Ranchers week has "officially" ended now, and it has been such a joy to see all of the amazing fanwork that's been created!!!
However, even though the dates have passed, please feel free to continue making and posting art based off the listed prompts!! We will be keeping an eye on the tag and will reblog anything tagged #teamranchersweek or @teamranchersweek to this account so we can share your amazing work with everyone!
If you shared any of our posts, made something for the event, or interacted with the amazing people who contributed to it, thank you so much for making it a success! We appreciate you, and are already looking forward to doing this again next year :)
Team ranchers Week-Oct 27: Canary in the deep dark
There once was a thriving cavern city that had the ability to jump to another world. Over time something seemed to make people sick and violent. The town above destroyed any way for people to leave, hoping to stop, whatever came through the portal, from killing them all. Only tall tales and legends remain of its destruction, a warning.
Background
Under a town there was a huge city in a cavern, the massive portal was often on. It wasn’t until a canary bird flew through that it stopped shining. They caged the bird, hoping for answers unaware that something else had entered through the portal before the golden bird. Sculk. Sculk has made its way through the portal. It started covering parts of town, seemingly appearing out of nowhere (The infected people spread it). A group of traders had entered the city but when they had suggested to get rid of the sculk as it made them feel ill. Most were violently thrown from the town, somewhere never seen again.
Once the Town above heard of this they tried to investigate, however only 2 of the 3 recon team returned. Fearing an outbreak of whatever had caused their sister city to descend, they took every tool and sealed every entrance and exit. Some affected people of the city begged to be let out, others violently tried to make their way out of the dark. But as the final entrance was sealed they were left in the deep dark nothingness, except the light blue glow of the sculk. Any survivors either starved and or took desperate measures to eat the remaining sculk. Everyone else was already one with the Sculk.
Jimmy is from the portal, he came through in his canary form trying to escape the sculk that was consuming his world. He was trapped in a cage unable to shift back. Unable to warn them of the dangers on the other side of the portal. Unable to tell them of the infection that they allowed into their world. He was trapped as they were sealed in. Someone came and picked him up. In the chaos the cage was dropped, breaking on impact. He immediately flew away from everyone and everything. (I.e. he found a hole to hide in so he could unshift safely.)
Jimmy tried to show the survivors soul fire but everyone soon died. Jimmy tried to culling the sculk back. Due to the lack of resources and him being one person he couldn’t stop the spread completely. He needed food and he needed to rest so desperately he set fire to the edges of the city before turning into his canary form one last time before he slept. There he stayed fixing the wall of fire anytime he woke up. He wouldn’t let what happened to his world happen here.
Wardens are a mashup of the people who were infected, their bodies were torn apart and their souls screaming. Wardens always try to find a way out both from the people wanting to to get out and the Sculk’s need to spread. (‘baby’ Wardens are horrifying as they are mostly just torn flesh and broken bones as the sculk hasn’t covered everything yet)
Tango is the mechanic of an expedition team that consists of Pix (The leader and Anthropologist), TFC (Miner expert), Scar (The Naturalist), VintageBeef (The Cook) and Cub who is the navigator/ cartographer.
Plot Ideas
Pix learns of a City underneath a ghost town that is surrounded with warnings about a dangerous infection that took over the city. Along with the stories of adventures going missing looking for it.
Pix got in contact with Doc, Joe, Cleo, Vintage, and TFC for either them to join or help out. Cleo told him about Cub, Cub brung on Scar and Doc suggested Tango to go with them. Cleo and Joe couldn't go on the full expedition but they would check on them and help bring them supplies. (Joe is a medic)
After 2 weeks of mining they find a cave near the main cavern. Joe and Cleo stopped by with more supplies before they breach the cavern.(Last time they ever see some of their friends)
Tango meets Jimmy first. Jimmy heard something abnormal and went to investigate, he stole a bag of chex mix. As he was flying away Tango heard a bird. Upon investigating the noise he found a yellow feather and saw a bright almost glowing canary flying above a ruined city surrounded by blue fire. (There's no way a bird could have gotten down there, there was no way it could have with no one noticing)
After they discovered the cavern their tunnel collapsed trapping them (Alot of their stuff is back there)
Cub’s hand gets cut while they inspect the cave in
They officially meet Jimmy who tells them to go back and that its dangerous to be here. After explaining their situation Jimmy tells them where it's safe, and to stay away from the sculk while they try to get out (Light is an issues down here (Jimmy has a half working redstone lamp in his ‘home’))
TFC is trying to figure out how to get the tunnel open again without it collapsing, Pix is trying to get as much information from Jimmy about the town/ trying to get a closer look. Scar is trying to get a closer look at the Sculk with cub,Tango is helping Vintage prepare dinner
Cub slipped where a fire had gone out, face planting. He and Scar laughed it off as he pushed himself up and went to go eat with everyone. (They told Jimmy and helped him relight the fire, as he explained how it worked) (They didn’t realize the cut on Cub’s had was enough for him to get infected)
After meeting Jimmy/ the tunnel cave in: some of the fires that kept the sculk in check started going out (Jimmy is extremely low on resources to restart the fires, fires go out for many reasons but this is starting to be abnormal)
Someone suggests that if they got the tunnel back open and caused a cave in to trap the sculk then Jimmy could come with them. Jimmy is very against this as more people may come and find it only for the fires to be out, causing an apocalypse.
Scar is the first one to find out Cub got infected. He had noticed something was off about him but after being trapped for a while he brushed it off. It wasn’t until after he interviewed Jimmy about the sculk (Read: Bothered Jimmy about the sculk cuz he was curious) and the fires where being put out when he realized that something may be more deeply wrong with Cub
Scar tells Jimmy about his worries and they go together to confront Cub (Telling no one smh). They find him at the edge of the city. Scar jumps towards him and asks a bunch of questions but Cub cuts him off. Cub confesses that he thinks he got infected when he fell a while ago. He tells scar he’s liked him for quite sometime. That he wishes they had said everything sooner but it's too late now. He says he loves him, he always will. With that Cub runs through a gap in the fire, into the city.
Scar yells after Cub and tries to follow him but Jimmy stops him. At this point everyone hears him and rushes over. They also help keep scar from running into the city (Jimmy couldn’t keep it up much longer)
Jimmy tries to tell him that Cub is gone.
Despite Jimmy being extremely against anyone going into the city, he’ll go look for Cub. Solidarity says he’ll see if he can see where he is and what he's doing (Some newly infected once tried to activate the portal. There's no way he could ever handle an outbreak like that. This is one of the main reasons he does go looking)
Jimmy gets injured/ attacked while looking for Cub (A Warden ‘woke up’ and heard Jimmy flying). The Pix grab him from the edge, saving him from being infected. (It's a very VERY close call) (Cub running into the city is what woke the warden up)
Pix gets infected while saving Jimmy and he discovers the soul sand under the sculk (He drops a normal torch on a patch of sculk and it turned blue. Killing the sculk around and leaving a patch of soul sand exposed)
They know they need to leave immediately, Jimmy is against leaving as the fires are going out and if they all got out, the Sculk would follow them. Vintage brings up the food situation isn’t looking good.
They try to figure out how to kill the sculk and or keep it from getting out forever
Cub isn't dead. Not fully.
More Wardens wake up. They can't pass the soul fire but they do have ranged attacks. (Jimmy's 'base' is on the opposite side of the city however it is high enough to avoid any major warden attacks)
Their only saving grace is wardens can't see, the problem is Infected Cub still can.
Pix tells TFC about his Infection. TFC Grabs Jimmy under the guise of the structure of the cave. They talked about Pix’s infection and the soul sand under the sculk.
They talk about how if they could set the city ablaze it would kill the sculk, that's when they go get Vintage, Tango, and Scar to tell them of the situation and their idea.
Tango says if they can blow up certain areas carefully then it would almost kill all the sculk. They could go in soon after and burn it by hand.
????
Jimmy stays with Tango after everything
Scar moved in with Grian and Mumbo so he wasn’t alone after Cub died
Other things
Pix and TFC are old friends
Cub and scar are Roommates
Cleo and Joe almost joined but they had other commitments and couldn’t join/ They do supply runs
Doc was contracted to build machinery for the expedition
Jimmy has a very limited amount of food. He tends to sleep most of the time (Your hunger doesn't go down when you’re sleeping). He also tends to stay in one form for long periods of time as shifting takes a bit of energy. His Canary form is much more convenient to travel through the deep dark and to keep an eye out. While he mostly only uses his human/ hybrid form to relight fires
Both worlds have hybrids but only Jimmy’s world had hybridization (I.e. he wasn’t born with wing nubs)
Jimmy’s world is dead. Jimmy knows that at that point there was no way for the Sculk to have been stopped. If Jimmy had been there for a few more days, he would be dead. He knows this.
Jimmy hasn’t had a proper conversation with someone since a little before he went through the portal
Soul fire doesn't go out on its own- it needs to be punched and or water to extinguish it. (There is a huge reservoir of water above that dips down and occasionally puts out the fires)
Jimmy and Scar become really good friends after as Jimmy understands the horror of sculk and losing people to it
Jimmy stole his boots from a corpse (He's gone through a few pairs of shoes, one pair was gifted and the rest were stolen )
Tango used to be apart of a company called ‘The Boomers’. He knows his way around explosives, including how to make em
The Expedition team isn’t the first ones to find the cavern. Only about ¼ ever find the cave but very few of them leave. The first two times Jimmy didn’t find them till they were already infected. Some of them tried to escape so in a panic Jimmy pushed them into the soul fire. After that he started to look for people every time he wakes up
I was gonna post the sequel to Hearth of the Home today but I wasn't able to get it done in time, so, have a scene from it instead. Jimmy experiences things very foreign to an immortal fae and Tango's there to help him through it.
“I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.” Tango walked up to Jimmy slowly, as if afraid that if he moved too fast he would break this moment in two.
Jimmy took a step forward, not breaking eye contact with Tango. “I didn’t either.” They both stood there for a moment, a few meters still between them, a few years still between them. Then, in one swift and sudden motion, they ran and wrapped their arms around each other, both sobbing. Tango’s tears were cold, and Jimmy’s dry.
“You’ve got a new look.” Jimmy let out a small laugh, running a hand over the fabric of Tango’s robe.
Tango tapped the brim of Jimmy’s hat. “I could say the same to you.”
Jimmy looked down at himself. “It’s a long story. I’m guessing it's the same for you.”
“Amazing detective work.” Tango giggled slightly, motioning towards Jimmy’s badge.
Jimmy ran a finger over the metal. “Sheriff actually.” He took another look at Tango’s outfit, frowning slightly at his now icy blue hair. “And you are…?”
Tango pulled his hood up, letting his face fall into shadow. “The Dungeon Master.” He dropped his voice down an octave as he spoke. He drew the hood back again, revealing a goofy smile.
“That’s way cooler sounding.” Jimmy gave a smile of his own.
Tango put a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “Oh come on, ‘The Sheriff’ is really cool too.” Tango then grabbed the brim of Jimmy’s hat, pulling it down over Jimmy’s eyes.
“Hey!” Jimmy’s hands flew to readjust his hat. The second he could see again, he reached over and pulled Tango’s hood over his face.
“You want to play this game?” Tango let out a slightly maniacal laugh. Jimmy turned and began to run, but not at full speed. Tango chased after him, quickly getting close enough to knock Jimmy to the ground. He then flopped down right on top of Jimmy, wrapping him in another giant hug.
(Happy Team Rancher week!! :D this is for today, the last day, AU fest. this is an au that I've had on the back burner for a while, but its for a ya book series I read in middle school and absolutely adore, and so I'm really glad I was able to finish this scene up and get it out here for the event!!
The very basic premise is that Tango, Impulse, Skizz, and Etho are students at a teenage spy school. On their first ever field training mission, Tango meets Jimmy. Exceedingly, exceptionally normal Jimmy. Enjoy :) <3)
Hermitville looked as if every store-front was painted neatly on wooden slats and propped up from behind by a 2-by-4, its display perfectly weathered and distressed to look as if you could turn the cardboard handle and walk through the door of a family-run business, 75 years strong. But the fact was that you actually could do that—these were real stores in a real town, no matter how striking their resemblance to the set of every small-town-America movie in the world, ready to be broken down and disposed of to make room for the next.
The phenomenon was always made worse by how little Tango actually entered the town despite living 12 miles down the road from it. Its existence was just close enough to feel, parsable from the air like the scent of rain off asphalt, and simultaneously far enough to be alien to him, made all that much weirder by its small town charm, suffocatingly mundane and unconditionally normal. No strings, no contingencies, no Christmas dinners interrupted by last minute covert missions to foreign embassies.
There were string-lights hanging between the lamp-posts, it was cute. Tango felt unbelievably itchy.
The comm in his ear crackled. “How ya doing up there, Legacy?”
Skizz sounded like he was enjoying himself entirely too much. It made Tango grumble a little under his breath, not caring if it was loud enough for the comm to pick up or not. Maybe if he was lucky, the others would attribute it to static.
Or maybe they’d attribute it to Etho, giving he whined back, “I hate that code name.”
“Okay, Prodigy.” Tango cut in, knowing Etho would hate that one equally as much if not more. What could he say, he gets bitchier when he’s grumpy, and wandering around in the cold stuck in the state of perpetually failing his first CoveOps mission was certainly doing it for him.
“Tang—”
Maybe he went a little too hard, though, if he got Etho to break protocol and use his real name over what technically counted as a confidential communications outlet. Oops.
“Tango,” Impulse interrupted—not overly-peeved enough at his friend to use his real name, just equally as hopeless when it came to CoveOps to the point he likely forgot they were supposed to be using code names in the first place. “Where are you, I lost you again.”
Tango didn’t have to turn around and face the direction he’d last seen Impulse to be able to picture the frown that he absolutely wore. Besides, that would give up his cover, and staying hidden—unmemorable, ignorable, unnoticeable, any of those were fine—was just about the only field trait Tango had.
“Over by the bank, Impy.”
“Well, wave your arms or something.”
Tango nodded at an old lady who was walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of him, glaring like they were in a store and Tango was sweating carrying too large and heavy a bag as he suspiciously made his way toward the door. She glared harder at his attempt of being polite and turned her head away as they passed one another by. Tango just really couldn’t get enough of that small town charm.
When she was behind him he dropped the grin and responded, “That kind of defeats the purpose, now doesn’t it?”
What could’ve been a break of static but was probably Impulse groaning cut through the comm and Tango winced. At least he was good at getting passed by, he imagined Impulse was failing to do even that at the moment. “Well, how am I supposed to follow you following Doc if—”
“He’s flipping,” Etho cut in, and Tango didn’t glance to the left at the park where Doc—their certifiably batshit insane countries of the world professor—was currently using every trick he’d ever been taught on how to lose a tail; not that he knew he was being tailed, he was just that vigilant. Constantly. Cause that was how every normal and well-adjusted person lived their life.
Instead, Tango kept walking the way he’d been going, stopped to look both directions before crossing the street, approached the closest vendor and bought himself the first thing on the menu without stopping to look at what it was.
Why on Earth Professor Beef thought the best way to ease them into the field of Covert Operations was to assign them to tail their most paranoid and least sane staff member was beyond him. He could imagine what Beef would say if Tango dared question this decision of his out loud: well you don’t have to get it, you just have to do it. Yipee, he was so glad to be taking this course.
He couldn’t look for Doc, so he looked for Etho instead. He scanned the street, the sidewalk—hell, even the rooftops—but there was no sign of him. He was that good.
Show-off, Tango thought as the vendor whistled to get his attention and he turned back with a smile and a thanks accepting a corndog. Nice.
Tango headed off again, this time towards the park, the direction Doc had been going in, presumably, before he’d flipped. He saw Skizz amidst a sea of letterman jackets, smiling and laughing and miming throwing something with his hands; the crowd he’d accrued laughed with him, boys of all shapes and sizes slapping each other on the arm and guffawing over a guy they would all swear later that they’d had to have had a class with at some point.
Their methods were different, but it was undeniable—mission one, and Skizz and Etho were good at this. They’d all known they would be.
Tango wandered around for a while longer, ate his corndog and listened to the chatter of his fellow operatives over the comms, always keeping their updates on Doc’s position in mind and staying busy as he steered clear enough as to not get noticed but close enough he could keep his options open should an opportunity arise.
In theory, the mission was simple: what soft drink did Professor Doc like to drink with his funnel cake at the Hermitville fall carnival? In practice, it was a lot harder than it looked. They’d all been students of Doc’s for almost 5 years, and while this meant they might know him well enough to predict his patterns in what was maybe a reasonable way, it also meant he knew them well enough to call out their first and last name if he spotted them—and to skip the questioning portion of the interrogation in favor of going directly into doling out detentions.
This was their professor who used a trusted—and highly confidential—surgeon to give him a new face before the start of every school year for the sake of avoiding some long list of threats still interested in apprehending him that he constantly alludes to but never explains. And Beef wanted them to tail him. It’s not like they had any chance to succeed. And Tango was missing Below Deck for this.
The carnival was beginning to thin out, slowly, by the time anything interesting had begun to happen—at least to Tango. The square had one of those large metal things that looked like a lamp-post but actually had a giant clock in the center, and based on the last time he’d seen it and his impeccable internal clock, it could only be nine-fifteen p.m. It was like this place couldn’t get any more boring if it tried. Tango couldn’t stand it. Tango was jealous.
He was cutting through the alley behind the town’s lonely diner, heading towards Skizz’s last known location, and was about to throw a line out over the almost eerily empty silence of his comm when Skizz spoke first. Something about the sound of his voice nagged at Tango, and it occurred to him before he opened his mouth to respond that he’d heard Skizz speak out loud, not directly in his ear.
A second later, and it wasn’t just Skizz. At the first raise of Doc’s voice, Tango stopped walking and leaned as hard as he could into the brick. “I don’t even want to know how you got out and—actually, how did you get out?”
Tango only spent a moment questioning whether or not he was about to make a mistake before he leaned towards the edge of the alley until he could get enough of a picture of what was going on. Doc’s back was to him—thank god—but Skizz and Impulse were done for, the two of them sitting on a bench before their increasingly irate professor. Skizz was at his most diplomatic, sitting still and face severe with the kind of look that said I am listening to you and I understand. Impulse was cringing so hard at the having-been-caught that his left eye looked swollen shut.
Skizz raised one of his hands to halt Doc’s tirade—a risky move, but if anyone could pull it off it was Skizz. “Professor, if you’d just let me explain—”
“Explain what!” Tango winced with his friends in solidarity, even though he wasn’t the one getting reamed. “You’ve been following me for thirty minutes, which means you have to be—wait,” Doc said, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him. “Wait a minute—where’s Beef?”
Tango watched as Skizz and Impulse—spies in training, yes, but still teenage boys at heart—shared a look with each other that gave away exactly what Doc needed to know. Skizz said: “Why I don’t know what you could mean, Professor, we were just—”
“Oh you—” From behind, Tango watched Doc shake his head to cut Skizz off, and then he did something kind of miraculous: he turned and tossed something—something shining and made of brown glass, something suspiciously bottle shaped—into the closest trash can. “Go on, now. Back, back to where you came from.”
Tango stared at the garbage that couldn’t be more than twenty feet from him, even as Doc herded two of his best friends off of the bench and on into the night, the vague direction of the mansion; in his peripheral Skizz turned to glance at Doc and open his mouth, one more attempt at reason, before Doc departed one more and I’ll be giving you an extra credit assignment to really complain about.
Tango honestly wasn’t even sure they were out of sight by the time he left the wall and the relative safety of the alleyway, not even considering the risk as somewhere inside he reeled at the thought it couldn't possibly be this easy. As he crossed the street, half of him expected to get scruffed by the back of his shirt and dragged all the way to his dorm, the other half expected to look inside and find the bottle to already be gone, even though his eyes hadn’t left the can, and for Etho to wander out of some shadow with it already in his hand. But the street was blessedly, amazingly quiet the whole time Tango made his way over.
The garbage can was mostly empty even though the town had just had a carnival—because of course it was, towns like this probably didn’t produce any trash at all, Tango should’ve goddamn known—meaning Tango had to brace one of his arms on the lip of the metal can and hop slightly with his other arm outstretched to grab the bottle and pull it safely out of the trash.
The condensation had made the paper labeling start to peel away in places, but the brand was still, for the most part, entirely legible—their mission was complete, and by Tango no less. He couldn’t wait to get back and rub it in Etho’s face.
Tango tossed the bottle in the air and caught it, mood turning around for the first time all night—not even the 12 mile walk home in the dark could daunt him now.
He turned around to begin his trek and found himself instead frozen immediately to the spot.
There was a boy.
Across the street, paused in the middle of the sidewalk and staring right at him, was a boy. And he’d seen Tango.
Tango, whose only natural talent in CoveOps was going unnoticed. Tango, whose codename was cipher, after a joke Impulse made about his tendency for hiding in plain sight. Tango, who’d just rooted around in the garbage for someone else’s trash.
The boy stopped to look both ways before crossing the street, even though it was now almost 9:30 pm and seemingly passed town curfew by how empty it’d gotten. There were no cars by sight nor by sound on this road or any of the surrounding blocks, but the boy looked to his right, then his left, then his right again before stepping off the concrete and onto the asphalt. There was even a moment of pause when his foot touched down on the road, and a slight furrow to his brow that had Tango imagining him thinking but there’s no crosswalk here!
A better spy might’ve done something else—found the closest out, used the perfect excuse or expertly timed joke—but Tango just stood there, and watched the boy approach.
“Hi there,” he said, a slight Virginia twang to his words that really drove home the all-American look about him, the swoopy blonde hair and lithe but athletic build—perfect for winning throws at football games or moral-gathering posters of government propaganda.
“Do you….dig through trash cans often?” The prom king illusion shattered immediately as the boy cringed and shook his head, descriptive adjectives like polished becoming more awkward, perfect turning into endearing. “No—that sounded rude, I’m so sorry, I meant it as more of a joke, really…an unfunny one, I guess.” The rounder part of his cheeks pooled, filled deeply with blush.
Tango opened his mouth, unsure what he planned to say, but then the boy went, “Oh my gosh, not that I judge that—or, well, maybe a little. But I—I’m sorry, and I shouldn’t, that’s wrong and, and—“ he paused abruptly, his head clearly moving faster than his mouth, the level of disaster that was this conversation running away from him and seeming far worse than it was when it’d started.
“There are nicer trash cans, even,” He said when he opened his mouth again, and Tango nearly lost his mind, turned his laugh into a cough and wondered if all exceedingly normal people were so…cute. “Closer to the center of town. I can…show you where those are instead, if you prefer?”
Tango couldn’t help his smirk. “You offering to take me on a tour of the nicer trash cans in town?”
“I—“ Tango watched the boy's face buffer as all the things he just said caught up to him, and he looked down, bashful. After a moment, he smoothed out the embarrassment like wrinkles on fresh sheets and looked back up at Tango confidence renewed. “That or a milkshake, maybe?”
The boat had stopped rocking, they’d made it to solid land, and the conversation righted itself and worked its way towards something normal—or at least, what Tango thought normal was supposed to look like. He’d never been asked something so simple as would he like to get a milkshake with a cute and utterly mundane boy.
Things that Tango most definitely was not. His cover, on the other hand…
Right, his cover. In a logical and completely sane move, Tango blurted out, “I have a cat.”
The boy blinked a blink that pushed his whole head back an inch from its force. “Ex…cuse me?”
“I have a cat,” Tango repeated, begging his brain to fill him in on the rest of the reasoning behind why he said this particular thing at this particular moment. Were cats deathly allergic to milkshakes, or something? Well, screw his imaginary cat, Tango wasn’t!
He said: “She…likes to play with bottles. I kinda grab them whenever I can.”
“Etho!” He added, and then mentally slapped himself upside the head. This was precisely why he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near field work. “That’s my cat’s name, yup! Mhm, so, I’d take you up on that, but—“
“But you have to get back to your cat?” The boy said, his cheek bunched under one of his eyes like he wanted to believe that but had heard one-too-many a ridiculous excuse before and wasn’t quite sure.
“Exactly.” Tango let out a breath. Jesus Christmas this was hard—where the hell was Skizz when Tango needed him? Oh, right. This was not at all how the night was supposed to go.
Conversation lapsed, but Tango failed to notice his opportunity for an out. The spy in him knew deep down that this was his chance to leave, to apologize for the lack of a milkshake and laugh off the fumble that was their interaction and begin his long walk back to school, knowing by the time the boy god home he’d forget all about having met Tango at all; the teenager in him stared at the freckle at the inner corner of the boys left eye.
“Sorry, you’re new around here, aren’t you?”
Tango continued staring. This was the third time the boy had apologized.
“What makes you say that?”
“I’ve lived here…all my life?” His voice lilted higher at the end, almost like he was posing a question rather than making his case. “Everyone here has lived here all their life and I’ve…never seen you before.”
Tango has too, in a way. Home was a complicated concept for a spy; he may not be one yet, but his parents were—he knew enough to understand. It wasn’t like his childhood went untouched from the transient nature of spy work, a suitcase and go-bag always ready by the door. Even if he was the one being left and not the one doing the leaving, Tango knew flexible, he knew inconsistent.
For years his most stable constant had been school, his mom in the headmasters office, Skizz Impulse and Etho. Where was home but here?
He couldn’t say that, that wasn’t the cover. After years of being told I’ll be back soon with no indication of when soon was and little clarification of back from where and absolutely zero certainty that was something that could be promised, Tango resented lying. He wasn’t meant to be forming covers—he was meant to be locked in a lab somewhere, but one term of CoveOps at the start of sophomore year was a requirement. A requirement Tango would have to get through.
Tango had never seen the boy before either. He didn’t know how to respond.
“But, hey, I guess I’ll be seeing you around? At school?”
“No!”
The word was short and sweet, one syllable, something if the rampant apologizing was any indication the boy had not insignificant experience hearing. But his head tilted on the axis of his chin, lilting higher into the air and away from the middle of his chest—the dog that thought it’d heard a word it knew and was trying to determine if it was of the good or bad variety. “…No?”
Tango cringed. Probably visibly. “I’m…homeschooled,” was the lie, this time.
“Oh, alright,” Tango hoped the drop in his tone was disappointment and not disbelief. He hoped the boy blessedly naive of the ways Tango was being false and not incorrectly assuming him indifferent to their chance encounter.
Unwilling to bet on the chance and deeply reluctant to do what he knew a good spy should—remembering too many holidays gone remiss, and birthdays of the ill-get-you-next-year variety—Tango said, “I’ll be around, though.”
The boy brightened, one of those artificial lamps that mimics sunlight where sunlight doesn’t reach, from darkness to light in mere seconds—like it was simple, easy. Ill so readily forgotten.
“Good,” the word was delivered with an amicable nod. “Better get home to Etho, then.”
There was a moment of pause as Tango prepared to exclaim Etho?!? Suddenly in fear that he’d somehow found the one normal boy who wasn’t normal at all and was actually some sort of enemy spy, Tango accidentally blubbering his way through giving up national secrets he didn’t even know he knew—and then he remembered what he named his fake cat.
“Right! Etho, yes…right, gotta get back to,” —had he given his fake cat pronouns?!— “yup! Okay, bye then.”
Tango turned with great effort, his eyes shut and the rational part of his brain begging him to get a grip, his hands clasped tightly around the slightly icky with condensation bottle of soda that he’d come here to claim and by some miracle had. He hadn’t gotten more than a step or two away before the boy called, “Hey, what’s your name?”
And Tango made possibly the stupidest decision of the night—despite all the competition, that’s pretty impressive, he knows—and called back, “Tango.”
“It was nice to meet you Tango!”
Tango smiled over his shoulder at the boy, walking backwards down the road he’d been so cautious to cross before, wanton joy on his face and something Tango didn’t dare to name, hands in his pockets. “You too,” Tango laughed.
“My name’s Jimmy, by the way!”
The comm in his ear crackled to life after too long staying suspiciously silent before Tango could do anything about that, and he heard what he knew to be Etho saying, “Cipher, meet me at the corner of Pine and Cherry.”
The sobering bucket of ice water dumped on your head after a particularly rough all-nighter, Tango felt his nerves wake up one by one; his spine was suddenly straighter and everything a little more on edge than it’d been a few minutes ago. He resisted the urge to scan the roofs and the streets and the shadows. He ignored the shame that said he just got caught doing something he shouldn’t have been; he kind of already knew that, but something in him also wished this had just been for him. Bye Jimmy, Tango thought in reply before saying, “Yeah man, on my way.”
Forget milkshakes and normal boys, Tango had some bragging to do. Other than to resent lying, if there was anything being the child of spies taught him, it was how to mask disappointment.
He turned the corner toward Etho without looking back.
When Jimmy wasn’t with the rest of the Empires crew going home, Tango was the only one to notice.
He brought it up to the others, who shrugged it off.
“The lad probably headed home early,” Joel told him. “He doesn’t do well with goodbyes.”
“Right,” Tango said. “That makes sense.” He tried not to let it hurt that Jimmy wouldn’t even come see him before leaving. When that didn’t work, he settled with trying not to let it show just how much it hurt.
“Cheer up,” Impulse said, clapping him on the back. “We can do another one of these some time!”
Everyone made excited noises, agreeing that it would be a good idea, and Tango joined in, but his thoughts were a million miles away, in Tumble Town, where his Rancher was undoubtedly doing all sorts of official sheriff-y things. Some part of him, a much larger part than he’d ever admit, wished he could be there with him. But he knew this was his place, with Impulse and Grian and Zedaph and all the other Hermits.
After a final round of farewells, the Empires crew went home, and Grian announced, “Who’s hungry?”
A cheer went up from the Hermits, and they all started to follow him to his base for a feast, but Tango hung back.
“You coming, buddy?” Impulse asked, pausing to wait for him.
“I think I’m gonna pass,” Tango said nonchalantly.
“Oh, come on, Decked Out can go without its dungeon master for a few hours!” Zedaph protested.
“I won’t be long,” Tango assured them. “I just need to do some maintenance, no big deal. You guys go ahead!”
Zedaph just shrugged and hurried after the others.
Impulse wasn’t convinced. “If you’re sure,” he said slowly.
“Hey, I’ll be fine! I’ll catch you guys up later.” It was a lie, and both of them knew it.
“Fine.” Not looking pleased, Impulse turned away and flew in the direction the others went.
Tango watched them go for a minute, before flying in the opposite direction, to the Deepfrost Citadel.
It was strange. He’d spent so many frustrating hours among his noodles, and far too many times emerged feeling like he wanted to pull his hair out, but it was still his happy place on the server. It was a sort of safe haven, somewhere he was in change and in control, where he knew exactly what was going on at any given time because he’d made it that way. In here, when his mind was full of redstone and calculations, nothing else mattered because there wasn’t any space for anything else to matter. In here, nothing could hurt him.
In here, he could pretend he didn’t miss his Rancher so much it hurt.
As he ducked under and stepped over and dodged around the scarlet powder, he took a deep breath, pushing out all those feelings. Instinctively, his eyes took everything in around him, checking for anything out of place, making sure every tiny component worked exactly right. The thinking took over the feeling, and he could already feel himself calming.
A twittering sounded above him, and he glanced up to see his yellow bird flitting through the higher boughs of his noodles. A smile tugged involuntarily on his lips. He’d found the bird shortly after returning from Double Life, and hadn’t been able to resist taming it and bringing it home. He wasn’t sure when it had gotten into the Citadel, but he’d never complained. He enjoyed the company. He hadn’t trusted himself to name the creature just yet, knowing he’d probably choose something sappy, so it had stayed as “his yellow bird”.
He started climbing towards the bird, expertly following familiar paths and avoiding shifting the redstone dust. It flew further into the redstone, and Tango climbed faster, trying to catch up.
It ducked out of sight, and Tango scrambled to find it again, partly enjoying the chase and partly panicking that he’d lost his yellow bird.
That was when he heard the giggle under the bird’s singing.
Tango froze. He knew that laugh. He knew it well. It was in every dream, in every silence and in every call of his yellow bird.
There was no way.
Tango moved faster than ever, cresting a high point in the noodles, and in the valley that followed, he saw him.
The golden hair. The bright yellow wings. The hat hanging from his neck. The laughter that lit up the dark innards of his Citadel. The hand reaching up for his yellow bird to land on it.
His Rancher.
“Jimmy?”
His voice was quiet, but his Citadel had a way of amplifying it, of echoing its Dungeon Master’s orders around the entire structure, like it wanted to be sure everyone heard it.
The Canary looked up, shocked at being caught.
“Oh. Hi, Tango.” He looked nervous.
“You’re still here?” It was all Tango could think to say. “The others are all gone already.”
Jimmy looked down at the bird curled up in his cupped hands. “Yeah.”
“I- I thought you left without saying goodbye.”
Jimmy looked back up at him, face open in surprise. “What? Why would I do that?”
“Joel said-”
“Don’t listen to anything Joel said,” his Rancher told him with a scoff. “He loves making my life difficult.” Then he cracked a smile. “So, what’s next on the roster?”
“Jimmy…” Tango said, the sadness coming back full force. He wanted more than anything to go down to him, but he knew it was a bad idea. He knew if he came close enough to touch him, he would lose all the restraint he was trying so hard to hold on to. “Jimmy, it’s over. Go home.”
Jimmy’s face fell again. “Why?”
“If the rift closes while you’re still here-”
“Would that be so bad?”
“You don’t belong here, buddy,” Tango told him, wrapping his arms around himself. He sank into a crouch, the closest he would let himself get. “You have to go home.”
“Tango-”
“No, Jimmy, you can’t stay!”
Tango felt like his heart was breaking all over again. This was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but he knew he had to do it. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
Jimmy took a step forward. “I want to stay here! With you!”
“But you can’t.”
“I don’t want to lose you again!” Jimmy shouted.
“And I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret!” Tango shouted back. “You don’t belong here, Jimmy! You know you don’t!”
“And you know I don’t care!” Jimmy stretched out his wings and pushed himself into the air, landing only a few feet away from Tango.
Tango shot upright and took several steps away.
“Please, Jimmy! Please, just go home! It’s what’s best for both of us!”
Jimmy sucked in a breath. “B- both?”
Tango closed his eyes and turned away. “You can’t stay.”
Jimmy’s footsteps came closer, and Tango’s heart seized, but he couldn’t bring himself to move away. The Canary took his hand just as his yellow bird landed on Tango’s opposite shoulder. “Don’t push me away, Tango. Please.” Jimmy’s voice broke. “I miss you.”
Tango opened his mouth to say something else, to force him to leave, to snap something scathing that will make him want to leave. What came out instead was a quiet, “I miss you too.”
“So why do you want me gone so much?”
“Don’t you get it?” Tango pulled away from him, twisting around to face him. “We’re not meant to stay together! Grian told me - we’re not even supposed to remember Double Life! The longer we’re together, the more we fight for this, for us, the more danger we’re in!
“You need to leave, Jimmy! It’ll just hurt more the longer you stay! I can’t be the reason you stay! I can’t be the reason you get hurt! Not again!”
His fire was burning bright. The redstone around him was flickering, affected by his anger, his fear, his pain. He hated this. He hated that look on Jimmy’s face, like a kicked puppy. He hated that he’d put it there. He hated that he’d had to put it there, that it was the only way to save him.
Finally, Jimmy asked softly, “Did Grian say anything else?”
Tango swallowed. “He- he wouldn’t tell me what would happen, but he said it would be bad. He said… he said it was dangerous even just us being together for this short time. He didn’t even want me to see you. He tried to stop me from going, tried to convince me to not let you come here. And he said- he-” Tango had to stop to collect himself, the fear stealing his voice for a second. “He said as long as you’re here, you’re in far more danger than me. He said it would be my fault if you got hurt while you were here. I can’t let that happen. Please, Jimmy. Please.”
For a moment, Jimmy just looked at him. Then he opened his mouth and-
Doubled over in pain with a shout.
“Jimmy?!” Tango gasped, rushing forward to grab him, supporting him as he sank to the ground. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”
“The ri-” Jimmy’s voice was cut off as he flickered purple, disappeared, and reappeared a split second later, gasping and panting.
“The rift is closing!” Tango realised. No, no, no, no! “Can you fly?”
Jimmy just groaned, then shouted again as the pain flared.
“Just hold on, buddy! I’ll get you back!”
Tango wrapped an arm around Jimmy’s back. He was so much smaller than Jimmy that he was barely able to cup his hand under Jimmy’s opposite arm, so he shifted so they were chest-to-chest and wrapped both arms around his Rancher. Then he opened his elytra and launched himself into the air, startling his yellow bird. He couldn’t bring himself to care.
As soon as the pair flew out of the Citadel, Jimmy glitched again. Tango was moving so quickly that by the time Jimmy returned, he had already flown too far for Jimmy to reappear in his arms. The Canary screamed as he fell, in far too much pain to think about opening his wings.
Tango dove, catching Jimmy in record time. He didn’t even hesitate before flying towards the Rift, more determined than ever before. He was going to get Jimmy home, even if he had to kill himself from exhaustion for it. He would not let anyone hurt Jimmy like this, never again.
The glitches got more and more frequent the more the Rift closed, and each time Tango had to double back and dive to catch the falling Canary. But he never gave up. He couldn’t. If he flew just a little too slow, or paused a second too long, his Rancher would die, and it would be his fault.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they reached the Entity, and the Rift inside.
Tango didn’t even hesitate. He flew straight through the Rift, holding on as tight as possible to Jimmy, and emerged in Empires.
“Lad!” a voice called out. There, waiting on the other side, was an incredibly stressed Joel.
Tango landed at his feet with Jimmy moments before glitching himself.
The pain was worse than anything he’d ever felt. Even the burn of a creeper’s explosion wasn’t this bad. It was stinging and burning and aching all at once, every kind of agony imaginable at the same time, all over his body. When the glitch stopped, all it left was an unending ache that left his mind completely empty. He cried out, curling over Jimmy and clinging to him like he could make it stop. He longed for the familiar warmth of his Rancher’s wings wrapped around him.
“Tango!” Jimmy gasped, pulling away from Tango, only to reach out to him again.
Tango reached over with a shaky hand and cupped the side of the Canary’s tear-streaked face. He couldn’t muster up the strength for words over the pain, especially as he glitched again.
Tango couldn’t cry, but he knew if he could, he’d be sobbing.
“He needs to get home!” Joel said. He yanked Jimmy away from Tango and started heaving Tango away.
But Tango wasn’t thinking plainly. He wasn’t thinking at all. All he knew was that he was being forced away from the only person he wanted at his side right now. “N- no!” he groaned, forcing far too much energy into the word.
Jimmy must have been exhausted from the pain, but he crawled as fast as possible towards Tango and Joel. He grabbed Tango’s hand to stop Joel dragging him away, then pulled himself closer to Tango and kissed him.
“One last time,” Jimmy breathed. He could barely keep his eyes open, but he held Tango’s gaze for one split second.
Joel made a noise of disgust and, with one final heave, he swung Tango through the Rift. Tango watched his Rancher until the last second.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on the floor, back in Hermitcraft, and the Rift was shut beside him.
Tango curled up on the ground and gasped. His hair was burning far brighter than ever before, threatening to overtake his whole body. He felt like he would shake apart. He could barely breathe. The pain was tearing him to shreds, no longer from being on the wrong side of the Rift, but from losing the man who had been such an integral part of his very being.
He felt something on his leg and managed to lift his head. His yellow bird was standing on his thigh, looking at him with its head cocked to the side.
Shakily, Tango reached out to it. It landed on his finger, and Tango pulled it closer to his chest, curling around it. It was all he had left of his Canary, and he wasn’t sure it would ever be enough.
But, he supposed, it was better than nothing. Maybe, in time, he could learn to survive with nothing but his yellow bird. But for now, it was all he could do to lie right there, right beside the closed Rift, as close to Jimmy as he could possibly get now.
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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Rancher's Week Day 3: Interlude Part One (and two)
Double update day 1! I know that the poll said 2-3 chapters today, but then I got bogged down last night fixing something and didn't make the progress I'd needed to, so have two chapters today and (hopefully) two tomorrow instead!
Don't look at the word count please please don't look at the word count.
“Why are you still here?” Tango sat down next to Jimmy, the pair now dangling their legs over the cliff side.
Jimmy turned slowly to look at him with grey and empty eyes. “Why are you? It’s over.”
Tango shifted, now leaning to Jimmy. “I asked first.”
“This is where I always end up. Alone, watching everyone else hurt. Waiting for it to truly be over.” Jimmy turned his gaze back to the river below.
“But you’re not alone.” Tango placed his hand over Jimmy’s.
“Only because I took you down with me. You don’t deserve to be here.” Jimmy gently moved his hand away.
Tango pulled his own back. “This has nothing to do with what either of us deserve. And I know you know that, deep down. I know my rancher knows that.” Jimmy tentatively moved his hand back, letting Tango take a hold again. “Why don’t you want to go home?”
Jimmy looked Tango in the eyes once again. “This is home.”
We Shall Meet Again Grave (original post has been deleted but reblog is there) / @/nxmm 💛 The Valley of the Creuse, Sunset / Claude Monet 💛 Excerpt from The End / Mark Strand 💛 Excerpt from The Old Ranch Widow / Walter Kidd 💛 Abandoned Farm House / Ross Moffett 💛 Dead Oak / Allen Lewis 💛 Fourth of July (lyrics) / Sufjan Stevens 💛 Arms & Viens Sculpture / @/snailspng 💛 Grand Jeu de L'Oracle des Dames 💛 Double Life #5 - The Long Reach of Death / Tango Tek 💛 We'll Meet Again (lyrics) / Vera Lynn 💛 Unknown Line Art 💛 Rancher Duo Staring at a Sunrise / @/shrobsy 💛 Jimmy Mushrooms' Last Drink: Bedtime In Wayne, NJ (lyrics) / Will Wood & The Tapeworms 💛 Excerpt from The End of The Age / Janet Loxley Lewis 💛 Photograph of a sunset behind trees in a moving car / @/doublesilly 💛 Paper Texture
