TW: cursing
PSA: Tobias and Randy are not Tubbo and Ranboo's real names, they just sound like their screen names so I picked those.
If you like the fae AU thing, I have a reader insert in @OddBee_'s oneshot book under the name 'Follow Him Over Yonder'
---
"Look, look, look!" Tubbo exclaimed, pointing at a spot in the grass, practically bouncing with excitement. Ranboo wondered if he had an energy potion this morning. Sticking up in the sea of green was a ring of white mushrooms.
Grabbing Ranboo's hand, Tubbo half-dragged his friend over to the circle, other hand clutching their picnic basket tightly.
"Isn't it cool!?" He asked, answer clearly obvious to him.
"I don't know, Tubs. Aren't rings of mushrooms dangerous or something?" Ranboo had his doubts about this spot.
"Stop being superstitious!" He chided, plopping down on the picnic blanket he'd lain down a moment before.
Ranboo looked over at him with confusion painting his face.
"Tubbo, I can teleport and our next-door neighbor is a witch. Literally."
Tubbo screwed up his face and huffed.
"Still! You're being paranoid," he complained. Uneasy but knowing this would be a losing battle, Ranboo conceded and sat next to his friend.
Sitting on the ground was not terribly comfortable for him. His legs were too long and the ground was uneven. The grass was soft, though, so he did his best to stretch out without crushing any of the pretty mushrooms circling the blanket.
"Hungry?" Tubbo asked, looking at peace with his eyes closed as he looked towards the sky, sun and shadow dancing across his face. The sight relaxed Ranboo. If Tubbo could be so carefree here, why couldn't he?
Now that he thought about it, he was pretty hungry. He hadn't eaten since 8:00AM, and judging by the position of the sun in the sky, it was about 1:00PM by now.
"Yeah," he said, making grabby hands at the brunet next to him. "Hand it over."
Tubbo laughed and handed him the basket.
"Save somethin' for me, okay?"
"Alright. You sure you're not hungry?"
"Yeah," he confirmed, pulling out his cell phone lazily. Munching on a piece of bread, Ranboo tried to crane his neck and see what his friend was looking at. Tubbo smiled at his device, fingers tapping what Ranboo assumed was a text message.
That was odd.
They were supposed to be hanging out, just the two of them.
Ranboo brushed it off, trying his very best to remain unbothered. Tubbo could have other friends, he wasn't being replaced. Everything was great.
Letting out a forced calm breath, he relaxed his posture and shook away his fears. This daunting fear of replacement was getting out of hand.
"Who are you talkin' to?" He asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Oh! I met this friend at the market, her name is Cleo," he explained happily.
"And you gave her your phone number?" Ranboo questioned with concern. Did Tubbo know how easy it would be to stalk someone with their phone number? Hell, their full legal names were unique enough to work for someone who knew what they were doing. Let's face it, Tobias Underscore and Randy Live weren't exactly the John Smiths of names.
"Well... Yes," he admitted. "But she did seem very nice."
Ranboo sighed.
Tubbo was his best friend. He loved him very much. That said, he was also very impulsive, and he made stupid mistakes.
He seemed to forget that, legally, Tubbo Underscore and Ranboo Live were dead. They had to stay as down low as possible and not give out any personal information to strangers, especially not ones they met at the market doing who knows what, and especially not under their old names or 'nicknames' as they called them.
Why would someone use their dead younger sibling's name as a nickname?
Anyone who could even potentially care enough to look up the name and find the obituary would have a lot of questions that Tubbo and Ranboo couldn't answer.
Ranboo couldn't fathom how he could forget anything after what happened.
"You gotta be more careful, Tubbo," he admonished, making sure he didn't turn this into a lecture. He had a habit of doing that sometimes and it got to Tubbo a lot. He hated disappointing anyone but it got far worse when it was Ranboo who was disappointed. Last time he'd started shaking and tears had come to his eyes. He thought the black-and-white boy was going to leave him forever.
"Yessiree." Tubbo saluted jokingly and scooted over next to Ranboo, wrapping himself up in his friend's arms.
Ranboo made a face at the uncomfortable position and shifted himself and Tubbo so that Tubbo was lying on Ranboo's stomach, in between his legs, both of them on their backs, facing the sky and the sun. He fluffed up Tubbo's brown hair and smiled contentedly.
Just two kids --- two friends --- lying together in forest, at peace with the world for once.
Sunlight warmed their faces and Ranboo's fingers twitched, needing to do something.
"Mind if I braid your hair?" He blurted out before he could stop it.
"Hmm?" Tubbo hummed sleepily. He had been just starting to drift off.
"Uh, your-your hair. It's grown quite a bit recently and I think it's long enough to braid, if you don't mind." Ranboo winced at how he awkward he sounded. He'd known him for 11 years! They were practically brothers. He supposed he'd be just as awkward with a sibling though.
"Sure, whatever you want, Ran..." Tubbo squeezed his eyes shut and rolled over so his head was buried in Ranboo's chest, wrapping his arms around his waist. "I wanna sleep."
Ranboo raised an eyebrow.
"Don't you wanna eat something first?" He tilted Tubbo's chin up to look at his face and not just the the top of his head like usual. He looked disoriented and slightly grumpy because Ranboo wouldn't just let him go to sleep; he rubbed his eyes. "We had breakfast at eight, we got here at like one, and we've been sat here for about an hour, so it's probably been about six hours since-"
"Mmm... Don't care, Ran. 'M just tired, wanna sleep. Sense of time is bad. Can eat later," he mumbled a few sentence fragments, dropping his head back down into Ranboo's chest again. "Like this sweater. It's soft."
Ranboo looked down to see what sweater he was wearing, he'd forgotten at this point. This one was black, with a little bee embroidered over his heart. It was soft, but he didn't feel too much of it --- he was wearing a collared white shirt underneath and so mostly felt that.
His fingers twitched again, reminding him how he couldn't sit still. He shifted to an upright position, slouched over quite a bit. Working with quick, nimble fingers, he worked little braids all though out Tubbo's hair, but leaving most of it fluffy and untouched.
A few times, Tubbo shifted or muttered something in his sleep, but mainly he was peaceful.
Ranboo sat up a little to survey his work; he hoped he hadn't forgotten how to braid. It had been so long since he'd had hair long enough for it himself. He always made sure it was fairly short now, he needed a haircut soon in fact.
Ranboo yawned himself. Perhaps lying down for too long would make anyone tired.
Then a strange glow began creeping into his peripheral vision. It was a bright green, building more and more until with a flash, it was gone. Tubbo grunted, disturbed from his slumber.
A tall man --- tall for the average person, rather short compared to Ranboo --- stumbled out from seemingly nowhere, cursing up a storm.
"Fuck! Fuckin' Phil said it was easy, and that even Tommy could do it! That shithead wouldn't get within two kilometers of a faerie ring!" He muttered, and then sighed. "Ugh."
Dusting off his rather odd attire, he mumbled more, as far as Ranboo heard cursing out a Phil and a Tommy.
Ranboo felt the urge to cough rise up in his throat; it was an itch he had to scratch. He tried to keep it inside.
A loud fit of coughing rang out across the clearing. He doubled over, wheezes racking his body.
Being out in nature was cool in theory but the pollen hadn't been kind to Ranboo.
The man whirled around and his eyes flew wide open.
"Oh fuck, oh shit, ooh, this is bad," he pulled a face, probably imagining the scolding he'd receive for showing himself doing whatever that was, nervously fidgeting with the buttons on the brown trench coat he was wearing over his yellow sweater. "Um... Hi!"
"Uh... Hi?" Ranboo bit his tongue, what he really wanted to say was, "What the hell?"
"I'm Ailill," he introduced, walking over. (Ailill is a male name that means 'beauty' in old Irish. Don't worry, this is still Wilbur, but with faeries, you have to be very careful with your real name. Giving away your name is like giving away a piece of your soul.)
"Randy," Ranboo said, lying through his teeth. Gesturing to the sleeping body of Tubbo, he added, "This is Tobias."
"Nice to meet you." Ailill nodded, reaching out a hand to shake.
"Nice to meet you too."
Ranboo shook Ailill's hand.