Chapter Text
If Tommy were to be asked what class he hated most in college, it would have to be english. He'd been forced to take it, much like the rest of the school, and was required get good grades on it or else the college would 'think about different options', which essentially boiled down to they'd kick him out if he couldn't read right.
"Wait behind after class, Innit," his english teacher said one day. She was an irate little woman with wrinkly hands and snide eyes and too few laughter lines to compliment her ever drooping jugular frown.
He held a special dislike for this woman, the focus mainly welling up from how she seemed to single him out on the questions he didn't know the answer to and demanded the entire class call her 'Professor Jeins', as was her name.
But today he was on thin ice, especially since it was monday and he'd slept in after staying over for too long at the fucking mafia office building on sunday night.
It had been a few months since he'd learned of his family's involvement with them and he'd grown quite comfortable. To be fair, Eret was fucking cool, Sapnap could be hilarious when he wanted to be and even Punz, honey enthusiast, was pretty alright. Tommy still had beef with Dream, especially since his lift incident had left him with sore legs for a week afterwards. But otherwise, they all seemed to like him and he liked them.
Win-win, really.
Plus, Eret hadn't seemed to mind him being there; had in fact sat with him and scribbled at their own work sheets as Home Alone played in the background whilst computer specialist, George, debated with Wil over something at the dining table behind them. Dream had lurked in the corner the whole time like the weirdo he was.
By the time he'd got home it was well past three in the morning. He'd been bleary eyed and had decided he didn't need to fix his late alarm to an early one and it had bit him in the ass.
Point was, he'd overslept about half-an-hour too long. Techno hadn't woken him (too busy procrastinating some Uni project), Phil had left at seven AM again and couldn't have woken him and Wilbur had woken up with a hacking cough (at 8.54 AM, allegedly) and had called it a day and went back to sleep.
And he'd shown up to a triple english period late. Mrs Jeins (which sounded like jeans but the woman got mad when you pronounced it like that; "articulate the 'i', boy - Juh-i-ens." ) had not been happy.
Not that Tommy cared about how the old lady felt. He just kinda needed to pass the year and not fail everything due to a scuffed english grade.
He had a free period after english and decided half-way through the lesson that he could waste five minutes waffling to the woman about how his older brother had woken up so terribly ill. Tommy had already planned out a dramatic monologue about how he just had to help him because that was what good people did.
Once he'd decided on a heart-wrenching monologue, he spent the rest of the lesson working on it because believe it or not - he actually knew how to do english, it was just the tight deadlines for homeworks he couldn't keep up with.
"Class dismissed," was the shrill call that rung over the tiered seating area at a little past 10 AM. Tommy practiced his patience as he watched everyone else file out of the small auditorium before finally shoving his laptop in his bag and walking down to the teaching podium Mrs Jeins was standing on.
Some other kid was there, nervously flitting back and forth. He clutched a notebook decorated with bee stickers in his arms, hugging the thing as if it would rescue him from the awkward silence where the teacher pretended she was busy writing up stuff on the board to guilt trip them both.
Brown hair, bright eyes, short; the guy didn't look like someone failing english. In fact, Tommy looked at him and seen a small thread of the same anxiety that sometimes left Wilbur clutching his guitar mid-song, stage fright a sudden ghoul amongst the chords. He almost felt sorry for the guy, to have the put up with self-centered Jeins.
"Ah, boys." Jeins decided to perk up after a minute, her most recent purple marker finding itself placed lovingly on the plastic rack. Tommy felt his hand clench the strap of his backpack and readied his speech. "I do hope you're both alright with what I've planned."
The other guy blinked the same confused blink Tommy did, which made him feel better. "Pardon, Professor?" He spoke up, voice all meek and shit. His yellow and black striped shirt, Tommy suddenly realised, was to imitate a bee.
"Well, seeing as Innit is, quite frankly, failing my subject, and you, Toby, are excelling, I thought the two of you could meet up after school and trade tips."
"Trade tips?" Tommy echoed, hopefully not sounding as exasperated as he felt.
"Indeed, Innit. You need a tutor. Toby here is just the boy for the job." Jeins' smile was sharp. She turned to Toby, softer and more gentle. "I'm sure you'll do brilliantly, Toby. I'll see if this could count towards Good Will points for our annual cup."
"Um, thank you, Professor." Toby smiled awkwardly.
"Good. Both of you, dismissed."
Outside the classroom, Tommy turned to the other guy. "I'm Tommy and you're not going to be my- my tutor."
"Hi, Tommy, my name's Tubbo. I will be your tutor because I actually kind of need that Professor to like me."
"Don't call her that," he frowned.
"Don't call her what?" Tubbo asked.
"Professor," he responded. "She's just a teacher."
He was rewarded with a slow blink. "But that is another name for a teacher?"
"Yeah, but she doesn't deserve to be called a professor. Not like she's all high and mighty." Tommy argued.
"Ooh, I get you," Tubbo nodded, pausing to bite his lip. "You do know if you don't let me tutor you she'll assign someone else, right?"
"So?" He prompted.
Brown eyes sparkled up at him. "And well, if you reject a tutor, they call home. For both of us."
Tommy would've made some snarky response that he didn't need a tutor anyway so the school could go stuff itself but then he looked into those big eyes and found something he hadn't expected to see.
He saw fear. And he doubted this kid was afraid of Tommy himself or even that teacher lady.
Fuck, he mulled and resigned himself to his big heart of damn steel bleeding a little gold. He'd been around Wilbur for too long if he was getting all emotional like this.
"Alright," he eventually said. "I'll let you tutor me."
The kid immediately brightened. "That's great! What time do you want to meet at the library?"
"No library," he said. "I've got somewhere way better. Meet by the main gates at three?"
"My last class finishes at three twenty," the kid winced.
"That's fine," he shrugged. "I can wait."
And for once, he found he didn't mind the fact he'd need to wait.
Eret won't mind, he thought, hoping so as he led Tubbo towards the huge skyscraper. Its just, they'd said that he could come round whenever and Tommy knew for a fact that sitting on the gaming area's beanbags was much more comfortable than sitting slouched over in the library.
At least Tubbo didn't seem to mind how long it was taking to get there. He'd been up for a walk, even if it was to be around thirty minutes long. He hadn't shut up either, talking and talking and then talking some more. The only good thing about all the rambling was the fact that he'd finally loosened his grip on his notebook. Now it swung by his side with his hands as he bounced around.
"I didn't even know we had a Good Will cup!" The kid was saying, laughing along to himself.
"Sounds stupid, if you ask me." Tommy added, carefully steering Tubbo around a lamppost. The kid didn't even notice how close he'd been to a concussion, choosing to ramble on.
"How would they even decide who to give it to? I've never heard any of the other teachers talking about it. Do you think they know?"
"They'd have to, for it to be a thing," Tommy reasoned and stopped them both outside the building. "We're here."
"We are?" Tubbo questioned, quickly looking up from fixing one badge of many decorating his school bag straps. He gawked at the shining behemoth before them. "This is where we're gonna study?"
"Obviously," Tommy said, "Or I wouldn't have brought you."
"Woah," grinned the kid.
After one final glance at the guy, Tommy led them past the guards, Brandon Harding and Evan Centopani. Neither stopped him, used to his face by now, which he was grateful for. They took one look at him collectively before dismissing him as a threat altogether which was kind of creepy.
Tubbo didn't even get a second glance.
The nearly bald one, Evan, who was a former IFBB Pro and stacked like a living mountain, nodded to him. He was friendly as hell (and capable of a hella good throw down, according to Techno) and it showed in both his kind smile and soft tone. "Heya, Tommy."
"Wasup, dude," he waved back, tugging Tubbo along. The boy made an awed sound at the sight of all the chandeliers and the pretty staircase and became even more of a deadweight than he'd been before.
Tommy sucked in a breath, popped open the bottle of sheer determination he'd buried inside his chest a while ago and powered on, dragging them both past the glaring receptionist woman. Wilbur had rejected her dating proposal a few weeks back and she'd taken the cold shoulder to the entire family since.
She gave him the side-eye and spoke with her nose upturned when the two were within hearing distance. "No Wilbur?"
"He's sick," he said, beelining for the gleaming silver lift before someome else got there and left him to make conversation with the lady from hell. Usually Tommy loved women but, oh, not this one. "Real bad, super contagious. Coughing and shit, y'know?"
She paled. Tommy left her to fret as he jammed the lift keypad. The silver plate sparkled in the natural sunlight that wouldn't be around for much longer. It was getting into winter and the days were darker sooner.
The outline of the summoning button flashed blue. As the lift doors slid open, Tommy hauled Tubbo in, content to let the other make odd faces in the wall mirrors whilst he tapped the button for the penthouse.
The penthouse button was different from all the rest, punctuated by three uptick arrows instead of the numbers the other buttons had. The floor list above the door held floor 100 in red outline and would until the facial recog programs recognised his awesome, very manly face.
Shit. He hoped the lift would still go up with an unidentified person in it. Eret had told him the code but he wasn't sure if he remembered it right and wasn't entirely informed on how many attempts he had to type it in correctly. The shame of returning to Evanette the Receptionist Bitch would be all-crushing.
The 100 flashed blue once before lighting up green. He sighed mutely, basking in his win of not having to input the code while Tubbo decided the mirrors weren't all that fun anymore.
Floor numbers spun past the floor counter as the lift whirred upwards. Tommy pulled out his phone to check the time.
4.15 PM
"How long you got?" He asked very suddenly.
"Huh?" Tubbo perked up, turning to smile at Tommy. If he was a lesser man, as some said, he would've probably been given heatstroke. Or was it 'been blinded'? "Oh! I can stay for as long as you're happy for."
" 'Kay," the 80th floor number pinged purple. Tommy nudged Tubbo a bit left to make room for the oncomer, to the right. Tubbo went easily, eyebrow raised a little bit. "We're letting someone else on," he explained, then, "We can judge it later. You have a curfew?"
"Nah," shrugged the kid. His smile turned teasing. "Do you?"
"Course not," he spluttered. "I'm a man. Men don't have curfews!"
The lift stopped at floor eighty and the doors opened to reveal BadBoyHalo. He wore a suit, unlike many of the ones that tended to hang out around Eret on a regular basis (the allowance to wear normal clothes meaning he was higher up the command scheme) although he enjoyed the perks of more than the one customisation. His shirt was black, his tie was red and black striped and he had a diamond-shaped (and possibly real) pin on his lapel.
The guy cut a striking figure. His black lipgloss was maybe one of the best aspects about him. Tommy was half sure he had something to do with health, according to Eret's brief introductions, though he hadn't talked to the man much outside of a few quick hello's.
"What's this about curfews and men?" The former air ambulance paramedic asked, smile lilting.
"I'm the man," Tommy said. "Bad meet Tubbo, Tubbo this is Bad."
"Hello, Tubbo!" BBH grinned, lips twisting up to reveal a joyful smile. "How are you?"
Tubbo grinned softly back, all shy and quiet now. "I- I'm good, thank you. And you?"
"I'm brilliant, thank you for asking!" Bad whirled on Tommy, expression suddenly serious. "What's this about Wilbur being sick?"
Far too used to the quick travel of information through entire floors within a matter of seconds, Tommy wasn't too surprised the guy was up in arms over an apparent health crisis.
"Nothing serious," he explained quickly, eager to get the almost gleeful look off BadBoyHalo's face. "Just a chesty cough. He figured it'd be easier to stay home today than brace the smog."
"Smart thinking," Bad nodded approvingly. Tommy nodded along, trying to pretend like he wasn't pulling shit out of his ass. Wilbur fucking owed him.
"Technoblade coming in later, still?"
Tommy shrugged, offering a grin to an awkward looking Tubbo to help him feel involved. "If he finishes up his Uni project, probably."
"Ah, to be that young!" Bad simpered and viciously spammed the 90th floor button until the lift slowed and backtracked a few floors before rolling to a stop. Apparently the lift had been designed for Eret in mind; capable of stopping just about anywhere and backtracking almost immediately.
"He's really not that young," Tommy protested to his sole listener, jabbing the penthouse button once more in case the lift got any ideas. "Techno's only like, twenty-three."
"Twenty-three's not that old," but Tubbo was staring at him.
"Techno's my oldest brother and Wilbur's the second oldest," he explained.
"So, what? You're the youngest?" Tubbo questioned excitedly.
"Maybe," Tommy pulled the vowels out on his tongue, leaning away from the other boy as he bounced on his tip-toes. "I don't think I like the look of that smile, dude-"
"Tommy!" Eret smiled at him as the doors opened up into the penthouse. Their hand which was hovering over the summoning panel dropped to their side, their skirt quickly swirling around the appendage and hiding it from view. Dream, for once, was no where in sight. Mega stood behind them instead, the mute wearing some German logo'd hoodie. "You've brought a friend!"
"Hello!" Tubbo volunteered.
"Hello, sweetheart. I'm Eret, they/them," they smiled, not seeming offended at all when Tubbo hesitated to grab their hand. They changed it up for a highfive and grinned almost victoriously when Tubbo tapped his palm against theirs.
"I'm Tubbo," the shorter brunette greeted. "Uhm, he/him?"
"Very nice to meet you, Tubbo," Eret returned. They cast a rueful look down at their thin gold watch. "Unfortunately I'm running late for a very important meeting. I should be done in half an hour. That is, if you'd both like me to pester you?"
"Sounds good," Tommy butted in, knowing from the polite smile on Tubbo's face that the other wouldn't say anything. "We're going to be doing english homework, anyways."
"We love english," Eret joked and stepped into the lift when he and Tubbo got off. Mega followed behind, steps light as a whisper, and tapped in a floor number. Eret offered a little wave. "Hasta luego."