Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wilbur Soot wasn’t homeless, per se, he just happened to sleep outside most days. No, he much preferred the term “traveller.” He never slept in the same spot for more than a couple days in a row, and after a few months in the same city he’d hop on the nearest bus and see where he ended up.

He ate well enough, earning his coin mainly by busking on street corners, though he had, admittedly, on occasion resorted to less respectable things in order to keep from starving - but there was no need to think about that. 

He didn’t have much in the way of belongings, but he had a messenger bag and a couple changes of clothes - none of them fit but they were enough - and an old khaki coat he found by the road a while back, but his most important possession was his guitar. His guitar got him enough money to live, and without it, he’d have nothing left to do but sit against a wall and wait for someone to pity him enough to give him a dime or something.

The number one rule of living on the streets was to never, and he meant never, let any of your belongings out of your sight. If someone could steal it, they would. (He was not an exception to that rule.)

So as he stared at the waiting room wall, he clutched his guitar strap in a white-knuckled grip, messenger bag at his feet. It was horribly toothpaste-coloured and so smooth that it made his eyes slip across it with nothing to catch on. He wasn’t sure if it was actually called a waiting room, but he’d been sitting in this uncomfortable plastic chair for at least half an hour now. There were maybe thirty other people in the room, and it was loud, but he just had to wait for the nurse to finish talking to the old man a few seats away and get to him again and then hopefully he’d get to see an actual doctor.

Wilbur would’ve ignored it, honestly. He would’ve just dealt with the pain, accepted it as another shitty part of his shitty life and moved on, but he couldn’t move his arm and he was pretty sure he had a tumour or a tear in his rotator cuff or something and he kind of needed both arms in order to play guitar so he didn’t really have a choice.

He hoped he’d make it out of here without being asked too many questions - but he was a homeless minor in the emergency room (that’s what it was called), so he was bound to be asked about his parents or his medical history at some point, and then the jig would be up and he’d be sent right back into foster care where he “belonged.” 

But before he could reconsider whether it would be practical to learn how to play guitar one-handed or not, the nurse had reached him. 

Two surgeries and a few days later, Wilbur was released from the hospital. He still wasn’t quite sure what had been wrong with him, but his arm was in a sling and he was supposed to take two pills of something every morning or he’d have to go back and have another surgery. 

He was back in the system now, with a new social worker and everything. Pros? He wouldn’t have to worry about freezing to death at the very least, because he was being put in a new placement as soon as his social worker found one. Cons? Too many to count, but the biggest one was that he was going to be at the mercy of a bunch of strangers. He’d also have to go back to school, and after missing a year and a half he knew that wasn’t going to be fun. 

He supposed he was lucky in some way, to not be responsible for paying the medical bill, but he hadn’t seen his guitar since the first surgery and he already knew he was going to hate the sudden lack of freedom.

But now he was being taken to his first foster home in almost two years, and he had to stay at least long enough to recover.

Immediately upon seeing the house he was meant to be staying in, Wilbur knew it was going to be a bad one. There was a wrought-iron fence around the yard, with an open padlock on the gate and a “Beware of Dog” sign next to it. The lawn caged within was newly mowed, short and green. He looked over at the driveway - there were two cars, and one of them was a shiny red truck, while the other one was a dark blue van with a crooked bumper. (He knew which one he’d be beaten to hell for looking at and which one he was going to be driven in.)

His social worker, a relatively short, polite woman named Alise Brooks, led him to the front porch - apparently the owners of the house had left it unlocked for them - and rang the doorbell. The screen part of it had the American flag painted over it, and the door itself was a dull red.

It was answered with a series of loud, snapping barks, and a clattering of nails on a hardwood floor. 

“Shut up!” 

Wilbur took two steps back, steering clear if the dog decided that it wanted to maul him. 

Brooks shot him a reassuring look. (It did not help in the least.)

The door was finally opened by a white man with a neatly trimmed beard and a buzzcut. Wilbur stared at him for a moment, noticing the way his shirt was loose, but he could still see his thick arms, but then the dog barked again and he realised the man was holding the snarling black terrier by its collar. It snapped around, trying to break free, but his grip was firm. 

Wilbur shuddered, accidentally drawing the man’s attention to him.

“You must be William,” he said. He was eyeing Wilbur’s sling and his shifting feet, so he stopped shifting, knowing all-too-well about the hang-ups people had about it and unwilling to test his patience. “And you must be his social worker. Come in, Doug won’t bother you, I’ll stick him out back.”

Wilbur hated this place already. 

Brooks did one last inspection of the place, gave him a little pep talk, and left him in a living room covered wall-to-wall in sports memorabilia and shining trophies with nothing but her number (he didn’t have a phone) and his messenger bag. He could still hear the dog barking its head off in the backyard.

“I’m going to go over house rules, then you can go get settled in, alright?” 

“Yessir,” Wilbur answered quickly. 

The man didn’t sit down on the couch or motion for him to, just crossed his arms and nodded in approval. “Alright. Number One, you can call me Mr. Harwick or Nathan, I don’t care. My wife is either Mrs. Harwick or Heather.” 

Simple enough. Wilbur nodded. 

“Number Two, you’re a part of this household now, I expect you to contribute. You’re going to be cleaning the house on Saturdays, washing the dishes after dinner, and doing your own laundry.”

He nodded again. It wouldn’t be fun, but it wasn’t too bad of a chore list compared to some of the ones he’d had in his life.

“Three. In this house we do not tolerate disrespect. Don’t go snooping through ours or the girls’ rooms, I’ll know if you snag anything from the kitchen or the cupboards so don’t try. You’ll be getting three square meals a day here unless you do something and I send you to bed without dinner. No yelling, no talking back, no cussing, and no attitude, alright?”

Another nod. That was going to be harder, but it was still doable. The prospect of getting fed at all was something he was rather happy about.

“Alright. Curfew’s at eight.” Harwick finished, uncrossing his arms to set a heavy hand on Wilbur’s shoulder. (He tried to suppress his flinch, but he got the feeling he didn’t do very well. He’d have to work on that.) “Repeat the rules back to me so I know you were listening.”

Shit. Wilbur scrambled to pull them all together in his head. “Number One, call you Nathan or Mr. Harwick; Number Two, wash dishes, clean the house on Saturday, and do my own laundry; Number Three, no disrespect; curfew’s at eight.”

Harwick nodded, seemingly satisfied, and led him upstairs, never removing his hand from Wilbur’s shoulder. 

He glanced around while Harwick explained which rooms were what. There were four rooms upstairs; the one nearest to the stairs was the bathroom, first on the right was the girls’ - he had yet to meet them and wasn’t sure if he wanted to, not when they had a poster of High School Musical pasted to their door surrounded in sticker stars and hearts. Second on the left was supposed to be his room, and just past that was the master bedroom. 

His room was a little bigger than the last one he remembered having. The walls were a pale yellow, impersonal and bland. It was split in half, almost like a mirror image - there were two dressers on opposite ends of the room, two twin-size beds leaning against the same wall, and a window over the single hardwood desk in the room. There was barely enough empty floor space left in the room for walking, but it wasn’t horribly cramped. When he turned around, he realised there was a partially filled bookshelf by the lamp, so it wasn’t too bare.

He was more focused on there being two beds, though.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to risk asking, because Harwick noticed where he was looking and decided to answer the unspoken question. “You’ll be sharing a room with another foster, he hasn’t gotten here yet, but he should be here by Tuesday.”

Great. Three whole days to himself, and one of them was New Years’, and after that he’d have someone in the same room as him watching him sleep, or snoring all night, or leaving their shit all over the floor. He couldn’t wait.

“Dinner’s at six. Be there.” Harwick said, and with that, he left Wilbur to unpack. He closed the door, but only part-way. He finally noticed the distinct lack of a lock on the door, and mentally heaved a sigh. This was going to suck.

Wilbur didn’t have much to unpack, which he felt like Harwick should have realised, seeing as he literally only had a messenger bag to carry things in and half of it was clothes. But he still pulled open the dresser closest to the door (faster escape route) and grabbed a handful of white hangers that had been left in there, presumably for him. 

He hung up his yellow sweater, the one that was nearly threadbare with a hole in the elbow, and his off-white tee. It was surprisingly difficult to hang up shirts one-handed, but he managed. The drawers were empty, so he picked the top one for socks and underwear, the middle one for whatever, and the bottom drawer for pants. 

He put his prescription bottle on top of the dresser, since there was nowhere else to put it, and shoved his now mostly-empty bag into the dresser behind the shirts. He had nothing to hide, but he didn’t want to look like he was cluttering up the room already.

Then, with nothing else to occupy his time with, he explored the room. Tested the window - it wasn’t good for jumping from, it had a screen and it was a long way down, but it opened - and opened all the drawers of the other dresser. There was nothing there, either. The desk wasn’t entirely empty, there were a couple college-ruled notebooks in one drawer and the long, flat drawer had a bunch of pens, pencils, and highlighters in it. Other than that, though, it was just as bare as everything else. The books on the bookshelf were all boring stuff, sports history and science fiction. 

Wilbur wished he still had his guitar. He might not have been able to play it with his right arm in a sling, but it would bring at least a little sense of familiarity to this empty room in a stranger’s house. 

At five fifty, Wilbur headed downstairs. 

The dining room was buzzing with activity; Harwick was in the kitchen with an apron tied around his waist, a turner in his hand and chicken sizzling in a pan. There was a trio of girls, each very different ages (one of them looked thirteen, one looked eleven, and the last looked six) but still undeniably siblings (they all had the same tanned skin and brown hair) sitting at the table, arguing very loudly about something. Mrs. Harwick was still nowhere to be seen.

Wilbur stood awkwardly by the entrance, trying not to be in the way of anyone entering or leaving, but also entirely uncertain about where he was meant to sit. The oldest girl glanced at him and rolled her eyes, pulling her ponytail tighter and walking past him for the third time in a row. The youngest eyed him with curiosity. 

Eventually, Harwick noticed him and said loudly - so he could be heard over the noise, “Sit wherever, we don’t have assigned seats. Girls! Introduce yourselves to William!”

The snooty oldest one glared at him, crossing her legs as she finally took a seat. With a show of great reluctance, she pointed to herself, “July,” her younger sister, “Anna,” and her youngest, “Dally.” 

Honestly, Anna looked like the least annoying out of the three of them. She was wearing shorts and a tank top and had her hair braided in twin braids over her shoulders, and when she looked at Wilbur she just brushed off his awkwardness and gestured towards the seat next to her. “Sit with me!”

It was a very loud dinner. 

Wilbur would’ve liked to spend the rest of the day holed up in his room, but from the look Harwick shot him when he started to go upstairs he got the feeling that doing so would be a mistake. So instead, he found himself curled up on the couch by the arm, watching some television show with the rest of the foster family while he tried to be as unobtrusive as possible without being difficult or “antisocial.”

Dally, the six year old who was actually seven years old (as she had vehemently declared when Wilbur tentatively asked how old she was), seemed to enjoy kicking Wilbur the entire time. She even adjusted so that she was laying on her back on the cushion next to him so that she was in prime kicking position, and went crazy. She was a kid, though, and she didn’t hit his bad arm so it was more annoying than anything.

He hated how loud they seemed to like their shows being, but they liked commentating on everything that happened and laughing when something even remotely funny happened, so in order for anyone to hear what was going on it had to be pretty loud. Even if it made Wilbur wince and pick at the loose thread in his sling to distract himself.

The next few days were mostly the same. Mrs. Harwick was nearly a ghost, appearing at ten at night and vanishing again at five in the morning. Harwick was a control freak, wanting everybody downstairs almost all the time so they could be a “family,” and the girls weren’t quite as bad as he thought they were, they were just loud. Loud and childish, but they weren’t even teenagers yet. 

It was the night before the new foster was meant to arrive, when Wilbur finally, actually screwed up. The New Years’ party was starting, and based on what he knew about the Harwicks so far he assumed he was meant to be downstairs when the guests arrived. He hadn’t noticed the distinct absence of the other kids until he heard muffled talking from upstairs. It sent a jolt of uncertainty through him, but before he could hurry back upstairs to remedy his mistake, Harwick came out of the kitchen and spied him on the couch.

The doorbell rang at the same time. He jerked his chin up at the stairs, anger flashing in his eyes, before turning to open the door. Wilbur scrambled upstairs, and from behind him he heard Harwick say brightly, “John! Anthony! So glad you could make it!” 

His tone harboured no hint of residual anger in it, but Wilbur knew better. He’d screwed up, and he was going to be dealt with later, because Harwick was having a party right now and couldn’t do anything until after it was over.

Anna shot him an unreadable look from the girls’ open room. She was sitting by the door. (It was blue-themed, with posters covering the walls, and there was a bunk bed and a twin against the far wall. More lived-in than his room, but they’d been here longer.) 

Wilbur bit his lip, asking her silently, What’s going to happen to me?

She shook her head and looked away. He wasn’t sure how to take that, but he knew it couldn’t be anything good. Hopefully Harwick went easy on him - he was still recovering from his stay in the hospital and it was his first offence, surely it couldn’t be that bad? Besides, the kid was coming tomorrow, and the kid would have a social worker with him. 

...

Technoblade Andrews wasn’t a bad kid. At least, that’s what his grandmother would tell anyone who would listen. She’d say he was endearing, endlessly loyal, and smart, and that he deserved the world. But she wasn’t alive to tell anyone anymore, so for all intents and purposes, Techno was a bad kid. 

He had pink hair, impulsively dyed one evening after one too many lingering glances at the dye in the gas station convenience store. It wasn’t very long, just past his shoulders, but he braided it when he could and pulled it up into a ponytail when he didn’t have the time, and not very many people appreciated that. 

Instead of listening to them, though, Techno had continued estranging himself. He wore dress shirts with the sleeves rolled up and the top button undone (at home he wore them properly) and combat boots (they doubled as dress shoes) that he had used to kick someone in the ribs more than once. 

He got into fights, so many fights that he would’ve been expelled a dozen times over if they cared any more than they did - which was to say, not at all. He’d gotten detention twice, and then they didn’t bother. 

His parents hadn’t wanted him when he was a kid, and they didn’t want him now. But his grandmother couldn’t very well be his legal guardian from beyond the grave, so now he was in the system. A brand-new foster kid with anger management issues and a history of violence. He knew there was no way this was going to turn out okay.

The agency workers seemed bent on trying to convince him otherwise. One in particular, the social worker he assumed had been assigned to his case (he really was just a number now), had taken it upon himself to sit him down on the awful leather couch in his office and talk about it until Techno agreed. 

“I’m sure you will find a very nice couple who have been waiting for someone just like you to join their family, and then all of this fuss will feel like nothing at all,” the man said gently. He was crouching to be at eye-level with Techno, weathered brown hands dangling between his knees and sagging eyelids pulled wide open with sincerity. Techno got it, he was trying to help, but he wished the guy would just leave him alone. 

It hadn’t even been a week since he found her, cold and unmoving in her bed on Christmas Eve. They hadn’t had the funeral yet. He wanted to lay down on that stupid bed they gave him and cry until he had no tears left. He wanted to stay there and sink into the mattress until he was nothing more than a motionless lump, staring a hole into the wall while he thumbed the spine of the book she’d been reading with him. 

The one they hadn’t finished.

But the workers forced him out of bed and nearly shoved food in his mouth, and even though it tasted like ash they wouldn’t leave him be until he’d swallowed, and then they would keep him out of his room to “socialise” with the other kids in the centre in an attempt to make him feel better. It was like the smallest hint that he was grieving was unacceptable. Either he had to smile or see a therapist, and he didn’t like either of those options.

He just nodded along with the social worker, zoning out until he’d finished his motivational speech. 

Four days later he was in the back of an old orange car, a suitcase in the trunk and his backpack on his lap, on his way to his first placement. 

His first thought upon seeing the fenced-in yard and the flag by the door was that they were conservative. Fine, whatever, it wasn’t that big of a deal as long as they didn’t spout nonsense or try dragging him to church. He was strictly atheist. 

There was an empty bottle of beer on the grass, nearly hidden in the corner by the porch step and the porch itself. Techno’s opinion of the house went down even further, but he didn’t say anything. Maybe he should have, but he could care less - he just wanted to live somewhere less stifling and endlessly chipper as the centre, and if that meant living with an alcoholic, so be it. Besides, New Years’ was just yesterday, so maybe it was just an occasional incident.

But there was a loud conversation going on behind the door, complete with laughter and shrieking, and Techno knew he was going to hate it here. 

The social worker waited for him to knock on the door, but Techno just stood there, hands in his pockets and staring at him with a blank expression. He wasn’t going to knock unless the man made him. Unsurprisingly, the social worker stepped up and knocked himself, knuckles rapping against the screen door. 

Techno stood back as a bearded man in a baseball cap and a bright blue shirt answered the door. He frowned as the conversation behind the man died down. 

“Hello, Mr. Harwick,” the social worker greeted first, holding out a hand that was firmly grasped and shaken.

“Hello, come in, the house is a bit of a mess right now but it’s not usually like this, so please ignore it.” He stepped aside to let them in. Techno followed the social worker inside and immediately locked eyes with the trio of kids in the living room, who looked back at him in varying measures of interest. “I didn’t know Technoblade was a girl, sorry, I must’ve read her file wrong.”

Techno’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything, just stuttered in his walk and continued into the dining room, where they were apparently going to do their conversation. He hated this already, so he distracted himself by examining the room and tuning out the social worker and his new legal guardian. 

The walls were plain and white, covered in photographs of people playing various sports and a couple jerseys in picture frames, and the dinner table looked so sharply rectangular that if he tripped and fell on a corner he would probably be impaled. The tiles were smooth and clean, but the trash had recently been taken out and there were no dishes in the sink, so he didn’t know what it would be like when they weren’t trying to pass inspection.

When Techno started following the conversation again he noticed that every so often, Harwick would glance over at Techno with his nose wrinkled in poorly disguised distaste. He stared back defiantly, and Harwick finally averted his eyes. 

The social worker left to examine the rest of the house, and Harwick took the opportunity to go over house rules. 

One, he was supposed to call Harwick either by his first name or by “Mr.”

Two, he was supposed to do his own laundry, clean up the house on Thursdays, and make breakfast in the mornings. 

Three, he was supposed to be respectful, and he wasn’t allowed in anyone else’s rooms. 

Curfew was at eight, and Harwick was going to take him to get a haircut as soon as possible, because he didn’t support homosexuality. It was perverted and disgusting, apparently.

Now, Techno wasn’t gay - but he wasn’t exactly straight, either, and he wasn’t about to let anyone touch his hair. He gave Harwick a look that said: You can get me to the barber’s, but you can’t get a pair of shears anywhere near me. Try it and see what happens.

Harwick glared back, daring him to contest it. 

Briefly, when the social worker had come back downstairs, Harwick was nice again, but as soon as he was out the front door Harwick grabbed Techno by the arm and said, “That’s final. Do you understand?”

The kids were watching from the living room. Techno was distinctly aware that there was a right answer and a very wrong answer here, but he wasn’t going to back down. It was his hair, and Harwick was an idiot for thinking he could force him to do anything he didn’t want to do. Even if the guy was buff, it was all show-muscle, the kind that Techno knew had come from weightlifting at the gym and not years of getting into fights with people bigger than he was. 

(He still wouldn’t win that fight, but he could at least put up a fight. He could give Harwick a black eye and a broken nose.)

Techno slowly, deliberately, shook his head, never breaking eye-contact. He didn’t like making eye-contact, but it was useful. 

Harwick’s grip tightened, fingers digging into his arm, then loosened, as if he’d reconsidered what he was going to do. “One mistake,” he said lowly. “One mistake, Technoblade, and I’m chopping it off. I will not have faggots in my house.”

Techno nodded once. 

“Answer me verbally.”

“Fine.”

Harwick glared.

“Yes, sir.” Techno said. He rolled his eyes.

When Harwick finally let him go and led him to the stairs, the kids in the living room stared at Techno with such an intensity that he knew that, in their eyes, he’d done the unthinkable by standing up to their dad. He also got the distinct sense that he’d done something horribly wrong, but he chose to ignore that one for now.

Harwick showed him where his room was and left. 

“Dinner is at six, don’t bother showing up because you’re not getting anything.” 

Techno pushed open the door, only to freeze when the teenager on the bed (he didn’t know he was sharing a room) snapped his head up to stare at him. They just kind of… stared at each other for a long moment, taking each other in. 

The guy was probably Techno’s age, at least. He looked similar to the girls downstairs, but not quite similar enough to be related. Curly brown hair, pale skin - not as pale as Techno - and a straight nose with red indents from wearing glasses and a straight jaw. He was wearing an old yellow sweater, his arm was in a blue and white sling, and there were poorly concealed bruises in a ring around his wrist. His socks had holes in them. There was an open book in his lap, halfway through. 

Techno stepped inside and shut the door, moving past the guy on the bed and to the second bed in the room, which he assumed was his, unless he had a second roommate and he was supposed to sleep on the carpet or something. He dropped his suitcase on the bed alongside his backpack and threw a casual wave towards the guy so he wouldn’t think Techno was ignoring him. Which he was.

“Hello,” the guy said, sounding a little bit lost. Techno glanced back at him, and he continued, “Uh. My name is Wilbur, or William, but I prefer Wilbur.”

“Technoblade. Techno. I don’t like talking so don’t make me.”

The guy - Wilbur, he supposed - nodded in acknowledgement. Techno, deciding that this conversation was done with, pulled open the dresser on his side of the room, and upon finding it empty he unzipped his suitcase and started putting his clothes away. He hadn’t been allowed to bring much from his old room, but he had maybe four complete outfits and a spare hoodie. (The most important thing was his books. Only the ones his grandmother had read with him, the ones filled with notes scrawled in the margins and sticky notes when they ran out of room, and the one they hadn’t gotten to finish.)

But Wilbur started talking again. 

“Be careful,” he said quietly. “This isn’t one of the good ones.”

He’d probably heard Harwick revoke his eating privileges, then. Techno wasn’t really scared of whatever Harwick thought he could do to him - one missed meal was hardly going to hurt him - but he did admit that he could have been a little more cautious. If nothing else, it was nice to know that Wilbur seemed to be on his side. 

Chapter Text

Wilbur hated Technoblade.

The water in Wilbur’s cup, straight from the tap because he didn’t want soda and he didn’t want to ask, sloshed against the rim of the glass as he brought it to his lips with a shaking hand. He set it down quickly and clenched his fist against his thigh as he tried to quell his nerves. His nails dug into his palm. He kept his head down, squeezing his eyes shut for a long moment.

“-and Carly said I couldn’t play with her, because I wouldn’t give her my rainbow eraser in class, but she always digs her pencil into erasers so I said no-”

“Shut up, Dally! You’re just being a baby, Carly will play with you tomorrow.”

“Nathannnn!” Dally whined. “July’s being mean!”

Wilbur flinched as Harwick laughed, hard and loud, and took a shaky breath as subtly as he could to try and pull himself together. He felt Anna kick him under the table, a backwards sort of silent reassurance, and he forced himself to peel his eyes open again and stretch his mouth into some semblance of a smile before someone else noticed.

It was just dinner. He was freaking out over dinner, for no reason at all. They had dinner every day, it was the same every day - he had no excuse. 

Technoblade, on the other hand, had an excuse not to be here apparently, because he had joined every single club Westview Central High School had to offer and didn’t get home until 7 due to  bussing and traffic. He was, allegedly, doing Soccer, as well as ASB, PBIS, Track and Field, and Senior Club. He probably would’ve joined the Performing Arts club, and all the rest, if that wouldn’t have given Harwick an aneurism. 

Silently, Wilbur thought it was complete and utter bullshit. He was 98% sure that Technoblade ditched half the time, only attending often enough that he didn’t get kicked out. But maybe he had the right idea, minimising the time he had to spend in the house. (And in return, keeping Harwick as pleasant as it was possible for him to be.)

“Hey!” Harwick barked, snapping his fingers and making Wilbur jerk his head up. “Eat your food, I don’t have to make it every day.”

“Yessir.”

Wilbur fumbled with his fork and stabbed it into the cubed yams and potatoes on his plate. He shoved it into his mouth, and only let his shoulders slump when he felt Harwick’s eyes leave him. 

He got the feeling that it was supposed to be easier to realise what Harwick wanted from him, but sometimes he felt like he was walking on a bed of nails, only some of them were missing and he had to judge whether or not his next step would sink. He had a bit of a mental list, an old habit that had been eagerly revived, but there were always asterisks and footnotes and exceptions and it was impossible to keep up. But the other kids knew. Somehow, they always knew what was expected of them, so he kept trying.

School was different. Westview Central was full of pretentious kids who thought they had a right to whatever crossed their fancy, and the teachers were oblivious assholes, but at least it had rules that he understood. Rules like be respectful and don’t talk in class and no running in the hallways, and the unspoken rules like don’t talk to the popular kids and don’t talk to the unpopular kids, which just kind of translated to avoiding everyone. 

He’d been right, though - he was stuck back in all the Sophomore courses, even though he was old enough to be a Senior. It sucked, too, because everyone knew it, and they’d even found out why. Some of them just whispered about it behind his back. Others called him a hobo to his face and laughed. (He didn’t know which one was worse.) The teachers did nothing, except half of them treated him like he'd been raised by wolves and used gentle voices and gave him careful leniency, while the other half gave him extra work to “make up” for the year and a half he’d missed. 

(He’d gotten slammed into a locker yesterday, and he still wasn’t quite sure it wasn’t on purpose.)

Wilbur carried his lunch tray from the cafeteria to the courtyard, strategically keeping his eyes to the floor, and made a beeline for the thin tree by the library. It was the safest place he could think of, because the librarian was a nice woman who didn't tolerate discrimination, and anyone who tried to mess with him would be in full view of the window. 

He lowered himself down carefully, setting down his tray first so that he could use his good hand to sit down. It wasn’t good food by any means - everything tasted soggy and raw - but he ate it anyway, just in case he wouldn't get dinner today. 

Fuck if he knew where Technoblade was right now. Probably living it up in whichever teacher’s classroom the rest of the jocks were hanging out in, just like he’d done yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. He still didn’t know how Technoblade could be such a stereotypical buff guy while having long, pink hair and a dressing style reminiscent of a casual billionaire, but he seemed to manage just fine. It seemed like everyone knew Technoblade by now, and it had been, what, a week, eight days at most. 

For the love of god, Wilbur still barely knew any of his classmates’ names, and the ones he did know he only knew from the teachers taking roll call. And he was an extrovert! He thrived on talking to people! Technoblade was just so inherently intriguing that everyone wanted to know about him, and he was so accomplished that once they did know who he was they were impressed. When they knew who Wilbur was they just scrunched up their nose or shifted uncomfortably, because either they were disgusted or pitying and there was nothing in between.

According to the rumours flying around, Technoblade had gotten into a fistfight with the most popular kid on Day Number Two, beaten him, and was seen talking in the hallways with the guy during passing periods the next day. There were also rumours about Technoblade being in a gang, beating up kids for money at his last school, and being able to throw back straight vodka like it was nothing, and even though Wilbur knew rumours were usually not the most accurate way to get a feel for someone’s character, he had his suspicions. 

He picked at his shitty lunch food with a little more bitterness than was entirely warranted.

“Can I sit next to you?”

Wilbur looked up, surprised to find that there was anyone talking to him, let alone asking him for permission to sit next to him. The girl had short, red hair - it looked natural - and freckles all over her face, but the second thing he noticed was that she was wearing a baggy T-shirt that said, in simple, blocky letters: murder. Nothing else, no context, no picture, just - murder. He blinked.

“Um, ‘course,” He ended up saying. 

She sighed in relief, swinging her backpack down on the grass and plopping down a couple feet away. “Cool, because all the other trees are taken and I didn’t really feel like sitting in the sun or the fucking cafeteria.” She said, shuddering as though the very thought was repulsive. Then she did a complete 180, flashing a bright grin at Wilbur and sticking out a hand. “I’m Sally Fischer, what’s your name?”

“Wilbur Soot.” He set down the flimsy plastic fork that came with the tray and shook her hand hesitantly. “Nice to meet you?”

“Thank you, it is nice to meet me, isn’t it?”

He laughed, cheeks slowly but steadily heating up the longer they talked. When the bell rang, obnoxiously insistent, he waved goodbye and found himself looking forward to seeing her again. 

(Attachment was dangerous; he knew that better than most. Attachment meant that leaving hurt, and leaving wasn’t supposed to hurt, because sometimes leaving was the best option he had. If Harwick did anything crazy, he had to be able to turn and run without another thought. But he couldn’t help but wonder if having just one friend here would be such a bad thing.)

…

“Who’s that?” Dream asked, following Techno’s eyes to the skinny, yellow-sweater brunette rushing past them in the hall. Dream was a huge fan of his, in his own words, ever since Techno had given him a black eye and a broken finger. He’d taken one look at him and thought it would be fun to challenge him to a fight - winner got a twenty - and then had the audacity to be surprised when Techno totally obliterated him. 

“I don’t know.” Techno lied, swallowing as he prepared to speak. “I got here literally last week, Dream. I’m not that hypersocial.”

That got a laugh out of him. “Blade, you’re less social than a rock.”

Techno shrugged.

You’re kinda provin’ my point here, he might have said.

The subject was dropped, and after parting ways with the rest of Dream’s friend group, they started down the hall themselves. Techno pulled open the door to their shared fourth period, holding it for Dream and letting it swing shut behind them unceremoniously. They were late. Most of the kids were already there, talking in their groups as they waited for the teacher to announce the beginning of class. He could honestly care less, so he just followed Dream to the back of the classroom and grabbed a chair.

There were a couple other kids there already, a short latino boy with electric blue hair and a ridiculously tall white boy with glasses and light brown hair. Dream’s golden-blonde hair and Techno’s long pink hair made their group rather diverse in that aspect. Dream introduced them as Skeppy and Bad, respectively, and roll call did anything but confirm that. (Then again, “Dream” was just a nickname for a rather bland one, and “Blade” was less personal than “Techno,” so it wasn’t as surprising as it could’ve been.)

The teacher, whose name mattered even less, began her lecture on early civilisations, so he pulled out his notebook before he missed any important information.

Each page of it was organised very deliberately, with each subject scribbled across the top and paired with a number. Then, he wrote down everything the teacher said in a large block of words with absolutely zero breaks in it, writing little numbers at the end of his sentences to match with the subject they pertained to. The margins were for doodling and the top of the page was for all the key words, events, and dates. 

It was anything but conventional, but he hated doing it the way the schools taught it and he got better grades than everyone else, anyway, so he really didn’t see the point in switching.

“You actually pay attention?” Skeppy said, laughing incredulously as he leaned over Techno’s desk, twisting his head so he could see his notes. Techno shrugged. Skeppy snickered and sat back down in his chair, and Bad promptly elbowed him in the ribs. 

“Be nice, Skeppy,” he said.

“But he takes notes. Who the fuck actually takes notes in class?” 

“Language!”

Dream wheezed, and Techno fought the urge to cringe back, uncomfortably reminded of their close proximity. At his old school - wait, he really didn’t want to think about that - most classrooms had desks that were separated, evenly spaced, to prevent cheating and talking. He’d never been a big fan of change.

After school he had practice, which was great because he desperately needed to get a hang of how soccer actually worked before his first game. He knew he wasn’t supposed to touch the ball with his hands and he vaguely remembered learning how to properly kick in elementary school, but the only reason he’d gotten in was because he was physically fit and the team had recently lost a player. He just had to be better than a flaky drug addict and he’d get to stick around.

(When he’d told Harwick he’d made the soccer team - not because he cared what he thought, more out of spite than anything - Harwick had patted his shoulder and bought him cleats in silent approval. Techno hated that he was doing anything Harwick approved of, but if he was going to get free stuff he wasn’t going to complain.)

As it turned out, Dream was also on the soccer team. He seemed like he’d made it his own personal mission to forcibly adopt (ha) Techno into his group of friends, and the way things were going, it wasn’t going to be long before he’d have to accept this as his new reality. Fortunately, though, the coach had taken pity on Techno and reprimanded Dream for talking to him instead of focusing on the drills, and the rest of practice went a little smoother. Apart from the fact that everyone got in a good laugh at him at least once.

“You call that footwork?”

“I call it tripping.”

After practice, Techno had about an hour and a half before he’d be expected back at Harwick’s place, thanks to a couple lies about timing and his ability to change back into his regular clothes and speedrun social interaction in under five minutes, so he pulled up the location of the diner on Second Street on his phone and started walking. 

This was his second job interview this week, and he hadn’t heard back from the first place (the tiny pharmacy two blocks down) but he wasn’t about to put all his eggs in one basket, so. 

It wasn’t like he needed to get the job. Harwick, for all his faults, fed his fosters twice a day and a third if they were good and not Techno. He had a roof over his head, clothes on his back, and less than half a year before he graduated high school. Then he had a few more months, and he’d be eighteen and home-free! But Techno couldn’t shake the itching feeling in his skin that Harwick’s hand had left behind, and he didn’t know what it was or what it meant, but it made him feel terrifyingly exposed. 

He wanted - no, he needed to stay out of that house as much as he possibly could. If that meant juggling eight-hour night shifts, soccer, school, and clubs, he would do it. He would prove to Harwick that he could do it, that he was better than him, with all his shining trophies and ignorant confidence. And no matter what he thought, Techno was not less than him.

And maybe, just a little bit of it was a distraction from the emptiness in his chest his Nana had once filled. 

The thought hit him heavily, slowing his step as he blinked away the sudden pooling in his eyes until he pushed it away again, locked up in a little box so tight that the pain would never escape. There was no room for that now.

…

“You’re home early,” Wilbur said drily, hearing the front door creak open from the kitchen sink, one elbow deep in soap and water, while the other still lay slung across his chest. (It was getting better. He couldn’t use it for very long, and it hurt like a bitch, but he hoped he could lose the sling by the end of the month.) 

He glanced over to see Technoblade shut the front door with his heel, pull off his shoes one at a time, and put them on the rack. He didn’t answer, which was on par for the course for him, and left, heading upstairs with barely more than the faint padding of his socked feet as a goodbye.

He rolled his eyes. 

…

Techno woke up to a dark room and a strange choking sound. His first thought was a rat, but when his brain caught up to him he realised that it was coming from Wilbur, who was curled up on his bed, facing the wall, and sobbing so quietly he had to be actively stifling it. He hesitated, unsure of what to do - ignore it? go back to sleep? He was decidedly the worst person to be Wilbur’s only option for comfort here.

A wet hiccup, and another strangled sob. Screw it. Techno slipped out of his bed as quietly as he could, and for a brief moment, he just stood there, staring at his foster brother’s shaking form. 

He felt like an intruder, like he wasn’t supposed to see this. Knowing Wilbur - even as little as he did - he wasn’t.

Techno didn’t really get nightmares. He didn’t dream much in general, and when he did it was brief and nonsensical. But lying in bed some nights felt like when everything came crashing down and his thoughts spiralled out of his control because there was nothing to halt its movement, catch on something and distract him.

It was just quiet, and dark.

When he had panic attacks at night, it had always been Artie, his high-and-mighty white-pawed tabby cat, who curled up at his side until he could breathe again. He wanted to be able to give Wilbur the same comfort, so he reached out, hand hovering over his shoulder. 

Wilbur curled up tighter. He pulled his hand back, close to his chest, and stepped away. Soundlessly, he returned to his own bed, pretending he couldn’t hear Wilbur crying himself back to sleep.

…

There was a music class. Wilbur discovered this far later than he felt was entirely justified, one day when Sally hadn’t been able to join him for lunch out under the tree. There was a music class, with a few stray kids hanging out in the corner and a scruffy-haired, middle-aged man with his feet kicked up at the head of the room, and instruments almost cluttering the room. He almost dared to relax, more at home surrounded by music than any house’s walls could offer, but someone shot him a poorly concealed grimace, and he lowered his gaze again.

But not before catching sight of a guitar, propped up by the wall.

Against his better judgement, Wilbur made a beeline across the room, only taking a moment to look around for its owner before the teacher caught his eye and gave him a nod. He needed no further encouragement; he plucked it up and sank into the nearest chair, settling its smooth black frame over his knee and letting his hand curl around its neck. He almost froze, suddenly uncertain, but no one ripped it out of his hands, and the music teacher seemed interested, so he tentatively ran his thumb down the strings, letting the buzzing chord break the silence around him.

He winced, and tried again. It came out clear.

“Can you play?” Someone asked, wearing a blue beanie and skinny jeans and looking at him with a friendly smile that he - that he had honestly grown used to not receiving, pretty much ever.

“I’d say so,” Wilbur said, trying not to sound prideful, but it was hard when his skill with guitar was the only thing he was proud of himself for. It had been the only thing keeping him alive and (somewhat) well for a long time.

“Do you know Los Campesinos?” 

As a matter of fact, he did. He couldn’t remember the exact chords for the song he was thinking of, so he ended up asking someone to look it up. Then, just when they were beginning to lose interest - he had become finely attuned to the mood of his crowds - he began.

“Darling, I’m with Saint Bernard’s…”

Romance is Boring wasn’t one of the songs he usually sang. It hadn’t really gotten him much attention, and when he’d relied on attention to pay for his next meal, it wasn’t really something he could afford to discard. 

He’d had his fair share of crowds. Good ones, small ones, ones of people who sang along, and ones of people who watched from a distance and left when he finished. He knew how to play with attention just as fluently as he could play his guitar. When a performance wasn’t going well, he knew how to drag it out of the water and onto the shore and salvage what he’d lost; when it was rolling, he knew how to push, how to pull, how to keep it going and going and bring it to a close just before the enthusiasm began to wane. 

He wasn’t busking, though. He was just playing, and that in itself - it was intoxicating. 

When he looked up, confident enough in his fingers to remember what they were doing without watching them, the beanie kid was beaming - looking around, as if asking are you hearing this? to his friends - and the music teacher was watching him with rapt interest. Wilbur’s eyes caught on his fingers, tapping along. He smiled - if this was his new crowd, it was a damn good one.

…

The diner’s kitchen was bustling, the clattering of dishes and the air abuzz with orders shouted from the front and affirmations shouted back. It was loud, the very definition of organised chaos, and needless to say every squeak of shoes on tile felt like it was scraping against Techno’s skull. He hated it. 

Still, though, it was a good paycheck. 

“So you’re going to want to be as efficient as possible, right?” Katelynn said, speaking loudly to be heard over the noise. She was the employee assigned to show him the ropes, help him figure out what he was supposed to do for the first couple days. If it weren’t for her constant presence, Techno would definitely be curled up on the floor, crying uncontrollably, by now. (He wasn't built for this - but he couldn’t exactly break down in front of someone.)

“Just spray the plates down, scrub, and pass them over.”

Techno nodded seriously, though internally he was taken aback by how violently Katelynn washed dishes (and, in turn, how violently she expected him to wash dishes). 

Harwick didn’t know he had a job. As willing as Techno was to sneak out at six nights a week, maybe he should have figured that in a house of five others, each just as likely to be up late for a glass of water, it would be less risky to just get permission. 

But Harwick wouldn’t have given him that permission. He seemed almost possessive about his responsibility to feed, clothe, and shelter them. They were supposed to eat everything he gave them, and if they didn’t they were ungrateful. They were supposed to be home every night for the same reason. Techno doubted that telling Harwick that he was getting a job and that he was going to be able to provide for himself would have ended well. 

Techno grabbed a tray and sprayed it down, scrubbing and passing it over; five seconds. He tried again, fumbling to be faster; three seconds. Katelynn shot him a grin.

Four hours a night, from one to five, with just enough time to stuff his uniform in the back of a drawer and head back downstairs to cook breakfast. (Too easy, and Harwick frowned, so he needed enough time to actually prepare something just in case Harwick decided to make it a thing. Fair was fair, though, and Techno had cooked for his Nana, too, for a while after things started going wrong. It wasn’t the worst chore he could have been paired with.)

When he got home, softly easing the bedroom door open, Wilbur was awake.