Let me level with you man, as someone guilty of the game

2. A fight and a Discovery, Kinda

Tommy couldn’t quite make sense of Tubbo.

He came bouncing into the cafe one day, sending the bell over the door jangling loudly, a wide smile on his lips as he spotted Ranboo. His long brown hair just barely covered his eyes, but Tommy noticed the slight golden glow that came from the irises. He would’ve guessed that Tubbo was some kind of hybrid, because of the whole glowing eyes thing, but everything else about him seemed human.

There was also the fact that, whenever he got excited, Tubbo’s hands would pop and sizzle with small explosions.

Tommy didn’t quite know why, but he knew one thing for certain: everyone on earth was born as either a hybrid or a human. Hybrids were stronger, faster, and sometimes more intelligent than your average human, but for some reason, hybrids couldn’t develop powers. Only humans, those born with no mutations and no hybrid blood, had any hope of getting super powers. 

Tommy was an avian (see: the massive fucking bird wings). Like most avians, he could retract his wings whenever he want, sliding them into his back until no sign of them remained, save for the thin white scars along his shoulder blades. Avians weren’t the rarest of hybrids, but they were probably up there. Tommy didn’t really know, he didn’t pay much attention.

When Tommy had first met Ranboo, he had pegged him as human right away. Sure, his heterochromatic eyes were a little strange, and the split dye hair was quite the look, but he didn’t have horns or fangs or claws or wings or any of the other signs of hybrids. So Tommy had just assumed he was a human with powers. Tubbo had been a little harder to decide on.

Tommy could still remember the first day he had come into the cafe, the day after Tommy had somehow landed the position. He had come bouncing through the door, much like he had done today, a large grin in place and hands fiddling with some sort of mechanism in his hands. He had given Tommy a wide grin, holding out a hand to him across the counter.

“I’m Tubbo,” he had said simply, still smiling. Tommy had been too confused to do anything other than shake the guy’s hand and introduce himself. 

Tubbo’s hands had been one of the first giveaways to his power. His fingers and palms were calloused and scarred, effects of a long time explosion power use. Tommy had seen similar scars on Sapnap’s hands, which was why the hero had taken to wearing thin gloves with his hero suit. 

The second giveaway had been, of course, the small explosions.

“GAH, TUBBO!” Tommy yelped, jumping away from the counter with a shriek as Tubbo slid his whole body across the surface, hands alight with mini explosions. He fell to the ground, landing on the tile floor with a loud thump and a giggle.

Ranboo, hearing the commotion, came hurrying out of the back room, looking around nervously. 

“What happened?” He asked shakily, wringing his hands together. “Who died?”

“No one died,” Tubbo reassured him, pushing himself to his feet on the employee’s side of the counter. All three of them knew that Tubbo technically wasn’t supposed to be back there. None of them cared.

“Oh. Well, good,” Ranboo said, nodding quickly. He turned, busying himself with some of the baked goods in the display case, carefully rearranging them into nice, symmetrical patterns. Tubbo watched him, amused.

Tommy knew that Tubbo was Ranboo’s best friend, his platonic husband, and his roommate. He had already heard the conversation about tax benefits a million times, he could probably have recited it from memory. But what Tommy didn’t understand was how Ranboo and Tubbo managed to own an apartment by themselves.

He knew for a fact that they were both his age. Neither of them were legal adults, neither of them should be able to legally own their own place. It wasn’t Tommy’s pace to ask, and he sure as hell wasn’t gonna snitch on the closest people he had to friends, but it bothered him nonetheless.