Chapter Text
Scott was pissed.
As the resident therapist that didn’t suggest pole dancing or getting drunk on cafecitos, he heard a lot of things that he wasn’t supposed to. Sure, neither he nor the other therapist who did suggest pole dancing weren’t actual therapists, but in a world of magical princesses and wonky goblins and cursed historians, nobody was really a qualified therapist. Scott and Sausage were the only ones who really had the capacity to fill the roles, each in their own ways of course.
Sausage’s method seemed to be getting drunk and exercising in the tavern only seemed to work some of the time, but to be fair, the Hermits seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. Even so, some problems couldn’t be drowned in cafecitos and the loud music. Some problems could swim.
Quite a lot of problems could swim as it turned out.
Most of them having to do with Jimmy.
Scott had no idea why the sheriff was a magnet for trouble and drama, but he was. First it was the toy thing with Joel, then the ex and sheriff drama with fWhip, and now it was Tango. Poor Tango. The guy had no idea what kind of drama he’d been pulled into.
As a player in their death games, Scott understood the connection Jimmy felt to Tango. Hell, he’d been partnered with Jimmy at some point, even though it wasn’t the same. The game where they’d been teamed up, living happily in their little oasis, away from the chaos. Their past was a vague memory of connection in Scott’s head, he hadn’t been able to recall why he was so protective of Jimmy or why he was so bothered by Tango’s closeness. There was some vital piece he was missing and it wasn’t just the past games together.
As a player in their death games, Scott had no idea what a True Soulmate was supposed to feel like. His True Soulmate had abandoned him for Martyn of all people and caused him so much pain. It was his soulmate who stood on the cactus, who got herself lit on fire, who left with Martyn to go to the Nether to get useless materials, who left him. Alone.
Nothing like the Ranchers.
They were so pure.
Never angry, never cross, never lashing out at each other. Betrayal, drama, and chaos were the only laws followed in the games and yet they found their peace, like he and Jimmy had found in their flower grove. It was them against the world, the world against Jimmy, and still the Ranchers were never bitter or complaining about their luck. Their misfortune was met with a laugh and a promise that they would do better. Even when Tango got them both killed, they popped back up on their feet. They spent their first nights in a hole together, begged together, stole together, watched their home burn together, did everything together.
Except die. They did that separately.
They kept each other in check.
Scott didn’t know anyone was able to calm Tango down like that. Tango’s rage, something that always scared everyone in the past, set things alight. Their crops followed their ranch as it burned down, the grass bursting into flames at Tango’s feet. And Scott pushed him. Scott pushed him to get revenge on Scar, pushed him to avenge the Ranch and their stupid little animals. He wanted revenge, with Scar, with Tango, with Grian, with all of them.
Maybe he’d wanted Tango to get hurt. Maybe he wanted Tango out of the way. Maybe, if Jimmy saw what Tango was really like, he wouldn’t want to be with him.
Maybe Scott could have his flower husband back.
No war would be able to separate them again. No more husbands dying in the war.
But Jimmy hadn’t pushed Tango away. Jimmy had walked through the flames and right into Tango’s arms, calming him down in a few moments even though they were both seething, Scott made sure to stick around and plant the seeds of revenge in case Tango snapped again.
But he didn’t. Jimmy stuck with him the entire time.
Jealousy wove into his thoughts like the wind roaring through the flower fields of his kingdom. Anger was threaded in there as well, hurt and loneliness colored it all in, and bitterness was the neat little stitch on the seam of his feelings. All vibrant emotions mixed together like the dyes in his vats, painted onto a fabric of his control. He was used to conflicted emotions, years as a collector and explorer had gotten him used to that, but this was nothing like the conversations he had with himself.
These were messy emotions that he’d never had to deal with before, murky and chaotic and just so different from anything he was used to.
And now he was stuck, in the bar, listening to people complain about Jimmy. Well, less of people and more of a person. A single person he despised so much. The single person who’d even had a chance of taking Jimmy away from him - fWhip would always be too much for Jimmy and he didn’t think Joel would even try stepping on Scott’s turf.
Tango was in his bar. And desperately trying to drown his problems.
However, like most problems concerning Jimmy, they were swimming just fine.
That was the irritating thing about Jimmy and problems relating to him. You could never seem to rid yourself of them, they always followed you around like a pathetic little puppy with wide eyes and a poppy in its mouth, begging for attention.
But Tango didn’t see Jimmy as the problem.
Tango missed Jimmy's accent, how he picked up pronunciations from other people, how he could never say banana in quite the same way. How he pronounced "Gobland" as "Gobl'nd" or how he stretched the syllables of some words. The way his voice got slightly higher when he said "rancher" or the way Jimmy said his name.
His name.
He could listen to Jimmy saying his name over and over and over, for days on end, without ever getting tired of it.
The first time he heard Jimmy whisper "my rancher" in his sleep, Tango could have melted. He wanted to turn that memory into a drink and get drunk on it every night, wanted to make it into a song and put it on loop for all to hear, wanted to turn it into a pond and swim for all of eternity, wanted to make it into a scent and fill everything with the smell.
He and Jimmy were still connected by Fate and her red strings, bound to each other by the remnants of the death games they’d escaped. But parts of him wanted to go back there, wanted to go back to the chaos and uncertainty, wanted to go back to the simplicity of their life there, wanted his Ranch and his rancher back.
They weren't as chaotic as the Boat Boys were, they weren't old housewives spreading gossip like Impulse and Bdubs, they didn't start drama like the Divorce group did; they were just loyal to each other. They could have been everything to each other, and they were.
It would have been so easy to snap. They could have very easily taken everyone out, brought multiple wardens to the surface and burned everything down in honor of the Ranch.
But Jimmy had held him back.
He remembered the first batch of eggs they'd gotten from the Definitely Not Chickens in the basement. And the way Jimmy had started sobbing when he saw the first little calf, such a small creature in their tiny herd of cattle in the room next to their own. It had taken at least an hour and a half to get Jimmy to stop crying over the little guy and give the cow back to its mother.
He also remembered the look in Jimmy's eyes when Joel burned down their Ranch. He remembered how Jimmy had looked when Joel killed their cows. The look in Jimmy's eyes had scared him, more than he wanted to admit. He didn't remember anything else from that day, just Jimmy and Jimmy alone.
Jimmy falling to his knees as their home burned. Jimmy sobbing as their animals burned. Jimmy breaking as Scott and a few others came back, trying to no avail to save what was left of the Ranch, only to take from their chests when they weren't looking. Jimmy's voice cracking for weeks afterwards, still battered from the hours of mourning their animals and their home. Jimmy forcing himself to be the bigger person when Tango snapped.
Tango didn't want to think about what would have happened if he'd been paired with anyone else at that moment.
The hugs and tear-stained kisses they'd shared that night were tinged with sadness and anger, neither had wanted revenge more than at that moment.
He didn't know if Jimmy remembered it.
Again, the quick stab of the possibility of Jimmy not remembering hurt Tango. There's no way his rancher wouldn't remember. He had to.
Tango didn't know what he'd do if Jimmy didn't remember.
Jimmy was the one constant that Tango had in this strange world, even if Jimmy wasn’t with him. He knew people, sure, but not in the way the Ranchers had known each other. He needed Jimmy in a way that the others couldn't understand. They'd only seen what Tango and Jimmy could do when they were on the same wavelength: how Tango kept Jimmy safe long enough, how they both went begging to Scott within 10 minutes of their first death, how Jimmy calmed Tango after the Ranch burned.
Tango had burned.
He'd never been so angry. Everything they had was on fire. Scar might have started that fire, but there were others started the next one and the next one and the one after that.
They’d all antagonized his rancher and Tango had done his best to protect Jimmy from it, keep his soulmate from feeling like he wasn’t wanted when Tango would have done anything to keep him there.
He slammed the rest of the drink, nearly cracking the glass he was drinking out of and glaring at the cyan-haired man sitting across from him. Scott wasn’t wearing his usual smile or hat, both of them seemed to be discarded at the entrance. Behind him, a llama with an orange coat that looked handmade gave Tango a dirty look and spit into the glass next to it.
Tango was sure that it was supposed to be a threat.
He wasn’t sure if he was too far gone to be afraid of a llama though and just blinked slowly at it, keeping his face even.
“Alright, what do you want?”
Scott’s voice broke the silence that’d been settled between the two of them like a wall since Tango had walked in half an hour ago. He didn’t even know what had been in his drink, but didn’t really care either. Scott looked surprised when Tango slumped, pressing his forehead against the table as he groaned, not even wanting to think about what he found earlier in the walls of the goblin cave.
So instead he thought about Jimmy.
He wasn’t even sure why he was in Scott’s kingdom, both of them were well aware of Scott’s past with Jimmy, there was just something in Tango that said that Scott would understand. Although, from Scott’s expression, it looked like Tango was doing something wrong. Like he’d thrown away a hat that Scott had worked so hard to make.
And so he dropped it all.
He told Scott everything. He told Scott about the disconnect, the pull of the strings, the sudden change in Jimmy’s mood, how Jimmy had just let fWhip take his things from the Ranch without a fight, how Jimmy was the heart of their relationship and how it’d stopped beating.
To his credit, the man didn’t say anything until Tango was done word vomiting. He just sat there, sipping at his own drink and watching Tango fall apart in front of him. When Tango was done, Scott stood up and placed his empty glass before the llama, who gave him a look. He waved the llama away as he made his way back to their table, putting his hand on the back of Tango’s chair and spinning it around so they were face to face with Tango’s back against the table.
Scott’s mismatched eyes seemed to glow slightly as he leaned towards Tango and hissed, “Jimmy was everything to me. We all joked about how he’s cursed and how he’s always dying first, but you have no idea how much it hurt when he died. I knew him before the games started, I knew how he drowned in the smallest bit of water, I knew how he was and I still got attached. I stayed attached, even though I knew what was happening. I ran with his stupid jokes, I kept him from breaking when Joel and Sausage went too far, I stayed the rest of my life with him after I killed my demon brother, I did everything for him.”
Tango wanted to ask about that last part but the look on Scott’s face told him that would be an even bigger mistake than walking into the godforsaken tavern in the first place. It didn’t look like Scott knew what he was saying either, words flying out of his mouth without permission or even acknowledgement of their meaning.
“He might have been your rancher, but he was my husband first.” Scott growled, slamming his hand on the table hard enough to make it shake.
The llama spit into the cup again, more aggressively this time.
“You left him the first chance you got. I stayed with him. You’re in the wrong here, you never went to see him, you never tried to keep in touch after the game was over, you never did anything to comfort him. I was here for him, I went to Tumble Town when he called, I made sure he wasn’t alone while you were off galivanting with who knows what without a second thought about him.”
Tango snarled, his anger flaring along with his flames, “And where were you during the games? You just egged everyone else on, Jimmy hated you as much as I did. You tried to make me snap when Scar burned our home, you built a fake ranch when you knew how much Jimmy cared about it, you snuck into our home and killed our animals.”
He watched as Scott’s face went even paler than normal, hands curling into fists as the imprints of his hands were burned into the table.
“You did just as much harm as Scar or Joel did, don’t pretend like you’re all high and mighty because you knew him before I did.”
He watched Scott flex his hand, obviously debating whether to reach for the ax at his hip or not. This time he didn’t flinch when the llama spit in the cup or when Scott held up a hand as if to stop the llama. As if the llama could actually do anything to him.
“Get out of my tavern Tango,” Scott’s voice was dangerously cold, reminding Tango of the ice spikes of Decked Out. “And stay the hell away from Jimmy, you’ve done more than enough damage.”
Tango was thinking about taking a trip over to Tumble Town, just to see what Scott would do.