Happiness in Uncertainty - Rancher Duo fanfic - NOT MINE

Happiness In Uncertainty

There were very few things that Jimmy was sure of. This was particularly true when it came to the life servers. One certainty gave him a comforting constant in the madness that came of these games of Grian's - and that was his role - the canary in the coalmine - the omen of death. He's always out first. His death always brings about the worst of the chaos.

Beyond that Jimmy was never sure what exactly he was supposed to do. He didn't have Grian's intelligence and hundred-steps ahead plans, or Scar's charisma and incredible ability to talk his way out of death, Ren's dedication to his allies, or Impulse's crafty strategies and own dedication to the grind. The only thing he had was an abundance of bad luck and proneness to accidents. He was just - Jimmy. His only hope is to get an ally and hope that he won't drag them down too much.

So to say he was worried about the whole soulmate and shared damage thing was an understatement. He felt sorry for them the moment Grian announced the premise for the season, he was going to go first but this time he was going to drag someone else with him. But from their first moments of the server, he was determined, determined to try harder, determined to stay alive, determined to do right by his soul bound, determined to break his curse of death.

A curse was a curse for a reason.

Very fittingly, death is precisely how Jimmy met his soulmate, and he didn't know how to feel about that. Somehow, by some bittersweet miracle he wasn't the one to actually die, but who was he kidding it was his fault anyway because his soulmate was tied to him. Bad luck was infectious apparently.

Jimmy should've been mad at his soulmate, he knew he should be mad, anyone else on the server would've been at their soulmate for getting them down to yellow so early on.

His soulmate - Tango. He should've been mad at Tango.

One look at Tango's remorse and regret-filled face just made all of that drain out of him. Not that there was much to begin with. Getting mad at people just wasn't him. The wriggling hands, the restlessly shuffling feet, the inability to make eye contact while endless versions of sorry flowed out of him - he was just looking at a reflection of himself.

So, no, Jimmy wasn't mad at Tango for getting them killed. He would be quite the hypocrite if he was.

There were very few things that Jimmy was sure of. And Tango is quite far from that list. In fact, if that list was a book page and Tango was another - well then he wasn't even in the same library.

There weren't a lot of things he knew about Tango, to begin with, they've never particularly interacted. All he knew for certain was Tango's love for, usually deadly, games. If he didn't know any better he would say he and Grian were related. Blonds associated with red and an almost unhealthy love for explosions and death games.

But Jimmy just couldn't understand Tango.

The meeting by death was a rough start but he expected Tango to be just like the others afterwards. To make fun of him, of his tendency to get himself killed, of his habit to get hurt. To pity himself like he knew the others pitied him for getting paired with Jimmy. He expected his smile to fall the moment he thought Jimmy wasn't looking. He was expecting the other shoe to drop.

Jimmy was expecting all that to happen. He was prepared for that to happen. What he wasn't prepared for was for all of that to not happen.

Tango thought Jimmy was a builder and laughed at their collective expense when they realized neither knew how to build. He asked Jimmy for ideas, for plans, for strategies and LISTENED - and he didn't know how to feel. It felt too good to be true to finally have someone take him seriously. It felt like the universe was playing a sick joke on him. Jimmy didn't get this - lucky.

His soulmate was so open in everything he did it felt truly unreal. Open, dramatic, over-the-top - so very Tango - so very perfect.

The smile on Tango's face when Jimmy complemented his boxy house was blinding. When Jimmy turned up at the door of their ranch with cows in tow Tango's screamed "YOU'RE AMAZING!" was probably heard by the whole server. He flung his arms around Jimmy's neck so hard they toppled over and both winced on impact, Tango might be a head shorted but he had the force to compensate, and they both laughed as the cows started nosing at their hair and it felt so freeing.

Jimmy got the first goat horn and Tango was so busy celebrating Jimmy's success that he had to be reminded of his own still missing horn.

Grian told everyone to not respond to his horn "Well now it's not fun anymore" he was told when he showed Grian his hard-earned horn. He almost cried right then and there but not only for his sake but also because he and Tango had matching ones, different from anyone else's, which meant that they weren't going to respond to Tango either.

It wasn't fair.

"You're upset" was the first thing that Tango said to him when he got back. It wasn't a question.

"It's.. it's stupid" the defence sounded weak even to his own ears.

He had an armful of netherborn before he could even look up at Tango "It's upsetting you, ergo it is not stupid"

Who would've thought that Jimmy broke so easily. He didn't understand, didn't understand how Tango could be so open, so trusting, so caring, so gentle. He didn't understand his own feeling about being acknowledged and cared for and view as something precious. Jimmy didn't understand how he got this lucky, he was Jimmy, the omen, the canary in the coalmine, he didn't get lucky - so why..

He didn't know when or how he got to the bed but that's exactly where he was when he came back to his senses, tucked against a warm body with a soothing hand running through his hair "Go to sleep" was murmured against the crown of his head "We can talk tomorrow if you want to"

He couldn't help but comply.

There were very few things that Jimmy was sure of. But one thing that made the top of the list was that he liked being with Tango. He felt safe, he felt loved.

He didn't feel like he had to worry about a mad soulmate when he returned with Martin from the deep dark. He didn't feel worried about the conversation he overheard between Scar and Tango about getting Jimmy's horn. And he was proved right when Tango made absolutely zero moves to act on that even when he told Scar yes.

He didn't feel threatened by Tango's rage when the ranch burned because not for one second was it aimed at him even though he was the one to steal Scar's horse, after two seasons you'd think at least one of them would've got the memo about not messing with Scar's pets. Tango stopped in his tracks when Jimmy blew his horn that day because he had to respond, just like he promised the morning after Jimmy's breakdown because if no one was going to respond to them they would respond to each other.

There were very few things that Jimmy was sure of but if he had to choose one thing is that he felt happy with Tango. Jimmy wouldn't trade his soulmate for anything.