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The car door slammed as Tubbo jumped out of the passenger side, a wad of damp bills in his hand.
"You bitch Ranboob!" Tubbo griped as he shook out his hoodie, little droplets of carbonation hitting the ground.
Ranboo wobbled as he stepped out of the driver's side.
"I didn't think it would explode!" Ranboo worried his hands in his tie and rushed over to Tubbo's side of the station wagon.
He reached into the fast food bag and daubed at Tubbo's damp front with a stack of brown paper napkins.
"You just drove down the bumpiest road in the world and hit every pothole!" Tubbo poked Ranboo on the forehead as his towering husband bent down to help clean him up. "Of course it was going to fizz up."
"I'm so sorry, Tubbo." Ranboo looked up at Tubbo through his lashes, bending nearly in half. "Could you ever forgive me?" He blinked his eyes quickly, like he was trying to be cute, but he mostly looked like he was being electrocuted.
Tubbo tried his best to continue looking surly, but Ranboo's stupid expression was too much.
He burst out laughing, pressing his hands against Ranboo's face.
"Oh my gawd fiiine I forgive you. I guess."
Ranboo returned to his full height with a smug grin.
"Glad that's settled." Ranboo began, but Tubbo interjected.
"Oh not quite yet," He grinned up at Ranboo, "You have to pay for gas first!"
Ranboo smiled indulgently and walked around the car, pulling out his card and beginning to pump.
Tubbo tucked his wad of slightly sticky dollar bills back in his pocket, and quickly claimed the driver's seat while Ranboo waited with his hand on the gas nozzle.
Tubbo took the opportunity to check the map, the SMPatlas showing that they were at the edge of an absolutely massive plains biome. It would absolutely fill their render distance for at least an hour while they were in the middle of it. Nobody around for miles until a small town popped up on the other side.
Just staring at the large swathe of green in his hands, Tubbo started to feel slightly dizzy, like he was going to fall into the massive distance represented by the absolute lack of anything on the center of the atlas page.
Tubbo stared at the map, eyes unblinking for what felt like hours. Each tick on the graph represented chunks and chunks of land, and there were hundreds of tick marks from one side of the vast expanse to the other. It was almost an incomprehensible expanse, and they were about to drive across it.
…
Better use the restroom before setting off.
Tubbo hopped back out of the car, and grabbed Ranboo's arm as he set the gas nozzle back in the machine.
"Bathroom break!" Tubbo crowed at the sky, and Ranboo hid his face behind his hand.
"You don't need to let everyone know, Tubbo!"
Ranboo and Tubbo finished up quickly, and Tubbo made sure to guilt Ranboo into buying him some more trip snacks (and some questionable sushi) before they piled back into the old, wood-panel station wagon.
Ranboo made to get back in the driver's seat, but Tubbo saw and dove across the center console to stop him.
"Ohhh, no shot, big man!" Tubbo jabbed his finger at the passenger side seat, still covered in cola droplets. "You sit on the soggy spot- I'll drive."
Ranboo froze, obvious tension filling his shoulders.
"You sure? I really don't mind driving, it'll probably be really boring for-"
"I'm a fine driver, quit being a pussy." Tubbo grabbed the wheel and hauled himself into the seat, immediately adjusting the seat height settings.
Ranboo smiled uneasily, but took a deep, calming breath and ducked into the passenger seat.
"You're right, I trust you." Ranboo buckled in, and Tubbo started the car.
Then immediately peeled out of the gas station.
"TUBBO!"
Ranboo gripped the emergency handle with one hand and his chest with the other.
Tubbo only replied with a cackle and sped onto the long, straight road west.
~~~
The last of the building tops disappeared out the edge of the render distance behind them. Ranboo had tucked himself sideways as best he could, his long limbs jammed against the dashboard, and had fallen into a light sleep despite his head bouncing against the window with every bump.
Tubbo sat, white-knuckling the steering wheel as all their surroundings blurred into unending, waving grasses and blue, cloudless sky.
There were no landmarks, no people, only a sea of infinite grass stretching on into the horizon.
It was almost dizzying.
The sky stretched on and on, big enough to swallow him whole. His eyes seemed like they couldn't close.
The sky yawned above him, hungry, endless, expanding far beyond its boundaries. It was as though the frame of the car had disappeared, and left him exposed to the cruel void surrounding them.
Tubbo drove for what felt like hours, days. He was locked in place, his mouth seemed to be filled with the unceasing weight of the sky, the atmosphere above him pressed him down into the seat and he felt the mass of every cubic meter of air above him like rocks crushing him down into the embrace of the grasses around him.
Ranboo refused to stir, and Tubbo could not move or speak to wake him. The sky seemed to expand- reaching- clawing- grasping at Tubbo.
It obscured his vision, obscured the road, obscured Ranboo with its devouring emptiness. It was a void that could never be filled, always hungry, always stealing that which belonged to the earth- always-
.
.
.
There was a town.
On the horizon line.
Far off, but there.
Tubbo was free.
.
.
.
Abruptly, he fell back into his body. He gasped for air, his arms and hands shaking. His white knuckles finally unlocked, blood rushing into his hands and flowing slightly from the nail marks in his palms. He felt pins and needles rush into his hands, and an ache started in his jaw where he had been clenching it.
Sound rushed back next, and now that it had returned, Tubbo wondered at how he had never noticed it had left.
The car's low gas alarm beeped, the radio jolted back to life in the middle of some stadium country song, and finally, Ranboo stirred.
His sleepy eyes blinked awake, and Tubbo had never been so glad to make not-quite-eye-contact with his husband.
Last to return was his ability to speak.
Tubbo gasped and choked against the memory of the sky in his throat, but managed to whisper-
"Ranboo" Tubbo's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper and sheaves of endless grass.
"Hmmm?" Ranboo's deep voice soothed him.
"I'm gonna throw up." Tubbo whispered, and Ranboo whirled to look at him, alarm plastered on his pretty face.
Tubbo yanked the wheel to the side and pulled over as soon as they hit the first road sign in the small town.
He flung the door open and immediately retched on the asphalt.
Ranboo was there instantly, rubbing his back and wiping his face, infinitely beloved.
Tubbo looked to the ground.
"I am never," Tubbo gripped Ranboo's hand with a fury, "coming back here."
Tubbo staggered to his feet, and got in the passenger side seat.
Behind him on the ground, his vomit was the unearthly blue of the endless sky over the plains.