Jet Lag

chapter 5

Days with Tubbo were filled with nonsense. Sight-seeing, streaming, recording content and trying fish and chips on the pier. He had his sunglasses pulled down over his eyes and the sea breeze was blowing his hair back. The water stretched on infinitely, a lavender mirror reflecting the evening light. Tubbo had his crummy handheld camera and was squinting into the viewfinder, panning across the beach.

"Seagull. Seagull. Oh! Seagull." He laughed. His ears were pinking with cold and his chin was tucked into that self-same hoodie.

"This is excellent content, Tubbo. Really good." Ranboo couldn't keep the fondness from his voice.

"I know what the viewers want. Give us a smile, Ranboo."

Ranboo pulled his mask up over his face and gave an indulgent thumbs-up to the camera. Tubbo's face was hidden behind the giant lense and he slid the focus a few times.

"They'll go crazy for this." Tubbo grinned. "You look adorable."

A laugh bubbled out of him, and Ranboo turned back to the now-cold fries in his lap. Chips. Not fries.

"S'true. Look at us, kind of romantic isn't it." Tubbo's voice was lilting with amusement. He was teasing. Ranboo's stomach did several nonconsensual somersaults. He chucked a fry at a seagull.

"I don't remember you asking me on a date." Ranboo retorted, summoning the last of his confidence.

Tubbo erupted into laughter and stumbled to his feet. "No." He extended a hand and Ranboo let the smaller boy hoist him up. Toe-to-toe, Tubbo's head had to tilt comically to meet his eyes. "C'mon let's skip stones. I'll teach you."

-

Nights were different. Ranboo knew that now. Tubbo's insomnia manifested itself in late-night wonderings and half-baked revelations about the world.
On one such night, Tubbo hauled Ranboo out of bed and draped him in blankets. "Out the window with you," He said and slid it open. The shingles were freezing under his palms as he struggled to fit through. Out-of-breath and never more conscious of his height, Ranboo thudded into a pile of blankets.

Tubbo followed easily and clawed his way into Ranboo's pocket of warmth. Above them, the frigid sky stretched out beyond imagination.

"I'll be honest I don't know anything about astrologically," Tubbo admitted.

"Astronomy. No, me neither."

"They are quite pretty, though."

"Yeah."

Warmth pooled from Tubbo's bedroom, casting him in a golden back-light. Tubbo's hair was over-steeped tea, deep brown and soft."What are you thinking about?" Tubbo asked.

"Home," Ranboo said absently. He'd given-up holding his tongue around Tubbo. There was a limit to it and it started and ended somewhere around holding hands on the way from the train station.

"It's creeping up on you, eh?" Tubbo said with the barest smile, just enough to cover the melancholy. The stars passed them by, blinking into little pinpricks of light and then nothing at all as Ranboo's eyes fluttered shut."Is it gonna be different now, you reckon?" Tubbo asked. "When you go home?"

Yes. No. It's already different, Ranboo wanted to say. He opened his eyes. "Of course it will be."

Tubbo deflated a little, a pout marring his features.

"I'm going to miss you. I missed you before, y'know." Ranboo began unevenly. "But now I know everything."

"Everything? You don't know everything about me yet."

"No, I guess not." Ranboo hummed. "I guess not."

"I don't know everything about you, either. You're very secretive, you know. I can never tell what you want."

"What I want?"

Tubbo nodded, and his eyes were voids, taking in the moonlight and turning it to nothing. He couldn't look away.

"I want to kiss you." He said finally. And he knew there was supposed to be fear there, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. Tubbo knew him. He wanted to —

Tubbo kissed like waking up. Warm and unsure and eager. It was over in a second, the warm hand on his jaw sliding back. Ranboo held it there for just a second longer, a reassurance that the whole thing had really happened. Tubbo's pinky wound around his and he let their joined hands fall between them.

"I was waiting for you," Tubbo whispered, voice jagged. "I thought maybe–"

"Again," Ranboo asked, and Tubbo obliged him.

It was slow and easy and they had all the time in the world.
—

There were a lot more streams after that.

There was also a lot more kissing.

Ranboo couldn't find the feeling from before, that need to keep every moment of the trip for his own. They didn't tell the viewers, it wasn't for them. He didn't need an excuse to stare at Tubbo. He didn't need a reason more than he wanted to and Tubbo let him. More than let him.
In the mornings, he stayed in bed and let Ranboo card his hands through his hair. He laughed at his own shitty jokes and let Ranboo kiss the corner of his smile. The static nervousness was all gone.

"You can't keep kissing me," Tubbo said on their last morning.

"Oh." Ranboo dropped his hands to Tubbo's shoulders. His hair was a mess and there was a high flush on his cheeks. "Did I," He cleared his throat. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm going to miss it too much."

Ranboo groaned and pushed Tubbo down against the pillows. "You're so sappy. You are such a sap." He grumbled. "Thought you were gonna cut your losses and set me free or something."

"Christ. No. You'll have to pry me off you at the airport."

"Mmm. You could fit in the carry-on."

"I know I should be offended but I'm more keen on your developing criminal mastermind." Tubbo cheesed. "Tommy had it all wrong. I'm a bad influence on you."

"You wish."

"I am! You know you swore at dinner the other night."

"I didn't. Did I?"

"You did, I noticed."

"Of course you noticed," Ranboo said, leaning into Tubbo's space. He bracketed his head with his elbows and dipped down to peck his lips. Nothing escaped Tubbo, not the way he held pencils funny or baulked at the idea of the tower of London or always kept one earbud out for him. Tubbo divulged these little peculiarities to him at night under cover of darkness, and Ranboo had never been so pleased to be aware of himself. It wasn't so bad to be seen.

"It was always going to be you." He said.