, examining Ranboo’s scooping technique. “Ey, pick up the pace, buster,” he says with a note of sarcasm Ranboo recognizes from Techno.

Ranboo huffs and looks over with a jokingly appalled look. “Okay, Mr. I-dropped-my-rice,” they say, pouring their portions in because someone here is impatient.

The guy gapes and holds his nose up to feign offense, pouring his portions quicker to assert a ridiculous sort of dominance. “That’s offensive. Too soon to make such sensitive jokes.”

“Sensitive?!” Ranboo says, already prepping his next portions.

The guy stops being able to take himself seriously and breaks character with a snort. He clears his throat to re-establish the bit. “Yes. Absolutely. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Oh,” Ranboo says, ducking their head in disappointment with a fake little frown on their face. “I sincerely apologize for my wrongdoings. It’ll never happen again.” They wipe the frown off their face and replace it with a dry smile. “Is that good enough for you?”

“Nope,” the guy says, knocking his shoulder against Ranboo’s to cue them to pour their portions in the funnel. The little action paralyzes Ranboo for a moment, but they get over it quick enough to do their job and move on. “I need a ten minute apology video. You better know how to play the ukulele, mate.”

An abrupt laugh bursts its way out of Ranboo, and they keel over. They hadn’t been expecting such an outlandish thing to come out of this guy’s mouth. “What?!” Wait a second. “Did you just call me mate?”

“Yeah,” the guy says loudly, volume making up for his awkwardness. He puts his portions in and moves on.

Both of them pause their conversation to declare, “table six box two!”

“Are you British?” Ranboo says, sincerity shifting the tone of the conversation.

The guy shifts it right back. “And you’re a bloody American, but you don’t see me gawking about it.”

“Uh, we’re in the land of freedom and guns?” Ranboo says, watching the nutrient powder smoothly flow down the tunnel. How satisfying. “You see Americans here all the time. But not you tea-drinkers.”

The guy gasps. “Offended yet again. Now you need a ukulele and a pan flute.”

“Nope!” Ranboo says, evening out his scoop of dried vegetables. “You’re British, so I don’t give a damn about your feelings.”

“Table six, box three!” They call out together, the guy even going as far as to pump his fist in the air. Ranboo has to respect the energy.

“Uhh, casual racism?” The guy then says, sending a dirty look his way. The upwards twitch of his lips suggests he hasn’t taken a lick of offense to this. “Okay. I see you, mate.”

“I’m not your mate, pal,” Ranboo says, voice teeming with irony. They laugh to themself after saying it.

The guy snorts, but he plays along. “I’m not your pal, buddy.”

“I’m not your buddy, bro,” Ranboo says, knocking his shoulder in return to prompt him on. (Wow, that’s new.)

The guy pours the soy and rice in at the same time. “I’m not your bro, man.”

Ooh, perfect. Ranboo was hoping he would say that. Time to pull out their ace. “I’m not a man.”

The guy whips his head around rapidly, brows furrowed in confusion. With another look, understanding washes over his face, and he bursts into laughter. “Oh - oh bloody hell,” he says amidst laughter, hardly composing himself enough to pour his next portion. “Sorry, mate.”

“I win,” Ranboo sings, just to show they really don’t care what they’re called.

“Fine, you win this round,” the guy says, conceding with grace. “But I’ll get you next time, you goddamn American.”

The fight ends with the final agreement of peace being the proclamation of, “table six, box four!”

-

The two hours fly by since the guy next to them has Ranboo in stitches half the time. At the hour mark, both Ranboo and the guy swap jobs with the funneler and the measurer so that other people can have a turn with the food.

“Tell them to put less rice in!” Ranboo calls out once they weigh the bag and see that it’s three grams over the allowed range. They scoop out some of the rice into a discard container and pass it on to the sealer.

“We’re doing our best here!” The British guy calls. “Maybe your scale is broken!”

“Sure, mate,” Ranboo says, poorly imitating his British accent.

The guy’s nose wrinkles up in distaste. “Never ever make me hear your voice do that again.”

A broad grin cracks Ranboo’s face in two. “Oh, really?” They say, persisting with the accent. “You don’t like my accent, mate? Bruv? Innit?”

“You don’t use those words in that order!” The guy says, releasing his hands from the bag with the force of his frustration.

“Hang onto it!” Ranboo says, breaking out of the accent.

The guy does not acknowledge them but follows the directions anyway. “I mean, how would your burger-eating, gun-slinging ass like it if I went, ‘howdy!’”

Ranboo sputters out a laugh, since that might just be the worst American accent on the face of the planet. “No! No, please stop, have mercy - ”

The guy and the rest of the table call out, “table six, box five,” with an inspiring amount of energy, but Ranboo is too out-of-breath from the laugh to contribute.

“Yeah!” The guy says, an evil grin curling his lips. “Howdy, y’all! You folks gotten y’er daily visit to McDonalds, yet?”

Ranboo can’t stop laughing, and the guy soaks it all up with a devilish look on his face.

“Thank you, thank you,” he says with a bow right after passing along the next bag to Ranboo. “I’ll be here all night.”

“God, please leave,” Ranboo says under their breath, failing to catch up after that. Despite their harsh words, a smile lights their whole face up. “Leave the whole country, in fact.”

The guy’s smile falls into a faux-scowl. “Leave the planet, and we’ll call it a deal.”

-

The event ends and their table proudly sports their twenty-seven boxes. After one final cheer and a playful jeer to the other lower-scoring teams, everyone cleans and packs up the table supplies.

The heads of the facility gather the congregation for prayer, and Ranboo sneakily weasels their way through people to skip past it and sit in the lobby until dismissal. The British guy from earlier sheepishly follows them, trailing behind their steps close enough to touch. Ranboo doesn’t mind that.

Ranboo pauses by the first trash can they encounter and pulls off their hairnet and gloves, tossing them in the disposal. They run a hand through their dirty-blond hair to muss it back into place. It falls around their shoulders like it always does, and they clip their earrings back in as well. The British guy copies them, scrambling to pull off his gloves and net. Without the net, Ranboo can better see the characteristically wild blond curls that pool around his head.

They take a seat in the lobby away from the main warehouse, scanning the room with their eyes in silence to respect the congregation in the other room.

The British guy lodges himself right beside Ranboo, not uncomfortably close but close enough to count, especially since every other seat is empty. He slouches in his seat, head turned Ranboo’s way. “Ayup,” he says, elbows braced against his legs with his arms comfortably sagging down.

Okay. Bold of him. Ranboo could never. Sure, they’d been talking together the entire event, but they would be the type to sit in silence and pretend the other person doesn’t exist until they inevitably parted ways.

Since the guy has already initiated, it would be embarrassing on Ranboo’s part to ignore him. Going with the flow of it is easier anyway, since it’ll be what it’ll be. They turn in their seat to face him. “Hey.”

“What’s your name?” He says.

“Ranboo,” they say after a mere moment of hesitation. They shift to sit straighter, like to brace themself for the sheer power of his social awkwardness - no. Awkward socialness.

The guy sticks out his hand with a grand smile on his face. “Nice to officially meet you, Ranboo.” Ranboo stares at it blankly for a moment, then finally clocks in when the lad urges it out more overtly. “C’mon, mate. It won’t bite you.”

Ranboo shakes Tommy’s hand and finally gets their footing in the conversation. “What’s your name, then?”

“Oh,” the guy says, finishing their handshake with a firm squeeze before he pulls away. Okay. That was certainly something. “It’s just Tommy, innit?”

It takes a second for everything to register in their brain, since they’ve just about frozen in place since that handshake. This? This is absolutely pathetic. Non-negotiably pathetic. A handshake, Ranboo? A friendly, non-professional handshake, and this is the state you’re in?

They blink rapidly to knock themself back into the game yet again. “Nice to meet you, Tommy-innit.”

Tommy scoffs and smacks Ranboo light-heartedly in the shoulder. “Piss off.”

Ranboo elects to move on for their own sanity. They lounge in the seat comfortably, long arms draped over the top of the bench back. “So how’d you get here to America, Tommy-innit?” They say.

“I’m studying abroad,” Tommy says, straightening his posture as well to match Ranboo better. “I thought America would be a bit less disappointing than this, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

Ranboo snorts. “You all were fighting to keep America. Hell do you mean ‘beggars’?”

“Hey,” Tommy says with a snip of sincerity in his voice. Amusem*nt plays in his eyes, which disarms Ranboo from taking anything said after this point seriously. “I am not responsible for the actions of my forefathers. They made some ridiculous mistakes.”

“And some pretty bold fashion statements,” Ranboo says, gesturing vaguely with their hand to Tommy’s baseball tee. “Look. You’re still repping the red.”

Tommy’s face finally breaks into a smile. “I’m spending my time here and going to Beach Coast for the semester.”

“Oh, hey,” Ranboo says, lifting their head in recognition. “I go there too.”

Tommy’s eyes light up. “Really?”

Ranboo nods. “Most of the college-age folk that come here on Sundays go there. It’s so close to the campus, so you might as well. Right?”

“Exactly,” Tommy says. “That’s why I decided to. I think I’ll come again, actually. It was fun.”

“Yeah,” Ranboo says. “I’ve been doing this for a year now. Never gets old. The other teams are the best part.” Besides the feeding of starving children. Ranboo, somehow mustering up the courage, knocks their shoulder playfully against Tommy’s. Tommy thinks nothing of it. “Once you get comfy in your skin here, you’ll figure out how to play.”

“I guess I’ll have to take your word for it,” Tommy says with a slow nod of his own. “I’m a first-year, so I have plenty of time to figure if I actually like it here or not.”

“Oh, a freshman?” Ranboo says. “I’m a sophom*ore. Second-year. The campus is pretty great, and so is the area. Dorms are a little small, but you get over it. The beach is real close. And if you walk a little ways down it, you get the most amazing view of the stars.” Ranboo hadn’t noticed, but a slight smile passes over their face naturally while they talk.

Despite Ranboo’s semi-obnoxious rambling, Tommy still seems fascinated. “Sounds lovely.”

Their smile curls into something more mischievous. “Luv-leh,” they say.

Tommy’s smile falls instantly and he smacks Ranboo again. “I told you to piss off, goddamnit!” He whisper-shouts, eyes flitting nervously around to see if he disrupted anyone.

Ranboo laughs, and covers their mouth with their hand in an attempt to quiet themself down. “Fine, I’ll leave you alone,” they say, pushing themself to a stand and wandering over to their locker from earlier. The congregation from the warehouse disperses, and people start flooding into the room. They pull out their purse and sling it over their shoulder. “Farewell, Mr. Innit,” they say with a voice on yet again, twirling their hand and dipping in the mock of a bow.

“Git, Ranboo!” Tommy says with again the worst cowboy intonation Ranboo has ever heard.

Ranboo walks back down the street with a bit more pep in their step after the fun few hours they’d had, fiddling with their phone and answering a few messages that had been sitting there waiting for them. Soon enough, they open the door to their dorm and walk right back in.

“How was it?” Techno says, fiddling with the wires and plugs for their shared monitor.

Ranboo drops their purse onto their bed and flops down with it. “Same as always.” Which isn’t a bad thing. “Met this British guy, though. He goes to BCU too, and - augh. I should have asked him what he majored in.” Ehh. No big deal. They might be able to ask next week, if Tommy goes back like he said.

“A British dude,” Techno says absently just to prove he was paying attention. He crosses some of the wires and stretches a cord as far as possible to reach the outlet. The monitor activates when he turns it on, and Techno sighs in relief of a job well done. He secures it and turns it off again. They officially have their own little TV now.

“Yeah,” Ranboo says, already not paying much attention to the conversation. They pick up their phone again and scroll absently through YouTube. “But it was alright.”

By the time the night comes, most thoughts regarding Tommy have faded.

Chapter 2: Acquainted

Chapter Text

College is college. Kinda boring, kinda interesting. Hard sometimes. Enjoyable other times. Ranboo looks forward to the weekend, and they’re sure they will the entire year without fail.

The next week goes by with Ranboo getting used to the routine again, lecture and class and work and slacking off and getting in a healthy amount of procrastination. It isn’t like any of the professors will assign huge time-crunch projects in the first couple weeks, so they don’t have any reason to worry yet.

Work at Silver Theaters kicks in like an old instinct after a few days, and they have the fortunate yet simultaneously unfortunate luck to be in clean-up crew every workday this week. It isn’t too bad. They pop in some earbuds, throw on some Lemon Demon or Bo En, and sweep the floors. Not that difficult.

On Sunday, they wake up late and scramble to get ready. They brush their hair with far less care than they normally would, leaving it frizzy. It doesn’t matter - the hairnets will cover for them. They slap on some of the easiest clothes to put on, a t-shirt, some shorts, and old tennies, and rush out the door.

They jog down the street, eyebrow ticking in frustration when a busy light stops them from crossing. It won’t matter too much if they’re late, but they like being punctual. Especially to FMSC. Having an experienced hand at the table is crucial.

They chuck their purse in a locker, take off their earrings (how did they forget twice in a row that they can’t wear earrings?), and manage to take care of everything else just in time for the administrators to start leading people in. Ranboo follows the flow of traffic with an eased heart. They made it on time.

Instead of immediately stealing the food position like last week, they decide to take the helm of the sealing iron. They have used it a few times before and it isn’t too complicated to operate. The only caveat is that only adults can use it, which sometimes forces them into needing to be the one doing it. It can be annoying if they were feeling in the mood to scoop or measure, but they won’t cry about it.

Much to Ranboo’s surprise, a lad with blond hair covered by a net slides into the spot right next to them, signing up for the tax of packing the sealed bags into boxes. “Ayup, boob.”

Ranboo looks over in awe of Tommy’s sheer audacity, jaw slightly hung open in a gape. “Redcoat?”

Tommy’s face breaks out into a broad, roguish smile. “Miss me?”

“So you’ve decided to come weekly?” Ranboo says, lowering their voice when administration starts shouting instructions to everyone.

Tommy nods. “I have a friend here, so I figured I might as well.”

“Who?” Ranboo says.

Tommy stares at them like they’re dumb, then he scoffs and turns his nose up offishly.

Ranboo’s face heats up, and they scramble to repair their statement. “Hey - hey! Don’t be like that! I thought you meant, like, a friend on staff or something!”

Much to Ranboo’s relief, Tommy’s cold expression melts away easily. Tommy knocks their shoulders together (which is something he can actually do, surprisingly. Not many people come close to matching Ranboo’s height, and Tommy isn’t close to a match either, but he’s tall enough to reach) which almost makes Ranboo falter again. They strap in and power through it, trying not to freak out over casual, genial gestures that all people should be accustomed with.

The shift starts and they get to work. Ranboo takes the measured bags and seals them with the iron, passing them to Tommy. Tommy packs it into the box by his feet in the way he was instructed to, leaning against the table until Ranboo shoves the next bag towards him.

Tommy gets a little bored, even in the speed of packing the bags, because the little pauses in between leave something to be desired. He looks around the room and spots the table across from them: table two. He grins and leans forward to amplify his voice. “Table two’s a dirty loser!” He shouts rhythmically.

Ranboo jumps, since they hadn’t been expecting it, and clutch their heart while they catch their breath. The rest of the table look equally startled. “Oh my god, Tommy,” they breathe. “Warn a guy next time, huh?”

“Thought you weren’t a guy,” Tommy says smugly, taking the few bags that had accrued and stuffing them into the box. He seals it up and shoves it aside, opening a new one. “Table three, box one!” The rest of the group echoes his declaration, even Ranboo.

But the harmony doesn’t last for long. “Semantics,” Ranboo says under his breath in little more than a petty grumble, throwing Tommy a playfully dirty look.

“C’mon,” Tommy says, “you told me half the fun is interacting with the people. Let me live a little!”

“Fine,” Ranboo says with the good-natured roll of their eyes. “But when you want to shout, you coordinate with the group. Table-two probably didn’t even hear you.”

The sound of clattering materials and loud chatter overpowers even Tommy’s projective voice. The dawn of a devilish idea sparkles in Tommy’s eyes.

Ranboo doesn’t know what they’re in for, but they’re already exasperated by it. “Dear god. Tommy - ”

“Alright,” Tommy says, leaning in and garnering the attention of the rest of the team. “I’ve just now decided we have war with table two.” Most of their team is composed of other college students or fairly young adults, so they smile and elect to play along.

Ranboo shakes their head, but they follow along with Tommy’s schemes anyway, chanting Tommy’s initial call of battle at table two. “Table two’s a dirty loser!”

Table two shouts protestingly when they hear, and their team colludes their own response. In that time, Tommy keeps packing boxes, calling out numbers higher and higher than the ones before, but he dramatically drops his new box when he hears Table Two’s response.

“Table three, suck on these!”

Tommy bursts into laughter, clutching his stomach and bracing his body against the table.

In an act of impulsivity, Ranboo grabs Tommy’s shoulder to keep him from all-out collapsing. The second their arm lifts out, they regret the choice, but they’ve committed now. “Tommy, Tommy!” They say, a chuckle bubbling into their words. “Tommy, you need to pack the box!”

Tommy, thankfully, doesn’t mind. He rights himself again and stuffs the bags into the boxes, calling out every new number.

At the end of the event, Ranboo again snakes their way past the groups to sit quietly in the lobby. They pull off their gloves and net and toss them away, offloading their weight to the bench chairs arranged like pews in the main lobby.

Tommy, after some sneaky maneuvering of his own, joins Ranboo on the bench. “We got twenty-four boxes today,” Tommy says, sounding slightly disappointed with himself.

“That’s because our boxer was a little slow,” Ranboo says with a pointed glance, a smile on their face to assure Tommy that they mean no harm.

Tommy disarms when he sees the smile and sighs, the angry rant on the tip of his tongue falling away. “I think the sealer was really holding me up, actually. If only they were a bit faster, we probably could have beat table two.”

“I’d like to see you do it, redcoat,” Ranboo says, crossing their arms haughtily. “You would need to call 911 by the end of it.”

“As if,” Tommy says, gritting his teeth when his loud voice echoes around the empty lobby.

Ranboo shushes him with a laugh stuttering in their voice, an amused smile donning their face while they look around to see if anyone took notice. “You and your big mouth, redcoat,” Ranboo says with a teasing smile.

“Piss off!” Tommy hisses, looking furious that he has to reduce himself to a whisper.

The congregation ends their prayer and migrates to the main lobby. Ranboo pushes themself off the seat and pulls their purse from the locker, waving Tommy a friendly goodbye. “Next week, Innit?” They say with the touch of a British accent on the last word.

Tommy stumbles for a clever response. “You best be sure!” He says with a botched Western accent.

-

As is everyone, Ranboo is victim to the passage of time. They get lost in the rhythm of life, going to classes and attending lectures and staying up until the witching hour on Saturdays to finish a PowerPoint or essay they forgot about. They work at Silver Theaters and interact with folks that come in and out and get paid. Sometimes, their managers or co-workers ask how they can pray for them. They politely decline the offer most of the time, but sometimes they mention something about their family or student loan debt. Ranboo at least appreciates the sentiment.

They lie in bed letting the weight of all their problems crush them until they pull their shards back together again in well enough shape to go out and smile for a change. They wear gloves and pretend like they’re holding someone’s hand - no one in particular. Just someone’s. They stare at photos forlornly of their parents and try to think about the last time they were given a long hug. And the saddest things, in Ranboo’s opinion, are the nights they curl up under their blanket and play pretend, squeezing their eyes shut to block the world out.

They get called cringe by Technoblade, who means well, and it makes them laugh enough to shove the feelings aside for now.

But Ranboo doesn’t live a sad life. In their eyes, this is prosperity. Education, work, and enough time to volunteer on Sundays.

Oh, Sundays. Sunday after Sunday they are gifted the presence of Tommy, who slowly somehow gets out of his shell more and more with each passing week. Every time Ranboo thinks Tommy’s made it to his peak comfort level, Tommy proves them wrong by doing the most outlandish thing the next week he’d have never done that first day.

In the times where they aren’t busy packing the bags, the two sit in the lobby by themselves and wait for the shift to end. It usually flies by, since their chats are both short and entertaining. In the course of a few months, Ranboo has learned quite a bit about Tommy. His mum is actually from America, and Tommy has a pair of grandparents just a couple hours away.

“Just a couple hours?!” Tommy had indignantly cried, looking utterly appalled. “In a couple hours, I could be in France! My nan might as well be in Narnia!”

“Culture-shock moment,” Ranboo replied, taking a swig from their water bottle. “Everything in America is bigger. Including the distances.”

“And the people,” Tommy said, giving Ranboo a look up and down.

Ranboo clicks their tongue in disappointment. “Har har. You’re so original.”

Ranboo learns about Tommy’s passion for music and hears about Tommy pursuing a Music Arts degree from Beach Coast. He drops his little act and sounds painfully sincere whenever rambling about it, and Ranboo usually tries to interject with little comments to toss them back into a humorous atmosphere once again.

Not that they don’t appreciate the sincerity. In fact, they admire it. But sometimes, they would rather banter than think about life stuff.

Ranboo and Tommy continuously mock each other’s nationality, tossing back and forth whatever creative insults they can whip up.

“Tea-drinker!”

“Gun-slinger!”

“Queen-lover!” Tommy seemed very proud to be called that one.

“Right-winger!”

“Colonizer!”

“Cowboy!”

“No dental care?”

“No towers?”

All those goofs and gaffs. Out of every jeer they spit at each other, redcoat and boob are the ones that stick. To play up the bit, Tommy shows up sometimes in a red jacket, which has Ranboo howling to the end of the shift every time. Tommy always looks very satisfied with himself when Ranboo laughs.

Despite their rising bond, their real conversations in the empty lobby are always short. Ranboo dips once the prayer ends, rushing out the door the second they can to beat the crowd. Tommy sits there by himself and looks thoughtful every time, which Ranboo never sees.

One Sunday a few months down the line, clear in the beginning of November, Tommy finally gets sick of it. They’ve played their games, done their shift, packed their boxes, and had a laugh or two. They sit on the benches and have their short, shallow conversations, hearing about each other’s classes and work for the week. All routine.

The group ends their prayer and Ranboo stands like they always do. Tommy, in a moment of frightful impulsivity, musters the courage to grab Ranboo’s arm, pulling him back.

Ranboo’s chest lurches, and they fall right down into their seat again. “Tommy?” They say, eyes momentarily wide in confusion. Their eyes linger on the hand on their forearm, Tommy’s fingers tight enough to crinkle their clothes. The weight and contact is so unfamiliar, but they hesitate to admit that it isn’t bad.

Tommy rips his hand away with something of a vaguely horrified expression. “Sorry,” he says, cheeks and ears turning a bright shade of red.

Ranboo feels their own face heat up. “No, it’s - do you need something?”

“No,” Tommy says. “I mean, yes. Let’s - Ranboo. Let’s talk.”

“Talk?” Ranboo says, pushing to a stand again.

This time, Tommy follows suit. “Yeah.” He doesn’t want to miss this opportunity. Ranboo is the closest thing he has to a friend in America. He can’t lose this. “Let’s go out for a drink. My treat?” He offers a lop-sided, slightly nervous smile.

Ranboo doesn’t pick up on Tommy’s oddities, too worried about their own fumbling. “You know what? Sure,” Ranboo finally decides, worming their way out from the crowd to the lockers. Tommy follows. They raise their voice to be heard above the loud chattering. There’s so many people around - this is why they like to get out early. After pushing through a few folks, they reach their locker door and pull out their belongings. They and Tommy head out together for the first time, aimlessly wandering down the block in search of a good drink place.

“No Starbucks,” Tommy says, holding up a finger. “Only rule.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Ranboo says with a little salute. “So, did you want to talk about something?”

“Not really,” Tommy says, arms swinging while he walks at Ranboo’s side. He matches their pace fairly well, since both of them have been blessed with long legs. “I just figured - well. Y’know. I don’t know the area too well, mate.” Tommy looks away timidly. “You’re one of the only people I actually know.” And they only get a small few-minute window to actually speak to each other.

“Oh,” Ranboo says, fitting their hands in their pockets in the hopes to look less awkward. “What about your roommate?”

“We don’t really get on,” Tommy says with a slight chuckle. “Schlatt’s the party type. Plus, I’m convinced he’s at least twenty years older than he claims. He’s either coming home hammered or hungover.”

“TommyInnit’s not the party type?” Ranboo says with a sarcastically surprised tone of voice. “But he’s always talking about how many drugs he’s taking and how many women he’s pulling!”

“Wellll,” Tommy says. “Jokes. I’ve got a girl back at home.” He smiles, and it looks warm and genuine. Ranboo subtly tilts their head forward to catch a glimpse of it. “I wouldn’t go to a party and jeopardize that. Anything can happen.”

“That’s surprisingly mature,” Ranboo says, eyes scanning the signs of shops. They point. “There’s a Jamba Juice. Their smoothies are decent.”

“Oh, great, not a coffee place,” Tommy says with a note of playful relief. “Let’s go.” He takes the turn and starts jogging down the street. Ranboo follows. Tommy fullstops and turns back to look at Ranboo. “Wait - surprisingly?!”

Ranboo bursts into laughter, gaiting forward to catch up with Tommy.

-

Ranboo orders an açaí smoothie and Tommy takes a strawberry-banana. They sit at one of the inside tables to face each other and talk between sips.

“So Schlatt’s like a forty year-old man?” Ranboo says, swirling their straw around the smoothie to keep the solid and liquid from separating. “That’s kind of weird.”

“I don’t know how old he actually is,” Tommy says, taking a long sip from his straw. He takes a deep breath after. “But he does not look twenty-five, I’ll tell you that.”

“Yeah,” Ranboo says, resting their arm against the table. The cool table against their skin is a refreshing feeling. Their eyes naturally drift towards the spot of their arm Tommy had grabbed. They shake the thought away as soon as it appears. “It kind of sucks when you can’t relate to your roommate. Sorry, man.”

Tommy nods. “It’s fine. How do you and your roommate get on, then? What’s his name?”

“Technoblade,” Ranboo says, pulling their phone out of their pocket to check on instinct. Once they see no new notifications, they set it back down. Tommy’s eyes follow it for a moment. “He’s cool. Really laid back. We play games every so often, so it helped us bond.”

Tommy’s eyes sharpen like a predator spotting prey. “Games?”

Ranboo feels something like scrutiny from Tommy’s gaze. Either Tommy is judging or trying to figure something out, and Ranboo can’t tell which one. They tread carefully to gauge Tommy’s reaction. “Video games,” they say.

His expression shifts like the predator has its catch in its grasp. Something of a cautious glee bounds in his posture, but he forces it under layers of casualty. “Which games do you play?”

“You might be unimpressed,” Ranboo says, leaning back in their seat and taking their smoothie cup with them. They sip until there isn’t anything left. “He’s got this huge impressive setup, and he uses it to play Minecraft. I mean, I appreciate the dedication to the bit, but do you really need an RGB setup at uni to play Minecraft?”

“Technoblade plays Minecraft?” Tommy says, sitting up straighter in his seat.

“I do too,” Ranboo says, finally identifying Tommy’s initial oddity as his own caution.

A large grin breaks out onto Tommy’s face. “Do you guys have a server?”

The ice in the exchange instantly melts away to free more room for fun and casualty. “Yeah,” Ranboo says, mirroring Tommy in his smile. “It’s just us, though. We don’t really trust anyone else on campus with our precious builds.”

“Well,” Tommy says, holding a hand to his heart and the other in the air. “I solemnly swear I will neither vandalize nor explode either of your properties. No griefing from me.”

Ranboo hums suspiciously, setting the empty cup back down on the table. “Why do I doubt that?”

Tommy squawks indignantly. “I beg your pardon?! Do you really think so little of me?!”

Ranboo pushes themself to a stand with mischief curling the edges of their lips up. “I’m - as you British people say, just jesting. Give me your number and I could text you the details,” Ranboo says, offering out their phone with a more genial smile.

Tommy stares for a moment in awe, then smiles brightly, ripping the phone from Ranboo’s hand and quickly entering his contact information. He hands the phone back.

Ranboo double-checks, then sputters a laugh from their mouth. “‘Big Man’?”

“What can I say, Ranboo?” Tommy says, pushing himself to a stand as well. He pushes his chair in and follows Ranboo out the door. “I’m a man of truth.”

“Self-proclaimed ‘truth’,” Ranboo says under their breath. “I’ll talk to Techno about it and let you know, alright?”

They say their goodbyes and split ways. Ranboo edits Tommy’s contact to Redcoat and puts the profile picture as a painting of a random British soldier from the Revolutionary War. Tasteful, in their opinion.

-

“I don’t have a problem with it,” Techno says, not even bothering to look up from his phone to address Ranboo directly, back rested against the bed with his legs swinging off the side. “Just tell him not to kill any of my pets and we should be fine.”

Ranboo logs onto Minecraft with their laptop (no fancy gaming PC that Techno has) and texts Tommy the information. Tommy replies with a thumbs-up.

In a matter of mere minutes, Ranboo sees the number of players online tick up from zero to one. They smile and grab their mouse to click on the server profile, waiting for the world to load in.

Chapter 3: Jokes and Touches

Chapter Text

Tommy fits in well on their small two-person (now three-person) server. He finds their bases and builds his house on Ranboo’s side, only logging on every now and again to accrue armor, ore, and enchantment.

Once or twice, Ranboo happens to log on when Tommy is on. They never bother to coordinate anything, so playing together is a rare treat. The two of them communicate through the text chat in-game, mucking around with blazes or scuffed boat-fishing mechanics. Ranboo always goes to bed with a smile after playing a session with Tommy. They should play more often.

When they spend time together on Sundays in FMSC, they never mention anything that happens in Minecraft, almost as if it’s a separate world both of them have silently agreed not to touch while physically together. However, their time spent together outside of Sundays still shows its effects through them becoming increasingly more comfortable with each other, smiling when they catch a glimpse of the other walking into the warehouse.

A day like their smoothie outing hasn’t happened again. Tommy doesn’t stop Ranboo, Ranboo doesn’t invite Tommy out. They chat for a few minutes, make some jokes, and Ranboo leaves.

Ranboo has accepted Tommy as part of the routine. They see Tommy once a Sunday and randomly on Minecraft, and that’s enough Tommy for them.

Another part of the routine is going to work, which they dutifully take care of. Today, just another Wednesday, Ranboo clocks in and takes their place behind the desk at the snack counter. It’s been janitor duty for the past few days - the manager typically chucks them wherever their service is needed most - so the change of pace is nice, even if the rare upset person comes in to make their day frustrating.

They love the modesty and tailoring of the uniform. It fits well around their body to not highlight anything they don’t want to bring attention to, and it’s light and breathable. Around all the hot and sticky machines, sweat doesn’t oppress them as much as it could. The hat presses their hair down, and the dent around the crown of their head looks a little silly when they take it off after a long shift. Every so often, they take off their hat and fan their face with it, shaking out their hair.

The door opens and someone familiar walks in, curly locks bouncing with every step he takes. Ranboo fits their hat back on and evens out their posture, preparing their customer-service smile before the face of the new patron has their eyes widening. “Tommy?”

Tommy’s eyes light up, and he gaits quickly to the snack counter to meet up with Ranboo. His hands grip the edge of the counter, and a smile stretches a mile wide on his face. “Ranboo! I didn’t know you worked here!”

“Well, here I am,” Ranboo says, flourishing their hands around their body to present themself. Not very impressive, in their opinion. “What are you watching?”

“Oh! I’m here for that Ghibli rerun.” He holds up his phone to display the digital ticket. “Ponyo’s my favourite. I watched it all the time with my parents back home.” He pockets his phone and pulls out a card. “Anyway. Does this cinema sell fish and chips?”

Ranboo snorts and presses their lips together in the failing attempt to restrain a smile. “You’re as aggressively British as ever, Redcoat.”

Tommy’s smile falls into a sneer. “You could just say no, y’know. No harm in answering the question. You know what - ” his eyes spark to life with an evil idea. “I could report you!” The grin dons his face yet again. He gasps and pulls out his phone, quickly typing in the details of the theater. “I could totally give you a one-star review - you think I could speak to the manager?”

Ranboo startles and reaches over the counter to snatch Tommy’s phone, but Tommy steps back quick enough, shaking the phone around teasingly. “Tommy - Jesus Christ, Tommy, don’t give me a one-star!” Despite their irked tone, their lips curl into a smile. “Please don’t report me. I literally need this job.”

“Well,” Tommy says, pocketing his phone and leaning against the counter. “I guess I’ll give you a pass today.”

Tommy offers his best puppy eyes, framing his hands under his chin, which has Ranboo pushing away and shaking their head in something resembling fondness. “Dear god. What is it, you menace?”

“Any chance I can get the friends and family discount on popcorn?”

“No!”

Tommy, after a bit more poking, buys a medium bag of popcorn and rushes off to Ponyo before the adverts start.

“I’m sorry, the what?” Ranboo says. “You mean ads?”

“Sorry, Boob!” Tommy calls while sprinting down the hall with popcorn in hand. “I can’t hear your Americanisms over the sound of my manly speed!”

Ranboo clicks their tongue and braces their arms against the counter, waiting for whoever is next to come in. Their co-worker, some gal named Niki, took the order of another person who came in while Ranboo was occupied. Coming in clutch, Niki. Thanks. “Who was that?” Niki asks once her patron leaves peacefully with their giant pretzel in tow. “Was that your brother?”

An abrupt laugh startles its way out of Ranboo. Brother? Tommy? “No. He’s a friend.”

They don’t think about that interaction for the rest of the day, even when Tommy’s movie finishes and he comes back to offer Ranboo his leftovers. Ranboo politely declines, and Tommy goes out the door as swiftly as he came in.

It felt like the blink of an eye. No big deal. They have work Friday and Saturday, which means tomorrow is free barring their Biology lab. Maybe they can hop on Minecraft and see if a certain someone happens to be on at the same time. Maybe not.

-

They don’t play Minecraft together. A presentation keeps Ranboo’s hands tied, and they thank every force in the universe that this isn’t another group project. They always end up shouldering too much of the work. The day they get good partners is the day Tommy calls chips “fries.”

Speaking of Tommy. On Thursday, while Ranboo is at work, the lad bursts in again with a confident swagger about him that screams irrelevant mischief. He steps up to the counter by Ranboo like he belongs there, setting his hand on it and sending a grin Ranboo’s way.

Ranboo plays along and ducks their head with a deep sigh, preparing for whatever insanity Tommy has to throw at them. Niki glances over with a knowing look, and inevitably decides to speak up. “He came in yesterday, too.”

“What?!” Ranboo says, head shooting up. “Are you trying to cause me a problem?”

“You know me,” Tommy says, completely unabashed. In fact, he might look slightly more gleeful after hearing that. “I love being the leach to your mammal.”

“That’s disgusting.” Despite Ranboo’s clear abundant disappointment, Niki finds it in herself to laugh.

“You love me,” Tommy says dismissively, swiftly moving on from such a bold statement before Ranboo has the chance to protest. “Any chance I could get a free ticket to Ponyo today?”

“A free - Ponyo?! You saw that movie two days ago!” Ranboo throws their hand in exasperation, gesturing towards nothing in the vague hope of conveying their utter annoyance, then wise up once a family of three walks into the theater. “Oh, people at six o-clock. Tommy, you gotta move.”

Tommy pouts and puts his hands on his hips. “But I was here first.”

“Move it, buster,” Ranboo says with the shooing motion of their hand.

Tommy grumbles cartoonishly under his breath, sulking while he steps away.

-

Tommy comes Saturday too, right after a rush to make sure Ranboo is perfectly free to put up with his BS.

Ranboo doesn’t acknowledge him until he’s right at the counter, hands framed innocently under his chin again while he offers that million dollar smile. They offer a heavy sigh and shake their head. “Do you really not have anything better to do?”

“Of course not, Ranboo,” Tommy says. “Being the most disappointing part of your day is what I live for.”

Niki snickers and offers Ranboo a knowing smile. Good luck, she mouths discreetly to them.

Ranboo frowns. “You’re not getting any tickets out of me.”

“Really? Even if I said pretty please?”

“Yes, Tommy,” Ranboo says, voice droning. “Even if you said pretty please.”

Tommy scowls. “You’re so boring. What must I do to earn it?”

Ranboo shrugs. “Pay the fee?”

“Never,” Tommy says, pushing off the counter and turning for the door, flippantly throwing a peace sign at them. “Till morrow, Ranboo.”

Ranboo shakes their head, but they allow themself the exasperated smile. “Till morrow, then.”

The doors swing shut, announcing the disappearance of Tommy’s presence, and Niki finally speaks up. “So, how did you meet that guy again?”

Ranboo drags a hand down their face. “It’s a long story.”

-

They meet once more on Sunday, because if nothing else, that routine has been set in stone for now and forever and all of time. The very universe relies on their collaboration on Sunday to make sure everything is as it should be. If it does not happen, the world will collapse.

Not really. But Ranboo’s mind frames it like that, mostly as a joke. Each Sunday is better with Tommy, so they would prefer for him to be there, but it isn’t that important.

On Sunday, Ranboo walks in a bit late, hastily pulling on gloves and tying up their hair to fasten it easier. Tommy was already there at a measuring station and grins when he catches sight of Ranboo. He waves his hand way over his head, not caring about the disruption he brings to the active demo.

Ranboo smiles and jogs across the warehouse to Tommy’s table, table eight, even though it would be more convenient to take a table closer to the entrance. They slide themself into the position right across from Tommy, at the measuring station just like Tommy is.

“Took you long enough!” Tommy says, voice full of a tease but face dousing it with glee. Someone nearby shushes him, and Ranboo chuckles under their breath.

The shift starts, and things move like clockwork.

“So how’s your week been?” Tommy asks, waiting for their funneler to pass the bag along. They pass it to Ranboo, and Tommy pretends to sulk.

“I feel like you should know,” Ranboo says with amusem*nt playing in their voice. “You were there for half of it.”

Tommy smiles, and some part of it looks proud. “You just can’t get enough of me. A bit gay, innit?”

Ranboo surprises themself with an abrupt cackle. “That’s rich, coming from you. You’re the one constantly coming to my workplace!”

Tommy shakes his head. “Nope. Simply not true.”

“Hell do you mean not true?!”

Tommy scoops up some rice from his bag and slides it along. “Capping. Cap. Lies. Source? Cite your sources?”

“My source is I witnessed it,” Ranboo says, absolutely dumbfounded by Tommy’s chaos. They pass bag after bag along, but their measuring is mostly on instinct. Most of their brain power is spent trying to process the absurdity of the man in front of him.

“Mmm, sounds like hearsay to me, Ranboo,” Tommy says with disappointment, a smile curling his lips up far enough to reflect the mischief in his eyes. “That won’t fly in court.”

“You’re just saying words!” Ranboo says, throwing an exasperated hand up. They force themself to calm down after they almost knock down a bag. “Do you even know what hearsay is?”

“Erm, I’m a musician. Not a lawyer,” Tommy says.

“That’s clear enough,” Ranboo says. “Trust me, Tommy. That’s clear enough.”

-

The rest of the shift goes by in similar fashion, with Tommy saying the most outlandish things he can to try and get a rise out of the people around him. But mostly Ranboo. He mostly does it to get a rise out of Ranboo, which isn’t too hard to accomplish.

When the shift ends and the volunteers gather for prayer, Ranboo does what they normally do and slips away. This time, Tommy latches onto their hand while following so they don’t lose each other in the crowd. Ranboo startles, shoulders jumping with the abruptness of a hand in theirs. Even with gloves separating skin from skin, they feel a heat rise to their face.

Tommy holds on tight, glancing warily around at all the strangers in the room. Ranboo grants him this reprieve and squeezes in return, silently guiding him through the process without so much as a glance passed between them.

It’s this moment, along with the cumulation of many others, that makes them realize that Tommy has never been one to shy away from touch. It comes to him as naturally as breathing does, which Ranboo struggles to wrap their mind around. Maybe it was the way Tommy was raised. Ranboo can say one thing for certain, it was not the way they were raised. Unfortunately.

Ranboo won’t be weird about it, but they aren’t used to it. They actually would go as far to say that they are quite fond of this little tendency of Tommy’s. His unabashed confidence shines through even in the timidity of this moment with his willingness to reach out vulnerably to someone he views as a friend. Maybe Ranboo admires that.

Maybe they fluster. Maybe they enjoy the touch while it exists. Maybe they see the disposal bin ahead of them and dread the inevitable release of their hands. Maybe Tommy sees it too, and dreads silently with them.

Too much maybe for it to matter to them any more than a fleeting thought to entertain their mind for a second. It’s fine. This is fine.

Ranboo lets go at the trash can and stops their walk, pulling off their gloves and net. Tommy does as well at a quicker speed than necessary, eyes glancing at Ranboo every now and again.

Ranboo tosses their stuff away and heads back into the lobby, jumping once more when Tommy’s hand slides into theirs again like they had never part. Tommy feels the jump and subtly tries to slip away out of fear he’s overstepped, but Ranboo shocks themself with their own courage to curl their fingers around Tommy’s palm to keep him there.

Both of them are in the same boat. Navigating a place full of strangers is easier when relying on a familiar face, so they might as well help each other out.

“You were a bit late today, gunslinger,” Tommy says, sounding as chipper as ever. “Too busy at a shootout?”

Ranboo, after another moment of being startled by something as simple as a hand-hold, shakes away their cognitive dissonance. They manage a smile. “Yep,” they say, leaning back against the bench. “Some fella looked at me funny and I realized the town wasn’t big enough for the two of us.”

Tommy huffs. “Goddamn Americans.”

“You love it,” Ranboo says. Why else would Tommy stick around?

Tommy knocks their shoulders together in a brief, playful gesture, a sheepish smile on his face. “Maybe.”

Ranboo flusters just like they do every time. If they’re flustering for this, god help them if they ever do find a partner. They’d drop dead, honestly.

The two of them chat in the lobby like they always do, and not even then do they release. Ranboo takes their stuff from the locker, and Tommy still sticks by. They step out the front door and walk across the sidewalk. Distantly, they wonder when they plan to part ways. Then they wave the thought away.

Neither dare to bring it up in conversation, and Ranboo decides to let it be.

Chapter 4: Sick

Chapter Text

Ranboo comes down with a fever.

Nothing world-ending, nothing that keeps them away from turning in their assignments on time. It gives them a good reason to call out for work and not attend lectures for a few days, which is always welcome.

Nothing Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. Not Saturday either. Honestly, they thought they would be better by now. They take some off-brand Advil, drink a lot of water, and lie in bed all Saturday.

Ranboo wakes up on Sunday after an absolutely godawful fever dream, but they don’t even bother to open their eyes. They groan, pulling the blanket over their head when the sun burns past their eyelids.

“That bad, huh?” Techno says. Ranboo can hear him typing away on his laptop. A laptop and a setup, okay Techno. Quit showing off.

Ranboo groans unintelligibly again, unable to muster up enough brainpower to form words.

“Loser,” Techno says under his breath, proceeding to ignore them and not forcing them to pay attention to the world any more than they have to. If Ranboo was any less ill, they would thank him.

After a few hours, a ping cuts through their headache like a cleaver. Ranboo sighs. “Check it for me?” They say, voice thick and nasally.

Techno sets his laptop down and reaches over to grab the phone. “It’s from - who the hell is Redcoat?”

Ranboo manages a smile. “Tommy.” Immediately after, they realize that this is their first time missing a serve Sunday since the beginning of the school year. Their smile falls. “Oh.” Tommy’s all by himself. Sure, for as loud and confident as Tommy presents himself, Ranboo gathered from subtext that he really doesn’t like being left by himself. Maybe that’s why he grew up so comfortable with hanging onto other people. He lingered and naturally held on.

“He’s asking you where you are.” Techno huffs and offers the slightest curl of his lips. “Okay. Less asking, more demanding. Accompanied by vehement swears.”

“Sounds like Tommy,” Ranboo says. Even through the obnoxious nasal, a fond inflection still finds its way to work through the words.

“‘Mate it’s literally been half an hour since we started and the guy next to me looks like he came here straight from jail where tf are you,’” Techno recites with robotic intonation. “Dude, I think you have a clingy British boyfriend.”

That startles an abrupt laugh out of Ranboo. They cut themself off once it pounds against their head with a spiked mallet. “Tell him ‘m sick,” they say, stuffing their face with a pillow soon after.

Techno unlocks Ranboo’s phone (yes, he figured out the password a long time ago. It was just Ranboo’s ‘name’ in letters, 492800) and sends the response. “I said, ‘Ranboo’s sick - Techno.’”

“Thanks,” Ranboo mumbles.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Techno says, eyebrows flying to the top of his head with the sight of Tommy’s next message. “He’s asking which dorm you live in.”

“Feel free to doxx me,” Ranboo says with an air of humor about him. “S’not like Tommy’s… y’know.” They trail off.

Techno sets Ranboo’s phone back on the counter and returns to his laptop immediately without another word passed between them about it.

About two hours later, their door slams open. “Alright, where the hell is your microwave?” Tommy says, taking in the humble dorm room with a quick survey of his eyes. A plastic Walmart bag hangs from his fingers.

Ranboo jumps, pressing their hands against their ears and groaning. Techno sends a dirty look to Tommy, who then flushes and delicately closes the door behind him.

“Techno, did you not lock the door?” Ranboo says through another pained noise.

Techno shrugs. “We’re both here. I didn’t think it mattered. Microwave’s in the corner,” he says with a flippant flick of his hand in its general direction.

Tommy doesn’t hesitate to parade inside like he owns the place and pour a can of Campbell’s chicken soup in a cheap bowl, tossing it in the microwave. He sets the time and lets it spin for a few minutes, trying to identify Ranboo under the mess of blankets.

He clicks his tongue and shakes his head in the mock of disapproval. “What would you do without me, Boob?”

“Rejoice,” Ranboo says, voice muffled by the blanket.

Tommy frowns. “I’d like to mention that I could eat this soup all by myself.”

Fair enough. Ranboo ceases their protest and crawls out of their blanket when they smell the prepared soup. Its steam wafts around the room, and Tommy handles the bowl carefully, setting it on Ranboo’s counter after knocking away some junk.

“Wakey wakey,” Tommy says, taking the spoon and patting the form under Ranboo’s blanket. He doesn’t know which part of Ranboo is which, but he manages to reach their head. Tommy’s hand curls around the edge of the blanket and carefully pulls it back. “‘Ello? Is anyone home?”

Ranboo groans.

“Get up. C’mon.”

Ranboo pushes themself up into a sit, pulling the blanket comfortably around themself and blinking their eyes one after the other. They rub their eye with a knuckle to force themself into awareness. “When did you… why are you here?”

“Why the hell do you think?” Tommy says, taking the now-cooler bowl and shoving it into Ranboo’s hands.

Ranboo fumbles to hold it, folding their legs up to frame it in their lap. The warmth seeps through the blanket fabric and onto their skin. Tommy offers the spoon, which Ranboo takes, absently swirling the soup around.

Tommy hops up onto Ranboo’s bed and sits on its side. “Go ahead, mate. It won’t bite you.”

Ranboo scoops up some of the liquid and takes a slow sip, feeling its heat trickle down their sore throat. After a flare of pain, it feels soothed for a moment. For a mere moment. They take another spoonful. “Thank you,” they say, voice deep and gravelly.

Tommy throws a flippant hand. “It’s Sunday. I’m just doing my community duties and feeding the starving children.”

Ranboo frowns. “‘m older than you.”

“Lalalalala, I can’t hear you,” Tommy says, plugging his ears with his fingers.

Ranboo shakes their head and eats some of the chicken. Pink chicken. Weird. “Very mature. Definitely proved your point, Tommy.”

Tommy smiles and sticks by while Ranboo has their lunch, watching lethargy circle around them like a bird of prey and slowly claw its way into them. He bounces back and forth from Techno and Ranboo’s beds, occasionally snooping in on Techno’s work. “English? You majored in English? What the hell are you going to do with that?”

“What are you going to do with music? Sing on the street for two nickels and a tuft of lint?” Techno says without so much as a glance in Tommy’s direction.

Tommy’s jaw drops. He fails to form the right words to convey just how appalled he is by Techno’s audacity. “First off, to hell with you,” he says. “Secondly, touché.”

Techno’s lips curl slightly up, the only sign he heard what Tommy said.

Ranboo sets the bowl on the counter once they finish and hides their face in their hands to keep the light from the window away. Tommy turns his head and pushes off Techno’s bed. His essay was boring anyway. Ranboo shifts to lie down again, eyes easily slipping closed. They don’t dare pry them open again - god, they’re exhausted. Why? They didn’t even do anything? They curl around their pillow and allow the blanket to shield them from the world.

Tommy steps over and kneels down by the bed, peeling the blanket back a little to see Ranboo’s face. Ranboo grumbles and swears him out with unintelligible sleepy speech, trying to regress further into the blanket. Tommy chuckles under his breath and presses a hand to Ranboo’s forehead. “Yeah. They’re burning up. Do either of you have a thermometer?” Ranboo, without meaning to, ends up pressing into Tommy’s hand. Tommy’s palm is cool, and their face feels distressingly warm, so it’s simply a move made out of self-preservation. Yeah.

“Why would we have a thermometer?” Techno says, narrowing his eyes at an odd-sounding sentence before highlighting it all to delete it.

Tommy shrugs. “Dunno. Figured if you could have a bloody NASA setup in here, a thermometer wouldn’t be too far of a cry.”

“It’s not a NASA setup,” Techno says, less to Tommy and more to himself.

Tommy decides it isn’t a point worth arguing and looks back at Ranboo. “Doesn’t matter, then,” Tommy says. “Whatever you’ve got, you’ve got it bad.” He huffs, and with a manner of teasing, says, “you’re lucky you’ve got me around. Techno did jack-all.”

“Thank you,” Ranboo says, far less coherent than before. They sag against the mattress, and with their last clinging vestiges of consciousness, they mumble, “love you.”

Tommy presses his lips together to ward away a humored smile, but he can’t hold back the sputtered laugh. He stands up and spots Techno smiling, finally having looked away from his laptop screen.

Tommy tries not to be too loud and disruptive, so he holds a hand over his mouth and tries to stuff down the cackle as much as possible. Techno bites his bottom lip in an attempt to do the same thing. Tommy gestures with his head to Ranboo and says under his breath, “he’s crashed, mate.”

“I know,” Techno says, amusem*nt in his voice. “I wish I was filming that. Best blackmail of the semester.”

“Have fun with delirious Ranboo,” Tommy says, taking his bag, the bowl, and the empty can with him out the door. The second he leaves the apartment, Techno hears him laughing it up outside and all the way down the hall.

-

The bug only gets worse that day and the next, and lasts through Thursday, meaning Ranboo returns to work after missing almost a full week on Friday. Niki looks happy to see them, at least. Saturday, they grind out all the missed videos and online assignments and lectures. When Ranboo asks Techno how it was when Ranboo was sick - because it was all a blur, genuinely, eventually they didn’t even feel conscious while awake - Techno always gets this stupid obnoxious smile and says it was just fine.

Ranboo wonders what that could mean.

On Sunday, they get dressed and head down the sidewalk, getting some fresh air and a nice walk for the first time in a week. Tommy would probably be happy to see them.

At the thought of Tommy, they pull their phone out of their pocket and decide to check their texts. In the text history, they see Tommy asking which dorm Ranboo lives in. Right. They vaguely remember Technoblade taking care of it, but not much else. They were half-asleep the whole time, anyway.

When Ranboo heads into the building, early for once (out of eagerness to help people, not eagerness to see Tommy again. Surely). They see Tommy in the lobby with all the other people occupying the rows of benches, and sneak their way through to the unoccupied space Tommy had saved just for them.

Tommy jumps when they notice them, then his face breaks into a smile. He opens his mouth, sucking in an air for a loud greeting, but Ranboo presses a finger to his lips as fast as possible. The shift orchestrator is right in the middle of speaking.

The shift itself is not unlike any other, except for Tommy’s over-avidity to speak to Ranboo. Ranboo doesn’t mind it - they were just MIA for a week.

“I saw that Techno told you I was sick,” Ranboo says, just to say something relating to the topic. They have very little to say, so they grasp at whatever they can.

Tommy smiles. “It went further than that.”

Ranboo halts in scooping the rice for the sole purpose of sending Tommy a side-eyed glance. “Both you and Techno are being so cryptic about this. What happened?”

“You really don’t remember?” Tommy says, knocking his shoulder against Ranboo’s to prompt them to continue. Ranboo springs back into action after a shocked jump and pours the food in. “Ahh. Well, don’t worry about it.”

And that’s the last Ranboo hears about that, even through their pressing and incessant pestering. Tommy doesn’t break.

The shift ends, Tommy grabs their hand on their way out of the main warehouse space, and they leave the building together, still babbling back and forth about it.

“Mate, it’s really not that big of a deal!” Tommy says, a gleeful smile on his face. This absolute menace enjoys every minute of teasing Ranboo.

Ranboo can’t have that. They need to win this, even if it’s stupid. “If it’s not a big deal, why can’t you tell me? Huh? Ever think about that?”

Their hands swing shamelessly between them. Why not? Tommy didn’t let go, so Ranboo didn’t wring their hand away. That would be rude.

“I plead the fifth,” Tommy says.

Ranboo mocks him. “I plead the fifth,” they parrot with a very high, nasally voice, sticking up their pointer finger.

Tommy shoves Ranboo. Not hard enough to break the link, but enough to have them shifting their feet to walk straight enough. “Hey, I’m in the land of freedom. I can do that. I have the right.”

A little further down the sidewalk, Ranboo realizes that their building is just around the bend. “Hey, I gotta head back.” Their hand slackens in the hold and quickly slips away. “Missing a week of work is not an easy thing to recover from.”

Tommy lets them go, but he scoffs. “Just blow the work off. You don’t mean to tell me you actually try on your assignments.”

It’s ironic that the freshman is saying this to the sophom*ore. “Ehh. It’s not a big deal.” They paid a lot to be here. Plus, they don’t exactly live it up. The party lifestyle is not one they can claim. Their only pastimes are work, games, and volunteering on Sundays. It’s safe to say they don’t get out much. “Cya,” Ranboo says with the flippant wave of their hand, fitting their other hand in their pocket while they walk down the street by themself.

Tommy watches them walk off into the distance, then eventually cups his hands around his mouth. “Oi!”

Ranboo stops. They look over their shoulder at a Tommy that looks strange standing there by himself.

Tommy has a bright smile on his face nonetheless. Somehow, he always does. He always has the brightest look around Ranboo, and maybe it’s something deeper than coincidence. “Let’s play later, yeah?”

It’s always been a coincidence. Their times of playing on the server together has been happenstance, just like them happening to show up to the same foundation every Sunday (but that isn’t a coincidence anymore. They go for more than just helping others. They go because they know a familiar face will be there). Now, it isn’t. It’s purposeful.

Ranboo manages to return a smile, reflecting only a fraction of Tommy’s seemingly infinite light. “Sure.”

Tommy offers a thumbs up and walks off.

Ranboo stares after him with narrowed eyes and huffs in fond astonishment. What an odd, odd man.

-

When Ranboo gets back to their dorm and logs onto Minecraft, Tommy spams them with texts asking for them to call on Discord. They get everything set up, putting in their wired earbuds and testing the mic. “Is this working?”

“Yep,” Tommy says. “Loud and clear.”

“Great,” Ranboo says, looking through the nearby chests to jog their memory of what they were doing. Oh, right. The wood grind. Surrounded by dozens of mega spruce trees and a field of ugly podzol, they’d been slaving away to get enough wood for their next build. “I’m at the field by the spruce forest.”

It isn’t long before Tommy’s little avatar - that looks remarkably like Tommy, by the way - sprints up to Ranboo, punching them while they collect their resources and stealing their wood right from under their nose.

“Hey - Tommy!” Ranboo says, rushing after him with a sword in hand and murder in their eyes. “Give it back or I’m killing you.”

Tommy cackles with his harsh, wheezing laughter into Ranboo’s ears, which puts an involuntary smile on Ranboo’s face.

“Okay, okay. Sorry,” Tommy says, not sounding very apologetic at all. “Here.” He throws back one log.

Ranboo wordlessly pulls their sword out again, netherite and fully enchanted. They and Technoblade have had this server for a year now, and Tommy has had access for just about a few weeks.

Tommy rushes to toss the rest of the logs back out, since his dingy iron armor won’t protect him for long against that force. “Now put that thing away, Ranboo,” Tommy says. “No need for such violence here. I’m a minor.”

“You’re literally not,” Ranboo says, jumping off and away from Tommy to toss the wood in their chest with the rest of it.

Tommy opens the wood chest and stares for a long time. Ranboo exits the chest to keep an eye on Tommy, then looks back in the chest. Nothing missing, surprisingly.

Then, three stacks disappear almost simultaneously. Tommy doesn’t move.

Ranboo sighs. “Are you here just to bother me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ranboo,” Tommy says, as more and more stacks disappear from the chest. “It’s - I’m lagging. Your wood is lagging into my inventory. It’s all your fault, really.”

“Mhm.” Ranboo doesn’t bother to entertain this for much longer. They pull out their sword and jump, crit-hitting Tommy twice. His entire inventory explodes out as he dies, much of his junk filtering into Ranboo’s inventory.

Ranboo hears Tommy’s indignant squawking and screaming, which has them laughing it up. “You’re mocking me! You’re making a mockery of my name!”

“I’m afraid you already did that yourself, redcoat,” they say, barely-contained laughter pushing against the edge of their voice.

The rest of the Sunday is quite similar to this. They play until Ranboo notices the sun going down, and then they have to call it off.

“Damn it,” they hiss under their breath after finally finishing the skeleton farm they’d made with Tommy. “I was supposed to do school work.”

“Sucks to suck. Boohoo. They had to play Minecraft instead.”

Ranboo huffs. “Leave me alone. I would have gotten plenty of work done if someone wasn’t pestering me.”

“Sounds like a you problem, honestly,” Tommy says. “But I’ve got to head out anyway. Call later?”

Call. If Ranboo says yes, they seal it like a promise. If they say no, they could potentially cut Tommy off for the rest of the week. Maybe this counts as overthinking things. “Yeah,” Ranboo says, hopping off the server and closing Minecraft. “We can call later.”

They end the Discord VC and shut their laptop, feeling its warmth against their palms.

Techno looks over at them from his phone, a rare smile on his face. “Aww. You didn’t even give him an ‘I love you’ before leaving?”

This might be the most confusing tease so far, which is quite the achievement. Ranboo’s brows furrow, and they don’t bother to give Techno the time of day looking at him. “You’re so weird,” they say under their breath. They push up from their seat and stretch out, closing the window shutters once the sun fully sets. “What the hell are you even talking about, Techno?”

“Nothing,” Techno says, not saying another word about it.

-

Monday is a school day. They dedicate it to their cinematography project (the test of this unit) and head outside with their camera to find some inspiration. They aren’t the type to take pictures of trash cans and extrapolate some poetic meaning from it, so finding inspiration might prove to be a challenge.

They walk down the sidewalk slowly, analyzing their surroundings in the hope something cool and project-worthy will make itself known to them. They asked Techno if he was willing, and Techno put a hard stop into that immediately. “C’mon,” they say under their breath, the frustration building up inside them. “This is stupid.”

A vibration from their back pocket knocks them out of their thoughts. They release the camera and let it hang around their neck from the strap, pulling out their phone to see a certain someone calling them.

Tommy.

Ranboo sighs and shakes their head good-naturedly, even if Tommy can’t see it. They pick up and hold the phone to their ear, speedwalking to an area that isn’t as open as the middle of the street. They figure a campus bench is a good place to dock at for now. “Y’ello?”

“Ayup!” Tommy says. Ranboo rips the phone from their hear, wincing at the volume that buzzes from their speakers. At least Tommy is enthusiastic to hear from them. “What you up to, mate?”

Did Tommy really need to call to ask that? He could have texted. Maybe this is Ranboo’s frustration with their work being redirected to Tommy, which they don’t want, so they wave these thoughts away as quick as they appear. “Nothing much. Just - yeah. Kind of a boring story, actually. My cinematography project is giving me some trouble.”

“My music’s giving me a hard time too,” Tommy says sympathetically. “Ethnomusicology is arse. I was just about to give up on my research assignment, actually. It’s why I called.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Be grateful,” Tommy says, a scoff in his voice. “It sounded interesting before I started - oh, mate. Never take it.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” Ranboo says, more humored now than anything.

“I just wanted to play my silly guitar and piano and now these uni level courses are stifling my whimsy!”

Ranboo laughs and fiddles absently with the camera hung around their neck, not enough to alter any settings but enough to give their hand something to do while sitting around and talking to air. “Welcome to college.”

“Where are you?” Tommy says. “I need to get away from all this before I jab a metronome in my eye.”

“I’m in a courtyard on campus,” Ranboo says, looking around with little focus actually spent on identifying their environment. They’ve lived here for over a year at this point. They know the campus well enough to know exactly where they are. “Mattingly Square.”

“My dorm’s just around there,” Tommy says, the rustling sounds on his end suggesting some sort of hustle. Tommy might be in a hurry to get out the door. “A far cry from yours, though.”

“I’ve been wandering a while,” Ranboo says, shifting their legs once they start to tingle with numbness. Curse their long limbs.

“Why?” Tommy says. “Just wanted to go on an adventure?”

Ranboo takes a look at their camera, at the few things around them to capture, and frowns. “Not exactly.”

“Then what is it? Oh, hang on.”

Tommy hangs up. Ranboo pulls their phone away from their ear to look at their screen, lips twisting in confusion. The look melts away, however, when Tommy comes jogging out of a nearby dorm complex, looking around for Ranboo. Ranboo’s face breaks into a weary smile. “Tommy!”

Tommy’s head snaps to their direction, and he smiles, all but running to the bench and taking a seat right next to Ranboo. “Mate - oh, god. I needed this break. I swear the huge-ass words on my reading assignment were about to give me an aneurism. Anyway, what were we talking about?”

Ranboo pockets their phone and retraces their steps back from the conversation they were just having. “Oh. Yeah, I’ve been walking around campus for like - half an hour now.”

“That sounds pretty nice, actually,” Tommy says.

Ranboo blows air incredulously through their lips. “No. No no no no. When I say this project has been rough going, I mean it.”

“Oh,” Tommy says. “Loser,” he says more under his breath. “Maybe I can help.”

Ranboo glances at Tommy, giving a once-over, and their first instinct is to reject the offer. They hold their tongue, reviewing the thought again. “You know what? You might actually be what I’m looking for.”

“Really?” Tommy readjusts his posture at the sound of that, catching sight of the camera currently resting on Ranboo’s chest. “What do you need?”

“I need to film one minute’s worth of candid photos and footage of a subject and seam it together.”

“Easy,” Tommy says. “I’m the best model you’ll ever have. Quick - bust the camera out.” He frames his hands innocently under his chin and smiles.

“That’s not how candid works,” Ranboo says, though they get the impression Tommy already knows. “It has to be natural. Thing is, I have no clue how to get natural footage of you when you already know I’m filming.”

“So, basically your assignment,” Tommy says, each word slow and intentional to be sure he understands, “is to vlog someone.”

Ranboo opens their mouth, heatedly ready to protest, but their jaw clicks shut soon after. Love it or hate it, Tommy has a point. “Screw you.”

Tommy bursts into laughter, clutching his stomach and keeling over. Ranboo restrains a smile and has the reaction time to film a quick few-second segment of it. They only get so much because soon after, Tommy leans back up again and spots them with their silly camera. His hand reaches to cover it out of instinct, and another few laughs bubble out of him.

Ranboo stops recording, reviewing the footage. Only some of this is going to be usable, but they’ll manage. “Just thirty more of those, and I should be set.”

Tommy pushes himself up. “Let’s walk ‘n talk. I’m sure we’ll get a lot of natural moments.”

It might take some time for Tommy to relax again and behave naturally without being consciously aware of Ranboo trying to film him. Ranboo says none of this aloud, because the less aware of the camera Tommy is, the better.

“So, what was that word you used?” Ranboo says, readjusting their camera settings when they stand to follow after Tommy. They walk slightly behind him to be more discreet about their plottings. “Endomusicology?”

“Ethnomusicology,” Tommy says, putting extra emphasis on the first syllable. “It’s one of my three music history credits. I didn’t want to take it at first, but half the spread of history seminars were jazz.”

Ranboo gives Tommy a strange look. “And what’s wrong with jazz?”

“I hate jazz!” Tommy says, a scowl on his face.

Ranboo capitalizes on this opportunity and pulls out the camera.

“And for some goddamn reason, they talk so much about jazz in history. Discovery, Improv Theory, the f - augh, the social consequences or some BS?” He moves his hands wildly while he talks, and Ranboo keeps a distance, humming and nodding along in concurrence to whatever Tommy spouts.

“You know, I actually love jazz.”

Tommy scoffs, whipping his head around to send Ranboo a glare. Then he spots the camera and his eyes go wide. “You little sneak!”

Ranboo grins, shutting the recording. “That’s another good eight seconds, at least. But, genuinely. How can you hate jazz?!”

Tommy turns away again and scoffs at Ranboo one last time before moving on. “I’m a music major, okay? I’ve listened to a lot of music. It just isn’t my style.”

“Fair enough,” Ranboo says. “But I mean, it could always be possible you’ve been listening to the wrong kind of jazz. I’m not a diehard fan of Louis Armstrong or anything, but I think I’d donate my organs for Russ Morgan.”

“I don’t care what you say. It’ll just never be enjoyable for me.”

Ranboo sneaks out the camera again. “Have you ever thought about why?”

Tommy doesn’t hesitate in his response. “Big Jazz is an opp, Ranboo.”

Ranboo bursts into laughter and folds over themself, doing their best to keep the camera upright. “Oh - god, I’m so glad I caught that on camera.”

Tommy whips around again in shock. “You’re maniac! You could stalk me and I wouldn’t even know it. Ranboo, I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this knowledge.”

Ranboo decides to leave it idly rolling, subjecting themself to a fate of sorting through all the footage later. “Fine, fine. It’s off.” Liar.

Tommy turns back around and pays it no mind. “How’s Techno doing?”

“He’s going fine. I originally asked him for help with this, but he put a cork in it almost immediately.”

“Sounds like him,” Tommy says, a bit of amusem*nt in his voice. “I wish I had a roommate like Techno, honestly. Schlatt is - yeah. I think he’s a walking safety hazard. As in, a hazard to my safety. He came back drunk the other night and brought back a shopping cart into the dorm. I think he’s still facing charges.”

“Dude,” Ranboo says. “That guy’s liver is sobbing.”

“Genuinely,” Tommy says, dragging a hand down his face with an exasperated sigh. “I will not be surprised if his organs fail the second he turns forty.”

“Forty might be generous,” Ranboo says in a playful mumble.

“He might already be there,” Tommy mumbles back with an impish smile.

The rest of the day goes off without a hitch. They walk and talk, and Ranboo films. Since Ranboo purposefully keeps distance, Tommy can’t reach out like he usually does (saving Ranboo from several consecutive heart attacks). They don’t mind it. They get their film, spend time with Tommy, and head back to their dorm after a couple hours out and about.

What a fruitful day. Time to edit all this down.

-

The video is surprisingly fun to slap together. Of course, Ranboo likes editing, so that isn’t an issue, but watching the film back of them goofing off and chatting makes their chest feel warm for a reason they can’t explain.

Plus, Tommy is hysterical, so they got some good lines out of him. Out of spite, Ranboo listens to Russ Morgan while working on the cinema project. They decide to snap a photo of their computer Spotify window and send it to Tommy over text.

Ranboo: Guess who

Tommy: die

Ranboo: ouch :((

Tommy: cry about it :/

Ranboo: my feelings are hurt

Tommy: L + Ratio + You Fell Off

-

The week continues at its normal rhythm. Ranboo does school work, clocks into Silver Theaters on Wednesday and Thursday, and gets a call from Tommy on that Thursday while driving back to the campus.

They answer. Of course they do. Why wouldn’t they? They were driving in silence, anyway. “Y’ello?”

“Ranboo!” Tommy says. Ranboo can hear the smile in his voice, and it must be contagious, because Ranboo starts smiling too. “Sorry I couldn’t pay you a visit at work today.”

“Oh, by no means should you apologize for that,” Ranboo says. “Niki and I threw a party celebrating your absence. Confetti, balloons, everything. It really was remarkable.”

“Pics or it didn’t happen,” Tommy says. After a moment of silence, Ranboo feels more than hears the sly grin through the phone. “Checkmate.”

“The sentiment remains.”

“I’m sure you missed having me there. I make any workplace experience a thousand percent funnier.”

Ranboo sputters air incredulously through their mouth. “Yeah. Right. Okay.”

“And I’m going to prove it!” Tommy calls over them to interrupt their bad faith responses. “I’m going to get a job, Ranboo! And I’ll get a better salary than you! You just watch!”

Ranboo pinches the bridge of their nose. “Sure, Tommy. Have fun with that.”

They pull in by the campus parking and hang up, heading off to complete the rest of their week.

On Sunday, they put their purse in the locker and dock at a station, leaving a space next to them open for Tommy.

Tommy never comes. At first, Ranboo naturally assumes he’s making bad time and coming late. Ten minutes pass, then twenty, and soon a whole half-hour.

It shouldn’t be a big deal. The aim of the game is to pack the bags with the spare time they have to donate. The reason they’re there in the first place, along with everyone else here, is for charity. Not for spending time with Tommy! Focus up!

Despite feeling very selfish about it, Ranboo manages to worm away from the group to pull out their phone from the locker and check their texts (they had to take their gloves and net off, and once they enter the warehouse again they must put new ones on).

Nothing from Tommy. They message and ask him where he is. Ranboo scrolls back through their texts to see if there was an explanation that they missed, then they realize something. Tommy does a lot of the reaching out, when it comes to their friendship. He texts, he calls, he asks to play. He comes to Ranboo’s work - entirely unnecessary, by the way - and entertains them for no reason other than he enjoys their company.

Ranboo had been seeing Tommy as just a complement to the day or moment. Something that was a given, like having air around them to breathe. It was natural. Part of the routine. Something that happened.

Now, for the first time, Ranboo recognizes their active desire for Tommy to be there. This must be how Tommy felt when Ranboo was sick. Oh, maybe Tommy’s sick.

They put their phone away when even after ten minutes they receive no answer, and put on a new pair of gloves and net. Might as well get the most out of this that they can before the shift ends.

Tommy lingers on their mind the entire time. Even though they have fun and share a laugh with the people at their station, they can’t help but think about all the ways it would be better with Tommy there.

-

It was a job interview.

Tommy was gone for a job interview. He was mid interview, and thank god he didn’t bring his phone into the room, because Ranboo was messaging him time after time.

Tommy doesn’t seem too mad about it and laughs it off over call, explaining how he’d heard of a school that was offering a paid internship for Beach Coast students. The school, among many other subjects, apparently needed a new music teacher, or -

“Music substitute?”

“Something like that,” Tommy says. “Just like, a second teacher. Pay isn’t astronomical, but it’ll look damn good on the resume. I’m getting gov-funds anyway, so I shouldn’t need to worry about it. A little on the side sounds nice.”

“Oh.” For some reason, they can’t imagine Tommy working with kids.

They voice this thought to Tommy, who bursts into laughter. “I want to give it a try. If anything, I’ll know which professions to avoid, right?”

“Right. Yeah. For sure. But - so, you’re coming next week?” The question feels stupid the second it passes their lips.

Tommy huffs. “Yeah, mate.”

Tommy keeps his word. He comes, and for some reason, Ranboo feels relief when they see him walk through those doors.

-

Time passes, and the routine (with Tommy in it) continues on. They call every so often to chat, complain about their roommates or their assignments, and make steady progress in Minecraft.

Ranboo revives the ender dragon so Tommy has a chance to beat it, and together they go endbusting. They offer their crappy set of elytra, since Ranboo has a fully-enchanted pair, but Tommy refuses, saying he wants to do things the proper way.

He gives up on that after speedbridging and falling into the void. He logs out and tells Ranboo his co-ords so Ranboo can build a safety platform for him. Tommy lands in the water once he logs back in, taking the offered elytra without another word.

They see each other every Sunday, and no matter their mood, they both manage to scrounge up smiles. Sometimes, Tommy drops into Silver Theaters to pester Ranboo, and once Ranboo considers dropping into Tommy’s school district while he’s working and honk a trumpet horn in his ear.

They decide against it once they realize strangers on a school campus spotting a shady tall guy strolling through the place might draw some worry.

Ranboo starts counting down the days until Winter Break. On the nineteenth of December, a Friday, they finally get released for Christmas, and don’t return to class until mid-January. They call their parents up every now and again to make arrangements for their Christmas stay, already with gifts prepared. Maybe they can also manage to wring a hug or two out of them. For the special occasion.

Moving on, Ranboo.

Saturday is a day spent packing a few things for their trip and finally unwinding after the chaos that was Midterm season. They will admit, they haven’t seen a lot of Tommy these past couple of weeks. The frenzy of studying, testing, and finishing projects last minute ate up into their free time.

The twenty-second, Monday, is when they drive back to their parents home, which means Sunday is fully free. It’s tempting to skip FMSC and lie in bed all day, but they figure they might as well finish the year off strong. They drag their lazy self out of bed and brush their hair, not doing much else to look presentable like they normally would. Not even any eyeliner today. They’ll go in, help, and get out.

Ranboo knows they made the right decision when they walk into the warehouse and see Tommy’s enthusiastic wave upon seeing them. They manage a wave back, admittedly with far less energy, and dock themself at the funneling station. It shouldn’t require too much brainpower.

“Woah,” Tommy says. “You look rough, mate.”

“Thank you, Tommy,” Ranboo says with a droning voice, dry with sarcasm but enriched by the amused smile. “You don’t look too spectacular yourself.”

“Oi. I combed my hair today.”

“Wow.” They hold the bag under the funnel while Tommy and a stranger scoops food in. “Everyone stand down, this is clearly peak physical condition.”

Tommy frowns. “At least I’m not like Schlatt. He walked into the lecture halls absolutely hammered and might have copied off the people in front of him. I don’t know. It’s like that guy is in controversy every other day.”

“But you didn’t even go for an after-test drink?” Ranboo says. Ranboo will be honest and say that they did go to a frat party Technoblade was invited to, but only to be his Designated Driver. Ranboo didn’t take Techno for the party type, but he spent the whole time in the corner with Ranboo anyway speedrunning drinks. He kept offering too, but Ranboo always declined. Very him behavior. Techno still hasn’t gotten over the headache.

Maybe Technoblade got drunk enough to need Ranboo to carry him out, but even in that state, Technoblade still snipped at Ranboo when they tried to touch. Techno independently crawled out of the party with his sheer force of will, not even accepting help to get into the passenger's seat. Ranboo watched in awe and a bit of concern, and took it as a very sharp reminder to how seriously Techno takes his preferences.

Maybe Ranboo has a few hilarious videos worth of blackmail on him now, but they’ll save that for a date when they need it.

Tommy’s lips twist in distaste. “Ehh. No. I wouldn’t enjoy it.”

“Oh? Really?” Ranboo says, passing forward bag after bag. “I know you told me you’re not the drinking type, but c’mon. Even I go out every now and again.”

Tommy clears his throat and looks away. “Yeah. I - well, yeah. It’s not really any fun for me?”

Ranboo shrugs. “That’s fair enough.” After a few more passed bags, a bit of a silent lull, and calling out that they’ve successfully completed five full boxes, Ranboo decides to poke Tommy with a follow-up question. “Why do you think that is?”

Tommy frowns, sending a subtle glare to Ranboo like hating them for asking. Then, he forces the look away with a resigned sigh. “It’s no fun on your own.”

Ranboo wishes they didn’t ask.

After calling out their sixth box, Tommy manages to spark up another conversation to move past the old one. Ranboo eagerly hops onto the bit.

-

Tommy grabs Ranboo’s hand and drags them out of the warehouse for the first time, steps quick with a bounding eagerness. Questions linger on Ranboo’s tongue, but Tommy grabs them suddenly enough that their brain defaults to paying attention to that instead of any rational thought.

They pull off the gloves, the nets, and grab their belongings. Tommy presents Ranboo a medium-sized bag during their time together on the benches.

“What is this?” Ranboo says, grabbing the bag by the handle and dragging it towards them.

Tommy smiles, sitting up straight with an air of pride about him. “Open it.”

Ranboo pulls away the layers of colorful paper to reveal - they gasp, not in particular glee or horror, but more in recognition. “You got me - Tommy! You got me a cowboy hat?!”

Tommy laughs, the joy of mischief written all over his face. “Take it out.”

Ranboo pulls out the cowboy hat - why the hell is this such high quality? Firm felt, a belt with a buckle, and some sort of medallion with the insignia of a, “a Glock?!”

“Shhh!” Tommy says, pressing his hands rapidly against Ranboo’s mouth. His fingers press against their humored grin. “You can’t shout that in a building!” He hisses.

“Okay!” Ranboo says, voice muffled. Tommy pulls his hands away. “You’re insane for getting me this.”

“Oh, there’s more,” Tommy says with the slow nod of his head and a chaotic smile.

“No,” Ranboo says, setting the hat aside to flit their hands through the bag. “Boots?! With actual spurs?!” Tommy cackles again. “This isn’t costume stuff - this is, goddamn. Authentic - ” Ranboo runs a hand through their hair in disbelief. “Tommy!”

“Merry Christmas!” Tommy says.

A smile lingers on Ranboo’s face when they turn the hat over and over in their hands to get a good look at it. The felt is soft, but not flimsy, and the belt around the crown is actually quite tasteful and adds a lot to the look. They fit it on their head. It feels perfect. “This is actually so cool.” They take another look at the boots, then decide not to pull them out right now. They’ll try them on later. “I know what I’m going as for Halloween.”

“You’ll be the real ‘murican gun slinger.”

“You’re awful,” Ranboo says, with no hint of hatred in their face or voice. “I hate you.”

“Love you too, Boo,” he says with an exaggerated tone to make clear that it is nothing more than a tease. Tommy pushes himself up from the bench when he hears commotion coming their way.

Ranboo can’t help the warmth that trickles into their chest, and they clutch their pearls with furrowed brows when it tangibly worms its way through their ribs. Oh. This is so thoughtful. Ranboo pushes themself up, taking the bag along with their purse and leaving the cowboy hat on, even though it definitely does not match with their thick winter Jacket.

Tommy and Ranboo head outside together. Ranboo, out of the two of them, initiates a hand hold. It was an impulsive decision, one they can justify as their hands being cold. Tommy looks shocked, but he doesn’t protest, smiling and easing into it naturally. Even after Tommy didn’t rip away in disgust (he wouldn’t), Ranboo still feels too aware of the link resting between them.

“I cannot believe I didn’t get you a gift,” they say. “Like, how did I not even think about it?! To be fair, I didn’t get one for Techno either, but - ”

“Boo, it’s okay.” Boo. Why does Tommy keep saying that? Why does it feel like Ranboo is about to have a heart attack? It’s just a name. Just a stupid nickname.

This feeling snaking around them compels them to charge forward. “No, no it’s not,” they say with more firmness than is probably necessary. “I need to treat you out now.”

“What?” Tommy says with a slight jump of shock when he pulls to look at Ranboo. “No you don’t.”

“Yep. It’s custom.”

“Nuh uh,” Tommy says, even though Ranboo already tugs him in a new direction.

“Yuh huh,” Ranboo says, pulling out their phone and calling a nearby restaurant to set a reservation. “I’m getting you dinner and you can’t complain. Feel my Christmas Spirit, Tommy.”

“I’m feeling it,” Tommy says, mostly to humor Ranboo. “Definitely feeling it.”

They get seated at P.F. Changs, a fairly nice Chinese restaurant that Ranboo has liked since they were a kid. Tommy looks around in awe. “Broke college student my arse,” he says under his breath.

Ranboo smiles. “I might have gotten a Christmas bonus. And a pay raise.” They decided the second they got that bonus that they would use it primarily for all the Christmas gifts they wanted to give. This dinner will come out of that, so no big deal. They deserve to have nice things, every once and a while.

Tommy smiles, grabbing the menu and flitting through it. “Oooh. Everything’s so fancy.”

“Do you want tea?”

“They serve tea?”

Ranboo nods. “I recommend the Oolong. It’s so good.”

“I think I’m getting the chicken chow mein,” he says, reading over the menu and nodding to himself once he feels sure. “Yeah.”

“I’m ordering the Mongolian beef,” they say, still reading through the menu to give their brain something to do while they wait.

Their waiter stops by, and they order their entrees and drinks.

“So, it’s officially been a whole semester of living in America,” Ranboo says, sipping on the lemon water that had already been brought to them. “Done anything cool yet?”

Tommy swirls the straw around in his glass of co*ke. “Not really,” Tommy says. “I’ve hung around campus. Schlatt’s managed to drag me around to a frat party or two, but I always leave before things get too intense.”

“That’s a shame,” Ranboo says. “America - especially California - has a lot of cool stuff, if you know where to look. A bunch of theme parks. Some sick campgrounds. Local spots.” Spots Ranboo knows of, since they’ve lived in these parts their whole life.

“I did go to the beach once,” Tommy says after a long sip of co*ke. “Called my girlfriend. She was on Brighton’s shores. We pretended we were together.”

“Awww,” Ranboo says, a little smile on their face. It's kind of sad, but they won’t wreck the mood by lingering on it. “You plan to visit your family anytime soon?”

“Planning on it,” Tommy says, legs swinging under the table. “But not for the winter break. It didn’t end up working out.”

After a bit more idle chatting, they receive their entrees and dig in.

“I’m excited,” Tommy says, swallowing the noodles. “To hang out with you, though. It’s been a few weeks. Feels like I’ve hardly seen you around! Maybe we can have some proper catch-up time.” The pang in Ranboo’s chest manifests on their face as a wince, which has Tommy’s face dropping. “What?”

“I’m driving to my parents’ place tomorrow for the break,” they say. “Sorry, Tommy.”

“Oh.” Tommy takes the fork and stuffs some chicken in his mouth to keep from having to say anything for a while.

Ranboo carefully watches Tommy while mixing their meat with the white rice, feeling the heat in their sinuses from the insane proportion of onion in this dish. Ranboo never was good with handling the unique heat of an onion. “I mean, at least we get today, right?”

Tommy, still seeming kind of dim, manages to muster up enough energy to smile. It falls slightly short, but the effort is there. “Yeah! Yeah, course.”

“I’m sure the beginning of the semester won’t be too busy,” Ranboo says in between bites of their food. “We can hang out. I could probably take you around, actually. Six Flags is an essential experience for any out-of-townie.”

“What,” Tommy says with an amused huff and a smile. “Not Disneyland?”

Ranboo takes the cast-iron teapot and pours them both some oolong. They take a deep breath of the steam that wafts off the amber drink before properly sipping it. Refreshing and deep. Great every time. They almost spit out their tea when they hear Tommy. “Disneyland? I’m sorry, do I look like Bill Gates to you?”

Tommy laughs, taking the little cup that Ranboo pours for him. “Fair enough, mate.” He swirls the hot tea around a bit and blows on it before taking a sip. His eyebrows fly to the top of his head. “That’s - that’s right on!”

Ranboo chuckles. “I told you.”

-

Ranboo pays the bill and they head out together. By the time they finished eating and talking (they had done a lot of talking) dusk already started to peak its head at them. The sun dips closer and closer to the horizon, crisp winter wind nipping at their noses, and it gives Ranboo an idea.

They had their hand stuffed in the joint pocket of their sweater to keep them warm, the other holding onto the gift bag, but then they glance over at Tommy. They catch Tommy looking around at their scenery but keeping close. Ranboo takes their hand out of the pocket, allowing it to swing at the side. “Let’s go to the beach,” they say with a smile.

“What - the beach?!” Tommy says, loud and full of personality like he always is. “At blooming, like - what? It’s so late!”

Ranboo huffs. “I didn’t mean to swim, Tommy. We don’t have to go.”

Tommy spots Ranboo’s loose hand and grapples onto it, allowing them to lead the way. Ranboo smiles, because perhaps they’d predicted that. “I don’t see why not, then.”

It’s a bit of a long walk, and most of the way there, silence follows them. It’s anything but an awkward one. They had spoken plenty at the dinner and will probably talk more once they actually get there. The break is nice. The streetlights come on one by one, and fluorescent shop lights mix in with the yellow bulbs to offer a bit more scenery. The cold seeps through their clothes, and the wind tousles their hair, but the link provides all the warmth they think they’ll need.

“You’re still wearing the hat,” Tommy says, voice quieter but brimming with amusem*nt nonetheless.

Ranboo’s hand almost rips away from Tommy’s to check, but they go through the inconvenience of lifting up the gift bag to pat the top of their head. Lo and behold, there it is. “How did I not even - ”

Tommy bursts into laughter, loud and wheezing like a smoker of fifty years, doubling over to clutch his stomach with the force of it. “Oh - mate, you - how?! You had it on the entire dinner!”

“So you’re telling me you were looking at me while we were talking with this goofy-ass hat on my head, and you didn’t even say anything?!”

Another round of cackles interrupts his words and leaves him gasping for air. “I thought you were - I don’t know! It was funny!”

They decide not to take it off. It made Tommy laugh, so it can’t be that bad.

Ranboo passes the crosswalk that leads to the pier, and they push their walk into a gait with the force of their eagerness. Tommy follows, having to hop a bit to match their steps, and stops when Ranboo does to absorb the scene.

With one deep breath in they can smell the salt, and with one out they feel the dry chill it leaves behind in their throats. The thin crescent moon, hardly present, reflects its milky light, which ripples in the flat waves, onto the inky ocean. The faint ambience of waves crashing on the shore and surf fizzling on the sand fills the air enough between them to eliminate the need for words. Ranboo leads Tommy with bounding enthusiasm down the steps to the sand level, feeling like they haven’t gone to the beach nearly as much as they ought to.

Tommy finds himself smiling, tightening his hold on Ranboo’s hand to keep Ranboo from breaking their link by accident. Instead of stopping, Ranboo only slows down, and that’s how they get to where they are now.

Wandering the beach on the dry sand, listening to the rolling of waves, they find themselves entirely alone together.

Ranboo waits until they’ve traveled far enough along the shore to be away from any light pollution. The moon provides enough light to see, barely enough light to bathe them in color, and only enough to highlight the top of the ocean. “Have you gone here at night before?” Ranboo says, curling their lips into a crooked, knowing smile.

Tommy shakes his head, focusing his eyes on their shoes, watching one step after the other.

“Look up.”

Tommy does. In an absent, unassuming motion, like done on autopilot, he follows directions without thinking any more of it. His eyes widen, however, the second he catches sight of exactly what Ranboo wanted him to see. His lips part, mouth hanging open in shock, and his feet stop going one after the other.

Ranboo expected that, but it was still such a delight to see. They stop and squeeze Tommy’s hand, spotting the way the stars reflect in Tommy’s eyes before craning their own head up to watch the same sky with him.

Stars, thousands of them, paint the sky in gorgeous hues of purple, blue, and red, an astral cavalcade of colors blending together for a chaotically beautiful display. The line that is the Milky Way streaks across the sky like an old scar, like someone had taken a blade and sliced the sky and all the stars had bled from it. Constellations Tommy can recognize, and constellations Tommy cannot, twinkle their hellos.

“This is,” Tommy says, entirely breathless. He spends another moment staring, shoulders dropping when he sighs. “This is extraordinary, Ranboo.”

Ranboo’s smile turns into a full grin. “It never gets old.”

Tommy nods, because after only seeing it once, he can’t help but agree. How could something like this ever get old? The stars linger between them, the same view, the same sky. Two incredibly different people, who hail from different lands, staring at the same sky. It makes them feel like they have a little more in common than before.

Tommy’s hand tightens on Ranboo’s. A breath rolls out of his mouth, and it freezes midair, tumbling past his lips as a frosty cloud.

Ranboo starts to see the bite of the cold in Tommy’s skin, pale cheeks flushed and the tip of his nose red. Tommy only has a little windbreaker on, since he probably didn’t expect to be kept out this late. To be fair, Ranboo isn’t much better off. The sweater is thicker, but not thick enough to keep their hair from bristling and their skin from getting goosebumps. “We should head back before one of us gets sick.”

Tommy doesn’t answer, eyes stuck on the stars. When Ranboo pulls him onwards, Tommy stumbles, but he successfully follows, only half-paying attention. Ranboo smiles with a fond huff out of their nose.

They walk back down the beach, following their steps in the sand they made to get here, and it doesn’t take them long to make it to campus. They spot a person here or there, sometimes groups going back and forth from places to buildings, but they pay them no mind.

Ranboo stops once they reach their building, tearing themself away from Tommy’s hand so they don’t have to see that sad look on Tommy’s face when he does it. “I’m going to head in now,” Ranboo says, gesturing with their head towards the door of their building. “But this was fun.” They offer a little smile. “Merry Christmas, Toms.”

Tommy cranes his neck slightly up to look Ranboo in the eyes. Bright blue meets an unextraordinary gray. Ranboo doesn’t usually linger, but they do today.

Something shines in Tommy’s eyes, be it tears or gratitude or determination. Ranboo can’t see well in this dark.

Then, in an action Ranboo would have never seen coming, Tommy surges forward and curls his arms around Ranboo, arms tucked under his shoulders and looping around their middle. Since it was sudden, Ranboo was sent slightly backwards, hands hovering midair and staying frozen there in utter amazement. Their eyes widen, and their very next breath is faster than it should be. The subsequent exhale is long and forced, just to help them continue to breathe when it feels like their heart wants to stop. They should move. They should, but they hear nothing in their ears, not even static, and they can just barely tell what this is. A shut-down.

Tommy clambers to let go, ripping himself away and looking more than sad. He looks terrified. “Sorry. I’m - oh, I’m sorry, Ranboo. I didn’t mean to overstep.”

“No,” Ranboo says, maybe a bit overzealous. They clear their throat. “No, you - you didn’t. You didn’t,” they say while looking Tommy square in the eye, just to etch it in stone as truth. Looking him in the eye after that was difficult, but they managed to get over their own shock to pull it off. “I just don’t get many of, those.” So, they had no clue what to do with themself once they got one.

Tommy looks at Ranboo, inspecting them closely for truth, before his brows furrow. His lip pulls up, and his nose wrinkles, and Ranboo must be worse at reading people than they thought because Tommy looks almost angry. Why would he look angry? Tommy, more carefully this time, hugs them again. “You better soak this up because this has to last you the next couple of weeks.”

The tension drains from the moment, and a laugh bubbles out of Ranboo. They manage this time, wrapping their long arms around Tommy in turn. “I’m used to it, Tommy. I’ve been going off a handful for years.” Which should clear things up. It should make everything better, because that's normal.

Apparently, it’s unacceptable for Tommy. Tommy squeezes them, pressing himself close like he’d never let go. “Then get unused to it.” Just to keep in-character, and not derive too far into the realm of sap, he half-heartedly mumbles, “dickhe*d.”

Ranboo pats Tommy twice on the back to communicate they got the message loud and clear, a smile on their face that they don’t think will wipe off all night.

It’s completely characteristic of Tommy, and Ranboo both loves it and hates it. They hate the fact that their family gave them the impression that this isn’t normal, because supposedly this is normal. Supposedly, they should have had this, and they should have had more of this.

Ranboo feels it very palpably, enough warmth to ward away the winter itself, and they rest their chin on the top of Tommy’s head. Tommy’s hair cushions them.

Ranboo doesn’t linger, but they linger today.

-

Ripping themself away was a difficult task, but Tommy looked content - maybe even gleeful - afterward. He offers a wave and a cheery smile, and Ranboo returns it, heading into their building and collapsing on their bed.

Techno asks why they look like a dope. Ranboo says that it wasn’t a hookup. Techno says that he’d already taken that off the list of possibilities, which on a normal day would offend Ranboo, but they’re too happy to care.

-

Ranboo goes home to visit their family for Christmas. The whole event is great, of course. When Ranboo knocks, their mother answers the door and welcomes them in with a grin.

She gives them a brief hug, a quick thing that hardly lasts more than a second. Their dad pats them on the shoulder.

It doesn’t hit the same, but that’s okay. They love them anyway. They give their mother a bunch of new yarn colors for her knitting and their dad a gift card to Olive Garden. Ranboo gets a homemade scarf and a gift card to Olive Garden. Some things never change.

-

Ranboo lies in bed after Christmas day, exhausted by all the fun with their extended family. They got quite a few things from their family members, and in return they gave out what they had. Their family seemed very amused when they showed them what Tommy got them as a gift.

Now is their time to unwind. They rest and scroll through their phone, answering the very dry Christmas message Techno sent them with a thumbs-up emoji (just to be funny).

They see a message from Tommy.

Tommy: i miss you :((

Awwh. That’s, kind of sad actually. Tommy’s spending Christmas by himself at the uni campus.

Ranboo: L

Hopefully that cheers him up. Quite backwards thinking, but, whatever.

Tommy: >:(

Tommy: im sad because of you now how does that make you feel

Ranboo: just trying to spread that christmas cheer where i can

Ranboo :)

Tommy: you’re chaotic evil

Ranboo: LMAO

Ranboo: we have fun here.

After a long time of Tommy not responding, Ranboo decides to be a bit kinder.

Ranboo: dw, i’ll be back before break is over.

Ranboo: im driving back Sat so we can hang out on sunday after fmsc :D

Tommy: YIPPEE

Tommy: you know that autism creature

Tommy: imagine that thats me rn

Ranboo: lmao okay toms

They rest their phone against their chest, not bothering to turn it off, and sighs. This has been a fulfilling year.

-

The time with their family is fun, but all good things must come to an end. They return to the university campus on schedule and go on Sunday at the time slot they always do.

This time, they have a present bag with them. They went shopping while in their hometown, and they picked up something they think Tommy will really love. Just to repay the favor.

The second Ranboo walks through the doors of the FMSC building, Tommy (who had been staring at them, scouting out for a certain someone) gasps and leaps over the back of his bench to scramble over to them

Ranboo, for a moment, is taken aback by that level of enthusiasm. Then they decide not to question it and appreciate it instead, caught off guard by how eager Tommy is to give them a hug.

It takes a few seconds of latency, their face like a living buffer symbol, but they reciprocate the hold. “Hey Tommy,” they say, voice brimming with glee. “Guess what?”

“What?” Tommy says, pulling away to look Ranboo in the face.

Ranboo holds up their bag with a grin.

Tommy gasps and rips it right from their grip in an instant, digging around in it until he pulls out the gift. A red coat. A bright red cloak that looks straight out of the Revolutionary War, and it has Tommy wheezing hard enough to garner stares from the people on the lobby benches.

Ranboo’s grin is bright enough to put the sun to shame, because they’d hoped for some reaction like that. “Do you like it?”

Tommy fits the sleeves through his arms, not bothering to fasten any of the buttons. It rests loose and fits him comfortably, barring the slightly blocky feeling at the shoulders, but that’s fine. The back of the coat drapes past Tommy’s knees, and the beefy collar fits snug around his neck, if not teasing the bottom of his jawline a bit. Once Tommy breaks it in, it’ll all fit fairly well. “I love it, Ranboo. Oh, I feel so in tune with my people! My, ancestors. I’m in my heritage era.”

Ranboo laughs, entertaining Tommy’s thoughts by patting his shoulder. “Sure, Tommy.”

He keeps it on for the entire session and even after they head outside. Ranboo begs him to take it off at one point, but Tommy refuses with a smile, savoring every second of Ranboo’s playful exasperation.

Chapter 5: It's Free Brother

Chapter Text

The next Monday, classes start up again. By no means does that mean that they get busy and ghost each other for a few weeks at a time again. Even through Ranboo’s job and Tommy’s internship thing, they make time. They go out together to do things in their free time, or do simpler things. Calling to study or messaging on Discord to play Minecraft are things that frequent Ranboo’s calendar now.

Sometimes, they go out for a meal again, and they both argue fiercely about who pays. Usually, it comes down to who can overpower the other or reach the check first. Other times, Ranboo drags them down to the beach again, but only ever at nighttime. Day has too many people and too much noise. Sure, it would still be enjoyable, but there’s something special about looking up at the stars with Tommy and feeling a connection with him when they really let themself think about it.

Moving on.

One thing Ranboo hadn’t expected, but that they probably should have, is the fact that Tommy’s goodbye to Ranboo is always accompanied by a hug. For some reason, it catches them off their guard every single time. They’ll be mid-sentence, or checking their shopping bags after a mall visit, or staring at the galaxy, and Tommy will surprise them with it. Not even on purpose. All perfectly normal times to get hugs, but the fact they get it is the surprise.

They always wrap their arms around Tommy in turn and soak the touch up, trying to take as much as possible to conserve it and live off of it until the next time Tommy sees them.

They find themself having to conserve less and less, because Tommy is liberal with them. They find themself able to relax knowing that their skin has nourishment in the form of the warmth that comes with company, or that they don’t have to push through the physical loneliness that touch starvation brings them.

They feel functional. They feel more whole when Tommy is there. They feel less pathetic, which, yeah. The patheticness is something they sorely do not miss.

The feeling of conserving the warmth for months of drought fades away when they get at least two hugs per week. Sundays. One when Tommy sees him and one when they part. Slowly, their body adjusts to the lovely abundance of contact, and they think it’s the healthiest they’ve felt in a long time.

At even rarer times, like in February when both of them had managed to get some work done ahead, Ranboo impulsively rolls up to Tommy’s dorm and takes him to Six Flags.

They both pay for their own ticket and head into the park, and Ranboo enthusiastically tours him around the place. “This place has the most extreme rides ever. There’s one, the X2 - Tommy, it goes backwards! And the Tatsu - that one’s my favorite - you ride it standing up!”

Tommy looks all of wary, nauseous, and excited. “Standing up? How is - isn’t that dangerous?”

“Of course not!” Ranboo says with the flippant wave of their hand, independently grabbing Tommy’s hand and dragging him along. They’ve gotten more courageous with the touching. Sometimes they have to consciously remind themself not to be like this around Technoblade. “They run these rides hundreds of times a day for years on end. And the casualty rate is astronomically low. We’ll be fine.”

“What next?” Tommy says, allowing Ranboo to drag him along through the crowds. “One that freefalls you to the ground?!”

A broad, manic grin cracks Ranboo’s face in half. “Tommy, I cannot wait to introduce you to the Dive Devil.”

-

Tommy gapes staring at the people plummeting to the ground from a tall arc, the only thing holding them up being a strap and series of cords. Ranboo’s grin never falls, and they press their hand to Tommy’s shoulder. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“We’re never coming back here,” Tommy says.

Ranboo bursts into laughter and doubles over. It’s safe to say they have fun.

-

They still serve on Sundays together. It’s ingrained in their routine, and luckily neither of them have missed another day since the time Ranboo got sick and Tommy had an interview. The incentive is just too high to miss it. Feeding the starving children, of course. That’s the primary motivation.

Not the hours of fun with someone that is slowly but surely becoming a good friend to Ranboo. Not at all.

Another person at their table, after hearing their bickering for all of an hour at this point, speaks up. “I swear, you two are like brothers.”

Ranboo and Tommy perk their heads up, surprised about being addressed. Usually people ignore their back-and-forths, adding onto their bits when they feel like it or ignoring them out of social-awkwardness.

Tommy laughs and nudges Ranboo with his elbow. “Brothers, huh? How does it sound to be my sibling, ey Ranboo?”

Ranboo doesn’t exactly know what to say, because this league of jokes is entirely unprecedented. They manage to collect themself quick enough that no one questions it. “Can I disown you?”

Tommy squawks and slaps Ranboo in the shoulder. “Whatever. Sounds stupid, anyway. Being your brother?” He makes a vomit sound, overexaggerating a disgusted expression. “Blegh.”

“My heart is warmed, Tommy,” Ranboo says dryly, focusing on their task of measuring the bags. “Simply brimming with fuzzy feelings.”

Despite their addition to the joke, and them moving on from it right after after firmly establishing that they are not siblings, it still sticks with them. It makes something stir inside of ranboo, for a moment.

They shake their head to ward it off. Come on now. This is not the time for such ridiculous thinking.

-

Mid-march, they’re out for spring break. Neither Ranboo nor Techno have the energy to do anything big and crazy for their break after the wringer that was their final tests and projects for the quarter.

“You don’t even want to go out for a party to celebrate or anything?” Ranboo says, lying in bed. The afternoon sun filters through the windows, and they’re sure it’ll set soon. Then they can sleep, and maybe sleep more for another day or two afterward. A frenzy of all-nighters, caffeine shots, and self-induced psychological torture kept them up long enough to finish all the things they put off.

“Dude, I know you don’t want to drive,” Techno says in much the same position, except with his hands covering his face. “And I really don’t want to deal with a hangover right now. I feel crappy as it is.”

“Same,” Ranboo says, closing their eyes with a heavy sigh. “I’m - just. I’m so tired. I can’t even play Minecraft, man. I can’t do anything requiring brainpower.”

“Mood.”

Ranboo manages an airy chuckle. “Eloquent words from the English major.”

“I yapped enough on my essays, man,” Techno says, turning over in bed to hide his face in his blanket. “I don’t want to even look at a book or document until next week.”

“Valid.”

Ranboo’s phone pings with a text message, and they fumble with their hand over to the counter to grab it. They had a sneaking suspicion it would be Tommy, and it is.

Tommy: hey m8 i turned in my last thing

Tommy: wanna go out :D

Oh, boy. Nope. No no no. They have to put a stop to this immediately.

Ranboo: bro i dont even wanna move rn

Ranboo: im so tired

Ranboo: we’ll have sunday

They see the message bubble from Tommy pop in and out of existence before something finally comes through.

Tommy: im coming over

Ope. Well, okay. They aren’t opposed to it. “Tommy’s coming over,” Ranboo says in vague warning.

“Okay,” Techno says.

Ranboo blinks in slight surprise. “You don’t care?”

“Well, not really. He’s been over before.”

This shocks Ranboo enough to get them to push themself up. “What?!”

Technoblade sits up too, face red when he realizes that he’s made a mistake. “He was over a few months ago,” he says. “Once. When you were sick.”

“So that’s what you didn’t want to tell me!”

Techno shrugs, trying to breeze past it. “It wasn’t a big deal! I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

“Of course I don’t! I was running a goddamn 104!”

“Well, don’t concern yourself too much,” Techno says, finally looking over at Ranboo. “He brought some chicken soup and helped you back to sleep.”

“That’s not even that embarrassing,” Ranboo says with a note of disappointment in their voice. “There has to be more than that.”

Like Techno’s saving grace, Tommy knocks on the door. Ranboo gathers themself enough to stand and open it, even if they really just want to be lazy and stay where they are.

Tommy smiles and holds up two DVD cases: one for the How to Train your Dragon franchise and another for Up by Pixar. “Your monitor has a player, right?”

Ranboo, whose mind lags behind a few steps, blinks at Tommy before they nod. “Yeah. We - yeah. It does.” They step aside to let Tommy in, then close the door behind him.

Tommy heads straight for the player, turning on the monitor and flitting through the discs. “Which first?”

“Go for the How to Train your Dragon,” Ranboo says, flopping back onto their bed. “I’m in for a long binge. I don’t wanna do jack for the next seventy-two hours minimum.”

“Fair enough,” Tommy says, sitting beside Ranboo and exuding a disproportionate amount of energy. How the hell is Tommy still bouncing around after Ranboo and Techno got squeezed like an orange?

It doesn’t matter once the intro starts playing, Hiccup expositing Burke to them while they get comfortable on the bed. Techno looks up occasionally when he gets curious, and eventually he shuts off his phone to pay full attention. He sits alone on his bed, and Tommy and Ranboo sit on Ranboo’s bed.

The sun sets, but Ranboo doesn’t bother getting up to shut the blinds. Techno does it, shutting off the lights in the dorm too to highlight the movie better. The sudden change in lighting has Ranboo blinking their eyes to adjust, but they get over it.

At about the halfway point of the movie, Ranboo yawns. They rub at their face and blink one eye after the other, stretching out their arms. They try not to obstruct Tommy’s view with their limbs, but god did they need that stretch. Their muscles feel infinitely better after that, like waves of satisfaction rolling over their shoulders.

Tommy looks tired too. That spurt of energy at seeing Ranboo fades quickly, and eventually his chin starts to dip. It isn’t even too late in the day, but both of them have had a rough time recently. With the mixture of sleep deprivation, overworking the brain, and comfortability of being with a friend watching a cozy movie, Tommy’s head lolls and rests against Ranboo’s shoulder.

Ranboo usually would jump, but they don’t have the sense of awareness to register what happened until a few seconds after. They glance at Tommy, seeing just his hair from their current perspective, and decide to commit to it. Their arm curls around Tommy, hand absently gliding up and down Tommy’s arm.

Tommy sighs in something that almost sounds like relief and sags, melting like butter on a pancake. Ranboo dares to catch a glance, spotting a lad with half-lidded eyes focused on the movie. They decide not to overthink it when they loll as well, both of them sagging against the wall.

Okay. That’s a lie. They do overthink it. By the end of the movie, Ranboo’s train of thought derails from dragons and nordic people to family and brotherhood. Do they see Tommy as a little brother? The answer they want to land on is no, but the answer they keep returning to is a firm yes.

It ends, and credits roll. Oh, no. One of them has to move. Someone has to get up and change the movie. Someone has to break the link, and why would they return, it would feel so intentional, it would feel too intentional, it would -

Technoblade, their saving grace, notices their internal panic. He sighs, long and hard, and shakes his head. Tommy doesn’t even realize, too occupied on not falling asleep right then and there on top of Ranboo. Ranboo glares at Techno in some frenzied mix of panic, pleading, and embarrassment, begging him to act so Ranboo doesn’t have to rip themself away.

Techno entertains this insanity, for whatever reason, and gets up, changing the disc in the movie from the first to the second. It starts to run, and the crisis is averted. For now. They would never dare to say it out loud, but - oh god, Tommy is like a brother to them. A little brother. Someone to take care of, and be a role model for, and the looks of awe Tommy gives them whenever they teach or show him something new, their heart squeezes -

It might make things weird, and they wouldn’t want that. They never would, so they make the silent decision to zip their lips.

Before the movie even ends, both Tommy and Ranboo are down for the count, fast asleep.

Chapter 6: Exams

Chapter Text

Ahh, finals season. The time every college student universally loves and despises. They’ve clawed their way through the entire year just to reach this point, and it harks of their end, of finally finishing the year. But they must first complete these final bosses with nothing more than some energy drinks, all-nighters, and the frantic flipping through of study guides.

Whether it be a test (Ranboo actually favors the tests, because they only take a set amount of time and are over as soon as they begin) a project (again, not too bad, Ranboo is a victim to their own perfectionism and Techno had to coach them in cutting corners) or an essay (worst. Lowest of the lows. Technoblade’s English skill and Thesaurus dot com carry them through these hard times), work piles up fast enough and heavy enough to splinter them under the pressure of it.

It’s safe to say they don’t get a lot of downtime to do fun, enriching things like hang out with Tommy. They even go as far as to skip a couple Sunday serve days since they desperately need to help themself before they can help anyone else. They use the time to catch up on naps or desperately cram as much information into their brain before exams, and Technoblade does much of the same, testing Ranboo when they ask for help.

Techno hasn’t slept in two days and turns in essays that look like he only read a ChatGPT summary of the material. Ranboo gets over themself and films random stuff like trash cans and pigeons, shaking away the thoughts of being like the pretentious photographer that yaps random poetry about the beauty of everyday objects.

Sure, maybe it isn’t their best work by any means, but they scrape by. Both of them do. All three of them do. In the rare spare second they have to breathe, right after turning in a final thing and having the relief of one less thing on their plate before they finish, they manage to shoot Tommy a message.

Turns out, things have been hard for him too, but he’s making it. His internship being over because the school released for summer break probably helps. Tommy apparently hasn’t seen Schlatt in days, but it doesn’t matter because he’s been too focused on taking care of himself.

Tommy does admit that he misses the days they hang out, especially the Sundays, but both of them recognize the necessity of skipping. Ranboo answers back saying that they feel the same way, but it’ll be okay. They have all summer.

After committing to the grind, marrying it, having children with it, and going through a messy divorce with it, Ranboo finally collapses onto the ground of their dorm when they turn in their very final assignment.

Their sophom*ore year of university is officially over. No more assignments, projects, essays, lectures, annoying clubs, sucky productions, or sticky popcorn floors for another few months. They’re free.

They finally loosen up, lying on their bed and sighing to release all the tension from their body like an engine decompressing by hissing out all the steam.

Technoblade, who had already finished his last thing and started with packing his belongings, casts a glance at Ranboo over his shoulder. “It’s about time,” he says. “I head out tonight, just letting you know. I don’t want to be in this place for any longer than absolutely necessary. Remember to take out your trash and take your sheets, okay?” Ranboo mumbles into their pillow, and the response is good enough for Techno. “Alright. Sick. Don’t have too much fun without me.”

Ranboo takes a quick nap, deciding some self-care is needed before they start packing up their own stuff. By the time they wake up, Technoblade, and every last trace of him, is gone.

They pack everything up except for their bedding and essentials, take a shower, brush their hair and their teeth, and pass out for a solid fourteen hours.

-

The next day, Ranboo gets up, the slow and languid action a change of pace after the exhaustive rush that was these past couple of weeks. They have the privilege to take their time, except not too much time because the university has a set date that every student needs to leave the dorms by.

But it’s fine. They have several days, and they don’t plan to take that long.

All they do is sweep up the place, brush off some dustier surfaces, and take out the trash like Techno had instructed. They bundle up their bedding, put it in their packs, and sit on the blank mattress while they think.

They set aside today to be the day that they finally take the drive back to their parents home, the place they’ll stay until August.

August. Oh, they’re officially a junior now. Augh. Tommy’s already a sophom*ore!

Speaking of Tommy. Ranboo grabs their phone from the counter and calls Tommy up, since they have a question or three for him. Is he studying abroad next year too? If so, is he staying at Beach Coast? How does he feel about finishing the semester? Does he need any help with packing up the dorm? From what Ranboo has heard, Schlatt probably won’t be a big help in picking up.

At that very moment, Ranboo gets a knock on their door. Maybe it’s Tommy, maybe it isn’t. It might be a supervisor collecting keys. Either way, Ranboo sits up and answers it because they don’t have anything cooler going on.

Very quickly does that change, because upon opening the door, someone they identify as Tommy collapses right onto them. Ranboo, out of preservation, gathers Tommy in their arms to keep him from faceplanting into the floor. Their senses must be deceiving them because they catch the distinct stench of booze on Tommy’s clothes.

Nope. Not deceiving. Once they hear an inebriated giggle bubble out of Tommy’s mouth, Ranboo can start putting the pieces together. They sigh, but they don’t push him away, using their foot to shut the door and gathering Tommy more easily in their arms. “Schlatt dragged you to a party, didn’t he?”

“Nooooo,” Tommy says, a lazy smile scribbled onto his face, so dazed it looks like it might slide right off. Tommy leans his weight against Ranboo, which Ranboo wouldn’t usually mind, but Tommy can’t orient himself properly. It makes their job infinitely harder. “Yes.”

“Amazing.” Ranboo manages to drag Tommy’s body - it’s like dragging a hundred-pound sack of potatoes, except slightly harder because potatoes don’t actively try to work against them by pulling them back god why is Tommy pulling them back? “What the hell are you doing?”

“Don’t leave me,” Tommy drawls, clinging on like a four year old. “You’re so far.”

Ranboo’s lips twist since they don’t know the best way to approach this. The first and most obvious step is to stop, since they clearly aren’t making any progress, and calm Tommy down. “I’m not leaving. Relax.”

The sound of that makes Tommy more compliant to being taken towards the bed. They finally sit on the mattress, but Tommy doesn’t let go, wrapping his arms around Ranboo’s center like his life depended on it. He hiccups, and Ranboo feels the heat of his skin just from being pressed against him. “Don’t you go, don’t you go,” Tommy says.

“I’m not going anywhere, Tommy,” Ranboo says, voice gentle but face stiff. They sit there and let Tommy hang around, but they don’t actively grab him anymore. No. They really don’t feel equipped to handle this situation with any realm of tact. In fact, they feel their own face heat up in, not quite embarrassment. This is just a generally flustering thing, and they can’t get over it. “Why did you drink? You said it’s no fun without friends.”

Tommy falls silent, then Ranboo hears a choked, strangled sound. Oh no. Oh god, no. That better not have been a sob. They don’t know what they would do if what they said managed to upset Tommy enough to make him cry. “No. No no no,” he says. Vague mumbles of this, over and over, slip from his mouth. “You’re m’only ‘merican friend. M’nna miss you. M’nna be gone so long.”

Their heart pierces at the thought that Ranboo, Ranboo, was the only person Tommy managed to befriend over the whole school year. Talkative, friendly, sociable Tommy, and he stuck around Ranboo. Why? “Hey man,” Ranboo says, trying and failing to find words to comfort him with. “It’s alright. It’s just a single summer. Your grandparents are nearby, aren’t they? Are you just going to stay there? Because, if you are, we can still meet up.”

Dear god they made it worse. Oh sweet lord, how could they make it worse? Tommy buries his face in Ranboo’s chest, and Ranboo’s face heats right up. They decide to finally wrap their arms around Tommy’s back once they feel moisture staining into the fabric of their clothes. Tommy grips tightly onto Ranboo’s clothes, tugging like they’d leave at any second, and sniffs. “Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go,” he whispers over and over again like a prayer, increasingly more desperate and pained. His voice cracks, and it aches with a sorrow that Ranboo can’t understand. They can’t put the pieces together of what could have possibly caused this. All they have is a vague idea and the knowledge of what they need to do in the present, no matter what happened in the past.

“I won’t,” Ranboo says, bringing themself closer to Tommy’s ear so he can hear past the static buzzing in his head. “I won’t,” they say, firmer and firmer to carve it into stone like fact. “I won’t,” they say, cementing it as an unmovable truth, a promise that they can’t conceive breaking.

Tommy takes a deep, shaky breath, one that rattles in his throat, and pulls slightly away to look Ranboo in the eyes. And, oh. Does that hurting look in Tommy’s eyes weigh heavy on his heart. “I,” Tommy says, hesitating on the words. His voice wavers around them. He buries his face again, just to feel slightly more safe, secure with Ranboo here, and mutters it out. “I l’ve you.”

Ranboo blinks rapidly, hands releasing their grip, before they finally process and hold on tight like they’re both falling together from a fatal height. “I - I care about you too, Tommy.”

Tommy sniffles again. “Y’re m’friend. M’nna miss you.”

“And that’s okay. That’s okay,” Ranboo says. Even if they don’t understand the full extent of this, they can still be here for Tommy.

Tommy pulls away again, cheeks glistening with tears. He impulsively grabs the sides of Ranboo’s face, forcing them into an intense round of eye contact. “Y’re m’friend,” he says, like Ranboo was somehow missing part of the significance of that. “Y’re myyyy friend.”

“That’s nice, Tommy,” they say, a little clueless but doing their best to entertain this. “Yeah. I am. I am your friend, Tommy.”

Tommy stares for an uncomfortable amount of time, and Ranboo can see the way his eyes tick back and forth in thought. Tommy looks like he’s building up the courage to say something. “We’re like… ” the unfinished truth hangs in the air. Tommy doesn’t dare complete it. All his built-up courage scatters back to hide in their corners when he sighs. “Friends.”

Ranboo nods slowly. What else are they to do? “Yeah.”

Ranboo doesn’t know what that was all about. Tommy passes out on them soon after, forcing Ranboo to choose between carrying Tommy back to his dorm and letting him sleep on the sheetless mattress.

Tommy can stay. No way is Ranboo carrying him across campus like that. They pull their pillow from their luggage and tuck it under Tommy’s head to keep it elevated, keeping their off-brand Advil and water at the counter for when Tommy gets up.

They call their mother and tell her that they’ll be a day late. They have something (more like someone) to take care of, and she says that it’s just fine with her.

Ranboo decides to rebag the trash can and leave it by the bedside. After seeing the flush drain from Tommy’s face, they take their blanket and tuck it over Tommy. Tommy groans and latches onto it, shifting to the side in his sleep.

Ranboo really has no choice but to sit on Techno’s bed and wait, in effect watching Tommy sleep. Ranboo can’t be blamed for it when Tommy was the one to pass out in their dorm.

Ranboo bothers to pull out their sheets and bundles it up to be their pillow, using one of their larger jackets as their blanket. Sure, maybe it isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but they won’t rip the pillow from Tommy’s head.

In the time it takes them to sleep through the night and wake up in the morning, Tommy still hasn’t woken up. Ranboo decides to take some initiative and do it themself, pressing their hand to Tommy’s forehead and hoping it doesn’t take too much more jostling than that.

Instead of the desired effect, it appears to do the opposite. Tommy hums in his sleep and dips his head down to lean into Ranboo’s palm, which has them reeling. Quickly, they get over it because this isn’t about them. They pat Tommy’s cheek gently, and once that doesn’t work, they do it with a bit more force.

But they won’t hit him, so eventually they cut it out and start whispering. “Hey, Tommy.” Doesn’t work. “Hey.” A bit louder. “Tommy. Toms. Redcoat. Get up.” They ruffle Tommy’s hair.

Finally, a sign of life. Tommy’s brows furrow like he’d tasted something sour, and he groans. His eyes crack open, then languidly notice Ranboo. “What?” He grumbles, voice deep and gravelly. “What’re you… Ranboo?”

Ranboo offers a humored smile and shuffles back to give Tommy some space. “Rise and shine,” they say. “You passed out in my dorm. I didn’t really have a choice.”

Tommy shuffles to push himself up, groaning every now and again and clutching their head with any slight movement.

Ranboo opens the bottle of water and offers it to Tommy. Tommy grabs it and takes slow, careful sips, swallowing down the couple of pills Ranboo offers. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“What happened?” He asks once his head isn’t killing him and he can actually think straight again.

“You came into my place and passed out. That was it.” A bit more than that happened, but that isn’t… important enough to mention.

“Oh,” Tommy says. “Well, thanks.”

“I was meant to head home yesterday, but you caught me just in time. Lucky you.” They don’t say this to make him feel bad. Just as a frame of reference.

“My flight to England is tomorrow,” Tommy says. “So, I think I’m okay.”

Oh. Ranboo should have really expected that. Honestly, yeah, they aren’t too surprised. “Heading back home for the summer?” Ranboo finally makes the decision to sit properly on the bed.

Tommy takes a deep breath and nods. “And coming back here in the fall. But I’m not - you won’t be able to reach me, over summer.” Tommy doesn’t sound too thrilled.

Ranboo isn’t either. Their brows furrow. “Why not?”

“My family’s going to some, cabin. M’dad owns it. There’s no service, so, I won’t hear from you ‘till August.”

Oh. That’s - they at least thought they could message each other. Maybe this is how Tommy felt when Ranboo left him at campus for winter break, except way more extreme on their end because they can’t even text now. “That sounds fun.”

Tommy smiles, though it looks dull with the headache dimming his eyes, taking another careful sip of the water. “Yeah. I’ll take pictures and show you.”

Ranboo nods, because they can’t muster up any words to say. “Well. I’ll be here when you get back.” They return the smile.

A whole summer. They should be able to do it. It’s just a few months. It’s just a friend. It’s doable.

Oh, screw all that. They’re going to hate this.

Chapter 7: Summer of Suffering

Chapter Text

Ranboo drives the few-hour journey to their parents home and gets comfortable again in their room. Their mother cooks a very delicious meal for their return which Ranboo accepts as her way of showing her love. Maybe a hug would do too, it’s relatively no effort, but hey. They all show their love differently.

They open their phone after their first day back home while lying in bed - it was eventful. Their parents dragged them on the couch to watch bad movies and laugh at them, which Ranboo enjoyed. - and spot Tommy’s contact. Ranboo’s lips twist, and they feel an inexplicable sudden tightness in their chest. They already miss Tommy.

It’s fine. They can go a few months without speaking to him. No sweat. They won’t miss him at all. If they just forget about him and focus on their in-town friends, they should be just fine.

-

They aren’t just fine.

The first week is okay enough. They connect with some high school friends and have an outing to Olive Garden together (Ranboo finally cashes in that gift card they got for Christmas). Ranboo thinks for a singular moment about applying for a summer job, then decides against it.

They play board games with their parents and catch up on the year, telling them how they felt about each and every class. Their parents catch Ranboo up to what little happened in their lives. Their mother failed a job interview, their dad broke his arm in construction. All fun little tidbits. Ranboo tells them some fun stuff on the side too, like showing them the videos of Technoblade drunk or the photos of them and Tommy on the beach by the stars.

“Of course, I am going to miss going to that foundation every week,” Ranboo says around the dinner table. “That’s something to look forward to junior year.”

“I’m sure there’s opportunities for you to help in other ways, Ranboo,” their father says. “Serving your community, and all that.”

“You can start by doing the dishes,” their mother says, a bit of a wry smile on her face.

Ranboo huffs. “I will. Don’t freak out about it.”

Then Sunday comes, and Ranboo can’t handle it anymore. They wake up far after their alarm had already given up on waking them up, hair all frizzy and body all achy. Ranboo has no clue what it is other than a general air of feeling bad, similar to the day before the symptoms of a fever actually peak their disgusting little heads into their body.

It takes them pressing their hands flat against the bed and purposefully breathing while counting the seconds to finally compose themself enough to open their eyes. Their heart feels like it’s twisting inside of their chest and it takes more intent than necessary to get any air into their lungs.

Is this a panic attack? It can’t be. There isn’t any anxiety pressing against them like a searing iron. There isn’t a looming pressure breathing down their neck. There isn't darkness at the edges of their vision, and there isn’t static in their ears.

The source of this newcoming distress remains a mystery until they grab their phone. Right at the top, they see in little white letters, Sunday.

Oh. Today is meant to be the day that - this is their day. Sundays are their day! They feel themself getting more and more bothered by the second by the fact that they won’t even be able to offer Tommy a hello today. Tommy won’t come in for a hug. They won’t go to the beach, because Ranboo is in the middle of the city and Tommy is in Nowhere, British Countryside.

It’s okay. This is fine. This isn’t that bad. After a few deep breaths and convincing themself that this is nonsense, they push this sensation down inside. They bury it under layers of calm and pat the dirt atop to ensure it looks like nothing ever happened. They push themself out of bed and drink some water, hoping the tightness loosens when they forcefully swallow it down.

It helps. Kind of. It lubricates their throat enough to feel perfectly ordinary while breathing, which is good enough for them.

They hop on Minecraft and try to distract themself with the silly block game. It works well enough.

-

Their weeks aren’t extraordinary. They hang out with cousins and friends, find new shows to binge and spend way too long analyzing with their parents, and spend an ungodly amount of time being chronically online and maxing out their stats in their games.

Sundays have become something of their weekly depression.

They don’t know where it came from, why it leaves, why it exists at all, but this is the pattern they’ve noticed after three weeks of break. The whole week, Ranboo will have a storm cloud hanging over them, but the sunshine that still exists is enough to let them ignore it, if not only be subconsciously aware of it.

The second they wake up on Sunday, the cloud claps with thunder and dumps a harsh downpour onto them, wind so harsh it wisps the air right from their lungs. With every cycle, it slowly gets worse and worse, spiraling to the point that Ranboo cancels Sunday plans with anyone they may have coordinated with.

It has to be more than Tommy. There has to be something else. Missing someone doesn’t make them feel this way. At least, it hasn’t before. It shouldn’t. Maybe it’s the fact of feeling useless. Maybe it’s the lack of an objective, or an overarching goal for the summer. Maybe the absence of productivity. Bedrotting never did much good for anyone, anyway. What else is there to do?

During the week, they feel fine enough to draw up a plan and stick to it. They do ordinary things like going to the movies, running shopping trips for their mom, attending the few parties and events friends invite them to, finding concerts and comedy clubs and going out only for the purpose of being out in the first place.

Dammit, Ranboo, you can be functional without your stupid friend. Why are you even thinking about him so much? Can you not do a single thing without him? That’s pathetic, Ranboo. You always circle back around to being pathetic. You care too much.

He’s probably having a great time with his family in the UK, hardly sparing Ranboo a thought (at the sound of that, their chest tightens so much that they keel over and clutch their heart. A pained sound falls from their mouth, and they sink into a sudden fit of coughs. It takes more than just a minute to recover from that).

Ranboo wakes up on the fourth Sunday of the break and lies face-down on their bed, limbs sprawled out all over the mattress. Their mother comes in to offer them some breakfast, and Ranboo groans in return.

She clicks her tongue and shuts the door behind her, stepping closer to their bed. “Are you feeling okay, Ranboo?”

“No,” they say, drawing the word out to accentuate their morose feelings.

She clicks her tongue, offering a slight smile. “Why don’t you try going out and serving? It always cheered you up at university.”

Yeah. It cheered them up because Tommy was there. Maybe that’s a bit exaggerated - helping people was always great, and doing the actual work was more of a game than a service. It was fun. It cheered them up Freshman year as well, before they’d ever been in range of Tommy.

But they still find themself mumbling, “what even is the point of going?”

Their mother’s smile doesn’t fall, but her brows furrow in confusion. “To, help others?”

Great. Now Ranboo feels even more like garbage. This is like - oh, boy. It’s like being a teenager again. One day, they were perfectly fine, then the next day. Bam. Anger. Sorrow. Sudden manic excitement. Angst for absolutely no reason except for the fact that their biology demanded it. Mood swings, up and down, changing at the crack of a whip like the worst game of roulette.

Their mother presses her hand against their forehead to check for a temperature. When they show no clear signs of any ailment, she sighs. “The waffles are still on the table, whenever you want them. Call me if you need anything, okay?”

Then, she’s gone.

Ranboo sags into the bed. After about an hour of lying around, doing nothing but feeling awful, they muster up the will to grab their phone and put on a show. Steven Universe. Why not? Calm and colorful and one they’ve watched before, so they don’t need to worry about any surprising emotional rollercoasters.

-

The fifth Sunday is when the symptoms in their body start to escalate. They cough more often, sometimes spurred into fits of it for several minutes. Nothing ever comes of it, no mucus, no blood, no nothing. Coughs that come, coughs that go. They had been coughing throughout the week, but they assumed it was the normal amount of coughing. Maybe their throat is dry? Have they been drinking enough water?

Their parents observe this strange, new behavior with growing levels of concern and suspicion. Ranboo knows how this looks, but they don’t know how to bring it up without only looking more guilty.

On a Thursday night, a couple of days before the sixth Sunday, their parents sit them down for the proper intervention. Ranboo sags in the chair, slouching over and glaring at the dinner table. This is stupid.

“Now, Ranboo,” their mother begins, a pitying look in her eyes and some sort of trepidation in her voice that makes Ranboo simultaneously feel frustrated and shameful. “We know you have the right to spend your time how you’d like, especially now that you’re an adult, but we need to know.”

“Have you been smoking?” Their father says, way more blunt and far less precious with the topic.

It catches Ranboo so far off guard that they almost burst into laughter, and they hardly refrain from it. It would not have given them a good look.

“Or - or drinking?” Their mom says. “Or, both. It could be both. Are you doing, things?”

At the sound of that, Ranboo can’t stop the snort. Why do they talk about this like Midwestern conservatives that have never heard of this stuff before? Probably because Ranboo was never the type, and they’re surprised. Well, even bigger surprise, (not really), their guess is wrong. “No.”

“Honey,” their mom says, and oh does that grate on their ears. “It’s - if you’re doing it, I won’t be mad. I just need to know.”

“Mom,” Ranboo says, and they can’t help the amused smile that appears when they shake their head. “Are you serious? No. Do I even smell like smoke? Do I ever come home drunk?”

“You get hangovers,” their father says in almost defense of their mother. “Don’t think you can hide these things. We know what goes on in this house.”

Oh, dear goodness. This is too much. In the best way - this is hilarious. But also, they need to figure out how to prove that they’re wrong without coming across as disrespectful. “They’re not hangovers,” Ranboo says. “I - well, I’ll be the first to say I don’t know what they are. I’m probably just burnt out, or something.” Right at this very moment, their throat starts to itch, and they reach for their water to wet their throat before a cough erupts and proves their parents right. The water gets rid of the coughing itch like they’d hoped for, but it makes the tightness in their chest worse for some reason. How?! This isn’t making any sense to them. “I think I might just be coming down with something. Some, summer thing. I don’t know.”

“Are you sure?” Their mother says.

Ranboo looks her square in the eye. “I’m absolutely positive.”

After a moment of looking back at Ranboo, she decides that they must be telling the truth. “Okay. Okay, Boo. Just trying to make sure.”

Their hand tightens on the edge of the dining table, because their breath had stacatto'd against their will again.

They should probably get this checked out. At the same time, they don’t think they could look the doctor in the eye when they explain that they’re sick because their friend is missing. They’d be diagnosed with World’s Clingiest Friend.

There has to be some other reason for all of this. It can’t be Tommy. It just can’t. It isn’t humanly possible, and they mean that in a quite literal sense.

-

They confide in their mother, at least, about their symptoms. Their mom asks if it’s severe enough to require medical intervention. Ranboo denies it. She looks unsure, but she complies, and advises gargling salt water to make their throat feel better.

Their throat isn’t exactly sore, but it’s the thought that counts. They give it a try, some accidentally trickling down their throat, and the solution miraculously loosens some of that chest tightness.

By Sunday number nine, Ranboo learns a bit more about how to be apathetic to it. They pop in some anesthetic cough drops, ones that taste like artificial cherry and make their tongue feel all funny, and let the numbing agent do its thing. It doesn’t help much with the actual ailment, but it at least quells the symptoms.

They go to the pharmacy once every week or so just to pick up more of these red lozenges, since they come in incredibly handy. Their mom always warns them against overdosing, and Ranboo is slightly amused by the notion of overdosing on cough drops.

Once they instill in themselves the habit to do breathing exercises constantly, in the nose and out the mouth for the proper amount of seconds, the tightness becomes less of a problem as well. All in all, they learn how to tackle this blight without ever actually addressing the root problem.

Maybe if they ignore it for long enough, it’ll go away on its own.

-

The rest of the summer doesn’t get much harder than this. Coughing, anesthetics, and breathing exercises. This isn’t how Ranboo envisioned their vacation, but they’re sure it could get worse. It certainly stops getting worse at one point, just cycling through the same routine week after week of mood swing right down into the dumps on Sundays and the occasional cough throughout the day.

Not that big a deal when Ranboo puts on their big kid pants and actually examines the situation. This isn’t the hardest thing to deal with.

Sunday Ten is the same as Sunday Nine, and so is Eleven and Twelve. Thirteen catches them off guard, because it’s the last Sunday before going back to university (by extension the last Sunday before finally getting to see Tommy again).

They pack up on Saturday, saying their goodbyes to their parents for the year after settling everything with university and Technoblade, then load their car the night before. Waking up on that Sunday, they feel compelled to spring into action the second they wake up, rather than suffering through the pained drowsiness they’d gotten used to.

They eat breakfast, hug their parents one last time, and grab their keys. The seatbelt feels too tight on their chest, but they aren’t going to casually break the law just because they feel a little icky. They drink some water and power through it.

They don’t know what contributed to the change today, but maybe this means their condition is finally getting better. Maybe it was just a summer bug. That makes sense, right? That checks out?

It doesn’t matter. If the symptoms are fading, that means they can stop worrying about it and start focusing on school. The traffic is pretty bad in their city, but it clears up the further west they go.

There is one point they have a coughing fit bad enough that it requires them to pull over, but they take another lozenge and power through the rest of the drive. Their hands tighten on the wheel whenever they feel the slightest tickle in their throat, like using their sheer willpower to shove away the cough.

They have classes to worry about. They have a job to do. They can’t linger on this any longer.

Chapter 8: Autumn

Chapter Text

Ranboo gets the key to their new dorm from the desk and takes their luggage through the building while searching for the right room.

One-ten, one-eleven, ah. There it is. One-twelve. Ranboo releases the handle of one suitcase to unlock the door, fitting the key in the lock and having some trouble putting in all the force required to actually open the door. After alternating the orientation of the key three different times, the door finally swings open.

Technoblade is already in there, setting up his bedding before beginning to tackle the monster that is his PC. “Techno!” Ranboo says, a bit of a smile on them thanks to the familiar face. They drag their stuff inside and by what must be their bed (Techno had already claimed the other one, since he got here first. Fair enough).

Ranboo almost finds themself reaching in for a hug, out of habit. They barely stop themself from lifting their arms, thanks to Techno offering the slightest wave of his hand. “Hey, Ranboo,” he says.

“Still rocking the pink?” Ranboo says, getting to business by lugging a suitcase to the side and unzipping it. They pull out some of the more loose items and set them on the counter to deal with later.

Techno’s hands pause in their tucking the sheet in to reach up to his dyed hair. “Yeah,” he says, breezing past it. “It’s my thing.”

“I know,” Ranboo says, spreading their own fitted sheet over the mattress. They brought two blankets from home this time, a thin one for the hotter months and a thick one for the colder months. Plus, having two blankets would come in handy when a certain friend barges in and steals one.

At the very thought, their chest seizes. They fold over themself and hiss through their teeth, fingers digging into the pillow they were holding while they brace their arms against the mattress.

Techno finally turns around to acknowledge Ranboo directly, brows furrowed in something like concern. “Ranboo?”

“I’m fine,” they’re quick to say, shaking their head and taking some even breaths. “I’m fine.”

Today is Sunday. Surely unpacking wouldn’t take all day. At least, not if they pace themself and do some after orientation tomorrow. They don’t return to Silver Theaters until Tuesday so they have the time to use. Maybe they could go to FMSC. Maybe they could see Tommy there, if Tommy already came back (Tommy hasn’t sent or received any messages yet, so part of Ranboo doubts it, but they hope anyway).

It might be good for them to go out again. “I’m going out to the place. You can come with me, if you want.” Ranboo drives their thoughts away from Tommy by fitting the pillow on the bed and carrying their hygiene stuff to their bathroom.

“Nah,” Ranboo hears Techno call from the other room. “That’s you and Tommy’s thing.”

“Helping people is everyone’s thing,” Ranboo says, hoping for some humor in their voice.

Techno shrugs, carrying his PC case out of his luggage. “Well, it’s not my thing today.”

When Ranboo comes back into the main room, they see the PC suddenly in Techno’s arm. “Dude, where do you store all of this stuff? I swear you just pull technology out of nowhere, sometimes. How much of a budget do you even have?”

Techno smiles wide, and it actually looks fairly genuine. “Irrelevant.”

Ranboo takes their clothes and starts with setting them away in the drawers, organizing the shirts and pants and socks how they see fit. It doesn’t take them too long, and most of their first suitcase is already emptied out by this point. “Yeah, I’m taking a break.” They grab their purse and sling it over their shoulder, heading for the door. “You sure you don’t want to come?”

“Go, by all means,” Techno says. “Go meet Tommy.”

Ranboo frowns. “I’m not going just to - ”

“You can’t lie to me,” Techno says, not bothering to look at Ranboo while he says it.

This is one of Ranboo’s least favorite things about Techno. He’s always so smug about being right to the point he doesn’t feel the need to look over. It boils their blood because Techno usually is right, but they won’t give him the satisfaction of hearing that. “Die,” they say half-heartedly while pushing the door open.

Techno huffs and shakes his head in amusem*nt. “Have fun with your reunion.”

The door swings shut behind them. If they speedwalk (run, even) more than walk down the streets to the foundation, that’s no one’s business but their very own.

Sure, maybe they get to the building incredibly early, a whole fifteen minutes before the previous shift even ends. No one is in the lobby except for Ranboo and the few folks in the administration, so they take their time finding a good locker and inputting the custom code.

They will admit. Even though they were positive that no one else would be here at this hour, and even though they should be here for the purpose of others and not themself, their heart squeezes when they don’t see Tommy. They open the locker door and, before putting their purse in, take out their phone to check one last time for a message.

Nothing.

Is Tommy not back yet? Is he not on the campus? Is he not even in America? They could have sworn that he was coming back here for his sophom*ore year. They were sure they heard that. Maybe they somehow imagined that? Maybe their brain made up memories? If that’s the case, then Ranboo might never be able to recover from these record levels of pathetic they are currently reaching.

They sigh and tuck their phone back in their purse, shoving it in the locker and slamming it shut. Their hand lingers on the cool metal for a moment while they catch their breath, missing their friend so much that it manifests as a loss of breath.

Maybe this is just how it feels to care about someone to the extent they care about Tommy. Maybe they haven’t missed as badly as this before. Maybe this is why it feels weird and new and painful. Maybe this is normal.

(Maybe it’s not. Maybe it isn’t normal, some dastardly part of their mind whispers, but they shove the thought deep into the darkest pits of hell and find satisfaction when it reduces to nothing more than ash.)

They push away from the locker and resign themself for a fun couple of hours. It would be more fun with Tommy, a bitter part of their mind hisses, but they wave it away like wafting away noxious smoke.

They sit on one of the bench pews and slouch while waiting, the seconds ticking by like molasses dripping uphill. Their leg bounces, and they don’t bother to correct it. They cough, at first a small thing of one or two, but then they hold their fist over their mouth when it occupies the full force of their chest.

They should have brought their lozenges. God, why didn’t they bring their lozenges? Wait - they did bring them! They have some in their purse. “Some” meaning, an entire box worth of sheets. Hopefully they don’t get mistaken for drugs, even though technically they do count as drugs. They aren’t the bad kind.

They should probably find a more legitimate long-term solution to this. Grinding out cough drops can only work for so long. They push themself up from the bench, determined to listlessly stumble towards their locker and grab a lozenge and try to keep it a secret from the administration because they make people spit that stuff out (for good reason, but Ranboo doesn’t want to cough all over the food).

Before they even start, they stop. Rising to a full stand, turning for the general direction of the entrance, they watch someone walk through the doors. Blond hair, blue eyes, tall but not taller than Ranboo no matter how grieved he might be about that. He has an air about him like a newborn fawn walking for the first time, re-exploring the room (re-exploring America) like he’d never been before.

It shouldn’t feel like such a dramatic pin-drop moment that it is, but they can’t help but freeze while all the sound in their ears fades away. Their eyes widen, and they feel a tangible ripple in their chest with the swirl of happiness and ache they feel.

Tommy looks up and clocks into Ranboo being there, and he looks to have a similar reaction. His lips part like they do whenever he’s in true shock, and his eyebrows fly to the top of his head.

Why are either of them shocked? Sundays are their days. This place is their place. Ranboo and Tommy linger there in a standoff that lasts all of a few seconds before Tommy scrambles forward as fast as his legs will take him. Tommy’s sudden movement springs Ranboo into action, and they clamber over the back of the bench to meet him in the middle.

Tommy attacks them in a hug, which should have knocked the wind out of them, but instead it fills their lungs with fresh, truly enriching air. His arms loop around Ranboo’s back and squeezes tight like they’d never see each other again, and Ranboo finds themself reciprocating.

Ranboo feels that tightness in their chest loosen. No, not loosen. It entirely unfurls, releasing their circulatory system from the vice grip it had been in the entire summer. Oxygen rushes into their lungs, and they take a deep gasp, feeling their chest full of air for the first time in what feels like months, even if they know they’ve been able to breathe this entire time.

Ranboo feels like they can breathe easier with Tommy beside them, like the monster clawing at the inside of their esophagus is finally soothed with his presence by them. They completely forget about the lozenge, since they don’t even think they need it anymore. The second the pain goes, so does Ranboo’s memory of it, swept right under the rug and repressed and Ranboo is so ready to never think about it again.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy says with a thick voice, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry - my phone’s been having Internet issues since I landed - I - I couldn’t message - I’m sorry - ”

“It’s okay,” Ranboo breathes, (breathes they breathe, they can breathe and it feels right), patting Tommy on the back to calm him down. Warmth against their skin that isn’t synthetic or fabric or a flame licking up and trying to whip at them. Contact, truly, with a friend, someone they can be close to in this way, this way they show how they care, this way Tommy shows he cares. A real, palpable care. A palpable token of affection passed back and forth, unable to be mistaken for anything other than what it is.

Ranboo missed it. It’s been months of being like a thirsty man clawing their way desperately through the desert, the dust drying their throat and providing no nourishment. Now the air is clean and the water is fresh, and they don’t need to worry.

They receive and give the same currency of love, and Ranboo’s deposit has finally registered.

God, this is messy, isn’t it?

“It’s okay, Tommy,” Ranboo says, an absent smile on their face with the fact that they can address him directly again. “It’s fine. I was alright.” They weren’t.

Tommy finally pulls away, but Ranboo can’t complain. At least he sticks by. “Yeah. That’s good.”

“How was your trip?” Ranboo says to drive the topic to something more normal. (Normal, normal like they’re not. Normal like this problem isn’t. Normal like this illness isn’t, one that infects them and slowly suffocates them from the inside out. What? Why are they thinking that? What illness?)

Tommy and Ranboo sit down together on the benches, and their whole dramatic reunion had taken up so much time that most people are already in their seats now. “It was lovely,” Tommy says, a smile on his face. “The grass was all nice, and the trees. Mate, you could go in the forest and hear all these birds - it was so nice to get a complete disconnect from the world.”

“I’m sure,” Ranboo says, smiling in return even though their summer wasn’t nearly as extraordinary. “Did you do anything cool?”

“Well, there were a couple foxes that kept coming and going. I think they liked me.”

“Oh, really?”

Tommy gibbers on about his summer vacation, sharing hilarious stories of his family and woodland adventures, and Ranboo raptly listens, bouncing off what he says and not bothering to think about themself. It doesn’t feel like it matters when the breath of fresh air next to them is still talking.

The instructions begin, and both Tommy and Ranboo quiet down in respect to the people around them. The second they’re dismissed, Tommy grabs their hand and drags them to the warehouse. Together, they pull on their gloves and hairnets, docking at the same station (because why would they ever rip themselves away?).

“Let’s do the food!” Tommy says, already hopping on the stools. “C’mon - c’mon, Ranboo!”

Ranboo is about ready to join him, but they stop themself. “I don’t think that’s a good idea today,” Ranboo says, mindful of their cough. The last thing they want to do is make some random kids sick. Instead of stepping to the scooping stations, they dock at a measuring station instead.

Tommy doesn’t question it, dropping the measuring cups and joining Ranboo by heading to the second measuring station. “Alright, mate.”

And they begin.

“So how was your summer?” Tommy says, waiting for the funneler to pass the bag to him.

Ranboo really doesn’t want to think about it. “It was pretty chill,” they say in hopes to dismiss themself. They receive a bag and set it on the scale, sending it off when they see it within parameters.

“Chill how?” Tommy says, watching the next bag like a hawk until snatching it when it finally is in his range. “Don’t tell me you did nothing!”

“Not nothing,” Ranboo says, still trying to keep it brief. “I went to a couple local events. Nothing extraordinary. Hung out with some school friends, caught up on life. Planned for the future. Thinking about job opportunities. All that great stuff.” Please be bored. Please get bored and drop it.

Tommy, the bundle of joy that he is (Ranboo means that with an incredible amount of sarcasm, they want to glare daggers at him), does not drop it. “Local events? Like what?”

Focus on the fun stuff, Ranboo. “A concert or two. A couple bands I recognized came into town, so I went. Nothing that I was super hyped about, since they weren’t on my favorites list or anything, but they were some fun afternoons.”

“Anything I’d know?” Tommy says.

“There was a Good Kid performance, like, forty-five minutes from my house. It was actually really good. I’ve started listening to them a bit more since then.”

“Good Kid,” Tommy says under his breath, eyes narrowed in thought while he measures rice. He takes some out of the current bag and passes it on. “I think I’ve heard of them.”

“They’re a bit niche,” Ranboo says. “Definitely has the indie sound.”

“Alright guys,” the man packaging their boxes says, interrupting their conversations. “We filled our first box. Do we want to chant?”

Tommy, who had definitely grown into his skin last year, jumps back into that confidence. “Hell yeah. Wins for table Five.”

Together, their table shouts their triumph. Ranboo too, even though it strains their throat. Oh - on second thought, they should definitely not have shouted that.

They shove away the bag in their hands and hide their face in the crook of their elbow, shielding everything nearby from their incoming coughs. It isn’t too bad, just three or four, but they might as well be careful with it.

It doesn’t draw any concern from anyone at the table, or Tommy, which is what they were hoping for. They continue with their conversations and packing, performing the actions like a well-oiled machine. This stuff is easy to slip back into. School work? Not so much. Something tells them it’ll be harder this year to return to the typical swing of things, but then they decide that that’s no way to think.

Might as well push some optimism.

After their fifth box, which the table cheers extra loud for (table five box five, it’s obligatory to be more enthusiastic for that one), Ranboo’s cough is less of a small thing and more of a full-on attack.

Do they have asthma? Do they need an inhaler? Is that what this is? Oh god, that’s what this is. How did they not think of it before?

Instead of staying here with all the contaminatable surfaces, they push themself away from the table without a word and rush for the restroom. Tommy turns his head and watches them rush off, brows furrowed in concern.

Ranboo enters the restroom and doesn’t bother hiding in a stall, gripping the edges of a sink and coughing right into it. They expect something to come out, but it’s completely dry. Dry. Dry throat means cough. They need water.

Ranboo pushes away from the sink with the new objective of finding a water fountain, not noticing the tiny tuft that rests in the bowl.

Thankfully, a water fountain is mounted right next to the bathrooms, and they eagerly press the button to activate the water flow. It soothes the cough but tightens their chest more. Maybe they drank too much too fast. (Or maybe it’s something else entirely, but it can’t be. No. No no no.)

Their mind has been a scattered mess recently, and they don’t know what to make of it. Incomplete sentences swirl around their mind, indiscriminate feelings at things they should be apathetic to. It really is like going through puberty all over again: awkward and confusing, and they want it to stop, but they know they can’t do anything about it.

Their distress at random things is one of the many things they’ve been deciding to ignore. They don’t know how much longer the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ tactic will work for whatever this is. They can pretend to be ignorant just a little bit longer, so by all means will they pretend.

They return to their table with slow steps, each second that ticks by another thought that Ranboo discards. (Something deep within them, like some old survival instinct, knows the problem, but they reject it. They repress it. They keep it locked in a cage within the subconscious so that Ranboo never has the possibility of acknowledging it. It’s never within their field of vision, no matter how badly they’d like the answer.)

They feel like they can breathe easier by Tommy’s side, so they step to the table again, swapping places with the funneler to stand closer to him. It sounds ridiculous, but it works. They only cough one or two more times the entire shift, but they aren’t stupid enough to call out.

Tommy notices, but he decidedly doesn’t bring it up.

-

When the shift ends, Tommy latches onto Ranboo’s hand like he always does. Ranboo squeezes almost immediately after to keep him there, even though there isn’t much of a chance Tommy lets go the second he grabs on.

Together, they head for the lobby. They take off their gloves and nets and, rather than take a seat on the benches, Ranboo heads straight for their locker. They might need those lozenges after all.

Tommy follows. “So, are you alright?” He says.

“Why do you ask?” Ranboo says, face heating up slightly. They knew they weren’t subtle, but were they really that bad?

“You were coughing and then you ran off. You’re not ill, are you?”

“No,” Ranboo says, with a slight scoff in their voice, shocked by the audacity Tommy has to even suggest such a thing. “I wouldn’t come here while sick.”

Liar, their mind hisses to them. Dirty, dirty liar. They press their lips together to keep away the grimace when their chest tightens again, like a constrictor coiling around them and squeezing to punish them. Punish? Punish for what? For lying to Tommy?

“You know what?” Ranboo says on impulse. What? What are they doing? Why are they still talking? “I have been coughing a lot recently. I don’t know, but I might be coming down with something. But it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t come, you know?”

With the truth comes a relief, pressure instantly off their shoulders. Usually, such a pressure is more metaphorical, but they suppose consequences get more real as they grow up.

Tommy’s lips twist in thought. Before Ranboo can step away from the lockers, Tommy brings them in for another hug. He’s gentler this time, more mindful of Ranboo’s pain, so he doesn’t squeeze. That by no stretch of the imagination means that the hold is loose - no. He hooks on like he’d never leave. Ranboo hopes he never does, since they missed the feeling of being able to breathe without the extra life support that is company.

“Don’t you care if you catch it?” Ranboo says, finally returning it with equal vigor.

“Not at all,” Tommy says.

The assurance that Tommy won’t leave again (leave like he did over the summer, leaving Ranboo breathless for far too long), is like an open door to freedom. Whatever might have been stirring inside them falls away with a final few coughs, and now they are confident that this isn’t something they need to worry about anymore.

-

Routine sets back in. They go to orientation, they attend lectures, they clock into Silver Theaters, they unpack the rest of their belongings, they do work, they sleep, and they spend time with Tommy.

The cough comes and goes throughout the week, sometimes reaching peak levels of concern and other times absent enough that Ranboo can completely forget about it. With the dozens of other things on their plate, it somehow gets easier to deal with the ailment rather than harder.

They wait until midnight to head into the laundry room on their floor, since usually no one else is there at that hour. They carry their load in a plastic bag, dump it into the washer, enter the quarter into the slot, and pour the appropriate amount of detergent. They had brought their laptop so they could do work in the room while keeping an eye on their clothes. It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to steal them. They like to play it safe.

Alone in a room lit up by LEDs, where the window outside shows an inky night, they sigh and grab their phone to take a quick break from this reading assignment. The words had started to blur together, and no amount of rubbing their eyes was waking them up enough to power through it. The second this load finishes, they need to head to bed.

They check the clock on the dryer. Twelve minutes. That’s fine. Productivity currently slips from their grasp, so goofing off for twelve minutes shouldn’t kill them. Instead of scrolling through Instagram or something stupid like that, they head into their camera roll.

They see some photos of information from lectures that Ranboo was too lazy to write down at the moment, some videos for film-related classes, and the occasional meme Technoblade sent that they had saved.

They see images of them and Tommy there too. Hanging out on Sundays, going out to eat, finding the most ridiculous places to do the most ridiculous things.

An unintentional smile quirks their lips up when they see the video of Tommy tossing rocks into the beach. Ranboo had been sitting on the sand watching him from a distance, since the walk there had tired them out. The stars don’t show up well on the video - in fact, not at all - but the moon does. It gives the video a little bit of color, especially the ocean.

Something that seems to be a theme with them - other than Sunday Serve Days - is beach nights. Ranboo wouldn’t trade those times for anything in the world.

Ranboo keeps scrolling through the photos, watching a video of the two of them (Ranboo and Tommy) at a themed event. The musicians were playing jazz, and Ranboo had the honor and privilege of recording the way Tommy’s nose wrinkled up and his lip pulled into a sneer. “Zero out of five. Would not recommend.”

That was a fun time. They scroll through all the pictures of them at the event, most of them being Tommy screwing around with the camera and taking a million close-ups of Ranboo.

There is the rare nice photo where Tommy smiles and stands straight for Ranboo to take a photo, - “I want it done by the professional!” Tommy had said, shoving the camera back to them. Ranboo favorites those and moves on.

They and Tommy hang out at interesting places whenever the opportunity arises, and with fall break coming up soon, they have a golden chance to do something extra special.

A cough stutters dryly out of their mouth like an old engine failing to start, and they hold their chest, setting their phone down to brace themself against the seat. Ranboo digs into their pocket and pulls out a lozenge, peeling back the sheet and popping it in their mouth. Their tongue starts tingling with that familiar numbness, but it soothes their throat enough to tolerate the cough.

The machine beeps. They take a second to brace themself before pushing up, opening the door and pulling out all the clothes. After grabbing the sheet, they collect the accumulated dust and throw it away. The last thing they need is a fire hazard.

-

Work is work. People are mostly fine, except for the occasional nuisance. Niki had welcomed them back at the beginning of the year, and so did their manager, and things have already returned to their normal swing by this point. The rhythm. The normal rhythm, plus the occasional cough and the pop of a drop.

The cough doesn’t get better. The cough doesn’t get worse. Its severity remains mostly stagnant, all things considered. When burdened with several classes, a job, and a social life to maintain, it becomes another one of those things they deal with on a day to day basis. Like anxiety or debt. Just another thing. Nothing else.

They plan to let the routine grind them into fine powder until the end of the school year, but Tommy is determined to break them away from any sense of normalcy.

Ranboo goes along with it because of course they do. Tommy barges into their room one weeknight like he owns the place (he always acts like he owns the place, wherever he may be). Techno doesn’t even bat an eye, already getting used to Tommy’s Tommyisms. “Sup.”

Ranboo saves their work and turns in their seat to greet Tommy with a flippant wave. “Hey, Tom. What’s up?”

“No one told me fall break would be during Halloween this year!” Tommy says, a bright smile on his face. He wanders further into the room, and the door swings shut behind him. He sits on Ranboo’s bed like he belongs there and continues gibbering on. “We have to do something. The three of us. C’mon. Group costume. We can be the three blind mice.”

“I would rather die than go as a mouse for Halloween,” Techno says.

Tommy scowls. “I don’t see you coming up with any ideas.”

“I won’t bother,” Techno says, finally shutting off his phone to push himself up in bed and look at them while he speaks. “I’m not going. I’m heading back home for break.”

“Oh,” Tommy says, but he doesn’t sound disappointed. He turns to Ranboo with a sunny smile. “Then it’s just you and me. We have to think of the best duo costumes ever, Boob.”

Ranboo’s lips twist into a smile that they don’t intend. Tommy still isn’t giving up with that? “If you say so, Redcoat.”

Tommy’s eyes shimmer with an idea. “You’re a genius.”

“What? What did I say?”

-

And that’s how they get to where they are now.

Ranboo and Tommy pose in front of the mirror like Jojo characters, and Ranboo had been tasked with the job of photographing them.

Tommy has on the red coat that Ranboo had gotten him for Christmas, as well as a dress shirt, briefs, knee-high socks, and buckled shoes. His blond hair (he had recently gotten a haircut specifically for this occasion, because apparently clean hair makes for a more 1700’s British look? Ranboo denies it and says a powdered wig would complete the look, and Tommy proceeds to start listing the ways Ranboo could come to a tragic Revolutionary Era death) curls naturally and completes the look. Tommy, at least in Ranboo’s opinion, wears it exceptionally well.

Ranboo feels less confident in their own outfit, but Tommy assures them that it suits them. They wear the buckled hat and spurred boots that Tommy had gotten them for Christmas, but they include a denim vest and a white collar shirt, purposefully leaving the vest unbuttoned for that authentic western look. They bought a frayed belt specifically for this occasion that includes a hilariously noticeable buckle and a gun sheath. A toy gun rests in the sheath, and a pair of cargo pants paints Ranboo as the stereotypical cowboy.

A cowboy and a redcoat, together on Halloween. What more could they ask for? Ranboo takes the photos and sends them off to Tommy, who gushes about them and sets his favorite at his wallpaper right then and there.

Ranboo drives them to the nearby Halloween festival, and Tommy colonizes the aux cord (already in character, okay Tommy) to play his spooky playlist. They proceed to have the simultaneously worst and best karaoke session in the car. Ranboo doesn’t even care about how bad the traffic is, or that this is the fifth red light in a row they’ve hit, because it just means more time spent in this moment.

Tommy belts the songs out with all the power in his lungs, and Ranboo wishes they could match that energy. Instead, they sing more carefully as a bass to Tommy’s melody, but the songs are fun nonetheless.

After all of Thriller, Sympathy for the Devil, and This is Halloween, Ranboo bursts into coughs because of how immersed they’d gotten into the last song. They hold a hand to their mouth and hold the wheel with one hand, flipping the turn signal with their pinkie. “Okay, okay,” they say, turning right at the light. Once they finish coughing, their hand fumbles around the center console for a cough drop. “You’re singing solo for the next song. I need a break.” They absently rub their hand over their throat to soothe it. It isn’t very effective, but they hope Placebo Effect kicks in eventually.

“Oh.” Tommy scrolls through his song list with a look of distaste. “By myself?”

“You’re not that bad, Tommy,” Ranboo says, eyes scanning the road. They should be riding into the festival any minute now. “You’ve been singing this entire time. What’s the difference?”

Tommy, after a moment of deliberation, puts on some Stevie Wonder. Ranboo listens to Tommy’s fantastic rendition of Superstitious, which starts as a feat of humor where Tommy forces some grunge into his voice for comedic effect. As the song goes on, that impression melts away to introduce genuine effort, Tommy playing showoff with his choirboy skills and harmonizing with the radio speakers.

Ranboo smiles and fumbles for their phone once they reach a red light, catching film of Tommy’s performance. Tommy doesn’t notice, too immersed in the song. A redcoat singing Superstitious by Stevie Wonder - a modern classic.

By the time the song ends, Ranboo puts the phone away to make sure Tommy doesn’t notice it. Tommy has a broad grin on his face by the end, and Ranboo turns into the lot of the festival.

Once they exit the car, Ranboo applauds. “Couldn’t have done it better, Tommy.”

“Shut up.”

They wander around the festival looking at merchant stalls, playing a few games, and taking photos with whoever’s costumes look cool enough to pique their interest. It feels more like a carnival or a convention than a festival. Tommy surprises Ranboo with a rainbow-winged bat that he’d won from one of the games (“rigged games,” Tommy was insistent on repeating, “rigged games that I won because my skill is simply unmatched”).

Ranboo returns the favor by buying a small Jack Skellington and Sally figurine for Tommy. “It’s us,” they say, passing it off to him with a smile.

Tommy smiles back, taking it and cradling it carefully in his hands. “Because we both like to explore new things together?”

Ranboo’s smile curls with playful malice. “Because I’m taller than you.”

Every trace of fondness or sap drops from Tommy’s face instantly, and he scowls. He makes the motion like he wants to toss the figurine away, but his hand tightens on it to make sure it doesn’t fall and break.

Tommy eventually forgives the insult and takes Ranboo’s hand, excitedly dragging them through the streets when he spots a haunted house in the distance. “I’ve always wanted to go into one of these!”

Ranboo follows Tommy with an exasperated look on their face. Even then, they still smile. The satchel (since a purse would not fit with the western theme) slung around their shoulder swings behind them, the little bat poking its head out the top. “Really?! You’ve never done a haunted house before?!” Ranboo coughs, but they manage to get it all out quick enough that their run doesn’t stall. “We need a detour. A haunted house is a mandatory bucket list item.”

They stand in line and wait for their turn, staring at the rickety, dark exterior of the house. Haphazardly nailed planks board up the windows, the dark wood shrouds the house in shadows, and the mood lighting gives the building a menacing air. They watch groups sprint out while screaming like routine, going in and rushing out.

Tommy buzzes in place, laughing every time the side gate swings open and strangers in silly costumes scream bloody murder. Ranboo smiles and takes candids of Tommy with the backdrop of the horror house, doing their best to make sure no other people intrude the scene.

They wish it looked more thematic, but seeing a British soldier from the eighteenth century grinning by a modern day Halloween attraction breaks all immersion and mystique. Thanks, Tommy.

Finally, they get their turn. The person in charge of leading people in - dressed as a murderous clown, laughing maniacally and purposefully acting as insane as possible - takes Tommy by the elbow, shoving him harshly inside. Ranboo follows with a gait after them, hand hovering over their gun sheath.

“Okay, okay, Ranboo,” Tommy says, fumbling for Ranboo’s hand in the darkness before they properly make progress in the house. Ranboo helps him by slotting their hand in his. Tommy squeezes. A long hallway stretches before them, a bend at the end to guide them to the right. The fog carries swirls of green, red, and black light across the unstable wood walls. “If we’re going to do this, we’re doing it right.”

Ranboo squeezes in return, absorbing the very busy scenery that is the first hallway. Patches and holes line the wood - purposeful, they’re sure - and they can already predict the way something’s head pops out at them through it. “And what constitutes ‘doing it right?’”

“In. Character,” Tommy says, glaring at Ranboo intensely. The colors bathe Tommy’s pale skin in the same splotchy chaos it does the room, but Ranboo doesn’t look away. “I’m Randy Redcoat.”

Ahh. They see the way the game is played. Ranboo’s face hardens with assurance, and they nod. “Then I’m Connie Cowboy,” Ranboo says, coaxing the deepest tones of their voice out to speak in a convincing western drawl.

Tommy’s face breaks, the ghost of a smile flickering over it for a moment, but he clears his throat to resume character. He nods and parades forward, one step after the other. Ranboo follows, pulling the toy gun from their pocket and narrowing their eyes at their surroundings while waving it around.

“Right, what’s all this then?” Tommy says, putting on a more obnoxious British accent atop his authentic one. His hands curl around a gaping hole in the wood, and he sticks his eye into it. Surprisingly, nothing happens. “We continue our investigation, soldier.”

“Sounds jus’ fine with me, chief,” Ranboo says, wary about everything around them. “Some devil’s bound to pop outta here any second now.”

They wander carefully through the sinuous halls, a small confined space where Tommy leads the way and Ranboo must follow his trail.

Ranboo’s hair stands on end when they hear a cackle. They swivel just fast enough to catch sight of a murderous clown at the opposite end of the hall where they had just come, grinning up a storm while holding something behind their back. “To - Randy,” Ranboo says, taking careful steps back and pushing Tommy along with them.

Tommy turns and finally notices, gripping Ranboo’s shoulder and hiding behind them. “Dear god.”

The clown pulls a chainsaw from behind them, revving it with a look of profound sad*stic joy on his face.

“What in tarnation?!” Ranboo screams, scrambling to push past Tommy.

At the same time, Tommy shouts, “what in the queen’s golden crown?!” He almost falls, but the narrowness of the winding passage helps him brace himself. The clown makes a break for it, chasing them down while swinging around the chainsaw.

Ranboo grabs Tommy’s forearm without thinking about it, running through the halls and sliding with every twist and turn. The clown is hot on their tail, but they don’t stop until they finally make it to the outside. The backyard.

Ranboo crumbles. They release Tommy, back knocking into a wall when they go weak with coughs. Their hand reaches up to clutch their chest, and the coughs themselves take the entire force of their lungs, harsh and crunchy.

Tommy, who had been smiling from the thrill, adrenaline still pumping through his blood, suddenly sobers up. “Hey, hey, Ranboo,” he says with rushed, feverish words, grabbing at Ranboo’s wrists to get their attention. He drops the silly names and ignores their characters. “Are you alright?.”

Ranboo rips a hand away from Tommy’s hold and reaches into their pocket, pulling out a lozenge. They stuff it in their mouth and try to even their breaths into a rhythm.

Tommy watches with wary eyes, gaze darting around in search of danger (like daring the next attraction to come out and scare them, threatening whoever stares that if they want to reach them, they have to go through Tommy first).

“I’m fine,” Ranboo says once they’ve finally gathered themself again. Their mouth numbs and the cough subsides. “I just needed a second.”

Tommy doesn’t look too sure, but he continues on. “If you say so, Connie.”

They resume the game, taking in their surroundings and trying to figure out their next direction. The current backyard (with wood structure around to box them in) is constructed in such a way that they can only go right. The left is a closed gate. The fog twists in the air in front of them, blurring their vision. Every step forward is a leap of faith.

Tommy leads again to give Ranboo a break, which turns out to be a horrible idea. At about the halfway point down the next passage, Ranboo feels goosebumps once more, thanks to instinct rather than sense. “Randy?” They say, going stiff and playing up their fear.

Tommy turns around, and his eyes go wide with terror.

Ranboo keeps themself from laughing with this next one. “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?” With a dramatic turn of their head, they see a lady with a fully white body, as white as paint, with dark hair draped over her face. Her bony fingers with talonlike ends latch onto their denim vest. When Ranboo feels it, they screech loud and high enough to summon dogs, leaping three feet in the air to get away from her.

Okay. Darkness is easy peasy. Clowns, Ranboo can do. Even murderous ones with chainsaws. Coughs? Not that scary, just a nuisance.

But a yurei from The Ring? That’s where Ranboo draws the line.

They don’t care if they sound like a little girl, they sprint out of there and leave Tommy in the dust. Tommy’s shriek harmonizes with their own, and soon both collapse over each other while trying to get away from her.

They keep the lozenge in their mouth by tucking it under their tongue, forcing away any incoming coughs with the sheer force of their will until they have a free moment to catch their breath.

The next section gives them free range of the rest of the backyard. The typical cobwebs and coffins decorate the space with a traditional Halloween vibe, and Ranboo soon feels more comfortable in their skin once Tommy brushes himself off and grabs their hand again. “Lead the way, you dirty American.”

Ranboo scoffs, but guides them through the backyard, glancing absently around at the Dollar Store decorations. “Hey. This American wins the war.”

“This American,” Tommy says pointedly, shoving his index finger into Ranboo’s chest. “Screamed and ran away from a little girl.”

Ranboo presses their lips together to restrain a smile, face heating up, but they grant Tommy this victory.

Then they run around the bend, they see an entire band of murderous clowns right there waiting for them. Some have chainsaws, others have skewers with fake limbs impaled on them, and one goes classic with a butcher knife.

Tommy tugs Ranboo backward, and they run back through the yard, back through the passage where the girl was. The closed gate earlier is now open, providing them escape from the half-dozen band of maniacs raging for them.

They scream just like everyone else as they run out, but this scream is more one of the excited whimsy that comes with a good scare.

“So,” Ranboo says, catching their breath and trying not to choke on the cough drop. Despite the burning in their chest, they smile. “How would you rate your first haunted house experience?”

“Nine out of ten,” Tommy says, a laugh pushing the edge of his voice. “The only thing that could have improved it was getting a video of that scream.”

“Look - I’m terrified of The Ring, okay?!”

-

Ranboo and Tommy stand face to face beside Ranboo’s car at an hour too late to be just. The street lights buzz with its obnoxious yellow all across the neighborhood, and neither of them know what to say to break the moment. It isn’t awkward, but it lingers. Ranboo is content to let it be, standing here with Tommy on a cool night doing something that doesn’t exhaust their lungs, but Tommy does not sympathize.

Tommy falls onto Ranboo more than he attacks him, his arms folding around them naturally instead of seeking out the path of least resistance to curl around. No words pass between them, but Ranboo feels heat blooming in their cheeks, warding away the cold that had been biting the surface of their skin. Their hands hang stiffly in the air with the same ineptitude they had had the first time Tommy did this. An incredulous breath rolls from past their lips, freezing in the air of the chilly night to create a physical representation of their shock.

Tommy, this time, isn’t deterred by Ranboo’s stunned reception, instead only holding on tighter, arms coiling around them like trying to fasten in the most secure way should someone come along and try to pry him off. “I worry about you, mate,” he says, voice dim in the tender moment. Tender, tender like a fresh wound. Tender like something that should not be touched, yet here they are, touching it. Poking it. Clawing at it. “Please,” he breathes.

His words melt a bit of the ice away, ice that had intruded in on Ranboo’s muscles and stuck their joints in place, and now they finally return the hold. Once their hands land on Tommy’s back, they find they need to hide from all the dangers in the world. They curl down and bury their face in the crook between Tommy’s shoulder and neck. Their eyes squeeze shut to push the sting away. Maybe if their eyes stay shut, they don’t need to acknowledge the threat of tears at all. “Please, what?” They say, knowing damn right what Tommy is referring to.

Tommy sounds so fragile, and Ranboo isn’t used to it. Their heart squeezes with the thought that they are the one responsible for this. If only they were okay. If only Ranboo was okay, Tommy wouldn’t have to be in strife over it. And Tommy’s strife over it keeps Ranboo from being okay, since their heart squeezes and tugs and hurts every time they see that worried ache in his eyes. Ranboo lives in the world’s cruelest cycle, and poor unfortunate Tommy was caught in the crossfire. Why Tommy? Why someone they care about to the most profound depths of their heart?

“I know you’re not okay,” Tommy whispers, hesitating with releasing each word into the world, because he knows once he lets them out he can’t take them back. Once he lets them out, it becomes real, because both of them have heard it.

Ranboo isn’t okay. Ranboo isn’t okay, and both of them know it. Ranboo isn’t okay, and nothing can be done.

Ranboo, the pathetic little bastard that they are, finds no words to adequately express how sorry they are. They’re sorry they aren’t okay. They’re sorry they couldn’t be better. Instead of spitting all this out, an inadequate representation of their true feelings, they nod.

With their fingers pressed against the fabric of Tommy’s red coat (if the moment had even a morsel of humor in it, the fact that a cowboy and a redcoat are clutching tightly onto each other at midnight might cheer them up), they ground themself, trying not to float away while they’re needed in the moment. Their throat hurts, and their heart hurts, and everything hurts.

This is their brother. This is someone they care about to the point their heart punishes them for it. This is where their cowardice becomes their greatest enemy. Never would they dare explore the concept of this relationship (this family, Ranboo’s heart spits hatefully, hate towards Ranboo, hate towards Ranboo at their stupidity), for fear of it slipping away between their fingers like the fine sands of the beach.

What will be will be. This cannot be a family. Tommy wouldn’t appreciate it. Tommy would be uncomfortable, despite Ranboo feeling the most comfortable they ever have pressed close to him, finally able to breathe again.

Nothing they ever say will accurately convey the palpable ripples of affection in their chest when Tommy behaves unabashedly like himself, because Ranboo is in awe of what makes Tommy Tommy. It leaves them…

Breathless.

How evil.

“I know,” Ranboo says, sounding choked. They hate the vulnerability in their voice, but they won’t do anything to impede their airflow (which unfortunately means letting themself shake and stammer and cry no matter how disgusting they view themself). “I know.”

Tommy, finally with a response, feels free to take his turn to speak. “I… I care about you, Ranboo.”

Their chest tightens like a snake had slid down their throat and coiled around their organs and constricted. Their chest tightens and their eyes fly open, and they lurch forward, shuddering breathlessly from the nauseating combination of lightheaded love, cold air, and physical torment. “Stop,” they say, the word sounding like it had struggled to claw out their throat, like hands squeeze around their neck until the fingerprints etch themselves into skin as nasty marks.

Contrary to their word, their fingers dig into Tommy’s coat to hook him there, to keep him trapped, almost, with Ranboo’s misery pressed against him (selfish, how selfish, and the snake burrows deeper, teasing their ribs with its fangs).

“I won’t,” Tommy says, bold although shaken. “I’ll never - ”

Tighter, ever tighter, like a rope tugged taut waiting to snap. They wheeze and have the desperate urge to push Tommy away and pull him impossibly closer at the same time. They aren’t sure which one is instinct and which one would help. They don’t care. They keep him close. “Stop,” they say even then, the desperation in their voice so utterly pathetic they almost wish the toy gun was a real one so they could finish the job here and now. “Stop, stop it,” they plead, voice grating with rawness. They scrabble at Tommy, unsure of what they want. They tug at Tommy’s cloak, unsure of what they need. “Please, stop.” Stop doing this to me. Whatever it is you’re doing. Make it end.

Tommy stops. He doesn’t move, but he clicks his jaw shut and leaves them both in silence. Well, silence, other than Ranboo’s occasional sharp intakes of breath, shuddery inhales, or harsh hacks.

They stand there for an indiscriminate amount of time, swaying back and forth and holding on like they are each other's lifeline.

Chapter 9: Diagnosis

Chapter Text

Ranboo picks up the scrap pieces of trash lying around the dorm, chucking them into the trash can. They look through drawers and the corners of their desks, making sure they sweeper the whole place thoroughly. “Do you have anything you want me to toss?”

Techno, currently immersed in his Skywars game, doesn’t look over. Instead, he pulls his headset to hang around his neck. “Heh?”

“Trash?” Ranboo says while combing the floor with their eyes, not bothering to repeat the whole sentence.

“Oh. Yeah. Make sure you check in the bathroom.”

“Dear god,” Ranboo says under their breath. “Last time you had me clean up there - ” a furious cough interrupts their words, and they release the can to cover their mouth with their elbow. Usually, the coughs go away after a few seconds, but the hacking proceeds through the next couple minutes.

Techno properly takes off his headphones and sets them on the desk, turning around in his chair. “Dude,” he says, brows furrowed. “Have you been smoking or something?”

A laugh cuts through Ranboo’s rasps, only further increasing the burden their throat must carry. “You sound like my mom.”

“I couldn’t give a damn what you do, as long as you ain’t smoking inside, but I’m just curious. I’ve been seeing you popping stuff too. Is it legal? ‘Cause I don’t care about that either, but I really don’t want to be guilty by association - ”

“Techno!” Ranboo says through a strained voice, hands braced against their desk while they wheeze with an ugly mix of laughter and coughs. “Techno, shut up!”

“I’m just saying! You’ve been coughing so much. I wasn’t going to bring it up - ”

“I’m not smoking,” Ranboo says firmly once they have a grasp over their breathing once more. “That stuff’s bad for you, man. Plus, I think I might just drop dead if I smoked with this cough.”

“What is it, then?” Techno says, purposefully jumping off the Skywars island to devote more attention to the conversation. That’s how Ranboo knows that he’s really concerned.

“No clue,” Ranboo says, grabbing the can and walking over to Techno to survey his desk. They can never be too sure on trash day - they head all the way out to the large community bins just to see a huge wrapper that they had forgotten to grab on their way out. Infuriating.

“You should probably go see a doctor,” Techno says, craning his neck up to meet Ranboo’s eye.

A beat of silence passes between them, in which both of them realize that Ranboo is not going to the doctor for this.

“Nah. Having a guy in a white coat tell me I’ve got asthma or something is not worth the bill.”

“Fair enough.”

Ranboo knew it. A small, crumpled sticky note rests at the other end of Techno’s keyboard. They reach forward to grab it. “I knew there would be something - ”

Techno interrupts them instantly with an impolite uproar that catches them off guard. “Did you brush your teeth this morning?”

Ranboo’s brows furrow, and they quickly pull a considerable distance away from Techno, chucking the crumpled paper into the trash can. Heat rises to their cheeks with the humiliating shame of such a suggestion. “Of course!” It’s part of the morning routine. Ranboo wouldn’t skip it.

“Did you eat something, then?” Techno says, nose wrinkled and lips pulled to the side.

“Uhh, some cereal,” Ranboo says, heading for the bathroom and sweeping in all the old tissues and plastic wraps. They take their own tablet sheet, empty, and toss that in too.

“Why does your breath smell like onion?”

“What?” They set the can down again to hold their hand to their mouth, exhaling onto their palm. “Wait, what?”

“Is it because of the stuff you’re putting in your mouth?” Techno calls, voice louder so Ranboo can hear him from the other room.

Ranboo pulls the bag from the trash can and ties it securely with a double-knot, taking another bag from the roll and fitting it on the can before they grab the full bag again. “I don’t think so. That stuff tastes violently like benadryl. That artificial cherry all the medicine companies use, y’know?”

Techno hums, but he doesn’t sound too sure. “Just letting you know.”

Ranboo hesitates before leaving the room, but they take a new sheet of lozenges from the box on the sink counter and stuff it in their purse before heading out the door, even if in theory they only have a journey to the bins and back.

They toss the trash up, wander around campus hoping some fresh air circulates easier in their lungs than the stale air of the dorm, and open the new sheet. They toss one in, gritting their teeth when they cough even as the soothing numbing liquid trickles down their throat.

Maybe they can ask their pharmacist for an inhaler or something? But insurance might not cover it if they don’t have a diagnosis… augh. Decisions and troubles.

They idly tap away at their phone while taking the path back to their dorm. Tommy texts them on the way, and they find themself smiling. Finally, something good in their day. Tommy asks how Ranboo is, because he’s been almost doting with the amount he checks in on Ranboo since Halloween, and Ranboo responds saying that they’re just fine.

Liar. Liar. Dirty liar. Their chest constricts again, so strongly and so suddenly that they freeze where they stand. The phone almost falls out of their hand, but their fingers tighten around it with enough force to suffocate a rodent. All the air rushes out of their lungs and leaves their head light. The taste of numbness in their mouth echoes throughout their body, and they hear a buzzing in their ears.

They rush, almost feverishly, to text Tommy, telling him the truth.

Ranboo: The cough is still bad.

Instantly, relief washes over them. They sigh and look around, but no one has given them any dirty looks. Strangers focus too much on their own business.

Tommy: :(

Tommy: are you feeling ill again?

Ranboo tries to brush it off again, but their body won’t let them. Why?

Ranboo: I think so.

Ranboo: I might have to get around to finally talking to someone about it

Every truth makes them feel marginally better, but none of them solve the problem.

Tommy: it’s about time.

Tommy: smh

Ranboo huffs at Tommy’s weak attempt to cheer them up. Tommy made an attempt, and that was enough to soften their heart.

Ranboo: ill call my mother first and see how she feels about it

Tommy: kk

Ranboo heads back into their dorm and turns the lozenge around in their mouth with their tongue while they debate what to do until work. They already attended their two lectures for the day, and they have an hour until they need to head to the car, and they aren’t in the mood to eat.

Ahh. Screw it. They toss another lozenge in their mouth, lie in their bed, and take a power nap. Hopefully this will be enough to power them through the rest of the day while they toss over in their head what to do.

Techno wakes them up in time to slap on their uniform and get to work.

Before heading out the door, they peel back the foil to grab another lozenge, and Technoblade’s sudden booming voice almost makes them drop it. “Ranboo,” Techno says with a sharp sincerity, almost critical. Scratch that, definitely critical. “You need to stop taking those.”

Ranboo holds up the lozenge with an air of confusion about them. “What? This?” Ranboo, just to be spiteful, pops it in their mouth without another thought. “You worry too much.”

Before Techno can retaliate, they glide out the dorm, letting the door shut behind them.

They drive, clock in, get assigned their position for the day, and stand behind the counter. Their index finger taps boredly against it with a dull tink, tink, tink.

Niki, who had volunteered for janitorial today, visits their counter, broom and pale in hand. A crease in her brow lets Ranboo know that they won’t be free of interrogations even at work. “Are you feeling okay?”

They groan and bury their face in their hands. “Do I make it that obvious?”

Niki’s crease melts away when she manages to find a bit of humor in the situation. “Yeah. Yeah, you really do.”

Ranboo pulls the sheet out of their pocket (they had stuffed it in because they knew they would need it) and uses the plastic to push the drop past the foil. They sneak it into their mouth and suck on it, sighing in relief when any cough building up fades away.

A faint swirl of nausea twists their stomach into knots, and a fist knocks restlessly against their head, but these sensations are barely a distant thought. They don’t concern themself with it once people start heading through.

The routine of work is enough to distract Ranboo from taking too many more, since they’re too busy talking. The occasional cough is seen as a momentary nuisance rather than the hands and feet of a much larger problem.

“Hi, excuse me,” a teenager says, stepping up to the counter with shaky hands and a few bills in hand. “How big is a medium bag of popcorn?”

Ranboo spins on their heel and gestures with their arm to the display of sizes, a small, medium, and large bag framed next to each other. “About that big,” they say, pointing to the bag in the middle. Sure, maybe a bit dry, but they aren’t in the mood right now.

Something feels wrong. Their stomach rumbles even though they had had plenty to eat (they ate a bagel on the way here, on the realization that they had not yet had lunch) and the world feels slightly tilted on its axis. The itch climbs up their throat again, like a tiny monster hooking its claws into their flesh and making calculated incisions to irritate them the most before bursting out their mouth in an unelegant display of unwellness.

The teen looks shocked at how abruptly the coughs assault their throat, especially at the severity that they do. Ranboo braces against the glass counter, seeing spit splatter onto the smooth surface under them, and they grab at their neck like they could grab the cough and forcefully shut it up.

Somehow - be it instinct that lets them know, or common sense - they realize this one is worse. They feel a thickness in their throat unlike anything they’ve ever experienced, like spicy cotton shoved forcefully to the bottom of their esophagus. They pound their fist against the counter like physically expressing their pain would somehow soothe it, but surprisingly, it doesn’t. All it does is garner the worried eyes of everyone in line as well as Niki, who had been at the opposite end of the room.

She releases the handle of the broom and pail and speedwalks across the room to save the situation. “Ranboo!” She calls out. “So sorry,” she says quickly with a customer-service smile to the strangers, hardly spending any time on them. Some things concern her more than business. “Ranboo, are you - ”

“Break,” they manage to sputter out, the word broken up by hacks and strains.

Niki nods, like the angel she is, so they don’t have to force anything else out of themself. They stagger away from the counter, and everyone in the line watches in concern rather than annoyance.

They stumble into the closest bathroom to them, the mens room, and grips onto the sink counter to steady themself. The world spins and swirls, and they heave to only feel no air pass into their lungs. Something is blocking it. It needs to come out. It needs to come out, so for once, they encourage the coughs, hacking and sputtering with all the force they can muster until release reaches them.

Instead of something typical, like some mucus or maybe even blood (blood would no doubt be a concern, but at least there would be explanations), little purple tufts are shot out of their mouth with the force of their hacking. Some stick to their tongue, and they tug the handle of the sink violently to activate the faucet, not giving a damn when burning hot water scalds their tongue.

Their knees feel weak, but they manage to hold themself up, spitting out the strange purple substance (why do they taste an overwhelming amount of onion, all of a sudden) and gasping for air.

The light oppresses their eyes to the point they have to close them, that fist now a nail bashed repeatedly with a hammer against the most vulnerable point of their skull. They groan, knees finally buckling to send Ranboo straight to the ground. Wet hands sprawl out to catch them on the dirty tile floor, and they heave deep breaths, the tips of their hair sopping wet and joining the puddle. The water continues running.

They hear the pounding of their heart in their ears, more of a threat than anything. Their eyes go wide, and they cough more, trembling hands with curled fingers reaching weakly up to cradle whatever it is.

They feel soft against their skin. They have the faintest odor of a spice. Their color is gorgeous, they admit in their pained delirium, but they fear that they know what these little things are.

Petals.

Ranboo gags, lurching forward and folding over themself. Their body shudders with the horror of it, and that bagel they’d eaten on the way over here comes climbing back up their gullet. They manage to swallow it back down, but the horror of it remains.

Deep gasps, panicked breaths, like trying to steal as much from the atmosphere as possible before their supply of oxygen is ripped away forever, helps in zeroing in their field of view. The edges of their vision grow dark because they feel hurt and alone and so small, so scared, like a little kid trying to sleep after seeing a scary shadow.

Except the threat this brings is all too real.

With a fumbling hand, they reach for their pocket, ripping open the foil on the sheet. Several lozenges fall out with the aggressive vigor they employ, and their hand scratches at the tile like a wild animal to catch even one in their clutches.

They throw it into their mouth like this would save them, like it would fix everything, but they know it won’t. It inflames them. It makes it all worse, and god, why does it make it all worse? Each trickle of sedation curls in their stomach and spoils into something grotesque. They gag once more, this time with the overwhelming force of reflex to make things a thousand times worse.

They can’t breathe. They can’t see. They can’t understand. The jaws of terror loom right behind them, waiting for them to trip so the monster of their own creation can rip them apart thread by thread, tendon by tendon.

They see blooms of red and yellow in their vision (yellow? Why are they seeing yellow? What is happening? Ranboo is powerless. Ranboo is utterly powerless to this invisible force crushing them under the pressure of a million burdens, all two-hundred and six of their bones primed to splinter simultaneously), and they whimper in fright. Are they dying?

Ranboo needs to cry out for help. They need someone to rip the vines out of their chest, rip the petals out of their throat, rip their heart out of their body. They need to be fixed, and they try to push words. They try to articulate, and they can’t.

All that they manage is a pitiful cry of pain, not much different to a sad puppy.

A voice rings in their ear, and Ranboo genuinely believes that their brain makes it up. Even as the voice cries out in concern, asking them if they’re okay, if they need medical attention, they curl into themself.

Even when the stranger pulls them up by the shoulder, shouting at them, trying to make eye contact, Ranboo is unresponsive.

The only thing Ranboo notes in sharp detail is the look of horror on the man’s face, a man Ranboo has never seen before. He must have simply wanted to go to the bathroom, but here he is on his knees desperately shouting at Ranboo for the slightest token of acknowledgement. He never gets it. The color drains from his face, skin pale as a sheet, and terror brims in his widened eyes. If they get that reaction from a stranger, then they can only imagine how they must look.

The rest of it is a blur.

The man calls someone on the phone, and soon Ranboo is in a car. They catch what they think might be the familiar face of Niki out of the corner of their eye, but it doesn’t matter.

They are unconscious for most of what comes after.

-

Ranboo wakes up on a creaky cot in a room so stark with blank white that it might burn a hole through their eyes. After blinking rapidly to adjust their eyes with the scene, they identify it as the emergency room of a hospital. No light streams in through the window to their left, the night long since begun, but the fluorescent bulbs do a good enough job at illuminating the room on their own.

What happened? The last thing they remember is coughing at work. Oh, and that image of the man is burned into their skull forever now. This is a horrifyingly vivid image that definitely won’t stick with them until the rest of time.

When they turn their head to the left, they see - is that an IV pouch?! Their eyes follow the thin wire that leads into the crook of their elbow, and their heart lurches when they see the needle in their skin.

A doctor walks in the room with a clipboard in hand, and looks slightly taken aback when she notices them awake. “Oh. We expected you to be out a little longer.” Her eyes flit up to the clock. “Then again, it has been hours since we administered treatment.” The IV must be freshly inserted, in that case. They check again on the pouch and see it about halfway emptied. “Do you recall anything that happened?”

Ranboo tentatively shakes their head, even if it might be partially untrue. Hearing a rendition of someone’s outside perspective is too tempting to pass up.

“You suffered menthol overdose,” the woman says, gesturing absently with her clipboard while she speaks. “Too many cough drops in too short of a time. Paired with your condition, it made for a nasty blend of - ”

“Hey hey hey hey, hang on,” they say, stammering in their eagerness to cut her off. “My condition?”

She blinks rapidly, then schools her expression. Ranboo can’t see most of it anyway, since the bottom half of her face is covered by the blue medical mask. “I assumed you were already aware.” After another second of lingering silence, she clears her throat and advances, gesturing to a very intimidating contraption to Ranboo’s right. “We needed to administer oxygen to you externally, since you seem to suffer from a mid-stage case of hanahaki.”

Their ears buzz once they hear the word, eyes drifting to stare off into nothing. Hanahaki? They won’t say they know much about it. In fact, they know next to nothing. All they know is that people start coughing up flowers, but it isn’t a thing people hear about often! Maybe a case pops up once every couple years that they hear about in passing, a person infected with it that they don’t even know, but it’s just another one of those obscure things. Right? Like Stoneman Syndrome or the one blood disorder that turns the skin blue.

(They knew the whole time. They never consciously knew. They were never aware of the information, and could never perceive it. It wasn’t their fault. But something buried deep in their innerworkings, in their biology, felt it like an old instinct.)

Once the doctor sees the bewilderment in their blank stare, she decides to elaborate. “Hanahaki is a disease where an unrequited affection becomes the breeding grounds for a flower to grow in your heart.”

“What?” Sums all their thoughts up pretty well in that one word. Good job, Ranboo. Because, what the hell? That sounds made up. It doesn’t just sound made up - it sounds poorly made up.

“Basically,” she says, speaking slower and being more patient with them. “You have a flower growing from your heart because you love someone who you think doesn’t love you back.”

Ranboo’s face lights aflame. “And how do you know that?”

“This disease isn’t new. It’s been recorded in history for millenia.” Okay. Ranboo can kind of get behind that. “The condition has always been associated with romantic attraction, but more recent studies showed that alternative variants exist as well.”

Alternative variants? So, would that mean a platonic variant? “How do I know who?”

The lady gives them a look. “It’s usually obvious. Who’s the first person that pops into your head as a possibility?”

Tommy. Before she even finishes her sentence, Ranboo knows that this is about Tommy. Once they hear this, they can connect the dots and realize that this is why Tommy is a breath of fresh air. This is why they push themself out of their comfort zone to continue being around them. This is why they can’t lie to him.

This flower, nurtured by Ranboo’s love, focuses itself around Tommy. Any show of Tommy returning love satiates it, and any absence fertilizes it. God, no wonder. And the summer too. Augh! It’s all so obvious in hindsight! They run a hand through their hair and scoff, lips twitching down like about to cry.

They have a Hanahaki case. They have a Hanahaki case for Tommy.

She sees the way their face alights with recognition like the dawn after a long night.

“You said this was - ” Ranboo clears their throat once it cracks. “This is the mid-stage?!” They can’t imagine it getting much worse than this. Then again, the cough drops probably weren’t helping.

She nods. “How long have you had symptoms?”

The answer comes easily, so easily that they furrow their brows at themself. “The start of the summer vacation.” Really? “All the way back in late April, early May.” The story tumbles naturally out of them like they had been aware of it the entire time (spoiler, they had not). “I felt like I missed him so much that I was short of breath.”

She nods and marks that down.

“And it just kind of, gradually got worse.” They felt like trash. “The coughing didn’t become a problem until a month or two down the line, and this is the first time I’ve spit out, petals,” they say, the last part of that sentence slow and reluctant. Their eyes fix onto the mattress so they don’t need to look at her calculating eyes.

“Your first time,” she says, though more with the air of a question. She answers her own rhetoric before Ranboo can bother. “That must be why you haven't come to the conclusion on your own yet. So, certainly not a romantic case. Philia or Storge would be our next bets.” She writes that onto the sheet.

“What and what?”

“Friendly and familial.”

“How can you tell?” They say. “Just from that?”

She looks at them for a moment before she sighs, holding the clipboard down. “It has to do with neuroscientific psychology.” Ranboo nods and pretends like they know what that means. She seems to sense their cluelessness, if not from their face then their silence, so she continues. “How physiology affects who you are and the decisions you make.” Ahh, okay. That makes sense. “We are forced to deal with the messy nuance that is love. It isn’t something easily identified and defined. In romance, we’ve found that the heart races more often, which increases the rate at which the flower germinates and blooms.” True. That’s pretty common sense. “But it isn’t the same for the other varieties of Hanahaki. You don’t see much of those other varieties, just with the type of condition we’re dealing with and how it best thrives, but they certainly exist. Modern culture could be influencing the frequency of more familial cases, but these details are unimportant.”

Essentially, romantic love is faster, platonic love goes slower. Ranboo supposes it makes sense, from a psychological perspective. Romantic love, sometimes, is more about infatuation and an immediate sense of adoration. Platonic love takes more time to know and appreciate the person themself, and from that gentle reverence blooms a flower.

“What can I do?” They say almost listlessly, resigning themself to a fate of chronic pain.

Her hands handle the clipboard with more of a fidget to her fingers. “You do have options,” she says, voice tentative. Oh, that’s not a good sign. Not a good sign at all. “Two. Two options. There is a procedure that can completely eliminate all traces of the root from your circulatory system.”

Ranboo perks up, eyes lighting with a new hope. Why didn’t she say that earlier? “A surgery? That sounds - well - yeah. Let’s do that, then.”

“Slow down,” she says, holding up a hand. “I’d think twice about the decision. From my experience, it’s a wildly unpopular choice.”

Okay, lady. Stay in your lane. Ranboo has rights in this country, and by god will they choose this surgery if they want to. “How come?”

“The side effect is unavoidable and wholly permanent.”

Ranboo scoffs. Trading out some random side effect (just a single one! That isn’t so bad. Sure, a chronic headache or whatever it is might be a pain, but anything to not have a goddamn flower in their chest) to get rid of the disease sounds like a pretty good deal to them. “Well, what is it?”

She pauses before hitting them in the face with it like it was a frying pan. “Due to the parts of the heart and brain we remove to keep the flower from taking root again, the subject of the procedure loses their ability to feel affection.”

Ranboo’s lips part in shock, much in the way Tommy’s does, and their eyes go wide, pupils like a frightened pinprick. A subtle rush of an exhale passes their mouth. “You’re - ” they say, fumbling for their words. They cough, but it’s weak. The IV, they check, has mostly entered into their bloodstream already. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not,” she says.

That all makes wildly more sense now. Life, or love? Would it even be worth it to get the surgery if they could never experience affection for anyone ever again? How would their parents feel? Oh, the look on Tommy’s face would be -

Wait. Ranboo wouldn’t even care. Tommy would be hurting and Ranboo wouldn’t care, because Ranboo would no longer have any emotional attachment to him. Tommy could be screaming and shaking Ranboo by the shoulders, begging them for any shroud of care, but Ranboo couldn’t provide. Tommy could swear Ranboo was still in there, but they quite literally would not be. They would be an entirely different person. Different brain chemistry, different motivations, different relationships entirely.

What a miserable reality that would be. An absolutely pointless, desolate reality. At that point, they might as well let the flower do its work.

They rip a hand through their hair, eyes darting around frantically. Their heart pounds in their chest at the speed of a raging bullet while peering into this possible reality. The flower, whatever kind it may be, feeds on their fear, its leaves and vines and stems - and Ranboo couldn’t care less for the specifics, all they know is that it hurts and they want it to stop. Ranboo feels like a cornered animal at the mercy of a giant, sharp-toothed predator. “And the - ahem - the alternative?” Please be more doable. Please be better. Please. Ranboo would give anything. Their left arm. Chronic migraines. A lifetime of medical debt. Just not their ability to love. Anything but that.

“Confess your true thoughts and feelings to the subject of your disease, and have them reciprocate in full.”

Uh oh.

Chapter 10: Secrets

Chapter Text

Niki is a saint. She had driven their car over to the hospital and taken an Uber back to her home. Ranboo drives home with their hands squeezing the wheel, a grimace on their face.

The doctor had advised them - “and this might be the only time we prescribe this,” she had said - to drink more soda, coffee, and acidic juices. If necessary, sugar water. Not anything fresh, because apparently it waters the plant.

They toss the options back and forth in their mind on the drive back to their dorm (they drive at the witching hour with harsh coughs and sharp breaths, low beams on to cut through the darkness), but they only feel like they have one real choice to make. All they want to do is collapse on their bed and not think about the world for the next couple months.

Ranboo hacks violently until a small cluster of petals flurries from their mouth. Part of them wonders what type of flower they have, but the rest of them spites it and wishes it would burn.

It spites them in return. It squeezes in retaliation for daring to think such a thought. It grabs on and it does not release. They deal with the ache like a grizzled veteran, frustration and malice in their darkened eyes. Their heart is their own enemy, and they can’t help the bitter taste in their mouth.

The car parks in the lot, and Ranboo heads out, tossing their sheet of cough drops in the first trash bin they see.

They stagger like a corpse, each step heralding to the entire rest of the world that this is a listless body waiting for its time. Every move is a clear cry out to whoever can help, though they know no one can, that Ranboo is officially fully hopeless.

This is over. This is their end. They feel so sure of it. Sure, Tommy is a good friend, and they know Tommy is fond of them in turn, but to that extent? Must they be the first to bring it up? Must they address the silent connection that lingers between them? Must Ranboo be the one to put it in words?

They’d much rather suffocate.

The elevator tumbles with a silent hum while it carries a drowsy Ranboo up through the floors of the building. They sigh with the sink of their shoulders and step into the hall.

Ranboo’s hand curls around the handle of their door, metal cold against their skin. With their other hand, they take the key and unlock it, slowly pushing the door in to not disturb Technoblade.

It turns out they didn’t need to worry about it. The lights in their dorm are on, even though Techno should be sleeping at this time (even with his egregious sleep schedule). Someone sits on their bed that really shouldn’t be in here in the first place, and it’s enough to surprise Ranboo back into awareness.

Tommy and Techno’s necks snap to attention once the door creaks. For an awkward moment, they stand there blinking at each other. Ranboo looks at both of them, slow to take another step in fear that they trigger their friends back into action.

Techno releases a cry of, “Ranboo!” bracing one arm against his bed when he leans forward.

Tommy pushes off Ranboo’s bed and scrambles through the room to reach Ranboo, slamming into them with full force. Ranboo staggers backward, pressing their hand to the door behind them to keep themself upright. All the air whooshes out of their lungs, and they break into a coughing spree, so busy sputtering for air that they don’t bother returning the hold.

Tommy loosens his grip, just slightly. “Where the hell have you been?!” He shrieks.

Ranboo pats Tommy’s back with a rapid, fumbling hand, wordlessly trying to cue him to release. “Tommy,” they wheeze. “Tommy - ”

“Tommy, let them go,” Techno says sharply, rising to a stand. “Let them go!”

Tommy listens. He pulls his arms away and stares at Ranboo with an intense concern, potent enough to add a tremble to his voice. “I - oh, I’m sorry. I just - what happened to you?”

“I tried calling,” Techno says, standing behind Tommy like a guard. “You went entirely MIA. Tommy even went to Silver Theaters to check on you.”

Niki must’ve been gone by that point, if they don’t know what happened. Ranboo digs into their purse and pulls out their phone which had been on silent the entire time. The last thing Ranboo had on their mind was their phone, so no wonder they haven’t seen any messages. Upon opening it, they see dozens of missed calls and spam texts. Their heart sinks. “No - I’m - yeah. Sorry. I’m - ” fine rests on the edge of their tongue, but they feel the slow recoiling of the plant in their chest like a warning. Careful, Ranboo. “I’m not fine, actually. I - I think I need to sit down.”

Tommy hurries to help, dragging Ranboo forward by the arm and helping them take a seat on their bed. “Take some deep breaths. Do you want a cough drop?”

Techno shoots Tommy a wary glance. “Maybe not a cough drop, but some water.”

“Oh god,” Ranboo says, unable to help the shudder that racks through them. They clutch their head, fingers combing into their hair and tugging. “Please, no. No, no, not either of those things.”

“Okay, okay,” Techno says with his hands held out like trying to calm a frightened animal. “We won’t give you that.”

At the same time, Tommy gently grabs Ranboo’s hands and coaxes them out of their hair. “What do you need, Boo? Please, let us help you.”

“I just - ” Ranboo takes another deep breath, the shake of their shoulders slowly easing out. “I just need a minute. And some soda.”

Tommy sits down next to Ranboo. Techno looks through their fridge and grabs a can of Coca-Cola. Maybe he passes it off to Ranboo with skepticism in his gaze, but he does it anyway. Ranboo pops the tab and listens to the fizz, chugging it down. Sure, it inflames their throat (they cough and almost choke), but at least the flower will retreat.

Tommy sets a hand on Ranboo’s shoulder and looks up at them with earnest eyes, keeping a distance to adjust to Ranboo’s comfort level. “What happened today?”

Their face heats up, and their senses zero in on the hand on their shoulder. The flower ducks its ugly head, soothed by the presence of family, leaving Ranboo able to breathe. For now.

Ranboo’s fingers curl into a fist and they do their best to keep their composure. “I went,” they say, voice choked and timid. “To the hospital.”

The uproar they were expecting crashes into them. Tommy’s hand tightens on their shoulder, and Techno’s voice raises in volume. “What the hell?! What happened?! When was this?!”

“What?!” Techno shouts. “Heh?!”

Ranboo flinches. Tommy feels it, so he takes a deep breath and forces his hand to relax. “Ranboo,” Tommy says, righteous fury pushing against his words. “What happened?”

“Overdose,” Ranboo says, squeezing their eyes shut and bracing for impact. This time, they don’t scream again. They peek their eyes open to gauge the mood before elaborating. “Menthol. Not anything crazy. I had too many cough drops.”

“I told you!” Techno says.

“You were right,” Ranboo says, exhaustedly letting Techno have his ‘I told you so’ moment. “You’re always right, Techno. I was stupid.” They turn their head to address Tommy, then see the bags under his eyes and the weariness in his face. “Tommy, please go to bed.”

Tommy slouches and rests his head against Ranboo’s shoulder, already nodding off. Tommy is running on fumes. “I will,” he says, a soft mutter. “I couldn’t sleep soundly without knowing if you were okay.”

Ranboo’s heart is tired. Their muscles ache and their lungs crinkle with emptiness. Their throat burns. Why did they have to do this to Tommy? What is wrong with them? “Go,” Ranboo says, carefully pushing Tommy off.

Tommy looks heartbroken, but he follows instructions, standing up from the bed and slipping away. Ranboo’s hand reaches out to pull him back, but they think better of it.

Coughs bubble up from their throat, thick, moist coughs, and they cover their mouth with their hands. The tickle of petals presses against their skin, and their eyes widen. They hunch forward and continue coughing, keeping their hands cupped over their mouth to hide the sight from Techno and Tommy.

Tommy looks back, but Techno clears his throat to divert his attention, gesturing pointedly to the door with his eyes. Ranboo needs to find a way to show their appreciation for Techno later - they really don’t mention it enough. Reluctantly, Tommy makes his leave, gliding silently out of the dorm like a fading ghost.

The mattress sinks again when Techno sits beside them, a considerable distance away. He leans forward to rest his elbows on his legs, eyes trained to the floor.

Ranboo stops coughing and slowly lowers their hands, exposing the petite purple petals scattered all over their palms and fingers. Slight red splattering might stain their skin, but they pretend it doesn’t exist.

Techno sucks in a deep breath through his teeth like he’d been cut with a knife. He offers a slow nod. “Who?”

The question almost feels unnecessary. The answer hangs in the air, mutually understood by them both. Even then, Ranboo answers. “Tommy.”

Techno huffs. “Of course it is.”

“Do you know?” Ranboo says, holding out their quaking hands like a demonstration. “About this? What this is?”

“Yeah,” Techno says, resigned enough to look away. “Someone had it for me once.”

Ranboo’s eyebrows fly to the top of their head. “You?!” They click their mouth shut once it comes out far more rude than they had intended.

Techno finds humor in it, managing a chuckle that tumbles naturally from his mouth. “Yeah, that was my reaction too. His name was Squid. He was a good kid. It was a philia case. Platonic ‘n everything, because it lasted in the guy for a good year or so, but I just wasn’t feeling it. He was chill, I guess, but, I don’t know. I don’t like to be forced into stuff like that, y’know?”

Fair enough. “Then,” Ranboo says, face screwing up in concentration. “If you weren’t - if you didn’t reciprocate.” They trail off.

Techno nods with the click of his tongue. “Yeah.” He tangles his fingers together, holding his own hand, and sighs. “I attended the funeral. It felt like the least I could do.”

Ranboo turns their head with an empathetic sorrow haunting their face like a shadow. “Oh, Techno.”

“Don’t pity me.”

“It’s not pity,” Ranboo says. “That’s - ” they hold a fist to their mouth when they cough. “It must have been rough.” All they can think about is envisioning Tommy in Techno’s place.

“It was,” Techno says, careful with each and every word he releases. “I dealt with a lot of survivor’s guilt for a while, but I didn’t care about the guy like that. That’s not on me. There wasn’t anything I could do.”

“I’m sorry,” Ranboo says. “You shouldn’t have had to deal with that.”

Techno’s lips twist when he realizes he made it all serious and about himself. He reigns it in. “Yeah. Well, several years and a lot of therapy later, here we are.”

“That just about sums it up, yeah,” Ranboo says, flopping down and lying their back flat on the mattress.

Techno copies them, one hand rested over his stomach. “Yeah. You gonna tell him?”

“Hell no.” Especially not after the horror story Techno just regaled.

Techno frowns. “I honestly feel like you should. You and Tommy are - you’re like this, y’know?” Techno says, holding up his arm and crossing his ring and index fingers. “I think you have a chance.”

Ranboo turns their head to hide their burning face in their blanket. They press their lips together to keep the bottom from quivering, and they push away any tears that threaten to form. “I wish I had your confidence.”

“Why don’t you? What’s the big deal? It’s a platonic case, right?”

“Of course it is, you creep,” Ranboo says with a thick voice, taking their pillow and stuffing it in Techno’s face. Techno doesn’t retaliate, because he figures he had deserved that. “I have Storge. He’s like a - he’s a brother to me, Techno. How do I tell him that without freaking him out?!”

“If anyone can figure it out, it’s you,” Techno says. After a moment of silence that lingers between them, he pushes himself off their bed. “Alright, I’m turning the lights off. That’s my emotions quota for the year met.”

Ranboo laughs. Maybe now that they know what this is, and they don’t constantly suppress the waste that needs to come out, things will be easier.

-

They were as wrong as they were right. Now that they don’t grind through those cough drops like candy, the catalyst of the inflammations can be routinely rejected from Ranboo’s body, which means clearer air. Sure, they cough more than the average person every single day, but the large coughs with the petals are only something they have to deal with around every other day. They cough up all the petals, sometimes a leaf or part of a stem, and clear their airways for the next day or so.

Inconvenient, but survivable. They still go to lectures and clock into work, doing their best to soothe their coworkers’ minds once they circle them with questions and concerns. Thankfully, nothing like the bathroom incident happens again for the rest of the week.

Ranboo drinks exclusively coffees, energy drinks, and sodas instead of water, rarely going to sugar water when they need something clean.

Once while in the dorm with Techno, they head into the bathroom to cough out the round of petals for the day. When they open the door to head back into the main room, they see Techno there with his phone in hand and a scrutinizing look. “Let’s find out what this is.”

They devote the next twenty minutes to research, searching up small purple petal to no avail. Eventually, Ranboo gets annoyed and starts scrolling through the list of top fifty flowers, stopping on one near the bottom of the list that gets their attention. “Techno, I think I found something,” they say, rolling off their bed to show Techno their phone.

“Hmm.” Techno takes the phone and narrows his eyes at the screen. “Ornamental Allium.” He pinches with two fingers to zoom in. “Bulbous flower that comes in pink and purple, also considered bulb onion,” he says under his breath. “Yeah, this checks out.” He offers back the phone. “Explains the breath.”

Ranboo, upon hearing a confirmatory second opinion, grabs the phone and does a Google search specifically on alliums. The exact species is irrelevant. Getting somewhere in the ballpark is close enough for them. “The stem looks really smooth. No thorns. And the petals are remarkably small.”

“You lucked out,” Techno says. “I would consider the onion thing a fair trade.”

Ranboo nods. Yeah. Definitely could have been worse. It could have been better, but they won’t bother dwelling on the what-ifs. What will be will be.

-

Sunday creeps up on them like a figure in the shadows. Before they know it, they have their keys in hand, swallowing down the anxiety while they try to decide whether or not to go to the foundation today. If they go, they can’t work anywhere close to the food. Maybe they can volunteer for the box-hauling team. Yeah. Those guys always have their hands full. They can still contribute.

They breathe easier when Tommy is around anyway, and it has been several days. The last time they met up, Ranboo was worse for wear (horrid understatement) telling both him and Techno about their hospital trip. Ranboo had pushed Tommy away, and the anxiety that comes with even thinking about encountering him again blooms another bulb in their chest.

Whether they like it or not, they need the closure of seeing Tommy again, just to establish if they’re cool with each other or not. Ranboo hopes they are. If Ranboo’s act of pushing Tommy away triggered the domino effect that leads to a rift in their friendship, they might swallow fertilizer just to move the flower along.

Ranboo decides to go. They don’t really have a choice. Technically they do, but their legs are moving before they can stop themself.

Maybe they cough on the way, but they feel fine. Mostly. They hacked out all the petals this morning, a bit more violent and bloody than usual since Tommy had been on the mind since the moment they woke up. Ranboo purposefully tries to find the positive spin on the situation - maybe with the weakened flower, it’ll be easier for Ranboo to pretend. Tommy will finally smile again, and Ranboo’s pain will dissipate with the sight.

Once they make it into the building, purse slung over their shoulder like always (no dreaded cough drops in their purse, eugh, never again), they realize that they must have arrived late. No one is in the lobby and they hear the hustle and bustle from the warehouse portion of the building.

Ranboo claims a locker - one shoved in the corner, a horrible placement but they get last dibs for being late - and stuffs their purse inside, taking one last drink of Monster before tossing the can and putting on the gloves and hairnet.

Ranboo speaks to the first staff member they come across and explains that they can’t work at a table, so they get placed in the position of running around the perimeter of the warehouse and picking up all the boxes the stations fill. Several people run the position, so there isn’t any pressure to sprint, which Ranboo is grateful for. Slow and steady wins this race.

While meandering around the room, looking for a table with a full box that someone hadn’t already taken. Secretly, they scan the stations for a certain British lad. They ignore the palpable waves of disappointment in their chest, like bursts of wind that test the integrity of the flower’s stem, when something in their brain whispers he didn’t come. He wouldn’t come. Not for you.

Those thoughts evaporate the moment Ranboo catches a glimpse of him from across the room, and they almost walk into a table due to their excitement. They grab a box and shuffle along, trying not to seem too obvious.

Every time the itch in their throat rebounds, they set the box down and cough into their elbow before picking it up again. An efficient operation, in their eyes. They set the box in the designated area and continue with their task, maybe perhaps definitely going in the direction to sweep past Tommy.

If their eyes aren’t deceiving them, Tommy looks dimmer than usual. He resembles a doused candle, the wax all melted and pooling at his feet to keep him stuck in place. Ranboo decides that that just won’t do (their heart squeezes at the sight) so they speed up their pace, slowing but never stopping. They glide past instead, never coming to a full stop, lips flipping up into a smile when they tap Tommy’s shoulder.

Tommy’s head snaps to attention and he looks behind him to the right. Ranboo already passed there, so he turns to the left, seeing Ranboo with the devilish smile on their face. Tommy gasps and drops his scoopers, stepping off the stools with no regard for the rest of his team. “Ranboo!” He says, waving to flag them down. “Cover for me, alright?” He says in a half-hearted mutter to the other person on food duty.

Ranboo finally stops their wide strides, spinning on their heel to greet Tommy. Tommy’s grin rivals the sun, shining rays of light onto them that chase away the storm clouds, and this is exactly what they needed. “Guess who’s back,” Ranboo says, opening their arms up (in a slightly reclusive manner, still hesitant about being so open with themself) for a hug.

Tommy doesn’t question it even for a second, falling onto them and being more careful with them in general. “I missed you!” Ranboo inhales a clear breath of air. How lovely this is. Tommy pulls back to look Ranboo in the face. “Are you alright, mate? Because - well - last time I saw you - ”

“Everything’s fine now,” Ranboo says with a strained smile on show to sell the act. The flower grazes the sides of their chest, and scarce petals stick to the inside of their trachea. Their finger twitches and their teeth clench, but sheer force of will lends them enough self control not to cough.

Tommy examines Ranboo’s face for all of a second before sighing in relief, patting Ranboo’s forearms and releasing them in full. “That’s good. You want to join my table?”

“Agh,” Ranboo says with the regrettable click of their tongue. “Can’t. I’m on box duty.” They spin their index finger around to gesture to the warehouse. “I’ll visit you, don’t worry.”

Tommy looks relieved to be returning to jokes, whimsy, and routine. He decompresses like a machine long in use finally being deactivated, looking more comfortable in his skin. “Don’t be long!” He says, a happy gait in his walk when he bounds back towards his table.

Ranboo watches him skip off, and the smile turns more sincere. With Tommy’s calm comes Ranboo’s remedy.

The session is a time of joyous whimsy and fun shenanigans. At least, those are the parts Ranboo focuses on. They actively suppress the memories, even as it’s happening, of them dropping boxes to cough or shielding themself from Tommy’s view to seem fine. The allium in their heart toys with them. It teases them for no other reason than the fact that they love. They love Tommy like they would a little brother, and this is their punishment for such a heinous crime.

Ranboo purposefully drops their last box and lingers around Tommy’s side when they know the shift is about to end. Once it finally does and they announce clean-up, Ranboo helps Tommy pick up his table. Tommy makes a housewife joke and Ranboo laughs, both with genuine smiles on their faces. What more could they want? What more could they rightfully ask for?

The leaders gather everyone for prayer, and Tommy’s hand slides in theirs like it always does, heading off for the lobby. He tugs, but pauses once Ranboo doesn’t budge, looking back in bewilderment.

Ranboo stares at the congregation, hovering a distance from it but not entirely separating themself from the moment, and closes their eyes, pressing their lips together and huffing a heavy breath out their nose. What shame they have, letting themself reach this point.

Tommy’s concern draws itself onto his face, and he doesn’t leave. He doesn’t release Ranboo’s hand either, just readjusts to stand next to them in silent respect. He ducks his head, fingers a bit fidgety with the apprehension of not exactly knowing the customs. His eyes sneakily shift to focus on Ranboo instead of the circle in front of them, and he takes note of a paleness in Ranboo’s skin that he hadn’t even seen until just now. With his hand pressed into theirs, they feel a clamminess Ranboo typically doesn’t suffer from. When Ranboo finally opens their eyes again, gaze drilling into the floor, he sees the shadow of dread in their eyes. He deduces one of the only logical reasons Ranboo would linger here for this is out of sheer and utter desperation.

It puts a bitter taste in his mouth, and his eyes tick back and forth to reflect the thoughts alighting behind them. His fingers interlock with Ranboo’s to keep their link more secure and in the vague hope it might soothe Ranboo’s soul. Even a little bit would do.

Tommy realizes that everything is not fine.

Chapter 11: Isolation

Chapter Text

Ranboo clutches the sides of the toilet, no matter how unsanitary it may be. Common bacteria and germs are of no concern of theirs while they hack and cough and gag into the bowl below, gross globs of blood spat right into the water and staining it a dirty red. The purple petals pepper into the water with every wheeze, swirling in the air thanks to the force that is their breath before finally landing and sticking in the cesspool.

They have yet to vomit, which is one of the only positives about their state of being right now. The petal-coughing has escalated to at least once every day, and incrementally gets worse every day of the proceeding week. They don’t call off sick for work, but they feel free to skip lectures and make up the work online instead.

Techno, since he can hear the hacking through the door, feels safe to casually meander into the bathroom. “It’s only going to get worse, you know.”

Ranboo lifts their head up from the bowl to speak. Blood messily stains the perimeter of their lips like the most gruesome cosmetic, and it trails down to the bottom of their chin. “I can’t ruin this,” they say, voice hoarse and strained like they finally came up for air after holding their breath in the pool for as long as they possibly could. “I can’t. If I come on too strong, then - ”

“You’re going to ruin yourself,” Techno says. To anyone else, it might sound harsh. Ranboo, well aware of Technoblade’s customs, knows of the sincerity in his concern.

“I - I know,” Ranboo breathes, finally starting to replenish their lungs of their deprived oxygen.

“Why would you do that?” Techno says with the absent microexpression that is the slightest shake of his head. “I don’t understand.”

Great, Technoblade. Thanks. Plunge them into a platform where they must articulate their thoughts. They need to at least try to put it to words, if not for Techno, then for themself. Why do they do this? Why do they torture themself? Why do they put themself through this misery for someone that was a stranger a year ago?

A year and a half ago. It’s already midterm review week. God, Ranboo isn’t graduating. Even if they survive, their grades from junior year are going to tank their report card. How could they grow so close to someone in just a year and a half that they’re willing to take the bullet to their head first?

“I don’t want to ruin what little I have,” Ranboo says, voice and body trembling like they’d just started the aftermath of a long cry. Their teeth chatter, and sweat runs down their skin. The pure existence of this cruel disease is the single strongest argument for the existence of higher powers in Ranboo’s mind, since in no universe could nature construct this hell-on-earth.

Ranboo would rather rip themselves apart over Tommy than dare endanger their existing friendship. They’d rather surrender the opportunity for something better as long as it means keeping what they already have. What if Tommy gets the wrong idea? What if Ranboo opens themself up for Tommy wholly and truly, revealing the entirety of their heart to them, only to be brutally rejected with a burning glare and venomous words?

The mere thought has them lurching forward again and coughing hard enough that a lung might come out with the petals. Blood splashes in the water more than trickles in from the violence of the coughs, and Technoblade sighs, kneeling at Ranboo’s side.

The single thing more terrifying than Tommy’s rejection is dying alone to this wretched curse of affection that had snared them. Friends are better than nothing, so they’d rather enjoy the rest of their time as friends and pass with that peace than confess, be rejected, and suffer until their death sentence comes to pass.

Thanks to all of Ranboo’s new anxiety, constantly hiding the flower or wrestling with its attacks day after day, the growth accelerates. Their distress provides the perfectly disgusting breeding ground needed for the allium to thrive and retaliate against their resistance. They wish they could shove their hand down their gullet and yank the flower out.

Their hands tighten on the sides of the bowl, knees somehow getting weaker despite already having buckled. Chronic chest pain isn’t a fun game to play, but they chose this route.

The surgery option should really be given a prize for how horrifying it is, because every time Ranboo’s will wavers, they turn their head to perceive it and instantly look away again. To make their current circ*mstances seem appealing in comparison is a feat in and of itself. “Is this how girls feel on their periods?” They groan in the hopes to feel some semblance of humor again.

Techno laughs. “I guess so.”

“What day is it?” The week had blurred together. They were at work, then they were in the dorm, then they were reading the midterm study guide, the words doubling and tripling thanks to their blurry, cross-eyed vision.

“Sunday,” Techno says, keeping a distance but leaning close enough to check on the contents of the toilet.

They groan again, the pained sound released more on instinct like conveying the misery could offload it and somehow make them feel better. It doesn’t work. It’s Sunday already? Each second drags, but the blur of minutes to hours makes the short time they have left to live fade away before their very eyes. “Kill me.”

“If you were most other people, I wouldn’t have a problem with that,” Technoblade says, pushing himself up to a stand. “But, unfortunately for you, you’re not. C’mon, Ranboo. Get up.”

Ranboo plants their palms on the flattest plane of the toilet, huffing in exertion when they hoist themself up. Technoblade goes through the trouble of turning on the sink, not too cold, not too hot, not too powerful. The perfect flow. Ranboo ducks their head under it and let water spill into their mouth. Some trickles down the side of their cheek thanks to the unconventional method, but it works well enough. They swish around the water and spit it out in the sink, getting rid of the irritating little petals that clung to the inside of their mouth and their tongue. They rinse out a couple more times before washing their hands and leaving the bathroom.

Technoblade trails after them. “So, are you going to that thing today?”

It’s been lingering on their mind the entire day. Last week, going helped them, no matter how difficult it was to deal with in moments. The struggle was far and flung between because being near Tommy was enough of a medicine as it was.

This week? They aren’t sure they can do it. Hiding this obstructive parasite their chest tightens, squeezes squeezes squeezes, all to spite their defiance feels like a difficulty past impossible, so they grab their phone and type out the regrettable message.

Ranboo: im not feeling well. Im sorry toms i wont be coming today

They add the name into the mix because something in them aches to soothe Tommy, to assure their little brother with the security that an older sibling is meant to provide (but Ranboo isn’t a sibling, they aren’t, no matter how badly they may want to be).

They see the bubble of Tommy’s brewing message, but it disappears and never returns. The phone clicks shut, and they sigh, setting it aside. “‘M not going,” they say, eyes dull and skin the same pale as it was last week. Noticeably drained of color, but not to a concerning level. At least, not yet.

“Good,” Techno says, sitting in bed and opening Quizlet to review for his midterms.

Oh, it’s going to get worse. This is all going to get worse. This isn’t mid-stage, it isn’t end-stage (because they’d be six-feet-under if this was end-stage), but some horrid in-between, and it’s all but a gamble as to how far Ranboo is along.

It feels horrendous, but they fear how it could get worse. Every step of the way, it has escalated, and they won’t dare jinx it and poke at whatever force is controlling this by saying it can’t possibly get any worse than this.

Their head falls into their hands, because they don’t know what else to do. Should they even bother to show up for their midterms? None of this will matter in a year from now. Maybe even six months from now. They don’t know. Their death date is a mystery, but the threat of soon breathes down their neck like a predator. A singular sound bubbles from them - not quite a sob, not quite a groan. More like a cry. The single burst of a hopeless cry. Their hands hold their throbbing head, pounding with dehydration, and they think that nothing else in their life has reduced them to such a pathetic state. They know more of their layers will be stripped until their raw core rests in Tommy’s hands, tender like a fresh wound and burning at every touch. “God,” they mutter under their breath, at a complete loss for direction. “Why can’t this just be over?”

Techno looks away from his phone immediately. “It can be. Talk to him.”

Ranboo lifts their head from their hands (it takes more effort than it should), and grimaces. They briskly shake their head. “I can’t, Techno.”

“BS,” Techno says, face hard. “If you didn’t catch this disease, then Tommy would have. I’m telling you.”

“You don’t know that,” Ranboo says, voice too sharp to address someone only trying to help.

“Yes, I do,” Techno says. “I would bet on my scholarships. I’ve seen you two. Ranboo, I’ve seen you two. If even I can catch it, then you know it’s obvious.”

“Just - stop,” Ranboo says, waving their hand dismissively. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Techno’s lips twist. “Fine, then,” he says, looking away. “Don’t expect me to comfort Tommy with a hug like you would when he’s crying over your casket at the funeral, because at the rate things are going, that’s what’s going to happen.”

“Could you just shut up?!” Ranboo shouts, interrupted by a coughing fit immediately after. So, shouting? Not a good idea. Not in the slightest.

An automatic look of concern dawns Techno’s face, but he schools it and focuses back on Quizlet.

A knock at their door ends the conversation. Ranboo and Techno pass another glance, then Techno gets over himself, standing up and pointing at the door. He mouths to Ranboo asking if they want Tommy in here (because who else would it be), and Ranboo shakes their head with a rapid, panicked motion.

When Techno opens the door, he sees Tommy there, face like hard steel. Technoblade sighs, since he can already predict the way this interaction will go. “Can I help you?”

Ranboo buries themself under a blanket and pretends like they don’t know who is at the door. Their chest tightens more and more, that rope waiting for the moment it snaps and leaves them shattered in pieces all over the floor. Their breaths stutter, and they stuff the blanket in their mouth to muffle their coughs. Maybe they stain it with blood, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

Every cell in their body aches to carry them up and take them to Tommy. Maybe Technoblade is right, a voice in their head cajoles. Go. Go speak. Go to Tommy. Ranboo needs him. Ranboo needs him and they deprive themself because Tommy might not need them. Tommy might not return the bond, and they wouldn’t know what to do with themself in that case.

Siblings in everything but blood and law, Ranboo thinks. They’d sacrifice so much for Tommy - as is evident with their attitude towards the disease - and it still only feels like the bare minimum of what he deserves. Ranboo wants to hold onto him and never let him go. Ranboo wants to shield Tommy from all the hurt in the world, including the hurt they caused. Ranboo wants to see that look in Tommy’s eyes in the rare, ever-rare, moments where he softens and gazes up at them in unfiltered adoration, looking at Ranboo like they were something worth looking at in the first place.

Beyond the way Ranboo loves Tommy, Tommy makes Ranboo feel loved. They don’t know if that was Tommy’s intent, but that was the result. The real world scares them. The real world scares Ranboo, so they hide under the blanket.

“Yes, actually,” Tommy says, voice sharper when he clocks into Technoblade’s opposition. “Ranboo is in there, and I am going to see him.”

“You’re not helping,” Techno says dryly, swinging the door shut.

Tommy stops it with his foot right before it closes. “Well, until I hear it from Ranboo’s mouth - ”

“Can’t you just take my word for it?!”

Tommy tries to rush past Technoblade, and Techno gets turned around trying to block him, giving Tommy a small opening to snake through.

Techno scowls and grabs Tommy firmly by the shoulders before he can get past the first few steps, fingers tightening as far as possible without nails digging into skin. Tommy freezes up, making it easy for Techno to drag him back. He turns them both around with stiff motions and shoves Tommy out of the room hard enough for Tommy to fall to the ground.

Tommy looks up with something of shock and awe, lips slightly parted, but not the kind where he’s just seen a cool new place that Ranboo showed him. This is a surprise spiked with fear, because if Techno went to that extent, this must mean something far deeper than how it seems on the surface.

With the most intense voice he can manage, Techno glares and tells Tommy, “leave them alone.”

He slams the door.

Chapter 12: Lies

Chapter Text

Tommy spammed Ranboo’s contact right after Technoblade kicked him out, and Ranboo ignored it by pressing their hands to their ears. Technoblade put their phone on silent for them and left it be.

Unfortunately, life has to go on. They take their midterms, because maybe the information can distract them from their circ*mstances, and carry themself with the general air of self-loathing and despair. They drag themself to work, since staying inside all day just leads to them bombarding themself with enough negative thoughts to drown out anything else.

Technoblade leaves for winter break. Ranboo stays, since being too far a distance from Tommy might instantly kill them. No Christmas with their parents this year.

What a messed-up tango they have to play; too close burns, too far leaves them with a chill in their bones. Tommy is like the sun against their pale skin. Ranboo’s own body kills itself from the inside out because of his light, yet Ranboo still needs him.

Loneliness prowls in the empty, shriveled cage of their chest, so intensely that they reach the extreme of Google-searching painless ways to take matters into their own hands. They never gather the means to do it, and not once does it extend past concept, but the intention is the same.

In an attempt to chase it out, at least for a time, they go to work. They buy a box of medical masks for themself and put one on before going out. To work, to a professor’s office, to anywhere. For self-preservation, they stop going to FMSC on Sunday. They stay inside and lie in bed, coughing into the trash can that they had long since set beside it (spitting out petals is too common a custom niw) when they need to. They stop drinking water, even though their head is killing them, and exclusively down the off-brand sodas they’d gotten because buying coca-cola packs started to become too much of an expense for how quick they’d grind through it.

Every meal is a new struggle. They eat almost exclusively ramen noodles, since they need a warm soup to soothe the pain and they need it within their budget. Even swallowing down the noodles is difficult, because even though they are notoriously known for being soft and round, it feels like swallowing shards of glass.

Ranboo starts having less meals, because eating eventually became more associated with suffocation than it did quenching hunger. Drinking things that aren’t water got so nauseating that they would have to force it down, and sometimes they couldn’t stomach it.

The lack of nutrients doesn’t help to keep them alive. The ramen, Moxie, and lattes barely do the job.

The Sunday before Christmas, the roots in their chest curl around any surface they can snake their leech-like ends to, coiling and beleaguring the entire insides of their torso. If they peeled back their skin and flesh, it would be a hideous network of flora intruding on their innards. The vines (vines? Why must this allium be a variant with vines?) squeeze their ribcage so hard they realize one might break. With every pulse of a squeeze, like a fist around a tiny egg, they stumble and lurch. It resembles the feeling of jerking forward when they slam the breaks while going sixty miles an hour.

The single solution they can come up with - the only thing that could help - is going to see Tommy. They know it to be true, no matter how much they don’t like it, so they groan. Ranboo swings their legs to use the momentum and pull themself up from the bed, bracing a hand against the counter when blades shoot through their heart. They grit their teeth together to withhold a groan, but it slips out the corners of their mouth.

Come on, Ranboo. Strap in. With a fumbling hand, they pull a mask from the box and loop the straps around their ears. They straighten their posture and take a deep breath, clenching their fists to prepare for the strain of walking.

They walk down the block, hoping the fresh air might help. It doesn’t. It leaves them winded and short of breath the entire way there. They pull their mask down to choke up petals into their handkerchief, which does not bode well for the long period of activity they’re signing up for.

The door easily pulls open with a bit of force, and they see a head of blond hair from behind.

Usually, the vines would constrict at the sight of him thanks to the heavy pounding of their heart, but instead they finally ease up. Ranboo sighs, air rolling clearly through their lungs and throat for the first time in weeks. Without realizing or meaning to, they soften, making slow strides for the benches and tuning out the demo video playing in the front.

Ranboo unzips their jacket and ties it around their waste, rubbing their hands together to shake some warmth into them with the friction. The warmth of the building (and of thinking about finally speaking with Tommy again) helps them relax more than the caustic cold nipping at them outside. Their muscles unwind, and it loosens some slack space inside them. The flower feels slightly more manageable now with him close by to help.

They finally have a chance to speak to their brother again. What will Tommy say? Will he be disappointed? Will he have moved past Ranboo by now? Will he even want them around?

Ranboo might have taken too long. Tommy always puts in so much effort to reach out, and in return, Ranboo shuts him out. What an awful friend.

The flower beleaguers their circulatory system and tightens, pulling the string more and more taut. Ranboo feels stretched thin. Ranboo doesn’t know how any one person is meant to shoulder this load.

Instead of sit down (getting up would be too much of a visible hassle, and they don’t want to concern Tommy), they lean against the back of a bench pew, zoning out while their eyes focus on the movement and colors of the demo.

Ranboo drifts like a ghost into the warehouse, tasking themself with taping up the boxes and fitting the appropriate stickers on them. No movement required. They sit at their table at the special section in the very back of the warehouse, staying in their chair and monotonously getting their job done.

Tommy doesn’t notice, Ranboo thinks. Ranboo notices Tommy, since they strategically maneuvered over here to circumvent Tommy’s eye, but if Tommy noticed Ranboo was here, he hasn’t done anything about it.

Tommy looks tired. Not as tired as Ranboo feels, but still. Tired. He looks drowsy. A little cloud hangs over his head and rains all over his parade. Ranboo frowns under the mask, wishing they could blow the cloud away to nurture the sunshine Ranboo knows is under it. Despite having a hurricane of their very own, they would readily volunteer to handle that rain cloud on Tommy’s behalf. They would be willing to share the burden as long as it meant Tommy’s face didn’t have that small, sad expression, like Tommy had realized just how tiny he was in the midst of this problem that extends way beyond any help he could give.

A pressure in their sternum alarms them to a build-up, and they abruptly push out of their seat to speed walk across the warehouse to the bathroom. They keep their head down and try to remain discreet, even if a six-and-a-half-foot grown adult is hard to miss.

Temptation is too much for them to bear, so they find their eyes darting around in search of someone specific. They never spend more than a second scanning each table, then decide to stop looking for their own sake once they don’t find him.

Unfortunately, something they don’t notice is said ‘someone specific’ catching sight of Ranboo, eyes going wide and trailing Ranboo’s swift stride.

They push the door open to the women’s restroom (it just happens to be the easiest to access at their position, and they couldn’t give a damn when it feels like they’re about to spit molten lava out) and dock at a sink, all but ripping the mask off their face in the haste to spray out the waste in their throat.

Splotches of red stain the smooth, white surface, and some petals splat with it. Others float down with a deceptive delicacy, landing in the sink with practiced grace. Some blood pools in their saliva, so they suck in to gather it before spitting it out furiously like they would a swear. They look up and scowl at their reflection in the mirror, face ever paler. The dark contrast of eyebags gives the type of impression that they collect knives, and the sharpness of their bloodied scowl (dirtied ivory teeth, stained lips, chin wet with sanguine fluid) only contributes to the violent appearance.

Ranboo hears the door swing open and ducks their head to hide themself slightly more, even if the reflection in the mirror fully exposes them. Their trembling hand manages to grip the handle of the sink, and they tug harshly on it, water from the sudden strong flow splashing right into their face. It carries the blood, spit, and petals down the drain, which is all they can ask for. Their hand knocks against the stream to disrupt its flow when a few petals stubbornly don’t disappear, and they feel safe to close the faucet once the sink is clean again.

Ranboo reaches for a paper towel to wipe their face down, turning in the process, and they freeze. Their muscles tense like they were back in the freezing cold, and their hand lingers there, held out like waiting for something to be slipped in. Gray eyes dulled by despair go wide and fill to the brim with dread. Their other hand braces against the sink counter so quickly they hear a smack.

Tommy stands before them, the sort of pale where all the color drains from the skin in terror like trying to run away from the threat.

Ranboo’s lifted arm falls to its side, and they can only imagine how this must appear out of context. His friend disappears for no explicit reason, only to return to their routine spot and ignore him. Then, upon further investigation, he sees the horror show that is Ranboo, skin too white but too flushed at the same time and blood staining the bottom half of their face.

Tommy, in an action unbeknownst to Ranboo, doesn’t run away. He doesn’t cry, or scream, or panic about their condition. He doesn’t demand answers. All he does is step forward, such a raw ache in his eyes (that Ranboo put there, no no no now is not the time to act up allium), and wrap their arms around Ranboo.

Characteristic of Ranboo, depressingly characteristic, they get knocked into stupor at such a simple but such a caring action. With so much warmth pressed against them, a singular gesture that says what millions of words couldn’t say about patience and love and understanding, they choke on air. Not with lack of breath - no, quite the opposite. So much of it. Their airways unclog like a trapdoor in their trachea had been unlocked and thrown open. They find themself drowning in emotion rather than their own blood in their lungs.

Once Ranboo can breathe again, they can’t go back.

They hold onto Tommy, hands scrabbling to furiously grip at his clothes, and break down, because now they don’t know what they are to do. Tommy sees them at their low point, and he stays. Tommy still outwardly shows so much mindful attention to them, instantly slipping back into how they were before they separated. He completely disregards the long pause like it doesn’t even matter to him, because Ranboo is finally back and nothing else is important.

Ranboo whimpers and hides their face, trembling in every limb. What did they do to earn this? What do they continue to do to be worth it? Nothing, nothing, nothing, but Tommy still stays like they are everything. Heat springs to their face under their nose and cheeks in the way sourness would after biting into a lemon, and they sniff. Ranboo stays victim to the tears stinging their eyes and squeezes them out when they shut their eyes.

In this moment of vulnerability, it all comes crashing down. Their wrecked scraps cascade out of their mouth like a flood, since releasing the truth sounds so freeing in this time where directing it inwards only leads to puncture wounds. “Everything hurts all the time.” Maybe their voice cracks, and maybe their words are spoken with a wet thickness, but does it matter?

Tommy’s hands rub up and down Ranboo’s back, and the warmth blooming from every gesture leaks through them like a tonic and loosens the hold of the disease.

Their next inhale shudders. Once they start, they can’t stop, rambling on and on and gasping in between to catch enough air to stay alive. “I feel like I can’t - I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t do anything. I’m - powerless. I’m pathetic, Tommy. I can’t - all I can do is let it be. I just want it to go faster. God, why can’t it go faster?”

Tommy’s fingers dig momentarily into Ranboo’s clothes in shock of the sudden self-deprecating despondency, but he slackens his fingers again, forcing each one to press calmly against Ranboo’s back. He remains solid for Ranboo since Ranboo isn’t solid enough to hold themself up. “You’ll feel better someday,” he says weakly, not knowing the right thing to do or say.

They feel better right now. The confession (half-confession, a vague list of statements) and Tommy’s attention (embarrassingly enough) had eased the pressure in their body enough to finally release the built-up reservoir of residue that they hadn’t even known was oppressing them. They feel it climbing up their throat rapid enough to give them vertigo and make it feel like their head swings back to where their feet are, stomach twisting like wringing a towel.

Regretfully, Ranboo shoves Tommy away (not again! Was the first time not enough) out of necessity, not bothering to do damage control before hurling into the sink.

In a powerful vomit that extends their jaw to its limit, so far they hear a crack, and ripples throughout their entire body, bile and blood and a giant sea of petals - those aren’t petals, those are buds, entire buds. Half of a bulb. Half of an allium bulb -

Has this been waiting to be let out this entire time? And the absence of their loved one resulted in a blockage constructing itself within their body? Why does this stupid goddamn bastard, the devil disguising as an illness, have to exist? Why does it need to be so evil?

Tommy watches in horror, lips part and eyes struck with more an absence than an active expression of fear. Tommy watches Ranboo throw up, every gruesome second of it, and can’t bring himself to rip his eyes away. As grotesque as it may be, as much as he wants to cover his eyes, he can’t, much like the feeling of watching a car crash. No matter how hard he tries, his muscles seize and remain stagnant, not answering the signals his brain fires to them.

Ranboo’s hand clutches onto the faucet with all the strength in their body while they spew out the junk from their… stomach? Lungs? Heart? How does this even work?! It feels like a bad prank, and they might have been able to mistake it for one if the consequences weren’t so, so real. The more nutrients that escape them, the more fluids that drain away from them, the more they know they’ll wake up paler tomorrow. They wail out a sob from the very core of their being, shoulders shaking and head ducking along with it.

Tommy carefully steps closer, holding a hand over his face when his lips twist with the abhorrent stench of vomit, iron, and onion.

The vomit stops running, but they continue dry-heaving, hearing the unnerving crack of the hinge of their jaw every time they try and fail to close their mouth. Just - just close. Just close! They try to lock it shut, but it doesn’t stop until they stop willing it to. Ranboo’s hand blunders for the faucet lever, and Tommy helps once he recognizes what Ranboo needs, activating the sink for them.

Ranboo normally would say thanks, but flippant throat usage isn’t a privilege they get to enjoy anymore. With their hand, they splash the water around, trying to send the horrid mixture into the pipes and out of their sights.

Tommy helps by pulling paper towels out of the dispenser, wiping away what he can reach. The blood smears across the porcelain, and he would probably make a joke about this looking like a murder if this was the time for humor.

It isn’t.

Ranboo cups their hands and holds it under the flow of water, splashing it in their face repeatedly to clean the mess off of them. They pour some into their mouth, swishing it around and coughing it back out. This taste is never going to leave them for as long as they live. Even if they miraculously heal, ten, fifteen, twenty years down the line, this is going to stick with them, ingrained permanently into their mind like seared into their skull with a scalding iron rod.

Tommy stares at Ranboo with less fear, but a distant gaze. Ranboo can see the thoughts ticking far under the surface. With a bit more understanding in the situation, he wrestles with trying to decide if this is more or less scary than he originally thought. He digests the horrendous sight he had had the misfortune of witnessing, processing it in gradual steps. “Who is it?” He tries to meet Ranboo’s eye.

Ranboo takes the time to gather themself, sucking in air like drawing a blade through their teeth. There isn’t much time to think of a plan, and they can’t stall forever. They have to come clean. Their body sags, and they look so drained of everything they have, physically and mentally. It’s a miracle they can stand. After composing themself a bit more, they practice courage in returning Tommy’s eye contact. Their face droops into a frown, forehead creased and eyes only able to be described as sad.

Ranboo says with a hoarse, monotonous voice, “Technoblade.”

Chapter 13: Hospital

Chapter Text

Tommy insists on celebrating Christmas with Ranboo instead of his family. They don’t do anything extravagant - all they do is stay where Ranboo is comfortable, inside their dorm, and watch some lighthearted children’s movies in hopes to cheer them up.

They hold a smaller trash can they bought specifically for vomit in their lap the entire time, but Tommy isn’t deterred. He stays by Ranboo’s side, one arm constantly wrapped around them.

It brings them to tears. They can’t find the words to express how much they appreciate him. Tommy is too good for them.

They don’t talk about the hanahaki that both of them know Ranboo has. Tommy doesn’t push. He doesn’t poke where he shouldn’t. He stays, and holds, and cares. Ranboo catches him Google-searching hanahaki to refresh his knowledge on it, and they hold him tighter.

He really is a drop of golden sun.

-

Ranboo decides to make a change out of necessity. They call off more sick days at work, and their supervisor doesn’t bother to ask questions about it. School hasn’t started yet, but they dread the day it does. With the physical inability to do most anything at least forty percent of the time, Sundays turn into something conditional based on how they might be feeling on the given day.

Plus, the no-water bad-food thing isn’t working out for them. They invest in the cheapest sugar packets they can find and pour it into their fresh water, shaking it around until it all dissolves. The sugar water isn’t actively harmful to the plant like the soda was, but the soda was actively harmful to Ranboo as well. It’s safe to say that it wasn’t working out for the better. With the re-introduction of water to their system, an impressive number of problems fix themselves.

Fewer headaches. Better mobility. More energy and stability. Several of these things might be still weakened by the plant, but this is an improvement and that’s all they can ask for.

It pains them to consider, and pains them even more to actually do, but they change up their diet. They go out to eat at cheap places, or sometimes grab the ingredients to prepare it themself in the community kitchen.

School starts, and Techno returns. Ranboo does their best to keep up with homework and lectures, but they let things slip between their fingers. Early semester is pretty low-pressure.

“Dude this is the fifth carne asada this week,” Technoblade says, the first comment he has walking into the room after his rhetoric lecture.

“I need my protein.” They’re losing iron. With every cough, staining their tissues with blood like a sickly Victorian child, they get drained of more and more. The dozens of deficiencies Ranboo was putting themself through on top of the allium made things infinitely worse than they had to be.

“It’s a Tuesday.”

“Rather this than liver,” they say, speaking in shorthand to put the least amount of strain on their voice.

Liver is far from their favorite, since the texture and taste are nothing like ordinary meat, but they eat it.

They also chug sugar water like crazy, grinding through those sugar packets, because they keep coughing up entire bulbs of allium.

Technoblade peers over their shoulder and huffs, pressing his lips together in amusem*nt. “Why don’t you collect those and cook them with your carne asada? I heard onions are a staple with beef - ” he cuts himself off with a laugh when Ranboo sends him a glare.

-

Since Tommy found out about Ranboo’s malady, he got more comfortable giving the space Ranboo signaled that they needed. Ranboo was both eternally grateful and eternally mourning. They need Tommy close to connect their missing piece back where it belongs, but they also need to be as far as possible from him to not see the hurt that accents every second of his existence.

Ranboo goes to FMSC every Sunday that they can, working with boxes and keeping their head down, since catching a glimpse of Tommy’s smile or laugh heals a little part of them. Sometimes Tommy notices them there, sometimes he doesn’t. When he does, he always asks Ranboo if he can give them a hug. Ranboo always wordlessly accepts, holding their arms out like desperate. It helps them power through their days without him.

One week, when Ranboo’s flower is worse than it ever has been flower full growth creeping up their throat, they get KO’d by wave after wave of difficulty. Exams, vomiting, feeling humiliated being out in public, their emotions rise and fester in their heart and their mood swings with the power of a mace handled by a world class warrior.

They feel the need to go on Sunday to hack it down into submission again, or at least keep it at bay for now. Ranboo walks down the street (Technoblade asks Ranboo three times, glaring right into their eyes, if they’re sure about this, and Ranboo nods with equal intensity) and heads into the building, a bit late because they paused to cough into their already dirtied handkerchief.

Tommy stands at the sealing iron closing the bags at one table, and Ranboo jogs over with their mask, gloves, and hairnet. To say they look sickly would be an exceptionally kind understatement.

Tommy’s head perks when he hears Ranboo, then his eyes light up when he notices him taking the mantle of boxer, standing right beside him while serving again for the first time in over a month. He doesn’t speak, since the supervisors are instructing the newbies how to operate the table equipment, but he looks up at Ranboo and smiles.

Ranboo doesn’t have much to smile about. Tommy is a thing to smile about, but they can’t muster up the strength to fake it when everything else hurts.

Tommy’s smile wavers, and Ranboo feels it like a round in their chest from a machine gun.

The demo ends and they get to work. Tommy seals bags, Ranboo packages them. “So, how’ve you been?”

Ranboo doesn’t speak. They shrug and don’t bother to look over at Tommy.

Tommy wilts with the lack of acknowledgement, but he persists nonetheless. “Well, I’ve missed you.” Augh. Ouuugh. Make it stop. Their eyes shoot wide for a millisecond before they school their expression again, like when someone brushes against them and startles them for a fraction of a moment. “How have things with Technoblade been going? Any - uh - any luck?” His voice cracks, and he clears his throat, turning his head away when he realizes Ranboo isn’t going to say anything.

Ranboo aches to tell him everything, and an instinct bubbles up in them that demands they tell the truth, but their lips feel sealed shut at the same time. Throughout the entirety of the shift, they remain dry as chaff in a desert. They don’t shout, they don’t play, they don’t talk.

At one point, where all sound grates on their ears and a sticky iron fluid puts a bitter taste in their mouth, they snap. “Leave me alone,” they say, voice accompanied with too much venom, directing their anger at the world and themself to an undeserving Tommy.

They hear the shutting click of Tommy’s jaw, and it convinces them to look and see how their words had affected Tommy. Tommy looks like a kicked puppy or like someone had slapped him right across the face. He pointedly does his best to avoid looking at even the general direction of Ranboo’s face, clearing his throat. His shoulders sink, and a trembling exhale tumbles out his mouth. “Right. Sorry, mate,” he says with a tone Tommy has never taken with Ranboo, not even on their first day of knowing each other. So polite, so courteous, and so impersonal. He speaks like he doesn’t even recognize the person he is talking to.

The string that had been stretched further and further taut? It finally snaps. Their chest violently compresses, giving them no time to prepare, like the activation of springlocks impaling their whole body. A sharp pain in their chest, sharper than any before, has them clutching their pearls and folding to the ground like a house of cards. They hiss through their teeth and groan, arms shaking with the effort of holding them up.

Tommy releases the iron immediately, getting over himself to kneel down and press his hand to Ranboo’s shoulder. “Ranboo!” He says, voice teeming with concern. “Boo - what’s wrong?!”

“My - chest,” they whisper through a strained voice, hardly able to push the words out. Their breathing picks up in pace, sucking air in and rapidly pushing it out like trying to blow out the burning in their chest.

The other people at their table, rightfully, express their concern. The whole team stops their routine and crowd forward. One person has the wisdom to notify staff, and another one calls the ambulance.

This feels familiar. All Ranboo can think when Tommy tries to soothe them with mutters in their ear of, “it’s okay, it’ll be okay, the paramedics will be here soon,” is ‘not again.’ Tommy, in spite of the betrayal or hurt that must be spiking his heart, wraps his arms around Ranboo and rocks them back and forth while they gasp for air.

“Can’t - c’n’t breathe,” they huff, squeezing their eyes shut and pretending that the structure of their chest isn’t currently collapsing in on itself.

Tommy helps hoist them up, and the crowd parts to make way for them. Some stranger offers their prayers, which Tommy respectfully nods to and moves on. He sticks by their side in the ambulance the entire time, even while the paramedics administer pain medication and oxygen to Ranboo.

Ranboo gets admitted into the hospital, and Tommy is forced out of the room while they run the examination. Tommy takes that time to contact Technoblade, but Techno does not yet respond.

He travels to the food court, but he loses his appetite before his food is served. Techno finally responds saying that he’s on his way. It takes hours for Tommy to be allowed in the room again, but he sprints in the second he does, even though the doctors tell him that Ranboo is unconscious and won’t be very receptive to conversation.

Tommy doesn’t care. He pulls up a chair and sits at their bedside, grabbing their hand and squeezing. Ranboo has needles shooting into their arms and an oxygen mask covering most of their face, skin pale as paper. An IV rests by their bedside, not yet administered, and Tommy figures that it might help.

It might be Tommy’s imagination, but Ranboo seems to rest and breathe better with Tommy by his side. Nope, Tommy is definitely delusional. He needs to cope somehow, right?

He stares at Ranboo’s blank, sleeping face, looking like a ghost that came back to haunt the living plane. He frowns, pressing their lips together to keep away a quiver, and stands to press their hand to Ranboo’s cheek. Their skin is cold to the touch like a body like a dead body and Tommy finds himself squeezing his eyes shut, pretending he was anywhere else. “Don’t break your promise,” he whispers, apparently not even for Ranboo to hear. A tear, without any warning, drops from his eye and plops onto Ranboo’s knuckle. “You told me you wouldn’t go. Don’t go.”

“Do you know what happened?”

Tommy jumps and his head snaps to the door, seeing a doctor in the room that he hadn’t even noticed coming in. Of course, he already told the paramedics in the ambulance, since they had to know what they were treating, but he supposes this doctor wants a more detailed anecdote for their records.

He pulls away from Ranboo to face him, keeping their hands locked. “We were just - working together.” He clears his throat to get rid of any thickness. “And suddenly they fell to the ground and were in so much pain they could hardly speak.”

“Any existing conditions or recent accidents?”

“Well,” Tommy says, hesitant to expose Ranboo’s vulnerable experiment. Though, he supposes, they’re already in the hospital, and they can’t think of a more necessary time to disclose this information. It is literally a matter of life and death. “They were diagnosed with a case of Hanahaki for their roommate.”

The doctor nods sagely, a new wave of understanding crashing over his face. He writes down the details. “Which variant? Eros, Philia, or Storge?”

Tommy blinks at him like he’d spoken another language. “Friendly?”

“Philia, then,” the doctor says under his breath. “That should be simple enough to take care of. Get the roommate over here.”

In a moment of movie-magic perfect timing, they hear the hurried patter of Technoblade’s steps in the hall. He swings the door wide open panting, looking around at the three people in the room. “What’s the matter with ‘em?!”

“Wonderful,” the doctor says, gesturing for Techno to come farther in. “Sit by the patient. They’ll heal easier with proximity to you.”

Technoblade’s face gets struck with confusion, and he looks from Tommy to the doctor to Ranboo’s masked face.

Tommy nods sympathetically. “Yeah, that’s fair.” He hesitates before continuing, swallowing his saliva and pushing his anxiety down with it. “Techno, they have Hanahaki for you.”

Technoblade blinks rapidly, but he doesn’t look concerned. In a moment, he looks like he completely understands the situation, albeit with a somber air to his presence. “Oh.” He nods, eyes stuck on a tile in the floor, and drifts farther in.

The doctor shuts the door. “Stick close to Ranboo,” he instructs. “It’ll soothe the plant in them. Hold onto them, preferably.”

Technoblade’s face screws up like he’d just eaten something very sour, and he plops himself down on a seat on the opposite side of the bed as Tommy. “Hold?” His eyes pin to where Tommy and Ranboo already have their hands interlocked, and he sighs in relief for some odd reason. “Isn’t being close good enough?”

“Technoblade,” Tommy says, fury like a controlled inferno hiding just underneath the words. In his face, there is no trace of amusem*nt or sympathy. “Ranboo is literally in critical condition. If you don’t hold their goddamn hand just because it gives you ‘the ick’, I will lose all respect for you.”

Techno’s mouth hangs open while he tries to form a reasonable response, looking to the doctor for help only to see an equally expectant look. He presses his lips together, because it seems they have backed him into a corner. Does he really have a choice?

Technoblade looks away while he grabs Ranboo’s arm, ‘grabs’ being a generous term here. His fingers graze Ranboo’s palm, but it’s skin-on-skin contact. It’s enough to make him twist his lips into something resembling a repelled grimace.

Luckily, Tommy doesn’t release, because there isn’t a world where he’d choose to separate from Ranboo if he had a choice in the matter.

As the IV flows into Ranboo’s veins, color slowly returns to their skin. First, it gains that peachy look back, before the reds of their skin come into play to highlight them in a way that looks full of life and revitalized once more.

Tommy chokes on air, resting his head against their bedside and squeezing his eyes. The action forces another tear or two to slip out. “Are they going to be alright?”

“Yes,” the doctor says with enough confidence to soothe their hearts. “Their ribs only bruised. They didn’t break. Still bad, but it could have been worse.” Their ribs could have shifted out of place, which would have created a whole mess for them to fix. Luckily, it isn’t that bad. Something must be looking out for them.

Relief washes over both of them. Tommy nods. Techno’s fingers twitch, but under the careful scrutiny of Tommy, he doesn’t dare to retreat. It leaves his muscles tense, but he endures it.

Once the IV is mostly within their body, their eyes flutter open and remain half-lidded. The doctor reaches forward to pull the mask off their face and deactivate the oxygen, since they should be stable enough with the target of their Hanahaki nearby to help and the numbing medication to breathe while conscious. “Wha’s going on?” Ranboo mutters, blinking languidly to try and get a grasp on reality again.

Tommy squeezes Ranboo’s hand. Ranboo feels Techno’s fingers on their palm and subtly moves away on instinct. Techno sighs in relief and pulls back, close enough to still look like touch.

“Now I’m sorry to have to make you do this,” the doctor says, a crease in their brows. “But it’s of the utmost importance that you and the target of your Hanahaki work it out ASAP.” He offers Tommy a pointed gaze. “You, sir, step outside with me.”

Tommy looks heartbroken, but he nods anyway, knowing it to be for the better. Ranboo, still only half-aware, tightens their hold on Tommy’s hand once it starts to slip away. “I know, Boo,” Tommy whispers, wiggling their fingers out of their grip. “I’ll be back before you know it. You can do this! Just tell him the truth!” How ironic.

Tommy and the doctor step outside. Ranboo pushes themself up with an idle groan, running a hand through their hair while they try to connect the dots as to what happened. So - Tommy and the doctor, thinking Technoblade was the subject of interest, left them alone together. The situation is almost laughable to Ranboo, since isn’t it obvious that Tommy is the subject? Comparing how Ranboo clung to Tommy to pulling away from Technoblade, that should be enough evidence.

Not exactly, actually. Ranboo did it mostly for Technoblade’s sake, but the point stands. They connect far easier with the person they can love in a tactile manner, and Techno can’t give them that. Which is fine, but it isn’t Tommy.

Technoblade and Ranboo share an awkward moment where they look each other in the eye, waiting for someone to break.

“It isn’t you,” Ranboo says.

Technoblade huffs in amusem*nt, a smile breaking onto his face. “I know.”

Techno takes the liberty of calling the doctor in and explaining the situation with Ranboo’s help. The doctor advises Ranboo - very adamantly advises - them to tell Tommy here and now to avoid another hospital stay (they’re already on two, and they really don’t want to make it be three). Ranboo declines and in turn adamantly insists on being prescribed preventative treatment to take in the meantime.

The doctor looks unsure, but he isn’t allowed to force the process along. He sighs, long and hard, because this isn’t the first time he’s encountered this stubbornness. He’s sure it won’t be the last. He presents to Ranboo a temporary Hanahaki medication. “A base of saline solution with a few added acids, plus quinine for inflammatory relief and to give the flower some competition. If it receives less nutrients from your nutrients, it can’t grow as fast.”

Ranboo takes the bottle of pills and turns it around and around in their hands, reading the labels.

The doctor takes it back, pulling one pill out and showing it. Hot damn, is that a large pill. “But I need you to know that this is highly experimental. By no means is this a permanent solution.” He sets the pill-bottle down and furiously scribbles on a piece of paper, offering it to Ranboo.

When Ranboo tries to read it, it looks like unintelligible gibberish.

“I wouldn’t even consider it a short-term solution,” he says. “It’ll buy you enough time to gather yourself for the tough conversation, but you need to shape up. You don’t have a lot of time.”

Ranboo looks away and swallows nervously. There isn’t any more time to fool around. This is the endgame.

Technoblade takes the paper from Ranboo and pushes up from the bed. “I’ll swing by the pharmacy and pick this up. When can they sign out?”

They get everything in order. When Ranboo finally leaves the hospital, they offer Tommy a smile, and Tommy lights up. Of course they give the impression of having fixed everything, since in Tommy’s mind, it was a conversation they needed to have with Technoblade.

Tommy tries to ask questions now, now that he considers it water under a long, dreary bridge, but Technoblade snips at him to stop. Tommy listens, but he grabs Ranboo’s hand and swings their arms between them. “Maybe today, we could go to the beach again. A while since we’ve done that, innit?”

Ranboo smiles, but something in the curling at the edges of their lips harks of darker thoughts at work underneath the surface. “Maybe another day. I’m exhausted.”

Chapter 14: Resolution

Chapter Text

Ranboo keeps up the charade.

They plaster a smile onto their face and continue to live out their days as if they aren’t withering away. Every second that ticks by is another second to their imminent death, and even though they have always known this to be true, the shadow of perishing shouts them in darkness thanks to how close they are to their fate.

They don’t want to be so close to it. They want to live. They want to at least graduate, goddamnit!

Technoblade drives Ranboo back to the dorms and convinces them to sleep. The next day, he helps them with their essay, since Ranboo’s absent look behind their eyes like they’re already looking beyond their plane isn’t optimal for locking in and getting work done.

It might be unsettling to guide a half-present Ranboo through properly formatted in-text citations, but he does it, even if his hands tremble and he can’t bear to look Ranboo in the face.

Ranboo gets a meal and some sugar water in them, downing the advised dosage of quinine medication. The goal is to hinder the parasite from growing and absorb the nutrients it tries to steal to redistribute it to the parts of Ranboo’s body that need it. ‘Highly experimental’ in this case means ‘barely works as intended’, so it isn’t the miraculous end-all solution Ranboo was hoping for. It helps them stay aware, but they think a flaw in the design might be the way they vomit it up half the time, along with acids, blood, and entire allium bulbs.

Ranboo, previously, had taken a picture of the cleanest one they could find, sending it off to Tommy and telling him that the flower wasn’t a problem anymore.

Tommy: wait so

Tommy: you’re telling me

Tommy: ALL that pain was caused

Tommy: by this little thing????

No. Not even close.

Ranboo: crazy, isn’t it?

Tommy: glad it’s over, then

Liar, liar, messy liar. The vines and roots press against their bruised ribs, but they deal with it the best they can with the resources available to them.

“Surgery is always an option,” Techno says, sounding unsure of the very words coming out of his mouth.

Ranboo squeezes their eyes shut and shakes their head, buttoning up their work uniform. “No. No no no no - I can’t do that to myself.”

“But you can do this to yourself?”

Ranboo takes a bottle of pills - a powerful pain medication this time, not quinine. This had also been prescribed to them, and thankfully the two remedies don’t clash with each other - and twists the cap open, shaking two pills onto their palm. They take them and down it with sugar water, taking a deep breath and waiting for the effects to kick in.

“Yes,” they say. Tommy hasn’t seen Ranboo since the hospital incident. Today is Saturday, which marks almost a week since the injury. The few days of rest did help, but they would be helped more with a few weeks - or even months - of rest. They look rough, but that’s why they have foundation today. Color-match foundation and some blush, just a little to look as if they still have color in their skin. Their hands might give them away, but they already thought that through. They have on black fabric gloves, which should blend in with their black, long-sleeve Silver Theater too.

“Ranboo, don’t go to work,” Technoblade says, pushing himself to stop slouching against the bedback. “You can’t take it.”

Their supervisors expressed the same concern. “I need to, Technoblade.” They don’t have a choice.

“If you’ve given up anyway, why go to work?”

Ranboo grabs their keys and fits it in their purse, slinging it over their shoulder and heading for the door. “Tommy can’t know I’ve given up.”

“You have to tell him - Ranboo.” Techno snaps his fingers to catch Ranboo’s attention. “Ranboo - Ranboo, don’t you ignore me.”

Ranboo does exactly that, checking their pockets and purse to make sure they have everything they need. Their fingers curl around the handle of the door.

“Oh no you don’t.” Technoblade pushes himself up with an aggressive speed and shuffles across the room with a stiff stride, latching tightly onto Ranboo’s wrist to stop them in their tracks. Ranboo bristles, a gasp escaping their mouth. “You look at me, Ranboo Beloved. Look me in the eyes so I know you’re listening.”

Ranboo’s shoulders drop when they force their muscles to stop tensing, and they turn, hand releasing the door handle. A furious cough erupts from them like someone had swung a fist into their chest with all the strength they could muster. Little petals and flowers float with a deceptive delicance out of their mouth to scatter around their feet.

“Ranboo, you don’t have any time left,” Technoblade says once he manages to lock Ranboo in eye contact, voice as grave as it’s ever gotten. His hand slackens on Ranboo’s and pulls away hastily. “We both know you don’t.” The remedies aren't working, and Ranboo can only rely on pain pills for so long. It won’t keep them alive. It won’t make their body any less fractured. Nothing will make their body any less infected than finally coming clean.

Ranboo tries to look away, but Techno clicks his tongue in sharp disapproval. Ranboo looks back at Techno, shrinking in discomfort. They both know that Ranboo’s clock is reaching its final ticks. Neither of them will say it out loud, but Ranboo looks as if they have a matter of days. They would be lucky to see next week, at this point.

“You can’t stall anymore. You can’t hide.” Ranboo squeezes their eyes shut, and this time Technoblade doesn’t bother. The words hurt, so he knows that they’re listening based on the reactions. “You need to promise me. Promise me, Ranboo. Swear on your goddamn mother that you’ll tell Tommy today.”

“But I’m - ”

“Dying. You’re dying, and I’m tired of being the audience for it. You tell Tommy today or I’m driving your ass to the ER to get that operation. Am I clear, Ranboo?”

Ranboo intakes a shuddery breath, but peeks an eye open, like checking on the aftermath of a sudden explosion. “Techno, I can’t - ”

“Am I clear?!” Technoblade says, more insistently this time. The time for kindness and patience is over. In a literal matter of life and death, Techno sees it appropriate to deal with this problem by any means necessary.

Tension hangs so thick in the air they could cut it with a knife. Ranboo nods, throat too thick to speak. They cover their mouth with their hand and hack up more bloodied petals.

Techno takes the flowers - a beautiful byproduct of this ugly disaster - from their palms to discard later. “Go.”

Ranboo hurries to do so, slipping away from the stand-off to speedwalk out of there.

Technoblade watches Ranboo maneuver out the room, eyes lingering on the shut door that remains. He sighs in exasperation, his eyes flickering between sympathetic and being fed up with them. “Dumbass,” he spits, voice choked.

How are they supposed to deal with watching another friend decay in real time? How long does Ranboo really have left to live? What does Technoblade do if Ranboo doesn’t walk back through this door?

-

Ranboo goes through the motions, unlocking their car and fixing the heater settings and taking hold of the wheel and spitting blood, petals, and stems into the bag they have propped up in their center console. Just the normal routine.

They drive to their afternoon shift, the whole time hearing a dull buzz of static in their ears. Their eyes are dull and lacking light, already preparing themselves for the moment their heart stops pumping. They don’t listen to music and they don’t even try to entertain themself by people-watching out the window at red lights.

Ranboo is… going to die. Oh, god. Ranboo is going to die. If not today, then tomorrow, or maybe the next day. They’re fairly sure it’ll happen by then.

They turn into the lot and set their car in park, pushing the center lever with more violence than necessary. For a moment, they linger. They linger in moments that will drag ahead of them, and they linger in a world that they should have been taken out of months ago.

Ranboo isn’t going to graduate. They won’t get married. They won’t ever travel to all the places they wanted to go. Ranboo’s parents are going to go throughout the years going to the cemetery on their birthday instead of their warm and loving home. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day will now be holidays of grief rather than appreciation, since neither of them would have a child anymore.

Tommy, throughout the entire rest of his Beach Coast stay, is going to go serve at FMSC by himself. Every week, he’ll have that sad, lonely, reclusive look Ranboo always saw when he didn’t know Ranboo was there. The people around him won’t know the intelligence or humor of the guy right next to them, forever quiet and keeping to himself in fear of losing someone new.

It overwhelms them enough to throw them to action. They impulsively groan and smack their hands against the wheel, throwing their head back into the headrest and breathing harshly through their nose when frustration springs tears to their eyes.

Tommy will be put in Technoblade’s place. Tommy will be devastated, even if he didn’t see them as the caring older sibling Ranboo wanted to be (the caring older sibling they could never provide, since they were too busy handling their own repulsive mess).

Stop it. Shut up. They can’t tell themselves these things if they won’t even be around to see them -

The flower constricts tighter and tighter pressing against their raw and bruised ribs like a tease. It coils like a threat. They wheeze and cough profusely, not agile enough to grab the bag before wet petals flurry all over their pants.

Ranboo leans over, neck uncomfortably bent to the side, to duck their head into the bag, hands fumbling to swipe off any trace of the petals. Thank goodness these are black pants.

Tommy will need years of counseling to come to peace with this, and even then he might never get there in the first place. Tommy won’t ever be the same. Ranboo, someone who had only ever wanted to love, will be the single thing in Tommy’s life to hurt the most. Maybe Ranboo deserves to die for that. Maybe it would have been better if they never met at all.

Bile climbs up their throat and doesn’t warn Ranboo in spewing right out their mouth. Thankfully, their head had already been submerged by the bag, but the bag reeks of onion, iron, and vomit. They gag and shake, shaking their head,

No. No, they aren’t ending in their car. They scream, grab a towel to wipe the waste off their face, and smear scented balm all over their lips. For good measure, they pop some gum in their mouth and give themself an extra spritz of perfume.

Ranboo rots and the flower blooms. Ranboo decomposes and the flower thrives.

They head into work and clock in, and their supervisor assigns them with ticket duty.

Niki, currently working janitorial by the ticket station, waves her greeting with an unknowing smile. “I heard all about your little field trip from Tommy,” she says. “He’s been coming here every day this week to ask about you. We’re glad that it’s over.”

Ranboo chuckles nervously, looking away so she can’t see the twitch of their face with the lie. “Yeah. Over.” If Niki hasn’t clocked by now that Ranboo is still sick, it isn’t obvious. Thank goodness. That’s all they needed.

People come up to the counter and purchase tickets. Most interactions are quick, efficient, and dry, since Ranboo doesn’t feel like bothering with courtesy today. The patrons tell them which movie they want to see, and Ranboo takes their payment, exchanging it for the tickets. It runs like clockwork in the way it always does, except for the petals and blood routinely building up in their mouth.

Instead of having to rush all the way to the restroom from where they are, Ranboo ducks under the desk to cough and discreetly vomit into the trash can. Fortunately enough for them, the glass screen between them and the patron, with the only open spot being the half-circle where currency and product are traded, masks anything out of the ordinary.

Their eyes glance at the clock every now and again without actually registering what time it is, because it feels like they’ve been standing here for hours. Their forehead sweats and they stumble around, having to brace themself against the counter and take deep breaths just to keep the stars out of their eyes. “When am I clocking out?” They breathe, fixing their gaze on one point of the counter to focus up again.

Niki finds humor in the situation, since their weariness sounds exaggerated for comedic effect when she doesn’t take into account the body language. She laughs, back turned to scrub at a particularly stubborn sticky spot of spilled soda. “It’s been an hour and a half, Ranboo.”

Are you serious? Are you kidding them? They could have sworn - they check the clock, and Niki is right. Hasn’t it been at least three hours? Time stretches on past them, and they can feel themself losing touch with reality. They feel like an anomaly. Their hands clutch at their face, and they swiftly swing down to cough another bud into the can.

With an arm, they reach up and grab their bottle, chugging down as much sugar water as possible. The taste isn’t terrible, it could be much worse, but they’ve grown sick of it by now.

Niki suddenly grows loud, and Ranboo can hear active chatter from the lobby. They mentally prepare themself for a scene or a new movie-goer, but they don’t prepare nearly enough.

Tommy rolls up to the ticket booth with a bright smile and lax posture, looking completely unburdened like Atlas with the Earth finally off his shoulders. Ranboo’s chest eases up slightly at that, and the flower gives their ribs some space to heal. When they pull back up to a stand, they try to keep their expression within that good nonchalant range of neutral-positive to resemble more of how Ranboo behaved before this whole disease crashed into them. Calm, collected, and willing to ride with whatever Tommy was gibbering about in the moment. Life was so easy. They thought they struggled back then? They had no idea how awful things were about to get for them, like Satan personally dragged hell all the way up to Earth specifically for Ranboo.

They smile, void of enthusiasm but filled with enough warmth at the familiarity to make up for it. “Hey, Redcoat,” they say, voice still hoarse.

Tommy doesn’t question it, because he has the sense to deduce that the Hanahaki healing takes time. He slings his arm over the counter and leans against it, a devilish smile curling his lips up. “Say, what does a guy need to do to get a ticket to Ponyo around these parts?”

Ranboo startles themself with a laughter, stifling the slight cough that slipped out. “You’re still on that? Don’t you want to watch something new? I heard that the Generation Loss movie was getting a lot of positive feedback.”

“Yeah,” Tommy says, playing up a pout. “But that’s horror. I want to watch something fun.” Fair enough. After the wringer Tommy, Ranboo, and Technoblade got tossed into, some lighthearted fun is the least they could ask for.

“I’d recommend the Steven Universe movie sequel,” Ranboo says. “The music’s great.”

“Have you seen it?” Tommy says, pulling out his wallet and counting the proper amount of bills. His eyes flit up to the price menu again to double-check if he has it right.

“Twice already,” Ranboo says.

“They let us watch one free movie a week,” Niki says, providing some added context from a distance.

Tommy nods, sliding the money through the passage hole. Ranboo reaches forward to grab it, and Tommy presses his hand over Ranboo’s gloved one. He smiles. Ranboo smiles back, finding it an easier task with the way the warmth slackens their tense muscles. Thankfully, Tommy doesn’t question the gloves. He steps away from the booth with a ticket in hand. “Au revoir, monsieur,” he calls with a flippant wave.

Ranboo offers one back with an amused smile. “See you later, alligator.”

Tommy disappears into the theater to enjoy his movie. Surely he’ll be back in an hour or two to tease Ranboo further, and Ranboo admittedly looks forward to it. When the smile still ghosts their face, Niki looks over and huffs. “You two really are like brothers.”

Ranboo’s distant smile fades into something downcast, and they cough another flurry of petals into the air. They catch them before they scatter away.

Time crawls by with gravelly voices and strained conversations. Ranboo watches the sun’s light fade throughout the day, yearning for their shift to finally be over. Maybe Technoblade was right. Maybe they shouldn’t have bothered coming.

Yes, they tell themself. Yes, they should have. They made Techno a promise, and everyone knows you don’t screw with Technoblade. Time is running out, and they have a golden opportunity to confess when Tommy’s movie ends. At work? With others around? In the very front of the building? What a stupid plan. Don’t do it. You can’t do it.

Ranboo hangs on for as long as they can, locking their knees to stand straight and closing their eyes to focus all their energy on breathing and keeping their heart pumping. Niki eventually moves on to clean up another part of the building, leaving them alone with this problem. Not alone, exactly, but strangers don’t count. A familiar face is what they need, but it isn’t what they have, so they might as well not linger.

Every pulse of their heart only feeds the flower, and it becomes all too tempting to stop breathing. They duck down every few minutes, coughing with all the force in their chest to spit out the waste and flora building up in them. It feels like walking a tightrope, keeping the proper balance of strapping in to fake being okay and offering themself time to compose themself. At some point during the shift, at a high point where at least seven groups wait in line for them to return to Earth from the clouds, it gets to be all too much.

They trip on the tightrope and hang on by only the grip of their weak hands, the wire digging into the skin of their palms. Holding on only hurts, but they know the drop will hurt more.

The irked grumblings of the crowd has Ranboo struggling to catch their breath. They wonder how long they had remained motionless and hunched under the counter for, since Niki knocks on the door of the booth and asks how they are.

Ranboo, still with a loose grip of the counter, manages to pull themself up, eyes mostly narrowed to negate the effect of thousands of stars sparkling in their vision. Their legs feel like gelatin and static, like a million needles, pokes Ranboo’s limbs. They feel a sudden heat over the entire surface of their skin, and they clutch their forehead, the world spinning on its axis.

Nope. No no no. Not under any circ*mstances. They aren’t getting sent to the hospital twice in a week, especially not with Tommy so close by to see how Ranboo lied.

“I’m fine!” Ranboo says, voice strained like they’d fallen from a height and cracked every one of their crackable joints simultaneously.

Niki hesitates in her response. “Okay, Ranboo. Is there technological interference?”

No. Biological interference.

“I think - Niki - can you cover for me? I need to take my break.” Ranboo staggers for the door and swings it open to allow her passage.

She has her key in hand, arm already held out to unlock the door herself, and she startles seeing them. “Ranboo?”

“It’s just part of the recovery process,” they hurry to say, but they aren’t sure how convincing it is when a thin trail of blood drips from the corner of their mouth and not even the make-up can hide how deathly pale they truly are.

Niki’s forehead creases, and she doesn’t look like she believes them, but she allows them to pass anyway. Ranboo scrambles for the bathroom, choosing the men’s restroom out of convenience, and splashes their face with water. Come on, Ranboo. Wake up. Come to awareness. The shift doesn’t matter one bit, no one gives a damn about work, but they need to hang on. Hang on. Hang on, Ranboo.

The world fades away. The static in their ears turns to a high-pitched ring, and light pulses in their vision like a ghost was in the room with them interfering with the electricity. It’s Ranboo. They’re the ghost. Their soul is exiting their body. Their heart is breaking.

Ranboo rushes out of the bathroom, because they can’t do this in a public bathroom. Anywhere but there. They rush behind the snack counter, ignoring the calls from their co-workers, and throw the back door open.

Behind Silver Theaters is the blank back area, not quite an alley since the other buildings squished up against them don’t press flush to the large wall separating the commercial complex from another series of buildings. An asphalt street runs back here, though with no lights or paint, since this isn’t a place people are meant to go. It isn’t illegal, but it isn’t typical for people to travel through the back.

Ranboo collapses against the concrete platform that separates the theater property from the road, not bothering to exert the effort it takes to hold their body up. They never realized how many dozens of micromovements their legs do every second to keep them upright, and doing it manually is too taxing. Breathing, seeing, speaking, all incredibly manual. They don’t know how they have managed it for so long, but they finally deflate since they had been running on fumes for the entire day. They’ve been running on fumes not just today, but for weeks.

They ease and come to the natural position of lying flat on the concrete, face up. Their limbs sag against the chilly ground, night dark and moon paling their face until they look ghostly white. The cold encompasses them, and they crane their head up to gasp for air.

They cough, what else is new, and streams of blood trickle out the side of their mouth to pool by their cheek on the ground. With the way that their head is angled, the petals don’t leave their mouth until they spit, but Ranboo doesn’t see the point. After spitting once or twice, only leaving more of a mess on their face and clothes, they decide to let it gather in their mouth instead.

They tilt their head to the side when they retch out a horrid blend of blood and saliva, entire flowers snapping off the plant and passing through their throat. With blurry vision from aggrieved tears, they see the full forms of alliums: buds, bulbs, and stems. So innocuous. So innocent, lying there in a puddle of sanguine fluid.

Ranboo knows that the flower doesn’t only occupy their chest now - it has slowly crept up their body, beleaguering their esophagus and growing in their throat. This botanical nightmare will be the end of them, and they know what their corpse will look like. Ranboo will be the pot, and the plant will grow out their mouth, using their flesh as the nutrients needed for it to grow.

A wet, suffocated sob escapes their mouth, blood bubbling on their lips, when they realize that trying to avoid their greatest fear is what brought it to fruition. Ranboo will wilt on a cold night with no one to hold their hand and whisper soothingly to them while they pass on. Ranboo will die alone.

-

Tommy exits the movie with a swagger in his step, his walk made faster with the motivation of seeing Ranboo. On his trek over, he organizes his thoughts about the movie, ready to gibber it all out to Ranboo’s willing ear.

When he opens the door and turns the corner, Niki stands in the booth. Not Ranboo. Maybe Ranboo got off early, or their shift is already over. That’s not right. He could have sworn Ranboo would be on the clock for at least another couple hours. He finds no harm in asking, so he waits for the one person in line to leave before sliding up to her. “Did Ranboo head home?”

“They’re on break,” Niki says, logging ticket information into the work database. Her lips twist in thought, then she decides it best to continue. “They’re having an episode.”

“An - a what? An episode?” Tommy says, quick with the eagerness to know and help. Concern floods into his gaze, and he momentarily waves away the silly notion of musicals and cartoons. “Are they alright?”

Niki shrugs. “They said it was part of the process, but you can go check.”

Tommy doesn’t waste a second speedwalking - almost running, when the space hands them the opportunity to - back inside, looking around for a familiar face. “Ranboo? Ran - do you know where Ranboo is?”

After asking around, disrupting several employees, and stalling the lines (the glares these strangers pass him are completely irrelevant. He would tolerate all the scrutiny in the world if it meant Ranboo doesn’t have to suffer anymore), he manages to retrace Ranboo’s steps.

With a mostly unassuming hand, he twists the knob and pushes the door open.

He sees Ranboo. What he sees is nothing pretty. It almost looks like a murder scene. “Ranboo!” He shouts at the top of his lungs, all air whooshing out of his chest. He doesn’t even bother to close the door behind him, sprinting to Ranboo’s side and falling to their knees. His legs skid against the concrete, and it might rip his knees a bit, but the tiny scrapes on his skin are a tickle fight in comparison to the battlefield that is Ranboo’s body. “Ranboo - oh god, Ranboo,” he breathes, hands flitting about and trembling like trying to do something. There is nothing to be done.

When Tommy grabs Ranboo’s arm and pulls the glove off, he connects their fingers. Ranboo’s hand is cold, and they don’t return the link. Tears brim in Tommy’s eyes, and his horrified gasp racks his entire body.

Ranboo has a puddle of blood around their head that slowly oozes outwards, and flowers scatter around them like someone had lazily commemorated their death. He folds over them and sniffs, choking on a cry. “Ranboo, please,” he says, holding their hand with one of his own and bracing himself against the ground with the other. “Please, don’t go.”

Ranboo gasps for air like they’d finally broken surface tension after swimming up from the floor of the ocean. Their heart stutters like an old engine, taking several attempts to activate and, when it finally roars to life again, hardly gets the job done. Their breathing stops and starts at the rate their heart stops and starts, and they sputter out blood and buds from their mouth.

Tommy perks up again, eyes wide and streaks running down his cheeks. “Ranboo!” He calls, voice delicate to account for their vulnerability.

Their heart fractures. Their heart is breaking. Their heart is hardly holding on. Tommy helps them breathe in their final moments, and it helps them hold on for another second longer. Just another second, they fight, to see Tommy. Maybe they don’t need to die alone. If Tommy is the last thing they see in life, they could die with contentment. Their fingers weakly, oh-so-slightly, curl around Tommy’s in turn, such a small action that it would be hard for someone to notice. Tommy notices. He sees their effort. “T’mmy,” they whisper, finding the energy to look happy to see him despite all the other things going on with them.

Tommy’s bottom lip trembles, and he sobs, pressing his free hand carefully to Ranboo’s chest. He feels an inexplicable warmth and a tightness to the skin, like it had been stretched in the way a drum would be. “How?” He breathes, experiencing a fury that could level forests and challenge the sun itself. He shakes his head absently, tear after tear clinging onto their chin, jaw, or nose before inevitably falling. “How could he not love you?”

A jealousy he had felt, a selfish and irrational one, slams into him full-force yet again. Technoblade doesn’t know what he has. He doesn’t know how good he has it, to have someone wonderful like Ranboo appreciate him to the point they let themself reduce to this. Tommy would kill to be in his place. Tommy would have killed for it because maybe then they could have soothed Ranboo’s pain and everyone would have been happy together.

Ranboo offers a pained, delirious smile, one of the most genuine they’ve made in too long a time. Their teeth are stained with red, but it doesn’t matter when it exudes an authentic love from every angle Tommy looks at it. A tear or two cascades from their eyes down the side of their face, joining the fetid pool of fluid. Ranboo’s left arm - Tommy can see how much self-control and sheer power of will Ranboo practices in order to do this, because they by no means have the strength for it - lifts, trembling and moving at a slow, gradual pace.

Tommy watches it intently, remaining patiently still.

Ranboo manages to reach Tommy’s level, using their hand to carefully cup his cheek. Their smile closes into one with tight lips, but it never fails to look just as genuine.

Tommy sighs and leans into their hand, unable to shake the feeling that both of them will end up heartbroken today. Ranboo’s thumb swipes across Tommy’s skin to wipe away tears, and the sheer tenderness of the action only triggers several more to fall. Tommy’s eyes soften, and his eyelids partially close, like wanting to indulge in the feeling but knowing he really shouldn’t.

Ranboo coughs, and they no longer have the strength for it to sound like anything other than a weak huff. With their throat coated in moisture and stuffed with disruption, the words come out wet and thick, hardly audible. “It was never Technoblade.”

Tommy lingers there for a moment, not truly processing the full extent of the words, but then Ranboo’s hand slides from his skin and falls limp to the ground again. One final exhale rolls past Ranboo’s lips, and the hand on Ranboo’s chest stops feeling any rising and falling.

The words take time to properly make it through Tommy’s mind. His eyes go wide once Ranboo ceases to breathe again, and he hears the sound of glass shattering. His entire world crumbles before him, eroding into microscopic pieces to be blown away with the passage of time. He both wants to rip away and pull closer, and the warring ideas freeze every muscle in his body.

Once he finally connects the dots, he wails, an animalistic howl of a scream, because how could this have happened? How could Tommy have let this happen? “RANBOO!” He shouts at the top of his lungs, shaking their remains with a new desperation. “Ranboo, please no. Please.” He sobs the words out more than says them, no longer caring about the blood that would stain him. He pulls Ranboo’s body closer, crying over their shoulder and squeezing them like trying to make up for all the hugs he won’t be able to give. “Wake up, Ranboo, please!” he wails, gasping for air and not caring who hears him on this desolate night. Ranboo is gone. Ranboo is gone and nothing else matters. “I’m sorry - I’m sorry!” His hands dig into Ranboo’s clothes and he tugs like trying to pull Ranboo’s soul back into its body. “Why didn’t you - why did you never tell me?” He says softer, every breath out his mouth sounding like devastation. “I need you,” Tommy says, burying his face in Ranboo’s chest. He doesn’t hear a heartbeat. “Please, Ranboo, I need you!” He cries, raw weeps racking through him and shredding the tissues of his throat. He couldn’t bring himself to care. “You’re like the - you’re someone who - you had my back, Ranboo, when I was alone. I needed - ”

He sniffs, dousing Ranboo’s clothes in enough tears to properly make them wet rather than damp.

“I still need you. I need you,” he says earnestly, pouring his heart out for someone who can’t hear. He sinks to the point that he isn’t even kneeling anymore, but more draped over Ranboo’s body in grief, lying on top of their body like he could join them. “I don’t know what to do,” he says hoarsely, the remorseful defeat in his voice so palpable he’s sure his parents could hear it from across the world. He lets his eyes slip shut, since it’s easier than forcing himself to witness any part of this. “Please. I’m so, so lost without you. You’re like the sibling I never had. I - I love you. I love you, Ranboo.” In a quieter whisper than all the others, so soft it might as well have not existed, he finishes his melancholy cries with, “so please don’t go.”

Too long passes in utter silence with only the moon here to witness his grief. He shutters and chokes with his soft, pathetic cries. Every second feels like an eternity without them. It drags on like his own personal hell. Tommy spends too much energy shoving away all the memories of the moments that should have clued him in to this. He should have known. He should have known, and he should have stepped in to love on Ranboo when Ranboo was too stuck in purgatory.

Tommy’s eyes fly open with a rapid blink when he hears the steady, gentle pounding of a pulse in Ranboo’s chest again. His hands scrabble for a moment to take hold and ground himself in the moment, and he presses closer to be extra sure. His eyebrows furrow, and he presses his lips together to hold back a squeal, since premature hope sends his heart soaring through the clouds.

Lo and behold, there it is, the rhythmic song of life pulsing in their body at a healthy pace.

Tommy rips himself back only to look Ranboo in the face, seeing the prompt way they force their eyes open like even they themself are shocked by their sudden return of consciousness. Tommy doesn’t waste even a millisecond in time in swinging back into them, an overjoyed yelp ringing from their throat where lamentation had just been.

Ranboo hangs on for dear life, like if they separate themself from him again they’d fall back into the darkness of death. Breathing precious air again and gasping to get it before it escapes them once again, they laugh, a wildly incredulous thing but underlined by the immense relief that is resolution.

Ranboo hooks their chin over Tommy’s shoulder, taking in a deep breath from their nose to get used to the chilly air in their system again, before closing their eyes. They close their eyes and squeeze Tommy like they’d never meet again, grinning tearfully in immense relief. After catching their breath, the reality of the situation comes crashing down on them. Their laughs taper away into sobs, and they cry over Tommy’s shoulder, no words to be said.

Tommy composes himself to be a firm foundation for them, like they always were for him when they were lost or alone, shushing them gently and rubbing his hands up and down their back. He whispers little nothings, finally telling Ranboo the truth when he says that everything is going to be okay.

Both hang onto each other like they were the only tether in each other’s world.

Ranboo rasps over Tommy’s shoulder, at first a typical spew of blood and petals. Then they keep going, hacking up a lung like trying to spit something out from the deepest pits of their throat.

They gag and croak while the flower fully releases its hold, leaving them truly free. With another wheeze, they cough hard enough to thrust the allium plant out.

Tommy pulls slightly back to turn and looks at it lying in the pool of its own causing, now stuck to die in Ranboo’s place. They both stare, identifying the beast of a plant that now shrivels and waits for its turn to wither. Tommy has the fleeting thought of doubting how much pain such a pathetic thing could cause, but he holds his mental tongue when he sees Ranboo’s expression.

Ranboo has a textbook thousand-yard stare, gazing onward at the flower like watching something beyond their plane. This - this thing, this monster, is the thing that’s been causing them all this pain. Part of them desires to chop its stem into thousands of tiny slices and shred its petals and buds apart. How would it like a taste of its own medicine? The rest of them, the vast and louder majority, aches to never cast their eyes upon another allium for as long as they live.

They close their eyes and finally succumb to the exhaustion, feeling safe to rest at last. Tommy catches them, slightly concerned when they pass out but figuring that they deserve to let their body take care of it. He calls Technoblade to pick them both up and drags Ranboo away from the pool of blood, holding their head in his lap. Tommy supervises them, like guarding them, and sends the occasional glare to the allium.

Ranboo releases the occasional groan in their sleep, since their ribs and chest still throb with pain. The aftermath might not be pretty, but Tommy finds peace in knowing that the worst of it is over. To soothe them in their unconsciousness, Tommy cards a careful hand through Ranboo’s hair, continuing to whisper soothing assurances and loving promises the entire time they stay there.

With the weed now gone, Ranboo can heal.

Chapter 15: Epilogue

Chapter Text

Ranboo’s coworkers find them with Tommy when Technoblade calls in, and Niki doesn’t make a peep while cleaning the flowers and blood. She doesn’t complain even for a moment, since she knows her hour of labor is nothing compared to the months of brutality Ranboo had to endure.

Technoblade rides up on the asphalt, lowering the window and completely shutting off the radio. “Hey,” he calls with the flap of his hand, the bare minimum of a wave. “Get ‘em in here.”

“Couldn’t you help?” Tommy says, carefully drawing away from Ranboo to stand and curl his arms under their back.

Technoblade presses his lips together pointedly, eyes narrowed at nothing, before he clicks off his seatbelt. “You know what? I could.”

He steps out of his car and stares at the slowly drying puddle of blood, rubbing his hands against his arms to combat the chill of the cool night. He hadn’t bothered throwing on a jacket in his haste. Together, Tommy and Techno carry Ranboo to the backseat of the car. Tommy takes the backseat to supervise them, Ranboo’s head still in Tommy’s lap, and they head back to the dorms, hopefully to leave this chapter of their lives behind forever.

Ranboo stirs, eyes opening for a moment when their head lolls. Tommy smiles down at them and brushes some hair out of their face. “Hey, Boo,” he whispers. With the ghost of a smile, Ranboo’s eyes slip shut again.

“So,” Techno says, hitting the gas once they get onto the street. Nighttime and speed limit be damned, Ranboo needs a solid bed. “They told you?”

Tommy shrugs. “Kind of. They, implied it.” Then they died in his arms. There weren’t many other conclusions Tommy could draw.

They make it to the dorm, pull off their bloodied sweater, and set them on the bed. Tommy lies a blanket overtop them. Technoblade tucks some makeshift ice packs under the blanket onto their ribs and chest, and Ranboo sighs in relief, the tension in their face draining away.

Tommy changes out of his clothes (he borrows Ranboo’s. They shouldn’t mind. They’re family) and lies in bed beside them, ready to wait through the night and to the next day for Ranboo to be ready.

-

The next day, Ranboo awakens, slow and gradual like peacefully rising from a long slumber. When the melted ice packs slide off their body, it forces them to pay attention to the state of their body. They open their mouth and breathe in and out manually, getting used to how easy it is.

Tommy sits up and shuffles to wrap his arms around Ranboo again, and all the memories from last night come flooding back to them. They hold on like Tommy is their lifeline and show no sign of releasing any time soon.

Technoblade clears his throat and steps out of the room to offer them some privacy.

Tommy doesn’t move to make eye contact with Ranboo, instead pressing his head to Ranboo’s chest to listen to the beating of their heart. “Boo,” Tommy says caringly, liquid warmth pouring into Ranboo’s heart with the mere sound. He doesn’t follow up with anything, providing a floor for Ranboo to take.

Ranboo takes it. It’s the least Tommy deserves for what he witnessed. “It all started because of - because of you,” Ranboo says, the words awkward and timid coming out. They rush to repair their statement. “Not to say that it’s your fault! No, it’s - it’s all mine. For being clingy, and - and, I don’t know. But I caught the flower.” It has been almost a year since then. This was quite the long game they were playing.

“Can you tell me what you felt like?” Tommy asks, sounding hesitant.

“It - well. It was horrible. I - ”

“Boo,” Tommy says to carefully interrupt them. “That’s not what I meant.”

Heat rises to Ranboo’s face once they re-evaluate. “Oh.” They curl their arms around Tommy, tugging him closer. “I was - hah. It was torture,” they say, voice grating and pained. Tommy notices that they used a far more brutal word than they had when describing the physical aspect, and he nudges closer because of it. “You were my brother. You were just my little brother, in every way I could think of. I wanted to - well. I wanted to be that for you, because the way you make me feel - I don’t know. I felt important, Tommy. I felt like I was worth the trouble.”

“You’re always worth the trouble,” Tommy whispers, not an interruption but more an interjection - an aside, at best.

“I was terrified you would think I was weird for that.”

“Me too,” Tommy says. “I felt safe around you. I still do.” He squeezes slightly, not enough to hurt their body. “You’re security. You’re security, Ranboo.”

“And, through all that,” Ranboo says, taking a deep breath to compose themself (oh goodness, that feels good. They’re never going to take oxygen for granted ever again). “I felt better around you. Physically. You - this is going to sound silly.” They chuckle softly.

“No, say it,” Tommy says, pulling back enough to look them in the eyes. “Say it, Ranboo.”

“I felt this, physical warmth in my chest,” they say, careful with each word as they illustrate their experience for Tommy to share. “Like an actual ripple. A palpable strike into my heart, and it kept the disease at bay.”

Tommy frowns in the way one does when too adoring to smile and leans up to press their foreheads together. Ranboo closes their eyes and sighs, a smile on their face with the thought that they don’t need to be startled by touch any longer. This can be as easy as breathing. “I love you,” Tommy whispers, still getting used to being allowed to release these tender thoughts. “So much.”

“Me too,” Ranboo says.

Tommy huffs out his nose. “Say it in full.”

A fond chuckle bubbles in Ranboo’s throat. “God, you’re like a ray of sun,” they mutter under their breath. Then, just to make Tommy happy (and for themself too. Don’t be fooled. This is still definitely for them), they say, “I love you too.”

Tommy lights up like the sun and grins, and all Ranboo can think about is how grateful they are to be able to see another one in their lifetime.

They exchange soft words and sweet sentiments, things that have been building up for the year and a half they’ve known each other, since now they know for sure that they can.

Ranboo doesn’t know when this shifted from fun acquaintanceship to intimate siblinghood, but they find that they don’t mind.

-

In the days that follow, Ranboo experiences a strange method of coping. Not strange in general, but strange for them, since it isn’t typical for them. They refrain from speaking to not put any strain on their throat. Their responses are nods or gestures, if not properly typing things out to communicate more complex ideas.

A chill of fear still scratches at their bones, leaving them rattled even if they know they’re safe. They know, and their body has yet to receive the memo. That powerless, pathetic feeling returns in full swing, such a bad whip of it that they refrain from their normal Sunday activities.

They message Tommy so he doesn’t panic.

Ranboo: hey, not feeling too good.

Ranboo: dont worry, not rebounding

Ranboo: im just

Ranboo: I don’t know.

How do they describe this terror within them, instinctual like a deer’s response to a wolf prowling in the forest?

Ranboo: im wound up

Ranboo: kind of shellshock i guess?

Ranboo: it all just swung at me at once today

Ranboo: the reality of everything

Ranboo: it's really exhausting. Idk why

Ranboo: so i’ll be staying in for now

Ranboo: we can chill later tho

Ranboo: :]

They see Tommy’s speech bubble appear and disappear, so they know he at least read the messages. That should be good enough for them, but they still watch, waiting for a response to pop up.

Tommy: okay

Tommy: I do have a few things to do so I can’t drop by

Tommy: :’)

Tommy: would you feel well enough to go to the beach tonight?

Ranboo: i’d like that

Tommy: meet me there

That’s odd. Usually they go together, meet up and walk, but Ranboo supposes it makes enough sense.

Ranboo: okay

Ranboo lies in bed all day, breathing in and out and staring at their ceiling. They don’t get any work done, but they allow their thoughts to consume them. They allow the darkness to encompass them again, only for the purpose of closure. With each shadow, they present the light, and it disappears. They prove to themself over and over, running it back in their mind like a broken record, why they are safe and loved. Their hand rests on their chest, feeling the healthy rhythm of their heart. A sigh of relief falls from their mouth. Hopefully, this doesn’t become a common occurrence.

Once the sun sets, Ranboo gets ready for their outing. Sure, their only audience is going to be Tommy, but Tommy is someone worth looking decent for. They brush their hair, slap on some clothes, but don’t bother with makeup.

The walk shouldn’t take too long. After one elevator trip and a trek down a block, they see the pier before them. Ranboo narrows their eyes and thanks the sky for the full moon, since they can make out the little blob that is Tommy in the distance.

The sand is soft enough under their shoes that they feel tempted to take them off. Scratch that, they do take them off. No one is around and Ranboo can’t bring themself to care.

The spring night is perfect, a light breeze keeping it crisp but not too chilly. When they get close enough to Tommy to see in more detail, they see him dressed in a coat (not the red coat), a tie, and some slacks. His hair looks incredible, like he’d spent proper time on crisping each of his curls to perfection. He looks like a proper gentleman. It gives Roaring Twenties. He looks way too formal for an outing on the beach, and Ranboo now feels underdressed, but his genuine smile disarms them. The smile is distinctly Tommy, and it reminds them that they’re welcome here whether in a ballgown or a potato sack.

The more odd thing is the instrument resting in Tommy’s lap. Held in his hands is an acoustic guitar, and Ranboo’s forehead creases seeing it. They lift an absent finger to point at it, and Tommy’s smile grows. “Oh, this?” Ranboo nods, taking a seat right beside him. The gentle ambience of the crashing waves cradles their moment gently. “I figured you might like a break from everything.”

Ranboo nods slowly, brows still furrowed with the confusion that continues to riddle them. They try to piece things together, but they can’t. Despite that, they still smile, amused and warmed by Tommy’s little show.

Tommy strums the guitar, knocking his fist against it for some of the beats, a smile playing on his lips. Ranboo watches all the while, sitting right beside Tommy and waiting for what is to come. After a measure or two, the furrow in their brow eases, their face suddenly blank with the process of realization. Their head springs up, eyes alight with recognition.

Tommy’s smile curls smugly at that sight, and he keeps playing his acoustic cover of So Help Me by the one and only Russ Morgan. An unmistakable smile appears on Ranboo’s face, broad and gleeful, and they shift enthusiastically in their seat. Tommy gently sings the lyrics with that voice he’d once been so timid with, so help me if I don’t love you. So help me if you don’t love me.

Ranboo finds their heart full in seconds. Warmth overflows in their chest, glowing in their insides and scaring away any shadow that dared to remain. How did they deserve this blessing that was Tommy? What did they do to earn this? Their head lolls onto Tommy’s shoulder because they feel like they may die if they don’t return some form of love, palpable waves threatening to drown them in the pleasant waters of affection. They feel the vibrations of the guitar, the strings of their soul exposed and played beautifully by their brother, and his voice is such a soothing thing. Tommy deserves the world, and Ranboo hopes one day they can give back a fraction of what Tommy had given to them.

They close their eyes and a tear slips down their cheek, but the smile on their face is the biggest tell of their true feelings. You’re so special, they mouth, a choked cry of joy like a quiet huff erupting from them.

During the musical interlude without the lyrics, Tommy speaks. He speaks, and Ranboo is instantly assured. “I know your heart still hurts. It’ll take some time to heal.” He picks the song without any flaws, and Ranboo realizes that he must have been practicing this for a while, practicing this just for them. “Like all wounds do. But I'll be here the whole time, Boo. I won’t go.”

Ranboo feels safe to melt against his side, knowing for a fact that everything about their relationship is mutual. Finally, they release hold of their emotional hurt.

-

Things return to normal - or, maybe a bit better than normal. Ranboo feels more willing to outwardly express their affections, and Tommy finally has his humorous spirit again. They go to FMSC on Sundays together and hang out casually again (that’s one thing Ranboo missed - the mass amounts of quality time. It seems that that flower really took everything from them, huh?), and they find they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Ranboo, with their hand held in Tommy’s, gaits through the street in their eager haste. The night is young, the moon is new, and the city lights are too bright. Tommy smiles, already knowing this well-trodden path, but he gives Ranboo the thrill of it anyway.

To their beach they go, wandering the shores in comforting silence until no other people are in sight. The sand is plush underneath their shoes, and the spring night air lends to more warmth than the wind ready for winter. Even then, Tommy decides that it isn’t enough, sitting right beside Ranboo in the sand. Ranboo lets him, curling their arm over his shoulders and tugging him closer. Tommy’s head lolls on Ranboo’s chest, where it often finds itself, and he listens to Ranboo’s heartbeat. He finds comfort in the sound.

They sit together and stare at the stars, two unextraordinary people with an extraordinary story under an extraordinary night.

-

They watch a billion movies, fail at cookie-baking in the community kitchens (it’s a wonder the fire alarm wasn’t set off), text often during Spring Break when Ranboo heads back to their parents place, and all in all don’t leave each other alone.

Summer is approaching fast, and Tommy tells Ranboo that his plan is to return to England for the holiday. Ranboo tries to mask their premature missing, but Tommy sees right through them, waving them off and offering for them to tag along.

Ranboo says yes immediately, because free housing? Free food? In Britain? Staying with Tommy’s parents? Staying with Tommy? The only snag is that they have to fund their own flight, which is a tiny expense in comparison to the riches they reap in return. What a steal.

However, the year isn’t over yet. With only a couple more weeks until exam season, they find themselves more stressed than every, but both are determined not to ghost each other again like they always do in these hard times. Company is what they need, not isolation.

Which is why, on Sunday after their serving shift, they muck around the neighborhood, wandering some new blocks and trying to find interesting places to spend their afternoon. It doesn’t matter what they do - if they do it with Tommy, it’s something worth doing.

Tommy, swinging their hands between them proudly, points at a shop he hasn’t seen before. “Nina’s Flowers,” he reads off. “Ooh, a flower shop. That’ll probably be pretty. Let’s go!” Tommy tugs them on with enthusiasm, and Ranboo smiles, having no choice but to follow in his shenanigans.

They have no reason to go to a flower shop, but Tommy has no reason to do half the things he does and he’s still as happy as a clam.

A bell on the door jingles when they enter, and someone dealing with a hanging pot of begonias turns around, careful not to fall off her ladder. “Just a minute!”

The golden-hour sun filters through the windows and shines its light energy onto the plants inside. Ranboo takes a deep breath and closes their eyes to focus on the aroma. They smile. Fresh earth and things in bloom, both welcome sights.

Tommy releases Ranboo’s arm and starts exploring, calling out the names as he reads them. The building isn’t large, but it isn’t small either, the main portion of it being rows upon rows of flower beds housing different variants. “Awh! Look at these ones, mate! ‘Dahlia’ - I’ve never heard of that before.”

Ranboo hums, strolling through the building and enjoying the scenery. They happen to head the direction Tommy calls them to, but they take the scenic route because they know that by the time Ranboo catches up, Tommy will be off doing something new.

Ranboo was right. Tommy spots something new that interests him and abandons his post. “Snapdragons!” He says, though excitement drains away to leave room for disappointment. “They don’t look like how they did in Coraline.”

Ranboo bursts into laughter, turning to head a little farther into a corner. “Well, yeah. Duh. It’s a movie. Did you think the plants were about to start chomping at you?”

“Well, I hoped it was kind of a Venus flytrap situation,” Tommy says, wandering away.

“The flytraps are over there,” the young woman says, pointing with the spout of her watering can to the opposite corner of the room.

Ranboo opens their mouth to contribute to the conversation, ideally with something witty or funny, but they stop in their tracks.

A sign before them, small and innocently spiked into the soil of the bed, reads, ornamental allium. In the bed, a little cluster of purple, bulbous flowers shoot up. The everyday person probably wouldn’t note it, but Ranboo is already too familiar with that distinct oniony smell.

The smile falls from their face, train of thought derailing. They don’t panic or become short of breath, and they don’t scream and cry either. Instead, they stare, and they admit that they clench their fists to keep themself steady.

“Oh, I see them!” Tommy says, bounding over to them like a retriever to their human. “Look - they’re so cool.”

Visions flicker in their mind, pulled from their subconscious, of half-complete and mangled bulbs stained with the ooze of blood that cling to their petals. Ranboo blinks rapidly to shake them away.

“They’ve got all these little teeth! Ranboo - you should - ” he turns around to check where Ranboo is.

From this angle, at least to Tommy, it looks like Ranboo is entirely enamoured by the plant before them. Tommy abandons the flytrap in favor of it, maneuvering carefully around the other plants to meet them. “What do you have there, Ranboo?”

Ranboo glares at it not with any fresh resentment, but with the old exhaustion and woundedness of encountering an old abuser. They loosen the tightness of their fists, releasing an exhale that is steady by force. It and them share the same pocket of air, but this time, it won’t take it from them. It’ll take their carbon dioxide from them and give oxygen in exchange.

Tommy saunters to their side, ready to jab at their immobility, but all words die in his throat when he sees the subject of attention.

Instead of do something dire like pulling Ranboo away, he stands beside them in unity. His hand finds and locks into Ranboo’s, and his thumb strokes up and down the back of their hand.

Both of them stare at the bulbs, the moment stretching into something longer than it should. It’s okay. Sometimes, slowing down to appreciate what they have is nice. This time, Ranboo has Tommy by their side. It makes the flowers feel less scary.

The gardener finishes her task and turns to assist the patrons, but then cuts herself off when she witnesses them having a moment.

Tommy, to reinforce Ranboo, squeezes their hand three times. I love you, it says.

Ranboo’s lips flip up into a resolved smile because, thanks to Tommy, they don’t need to dwell on that time anymore. They squeeze three times in return, deciding to turn and slowly pull Tommy close. One of their arm drapes across Tommy’s back, and the other stays linked with his hand.

Tommy doesn’t protest, letting Ranboo guide him, and rests his head against Ranboo’s chest to listen for their heartbeat. He sighs and melts against them when he hears it like the most perfect song. His free arm comes to curl around Ranboo’s midriff.

Ranboo lets him, rubbing up and down Tommy’s back with their hand. They tuck their chin over Tommy’s head, the two of them swaying slightly back and forth on automatic. “You deserve the world,” Ranboo says, quiet enough that the flowers can’t eavesdrop.

The words hang in the moment, light and uplifting. Golden rays of sun highlight the scene, and Tommy has a gentle intake of breath. “I already have it,” he says, equally quiet.

Ranboo smiles and startles themself with a fond huff. They consider their chances, and then figure that the safest place they can be right now is with their little brother. Those palpable waves of warmth in their chest by the simplest actions Tommy does, so familiar and so welcome, culminate to the point that they need to throw out into the world how they feel in return.

With one simple action, one pulse of courage, they bundle up their affection and give it back in one swift action. They press a careful peck into Tommy’s hair. It rings of a message. Thank you. Thank you for being here. I love you. Once they do it once, they can’t help but want to do it over and over again, but they practice self-control and leave the moment be.

Tommy smiles and, even though Ranboo can’t see it, they know it’s there. They can finally let themselves be. They can live in each and every moment together, not forced to do any one thing.