Chapter Text
(But let’s talk about you for a minute.)
Tommy retches into the toilet bowl for a third time, nothing left in his stomach but air. One hand clutches the porcelain, holding on for dear life, the other wraps around his stomach, trying to hold himself together. He’s on his knees on the bathmat in front of his toilet in the tiny bathroom in his shitty apartment and he’s just a bit too drunk and he’s fucking vomiting. Stomach acid burns his throat. A tear rolls down his face.
He’s still nauseous as he coughs out sickly-yellow bile, dripping from his mouth into the toilet water. It smells fucking disgusting; he feels it too. He coughs one more time, then flushes the toilet and leans back cautiously, breathing heavy. He’s afraid that if he moves too much, he’ll start up again.
The back of his head meets cool drywall, and he shifts the rest of his body back to meet it. It’s a small relief—his hair is stuck to his forehead, t-shirt soaked through in the underarms and back. He exhales shakily, wiping his cheeks and mouth with the back of his arm.
His bathroom is tiny—just a sink, shower, and toilet taking up as little space as possible atop old and grimy square tiles and walls with peeling paint. The sink has a cabinet with a drawer beneath it; the shower has a slightly rusted towel rod within arm’s reach. The whole room smells damp and musty, like there’s water damage that was never fully fixed. A tiny patch of mould is growing up in the corner where the ceiling meets the walls.
Now, that musty smell is masked by the overpowering stench of sick, because Tommy is spending the last few hours of his eighteenth birthday vomiting his guts out.
The ninth of April had started as alright as it could, given that pretty much everyone he knew had fucked off to America for Sneeg’s wedding or—in the case of Tubbo and Freddie—taken a vacation to France to ski. He’d woken up earlier than he usually did to buy his first legal drink (a bottle of vodka) and pack of razors from the shops with Ash Kabosu and James Marriott, followed by a nice lunch out and heading back to his flat for his celebratory stream. The stream had gone well, at least, as well as a stream that involved shoving cigarettes up his nose and singing “Mask” with James can go, Tommy was able to wind down knowing that his name and at least three phrases from the stream were probably trending.
And, as he took a sip of the open beer that he exaggerated his distaste for on stream, he had come to a realisation.
He’s eighteen now—legally an adult. Old enough to buy booze or get a tattoo or book a hotel room on his own. And yet, despite this newfound legal freedom, he doesn’t feel any different, doesn’t feel any older or more mature. Doesn’t feel any more secure in himself or his body. He still feels like a little kid piloting a too-tall beanpole that never really felt like it’s his, except now he can vote.
Is he going to feel this way for the rest of his life?
That thought sent him here, to the floor of the bathroom where he now sits, desperately trying to keep himself from turning his stomach inside out again. As it turns out, drinking straight vodka to escape your anxiety only serves to make it worse and also to make you sick after drinking a quarter of the bottle in one sitting. Crazy how that works.
He breathes in slowly, focusing on the air entering his lungs and the rise of his chest, a strategy his old therapist taught him. He tries to ignore the typhoon raging in his stomach acid.
He has half a mind to ring one of his friends for emotional support, to cry to Wilbur about how scared he is of the future, to listen to Tubbo talk about TubNet or public transport for an hour, to ask Phil for his old man wisdom, but when he lifts his cell phone from where it was left on the tile floor, screen lighting up with his lockscreen, he pauses. Tubbo’s probably asleep after a long day of streaming and skiing. Wilbur and Phil and Ranboo and just about every other person in his contacts list are likely busy preparing for the wedding or having fun without him. And there’s no way he’s calling his mum about this, as much as he’d like to. She’s probably the best mum he could’ve asked for and would be a real comfort, but some part of himself needs to prove that he’s fine on his own, that he can handle whatever life throws at him by himself, that he won’t drink himself into oblivion the moment he gets anxious. He’s a big man, an independent adult that can handle himself.
His phone screen goes dark, his reflection all that’s visible in the glass. He looks a fucking state. His cheeks are bright red, as are the rings around his eyes. Tear tracks have carved their way down to his nose. A bit of sick is stuck to the corner of his mouth.
Another wave of nausea rolls through him, and he’s barely at the toilet again before he’s dry heaving into the bowl, nothing but spit tinged with stomach acid dropping into the water.
“Fuck,” he breathes out when it seems to have subsided, resting his cheek on the seat. Disgusting, considering what else has been there. He doesn’t have the energy to care. “Fuck.”
For as long as he can remember, Tommy’s been dissatisfied. A special sort of unease has been making its home in the back of Tommy’s throat, curling around his Adam’s apple like its namesake’s snake, making itself known every time he swallows, every time he takes a breath. He can’t put a finger on a time where it wasn’t there; it’s always been a part of him.
He wants to blame it on his explosion as a content creator. No one gains millions of viewers in the span of a few months and comes out the other side normal, especially considering how young he was. All those eyes focused in on a kid cannot be good for development.
That sentiment was echoed by his therapist, back when he went to therapy in Nottinghamshire. She had told him that he never got the chance to truly be a teenager, to embarrass himself without the equivalent of the population of Sweden or Portugal watching him. He never got the chance to figure himself out on his own. Every mistake he made was scrutinized by thousands, every word blown out of proportion. It’s only natural to be so self-conscious, she had said, just so long as it doesn’t become something larger, something debilitating.
The magnifying glass of fame has fucked him up nice and well, then. The consequences of starting to stream at the tender age of fourteen are biting him in the ass. Peachy.
Tommy lays on his back in the bottom bunk of his bed, staring up at the slats above him. He’s washed his face the best he can, changed into a clean shirt and boxers, had a glass of water when he could stomach it. He kicks at his duvet, trying to get it in a comfortable spot. He gives up and folds his arms over his chest with a huff.
The room is far too warm for mid-April. Is the air-con on? Does it even work? Tommy wouldn’t be surprised—most things in his flat are fucked up in some way. He’ll investigate in the morning, call his landlord if he needs to. Worst case scenario, there’s more carbon monoxide and he’ll have to stay at Wilbur’s again.
He probably should check now, just to ease his mind, but the vodka is still working its way through his system, and he is far too tired to be arsed to get up. Instead, he rolls over and picks up his phone from where it’s been charging. The screen turns on automatically; he squints at the light. It’s nearly two in the morning. He’s got a couple notifications—some birthday messages from friends in America, a Discord DM from editor Larry about an upcoming video, a reminder about a meeting he has the next morning—all of which he ignores in favour of scrolling TikTok until he falls asleep, a routine he’s found himself somewhat concerningly falling into recently.
And he almost manages it, until a relatively innocuous video shows up on his For You page. It’s a video of a tall, pretty woman showing off outfits she’s styled, with a voiceover explaining how she struggles to find clothes that fit her well and where she got each piece. She shows off a series of brightly coloured outfits. High waisted trousers and a crop top. A flowy ankle-length skirt, a ribbed vest, and a handmade cardigan. An oversized striped jumper and a pair of dungarees with a flower motif.
Tommy finds himself wide awake after it loops back to the start. He watches the video through again, paying more attention. Takes note of the combat boots she’s paired with the skirt, of the pink plaster she’s put over the bridge of her nose and surrounded with makeup, of the way she’s tied up her blonde hair into a pair of messy space buns.
The outfits are cute, he thinks to himself as the video starts up a third time. They’re the kind of outfits he would wear if he was a woman, stylish but comfortable. Simple and playful. It’s a concept he likes to explore in his mind sometimes, an alternate universe he indulges in in the same way he assigns his friends the roles of movie characters. He sometimes finds himself scrolling through the women’s section of ASOS or Urban Outfitters and thinking up combinations Girl-Tommy would wear, sometimes wonders how she’d decorate her room. Wonders how she’d talk. Indulges in the impossible. That’s all it is—a fantasy, a what-if scenario, something that isn’t real. Like that Marvel show.
He reads the description. She lists out the brands she included in the video, as well as the sizes she purchased as a 1.8-metre-tall woman. She talks about how finding clothes that both fit her in style and in size helped her feel good about herself. Then comes a handful of hashtags—fashion, tall girl outfits, indie style, haul.
And there, at the end of the list, is “trans girl.”
Fuck.
Tommy chews his lip. Whatever part of his mind that made him stop on this video is rearing its head, spurred on by the alcohol in his bloodstream. But the coil of unease winds itself around his windpipe and squeezes, and Tommy closes TikTok as fast as he can and chucks his phone to the foot of his bed.
It lands beneath the TV on the wall, the one that still doesn’t work.
It’s nothing, it’s nothing. He’s just a bit drunk and still recovering from a harrowing vomiting experience after a supremely underwhelming birthday. That’s all this is. Not anything to do with that bit of information. Just a rough day.
Tommy falls asleep at half three in the morning and doesn’t wake up well-rested.
The day Ranboo gets back to the UK, Tommy takes an Uber to the Lego Store at Churchill Square to buy a kit for them to build when they next hang out. He ends up picking out an Imperial Light Cruiser set from The Mandalorian, grabbing a small Minecraft set he spots nearby before going to the till. He leaves with his purchases in a bright yellow paper bag.
They end up planning to hang out the very next day, as soon as Ranboo sleeps off the jetlag and tidies his house a bit. Tommy ends up getting the okay to head over at about four in the afternoon.
He should take an Uber over—it’s the quickest option and the most convenient, considering he’s got two entire Lego sets to bring over—but it’s a nice, sunny day and warm for April, nearly fifteen degrees out. So, he slips his Sunday Club sweatshirt over his t-shirt, shakes out his arms so it sits right, puts on his trainers. He grabs his wallet and phone and the yellow bag from where he left it next to his couch, and heads out to the hallway of his building. He locks the door behind him, pockets the lanyard the key is attached to, and sets off down the stairs to the pavement.
The sun is warm on his face when he steps out the door, mixing with the ever-present hint of salt in the Brighton air. A few clouds break up the sky. A car drives down the street, then another. There’s a gull on the kerb a few metres away, walking along like a person would. He snaps a picture.
Tommy loads up Ranboo’s address into Google Maps and skims over the turns he has to take to get there. Opening Spotify, he pops his AirPods in his ears and starts playing whatever he was last listening to—a Los Campesinos! song from their third album, apparently. He’s jamming to it, so he slips his phone in his pocket and starts off on his quest to Ranboo’s house.
It’s a miracle he doesn’t get recognized, especially considering the bright yellow bag he’s carrying that’s practically an eye magnet, but no one approaches him the entire walk there. He makes it to Ranboo’s house without a single photo taken with him. He’s relieved, honestly—he didn’t particularly want to talk to fans today, just Ranboo.
Ranboo’s house is big, a several-storey terraced house with a brick façade and white-painted trim that’s significantly better-kept than his own shitty flat. A bay window juts out where Tommy knows the lounge is but can’t see—the shades are drawn. A set of stone steps draws a line from the sidewalk, across the small patch of grass, to the front stoop. Next to the bottom step sits a particularly round terracotta bird statue.
Tommy hops up to the front door, stopping on the novelty rainbow doormat that is almost definitely from Amazon to pull his key lanyard out of his pocket. He fumbles past key after key, groaning in frustration when he doesn’t immediately find the key to Ranboo’s door. Instead, he pulls out his phone and hastily types out a message to them.
Let me in bitch am outside your house
Didn’t I give you a key
Taking too long
Open door
Now
Alright one sec
Tommy waits impatiently for all of thirty seconds before the door in front of him opens to reveal a slightly rumpled Ranboo, hair in disarray and t-shirt slightly skewed to one side. They’re not wearing a mask, the slight scruff on his face catching Tommy’s eye. Ranboo holds a hand up to block the sun.
“Hey, man. I totally didn’t take a nap while I was supposed to be cleaning up,” Ranboo says, eyes squinting in the light. That would explain the wrinkled tee and sweatpants rolled up one ankle.
“No worries,” Tommy replies. “Tidying’s for pussies anyways. Legos take priority.”
“Mhm, mhm,” Ranboo says, then furrows his brow. “What?”
Tommy lifts the paper bag next to him. “I have Legos, bitch. Let me in so we can build them!”
“My bad.” Ranboo steps to the side, giving Tommy enough space to slip past into the foyer. Ranboo shuts the door behind him, and the room is plunged into near darkness.
“Jesus, man,” Tommy chides. “Why the fuck are all the lights off in here?”
“I was taking a nap.” Ranboo uses that goofy fake-sad tone.
“In the lounge?” Tommy asks as he toes off his shoes and walks into the room in question.
Ranboo doesn’t even have to answer; the rumpled blanket on the sofa does it for them. “The couch is comfy.”
“Ew,” Tommy says. “You’re so painfully American. It’s a sofa.”
“I still don’t get why you have a problem with me saying couch.” Ranboo opens the curtains blocking the bay window. “Out of everything, that’s what you take issue with.”
“I take issue with a lot of things you say, Ranboo,” Tommy says as he plops down on the hardwood floor. “I just don’t always let you know.”
“I appreciate the restraint, Toms,” Ranboo sighs, faux exasperation laced in his tone. Ranboo joins Tommy where he sits in the sun patch on the floor, folding their ridiculously long legs across their lap.
Tommy drags the yellow bag between them. “Check out what I’ve got.” He pulls out the little Minecraft kit, places it in Ranboo’s lap. “I know just how much you like streaming Minecraft, big man.”
“Ah, yes, that thing I definitely do for more than just MCC.”
“Right you are, Ranboo. This is the other one.” Tommy dramatically lifts the Imperial Light Cruiser from the bag, singing a poor rendition of Darth Vader’s theme. “I call this the main event!”
Ranboo lets out a low whistle. “That’s nice. This must be quite the special occasion.”
“Well, considering it was my birthday, it’s appropriate.”
Ranboo hums their approval. “So, birthday boy—”
“No, no, no. I am the birthday man. A grown adult.”
“Right, my bad. Birthday man, which set are we building first?”
When the Light Cruiser set is nearly finished, Tommy takes a break from crouching on the floor and adding more curvature to his spine, instead hopping onto the sill of that bay window. His legs dangle as he sits, feet barely an inch from the floor, heels knocking against the wall.
Ranboo looks up at him. “We still have an entire bag left.”
“Go ahead, man. My back’s hurting and shit.”
“Fair enough,” Ranboo says, turning the page. “Oh, this bag has that baby-Yoda thing in it.”
Tommy perks up at that. “It’s got Grogu?” He holds out a hand. “Holy fucking shit—give it here!”
Ranboo pours the bag out into the box, moving as slowly as humanly possible, pointedly ignoring Tommy’s waving hand. They lean over, digging through the plastic pieces at a sloth’s pace.
“Fucking—Come on, man! Move your arse!”
Ranboo snorts. “Alright, alright. Here.” He plucks up the head and body of the tiny minifigure and places them in Tommy’s hand. Tommy instantly closes his hand around the pieces, snapping his arm back, clutching the pieces to his chest.
He glares at Ranboo, doesn’t stop even when Ranboo looks away and starts clicking together bricks once again. Doesn’t stop until Ranboo looks at him, eyebrows furrowed, and asks, faking innocence, “What?” Tommy’s thankful they looked over; his eyes are starting to burn a bit.
Tommy sets his face to a goofy smile. “Nothing!” he says, loosening his grip on the Lego pieces. He pops the tiny head on the small body. He places it on the sill next to him, but when he does, his hand bumps something cold.
His head whips to the side, hand recoiling slightly. On the wood next to him sits a sloppily placed necklace, situated like it had been dropped there and forgotten about.
It’s a simple thing, the necklace. Generic silver chain with a small, undetailed cross charm in matching steel. So discrete, Tommy wouldn’t have even noticed had he not been sat right beside it. He doesn’t pick it up, but he does point it out.
“Why’ve you got a Jesus thing ‘ere?” Subtlety has never been his strong point. Fucking sue him.
Ranboo hums in a question, turning from their spot on the floor. “’A Jesus thing?’”
“Your necklace.”
Ranboo’s eyes widen. “Oh! Oh.” He pinches his nose like he’s adjusting a mask that isn’t there. “That.”
“’You fucking returning to the Lord or some shit?”
“God, no. Could you imagine? Me? A good Christian boy? I’m, like, none of those things!”
Tommy barks out a laugh, whole body moving in that big way it does when he laughs, the kind that looks like he’s about to topple off his perch.
“I’d show up and immediately get hit with the First Corinthians 6:9 beam—”
“Nice,” Tommy interrupts.
“—and get asked to leave the Goddamn church!” Ranboo laughs, then sobers slightly. “That was from my grandma, from before all this. I forgot I even brought it with me. It was at the bottom of a box that I procrastinated unpacking for a while.”
“Huh,” Tommy says, then gestures to it. “May I…?”
Ranboo shrugs. “Sure? I don’t care, dude.”
Tommy gingerly lifts the necklace, taking more care with it than he does with most things. A faint thumbprint at some point had been pressed onto the shiny metal, a tiny bit of grease left behind.
“Why’d she give it to you?” Tommy asks.
“Well—uh—when I was in middle school,” Ranboo says, picking up the Mandalorian minifigure. “I was starting to doubt the whole ‘God knows what’s best’ thing. If He was so benevolent and all-powerful, why wasn’t I interested in, y’know, girls like everyone told me I was supposed to be? If—if homosexuality was so wrong and evil, why did I look at one of my friends and think, ‘Damn, I want to kiss him?’”
Tommy hums his acknowledgement.
The minifigure spins in Ranboo’s hand. “So, I went to my grandma while we were visiting, and I asked her if she had ever doubted her faith, because she was one of the most devout people I’ve ever known. And she told me she had, surprisingly enough. She told me that there were years of her life where she let herself be ‘swayed by temptation.’ But that she always came back stronger with the Lord than ever. She could overpower it with His help. I still can’t tell if her ‘temptation’ was the same as mine, though.” Ranboo clears his throat. “The next time we saw her, she gave me that necklace in one of those fancy see-through fabric bags with the ribbon, you know the ones. She told me that the Lord would always be with me, even if I strayed from His path. That no matter how dark a pit I fell in, He would be there to guide me out of it. I still can’t figure out whether she was trying to guilt me or subtly show her support. Maybe both. Who knows.”
“You’re, like, an atheist now, though,” Tommy says, pointing out the obvious. “And very gay.”
“Well, that’s because sometimes—” Ranboo says quietly, popping the plastic helmet off the minifigure’s solid black head, letting it clatter to the floor. “Sometimes the things that people have been saying you are for your whole life just…aren’t true.”
And Tommy’s brain can’t form a response more articulate than, “Ah.” He’s not sure why that line resonates with him so much, but it’s yanking at the handle of a locked door he can’t find the key to.
“I guess that’s why I kept it.” Ranboo stands, leans on the windowsill next to Tommy, takes the necklace from where it’s still wound around Tommy’s palm. “To remind myself that what others want to see shouldn’t be how I define myself.”
And Tommy’s eyes are locked onto a knot in a board of the hardwood floor. It’s darker than the rest, a bit of it replaced with wood filler to keep the board even. The grain winds around it, curving like the ocean does behind a speedboat, like a child peeking her head through curtains. A child with golden hair and a pair of dungarees with dinosaurs on the pockets and a smile unburdened by the weight of the world. A child that played with Barbie dolls and Lego bricks and played video games on the family computer when she could. A child that she—
“Tom?” Ranboo asks, and oh yeah, Ranboo’s pouring their heart out here. “You good, dude?”
“Yeah, man. All good.” Tommy says, then mentally scrambles for a joke to ease Ranboo’s very reasonable concern. Picks something easy. “Still got any of that Los An-gel-ees mari-huana?”
Ranboo blinks. “Los Angeles mari-what now? Huh?”
Tommy throws his head back in a cackle. It’s not entirely fake—just mostly.
“Tommy, you know damn well I’ve never smoked a weed in my Goddamn life,” Ranboo says, trying to stay serious while a smile weasels its way onto their face. “You’ve got the wrong guy. Ask Bill. Or Aimee.”
“Or Freddie,” Tommy chuckles. He turns towards Ranboo. “You know he bought me and Eryn drinks when he was eighteen and we weren’t?”
“Seems about right.” Ranboo nods and reaches for another piece. “Not sure why I’d have ‘Los Angeles marijuana’ when I didn’t even go to L.A. this trip.”
Tommy’s head snaps to Ranboo. “You didn’t?”
Ranboo snorts. “God, no! I only went to St. Louis. And Keokuk, I guess.”
“Isn’t that basically the same thing?”
“St. Louis is in Missouri, Tom.”
Tommy says nothing.
Ranboo quirks an eyebrow. “You do know that’s on the opposite end of America, right?”
Tommy’s shoulders scrunch up. “…Yes?”
Ranboo buries their head in their hands, sunlight from the window making their dirty blonde hair glow. Tommy cackles.
Hours and two movies later, when the sun’s long since set and the Lego sets are completed, Tommy lies on the rug across from the sofa Ranboo’s sprawled out on, legs all akimbo.
“Aw, fuck, it’s too late to walk back. I’ll have to call an Uber.”
“You can stay if you want. I have an extra blanket upstairs. You could take the couch.”
Tommy chews at the skin at the edge of his thumbnail. “All this house and no guest bedroom?”
“It’s full of boxes right now. Mostly furniture I haven’t put together yet.”
Tommy can relate. His bedroom back at his flat had stacks of boxes in it for weeks after he moved in. “The sofa is fine, don’t worry.”
“Of course,” Ranboo says. They roll off the sofa, hit the ground with a painful-sounding thud.
Tommy scrunches his eyebrows in concern. Ranboo shoots him a thumbs up and a sleepy grin. He peels himself off the floor, stretches for a moment, then heads towards the staircase.
Tommy doesn’t see him start climbing—he’s too busy staring at the Lego set left on the end table. Seeing where they’d positioned the Dark Trooper near the turret, where Cara Dune was placed as if about to take him out, where Moff Gideon and the Mandalorian were stood, facing off in front of the ship, plastic Darksaber held back by plastic beskar.
Him and Ranboo are still just kids, huh?
There’s some rustling from upstairs, sounds of cardboard boxes being pushed around and packing tape being ripped, for some reason. There’s a loud crash, and the rustling stops.
“I’m okay!” Ranboo shouts.
Tommy laughs to himself, not having the energy for anything big and boisterous.
When Ranboo comes back down, a solid-coloured fluffy blanket is bundled in his arms, pressed to his chest, capped with a folded top sheet. They’ve changed their clothes, into something that’s probably their actual pyjamas and not simply whatever they fell asleep in. They’ve got a plaster on their hand.
Before Tommy can say anything snarky about the commotion, the blanket’s already hit him in the face.
“What the fuck, Ran?!” he shouts, laughing.
Ranboo just laughs at him in return.
When he peels the blanket away from his face, Ranboo’s almost finished laying the sheet over the cushions, positioning a pillow at one of the ends.
“There you go,” Ranboo says with a goofy twirl of his hands, wrists going limp before he brings his arms back down. “The most luxurious couch this side of Brighton.” Fucking couch.
Ranboo’s got an oversized t-shirt on, one that’s soft-looking and incredibly faded, print almost completely lost. There’s a small hole in the sleeve; a larger hole is at the neckline. They’ve got boxers on underneath, ones with piping around the hem that curves up into the side seam and what looks like very small, zippered pockets that Ranboo’s phone is just barely tucked into.
Tommy furrows his brow. Why would boxers need pockets when trousers have them already? Why would they add pockets that were completely inaccessible and that only wrong’uns would use? What if something got left in the boxer pockets that he needed to get while wearing jeans over them? What then?
Ranboo stretches their hands above their head, pulling at some invisible tension in their shoulders. Their shirt rides up ever so slightly.
And Ranboo’s not wearing boxers with pockets—he’s wearing women’s athletic shorts.
“Fine, I know your game,” Ranboo says, with fake exasperation. “The most luxurious sofa this side of Brighton. Better?”
Tommy blinks. Tears his gaze from Ranboo. Tries to make himself forget about the shorts, tune back into conversation. “Much better now that you’re speaking proper English.”
“You are the last person I’d expect to give an opinion on ‘proper English,’ asshole.” Tommy gives a dramatic fake gasp at the insult.
Ranboo interrupts before Tommy can say anything. “Don’t you dare. That bit stopped being funny, like, a year ago.”
Tommy doesn’t respond, just bundles up the blanket in his arms and plonks himself face-down on the sofa, letting his legs sprawl out wildly. His face is buried in the fabric. Ranboo snorts.
“You alright, man?” they ask for the second time that night.
Tommy lets out a long groan.
“I’ll take that as a maybe,” Ranboo says, and sits on the floor in front of the sofa, leaning their back on the cushions, knees tucked to their chest.
Tommy turns his head. His eyes land on Ranboo’s shorts again. Fuck.
“Are those women’s shorts?”
And Ranboo stiffens briefly, their hands curling into fists, and Tommy knows he may have made a misstep. Just as he opens his mouth to apologize, Ranboo breathes out sharply.
“Yeah, they are,” Ranboo says. “It gets hot at night and they’re comfier to sleep in than most of my other shorts.”
Tommy is about to ask him where he got them, why he got them, but stops himself because why would he ask that? Why would he need to ask that? What about Ranboo wearing women’s shorts has him so fascinated?
“Alright,” Tommy says dumbly. “Cool.”
Tommy doesn’t miss how Ranboo seems to loosen, how the tension in their body unwinds, how their hands relax until they’re just resting on their shins. Tommy also doesn’t miss Ranboo ducking their head a bit, until their hair blocks their face completely from view.
And it’s an agonizing few minutes of silence, both seemingly too awkward to make further conversation. All thanks to Tommy, no doubt. Silence permeates the air, thick and heavy and suffocating. It’s like London has moved south, localized entirely within Ranboo’s lounge.
And out of nowhere Ranboo pats his hands on his knees and hoists himself up with all the grace of a baby giraffe, wobbling a bit before steadying himself. “Welp, I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning, or, uh—” he pulls his phone out of his pocket, checks the time. “—afternoon, most likely.”
“How late is it?”
Ranboo’s nose wrinkles. “Like, four in the morning.”
“What?! Really?!”
“That’s what happens when we start watching both of the Amazing Spider-Man movies at, like, nine p.m, dude.”
“I thought you’d be happy, since you got to see Andrew Garfield shirtless.”
Ranboo stares for a moment, mouth slightly open, brows raised. “…I’m going to bed. ‘Night, Toms.”
Tommy smiles tiredly. “’Night, Ran.”
Tommy lays the blanket on top of him as Ranboo starts climbing the stairs, shifting and kicking at it until he’s as comfortable as he can be on the sofa. He snuggles into the throw pillow, curls slightly on his side, closes his eyes, and doesn’t fall asleep for hours.
A few days later, Ranboo gets sick.
A few days after that, he comes out as gay on Twitter.
And a few days after that, Tommy falls asleep in his own bed after what feels like hours of tossing and turning.
Tommy knows he’s standing on a beach, in that hazy way things are known in dreams. The air tastes like salt and waves crash to the side of him and he stands on rocks smoothed by the sea. There’s no one else on the beach, just Tommy, in his swim trunks and a t-shirt with a pair of flip-flops on his feet. It’s calm, familiar.
He feels himself turn to face the ocean, feet shifting on the stones, breeze ruffling his hair. A wave hits the shore, then another. The waves layer over each other as one pulls back and another surges forward.
“Hey,” a voice says to the side of him, and he’s not alone anymore. “D’you want to walk with me?”
She sounds a bit like his mother, that voice, just younger, a bit gravellier, a bit more like him. A girl from the Midlands.
He turns back from the sea to face her, this girl his age standing on the beach beside him, but a few centimetres shorter. Her curly blonde hair goes just past her shoulders, touching the top of her puffy floral-patterned shirt that just barely reaches the waistband of her shorts. She’s smiling something soft, something content, like everything for her is right. The way her muscles pull at her face deepens the dip in her chin just slightly.
She’s like the female version of himself, Tommy realises, and somehow that doesn’t freak him out at all.
“Sure,” he replies.
She takes his hand in her slightly smaller one, wraps her slender fingers around the side of his palm. He follows suit, and their hands clasp into a heart shape that hangs between them. Tommy spares a glance down. Her fingernails are painted orange.
“Come on, now,” she says and tugs at his hand, taking a step parallel to the waves. He lets himself be led, following her steps with his own, hugging the shoreline.
After what feels like hours, or maybe it’s minutes, she tugs his hand again. “Walk next to me, you dickhead,” she says, smile bleeding into her tone. “I don’t bite.”
“Sorry,” he says, falling into step with her. She grins at him.
“I get it. Women are fucking scary. We’re like men but prettier and with lower pay.”
“Yeah,” he breathes out, half of a laugh.
She snorts, throws her head back. “You’re awfully articulate, aren’t you?” she asks sarcastically.
Tommy rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she says. “I enjoy the company either way.”
And they walk until Tommy’s feet hurt, until the sun has moved across the sky, dipping into the horizon. There’s a tangerine-coloured hue to the world—golden hour, he’s seen it called—painting her cheeks and bouncing off her hair and landing in the sand. She’s gorgeous. Tommy’s almost envious.
She stops abruptly. Tommy jars against his tether to her, taking a step too far and nearly stumbling. He glances back at her, but she’s looking ahead. He follows her line of sight as he shuffles back to her.
Cutting across the beach in front of them is a pier, metal, concrete, and wood forming a dark line raised above the stones and the water that meets them, jutting into the ocean. From what he can see, the pier looks to be abandoned, but abandoned recently. Like the inhabitants just up and left yesterday, leaving the lights on.
“This is where I leave you,” she says.
His heart aches as she unclasps their joined hands. “Don’t go. Please.”
“I’m sorry.”
And she lifts her hands up, cradles his cheeks in her palms, raises herself up on her toes. She kisses him on the forehead, light, gentle, barely a brush of lips on skin and—
And Tommy’s eyes are trained on the wooden slats of the bed above him, blankets bunched in his hands, chest heaving with breath and shirt soaked through. Tears sit unshed at his waterline.
He’s had this dream before, has had it a thousand times over.