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When Ranboo gets home, he can tell that something is wrong.
He pushes open the door, and the soft creak is the only sound from the house. He knocks, loud and thundering, because Tubbo likes to hear him come in. There’s nothing particularly off or abnormal, but he can feel it in his gut.
Something is wrong.
The door to Tubbo’s study opens, and Ranboo’s husband pokes out his head. He smiles and stands up straighter, blinking a little too frequently. “Hey, Boo. Welcome home.”
He’s wearing his suit. That’s the next sign that something is off. Tubbo can wear the suit normally, but he rarely does so, especially if there’s no reason to be formal.
“Hey, Tubbo,” Ranboo starts cautiously. “You doing alright?”
Tubbo’s eyes widen ever so slightly. It’s a familiar sight, the way he contains his fear. The smallest flinch of surprise, unnoticeable to anyone who doesn’t know him. “I’m well.” Then, he steps out fully, walking into the kitchen. “You must be hungry. Have you eaten today? Do you want anything? I can make you something.”
Ranboo feels a tightness in his chest. He hates when Tubbo gets like this. It makes him viscerally uncomfortable, watching the man that would normally argue with him for hours become so amenable.
“I don’t need anything right now, Tubbo. You’re alright.”
Tubbo blinks, as if a little confused. “I should really clean up,” he mutters to himself, looking at the ground. “This place is a mess. Sorry about that. I should have… done something about it. While you were gone.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Ranboo reminds him. “You don’t have to do anything right now.” He breathes in careful and slow. This line always hurts him the most. Unfortunately, this is a familiar routine — a performance he has memorized the script for. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Tubbo shakes his head. He laughs, but it’s weak and thready. Ranboo hates this. “I didn’t say you were, bossman. I would never accuse you of — of something like that. I know you’re…”
“I’m not going to be angry with you, Tubbo.” Ranboo steps closer until he can take Tubbo’s hands in his own, run his thumbs gently over the back of his hands, over the line where scar tissue meets soft skin, where prosthetic meets flesh. “Nothing to be afraid of here, remember?”
Tubbo’s breath catches in his throat. “Objectively,” he starts, and his voice cracks. He swallows and tries again. “Objectively, I know that.”
“But subjectively?” Ranboo prods gently.
Tubbo’s grip gets tight.
Ranboo doesn’t know how he’s meant to do this. He thinks that Tommy is better at it. But Tommy knows who Tubbo was before. Knows all the hurts he will never have the privilege to see. Ranboo knows nothing of the men who came before him, only the hand-me-downs they've left him. Piano at midnight, locks on the windows before they're allowed to sleep, splashes of red on pale skin. But he’ll work with what he’s got. He always does. “Do you wanna grab Michael? Watch a movie? I’ll make us hot chocolate.”
Tubbo purses his lips. “Shouldn’t have to take care of me.”
“Who said I’m doing it for you?” he jokes. Tubbo smiles. It’s still sad and a little reproachful, but it’s something. Ranboo lets go of Tubbo’s hands, brushing back his hair and kissing the crown of his head. “Go get Michael. I’ll put on the milk. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
Tubbo nods, and Ranboo reluctantly pulls away.
He puts the ingredients in the pot. He’s done this more times than he can remember, at this point.
The first time he saw Tubbo like this, Ranboo still called him Mister President . He was unusually helpful, jumping from task to task with hitherto unknown proficiency. But something in his eyes had been glassy, checked out. Dead. Ranboo didn’t even know something was wrong until they met with Quackity, who almost immediately saw it.
“Where are you?” The vice had asked.
Tubbo had blinked, silent for a moment. “New L’Manberg. Obviously, I’m in…”
“And you’re okay. You’re not in danger. You know that, right?”
Ranboo had fled after that, sensing that he was invading a distinctly private conversation. But when he came back around an hour or so later, he found Tubbo’s eyes were much clearer than before, although a little red-rimmed.
Quackity, Tommy… they all know Tubbo in a way he doesn't. They knew him before flashbacks, before scarring. They knew a version of him Ranboo has only ever seen in pictures. They knew him when he could still play piano without knitted, frustrated brows, and shaky hands.
He doesn’t know every act of the play, but he knows the way his husband's joints creak, the way the sheets tangled around his legs during nightmares, the way he loves with amateur hesitance—like a man working against his own muscle memory. He knows the old characters in the things they left behind. The first time he watched his husband cry was the first time Ranboo ever hated.
Behind him, he hears his son’s voice as Tubbo carries him down the stairs and to the couch. They settle down in front of the TV.
Ranboo’s chest swells. He’s never had something like this before. He’s never loved anything like he loves his family.
But, although he shoves it to the back of his mind, he cannot pretend that sometimes it is not tiring. That sometimes he does not wish his family were more… conventional. That he could come home every night to the laughter and good-natured ribbing he only gets on the best of days.
He hates those thoughts. He married Tubbo knowing all of his flaws, and he still made that vow — in sickness or in health, until death do us part. He married Tubbo knowing that he would have to give some things up, that he wouldn’t have a normal family, and he wouldn’t trade it for the world. He married Tubbo because he loved him, and that love has never changed.
But he cannot stop the occasional wish. He can only ignore it, and treat his husband the same as if it had never crossed his mind. No matter how hard that is. No matter how much it sometimes feels like he's walking with a blindfold.
Ranboo thinks, sometimes, when he has people over for tea, that other lovers know their partners like maps, like childhood bedrooms and family recipes, in an instinctual, practised, everything-about-you way. Ranboo has never got that.
He pours the hot chocolate into three mugs and carefully, as not to spill, makes his way to the living room. Tubbo has turned off the lights and put on some animated film or other, with Michael tucked close to his chest.
He hands out the mugs. “Don’t drink it yet, Michael. It’s going to burn your tongue.”
“I don’t think he can get burnt,” Tubbo points out. His voice still has a hollow ring to it, but at least he’s talking clear.
“I don’t think he should test it,” Ranboo tries to advise. But Michael has already started drinking his with a happy smile and a chocolate moustache. “Huh, guess you’re right.”
Where there would normally be a cheeky “always am,” there is silence. One step at a time. Ranboo sits on Tubbo’s other side, putting an arm over his shoulder.
For the next couple of hours, they watch children’s movies and relax. The tension slowly drains out of Tubbo’s shoulders until he’s comfortable enough to rest his head on Ranboo’s shoulder.
“Michael’s asleep,” Tubbo whispers some time later.
“Are you feeling better?”
Tubbo ignores him. “Let’s move him up to bed.”
Tubbo picks Michael up, and they take him upstairs to his bedroom. They lay him down, tucking him in. Tubbo runs a hand over his head, smiling softly. Ranboo wishes he could freeze this moment in time, save it and lock it in a time-capsule. Not like a picture — the image alone isn’t it. He wants to lock away the smell of candles and dark chocolate, the feeling of the carpet beneath his feet, the warmth flickering under his heart.
It’s broken by Tubbo’s sigh as he stands. He blows out the candle.
“What set you off?” Ranboo asks quietly.
Tubbo shakes his head. “Dunno.” A pause. Tubbo clears his throat. “I just woke up wrong.”
“I’m sorry,” Ranboo says, for lack of anything else.
Tubbo sighs. “Can we just go to bed?”
“If that’s what you want.” He kisses the crown of his husband’s head, brushing back the hair that grows a little more every day, a quiet reminder that he is moving forward, no matter how slow. “I love you,” he says softly.
Tubbo smiles, but his eyes betray his doubt. “I love you too,” he whispers anyway.
When he has people over for tea, Ranboo thinks they know everything about each other.
Ranboo knows his husband the way he knows his house with the lights off. Unpracticed and stumbling, bumping into desks and bedposts, trying to avoid the pain because he always thinks he knows where he’s going, and he never does.
But at the end of the day, he finds a soft mattress, and warm blankets, and comfort. And love is not the routine of finding it, but the trust that it will always be waiting.
Ranboo puts his head in his husband's hair. And things are not perfect, and likely never will be, but he is happy. And it is enough.