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“It’s getting pretty cold, innit?”
Ranboo turns to his other companion beside him and he can’t help the amused chuckle he lets out at Tommy being endearingly and physically tired. He’s sleep deprived and exhausted from how eventful the days have been. There’s an unruly wildness to his recently trimmed hair, sweatshirt stained with ice cream from way earlier. He’s shivering, hands rubbing at his own arms for some friction against the goosebumps trailing along his skin. He huffs, chilly breath curling over himself in indignation.
“Are you cold?” Ranboo isn’t going to wait for an answer, already discarding his hoodie as an offering. “Here. Take this.”
Tommy stared at the hoodie with reluctant longing. Ranboo sees it in his blue eyes clearly, smiling softly with a fondness reserved for the fleeting moments when the blond was being polite from taking things as he weakly grasped on the cotton fabric.
“I know. But Will’s gonna kill me if we head back and you get hypothermia.” He reasoned, and they both know it’s entirely possible, something that Wilbur would definitely do.
Tommy doesn’t even argue with him about it, still frowning at his insistence. “What about you though?”
“Nah, I don’t get cold. I’ll be fine. I’m simply built different.” He reassures further, gently shoving the ball of fabric onto Tommy’s chest. “Take it. Please.”
Eventually, he does, so they could start walking.
“If you’re sure…” Tommy gets immediately dwarfed by the fabric, swallowing him whole from two sizes being bigger. It stops at mid-thigh, fingers barely visible through the sleeves.
Tommy has never looked so small in his eyes.
“Now I am. It looks good on you.” Ranboo tells him while he ducks his face.
They’ve gotten over to that point now, they were that close. The complimenting and being flirty had bled through Tommy, maybe they were even closer. Because a large part of him is totally genuine about most of it, like in this moment. Ranboo finds his own clothing looking much better on the blond and he swears, a faint blush bloomed on Tommy’s cheeks just now.
“Let’s head further down the pier.” Tommy supplied.
The pier is a good distance away from them. They walk side by side, against the chilly breeze as their shoes made imprints on the sand. It’s quiet, serene, and peaceful. These were fleeting moments where thoughts roamed as free as they were with no other people around them. Just two teenagers aimlessly roaming the nearby beach at midnight.
Tommy really had such an eventful day. He is currently at the descent of his wild energy, which reminds Ranboo…
“I still can’t believe you told Logan Paul to watch Phil. That’s—oh, man. That’s so funny to me,” Ranboo started with a chuckle.
Tommy bursts into a laugh. “I’m not gonna lie, he’s the first person that came to mind when they asked me about it.”
“Yeah, no. I get you. Phil’s a default answer, just in general.” He says with a shrug.
“Hey, I think I mentioned your name too, and Toby’s.”
Ranboo shakes his head, still laughing. It was just funny to him, he even talked about it to Tubbo and they were amused by how Tommy just kept mentioning content creators that Logan Paul and his co-host were definitely not familiar with. He’s pretty sure the older American doesn’t know anything about him despite having this strange conversation with him on Twitter.
“You did, you did… What is this timeline?” His forehead curls in recent memory, giggling softly.
“… Ranboo?”
It’s when Tommy softly called for his name did he realize that he was walking alone. Ranboo turns around, a little confused why the blond is a couple of meters behind him.
“Yeah?” They weren’t far off from the pier. It’s at least worth five more minutes to get there, but Tommy looks fed up already. “Oh. Did you want to head back or—“
“I want to tell you something.” Tommy interrupts him. There’s a seriousness to him that he rarely saw around the blond.
“That sounds a bit ominous.” Still, he tried to joke. Although Tommy isn’t laughing or giving any signal that this is anything worth laughing about. He immediately drops the attempt, walking over to stand in front of him, now getting worried. “Are you alright?”
Tommy had somehow developed a timidness to him that is just as rare as him sounding serious. Normally, the blond would know what to do to stop a room full of people from talking over each other and make them listen to him, always the confident type. But right here, right now, he’s averting his gaze, hands fiddling with each other out of nervous habit. His usual laidback attitude and stature twisted into the opposite—all tense and as stiff as a ruler.
“I’m fine. It’s just, Ranboo… I—fuck,” He’s stumbling over his words too, voice growing a little shaky. “Fuck. This is hard. I want to do this, but I can’t when you’re just fuckin’ in front me.”
It’s such a surreal thing to be panicky over. They spent so much time together to the point of being comfortable enough to be sitting too closely sometimes. Ranboo would like to think Tommy would have gotten used to his presence by now, but he isn’t one to judge someone’s anxiety over when he had his own.
Ranboo swallowed thickly, trying to laugh it off.
“Now you’re making me nervous,” He pointed out half-heartedly, but he does feel it in his chest now. The way his heart just thumps wildly like he’s about to throw up with it.
“It’s not—it’s not anything bad. I-I mean… I hope it goes well, but I… Fucking hell, this is hard.”
Tommy is really struggling. Ranboo has only been staying in Britain for over three months and this is the first time he has seen him so riddled with anxiety, stuttering and stammering like it was physically difficult to say anything—and all in his presence.
Ranboo faces forward, towards the silent dark water horizon and towards the full moon, bright and encompassing. It created a trail of saturated light in the stillness of the sea, bleeding like an oil painting.
“The moon looks beautiful right now.” He mentions. It’s honestly breathtaking.
In the corner of his eyes, he sees Tommy follow. He catches the quiet gasp that escapes him as they both stare at the same source of light.
“… Yeah, it does.”
They admire it together. It’s a sure moment in time where pretty moonlights are very rare occasions, especially beside someone who seems to be working out something in his head.
“Just stare at the moon and keep talking. I promise I won’t say anything or look at you until you’re done. Pretend I’m not here…” Ranboo tells him.
It’s when they let the silence settle did the shift in the atmosphere became noticeable. It’s tense. Thick and heavy and brittle in the air. Something is charged and electric, nervous-coded when they were both trying to still the racing pulse in their hearts, drunk from the wave of emotions the quietness provided.
“Okay,” It’s Tommy who spoke first, trying to calm himself and taking deep, generous breaths.
“Ranboo, I like you. And, and, and not just in a—in a brotherly or friend kind of way…” The words left his mouth in a rush, as if it was knocked out of him and he’s still being driven off the wall. “When Logan asked me if I ever did anything reckless in my life and I couldn’t give them a satisfying answer because I’m just not that kind of guy and there’s a risk of fucking everything up. It got me thinking—that this is probably the most reckless thing I’ve ever done. But I like you a lot… I like you a lot, Ranboo. And it’s been—fuck, I’ve tried convincing myself that I don’t but at the end of the day, you’re always in my head.”
The words doesn’t hit Ranboo just yet when Tommy is right there staring down at the face of rejection like a mere speck in the wind. He doesn’t know how he does it, how he’s fearless and still so confident.
Ranboo wouldn’t have been that guy. Despite how his heart is hammering, desperate with thrill and excitement and everything in between, he realizes just how this wouldn’t have gone anywhere weren’t it for Tommy and his assertive nature. He doesn’t realize he was holding his breath until he releases it, a rush of warmth filling his lungs and spreading all over his body, regardless of the freezing wind and the lack of his hoodie.
“Y-You can say something now.” Tommy’s confidence had dwindled though. Maybe from the silence on his end, maybe not.
But grabbing his hand felt like a good way to start.
Ranboo laced their fingers together, filling the spaces in between until his thumb gently grazed the back of Tommy’s palm.
He can’t help the smile that takes over his face at how slightly smaller Tommy’s hand is. He could almost grasp him whole and keep giving him that reassuring squeeze they both needed.
“Tommy…” He brought his gaze up, surprised to see his eyes still squeezed shut, gritting his teeth as if he was bracing himself.
Ranboo gently caressed his cheek with his other hand, thumb grazing at his cheekbone. He gnawed at his lip at the way Tommy leaned into his touch.
“Look at me?”
Upon the request, he watched as Tommy slowly complies, and Ranboo’s breath catches, at how tender he looks, all pretty and fragile beneath the moonlight.
“I like you a lot too.” He finally says.
The relief that washes the both of them is brilliant. It’s almost the same as the gentle ripples in the sand as he watches the way Tommy lights up, taking that extra step forward to slumb against his chest with his entire weight.
Ranboo only stumbles for a bit before he sighs deeply, cradling Tommy’s head like one would to the most precious thing in the world, rubbing the fuzzy hair on the back of his neck lovingly. He breathes in the scent of his shampoo and the salt of the sea, indulges in it as arms wrap around his waist in reiteration.
“Fucking hell, man. Don’t scare me like that. You’re gonna give a man a heart attack.” Tommy’s voice is a little muffled, burying himself further as if he was personally seeking for the source of his heartbeats.
Ranboo giggles. They stayed glued and flushed against each other for what felt like an eternity. Sometimes, he’d sway them a bit, keeping warm against the current when he could all make this better as he slightly pulled away.
“Toms?”
Tommy is a lot more opposed to the separation as he whined. “Yeah?”
“Can I kiss you?”
But at the question, he understood what the look in his eyes meant. Tommy looks up to meet him with the same burning passion, bright red and wide-eyed, he licks his lips.
“Please do.”
Ranboo grins toothily at his eager politeness before leaning to close the distance between them.
The kiss is everything two teenagers with no experience would have hoped for. Fuzzy and new and awkward. It was perfect. Tommy’s lips were slightly chapped, but he didn't mind. He wouldn’t have him any other way.
When they do pull away, it’s only so they could take a deep breath and lean for another kiss.
This one, more insistent, more pushy. They moved torridly, lips smacking in the air and soft noises being swallowed back down to keep moving and moving. At some point, one of Ranboo’s hands wandered beneath his shirt and hoodie, the coldness of his palm made Tommy’s stomach jump, gasping. It’s the perfect opportunity he seized to kiss him better and better until they were forced to separate, lungs burning for life and oxygen.
“Wow.” Tommy panted, holding onto him as if to ground himself.
And he could only agree. He still felt like floating, like this is all a dream. “Yeah. Wow...”
“I have Logan to thank for this.”
Tommy cuts through their moment just like that in true Tommyinnit fashion. It’s always been a mix in his personality.
Ranboo snorts. “Why would you say that now?”
“Because I would have kept this to myself. I’ve just never been… Attracted to a guy before, y’know.” Ranboo feels Tommy squeeze him gently. “But that doesn’t matter now, does it?”
It all works out in the end.
He has this boy smiling meaningfully in his arms and the world has never felt truly in touch until today. Ranboo basks in this moment with a deep breath, gazing just as sweet.
“Oh. Yeah. Well, I guess we should send Logan Paul a fruit basket of gratitude or something.”
Tommy laughs at himself, silly.
“We should head back now. Will might think that we’re both dead and drag everyone to look for us.”
Again, it is not just a possibility but they could see it actually happening. Wilbur’s the biggest worrier when it comes to Tommy, and walking down the beach at midnight is certainly something that would put the man in an anxious state.
Ranboo nods his head, reluctantly detaching himself from Tommy to intertwine their fingers together instead.
When it was time to go, he almost forgot something! He stops walking immediately.
“Wait! I wanna remember this!” He hurriedly fishes out his phone from his pocket, pressing on the camera to take a photo of the live painting in front of them.
“I also have the moon to thank for this.” He says.
A few steps of heading back to where the rest were, Tommy is alerted by a notification on his phone. Ranboo watches in mild amusement as Tommy views the photos that he posted on Twitter.
Tommy smiles.
“You’re an idiot.”
Ranboo only chuckles at his online response, facing the real Tommy grinning at him widely. A double smile emote doesn’t do him justice.
He radiated with love and happiness.