Chapter Text
If this is what a "good night's sleep" feels like, Tubbo will never go to bed again.
Or listen to Ranboo at all, since this is all his damn fault. They just had to act all cute and concerned and so so fucking helpful - they were playing up his guilt complexes like a goddamn fiddle, Tubbo's sure of it. A mastermind puppeteer wrapped up in candy and promises.
"Oh, don't worry about all the paperwork" they'd said, "I'll deal with the Eastern ambassador for you", "You'll make me very, very sad if you don't go to bed right now", looking at him with that pair of pitiful ass eyes like a small kicked dog, and Tubbo's (admittedly already very weak) willpower poofed into the air. Fuck them for real.
The bed isn't even that uncomfortable, that's the thing (where Ranboo managed to get him a pillow of the exact firmness he likes, with this little notice, he'd never understand. Were they planning this?). For a random bed in the white house that no one's used in forever, it feels silky and clean, the sheets clearly higher quality than he'd have thought, so there's really no reasonable explanation as to why he's feeling this shitty.
His head is pounding, his phantom limb pains are unusually strong, and his whole good side, arm and all, feels like it's being pressed down by like, a thousand stones.
Maybe he's just gotten massively fucked up in the blankets. He does tend to sleep pretty still, he's been told (Tommy called him his "barely living pillow" once), but he could've had a bad nightmare or something. Would explain the random aches, and the weight could just be the blankets all tangled up around him. He doesn't think he was high last night, but there's hardly any other explanation for a headache this strong. Could someone get high without trying? Like, on accident?
These are heavy as shit blankets for a coastal city, now that he thinks about it. Even if it's winter, L'manburg doesn't usually get very cold. Maybe it's a personal thing - Ranboo is already weird in so many ways, somewhat fucked temperature perception doesn't even Make it on a "weird Ranboo things" list, not when the guy fucking meows in his sleep . Maybe he's an Enderman from the Nether and everywhere on the Overworld feels super cold to him or something.
Whatever. Whatever. He's already been awake for like ten minutes now. He can't afford sleeping in with all the shit he has to do, especially if he's not getting any rest out of it. He could imagine now the fucking day the press would get out of it if they knew; "Young president (they never used his name for some reason) more alike to his predecessor than anyone knows! Is the future of our city just a big dream?". It would be so embarrassing, for nothing.
He just needs to get up, make himself somewhat presentable and beg the nice kitchen ladies for a scrap of toast before the first meeting. Getting up, getting dressed, getting toast, getting yelled at over the latest problem. Drowning in coffee somewhere in between all those. Surely he can do this. Surely.
He starts to sit on the bed, just to get things moving. A nice little first step, for morale!
The blankets tighten around his arm.
Not even in the cringe, jokey "ahaha the bed is sooo comfortable it's pulling me back down!" kinda way, they are. Literally getting tighter. That is not something blankets usually do, is it? They are also, now that he's analyzing about it, weirdly warm. And fuzzy. And warm.
"Mhmmm-" the blankets sigh, shifting to hold Tubbo's waist instead of his arm, "We've- We've got five min's still honey, stay doownn"
Tubbo gets the strong impulse to mock the blankets for how whiny they sound right now. He then gets the strong impulse to fucking scream because why does he have to reply to his blankets at all ???
He screams. The blankets scream. Tubbo still hasn't opened his eyes.
Doing so is of no help, as expected, and probably made things a million time worse. This, frankly kind of horribly decorated, rich people ass room is Absolutely Not the barren white house guest bedroom he'd fallen asleep in. The bed is a four post with a velvet canopy, the sheets silk and lace instead of the ultra generic white cotton ones he'd had, the windows are floor to ceiling with silver hardware and embroidered curtains and, most fucking importantly, there is now a random fucking guy in the bed with him. Which, you know, absolutely was Not there last night.
Tubbo might have been high, but he's never gotten "hook up with random older strangers" high in his life - which means this is a kidnapping, which is worse.
Blanket guy (for lack of any better name) stops screaming a couple of minutes in, which prompts Tubbo to also stop screaming. Kind of awkward screaming alone, he thinks. Unproductive.
Instead he turns to properly look at the stranger. They're ( he , possibly? Tubbo is very sure he's strictly gay, but he's already ruled out a potential forgotten tryst so who knows. They make all kinds of kidnappers) very tall, taller than him even sitting, the fucker, and clearly some kind of Enderian hybrid.
The half white markings on their face are very recognizable and probably somewhat unique, but he decides on the spot to not acknowledge that ever again. It wouldn't make sense at all, and it's stupid, and he does Not want to consider it. Besides, Blanket guy has super long hair and their mouth is all open, without the little connecting skin thingies Ranboo has, so as a theory that has no proof.
He turns to ask something, if anything to shake that stupid stupid thought out of his dumb mind, when Blanket promptly beats him to it:
"Why are we screaming?" they whisper-shout.
Tubbo finds that wholly unnecessary. If anyone had been around to hear them, after the yell fest they've had they would've been heard already. He follows along regardless. What can he say, he's not immune to a little shenanigan here and there.
"You try waking up in a random bed with a random guy and no memory of either. It's not fun."
"I- what? Did you hit your head?" Blanket is an awful kidnapper, it seems. They're not getting five stars from him. "Also it did happen? Like, multiple times, actually, it does. It happens kinda often, and I generally don't scream?"
All their sentences sound like questions. Very little confidence, he thinks. He'll have to add that to the review.
"What, are we flexing now? Were you such a good kidnappee they - I don't fucking know, promoted you to kidnapper? You got a raise for this?"
"A raise- who even- why would a kidnapper be getting paid?"
"Well I certainly can't think anyone would do this shit for free. Seems like an awful lot of work to me bossman." He thinks about it for a second more. "I mean. It could be a hobby. You look rich enough to have a stupid expensive hobby that also fucks people over."
Blanket puts their head in their hands and sighs audibly. Are they upset Tubbo criticized their kidnapping hobby? Because like, as the current victim, he feels like he should have some kind of right to complain about it. A smidge of constructive criticism, one would say, is always useful.
Why, for example, would anyone choose him as a victim? You go through all the trouble of sneaking into the White House, avoiding all the security (which he evidently needs to upgrade, because his guards did not do Shit against all of this) to steal the president in the middle of the night just to, what, put him in a bed and cuddle him? Like a freak? Rich people get so fucking weird man-
"Tubbo, nobody's kidnapped you." Blanket says, "Do you actually believe it or is this like, a weird bit? I'm getting kinda concerned at this point."
Tubbo stares at them. Typical kidnapping behavior, trying to gaslight him.
"You can't girlboss your way out of this one, man, you're kinda done. You kidnapped the president, you're gonna go to jail."
" The president?"
Veery weird gatekeeping. Are they just pretending to be dumb now? That doesn't really work, stupidity isn't an excuse for crime, he thinks. Like, Tommy's dumb as rocks but he still got punished eventually. Was dumb as rocks. Fuck, now is really not the moment - he's been kidnapped, goddammit, he's got more important priorities than to mope around and feel guilt. His head is producing an irregular amount of dumb ass fucking thoughts he does Not Need to have.
"Fuck off there is no way you didn't know that, getting me out of the fucking White House and all. Did you hit your head on the way down? It's a smooth surface so i reckon it would be kind of hard to, but you seem like the kinda guy who'd manage."
Blanket is staring off into space, seemingly not having hear a singular word of what Tubbo's just said. They're muttering, too, paying him no attention at all, staring into space and shit - quite rude in his opinion, and quite poor behaviour from a kidnapper, since it leaves Tubbo completely free to explore his way around the room.
The windows aren't locked, with only a couple of small single hooks higher up to hold them together, at least as far as he can see. They may be a little bit higher than he can comfortably reach, but the window is also made of very breakable single glass sheets so they don't worry him all that much. His only worry's born from looking through them and seeing a small balcony waay higher than twenty blocks off the ground. Prime, probably almost fourty, actually, what the hell? What kind of asshole would build anything this tall?
It mostly just means that the window's not an option. If he'd been able to respawn he would've killed himself right as he woke up, and he doesn't fancy perma dying this fine day.
Then - one wall's the windows, next to them the bed and a bunch of paintings. Wall three and four, directly opposite and on the left side, both have doors. He guesses wall three is the way out and wall four is like, a bathroom or something, mostly by level of fanciness in the doors themselves. Unless Blanket has a set of ornate double doors leading to his shitter, who's he to judge.
Walking quietly towards the exit gets no reaction out of Blanket, who keeps muttering something under their breath. Either it really is a stupid fancy bathroom, or the doors are super mega locked down to hell.
Is it wrong for him to kinda wish they are?
He'd always thought, if he ever got kidnapped or assassination-attempted at during his presidency, that it would be someone visibly evil, strong, menacing. A true villain any hero would be proud to be kidnapped by, maybe, but he'd take a run of the mill maniac who hates his taxation proposals. This is just honestly embarrassing. Blanket is a wimp, a horrible kidnapper, they've not even stated their demands in the full hour Tubbo's been in this house, all around more pathetic than scary.
All the more reasons to get away while they're distracted, he supposes. Terribly anticlimactic though. He'd have to flower it up a bit when telling it, just so he doesn't get bored of it himself, you know? Maybe there was an extremely dangerous trap to the door. Maybe he clobbered Blanket straight on the head to put him down while run. There was snow on the ground outside and the closest snowy biome, as far as he remembers, is a good two thousand blocks out of the city. He'll have plenty of time to think of something.
His magnificent and carefully crafted escape plan - opening the door and getting the hell out - is soon thwarted by the doors politely opening up before he can even reach them.
On the other side, with a tiny fist raised like they were just knocking and a stare that should not be so intense coming off of one lonely eye, stands a goddamn toddler. Fucking hell. A very very small baby zombie piglin, with a short pink fringe and a way too big yellow sweater, dressed in the cutest overalls Tubbo's seen in his life.
This is the worst thing and the best thing that could've happened.
On one hand, the tiny thing is so cute Tubbo's steadily running out of synonyms for "small" and they're making his day three times better just by being tiny in his vicinity.
On the other hand, there's no way he can get out now. He can't just step around the baby, not when they're looking at him like that with their big ol eye. That's a crime! And he makes the laws himself, he would know what a crime is for sure. It's like moving a sleeping cat off of a lap.
He guesses he should just. Stall for a bit, maybe? He's not great at talking to babies, but this one looks big enough to understand words so it shouldn't be that bad, surely. He just needs to find some kinda conversation so the kid stays quiet and Blanket doesn't wake up.
The kid stares at him. No words are being found right now.
Blanket thankfully notices the kid before Tubbo can make a fool of himself. Babies have a strong ass memory man he can't afford to make a bad impression here. They immediately wake up from their paralysis state, practically running Tubbo over in the haste of scooping their child into their arms.
Makes sense, he guesses. If your literal kidnapping victim isn't enough to hold your attention surely the tiny crying toddler will.
Tubbo can't understand what the kid is saying (they're a ziglin so he assumes they're speaking Korsh, he's just not well versed in Nether languages) but by tone alone he can guess they're kind of worried about something and very, very sad about that worry. Especially since Blanket's next sentence starts like,
"Don't worry baby, shhh it's okay, it's okay." (Can piglins even cry? He kind of hopes not.) "Papa's just feeling a little sick, like Baba does sometimes. He's gonna rest for a minute and by the time you're out of school he's going to be alll good again."
The kid's face clearly expresses that he's not buying that shit for a second, and Tubbo honestly cannot blame him. He personally hates to his core when people talk to babies in third person like that, with the stupid high pitched baby voice, it's just so cringe for everyone involved and it will never help any child over the age of like, two days. But kidnapping people is also very not good for a child's development so he guesses there's bigger parenting sins to tackle here.
It does help him learn some really interesting information, though. The kidnapper refers to himself as "dad" and has an apparently male partner who gets sick often (love wins, he guesses). The child is most probably not involved in the whole kidnapping business, yet doesn't seem concerned at the stranger in their house so this must happen somewhat often.
Nothing of this helps him escape in any way, but the act of acquiring information by itself makes him a little bit calmer. Spy instincts never really go away.
The pair at the door chitchats a little bit longer before they move, possibly to go downstairs. Tubbo follows.
What else is he supposed to do? He's been kidnapped but he's also not tied or anything, he can't miss it if they're going outside that's like common knowledge. Like "move if you can" and "if a door is open get the fuck out" are the first two lessons of Kidnappee 101, he reckons. Baby stuff.
Except Blanket is maybe not as completely stupid as Tubbo was imagining, because as they get out of that door, child on their hip and a good "stay where you are" stare back towards Tubbo, he closes the door behind himself. Bastard. Fucker. There may be a couple downsides to underestimating your enemies, so it seems.
Tubbo sits back down on the unnecessarily fancy bed with a sigh. Guess there is nothing to do but wait.
---
Blanket returns after an half hour, distinctly childless.
They look at Tubbo again. He looks at Tubbo again, actually, they've kind of established the whole "masculine terms" thing at this point. Whatever. Assigned he/they at Tubbo now, he doesn't give a shit.
He can't understand why Blanket looks at him this much. They always have the saddest most pitiful eyes on and all, it's actually kind of uncomfortable. Does kidnapping have a regret rate? They should study this.
They go and sit right next to Tubbo, seemingly without locking the door behind them. Auto locking system or fake trust, neither seem particularly good.
"Alright." Blanket sighs, "We should- we really have to talk about this, seriously."
"We've been talking like, this whole time-"
"You aren't really, you're just making me scared-"
"Are you ever going to free me?"
Blanket stares at him ( again. Really, aren't endermen supposed to hate eye contact or something?) and visibly deflates. His head falls into his hands like it's made of lead - and with all that hair on it it might as well weight just as much, he reckons. Their shoulders droop to the ground.
"You... you're actually not joking."
It comes out as a sentence rather than a question, but Tubbo feels the need to answer anyway. He shakes his head, then he realizes Blanket probably can't see him, and lets out a way too cheerful,
"Nope!
"Okay, alright. Alright. So you do, you think you're still president and you don't know me at all. How are you president already without knowing me yet? It's. Whatever. Don't answer that."
"You're making absolutely no sense dude."
"Yeaaaah, I know." When their head comes up this time, they don't stare. In fact, right now he seems to be actively avoiding Tubbo's eyes entirely, or just the general direction of his face, which does feel kinda better but is also a million times weirder.
"The thing is," they continue," I didn't kidnap you at all."
"Are you. Sure? About that?"
"You woke up here because you do it every single morning, because this is your bed in your own house." It sounds delusional, but they're so confident about it Tubbo can't bring himself to interrupt. "And, uhm. You seem to be missing roughly ten years worth of memories so either this is a messed up time travel situation or we really need to call a doctor."
Vine boom sfx.
"Wait what the fuck?"
"You haven't been president in a pretty long while and you've been living here for just as long so. There's that."
"I fell asleep in the white house literally yesterday! At like three am! Ten years cannot pass in like four hours that does not make sense-"
"Then we agree that this is time travel and i don't need to spend any time worried about your failing mental health! Great to see it!"
The future.
Besides all the other things that sound completely fucking insane (time travel should Not be so easy that he can do it without trying in his literal fucking sleep), Tubbo cannot... he can't imagine he'd get to live that long, really. Ten years into the future with a big ass house in the snow, everything decorated with expensive metals and fancy cloths, a child and a friend who worry about him after one bad morning. It's a lot, it's hard to make peace with - would he really get that lucky? He's lived the whole presidency fully believing that if he went to sleep once he would never wake up (willfully or not) and now that he does he'd presented with the promise of an actual future, maybe even happiness.
Who would even tolerate him enough for that? Close contact every day, raising their child in his house, sleeping in his bed - nobody's liked him enough for that, not since Tommy. And especially not after Tommy, obviously, nobody wanted to even speak to him outside work, maybe besides Ranboo but- wait. Wait that's it.
"If this is the future and I'm not president anymore, where's Ranboo then?"
"... Uh?"
"He's told me before he wouldn't abandon me, and I don't think they're shitty enough to go back on promises out of the blue, so. Where is he?"
Ah HA! Blanket absolutely did Not expect that, fuck yeah. Tubbo found the fault in their logic so now they can finally go back to the real world where time travel does not exist and things make actual sense. He loves when things make actual sense. Blanket looks almost offended at being found out, which is hilarious. (They're also laughing, but people laugh when they're surprised. Villains laugh evilly when they're caught. It's a whole thing, it fits.)
"I didn't think I aged that much, to be really honest." Blanket says between his giggles.
Oh, fuck no .
"Shut the absolute hell the fuck up that is not true." Tubbo says, Not Blushing because there is nothing in here to blush about, shut the fuck up.
"I didn't say you were blushing?"
"Shut I said. You haven't said anything and you haven't heard anything Everything Is A Lie." He sounds like Tommy, he thinks in passing. Maybe his ghost possesses him when he's about to say something terribly awkward and then makes it three times worse, for the fun of it.
"Besides," he continues, trying to preserve at least a little bit of his self respect, "besides, you don't look anything like Ranboo. Like yeah you're both Ender hybrid but your hair is all long and you dress like a rich weirdo, and they would never do that."
"... I'm in pyjamas?"
" Silk pyjamas. Who the fuck has enough money to waste it on the shit you sleep with?"
"They are comfortable and smooth and absolutely worth what they cost, just because you don't value your own comfort at all doesn't mean-"
"See, that's another thing. Ranboo's awkward as hell he wouldn't be here defending rich ass pjs to me. He either says three words stuttering or he makes long ass speeches."
"I mean, it has been a decade. I-I'd hope I'm not as awkward as teen me." he says. "Besides, teen me was the most awkward around you, so I think you're kind of biased."
"I've seen them talk to Big Q and fail, that's bullshit."
"I didn't know Quackity, and he also seemed to hate me a little bit, that's not the same."
"Isn't it?"
"I was awkward around Quackity because he scared me, I was awkward around you because I desperately needed you to think I was cool."
Tubbo pulls a face. He can't say he fully believes mr. Possibly Ranboo yet, but...
"I'm not gonna lie big man, you really really weren't."
"Yeeah I know. I learned to cope with it."
"What, you didn't get any cooler than that in ten years?" Tubbo says.
He thinks, "the long hair is kind of cool", and "the silk clothes are actually pretty nice" but he does not say it out loud, thankfully. He still has some restraint in him, he can be normal about things.
MaybeBoo just shrugs and smiles. "I'm a father of a preteen, I couldn't be cool if I actually tried."
And see, that's the thing, Tubbo very much wants to ask questions about that. Very normal, very understandable questions, like "What the fuck do you mean father" and "How did you end up with a piglin son, in my house?" and things of this nature. Things anyone would ask in this situation, he's sure.
But he's also, like, read Back To The Future. He knows how much messing with people and information can fuck up a timeline or whatever, and he very much enjoys having been born . He cannot risk the entirety of the universe as he knows it just because he's curious about one pretty guy. So he reels himself back in, and instead asks:
"If I believe you about this time travel thing - and I still don't, mind you - but even if I believe you, how the fuck are we fixing it?"
"Ah! Good question. I actually have no idea at all."
He can't know for sure, but his face must have betrayed some kind of judgement, because Ranboo (who's now earned his name due to Tubbo getting sick and tired of all the damn nicknames) immediately rushed to defend himself.
"What? I'm a blacksmith I'm not an expert in time travel magic."
"Sounds like a skill issue to me bossman."
"Oh shut- shut. Shut up." They wave a hand around, like, a centimeter in front of Tubbo's face. Rude. "But it's okay. As soon as Mike comes back from school we can drop him at Phil's, he's got to know something at least."
"Phil like Philza Minecraft?"
"Yeah? This sounds like god stuff and he's somewhat... god associated. Tangentially god-like. He can help a bit I think."
Mhm. Philza Minecraft, The Angel of Death, who very famously lives with Technoblade, who very famously hates Tubbo's guts and would probably love to see said guts outside of Tubbo's body. Absolutely the first person he would go to for help. Because of course they'll want to help him, they'll jump at the occasion of seeing vulnerable and confused in a body that isn't his own, it'll be great.
Like yeah he was sure he wouldn't live long but he didn't think he'd walk in front of Death like that.
Ranboo doesn't seem worried at all, which means he's somehow chill with them (???) but that does not automatically translate to them being chill with Tubbo . Will he have to follow through just praying desperately not to be obliterated? He hasn't prayed in months at this point, Prime may just spit in his face.
He sighs. This is a problem for later today. For now, he follows Ranboo through the corridors and stairs of this unreasonably large mansion, and tries very hard not to think of his impending doom.