Work Text:
Ranboo was exhausted. It really didn’t help that every little shift he made sent pain coursing through his back. It was barely 5am and it was already a bad day. He briefly considered calling one of his friends that lived in the UK, considering it was 10 there some of them might actually be awake, but the ones that were still out of the loop about his health issues would definitely have some questions.
He was really looking forward to today. He and Tubbo had planned to do a joint stream later that afternoon, but Ranboo was nauseous and in pain. At 5am. He reached blindly over towards the nightstand to grab his phone and open discord, quickly opening his DMs with Tubbo
Beloved
‘May have to bail on stream today, feel awful. Keep you updated.’
At this point Ranboo had accepted that he probably wasn’t getting back to sleep so he moved to get up, at least to get his heating pad. He heard his phone ping with a discord notification and froze. There was no way that Tubbo was awake and responding to him this early.
Technoblade
‘I see you’re online kid, isn’t it like 5am there?’
Ranboo
‘You’re online too. Isn’t it 2am there?’
Having messaged the other back, Ranboo slowly made his way over to his closet and retrieved his heating pad. He heard his phone ping a couple times as he plugged in the heating pad and made sure it was flat on the floor. He grabbed his phone and settled in for at least the next half hour or so.
Technoblade
‘Its different and you know it.’
‘Can’t sleep I’m assuming?’
‘Youre welcome to call if you want to vent or a distraction.’
Ranboo considered the option. Techno obviously wanted to help, and Ranboo found himself wanting the comfort of knowing someone else was also awake. That he had a support system.
Ranboo
‘I’m only on my phone not PC. u sure?’
Ranboo’s answer came with an incoming call. He quickly hit ‘Accept Call.’ “Hey, Tech.”
“Vent or distraction?”
Ranboo blinked, slightly startled. “Um…”
“I’ll distract, then. Cut me off if you want to vent, okay?”
Ranboo hummed in response, and Techno was off, seeming to talk about anything he could think of. How his sisters were doing in school, a complaint about his dad sending him to the store three times in the last 24 hours, something his dog had done.
With Techno providing a good distraction, and heat seeping into his sore back, Ranboo very quickly found himself dozing off despite the sunlight starting to creep into his bedroom.
---
Ranboo woke to his text tone going off.
Mom 12:47 p.m.
‘Saw you had a bad night so left you to sleep, called you out of classes. Make sure you eat something. Dad should be home around 6 <3’
Ranboo sighed and sat up. What had… oh. Ranboo felt embarrassment fill him as he realized he had fallen asleep on his early morning call with Techno. He navigated to discord on his phone and opened his DMs with the man.
Technoblade started a call that lasted 3 hours
Technoblade
‘I asked you a question and didn’t get a response so assuming you fell asleep.’
‘Sleep well kid.’
Ranboo went to respond, then saw the number of notifications that had come from Tubbo while he was asleep.
Toob
‘Okay just lmk!!!’
‘We’re getting close to stream time and havnt herd from u??’
‘Im going to start, well do the collab stream some other time’
‘Join my vc if ur up to it!!!!’
He opened Tubbos stream just to see what he was doing and saw that he was just working on Snowchester and talking with his chat.
“‘Where’s Ranboo?’ Funny story actually, chat. Ranboo and I were actually going to do a thing together today, but he messaged me earlier saying he wasn’t feeling well so we decided to push it back. So yeah, that’s where Ranboo is, taking care of himself.” The stream sat with just Tubbo’s background music for a moment as chat caught up to that announcement. “‘Date for the thing now?’ I don’t know, chat! We’ll figure that out later!”
Ranboo smiled at how Tuboo quickly got the chat off the topic by just answering the question honestly, but figured chat would probably fuss at him for joining the vc right after Tubbo had just explained why he hasn’t been on the stream from the beginning. So instead he sent a message to Techno and decided to go do some homework.
Ranboo
‘Thank you, really’
Technoblade
‘No problem kid. Don’t be afraid to message us about this stuff. we worry, remember.’