Chapter Text
Nobody who's ever sat through a Craft family dinner would guess the house has a basement. It doesn't look like it needs one—four stories of old money behind a gate that's mostly for show, the kind of place that ends up in a magazine spread about historic estates every couple years whether the family wants it there or not. The entrance is behind the wine cellar, behind a shelf that looks exactly as heavy and permanent as every other shelf in the house, until you know which bottle to turn.
Techno's leaned against the wall down there with a whetstone in one hand and his sword flat across his knees, not using either one, tusks catching the low light whenever he tips his head. Above them, the house is doing whatever the house does during the day — staff moving through rooms nobody down here will ever see, some cousin twice removed probably calling to ask about Christmas already even though it's not even close. None of it reaches the basement. That's the whole design.
he's doing the thinking pose again
that's not a pose that's just his face
it IS a pose.
he practices it. We were there when he was practicing.
oh. I thought that was just his face
yeah cause ur a fucking idiot
He ignores that the way he ignores most of it, which is to say mostly successfully.
"You're doing the thing again," Wilbur says, not looking up from the paper spread across the table — a heavy old oak thing that used to sit upstairs before somebody decided it was more useful down here than being looked at. "The staring thing."
"I'm thinking."
"You're staring."
"Same thing when you're doing it right."
Phil doesn't glance up either, red pen moving in short, sure strokes over a map that's seen better decades, corners gone soft with handling. His wings are out, folded loose instead of tucked flat against his back the way they sit when he's playing human upstairs, feathers dark enough that they eat most of the light down here rather than catching it. Despite the fact they’re not stretched, the wingspan already looks longer than Tommy. A few loose ones sit scattered near his boots. He never seems to notice when he sheds.
It's a strange kind of life, Techno thinks, not for the first time—running a citywide operation out of a basement behind a house that made the society pages twice last year, once for a gala and once for a puff piece about old Craft money aging gracefully into new Craft money. Nobody upstairs has any idea what's behind that shelf. Not the staff. Not the extended family. That's rather the point of having a basement at all.
rich people problems
we ARE the rich people
exactly. rich people problems
yo what happened to eating the rich
why are u suggesting self…cannabilism? is that the term?
I think? anyways, blood for the blood god amirite?
…
…
nahh dude we still have standards.
"Report's in on the second checkpoint," Phil says. "Rotation's thin on Tuesdays. Half their response squad's still green."
"Green's good," Techno says. "Green doesn't know how to hurt you yet. It just knows how to get in the way."
"Green still calls for backup." Wilbur taps his pen against one of the circled checkpoints. "That's the part I care about now."
"You worried about the new ones."
"I'm aware of the new ones. There's a difference." Wilbur leans back, chair creaking. "Phoenix and 404. Whoever handles their PR loves those names — sounds like the Commission hired an actual marketing team, which tells you something about how nervous they are watching their veteran roster age out."
"They're not bad," Phil says. "Watched the pier footage from last month. Fire kid's a bit sloppy—telegraphs half his moves a full second before he throws it—but he's fast, adaptive, strong, and he doesn't quit when he should. That'll make him good eventually. Or it'll get him killed first."
"And the other one?"
"404's the actual problem." Phil taps the map though it has nothing to do with what he's saying. "Dream-work. Puts people under clean, no resistance, no tell. You don't know you're in it till you already are."
Something in Techno's chest goes still at that. Dream-work is rare. Rare enough that he can count on one hand the number of people he's ever heard of who could pull it off, and he's already using half that hand just thinking about the one he actually knew.
oh here we go
don't we're not doing this
we weren't gonna say anything
good
"Only met one other person who could do that," he says anyway, and doesn't finish it, and none of them push, because that's not the kind of thing this room pushes on.
"Anyway," Wilbur says, breaking it before it can sit too long. "If they're posted near the eastern corridor when we move, that complicates things."
"Then we make sure they're not posted there." Techno sets the whetstone down, sword coming up off his knees without him really deciding to move it. "Whatever call goes out, we make sure it pulls them somewhere else first. Split the response before it ever gets close to the checkpoint."
"You make it sound simple."
"It is simple. People just get scared of the part where somebody gets hurt."
"Are you?" Phil asks. Not sharp about it. Just asking.
Techno actually thinks about it for a second. "Used to be. Not anymore."
Nobody says anything to that either.
"One more thing," Phil says, folding the map along its creases. "Before we lock the timeline. Tommy's got his school thing next week. Science showcase. Wants people there."
Wilbur's pen stops.
"He asked you?"
"He asked me to pass it along. His words were 'tell the losers,' which I'm assuming covers both of you."
"Charming," Techno says, and something moves through him at that, quick and warm and gone before it can sit still long enough to be embarrassing.
"I'll go," Wilbur says, too fast. "Obviously I'll go."
"You went last time and spent the whole thing arguing with his chemistry teacher about significant figures."
"That man was WRONG—"
"You made a scene."
"I made a correction. Tommy respected it, actually."
"He told you to shut up in front of forty parents."
"He was embarrassed I was right. Different thing entirely."
we should go too
obviously we're going.
why would we not go just checking
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
not everything needs that
it usually does though
"We're all going," Techno says, before this can loop for another five minutes. "Timeline works around it, not the other way." Flat enough that it ends the argument whether the other two like it or not, which mostly, they do. "He's fifteen. Not gonna have that many more years where he still wants us in the room instead of being embarrassed we exist."
"He's already embarrassed we exist," Wilbur mutters.
"Different kind."
Silence, easy this time. Wilbur goes back to his notes. Techno picks the whetstone back up, doesn't use it, watches Phil fold the map another notch tighter.
"You think he actually wants us there," Wilbur says eventually, quieter, "or if he's just saying it 'cause Phil guilted him into it."
"Nobody guilted anybody. He asked."
"He asked you. There's a difference between asking and meaning it."
"He meant it."
"He's fifteen, Phil. Fifteen-year-olds figure out fast that their family's a liability."
this again
let him worry, it's his thing
we could tell him it's dumb
we could but he wouldn't listen
"He knows what we are," Techno says. "Knew before he really understood it. And he still wants us there when he explains how a brewing stand works to a room full of bored parents. That's not nothing."
"I know that."
"Then stop asking."
Wilbur huffs, something almost like a laugh, the tension in his shoulders easing off a notch. "Fine. Yeah, okay." His pen moves easier now. "I still think that teacher was wrong, for the record."
"Nobody's arguing that. We're arguing whether you needed to say so in front of forty people."
"I stand by it."
"You always do."
Upstairs, muffled through a few feet of reinforced ceiling, a clock somewhere strikes the hour. It's about the only way time passes down here. Techno's about to say something about it when the comm unit built into the table crackles alive, a Commission frequency they've all been half-listening to since morning, dispatch calling a patrol unit out to the industrial corridor.
Wilbur's already reaching for his coat.
"Guess we're doing this today instead."
Techno's up before the message even finishes, sword sheathed at his hip, shoulders rolling loose. "Green doesn't know what's coming."
"Neither do we, really," Phil says, wings unfurling the rest of the way, and he's smiling when he says it, and so is Techno, walking toward the passage that runs out past the old carriage house and lets them out three streets over, well clear of the estate's own cameras.
road trip
it's four blocks
ARE WE MOVING??
…yes?
THEN IT’S STILL A FUCKING TRIP
ohmygosh bob can u CALM DOWN IT IS NOT THAT SERIOUS
( ｡ •̀ ᴖ •́ ｡) ▄︻デ══━一💥(×_×)
The patrol's already engaged when Techno gets there, which isn't ideal but isn't a surprise either. A third hero's on scene ahead of them—shield-user, decent instincts, somebody Techno half-remembers from a wanted-list briefing months back, clearly not expecting more than a routine checkpoint disturbance before three names that don't belong on anything routine came walking out of the smoke instead.
"Fall back," the guy's shouting into his comm, shield up, voice cracking with the specific panic of somebody whose training never covered this. "I need backup—this is Syndicate, I've got confirmed Syndicate—"
"He's cute," Wilbur says, already easing toward the edge of it, voice low and carrying further than it should across open pavement. "Doesn't even sound scared yet."
"Don't take forever," Phil says, the last of the civilian stillness sliding off him. "Finish it fast."
"But like I wanna have fun."
"Not really the time, Siren."
At the mention of his villain alias, Wilbur sighs. “Alright, alright, whatever”.
Techno doesn't say anything. He just moves, sword already out by the time his boots find the cracked pavement, and the hero barely gets his shield up in time to catch the first swing, the impact ringing loud enough to cut through the sirens starting somewhere behind them.
The murmur under his ribs picks up the second steel meets steel. It always does. Dozens of voices layering on top of each other, most of them circling the same idea from different angles.
YEAHHH LESSGOOO
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT
TAKE HIS BLOOD! USE HIS BLOOD!
RAHHHHHH
…guys I lowk feel bad
…
…
who the fuck invited this bozo
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
we've said that already
okay and?
Some days, the annoying entities at the back of his mind (they call themselves chat for some reason) are easier to shove down than others. Today they’re loud though,but he’s learned to block them out enough to focus. Relatively.
Phil said to be fast. He means to.
It's not a long fight. Three against one, seasoned against green, and green heroes either learn fast or they don't get the chance to learn at all. This one gets a few good hits in—credit where it's due, a burst of kinetic force off the shield that actually staggers Techno half a step, more than most manage lately. But Phil's already circling behind, palm brushing the patrol vehicle almost lazy about it, and the engine dies mid-idle with a sound like something exhaling for the last time. By the time the hero clocks the dead vehicle, that half-second of distraction is already gone, spent, and so is he.
He’s dead before he hits the ground, the sword going right through his head.
As Techno yanks his sword out the skull, a beam of fire comes crashing down on him. He dodges easily, but feels a palm against his back. He quickly twists and recognizes 404, the dream-worker hero. Boosting forward, he almost stabs his leg before Phoenix reappears and lifts 404 up to a building.
woah wait, their coordination is actually kinda decent
Technooo ur slacking!!
imagine getting tapped by 404
couldn’t be me
lowk why didn’t tech pass out
probably cause of his thick-ass piglin skin.
yea, few more seconds and we would’ve been cooked
Meanwhile, Wilbur's voice cuts through toward the last two officers holding the checkpoint gate—low, easy, almost gentle, but disarming.
"You're tired," he tells the nearest one, not even bothering to raise it over the sirens. "You've done enough in your life. Shoot yourself."
The guy's weapon raises on its own. Shoulders tense as his body recognizes that something’s wrong, but a smile graces his lips as he presses his gun’s nozzle to his temple. He manages a short chuckle before he blasts his own head. That's the horror of it, really. Wilbur’s siren never sounds like an order. It sounds like the truest thing anyone's ever told you.
"That's so unfair," Techno mutters, sheathing his blade as the rest of the response scatters or falls back, sirens closing from two directions now. "You don't even have to yell."
"Yelling's for the desperate." Wilbur's already turning, nodding toward the tree line where their exit's waiting. "We done?"
"We're done," Phil confirms, and the three of them move without needing to talk it through, unhurried even with sirens closing, because that's the part no report on them ever quite captures right. They don't run. Running's for people who think they might get caught.
hahaha imagine getting caught
lol could never be us
don't jinx it
I'm not jinxing anything I'm stating a fact
state it quieter
…Techno really wants some coffee right now.
(｡•ㅅ•｡) | (¬‿¬) | ( •̀ ω •́ )✧
The cafe's got a TV mounted above the pastry case, old and boxy, the kind of thing Dream's never seen the point in replacing since it still technically works. Most days it just runs the news on mute while regulars come and go without looking up. Today, a little after two, it stops being background.
BREAKING, the chyron says, in that ugly red font every channel uses. SYNDICATE ACTIVITY REPORTED—INDUSTRIAL CORRIDOR—MULTIPLE HEROES ENGAGED.
Dream, mid-restock on the pastry case, catches it out of the corner of his eye first, then catches Niki catching it too.
"Turn it up," she says, already reaching for the remote.
Drone footage, shaky, a little too close for its own good—smoke rising off cracked pavement, a checkpoint gate bent at an angle gates aren't supposed to bend, and three figures in the middle of it that don't belong on a Tuesday afternoon at all.
"Oh, hell," Dream says, mild, setting a tray down without really looking at it. "There they are."
"Is that—that's the Syndicate?"
"Yep."
"Should we be worried?"
"About what, the news?" Dream leans on the counter, arms crossed, settling in for a show he's already got opinions about. "They're not gonna burn down a coffee shop, Niki. They've got a whole corridor to wreck."
On screen, a figure with dark wings raises one hand toward a downed patrol vehicle, and the engine block just dies, dead, like the life got pulled straight out of it.
"That's disgusting," Dream says, delighted. "Unnecessarily overpowered for a parked car."
"You're enjoying this."
"I'm analyzing. There's a difference." He doesn't look away. "That's Thanatos. Pulls energy through touch, kills machines just as easy as anything with a pulse, which is genuinely terrifying if you think about it for more than four seconds, so don't."
"Comforting."
"I try."
The camera swings, catches a second figure cutting a line through the chaos toward a hero already backpedaling, shield up, clearly losing.
"And that's Ares. Sword guy. Blood thing, allegedly, nobody's confirmed exactly what it does, but every fight ends with somebody suddenly not standing anymore, so—draw your own conclusions."
The hero on screen goes down hard with a hole through his forehead, shield skittering off across broken pavement. The news ends up blurring it, but it’s still obvious what happened
"Dream, that's someone's actual friend that’s dying on live television, and you're doing commentary—"
"I do this for my mental health, Niki." He nods toward the third figure now, coat catching wind that isn't really there. "And that's Siren. Watch."
Siren says something to a remaining officer, too far for the mic to pick up. The effect isn't subtle even with bad audio—the officer's stance tenses, weapon moving higher to his head, and he just shoots himself in the head with a cackle.
"That's so annoying," Dream says, real irritation creeping into it now. "That's cheating. Taking somebody's whole ability to make choices away is a different category of cheating."
"Dream that dude just died. Also how is that different, they're all sort of cheating—"
"There's cheating and then there's that. I've got notes. If I ever meet that guy I'm telling him I've got notes."
The feed pulls wider. Chaos settled into the stillness that means it's over—three silhouettes retreating unhurried through smoke, the response team regrouping around two downed heroes and two still standing but rattled, coats scorched, one favoring a leg.
Dream squints at the two on their feet. Something in his chest drops, small and specific, nothing to do with the bit he's been running.
"...Huh."
"What?"
"Nothing." He grabs a rag, wipes down a counter that's already clean. "Those two just look familiar, is all."
"Familiar how?"
"Just—faces you see around." The counter's very clean now.
Niki doesn't push, mostly because a new customer walks in and the moment slides past the way moments do in a shop that never fully stops moving. Dream keeps one eye on the TV the rest of the segment anyway, right up until the anchor cuts back with casualty numbers, and only looks away because the espresso machine starts hissing for attention.
He already knows how the next hour's going to go.
(´｡• ᵕ •｡`) | ٩(◕‿◕)۶ | (⌐■_■)
It doesn't take long. Word travels fast in a city this size, and gossip travels faster than word.
Barely twenty minutes after the anchor cuts to commercial, the door swings open hard enough that the bell almost comes off its hook, and in walk two very recognizable shapes.
No hoodies. No sunglasses. Sapnap's flight suit is still smoking faintly along one seam, a wing panel scorched black at the trailing edge, one hand blistered where he must've grabbed something too hot for too long. George is in full uniform too, domino mask shoved up onto his forehead instead of over his eyes, hair plastered flat with sweat, looking like he ran the whole way here instead of flying it.
Neither of them even tries to hide it. There's nothing to hide it with. It's just Phoenix and 404, unmistakable, dripping adrenaline into a flower shop at two in the afternoon.
The whole place goes electric.
A woman by the window actually gasps out loud. Two teenagers at a corner table have their phones up and filming before either hero's made it to the counter. Somebody's kid tugs on their mom's sleeve, whisper-shouting MOM THAT'S PHOENIX loud enough that Phoenix visibly winces.
"Hey," George says, breathless, dropping onto a stool like his legs have finally clocked out on him. "We need—coffee. A lot of coffee. Immediately."
"You're bleeding a little," Dream says, already reaching for cups.
"It's fine."
"Your sleeve is smoking."
"That's also fine."
Sapnap slumps onto the next stool, wings drooping, and doesn't even bother with the usual bit about being fine. "Got called back out twenty minutes after the segment ended. Second wave. Some guy decided today was a great day to also rob a bank three blocks over."
"Unrelated to the Syndicate thing?"
"Completely unrelated. Just a guy. Being a guy. Today of all days."
Dream slides two cups across, not bothering to hide the grin. "Rough afternoon."
"Understatement of the century," George mutters, and drops his head onto the counter.
The shop keeps buzzing around them—someone's narrating quietly into their phone, a handful of people find excuses to walk past the counter twice just for a better look—and Dream doesn't shoo any of it away, mostly because it's good for business and mostly because watching George and Sapnap process minor local fame in real time is one of his favorite hobbies.
That's when the bell goes again.
This time nobody's excited about it.
The room drops from buzzing to dead silent in under two seconds. Every head turns toward the door, and every head that had been leaning in for a closer look at Phoenix and 404 leans, instead, hard, against the nearest wall.
Techno hasn't changed either. Coat still torn along one shoulder where a shield caught it, dust and dried blood streaked down one forearm, sword still sheathed at his hip in plain view, tusks catching the light off the front window same as always. He looks exactly like a man who walked straight off a battlefield into a flower shop without stopping anywhere in between, because that's precisely what he did.
Someone near the pastry case makes a small, strangled noise.
oh good, an audience
this is so much better than last time
we didn't even change
we never change, that's not new information
they're all against the wall
they're SCARED of us
obviously they're scared, look at us
I kind of love it here
He keeps his face flat and heads for the counter like the room isn't currently doing its best impression of a hostage situation.
"Phoenix!" The woman by the window finds her voice first, pointing at Sapnap with the kind of desperation usually reserved for actual emergencies. "Do something! You're a hero, get this guy out of here!"
Phoenix seems criminally close to crying. He looks at Ares, then the woman, back to Ares and seemingly steels himself. The air in the room seems to tense a bit with excitement and fear, and Ares tilts his head.
Then Phoenix slumps over his drink. “Who’s Phoenix?”
Half the room's jaw drops. Dream bursts out laughing.
"You. You're Phoenix." A student speaks up.
"Never heard of him."
"You're LITERALLY wearing the suit—"
"Coincidence. Common design. Lots of guys wear flame motifs these days."
is he serious
he cannot be serious
he's serious
George, mask still shoved up on his forehead, throws both hands up in complete innocence the second the same woman rounds on him next. "And you're 404, don't even—"
"Dude, please," 404 says, with the specific weariness of a man who's had an extremely long day and just wants to drink something warm in peace. "I'm just trying to get coffee, man."
"You're SUPPOSED to be heroes! You're supposed to be SAVING us right now! You both FOUGHT this guy earlier today!!”
"Hypothetically, even if we were heroes---which I'm obviously not by the way," Phoenix says, finally lifting his head. "This would be their lunch break. So no work."
“He’s not even technically doing anything right now, I think he’s just getting coffee,” 404 whispers.
The woman gapes. "That is not how heroism works—"
"It's exactly how it works, actually, there's a whole rulebook—"
Ares, three feet from the counter, watches all of this happen with something that might, in a different man, have counted as visible amusement.
this is the best coffee run of my entire life
we should get injured more often
absolutely not
cmon man this is hilarious
Phoenix, apparently deciding somebody has to take the responsible-adult route, pushes off his stool and crosses the floor toward Ares with the loose, deliberately casual walk of a man trying very hard to look like he isn't doing anything unusual.
"Hey, man." Low voice, just between the two of them, like the rest of the shop can't see this happening eight feet away in plain daylight. "You're just—getting coffee, right? No like. Attacking. Or anything."
Ares considers him for a second. "Uh. Yeah, sure."
"Cool. Cool, cool, cool." Phoenix turns back to the room, both hands spread wide, projecting the kind of authority that isn't really landing given the state of his singed sleeves. "See? Nothing to worry about. Everybody relax."
Nobody relaxes. Cackles can still be heard from behind the counter
That's when the back door swings open, and Drista comes out mid-sentence, folder tucked under one arm, talking before she's fully through the doorway.
"Dream, I need you to sign the—"
She takes in the room. The two heroes. A crowd flattened against the walls like it's trying to become wallpaper. Her brother dying of laughter behind the counter. A very large, very bloody man standing at the counter with tusks and a sword.
"—what the FUCK is that Ares doing in our shop," she says, at absolutely full volume, no hesitation whatsoever, the exact tone of someone identifying a fire alarm rather than lowering it into anything resembling discretion.
The shop, somehow, goes even quieter than it already was.
Dream stabilizes himself with a hand against the counter, wobbling a bit, before he sobers up. Even with giggles escaping, he’s already moving toward Drista, one hand landing on Drista's shoulder and turning her bodily back toward the door she just came through.
"Drista, why the fuck would you say that? He's right there!”
"That's literally ARES, Dream, I've seen the footage—"
"Incredible detective work, gonna need you to do it QUIETLY—"
“Wait, why isn’t Phoenix or 404 fighting him? What is happening??”
“You know what? Back you go.” Dream turns to Ares with a stereotypical smile, most humor drained out his face. “One second, sorry for the delay.”
The door swings shut behind them. Muffled arguing follows—something about volume control, something back about tusks—while the rest of the shop stands frozen, watching Ares with the wide-eyed stillness of people trying very hard not to become the next thing that happens. Phoenix and 404 are fully relaxed, in a normal conversation, fully intending to use their break to the max and ignore the state of the shop.
Dream reemerges a few seconds later, straightening his apron, sliding a cardboard tray of four coffees across the counter like nothing at all has occurred.
"Sorry about that. Little sister. Going through a phase."
A muffled shout can be heard from the back, something like “I’M NOT GOING THROUGH A FUCKING PHASE.” Dream’s smile tightens a bit. “What would you like to order?”
Ares studies him for a second, something unreadable passing behind his eyes, and decides—visibly, deliberately—it's not worth the effort of pursuing.
"Uh, 2 black coffee’s—one with unimaginable amounts of sugar—and a cappuccino with oat milk," he says.
“Alright, just one second.”
"Appreciate it."
As Dream works, the shop stays in an awkward limbo state, but somehow Dream finishes the order in like a minute.
Ares passes a 100. “You can keep the change.”
“Thanks. Have a nice day!”
He picks up the tray. Glances once around the room — at the crowd still pressed flat against the walls, at Phoenix ignoring everyone’s existence but 404, who’s somehow keeping up the conversation with his face buried entirely in his own hands.
we should come here every week
for the coffee
sure. for the coffee
"Nice place," he says, over his shoulder, to nobody in particular. "I'll be back."
The bell rings on his way out.
For a second nobody moves. Then the whole shop exhales at once, the woman by the window drops back into her chair like her legs finally remembered how to hold her, and Niki, who'd been hiding in the back through all of it, finally finds her voice.
"...Is that normal? Does that happen a lot?"
"No," Dream and Niki say, at the same time, with the exact same amount of feeling, and 404 drops his head back onto the counter and doesn't lift it for a while.
"Why would he come here," 404 says eventually, muffled, into the countertop. "Why is he coming back."
"I don't know, maybe cause the heroes he fought today attempted to their job description," Dream snarks, delighted, wiping down a counter that does not need it. "You two looked like malfunctioning statues before he even got close. Best thing I've witnessed in this building all year."
"This isn't FUNNY, Dream. That was Ares. Buying coffee. While half this shop filmed it."
"It's a little funny."
"It is NOT—"
"It's very funny."
Phoenix, despite everything, lets out a short, helpless laugh, dragging both hands down his face. "She just walked out and identified him. Like she was reading off a menu."
"The TIMING, 404. The man was standing right there—"
404 groans and doesn't argue the point any further, because there really isn't one to make.
The back door creaks open again a minute later, more carefully this time, Drista's head poking around the frame first like she's checking for landmines.
"Is he gone?"
"He's gone," Dream confirms.
She emerges the rest of the way, sliding onto the stool beside Phoenix so casually that the rest of the customers questioned if they all knew eachother. "That was so cool, by the way. I've never seen one of them up close. His tusks looked real, not prosthetic—"
"They ARE real, Drista, he's a hybrid—"
"I KNOW that, I'm just saying—"
"You yelled his ALIAS at him. In front of a shop full of people filming."
"I panicked!"
"You didn't sound panicked, you sounded like you were placing a bet at a horse race—"
"That's just how I panic. Some of us aren't built for quiet emergencies—"
"Okay," Niki cuts in, before this stretches out for another ten minutes. "Everybody take a breath. Drista, you're benched from opinions about the Syndicate for the rest of the day."
"And YOU," Drista says, rounding on Niki instead, entirely unbothered by the benching, "Abandoned Dream! He was dying behind the counter and you just acted like you didn’t work here!"
"I was doing my best."
"Your best helped no one."
"Nobody asked you, Drista."
Dream, wiping down the counter for real now, lets the conversation drift past him, half-listening, mostly thinking. It's not the first time the Syndicate's come up in his shop—can't avoid it in this city—but it's the first time one of them's ever walked in wearing an actual face, tusks and all, ordering coffee like a man on lunch break, and that keeps snagging at him longer than it probably should.
"Hey," he says to George, once the cafe emptied and Sapnap's stopped looking quite so much like a startled cat. "You ever run into the other two? Wings guy, or the voice one."
"Thanatos and Siren," George supplies, tired. "No. We just encountered Ares." He pauses, rubbing his temple. "Why."
"No reason. Just curious what the group dynamic's like. If they're actually close or it's more of a business arrangement."
"No idea. Commission's weirdly tight-lipped about it—no known associates outside the three of them, no known base." Something crosses George's face, thoughtful. "It's kind of unsettling how coordinated they are. Family-coordinated, almost. You don't usually get that unless people have known each other a long time."
Dream doesn't say anything to that. Keeps wiping the counter, slower now, something turning over that he doesn't put words to—an old half-formed thought sitting in the back of his head since the first grainy footage of the Syndicate hit the news two years back, the way three people move like they'd trust each other with their lives without needing to check first.
He thinks of Tommy, off-hand, months ago, mentioning his dad traveled a lot for work and his uncles basically raised him, said with the shrug of a kid who's never thought to question it. Thinks about how Tommy's never once brought any of them by the shop, not in five months of near-daily visits. Sixteen-year-olds don't usually get that cagey about family without a reason, and he's never pushed, because it wasn't his business to, and because some things you leave alone out of respect rather than a lack of curiosity.
Probably nothing. Coincidence, or his own brain reaching for patterns because two years of watching his back has trained him to see connections everywhere, even where there aren't any.
"You good?" George asks.
"Yeah." Dream shakes it off, goes back to the coffee. "Just thinking about how I'm never letting either of you live this down. Ever. I'm bringing it up at your wedding, if either of you ever gets one."
"Please don't."
"I'm bringing it up at BOTH your weddings, individually, even if you marry each other—"
"We're not marrying each other—"
"That's not what I said, keep up—"
Sapnap finally laughs for real, loud enough that Niki glances over with a small, fond shake of her head, and the shop settles back into its normal rhythm — Drista scribbling through homework, George arguing without any real heat in it, Sapnap's shoulders finally unclenched — and Dream lets the half-formed thought about Tommy slide back down into the part of his brain where he keeps things he's not ready to look at directly, and goes back to making coffee, because that's usually easier than sitting with what he half-knows and hasn't asked about.
(｡ì _ í｡) | ٩(｡•́‿•̀｡)۶ | (づ￣ ³￣)づ
Two blocks over, in an alley that smells like rain even though it hasn't rained in days, Techno hands off three coffees and keeps the fourth.
"Took you long enough," Wilbur says, taking his — black, no complaints, the kind of order that says something about a person if you think too hard about it. "You get lost?"
"Something like that."
"You've got a weird look."
"I don't have a weird look."
"You've got a weird look, Techno. I've known you your whole life. I know your faces."
tell him
don't tell him
it would be so funny to tell him
it would ALSO be funny to never tell him and just let him wonder forever
ooh good point
"Nothing happened," Techno says, and drinks his coffee, and doesn't say anything else, because some things are worth sitting on for a while before they get handed over to actual words. Especially to this particular family.
Phil takes his coffee with a quiet thanks and doesn't push either—he's already pulled a small, worn flyer out of his coat pocket, corners soft from too much folding and unfolding. TOMMY'S SCIENCE SHOWCASE, in a font trying way too hard to look exciting.
"Next Thursday," he says, mostly to himself, tapping the date. "Need the corridor push wrapped before then. Don't want to be explaining to a room of parents why we're running late 'cause of a heist."
"We'll make it work," Wilbur says. "We always make it work."
"We do," Phil agrees, and folds the flyer back up, careful, the way you fold something you actually intend to keep.
Techno drinks his coffee and doesn't say anything about the shop two blocks back, or the fern in the window, or the girl who yelled his own alias like she was calling in a fire, or the barista's flat, unbothered face through the entire thing, like Ares walking in for coffee was just another Tuesday. He's going to be thinking about that face for a while, probably. Longer than he'd ever say out loud.
we're definitely going back there
for the coffee
sureeee. for the coffee
"We done for today?" he asks.
"We're done," Phil says, and the three of them start walking, unhurried, coffee in hand, back toward the estate and the wine cellar and the shelf that isn't really a shelf, and none of it looks, from the outside, like anything more dangerous than three brothers getting lunch on their way home.