Chapter 3
One day Ranboo was minding his business, and he checked out Tommy’s stream. Tommy had been going on and on about this one since MCC and Drean agreeing to take part in it.
Obviously when Ranboo clicked on, Tommy was up to his usual antics and not being that serious about speedrunning. Dream was doing the ‘I’m seriously annoyed at you’ bit that the Inniters on Twitter would surely be on his back about later. Seeing chat getting into the bit Ranboo went to YouTube and typed in ’pie chart speedrunning strats’ and clicked on the first video that came up. He copied the link and sent it over to dream ‘Show Tommy what he’s supposed to be doing.’ He heard dream chuckle quietly through Tommy’s stream and smiled to himself as Dream sent the video to tommy. Tommy and chat started watching the video, with dream making comments on what Tommy was doing wrong and how to improve based on the video they were watching.
As Tommy and dream watched the video Ranboo checked out the rest of this ‘Beeperrr’s channel. Just as dream was leaving the call with Tommy, Ranboo noticed a twitch link and clicked on it. Beeperrr was streaming so obviously Ranboo had to watch.
He sent Tommy a quick message: ‘They’re live! Raid them’ So Tommy did raid them and Ranboo stuck around for the rest of the stream. He sent a couple of messages in chat when beeperrr talked about the DSMP, only to be met with no reaction from the streamer and a lot of spam from chat. I guess they really are clueless.
As Beeperrr (or Beep as chat kept calling him) ended stream and shouted out his other social medias, Ranboo obviously went to check them out, and he followed most of them, liking their tweet about the support on their stream.
Ranboo often found himself mindlessly scrolling on tiktok. Usually it was on a private account, one made just so he could watch random tiktoks about anything, but after the day before’s adventure in watching upcoming streamers, he had decided to use his main account.
Yes, his main account’s fyp was just many “dsmp applications” but sometimes they could be entertaining and that was what he was looking for. He kept just scrolling until he found one that seemed interesting, it was the same person from yesterday.
They only had 3 reasons so obviously he had to critique them. 1- I mean I’ll be needing some evidence about that 2- They make a good point 3- there is no chance they can pull that off How did this person think they could get spiderman to vouch for them? He went to comment and decided to not say anything about the spiderman one, it’d be funnier.
“We do need more Americans’…”
When he liked Beep’s tweet, his fandom went wild. When he commented on that tiktok, most of the fandom seemingly broke down. Their reactions made him laugh and before turning his phone off, he sent Dream the tiktok just to make sure he saw it when he woke up Dream agreed, if beep could get a Spider-Man vouch, they could join the SMP, that much Ranboo expected.
However, Beep actually getting that vouch was something unexpected.
Beeps’ first stream on the SMP was funny, his friends got onto it before he actually could. Ranboo thought that it was almost as good as the bit that had gotten him on.
Ranboo was the first one to dm Beep, after their stream, welcoming them to the server. Having been ditched temporarily by his neighbour, Ranboo streamed a lot for the next couple of weeks. His viewers were overjoyed, they especially liked when he streamed with Beep (Ranboo liked this too). They also liked when Ranboo joined dreams stream. Ranboo found sapnaps friend familiar. He happily arranged to sent them both merch merch. Ranboos friend/neighbour told him he was on the plane.
Obviously he was excited and it was all he could think about, one of his best friends coming back home. To pass the time he went live, doodling and just talking about whatever he could think of.
‘Have you been into any new shows recently?’ A chat member asked, “Ummm not really anything new, my friend has been making me watch Greys anatomy with him, on call though, because he has college.” Ranboo replied, making his thoughts wander back to Harley.
In all, it was a normal Ranboo stream, nothing wrong or weird happening. Just Ranboo messing around on ms Paint.
Until he heard his doorbell go, being the only one in the house, he told chat that he’d be back in a minute and went to the door. Ranboo didn’t really mind someone knocking at the door in the middle of a stream, but he had practically forgotten about his friend’s return. He would’ve appreciated some warning, or time to adjust when he opened the door to find Harley keener- his neighbour and best friend for as long as he could remember- waiting to give him Dream merch. Oh, and wearing a Ranboo the Beloved locket.
Ranboo closed his door, and did nothing but stand in the hallway trying to process the short encounter that just took place.
A minute or so passed before he remembered he was still streaming.
He ran to his computer to see chat getting absolutely annihilated by the mods, who were clearly getting fed up with the spam.
“Hi guys,” he said showing chat he had returned, “you’ll never guess what just happened. The doorbell went right, so I went to answer it, and my neighbour was at my door. The one who’s making me watch Grey’s, yeah,” he said, thankful to respond to someone in chat and think of something else apart from his odd situation.
“Yeah, that wasn’t an easy feat, even Tubbo couldn’t convince me to do that. I won’t give details about my neighbourly visit, because I think what happened is far too niche, but he got me Dream merch. Yeah, as a present, and he was wearing one of my lockets.” Ranboo described the situation as vaguely as he could, hoping he could wrap his mind around it.
“Fun fact, he was the one who gave me my nickname that I turned into ‘Ranboo’.” He waited to see chats’ reaction to the last part before concluding his story. “Y’know weirdest part is that I genuinely don’t think he knows who I am, but if you are watching, hey, I’m your 6’6 neighbour that you’re watching greys anatomy with.”
Now Harley keener has many friends, this is common knowledge, he is a likeable guy. Liked, even, by the community of ‘dsmp twt’ (Ned has told him this was an achievement).
Another fact of common knowledge was that Harley Keener liked to give his friends nicknames.
Once he gave you one it stuck.
One of his many friends was his next door neighbour in Tennessee. When his neighbour first moved in, he was secluded and quiet.
Harley even tried to talk to him at school- he joined in the middle of the semester so he stood out- but the other boy ignored him.
Harley's first successful attempt at talking to his neighbour was when his parents forced him to take Abby to drop off a card she had made, to the strangers. The kid hadn’t said more than a grunt, which Harley took as a ‘thanks’ and as a success.
Spring break rolled around and Harley was glad to see the boy who lived next door out and about. Ever confident, Harley tried to engage the other in conversation. “Have you ever played Minecraft?” He asked the other, who responded with a nod. Harley smiled, “I’m Harley, what’s your name?” The boy gave him a shrug, well it was more of a shrug-nod-shake of his head combination. Harley heard Abbey start crying from the house and realised he should go in, he got up and started running in, before turning back to his neighbour. “Byeee Mr No-Name!”
The next day, when Harley was allowed out, it was pouring rain and his neighbour was playing with a paper boat. He instantly ran out to talk to the other, still eager to make him talk. “Helloooooo,” Harley said, smiling audibly. His neighbour looked at Harley and nodded, that nod was close enough to talking for Harley. “So Mr sir,” Harley started, his mother had raised him to be polite to his elders, and this boy was seemingly too tall to be Harley's age. “You must have a name, don’t you?” He pushed. The other nodded. “Soooooo, are you gonna tell me?” The boy shrugged and shook his head. “How about,” Harley thought for a second, “I give you a name?” His neighbour gave him a curious glance, before nodding hesitantly. This shut Harley up, as he got to thinking.
After what felt like hours but was far, far less, Harley’s face lit up. “I’ve got it!!! Drumroll please,” he exclaimed. The other boy did as he was told, drumroll being a bit of an exaggeration as he ended up just splashing his hands in a puddle, with a smile on his face.
“Rain,” Harley said, with a gesture to the downpour falling on them. Rain burst into a fit of laughter, making Harley go red “What's wrong with Rain,” he asked defensively. This made the other giggle even more. “That’s not a real name,” the boy said, having stopped laughing. Harley was so offended that he didn’t realise that he had gotten the other to speak, he pouted and crossed his arms, “Yes it is, I say it is, and I’m always right.” Rain frowned at him, “I like it, but it’s a silly name either way.”
“Nice to finally speak to ya’, Rain,” Harley held his hand out for the other to shake, having finally realised that they were having a 2-sided conversation. Rain smiled, and shook Harley’s hand.
The plane landed. Harley took his time and slowly got out of the airport, texting Abby, who was updating him on his lifts’ ETA as their mom drove. He didn’t have to sit outside for long before he saw the red car he’d devoted last summer to fixing up pull near to the pick-up zone. He hugged his mom, and got caught up on some urgent drama by Abby, convincing her to let him get in the car before she started to rant. “I’m not going to rant,” she said defensively, but a doubtful look from their mom told Harley otherwise. Abby proved them right, getting into the car before starting off with: “Okay, so,” signalling that she had a lot to say. Harley and their mom chuckled lightly, letting Abs continue nonetheless.
When they arrived back home, Harley got his stuff out of the car, refusing to let his mom help. He ran to his room and dumped his stuff on the floor, telling himself he’d clean it up after he went to see Rain.
Harley stood on Rain's front steps for a while before the door was opened, fair do’s, Rain wasn’t given any warning of Harley's visit. “Nice to have you back, Keener,” Rain smiled, happy to see his friend again. “Good to be back,” Harley responded before looking at the hoodies in his hand. “So y’know how I went to Florida to see Pandas,” R nodded, “Well turns out he’s kinda a minecraft YouTuber! Honestly he wasn’t the first one I’ve met recently like I swear I know them all, is it my cologne do I attract them?” Harley joked, not knowing how right he was. “Anyway, I’m rambling, and I know Abby wants me back and you’re probably busy so I just wanted to give you that. It’s a Dream hoodie, he’s Pandas roomie and is pretty popular, and also one of Pandas’ hoodies-“
“I’m going to stop your rambling,” Rain laughed, “thank you for the hoodies, tell pandas and his friend I said thanks.”
“No problem, and will do. I’ll see ya later Rain.”
“G’bye Harls.”