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The gentle rustle of wind within Ranboos room had become routine to the boy, hands running carefully on the strings of his instrument, the music echoing in the empty room as he hummed along, rhythm more in sync with his heart then his own mind could ever be.
It was autumn, the dying summer as he called it most times, the chill still settling in as Ranboo paid no attention to the leaves finding their ways into his room.
As much as the young man wanted to call himself dead, the last living thing within the desolate house of a home was him. Lungs inhaling the copper, fingers staining pink, heart oozing an unforgettable red even he could not wash completely out of his skin. It all sunk. Even when he tried to die to the world, in his own mind life was screaming at him from the walls, painted maroon burgundy, ends fraying as Ranboo was driven mad trying to figure out if the shade of red on the walls was closer to the light of a moon dancing within his eyes or the stars sparkling in his veins as he feels them pop pop pop sssss- in his fingertips.
“I want to hold you close”
The mirror in the wall told him.
“Skin pressed against me tight.”
The creak of the floorboards whispered.
“Lie still.”
The window sill commanded.
“Close your eyes.”
Tommy pressed into his wrist, lips unnaturally burning hotcoldhotcoldchotcoldhotcoldhotcold-
Ranboo screamed.
Tommy only purred.
The Summer of Host
He doesn't know why Tommy stays around.
Don't get Ranboo wrong! He loves the boy and while a lot would think it was some thing on Tommy's end messing with him, Ranboo is being genuine. He's had so much trouble in the past making and keeping friends, even his own family rarely hear from Ranboo.
So why was it that out of everyone, Tommy has managed to stay by his side? There had to be something that the boy was after, something that made Ranboo worthwhile to deal with all of the shit that went on with him. He would always reference the whole thing with messing up Nikis dress really badly or malfunctioning something of Tubbos, even with his own brother he had managed to give Dream a bad scar on his face that now he wore a mask to cover it.
Niki adored the dress that came from the destruction, it was her favorite. Tubbo always found some new error when Ranboo tinkered with his items, the greatest bug finder he knew. Dream loved how badass the scar made him look, wearing the mask for dramatic effect when he took it off. He always hated how his face had looked before but now it was perfect. If only Ranboo stayed around longer for them to tell him such things, he would know more than what he assumed .
Tommy was a family friend, someone he had known since childhood and while sure he can get meeting awkwardly once per year at whatever was going on, the fact the boy kept seeking him out?
Ranboo was confused.
Ranboo was confused on a lot of things.
Tommy would do his best to make him see the light.
The Winter of Vessal
Ranboo was dying.
He knew that much, even blind he could feel his own heart decaying within the walls of the little apartment, hands breaching through the wallpaper as if it was nothing. There was just empty in which he felt within it. Cold coursing through the infrastructure. Skeletal figure of placid beams shivering as he felt around inside, breaking more and more into the room that he called mine.
It was getting colder.
It was getting so cold.
It was blazing within him.
Why was this so wrong?
Where could he be right?
There was endless epitomes he could be making and yet Ranboo couldn't grasp a single one.
They swirled around him, dancing in the starlight.
They breathed the same air, ate the same food, slept in the same bed, and yet they asked to be his they couldn't be his he couldn't let them be his they couldn't he cant they-
"Saw you breaking big man."
The sudden sound of Tommys voiced shocked Ranboo out of the little trance he placed himself in, watching the ripples go across the pond as he threw another stone on auto pilot.
When had they gone outside? Weren't they just inside reading and having coffee?
"I don't know what you mean."
And Ranboo, as more often than not, was being genuine.
The words sounded foreign to him.
Breaking?
Breaking what? Who? Where? When?
Why?
"You will one day."
Ranboo cried out as the words left silver slighted flesh, burning burning burning sobbing-
He will? Tommy would do that for him?
"You will."
Stop he was melting stop stop he was he was he was he was melting he was melting can't you see? he was he was he was! stop please he cant he cant-
Ranboo could only remember waking up on a cold bed, sweat drenching him and the covers.
and forgot the towels he placed underneath himself when he went back to bed.
The heater beside him only felt
wrong.
The Spring of Time