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"I'M going mining!" Ranboo yelled from the front door. "Come say goodbye to me!"
After aer third death, Tubbo had been thrown into a horrible depressive spiral because the last time he’d seen aer they’d fought. After aer revival, Tubbo wouldn’t let aer out of his sight when he was angry at aer, for fear that aer would [go and] die. He didn’t want aer last memories of him to be accusational again, no matter how many times Ranboo insisted that ae forgave him.
Finally, they’d compromised. Whenever Ranboo had to leave, for any reason, ae would pause at the door and yell out a last call. No matter how mad or upset Tubbo was at aer, he would always give aer a loving goodbye.
This had greatly improved their relationship. They realized that they were probably still codependent to an unhealthy degree, but it was lightyears better.
Indeed, Tubbo came tumbling rapidly down the stairs, skidding to a stop at the house’s entrance and scooping his wife into his arms. He gently bumped his forehead against aers, murmuring a sweet goodbye, then held their heads there in a loving, intimate gesture.
Tommy, who had glanced up from his seat on one of the couches under the stairs, gagged and looked away. It wasn’t from anything they had done, no– it was from disgust at his own thoughts. He’d seen the head-bonk-rest thing, and his brain had to go and say, oh, it’s like kissing, and that just filled him with such revulsion he thought that he might puke.
Obviously it was because Tubbo was his broth—his best friend and Ranboo was his other best friend, so he didn’t want to think about them [having sex].
Except no, that couldn’t be it, because the duo had sat him down at one point and explained that there was nothing sexual in their relationship, and he needed to stop making such assumptions because it was making both of them uncomfortable. He had not been repulsed at the mere suggestion that there could have been something there then. In fact, he really hadn’t cared at all, just said, okay , and continued with life minus any serious sex jokes.
The door slammed, and Tommy jumped; while he’d been lost in thought, Ranboo had left. Tubbo was clomping back up the stairs rather noisily (he liked the left side staircase, but he’d accidentally gone up the right. He’d only realized this halfway up, past the logical point of no return, the event horizon, if you will. This never failed to piss him off, and he was determined to show his pissedness to anyone who was unfortunate enough to be paying attention to him) as usual, so Tommy went back to reading about this weird[-] little village, wherein the residents killed one another.
It was a good book, okay?
However, he couldn’t focus. Now that he noticed it, the weird[-] disgust was incredibly distracting and confusing, and Tommy was starting to get annoyed at it. He decided that, instead of Reading Time, it would now be Dedicated Thinking Time.
He had been pretty sure he was some flavor of bi. Despite the fact that he accentuated his straightness (no– he was a girl now, so it would be accentuating his gayness. Sadge, he was no longer an oddity, being straight), he’d never found girls or women or fem-presenting people more attractive than masc-presenting people. Because that’s what attraction was, right, whether you like looking at fem- or masc-presenting (or androgyness-presenting— they were just plain cool {other than Ranboo}) people more? A sapphic girl would be “attracted” to a fem-presenting boy, and a achilean man to a masc-presenting woman, right? That made sense.
Not that people made much sense anywhere else, but it was an attempt, okay?
Realizing that he’d just been staring off into space for a while, with his book face-down and open to his spot, Tommy forced himself to move. He slotted a bookmark between the pages, noting the page numbers just in case, (72, 3 away from 69, nice) then set it on the bistro table next to the couch. He turned the wick of the lamp, which was also on the small table, down, as the brightness was hurting his brain.
At that moment, Shroud came wandering down the hall carrying her favorite fuzzy blanket. She crawled into Tommy’s lap, six arms and two legs scrabbling lethargically at the couch to pull herself up, then curled up and started snoring. Poor girl—she must have been woken by Ranboo’s shout. Unlike her mother, she was not an insomniac.
Tommy hummed a soft, lullaby, rubbing his thumb over oddly-shaped cheekbones as he kept thinking.
Was he gay—no— straight, then, and just jealous of one (or even both; he seemed to remember big Q having two boyfriends) of them?
Well—objectively, both of them were “good catches”. Tubbo was very strong, and Tommy had to admit that Ranboo could be considered quite pretty. Or handsome. Whatever. Both of them had well-shaped (if widely different) builds and good proportions. Both of them were very loving and easy to get along with, something that was probably good in a long-term relationship.
However, if Tommy tried to imagine himself in such a relationship with either of them, the same revulsion hit him in the stomach. He guessed that was a firm no to the possibility of a crush (ew, even thinking the word was vile).
Okay, maybe he was jealous, not of them in particular, but of their relationship? Of the fact that they were married, could be completely open and loving with one another? That they could kiss if they wanted to (even though both of them had, at one time or another, confessed to Tommy that he or ae did not want to and was, in fact, incredibly confused by the concept)?
So he imagined himself in such a relationship with a nameless, faceless person—and promptly gagged. He had the feeling that no matter what gender they were, his opinion would not change.
Shroud squirmed slightly, snuffling softly into his pyjama shirt. He patted her head, the calluses on his hand snagging the delicate weave of the silk sleep scarf he put over her curls every night. He grimaced, despite being used to the texture. No matter how many times he felt it, it never stopped being irritating and horrible.
Okay, so what about that kind of relationship was repulsive, he asked himself. Why did he find those sorts of interactions disgusting?
Was it that they would have to pledge themselves totally to their partner(s)? It could be his need for freedom, mental, emotional, and physical freedom, crying out against such a thing.
No. Ranboo and Tubbo were bound together for as long as they both would live (and then After) and completely open with each other, but Tommy did not have such a visceral reaction to them in general.
It was just when he thought of them in a romantic way.
Romance? He thought. Do I just… hate romance?
That didn’t make any sense, though. Why would he hate romance? Of all the types of relationships, it wasn’t that complicated or messed up.
Why did it have to exist? There wasn’t any use for it… he thought, but the back of his brain pinged like a comm. No, I’m just being stupid, there has to be a use I’m forgetting. Everyone likes romance, so it has to have at least some practical use.
Well, that last thought—that sure was interesting. And slightly concerning.
Tommy knew he’d been “born” in a lab. Made, if you wanted to get technical. However, he’d never thought that perhaps the scientists had [messed] something other than his growth patterns up.
Maybe they’d [messed] up making his brain, too. Made him not entirely Player—
—no Player disliked romance, after all.
Well, not all Players were gay, either. Perhaps this was something similar– instead of just not liking the opposite gender, maybe he didn’t like any gender like that.
Yeah! He wasn’t gay, he wasn’t straight ( he was probably just some flavor of bi), he just wasn’t. Like, as in, romance. Sex was whatever, who cared. He wasn’t for romance. Wasn’t romancer. Whatever. A ye.
So gay was… homosexual—same. Straight was heterosexual—other/opposite/different. Bi was obviously bisexual (which was stupid. It should have been, like, allsexual, attracted to multiple genders ‘cause there wasn’t just two). So he was, like… nosexual. Nixsexual, if you will.
Who cared. It wasn’t like he was about to tell anyone, anyway.
He sighed and stretched, putting the topic firmly out of his mind as he nudged Shroud.
“Hey, lovebug, how about we go get breakfast, huh? I’m hungry, are you?”
She blinked her main pair of eyes open, glaring at him balefully. “No, ‘m going back to sleep.”
He laughed softly, dislodging her, and went to go cook breakfast. Despite the strange thoughts weighing heavily on his mind, he had the feeling that it was going to be a good day.