Chapter Text
You don’t recognize it.
Thick, thick, thick scent, strong like like cologne but not cologne and something and something and something it always smells like this, here, same scent. You’ve told them all a thousand times you hate the way it smells but nothing gets changed nothing happens it’s still just cologne and that smell. Can’t help it they say can’t help it have to do it you’ll get it when you’re older want to try it? You try it and it’s disgusting and it tastes bad and it makes everything burn and you think you’re dying for an hour. You think that might be the entire point. You don’t smell like cologne and it though you apparently smell like smoke and soap kind of like the soap grandparents have though you don’t really know who those people are everyone you see is pretty young there’s not many old people but there are old people too you think that you’re sort of old. Young though because your skin is soft. Kind of. There’s a lot of cuts in the material.
You don’t recognize it but there’s something in your hands and it smells like that and the thing in your hands is called a Rubix cube and you keep fiddling with it but it doesn’t really work the way you want it to you keep trying to break it but you don’t want to you just keep fiddling and other people can solve them but you haven’t yet. You think it’s because your hands are too small.
You’re fiddling with a Rubix cube and the room smells like cologne and something bad and you wrinkle your nose and someone else laughs and then starts coughing. You hate the sound of coughing but you can’t tell him to stop coughing so you decide that you like it you like the sound of coughing because it reminds you of hot air balloons.
But it also reminds you of that smell you hate and soon everything is gone just that smell just that smell and you feel like you’re a hot air balloon going higher and higher and higher and high
Ranboo wakes up with a gasp caught in his throat, tangled in his bedsheets. He heaves out the rest of the breath, blinking lazily at the ceiling. It has to be sometime between two AM and four AM, but he doesn’t want to bother actually checking. Won’t matter for that long, anyway.
His thoughts are slow and sluggish; what comes faster is that same scent, thick in his dream but still laid out thin now. It makes his tongue sting where it lays sort of dumb in his mouth, and he watches thin streaks of smoke float across the air of his bedroom. For a second, his fingers twitch at his side, as if he wants to curl all the tendrils around him and breathe it in.
He’s old. Far older than he ever should have been. Maybe it’s time to swallow it all, intertwine himself in the cross section of burning air and vacant bedrooms, like a ghost. Like the body of someone who has outlived the bad habits of themself and everyone they loved. Like someone desperate to latch on, still. Hanging from the threads of a hot air balloon, anything to escape.
He shoves his face back into the pillow and falls asleep again.
King of weed and smoke and cologne, is it? King of all these things? Is that what you think you are?
A house burned down. You take a photo and step inside it. There’s a fire in the middle of the room and you do not want to think about what’s on fire. You just look around but there’s nothing else. There’s nothing else.
Maybe you step into the fire. That makes it stop, doesn’t it? Isn’t that what makes it stop? Step into the fire. Step into the fire. You know this is who you are.
How do we know that you aren’t the cause of this? How do we know you aren’t the cause of the fire? familiarvoicefamiliarscentscentscentitsmellssostronglyIknow you How do you know? How does anybody know?
Step into it. Step into it. Burn. Burn. Burn.
It’s a necessary step to knowledge.
You hate me don’t you admit it you hate me you want me dead bring me into the fire to burn us both alive will that fix you will that make you normal again will that wake you up? Is it killing me that will make you realize all that you are?
We’ve done this before. You’ve killed me before. You’ve killed yourself before.
It’s not a fact, it’s a feeling. You hear it in your chest, don’t you?
The sound of someone who wants everyone dead.
Ranboo wakes up a second time, but his chest isn’t pressed down with a lazy fog. Instead, it feels like his heart is racing, like he’s seconds away from death while the first dream puts him right in the heart of it.
His throat is frozen, but he wants to shout for someone. He wants to call Niki over to help him, to help take this out of him and strangle it, to throw away the dreams like it’s everyday garbage. He wants to call over Fundy, because Fundy isn’t practical in the way that throwing out garbage is, the way that Niki and Ranboo take comfort in, but Fundy has those warm eyes and maybe he can fix things. But maybe he’s the problem, too, that’s the risk.
Most of all, Ranboo wants to call over Tubbo, because Tubbo can’t do anything but Tubbo makes that feel more okay.
Ranboo can’t do any of that, though. His brain is scattered– people to call people to call people to call– all to the syncopated rate of his heartbeat. He can’t think clearly. None of those people- well, actually, all of those people have seen him break down in some kind of way, but none of them have seen it like this . None of them know how bad it gets.
Only one person does. Only one person has seen how awful it can be and has taken that in, accepted it, hasn’t thrown it out in the garbage can the way any rational person would.
Ranboo’s hand shoots out, stopping the music he fell asleep to in the middle of the song, and calls Dream.
Dream picks up immediately.
“Hey, Ranboo!” His voice is calm, and Ranboo lets out a soft exhale, because the instant relief that Dream can bring feels like the rush of a hot air balloon. “Why are you up this late? Isn’t it a school night?”
“I could- I could ask you the same,” Ranboo says back, voice at a whisper, hoping that the joke doesn’t come off as too much.
“I’m making dinner,” Dream explains. “I know it’s 4 AM, but me and my friends had a… long night, let’s put it like that. So I’m making dinner. I get the feeling that you’re not doing the same?”
“Yeah, no, I’m not,” Ranboo admits. He wishes he was. “I’m, I- I had a nightmare. So I kinda- kinda just needed to hear someone?”
Ranboo isn’t very good with phone calls, especially not when he’s exhausted and on the verge of a panic attack. But, for a second , he swears he can hear Dream laugh right before he asks, “Was I in it?”
Ranboo doesn’t really know how to answer that. Because in a way, yes, maybe, Dream was sort of part of it, but it wasn’t… explicitly Dream, or anything. It sounded like him, kind of, but Ranboo’s heard before that people can’t make up faces in dreams, so maybe it’s the same with voices, maybe Ranboo’s unconscious mind just needed someone to stand in. And the only person he could think of was Dream.
“Kind of?” Ranboo doesn’t think Dream needs a lecture about how Ranboo thinks psychology works. Especially from someone whose psychology is wildly dysfunctional at all times. “Because, uh- uh, it was kind of- I heard people speaking but I don’t, um, I don’t know what they were saying.”
“Ah, damn.” Dream sounds disappointed. “It sucks when you can’t remember the details. I hear writing it down as soon as you wake up helps, but, well. I guess that wouldn’t work for you, right?” Dream laughs.
Ranboo laughs too, though it sounds kind of stupid, because he’s still choking a little bit on his breaths. It is kind of funny, though– Ranboo can’t remember anything of substance for long even when he tries. It sounds a little funnier when Dream says it, though.
“So, what’s up?” Dream asks, probably tired of the nightmare conversation. “Aside from school and work and all that stuff. Hanging out with anybody? Any new friends, any boyfriend,” Ranboo’s never told Dream that he might like guys, Dream’s just always seemed to know, “any teachers you feel like punching?”
“Not really?” Ranboo answers by instinct, but in his head he’s thinking Tommy Tommy Tommy Tommy Tommy Tommy Tommy. “I- I don’t- not really, yeah.”
“If there is, you can tell me, y’know?” Dream presses. “Enough of you to go around, for now.”
“For now?” Ranboo’s not sure if he’s making up the laugh still caught in Dream’s words, or if it’s actually there, tangled up in every syllable he gets out.
“I mean, I don’t know about you, Ranboo,” Dream responds, and yeah, Ranboo must have imagining it, because he can still hear it but he doesn’t know why Dream would be laughing while saying, “You’re not the kind of guy to make it to your eighties, if you know what I mean.”
Ranboo does, but that doesn’t mean the comment doesn’t take him off guard. “ Oh .”
“We should spend more time together, on that note,” he mentions casually, and Ranboo sort of feels dizzy. “Lots more stuff we should do before, y’know.”
“I’m not- I’m not going anywhere anytime soon,” Ranboo weakly protests. He can’t tell if he’s lying or not with that, doesn’t want to lie but doesn’t want to admit to the silence of his bedroom and the man on the phone that Ranboo’s been a ticking clock of a suicide case ever since he first caught that nightmare weed scent. Maybe even before then.
Dream knows that, though. He’s seen Ranboo’s best ideas and seen through his best lies. In the rare moments of shitty alleyway lighting, Dream has watched Ranboo splinter into pieces, times that Ranboo can’t remember but has been told happens, keeps happening, and Dream’s seen it more than anybody else. Techno’s never really seen Ranboo much lower than being a bit unusually quiet; the worst Niki’s gotten is a bad run at the bakery, and whatever Ranboo was at age fifteen; and Tubbo’s seen an uncomfortable amount that Ranboo’s done his best to not show again.
Niki, Techno, and Tubbo all know he’s a suicide case, just by the principle of a timid workaholic with a bad memory.
Dream knows the other side of Ranboo, though, the other side that darkens the rest of him.
And yet, he’s the only one with the ability to laugh it off, laughs as he says, “What were you going to do if you hadn’t called me?” laughs at it all. And Ranboo can’t blame him because he’d do the same, he’d do the very same.
Ranboo wraps an arm around himself and whispers, a laugh or maybe a sob twisted in his throat. “I wasn’t going to hurt myself,” he promises. “I- I didn’t even think about it.”
“Sometimes, it’s not a matter of if you want to do it,” Dream points out. “We both know you can’t control yourself.”
There is a lark outside, Ranboo can hear. His room is silent, but there’s this chirping outside, and Ranboo can’t help but be haunted by the idea that he could have never heard it again, if what Dream says is right.
And Dream’s… and Dream’s usually right.
“I don’t want you to die, Ranboo,” Dream says softly. “I think you’re a good person. I say this because I want you to know that someone else knows, and that it should be taken seriously.”
Ranboo doesn’t want to think about this anymore, but this is a serious conversation so he should be mature. “You’re right,” he says. “Sorry.”
“You’re fine.” Suddenly, as it tends to be with him, there's the sound of a stove flickering and a subsequent sigh. “Have a good night, Ranboo. Or day, I guess. Try not to throw yourself off any roofs.”
Ranboo laughs before Dream can. “Okay. Have a good dinner.”
“Thanks.”
The phone clicks off, and Ranboo… doesn’t feel much better, oddly enough. Less panicked, maybe, but sort of… fuzzy. Disconnected.
There’s not much he can do about it, though, except try to sleep for the… third time? No. It’s been more. Maybe.
He shuts his eyes for what feels like the thousandth time, at least, shoving his face into his pillow to the point he can’t breathe for a few seconds.
(He thinks he might burn his pillow in the morning and pull out a spare, in the morning. The scent is still there, but maybe it’s inside him.
He thinks he should burn everything but himself first, though. Even if it comes to that. Even if weed can burn longer than Ranboo will.)
—
By the time that Ranboo gets home after spending the majority of his afternoon tucked away in the corner of a library, the sun’s down and there’s a familiar scent weaving throughout his apartment.
It disorients him, and he has to take a few seconds to drop his backpack off on a kitchen chair and slip his shoes off before the rest of his senses catch up: late 90s pop-punk music is blasting from the bathroom so loud he’s already two steps into a noise complaint, the kitchen is in disarray with baking supplies askew, and the scent of brownies is now mixing in with what he is starting to recognize as hair dye.
Ranboo furrows his eyebrows and walks quickly to the bathroom, the sound of his padded footsteps being swallowed by the music, and it’s loud enough to hurt his ears, like, Jesus Christ , but he just grits his teeth and bears it. At the very least, Niki left the bathroom door ajar, so he’s not going to have to break his fingers trying to knock on it.
Ranboo pushes the door open and sees Niki, staring at herself in the mirror with latex gloves and a brush coated in a deep shade of pink. She’s always left her hair pastel since Ranboo’s known her, but if Ranboo thinks about it hard enough, the way that her moods have been recently probably led to her decision to take on a more dark look. Not that he’s particularly an expert on color theory and the psychology behind it, but he’s read an article or two, at least, and has also come to notice how expressive Niki is even when she tries not to be.
In the past, Niki used to idly mention that people have always called her a highly sensory person. Ranboo never knew exactly what to make of that, had always felt kind of the opposite, so out of his body that it’d take hours for him to feel heat in his skin again. That’s still the case now, and Niki hasn’t brought up the sensory thing again, but Ranboo would have to guess it’s still the way it used to be.
Ranboo is aware of the fact that he met Niki after she had already started seeing someone for mental health care, was there when she switched to maintenance therapy before dropping it due to insurance plans and just sticking to medication. He’s seen her episodes, but he never really saw the full of it, never had an explanation as to why she has military pamphlets dated three years sitting on her desk, or why she sometimes kneads dough with so much force Ranboo’s worried she’ll pull a muscle.
It’s not like Ranboo’s ever exactly asked, either; he doesn’t expect Niki to explain anything about her life to him, especially when he hasn’t even told her the bare minimum of information about himself.
It’s the kind of distance between them that Ranboo never thinks they’ll cross. And there’s something to the fact that, in the back of his mind– the most awful part, he’d like to think, the way that someone carves around the dark patches in an apple like it’ll make the whole thing less rotten– he knows their relationship isn’t one that’s going to last for forever, the way that siblings’ are… supposed to, at least.
And Niki compares them to siblings so often , but Ranboo’s a senior in high school and soon enough he’ll figure out what college he’s going to, and then he’ll grab whatever scholarship he can manage with his slipping GPA, and then he’ll move into his own dorm with some other people probably, and then it’ll be over, whatever he and Niki have. It’s not like Ranboo has much to come back home to for the holidays– a few visits to the bakery mainly, nothing more.
(There’s Fundy, though. Ranboo can’t forget about Fundy. Fundy doesn’t want Ranboo to go again, and- and there’s Tubbo too, maybe, though Ranboo’s sure that’s different.
It’s getting more frequent, he’s realizing. The realizations that the people in his life probably won’t be there forever are getting more frequent. And Ranboo doesn’t know why.)
Niki’s hands are shaking. There’s a bit of dye smeared on her forehead, and her expression is steeled together with all possible emotion weeded out, but her hands are shaking and both of them know that. Her eyes don’t look away from herself in the mirror; it’s not like she’s in a trance, not in the way that Ranboo gets sometimes, but it feels more like she’s trying to ignore him purposefully.
He thinks back to the color theory thing, the stupid correlation he had made in his brain. And he thinks about how the dye is meant to be dark pink, but in the yellow light of their bathroom, it looks reddish. Red smeared against her forehead, red against the sliver of skin just under the latex gloves. Red, the way that Ranboo never knew Niki, always saw her as the peachy tones of pink, but gets the feeling this is what he’s going to have to adjust to.
If Ranboo thinks too hard about colors, he can almost envision the way he smears blue against everything he touches– not analogous with something like sadness – instead, the color of the waves constantly crashing against his skin, and the volatility of everything he feels, and- and-
Niki writes poetry, sometimes, and Ranboo knows he used to. At least at some point, fragments ended up stuck in his notebook and left to his own interpretation as to what the contexts were years later. He was never good enough at writing it to really understand what was happening, but maybe he should pick it up and try again.
He’s having too many thoughts about colors. Just another way that his brain has broken, he guesses. Too disconnected from how to talk to his roommate, coworker, friend, sister, something– that he has to resort to amateur color theory.
The music that Niki plays is still so radiantly loud, and Ranboo suddenly jerks his arm forward, ignoring the way that Niki flinches in favor of lowering the music down a few notches.
She never relaxes, Ranboo can tell, but he tries to ignore that too, staring at her home screen photo with her and Wilbur in center frame.
He watches the screen turn dark before clearing his throat and asking, without looking at Niki yet, “Do you need help?”
There’s a pause, something hesitant, before Niki carefully says, “... I’ve dyed my hair before.”
“Yeah,” Ranboo acknowledges. He knows that Niki’s capable of doing it, collateral smears of dye notwithstanding. That’s not really what he’s asking, though, and he knows that Niki’s aware of that.
“I, uh,” he takes a deep breath before looking up and meeting her gaze through the mirror. “I meant more so, uh. Do you want help, I guess is what I’m asking. Not like- not if you need it, but, uh, I can- I can help.”
“You’ve been gone all day,” Niki brings up suddenly, and Ranboo averts his eyes back down to her phone. Then to her shaking hands, then to the strand of still-pale hair lying limp on the tile. “Where were you?”
“School.” Niki doesn’t react, and Ranboo pushes his own hand into his hair. He realizes he still has his gloves on, probably wants to take those off if he wants to help Niki. But in order to help Niki, he needs to answer her question better– it’s this complicated dance, and he has half the mind to think it’s not supposed to be like this, but he and Niki aren’t the best mentally, maybe they can only work in this way. Maybe Niki’s just like that, maybe she’s a puzzle to Wilbur, too; that’s wishful thinking, though, not even worth humoring.
The music’s quieter, but Ranboo’s mind is louder, scattered in his own head and it’s not supposed to be like this.
“School and the library,” Ranboo finally gets out, and Niki nods.
“Okay,” she says softly, and in the same breath, “Ranboo.”
It doesn’t sound like a question, but Ranboo doesn’t know what else she would mean.
“Yeah?”
Niki’s hands haven’t stopped shaking. Ranboo is starting to think maybe her whole body is focused on putting the energy in one place, and she can only put it in her hands because she’s Niki, she’s a baker, she’s someone who handles everything with her own two hands, she’s the one that is a layer removed from having red smeared down to her wrists.
“Can you dye my hair?” Niki asks.
And Ranboo says nothing, just lets the song change to the next and pulls off his gloves, throws them down somewhere on the tile and slides on the latex. Then, he’s behind her, checking over her work with a brush in his non-dominant hand.
Niki sighs in relief, and Ranboo pretends like he doesn’t hear it. He begins the process of parting her hair, because she had handled the area around her scalp very haphazardly– actually, had just handled it all badly, really, if he had to be blunt about it– and figures he should just do most of it all again himself, since that’d be easier than trying to cover over the blank spots.
It’s a methodical process. Ranboo isolates strands of hair, he runs the brush over it, he uses his finger to smudge the dye, and he repeats the steps. All the while, Niki shrugs off her jacket– Ranboo’s cold underneath his sweatshirt and long-sleeved shirt, but Niki lets her skin rise in goosebumps as she wears just a tank top at the start of December.
Tension slowly starts to break when Niki hums alongside a song playing, and Ranboo feels less like he’s walking on glass and more like he’s tip-toeing along a coastline. It’s not very far from life-threatening, but at the very least, he still has a chance. He can still stay afloat, even when Niki and Fundy flood his mind with memories and thoughts that have no place there-
-it’s awful, on that note, for Ranboo to take this moment of dying Niki’s hair as sisterly-
-as if they were both sisters. As if he has Fundy’s fostered brotherhood over one shoulder, and Niki’s adopted sisterhood over his other. As if he deserves to carry both, as if he has the strength to.
Maybe it’s just proof he doesn’t know anything about how families work. And he’s a guy, anyway, so it- so it wouldn’t make sense, on account of the Niki part.
… He doesn’t feel like a guy, much, right now.
Which doesn’t make sense. He still, like, is a guy. And it’s not like all guys feel that they are a guy all the time, that wouldn’t make sense, they usually just kind of… are, and that’s that. And that’s where Ranboo’s at. He wasn’t a girl, and he liked being referred to as a he, so he’s a boy. And that’s that.
But he’s almost starting to wonder where he started to hate being a girl so much in the first place, as a kid. Because obviously it was enough to want to transition and be considered a boy, but Ranboo doesn’t… really feel dysphoric about that much anymore. He doesn’t think he would mind being called a girl, or a sister, or whatever it is. It would… honestly feel the same as being called a guy, since he doesn’t feel very strongly a guy either, as previously established.
And, strangely enough, the thought of being just a guy is more dysphoric to him than the thought of being a girl ever was.
It makes no sense, though. He can’t flip flop one or the other for the rest of his life until he’s satisfied. He’s never going to be, with that mentality. He just needs to stick to one, like basically everyone else, and- and, well, okay. He knows that there are people who go by multiple pronouns and identify with multiple genders, obviously, he’s aware of that. But, aside from what he’s seen off the Internet, he’s never really… met, or personally known, many of those people. At least, nobody who was very public about it.
Either way, it’s fine for other people but he can’t chance that uncertainty, that experimentation. It’s dangerous.
It doesn’t feel dangerous right now, his stupid mind insists.
And… it doesn’t. Niki’s slowly relaxing as Ranboo dyes her hair, not aware of the fact that her roommate has entirely tuned out of the music she’s now singing to herself, and it feels a lot more… peaceful. Ranboo’s not sure what kind of comfort he could possibly be bringing her right now, but whatever it is he hopes he can keep, just to give her that little moment of relaxation.
A moment for himself, too, as his brain wants to remind him. An okay time to think more about it, maybe.
He looks at Niki’s expression in the mirror, soft and more open than it’s been in a while, can see his own reflection and how the thought clearly sits on his tongue. An okay time to think about it, or even talk about it-
No. He’s not going to ask Niki about that. What would Niki even say about it? Obviously, Ranboo doesn’t know the intimacy of her own gender identity, but it’s not like he… needs to? And she’s told him she’s cis before, but, still- no, no, but nothing. It’s none of his business, and it’s not like she can help him, so it’s pointless.
But, she’s someone that maybe he can voice his thoughts to, right now, even if they bounce right off her and back to him. Just… somewhere to place it all. He thinks he might need that, just a bit, even if it’s a stupid and nonsensical type of want.
Before he can overthink it more, he blurts out, “Niki, I have, uh, a question.”
“Okay,” she says simply. She reaches out to lower the volume of the music, which is a considerate gesture but only makes Ranboo regret this more. “What’s up, Ranboo?”
“This is- well, okay.” Ranboo shifts a bit to start working on the other side of her hair, twisting some strands away so he can access the others. He focuses his eyes on the task rather than anything else, not wanting to risk making eye contact with Niki as he asks this stupid, ridiculous question. “Have… uh, have you ever, like. Questioned your, uh, gender identity? If… if that makes sense. Y’know?”
Niki hums. Ranboo glances up by reflex and sees her face at a passive neutral, forcing his eyes back down so he won’t have to see the moment it twists. Except, Niki doesn’t seem to have that moment, stays entirely neutral as she eventually replies, “No. Not really, I wouldn’t say. I’m fairly confident I’m a cis woman,” which is what Ranboo had thought, hence makes this a stupid- “though, I’ve questioned my pronouns.”
Ranboo pauses his movements for a little, blinking before forcing himself to continue. “...Huh?”
“Well, pronouns don’t have match your gender identity,” Niki explains. “I’m a cis woman, but I talked a lot to Wilbur about it a year or two ago, and… there are other pronouns aside from she/her that I’m okay with.”
Ranboo’s never heard of any of this before. And again, it’s not his business, and she still seems fine with the way he had been referring to her before, so it’s fine . He’s… she doesn’t owe him anything, obviously, he just… wishes he was closer to her so that she would have felt more comfortable sharing that earlier, maybe? But it’s not like he’s out of control in that, anyway; he’s the reason they’re not close, can’t go complaining when it’s too late.
But it’s not too late, is it?
Ranboo doesn’t know.
“If I can ask,” he starts carefully, not wanting to pry, “what are they?”
“She/her and xe/xem,” Niki says, and Ranboo finds himself taken off guard by the second one. He’s familiar with a few pairs of neopronouns, like that one, just off of what he’s seen and read, but had never looked that extensively into them, and hadn’t ever met anyone who used them. Until now.
He’s not sure what the proper response is, either, so he just nods and fumbles out a clumsy, “Cool. Thank you for telling me.”
“Yeah, of course,” Niki says softly. “Can I ask you a question?”
Ranboo would prefer not, but it’s only fair at this point. “Okay.”
“Why do you ask?”
and he should have expected that, really, but he still feels himself tense up a little at the question. His brain runs through the varying thoughts of you are familiar with neopronouns and nonbinary identities why is this so complicated and but surely that’s not me and besides nobody I know is like that and Niki is literally like that you idiot did you not hear what she just said and but it’s different, I’m different, I don’t understand this at all.
All too many thoughts to dictate, and none that he wants to dictate. He knows Niki deserves an answer, and that xe isn’t exactly going to do anything bad regardless of what he says, but still. It’s confusing, and it’s complicated, and he wants to shove it into the back of his mind and never think about it again, just like with everything, and-
“I know that you’re trans,” Niki interrupts his thoughts, voice as gentle as ever. “And you don’t have to tell me anything. I know I may not understand, but if you do want to talk about it, I’m here for you. I’m always here for you.”
Ranboo takes a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second, trying to let that sink in. Niki isn’t upset with him, xe is just curious, xe is here for him, and… and he should open up to xem, because that’s what xe wants right now, and Ranboo should do that. Even if his thoughts are too complicated for even him to understand, Niki is smart and level-headed most of the time, so xe might be able to help with that, too. Make it make sense to him.
Niki waits silently for him to speak, and the music continues to hum quietly as he runs his fingers down a strand of hair, separating out the dye, before finally whispering, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.”
He hesitates, not sure how to elaborate, and Niki takes the silence as a cue to say, “I don’t think you’re supposed to be anything, aside from what you are.”
“Yeah,” Ranboo replies, “I know. I know. It’s not… supposed to is the wrong way to put it, it’s just…” He feels a little sick. “I don’t… I thought I wasn’t a girl. That I was a guy instead.”
“But…” Niki prompts.
“I don’t know.” Her hair looks like it’s been covered. Ranboo can’t remember half of the process, just sets the brush down on the counter and looks over his work. “I guess I was wrong.”
Niki tilts her head to help Ranboo look through it, eyebrows furrowed in thought. “Do you want me to call you anything different?”
“No,” Ranboo turns down before he can think about it. “I don’t need like, checking or anything. Just… I still like he/him, and being a guy, and being Ranboo, and-”
“I know,” Niki reassures, and Ranboo hadn’t realized how defensive he sounded until he stopped talking. “I know, Ranboo. But… if you ever need help, I can do that for you. Just try things out with you. It’s okay to check.”
It’s not. It’s not for Ranboo. This was an informative conversation, but Ranboo doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. Now’s the time to shove it all back down again and deal with it when he’s on his own, because he’s not nonbinary and his pronouns aren’t divorced from his gender and he’s not questioning anything because he already knows. This isn’t a sister moment, because he doesn’t have any family, and he knows exactly who he is, he doesn’t have to question this.
“I appreciate it,” Ranboo says, and there’s an air of finality to it.
Niki pauses, then she nods, shaking her head a little before giving Ranboo a smile. “I think I can take care of the rest, now,” she says. “Go get some rest.”
“Are you feeling any better?” he has to ask, even if Niki’s mental health is something she always seems like she’d rather ignore.
Yet, she still smiles. It’s a bit bitter, but mostly sweet. The way she takes her tea, the way that she tries to take life. “I’m okay,” she tells him. “I’m always a lot better when I’m spending time with you, you know.”
And Ranboo doesn’t know that, happens to think it’s untrue, but he smiles back at xem anyway, throws away the latex gloves and gently tips open the door. “Goodnight,” he says to xem over his shoulder.
“Goodnight, Ranboo,” Niki wishes, “sleep well.”
Ranboo lets the door fall shut with a definite click, hovering a little until he hears the music kick back up to a manageable volume before weaving his way back to his room.
He’s exhausted, and he should sleep. Staying up won’t help anything; it’d maybe help him avoid nightmares if he wasn’t already at threat of risking them in the daytime.
Yet, he finds that he can’t get himself to go to bed. Not by his usual music, not by white noise, not by pacing around, not by bundling a blanket to be heavy over him.
All he can think of, in his mind, is the various images of him across his lifetime. How different he used to look, how different he is now, and if he’ll ever know who it is those images are picturing.
-
Ranboo’s halfway across the parking lot, backpack slung over his shoulder with the added weight of a laptop to take to Dream’s place, when he notices Tommy standing beside his car.
It doesn’t make sense for Tommy to be out here. Ranboo can’t remember what Tommy’s last class in the day is, but he knows it’s definitely not one he can skip, especially not without any indication of someone coming to pick him up. Because he really is just standing out there beside Ranboo’s car, which he might somewhat know the look of, and that’s confusing for a lot of reasons, really, just a lot of reasons.
His expression is unusually pensive for Tommy, Ranboo also realizes. His lips are downturned slightly, not fully a frown but resemblant of some heavy thought, and his eyebrows are furrowed. He has his arms crossed over his chest, and it’s a lot colder out here than he’s dressed for– he doesn’t even have a jacket on, just a thin long-sleeved shirt. Ranboo seems to be learning that he gets colder easily than most people, but it’s still odd of Tommy to be so underdressed unless he just runs extremely hot. And Ranboo doesn’t think he does.
As much as Ranboo would like to avoid this confrontation, Tommy is standing in front of his car. Which makes Ranboo think that Tommy probably wants to say something to him, even if he hasn’t noticed Ranboo approaching yet. It would be weird otherwise to just be… waiting, right? That would just be weird.
And so, seeing as Tommy isn’t going to make the first move– what is Ranboo expecting, really– Ranboo clears his throat and says, “Hi, Tommy.”
Tommy flinches, expression twisting into something like fear before he immediately quells it down, restoring it to a slightly-neutral-mostly-pissed look. Which, Tommy has no right to be pissed, considering that he’s literally waiting in front of Ranboo’s car.
“Ranboo.” There’s a force behind his tone.
Ranboo lets out a nervous laugh, starting to feel like he’s missing something, here. Of course, there’s the obvious tension between them, but that still doesn’t explain… all of this. Sure, yes, Ranboo knows Dream, but he’s not sure why Tommy is making it his life’s goal to blame Ranboo for something he’s barely articulated. It’s not like Ranboo thinks Dream is the best person in the world, but that doesn’t change the fact that Dream is the only person in the world who gets him– as Tommy helpfully punctuated himself– and that Ranboo can’t function without Dream’s support. That’s just how that works, and if Tommy’s so dead set on Ranboo being a terrible person yet can’t explain clearly why Ranboo is…
… well. That’s not Ranboo’s fault, is it?
Tommy isn’t budging, so Ranboo clears his throat again, dismissing his anxious laughing, and states, “You’re standing in front of my car.”
Tommy raises an eyebrow. “This is your car?”
“... Yeah?” Who else’s?
Tommy gives it a glance, eyes widening slightly before he shakes his head. He starts to back away from it, muttering, “It looked familiar.”
“Maybe that’s because I’ve driven Tubbo home in it.” That would be the logical conclusion.
Tommy just scowls, though, and Ranboo narrowly stops himself from rolling his eyes. He manages, and Tommy ends up saying, a bit louder, “Thought it was someone else’s.”
“Clearly.” There’s a bit of irritation in Ranboo’s voice because, yeah, he’s irritated. He doesn’t doubt that Tommy’s going through… whatever he’s going through, and Ranboo can sympathize with that, but that doesn’t excuse Tommy being an absolute jerk to him. For absolutely zero reason. Like Ranboo’s just some punching bag.
Ranboo doesn’t need someone to haunt him and treat him terribly. He already has the universe doing that for him, and everyone else in the world staring at him like it’s all his fault. Like he’s unstable or something.
It’s funny. Ranboo’s the unstable one, yeah, sure. At least he didn’t push someone forcibly into their own car and leave bruises on their arm-
-that’s harsh, and Ranboo knows that. Tommy was distressed, he probably- he probably didn’t mean to physically harm Ranboo, even when he was, y’know, physically harming Ranboo.
And Ranboo’s done worse. Ranboo’s probably done worse when he’s upset.
But at what point does Ranboo stop giving people the benefit of the doubt? At what point does it finally click in Ranboo’s head that everyone is out to get him, as he’s clearly been shown.
Thank God Ranboo’s going to see Dream after this. It’s not like he’s going to bring any of that up– no matter how upset Ranboo is with Tommy, he still recognizes that mentioning him to Dream is a bad idea, and he doesn’t want to hurt Tommy, for God’s sake– but Dream will still give him some kind of distraction. Or at a very least, a reminder. Set Ranboo’s head back on straight, so he can keep functioning as normal.
… But Tommy’s still just standing there. He looks a lot more anxious than when this conversation started, like he’s less pissed off and more scared. And that’s- that’s upsetting, honestly, because Ranboo’s really sick of people being scared of him, but if he thinks too hard about that, the two will just be stuck here staring at each other.
So, Ranboo takes a chance, some guess as to what Tommy needs right now, and asks, “Did you need a ride?”
Tommy shakes his head almost immediately, backing up. “No,” he answers, as if the whole gesture wasn’t enough to cement that in. “No. Fuck off.”
“Are you just planning to hang out in the parking lot for the next hour and a half, then?” Because Tommy really should have had a better plan. And Ranboo really would drop him off if that’s what he needed, not say a word to him, just take him home and leave it at that. He could lie to Dream about what took him so long; he’s already going to have to do that anyway due to this whole conversation. It would be fine.
But Tommy looks like he’d rather die than spend any longer in Ranboo’s company. “Please, just-” he takes a shaky breath in, “-just leave me alone, man.”
Ranboo takes a deep breath in.
It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s- it’s whatever at this point. Water under the bridge. Tommy’s absolutely terrified of Ranboo, and that’s- maybe that’s how it should be. Maybe people should be scared of Ranboo, because at this point, anything is better than absolute pity. Maybe Ranboo just needs to give people more of a reason to be afraid of him, which seems to be just as easy as parking his car in a public parking lot. Hell, maybe he can try parking his car off in a mental institution next, book himself in, give the entire town some phobia of him. He may as well start trying anything , because clearly people are going to be scared of him no matter what he does.
What is it about Ranboo that’s so terrifying to Tommy? Is it the fact that he’s tall and looks sort of strange, has scars all over his face that he loathes? Is it the fact that he talks funny, gets told he needs to speak up and enunciate clearer, is that such a bother? Is it the fact that Ranboo’s brain is all messed up, that he’s only ever hurt himself but of course, of course, it’s not like anybody understands it anyway, so of course they would assume he’s a danger to everyone, even though Ranboo’s gotten closer to killing himself more than once since school year started than he’s ever been to hurting people?
Tommy doesn’t understand anything. The two of them were hardly friends in the first place. Ranboo should stop being so torn up about it, not when Tommy’s business is clearly his own business, and he just needs Ranboo around to be a punching bag. Ranboo shouldn’t care.
So, he just shrugs and says, “Suit yourself.” He opens the car door, ignoring the way that he can see Tommy out of the corner of his eye shaking. He shuts the car door behind him, waits patiently until Tommy gets the hell out of the car’s way, and he gets Dream on the line to explain why he’s late.
And he doesn’t say a thing about it to Dream. Not at all. Because Tommy doesn’t deserve that, even if Tommy doesn’t seem to think Ranboo deserves basic respect.
Soon, none of this will matter. Give it time, and Ranboo will either be dead, or at the center of a mystery solving it all. Either way, it won’t matter how people feel about him. It won’t matter if he scares them. It won’t even matter who he is. None of that would matter anymore.
(In a moment of clarity, Ranboo thinks that maybe he’s the God he’s been praying to this whole time.)