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Ranboo considers himself many things; a streamer, a content creator, a slightly (read: very) chaotic person, and very in love with his loud British boyfriend, but he doesn’t consider himself a pothead or a stoner or anything like that.
Sure, sometimes he smokes weed, but that’s because of his anxiety. He’s always dealt with some pretty intense anxiety, and so in high school he’d tried weed, and what would you know! It helped!
His parents weren’t thrilled when they found out about it, but it was mostly just them making sure he was getting all his weed from safe sources, not wanting him to accidentally get addicted to something else used to cut the weed.
After that, they were actually pretty supportive, even got him a new, nicer bong from a music festival they went to after his old one broke.
So yes, Ranboo doesn’t consider himself a stoner, but he definitely smokes.
Currently, he has just finished a face cam stream, which are always significantly more stressful than normal streams, and he just wants to calm down, unwind, and smoke a bit.
He’s just taken his first rip, letting the smoke sit in his lungs for a bit before exhaling slowly, the smoke slowly swirling around his room, when suddenly his phone rings out from across the room.
Normally, Ranboo wouldn’t bother with picking up the phone like this. He’s just started to get high, no doubt the person will want to talk for longer than a few minutes, and by that time he’ll be feeling it. He has a strict no being high on stream or with friends rule for a reason, after all. It’s not that he’s nervous about them knowing he smokes, so much as it is he doesn’t want them to know he smokes.
Still, looking at his phone he knows he has to pick it up. It’s a normal discord call, one he would usually ignore easily, messaging them back later to lie and say he hadn’t seen it, but it’s Tommy. Light of his life, cute, new-ish boyfriend Tommy, and he can’t just ignore him.
By the time he makes up his mind, Tommy has already hung up and called him again, and Ranboo is starting to feel the affect of that one hit he took.
Goddamnit.
Brushing his hair in front of his face to hopefully hide if his eyes seem any more red than usual, he picks up the call,
“Ranboo!” Tommy whisper shouts, eager to see his boyfriend again, desperately missing him since he returned to America. He’s in bed, beautifully rumpled with his hair fanned out around him in a golden halo, duvet scrunched around him like a cocoon.
“Hey Tommy.” Even after being interrupted and definitely acting off, Ranboo can’t hide the affection in his voice at seeing the younger boy, overflowing with adoration for him. “Why’d you call? It’s pretty late over there.” He glances at the clock, quickly calculating that it’s about 2 am in England at the moment.
“Eh, you know me—" Tommy yawns, interrupting himself, “always up for the ladies.” He smirks “And maybe even a particularly hot man.”
Ranboo laughs at that, smiling at his boyfriend’s dumb antics. “Mhm, and it wouldn’t be too presumptuous of me to ask why you’re up so late for this…particularly hot man, would it?”
“Jus’ missed you.” Tommy says softly. “I saw you were ending stream and wanted to talk, but figured I should give you a minute before I called.”
Ah, so that’s why Tommy hadn’t immediately called. Admittedly, he’d thought he was being helpful, didn’t know he was interrupting Ranboo. Smiling at Tommy cutely rubbing his eyes, Ranboo shifts to a more comfortable position on his bed, not paying any attention to what’s visible in the background of his video.
He’s completely smitten for the man on the screen, tuning out everything but Tommy’s mindless, cute droning on and on about his day, how he saw a cat that made him think of Ranboo, the bakery he’d looked up supposedly near his future apartment, and so many other things. Ranboo’s so lost in his boyfriend’s words that he barely notices when he starts to trail off, a look of confusion passing behind his eyes as he shifts, like getting a different angle of the screen will allow him to see whatever he’s looking at better.
“Hey uh, Ranboo? What’s that behind you?”
Snapped out of his trance Ranboo shakes himself to gain his bearings a bit. Yep, the weed has definitely started to affect him. Taking a second to register what Tommy’s asking, he turns himself around, looking around his room for anything out of the ordinary that could confuse Tommy.
At first he doesn’t notice anything, everything looking normal to him. Then he realizes it. His eyes had simply skipped over the bong sitting in the background, too used to it to think anything of it before it had hit him that Tommy didn’t know he had a bong, let alone the fact that he smoked.
“Uh..” Tommy cuts through the silence. “What exactly is that? A water bottle? Because I’ve never seen one like that.”
Ranboo can’t help it, he bursts out laughing at that.
“Wh-What?!” Tommy shouts defensively, crossing his arms and glaring at Ranboo, looking about as scary as a newborn kitten.
Wheezing, Ranboo rights himself from where he’s bent over, wiping the small tears that have escaped his eyes. “You’re not even joking, are you? Oh god.” The realization just sends him into another fit of laughter, unable to control himself.
It’s probably the weed…it’s definitely the weed.
“Hey, don’t make fun of me. I know shit!” Tommy grumbles.
“I know, I know. I just did not expect this to be how this conversation went down.” Ranboo says placatingly, getting ahold of himself before propping his phone up on a pillow and reaching over to grab the bong, presenting it to the camera.
“This, Tommy, is a bong.” He waits for a second to see the words register, continuing explaining when Tommy just continues looking confused. “So, you know how I have pretty bad anxiety, and how I’ve said I’ve had it for a while?” Tommy nods. “Well, a couple of years ago it was pretty bad, like, panic attacks pretty much every day bad. And well, some friends of mine at the time smoked weed and offered me some. I trusted them and you know, in California weed is legal, so I wasn’t too worried, and I accepted.”
Tommy takes a few seconds to catch up, though whether it’s from the delay of being across an ocean or simply taking a second to process, Ranboo’s not sure.
“Holy shit! You smoke weed?”
Ranboo can’t help how he giggles at the response. “Yes. In fact, before you called I was about to start smoking. I’d already taken a rip when your call came through.”
“A ‘rip’?” Tommy’s brow furrows.
“It’s when you actually smoke the weed if you’re using a bong.”
Nodding in understanding, Tommy grins. “Well don’t let me stop you, by all means, stoner boy, smoke away.” He teases.
Rolling his eyes Ranboo grabs his lighter. “You wouldn’t actually mind if I smoked, would you? I usually do after stressful streams like this last one.”
Tommy shakes his head. “Of course, not! If it’s safe and it helps you, why would I not want you to help yourself?”
It’s a bit embarrassing smoking with someone watching, and Ranboo can’t help but glance awkwardly between the bong and Tommy while he lights the bowl and takes a rip.
Despite how odd the situation is, Tommy’s grinning while Ranboo exhales, a stupid joke building on his tongue. “So…I guess you really do live up to those Californian standards, don’t you?”
Ranboo sputters, blushing heavily. “Oh god. I did not expect this to be how telling you would turn out. To think, my own boyfriend turning against me like this, blasphemy!” He puts his hand up to his forehead, fake swooning and making Tommy giggle at his antics.
“Hey, it’s not my fault that you decided to live in the state of druggies. Oh my god! That’s what you are! I can’t believe my boyfriend is a drug addict, call the police! Call Tubbo! Inform the Queen not to let this man back into England!” He jokes, smiling widely when Ranboo just rolls his eyes and takes another rip.
By the time they hang up Ranboo’s finished with the bowl, thoroughly relaxed, and giddily smiling. Although it’s definitely not how he wanted to tell Tommy, he can’t really complain with how well it turned out.
He’s definitely not mad about this new combination though. Tommy and weed; is there anything more relaxing?