#impulse | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

firequeenofficial · 3 days ago

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For the random prompts. 9 and with ranchers? Tango centric?

Hey guess who got carried away again :)

This is based on this post.

When Tango got himself blown up and Jimmy killed, he was expecting anger, hatred even. He got the former, but only for a few minutes. Before he knew it, the two of them were best buds.

Jimmy was constantly surprised when Tango stood up for him. Tango was constantly surprised when Jimmy didn’t want anything more than friendship from him. Slowly, with each other’s help, they grew out of that. Tango was happy to support and defend Jimmy in any and every situation, and Jimmy readily drowned him in compliments and offers to help him with anything and everything.

Tango grew to trust Jimmy in a way he hadn’t trusted anyone before - not that he remembered a “before”. He just felt it, that sense that he was opening up for the first time in a while. In fact, he didn’t remember a single day before waking up in a circle of friends, tied to Jimmy without even knowing it. Once he realised no one else remembered, either, he stopped worrying about that. It must have been normal, he’d reasoned with Etho and Impulse.

Etho was soul-bonded to Joel, and they were having the times of their lives, messing around and teasing each other like they’d known each other for years. Impulse was with Bdubs, who Tango found he couldn’t be around for longer than a few seconds without seeing red. In some inexplicable way, Impulse felt… half. Like some integral part of him was missing, even though his soulmate was right there. When Tango mentioned it to Etho, he’d agreed that it felt strange, but they couldn’t figure it out.

But Tango, he was happy and whole. His Rancher was everything he needed, everything he wanted.

Until suddenly, he wasn’t.

Until the moment Etho shot him off that cursed tower - why were they even up there, it was so stupid! - and he respawned… different.

Distant.

He apologised profusely, stressed and worried and afraid. It was so obvious he was afraid Tango would hate him that it hurt Tango. He hated seeing Jimmy like that, so self-deprecating, blaming himself for their death. True, he shouldn’t have been standing on the edge like that, but it wasn’t his fault Etho shot him. But no matter what he said, Jimmy wouldn’t give up the blame.

And the more he tried, the more it felt like he was pushing Jimmy away. He started devoting more and more time to tending the animals or farm, or to mining, or resource gathering, or simply disappearing for hours at a time. Tango would go whole days without seeing Jimmy once. Often, the only words they exchanged were, “Good morning,” and, “Good night.”

Tango didn’t know what to do. Something was wrong, it had to be, Jimmy wouldn’t just pull away like this, not over something so stupid. He was ill or hiding an injury or, or, or… or something! But Tango just couldn’t figure it out. If Jimmy was hurt, Tango would be too. If he was ill, Tango would be feeling the effects. But he felt nothing but afraid.

Nothing made sense. Without his Rancher, the world felt wrong, empty, confusing. He visited Etho - who laughed off their death - and Impulse, but couldn’t find the same rush he normally did while talking redstone. He hung out with Bdubs and Scar, hoping to take out his nervous energy in the form of anger, but even that did nothing to dispel this dread. He burned down Scott’s wannabe-ranch. He sassed Cleo. He exchanged dark jokes and forced laughter with Pearl. Nothing worked.

It must have been something he did. There was no other explanation. He said or did something wrong, he wasn’t warm enough with his greeting, he didn’t hug him tight enough, he didn’t laugh hard enough at a joke. It had to be something he’d done, because that meant he could fix it. He could apologise and make it right. He could get his Rancher back. If it was anything else, then it was out of control, and that terrified him almost as much as the prospect of their relationship being ruined for good.

And he couldn’t put into words how much that thought terrified him. It kept him awake at night, it made his hands shake when he was placing redstone, it left him a gasping mess when he was alone in the woods, it permeated every thought and conversation he had.

Despite how desperately he hoped at first that it was something he could fix, the longer it went on, the more he spiralled. Because the longer this rift between them existed, the wider it got, and it wouldn’t be long until it was insurmountable. And it was all his fault. He didn’t know what he’d done, he didn’t know how bad it really was, he didn’t even know when he’d done it, but he had no doubt in his mind that this split was his fault. And the longer he did nothing about it, the worse it got, and the harder it would be to make up for whatever mistake he’d made. But that fear, and an insurmountable uncertainty on how to approach the subject, held him back.

Finally he caved, and turned to the one person who knew Jimmy better than anyone else in the world, even him.

“Tango?” Grian frowned when Tango appeared on the doorstep of his weird-looking base. “What’s up?”

He hated going to Grian for relationship advice, especially considering the state his and Scar’s relationship was in, but he saw no other option barring actively confronting Jimmy, and he was so scared that would just make everything so, so much worse.

“Something’s wrong,” Tango admitted, then clarified, “With Jimmy.”

“Did you have a falling out?”

“I don’t know.” His voice broke, the stress and fear making it nearly impossible to get a full sentence out. Brokenly, he explained everything, watching as Grian’s face turned paler and paler with every word.

“And I don’t know what happened,” he concluded. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

Still standing on his doorstep, Grian wrung his hands. “Um. Yes. I think… I think the best thing would be to talk to him about it.”

“Do you know what’s going on?” Tango asked eagerly.

“I might.” Grian pursed his lips. He seemed almost as stressed as Tango was. Almost. “But he should be the one to explain it to you. It’s better that way.”

So Tango went home, more confused than ever, but with a little hope, now.

When he returned to the Ranch, Jimmy was bent over their chests, rifling through them. He froze when Tango walked in, like he’d been caught in a crime. He wouldn’t look at Tango.

“Hey there,” the blazeborn said uncertainly.

“Hello.” That was all the avian gave him. One curt, blunt word. No eye contact. A turned back.

Tango felt like his heart was breaking. It hurt so much he was surprised Jimmy wasn’t flashing red right now.

“What’s up?” he tried. Maybe Jimmy would tell him what was happening without Tango even having to ask.

“Nothin’ much.” He didn’t return the question. He didn’t turn to him. He continued giving his soulmate nothing, nothing, nothing. His wings weren’t even shifting like they normally did when he was nervous. They were completely, statue-still.

Tango took a deep breath, his tail flicking, and asked. “What’s going on with you?”

If Jimmy could go any stiller, he definitely would have. “I don’t know what you’re on about.” He jerked to his feet and went to pass by Tango out of the house, his head still turned completely away.

Before he even knew what was happening, Tango caught his wrist in his fingers. Jimmy was taller than him, but Tango’s fingers were long and wrapped easily around Jimmy’s tiny wrists.

Jimmy didn’t look at him.

“Yes you do,” Tango countered. “Something’s wrong. What is it?”

“Just stressed,” Jimmy explained. “We’re on our last life, you know.”

There was more to it than that, there had to be.

Tango couldn’t help but demand, “Did I do something?”

That, finally, got Jimmy’s attention. His head whipped around on that skinny neck of his, looking straight at him. “No! No, of course not! Why would you think that?”

Tango’s fire hair roared brighter, agitated by his stress. “Because you’ve been avoiding me!”

Jimmy looked like he might try to run away, and Tango’s tail wrapped around his leg all by itself, holding him in place.

“I-” The canary was clearly reaching for a reason, some lie or excuse he could spit out. Finally, he repeated lamely, “I’ve just been stressed.”

Tango narrowed his eyes. It was a lie, it was so clearly a lie! Not only that, it wasn’t even a good one. Jimmy had been stressed ever since they’d spawned the first time, but he’d never acted like this before.

“What aren’t you telling me, Jimmy?”

Jimmy licked his lips and looked away again. The moment those brown eyes weren’t fixed on his anymore, Tango felt his heart give a scared tremble. It was happening all over again. Tango could already feel him slipping away from him again. No, no, no, no.

“I can’t talk about this,” Jimmy murmured, and tried to wrench away from Tango’s grasp. Tango just held on more, his tail twisting tighter around Jimmy’s leg.

“You have to!” Tango shouted, before catching himself. His voice shook as he said softer, “Please. I want to help. I want to fix it. We can fix it together. Please.”

Jimmy’s eyes closed, and a tear slipped past his lids.

“I’m cursed,” he finally admitted.

Tango blinked. “What?”

There was a long, long silence. Slowly, Tango released his Rancher, ready to grab him again if he made a break for it. Instead, Jimmy only sank down onto his haunches, wrapping his wings around himself so only his head was visible above them.

He took a long time to say, “This… this isn’t… the first time we’ve done this.”

Tango said nothing, letting him sort his thoughts out.

“This is the third game,” Jimmy explained eventually. “And… I lost both of the first two. Badly. I just know it’s gonna happen again. No matter what I try, I can feel it coming, like this- this storm, that you can see and you can feel and you know it’ll be awful and it’ll ruin everything and you can’t stop it and all you can do is wait for it to hit and I hate it! But mostly, I hate that I’m gonna drag you down with me.”

Tango’s head was reeling, even after only this small amount of information. That was way too much to unpack, and he’d never been good with dealing with emotions, which was why he’d spiraled so much and why he’d allowed the problem to get this far. So he focused on the first part, the easiest part.

“What do you mean this is the third game?”

“We’ve done this twice before. Third Life, then Last Life. Double Life is third.”

“How come you remember? Why can’t I? Why can’t anyone else?” It was easier to think about this than to acknowledge the steadily blooming relief that it wasn’t his fault Jimmy was pulling away, that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Because I lost. Only the loser and the winner remembers. So Scott remembers Last Life - not Third Life.” There was a shadow of pain in Jimmy’s voice as he added the last part, and Tango found his hatred for Scott growing even further, not that he could explain why. “Grian remembers both, cause he’s Grian. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he won the first game or something, I don’t know. But I lost both games. So I remember both games. And I always will.”

“But no one else does?” Tango clarified.

“No. No one else.”

So Jimmy had to sit with these memories alone. He could talk to Grian, but Tango knew he wouldn’t - he wasn’t sure what was happening between the two brothers, but there was always a tension between them. Tango got the idea that Jimmy was lying to him again, saying he didn’t know why Grian remembered, but that wasn’t important.

“How?” That wasn’t important either, but Tango couldn’t keep the question in.

Jimmy hesitated. “I- I don’t know.”

Another lie. Lie after lie after lie. This one, Tango couldn’t tell whether it mattered or not. He decided Jimmy would tell him if it did, because the alternative - that Jimmy didn’t trust him anymore - was unthinkable.

He gathered his thoughts. He made them finally wander over the last part of Jimmy’s opening explanation, to Jimmy’s panic and guilt.

“So… why were you avoiding me? We could have talked about it.”

Jimmy’s sigh sounded like it held the weight of the world. “I guess… I don’t know. I guess I thought, if I could stay far away from you, if I could make you wish you weren’t bonded to me- if we both wished that- maybe the bond would break.”

The pain in Tango’s chest gave another painful twinge, so strong he sucked in a breath. If he had tears, his eyes would be drowning. “You… you wish you weren’t bonded to me?”

Jimmy looked back up at him with wide, frightened eyes. “No! No, that wasn’t what I meant, not at all!”

“Then what-” Tango couldn’t get the tail end of his sentence out as his throat closed up, choking him.

“I just meant- I meant, if we weren’t bonded, you’d be safe! You’d be able to make it further! You wouldn’t be about to go out first, because of me! Maybe you’d even win!”

“I don’t care about that!” Tango shouted, his voice too small to get the words out if they’d been any quieter. “I don’t care about winning! I’d rather lose a hundred games with you than win one without you!”

Jimmy stared at him, disbelieving.

Tango’s mind was racing, connecting dots. After only a second, he said, his voice under control once again, “You said the loser remembers the game, right?”

“Yes.”

“If either one of us goes out first, we both go. We lose together. Right?”

“I- I guess so.”

“So if we lose, I’ll always remember this.” Slowly, he crouched down so he was on eye level with Jimmy. “I’ll always remember you.”

With his body hidden by his feathers, Jimmy was letting his tears fall freely. Carefully, Tango reached out and wiped his Rancher’s cheeks. The tears sizzled on his fingers, though their heat apparently didn’t bother Jimmy at all.

“I’d rather lose than forget you, I think.” Tango had never been so certain about anything. He’d rather lose than forget his Rancher. He’d rather never win at anything again than have this moment taken from him.

“R- really?”

“Really. You’ll alway be my buddy, my Rancher.”

Jimmy sniffed. “Thank you.”

Tango grinned at him and straightened, holding out a hand. “Now come on. If we’re gonna lose this thing, we can at least leave some chaos behind!”

Jimmy chuckled shakily, emerging from his feathery cocoon to take Tango’s hand, letting himself be pulled to his feet.

They walked out of the house together, still hand in hand, and Tango didn’t have the words for the relief and joy in his chest. It wasn’t his fault. Jimmy didn’t hate him. He had his Rancher back. And he was never going to lose him again. Of that, he was sure.

#Ashlley writes #Jimmy #solidaritygaming #Tango #tangotek #ranchers #rancher duo #team rancher #double life smp #Grian #Etho #Impulse #impulsesv #me: Okay I'm just gonna do a quick little thing for this #me six pages later:#Anyway #here you go

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