Archive of Our Own

Linda Smith was a very hard worker, thank you very much. She completed all the tasks assigned to her by her boss, and did so in a timely manner. She prided herself on being one of the best remote workers for the company she was employed by and had no need to go into the actual work building— she got by just fine in her own office space.


Everyone in the office was normal, quite as Linda happened to be. They were all quiet, and busy, and doing their work. She interacted with her fellow office dwellers every so often, talking with Kathy the accountant in the kitchen or exchanging pleasantries with John the freelancer as the two passed each other in the hallway.

However, there was one person in the office building she had never interacted with, and frankly didn’t care to ever speak to.

The young man in the space across from Linda’s office couldn’t be older than his late 20’s. He was tall and lanky, usually entering his office at strange hours and sometimes bringing a cast of characters with him.

He was . . . strange, to say the very least. Linda had many times heard him shouting at people on the other end of whatever call he was on, but never in an angry manner. In fact, he seemed to always be messing around, never getting any actual work done. She had listened in as he called people “fuckfaces” and referred to someone called “Chat.” 

Linda tried her very best to just ignore the weird man, though she couldn’t help but wonder what his actual job was. She didn’t dare knock on his door and ask— in fact, she was slightly intimidated by the man, and thus she kept her distance. 

At least, she tried to keep her distance.

It was a strange night when she finally did interact with the man across the hall. She had been in the office building quite late, staying up to finish a last minute task, when she had decided she absolutely needed some coffee. She found herself heading towards the kitchen, practically dragging herself there from how exhausted she was. Right before she turned the corner to enter the common area, she heard a voice.

“Shit! Fuck! Balls!”

Linda jumped, awfully startled. She froze in her tracks as she attempted to process what she had just heard. After a moment, she realized that it was most certainly the man from across the hallway— who else would be in the building so late at night?

With a deep breath, Linda dared to step around the corner and into the kitchen. Surprisingly, however, she didn’t find the man from across the hall. No, this man was younger, no older than nineteen, and blond. He was standing at the sink, running cold water over the hand he had obviously burned on the kettle. What was quite curious was that the blond was wearing a sweater quite similar to the types the strange man would wear.

The blond man didn’t seem to notice Linda and, before she could say a word, the man from across the hall came barreling in. He also ignored the woman, instead rushing right to the blond.

“Are you okay, love? I heard you shout from down the hall!” the brunet man asked, and Linda found herself caught up on the pet name that had easily fallen from the man’s mouth.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m all good,” muttered the shorter one. “Just burned my hand.”

The brunet man seemed relieved, but that didn’t stop him from taking the blond’s hand and inspecting it. He looked at it for a few seconds before being seemingly satisfied with what he saw.

“I have some bandages and burn cream back in my office— we can put that on once we’re back.”

The blond nodded in agreement to that, a loving smile on his face. He took his hand out from under the water, wincing at the pain, and stood as the taller man took the kettle and poured cups of tea for both of them.

“Quackity called,” the man from across the hall said as he handed his friend— his lover? — a mug. “He wants to talk to us about lore since we’re finishing up our storylines.”

“We can talk to him once we get back.”

Realizing the two were about to leave, Linda shot around the corner and headed back to her office, coffee long forgotten as she reflected on the conversation she had witnessed. There were only two things on her mind.

‘What the fuck is a Quackity?’ and ‘I have to tell Kathy the accountant about this.’

⭔⭔⭔

Kathy hummed a small tune as she strolled into the office building. It was late in the morning, as she had allowed herself to sleep in a bit, and she knew she didn’t have too much to do that day, which was always reassuring. She felt energized and ready to tackle the day as she strolled down the hallway towards her office. 

“Psst, Kathy!” someone whisper-shouted at her. Kathy, caught off guard, turned to see Linda hovering in the doorway of her office. She looked around for a moment, trying to figure out what was going on, but cautiously began to approach the door as Linda frantically motioned for her to come forwards.

Once she was closer, Linda grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the office, closing the door behind them. Kathy found herself quite taken aback, staring at Linda with wide eyes and a questioning gaze.

“There’s another one,” Linda breathed out almost manically. 

“I- what?” Kathy stuttered out. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“The weird guy from across the hall!” Linda exclaimed, like that was a full explanation. “There’s another one– and I think they’re friends or . . . uh . . . dating.”

Kathy sighed, trying to piece together what the story was. “Please just explain this from the beginning.”

Linda took a deep breath, attempting to calm herself down enough to get the words out. “I was here late last night and I went to the breakroom to get some coffee, but there was some guy in there that I’ve never seen before. He burned his hand and shouted, and then the weird guy from down the hall came rushing in and started helping him, but he was calling the new guy pet names.”

“Did they say anything to you?”

“They didn’t notice me before I left.”

Kathy couldn’t help but bury her head in her hands. She knew very well how rambunctious the man down the hall was, and the thought of having another person like him at their office was . . . unpleasant, to say the least.

“What should we do?” Linda asked.

“Just try to keep an eye on them, I suppose,” Kathy suggested. “There hasn’t been anything bad enough to report yet– besides that lad being a tad loud– but we’ll just make sure they don’t do anything that’s worth a report.”

Linda nodded in agreement, and that was that.

-

For the rest of the day, Kathy did her best to push the thought of the strange men down the hall out of her mind. She did her usual work, completely focused on the numbers, and paid no mind to the questions she had about the new guy.

Around four pm, she decided that she wanted a Diet Coke from the supply she kept in the breakroom fridge. So, she made her way down the hallway and to the small room containing just a small kitchen and a table with chairs around it. She opened the fridge door and grabbed her soda, closing it just as she heard footsteps enter the room.

“Oh! Hello!” she heard someone greet. Kathy quickly whipped around to look at whoever was there, finding herself face to face with a young man with curly blond hair. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

It hit her suddenly that this must be the new guy that Linda was telling her about, as well that this was her chance to find out who he was.

“I’m Kathy,” she introduced herself, stepping forwards to offer her hand out. “I do freelance accounting.”

The blond smiled at her and shook her hand. “I’m Tom.”

The two pulled away after a moment and Kathy couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t mentioned what he does for work.

“What are you in the office for?”

“It’s, uh . . . kind of hard to explain,” he muttered, cheeks flushing. “I basically make internet content based around video games. I’ve been looking for somewhere to work outside of the house recently and my boyfriend, Wil, insisted I get an office in the same building as him.”

‘Oh, so he’s a games journalist?’ Kathy thought, ‘That would make sense for someone so young.’

“Wil?” she questioned aloud. “Is he the tall guy with the brown hair down the hall?”

“Yeah– you know him?”

Kathy shook her head. “Not personally, but he’s quite the character around here, always at the office at strange hours and sometimes bringing random people with him, not to mention he’s never dressed very formally.”

Tom looked a bit abashed on Wil’s behalf, even glancing down at his own outfit of jeans and a sweater for a moment. “Yeah, we’re in the same career and our jobs are very loose when it comes to that sort of stuff.”

Kathy nodded in acceptance before glancing down to her watch and noticing the time. “I’ve gotta go, I’ve got a call with a client in just a few minutes.”

“No worries,” Tom replied with a friendly grin. “It was lovely to meet you.”

“You as well,” Kathy replied hurriedly as she exited the breakroom. She rushed back to her office, determined to send Linda an email about the encounter with Tom before her meeting so as to not forget any of the details.

⭔⭔⭔

As John walked into the office for the first time since he went off vacationing for a week, he was immediately bombarded by Kathy and Linda, the two dragging him to a secluded corner of the lobby. The security guard, Paul, sent them a strange look, but didn’t stop the two women from cornering John and babbling about something that he couldn’t quite make out.

“Wait- slow down!” John exclaimed, making both Kathy and Linda go quiet. “What’s going on?”

Kathy and Linda gave each other a quick glance before Linda spoke up. “You know the weird guy from down the hall?” 

John couldn’t help the confusion that made itself known across his expression. “What about him?”

“Well, it turns out his name is Wil,” Kathy told him.

“And he’s got a boyfriend named Tom, who now has an office in the same hall,” Linda continued.

John’s eyes widened as he processed the new information. “How did you find this all out?”

“I saw them in the breakroom the other night,” Linda explained.
“And I talked to Tom,” Kathy added. “He told me that he does ‘online content centered around video games,’ which I think means he’s a video game journalist– plus he said that Wil is in the same industry.”

John couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “You guys found out all this info while I was gone? This is more than we’ve figured out in the entire time ‘Wil’ has worked in our building.”

Kathy nodded frantically. “It’s crazy, I know, but it’s all completely true.”

John let out a sigh, but didn’t argue. He trusted Kathy and Linda, and he believed them when they made their crazy claims.

-

Throughout his day, John hadn’t actually gotten the chance to speak to Wil nor Tom, though he did see them. He had watched the two walk down the hall together, chatting quietly to each other and laughing at something that John couldn’t hear. Besides that, he had seen through the window on his door as Tom walked down the corridor towards the breakroom and then back again. He tried his best not to pay attention to them, focusing on his copywriting, but he couldn’t help the way his mind lingered.

All of the info Kathy and Linda had given him was intriguing, and he always loved a bit of gossip. These two mysterious men were the best material the rumor mill in the building had been given in ages. John wanted to know more about them, curious about how the two had met, considering their apparent age difference. He was also drawn in by the fact one of them seemed to bring in several characters to whatever strange things he did in his office, and both of the men seemed to be doing something quite eccentric in their spaces, considering all the shouting.
He remembered the brunet one, Wil, walking into the office one night with a dark-haired man in a beanie and a bottle of wine, the two leaving a couple hours later, both obviously a little drunk. He was certain it was only a matter of time until Tom started bringing people as well. Beyond that, Tom was always very . . . shouty. He had heard the blond cussing people out and yelling about who even knows what, though it all sounded lighthearted and in good fun.

John was finally won over by his curiosity, and decided he wanted at least a quick peek into their offices to see what the two were up to. With that, he stood up from his chair and stretched out for a moment, before making his way out of his office space. 

John began to walk down the corridor towards the bathrooms, which were on the other end of the hallway, past both Tom and Wil’s offices. He walked slowly, taking his sweet time, as he passed by the first one, Tom’s space. A quick peek in through the small window on the door revealed that the room was completely empty, the lights turned off and everything. A bit disappointed, John continued his walk down the hall.

Finally, he reached Wil’s room. He passed by at a snail’s pace, turning his head just slightly to see what was going on inside. He nearly froze in his tracks as he processed the scene inside the office.

The items on the desk, including a microphone and a keyboard, were pushed off to the side to make room for Tom, who was sitting with his legs spread apart. Wil was standing in between his thighs, hands holding steady on the blond’s hips. Tom’s fingers were tangled up in brunet locks, tugging just a tiny bit, and the two men had their foreheads pressed together. The two seemed totally caught up in each other as their lips pressed together. John quickly began to scurry away as their kiss deepened, realizing that he was most definitely intruding and that he didn’t want to see if the two went any further.

Completely abandoning the plan to use going to the loo as a coverup, John rushed down the hall back towards his office. Within seconds, he was closing the door behind himself and collapsing down on his desk chair. He took a moment to breathe, going over everything he had just seen, before turning to his computer and opening his email to send a message to Kathy and Linda.

The office rumor mill was gonna love this one.

⭔⭔⭔

Despite popular belief, Paul the security guard was not oblivious. He was well aware of everything going on at the office block he worked at– he had to be if he wanted to make sure the tenants were not disturbing the peace. Most of the people in the offices chose to believe that Paul didn’t hear them, but that was utterly false. While wandering the halls, Paul heard the lawyers arguing with their clients and the business partners discussing their lacking finances and, of course, all of the office building gossip.

Most of the gossip wasn’t very exciting, just rumors about tenants leaving the office because their business went bankrupt or who stole someone else’s lunch from the breakroom fridge. It was all rather dull, but Paul still wanted to hear it, just to keep himself entertained during his long hours.

The most exciting new change to the office was when one ‘William Gold’ became a tenant. He was a . . . rather strange man, both with his appearance and his mannerisms. He was tall– taller than anyone should be, in Paul’s opinion– and dressed himself in lots of sweaters, including sweaters with American presidents on them. Beyond that, nobody could figure out what he did for work. Paul had passed by his office quite often, always looking for something interesting going on in the building, and found him doing anything from ranting about his hatred for anteaters to playing songs on his guitar.

It only became more fascinating when ‘Tom Simons’ became a tenant, on the recommendation of William. The two appeared to be close friends, often coming into the office at the same time and always leaving together. Tom was just as weird as Wil, with a similar fashion sense and even louder shouting in his office. Paul was quick to admit that he was fascinated by the two men, and hoped that they would spark the rumor mill.

It wasn’t long after Tom became a tenant that Linda, Kathy, and John– all from the same floor as Tom and Wil– began gossiping in the lobby, within earshot of Paul. Of course, he didn’t stop them, eagerly listening in as they discussed the discovery that Tom and Wil were lovers, and that they were apparently video game journalists, a job that Paul supposed made sense but still didn’t quite explain their eccentric yelling.

It seemed that John, Kathy, and Linda had formed a sort of clique dedicated entirely to finding out more information about Wil and Tom, and Paul wanted in. He had access to quite a lot of info about the two tenants, and he wanted all the gossip that the others could give him. 

And, thus, he sat down at his desk in the lobby and pulled up the tenants’ contact list, adding Linda, Kathy, and John to an email chain. With his decision to join their little clique in mind, he began to write his email. He only got a sentence into his writing before he heard a ‘ding!’ and the elevator doors opened up. As if they knew that they were being referenced in writing, Tom and William walked out, chattering amongst themselves.

“Are you serious?” Tom asked, tone excited and a large grin across his face.

William, looking abashed, nodded. “Only if you want to! I would never pop the question without discussing everything with you first– my mum always told me that the proposal should be a surprise, but the engagement should be talked about beforehand.”

“I absolutely want to, Wil– nothing would make me happier.”

William’s embarrassed expression morphed into something softer and more lovestruck as he grabbed onto Tom’s hand and intertwined their fingers. Tom bumped his shoulder up against William’s, and the two left the office block with flushed cheeks and dopey grins.

Paul stared at the door they exited through for a moment more before turning back to his computer and the open email. With a new determination, he began to type, knowing that this little tidbit of information he had just gained would absolutely get him into the group that gossiped about the two lovers.

⭔⭔⭔

Linda let out a breath of relief as she finally reached her apartment complex. It had been quite a long day, and she had to work later than she would’ve liked, so she was glad to finally be home. She made her way into the building and into the elevator, the trip up the third floor going by quickly. She unlocked the door to her flat and walked in, greeted by the smell of curry being cooked by her wife, Martha.

“Hey, love,” Linda greeted, giving Martha a quick kiss on the cheek.

Martha grinned at her. “How was your day at work?”

Linda couldn’t help but groan. “Way too long– things have just been busy.”

Martha made a hum of acknowledgement. Things were all quiet for a few minutes as Linda put out glasses of water on the table and Martha finished up the food.

“Could you go tell Martin that dinner is ready?” Martha asked, prompting Linda to nod and head off down the hallway to their son’s room.

Linda knocked quietly on the door, just in case Martin happened to have fallen asleep early, and received a quiet response telling her she could come in. Linda opened the door and stepped into the bedroom, finding her son sitting on his bed with his laptop open and headphones on. He took off the headphones as she entered, but didn’t seem to pause whatever he was watching.

“Hey, sweetie,” Linda greeted him with a smile. “How was school today?”

“It was good!” Martin replied. “I did really well on my English test!”

“Oh good! I know you were stressing about that one.”

“Yeah, but Jacob studied with me, so I think that helped.”

Linda nodded at that. She quite liked that Jacob kid, he seemed like a good friend to Martin. “Did you already finish your homework?”

“Yep!” Martin answered, seeming quite proud of himself. “And now I’m watching a twitch stream.”

Linda couldn’t help the way her brows furrowed, confusion clouding up her expression. “What’s that?”

“It’s basically a live video where people play video games or just talk and stuff!” Martin told her enthusiastically. “Eric showed me this streamer, Wilbur Soot, and he's super cool!”

Linda nodded along, always happy to listen to whatever was interesting to her son. “What videogame is he playing now?”

“He’s playing Geoguessr, which is a game where you’re placed somewhere in the world and have to guess where you are! Another streamer, Tommyinnit, is in a voice channel with him, so they’re talking!” With that explanation, Martin unplugged his headphones and turned the computer around to show Linda.

The first thing Linda registered was the game being played on screen, with a first person view of google maps. The second thing she registered was a live chat, where viewers appeared to be sending their thoughts of where in the world they were. The third and final thing she registered was that the person in the corner of the screen was very, very familiar.

Holy shit.

Linda found herself staring straight at a screen with the strange man from her office block on it, the brunet very intently clicking around to look at the google street view. A quick glance down from the video showed that seventy-thousand people were watching, an extremely large number compared to the viewer counters of the other channels shown on the side, which were all in the one to two thousand range.

Finally, voices began to filter through to her ears. She just barely stopped herself from jolting back as Wil’s– Wilbur’s? – familiar voice came through the laptop speakers.

“Are you dumb? Like, fully genuinely, are you dumb?” Wil asked, face completely blank but tone lighthearted. “I’m beginning to think you’re the dumbest person I’ve ever met.”

Then, another familiar voice answered.

“It could’ve been Greece!”

Wil rolled his eyes. “It was fucking Brazil!”

Linda couldn’t believe her ears, the voices of the men she had been so curious about for months finally processing in her mind. She was completely taken aback, feeling like she had finally cracked open a cold case. It was entirely unbelievable, and utterly strange, but she had finally found out who these two strange men were.

Still, she didn’t want to show her shock nor her . . . relief? Joy? Whatever she was feeling, she didn’t want it to be seen, lest it make Martin feel like she wasn’t showing sufficient regard to his interests. So, instead of showing any of the real emotions she was feeling, Linda nodded and smiled, turning her attention back to her son.
“That’s really fun!” she told Martin. “It seems entertaining! Do they also do other stuff besides live streaming?”

Martin beamed. “Yeah! A lot of them make Youtube videos, and Wilbur Soot makes music with a band!”

“That’s cool!” Linda replied, nodding along to his words. “You can tell me more about it at dinner, if you want.”

Martin seemed excited about that offer, closing up his laptop and getting up from his bed. Linda led the way back to the common area of the apartment, where Martha was placing plates on the table. Dinner was a lively affair, with Martin excitedly telling his mums all about his favorite streamers, and the two happily listened.

-

Late that night, long after both Martha and Martin had headed off to bed, Linda found herself alone in the living room, a rerun of some sitcom on the telly and her laptop open to some work. She was getting much too tired to focus on her actual job, however, and so she had closed the tabs. She was about to close the laptop when she paused and remembered what had happened early, pushed out of her mind for a while but now back and occupying quite a lot of space in her brain.

Cautiously, as if she wasn’t sure if she was being watched, Linda clicked open a new tab on Chrome and stared at the blinking search bar for just a moment. After a second, she slowly typed in the name ‘Wilbur Soot.’ She was quickly met with many results, but her attention was drawn to the bio at the top of the page, displaying his name– fake name? online name?– and several pictures of the smiling brunet that she had seen walking down the hallway at her office. There was small text beneath his name, letting her know that he was an internet personality. Beside that, there were several tabs, including his songs, his videos, and his merchandise. 

She moved her mouse over and clicked on ‘songs,’ immediately being taken to a page that showed a mix of serious music and what appeared to be comedy songs. She then clicked on ‘videos’ and was taken to a list of Youtube links. 

Eyes flickering to the sidebar, she saw that there was a list of ‘associated acts’ and she noticed the name ‘Tommyinnit,’ who she had suspected was Tom from her office, seeing as his voice on the stream was quite familiar. So, she clicked on his name, and was taken to a page about him. Sure enough, she was greeted with pictures of Tom and links to his social media accounts. She decidedly ignored the birthdays on both Wil and Tom’s bios, choosing not to even process the age difference. 

Half unbelieving that she had actually found out who Tom and Wil were, Linda copied and pasted the links to their Youtube and Twitch channels into an email before sending it off to Kathy, John, and Paul.

With a sigh, Linda closed up her laptop and shut off the telly. She knew that tomorrow would be quite the day, already imagining how her little group would react to the news, and so, for now, she needed to get some rest to prepare.

-

Wilbur let out a breath of relief as he finished up his stream. It had been a rather long one, to make up for the fact that he had been gone for a while.

(He had been gone to celebrate his engagement with Tommy, the two taking a short vacation with a no-content-making policy in order to spend their time together without feeling pressured by work. It had been the most relaxed Wilbur had felt in a long while.)

Wilbur knew that, just a few offices over, Tommy was working on some editing. He was sure the blond hadn’t taken a break for the entire four hours Wilbur had been streaming, and thus he knew it was definitely time to go and force him to have something to eat and drink. He shut down his computer and grabbed his stuff, turning off the light in the office and locking the door behind him. He made his way down the corridor to Tommy’s office, knocking a couple times before opening the door without receiving an answer. As Wilbur walked in, Tommy took off his headphones and turned to him, a tired smile on his face. 

“Have you gotten up at all since you first sat down to edit?” Wilbur asked with a raised eyebrow and without a greeting.

Tommy’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh . . . maybe not.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes with a certain fondness, grabbing Tommy by the hand and pulling him up from his chair. Tommy easily went with him, quickly saving his work on his computer before allowing his lover to pull him out of the room. Wilbur led the way down the corridor, the two never letting go of each other’s hands.

The two froze dead in their tracks as they entered the breakroom, finding that several people were already in there and were looking up at them. The two just stared at the group for a few moments, and the people sitting at the table stared back at them.

“Uh . . . sorry, are we interrupting something?” Tommy asked, looking a bit sheepish.

“No, no, not at all,” one of the women– Kathy, if the couple remembered correctly– told them. “Actually, we just wanted to talk with you two.”

Tommy and Wilbur couldn’t help but exchange a look of surprise, but they sat down in the two free chairs at the table nevertheless. Tommy squeezed Wilbur’s hand, looking for some sort of reassurance, and Wilbur squeezed right back, a promise of ‘I’m here’ and ‘I’m sure it’ll be okay.’

“Is this about our volume?” Wilbur questioned. “If we’re being too loud, we’re happy to quiet down a bit!”

“It’s, uh, not about that,” Paul, the security guard, replied. He looked unsure of how to start the conversation he wanted to have, and thus went quiet.

“We have an admission to make,” John began, turning to Wil. “Ever since you started working in this block, you’ve been the main topic of the office gossip. And you–” he turned to Tom, “–also became a part of that gossip once you got a space here.”

Tommy and Wilbur both looked mildly uncomfortable, but didn’t say a word.

“We don’t mean it in a rude way!” Kathy quickly added. “You’re both . . . very unlike the rest of the people who work here, seeing as the majority of the people renting this space have professions in law and accounting and such.”

The couple seemed to become a little less tense at that, but remained quiet, unsure of what to say in response to . . . all of this.

“We were all quite curious what you two did, and we figured that you had jobs in journalism,” Linda finally spoke up. “As I discovered recently, our assumption was incorrect. I came home last night to find out that my son’s friend introduced him to some type of online creators.”

“Oh shit,” Wilbur muttered, giving a panicked look to Tommy, who gave the same expression in return.

“I don’t mean that it’s a bad career!” Linda exclaimed. “I was just surprised to coincidentally find out who you two were, and we had been gossiping about you two for so long that I felt it was time we actually talked to you guys.”

“Part of the reason I chose this office was actually because it was mostly professionals here, and I figured that nobody would recognize us,” Wilbur admitted, a bit red in the cheeks. “I should’ve figured that someone might have a kid who’s a fan.”

“It was a really unlikely coincidence,” John reassured, the other three of the group nodding in agreement.

“Just, one quick thing,” Linda continued. “When my son mentioned you two, he didn’t seem to know you two were engaged, or even together.”

Tommy’s eyes widened. “How do you know we’re engaged?”

“You two were talking about it in the lobby,” Paul explained with a wry smile.

“We’ve really gotta be more careful with where we talk about this kind of stuff,” Wilbur muttered to himself and Tommy, though the rest of the room could most definitely hear it.

Tommy turned back to Linda with an almost pleading expression. “Our audience has no idea that we’re together, nor do we plan to tell them any time soon. If you could just keep this on the down low, that would be really appreciated.”

“Of course!” Linda exclaimed. “I wouldn’t tell anybody without your express permission!”

As the other three gave their acknowledgements and promises not to tell anybody, both of the lovers looked relieved, thanking them quite a bit. With that, the conversation seemed to die down.

“I do hope we can be normal officemates now,” Kathy offered with a welcoming grin. “You two do seem quite nice.”

Tommy and Wilbur both looked pleased at that. 

“That would be lovely.”

⭔⭔⭔

Jack was all smiles and jokes as Tommy and Wilbur led him into their office block, the three men joking around and chatting as they entered. They had a small stream planned all together on Tommy’s channel and were quite looking forward to it.

“Hey, Paul! Hey, John!” Wilbur called out to the two, who were chatting at the front desk. The two men turned and smiled at the three entering.

“Good to see you lot!” John exclaimed, giving a nod to both Tom and Wil. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Jack,” Tommy introduced the man, who gave a small wave. “He’s a close friend that we met through streaming.”

Paul nodded. “I assume you three got a video planned together.”

“Yep!” Wilbur answered. “We’ll try our best to keep the volume down.

Both John and Paul laughed, sending them on their way.

As the group of three entered the elevator, Jack turned to Tommy and Wilbur. “Who were they?”

“That was John and Paul,” Tommy answered. “John has an office on our hall and Paul is the one of the security guards for the building.”

Jack nodded, but couldn’t help feeling a bit confused by the familiarity the two held with the other office block tenants. He didn’t have time to ask another question as the elevator doors opened and he spotted two women talking in the hallway.

“Linda! Kathy!” Tommy exclaimed, rushing over to the two. Wilbur chuckled and followed, leaving Jack to catch up to his two friends.

“Hey!” Kathy greeted with a large grin.

“How are you two doing?” Linda questioned.

Wilbur, coming to stand next to Tommy and wrap an arm around the blond, smiled at the two women. “We’re doing pretty good! We’re gearing up to do a stream with our friend.”

Linda and Kathy both looked over at Jack, giving a friendly wave. Jack awkwardly waved back, unsure if he should say anything.

“How have you two been?” Tommy questioned, and then his face lit up as he thought of something else. “And did you two get your invitations in the mail?”

Kathy positively beamed. “We were just talking about going shopping together this weekend to find dresses for the wedding!”

Linda nodded along. “It’s so exciting! I just know the wedding is going to be lovely!”

The four chatted for a few more moments before Wilbur glanced down at the time on his phone. “We’ve gotta get going now, but we’ll talk to you later!”

“Have fun with your stream!” Kathy told them.

“I’m sure Martin will be telling me all about it tonight!” Linda added.

The group laughed as they separated. Jack followed Tommy and Wilbur into the office. He was taken aback by the interaction, as his friends had never mentioned being close with their officemates before, but he decided he wasn’t going to question it, as he had a feeling he wouldn’t get an explanation that made any sense.

⭔⭔⭔

Tommy couldn’t help the way he felt overwhelmed, making the rounds at the cocktail hour after the ceremony. He had been through quite a lot of emotions in the past hour, what with getting married to the love of his life and all– so could you really blame him? Wilbur was a steady presence at his side, however, and the half-full champagne glass was starting to calm him down a bit. Everyone would sit down for dinner soon, which would be a moment of rest and give him time to decompress, but, for now, Tommy found himself and Wilbur chatting with a few friends.

Phil, Kristin, Ranboo, Tubbo, Niki, and Jack all stood around them as the chatter of cocktail hour raged on. It was all smiles as they talked about the ceremony. As the conversation slowed a bit, Tommy turned to the side just to get a peek at who else was around, lighting up as he noticed all his officemates talking nearby. The group seemed to notice him as well, and Tommy quickly waved them over.

“It’s so great to see you lot!” Tommy exclaimed as they joined the circle. Wilbur turned as well once Tommy greeted them, beaming as they came closer.

“It’s great to see you two as well! Thank you for inviting us!” Kathy replied, the others voicing their agreements with that statement.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Wilbur piped up, turning to the woman standing beside Linda. “I’m Wilbur.”

“I’m Martha, Linda’s wife,” she introduced herself, shaking both Tommy and Wilbur’s hands. “I’ve heard so much about you two, both from Linda and from my son.”

Tommy and Wilbur both laughed at that. The husbands chatted with the group of office workers for only a couple minutes more before it became time for everyone to go to the main dining room for dinner. They promised to speak to their office mates a little later, and they sent them off on their way as everyone trickled out of the room, leaving behind only Tommy and Wilbur along with the group of their friends they’d been speaking with before.

“Who were they?” Phil asked, voicing everyone’s curiosity– besides Jack’s, of course, seeing as he had already met them.

“They have offices in the same hall as us in the block we work in,” Wilbur explained.

“You guys seem awfully close,” Niki commented.

“Yeah,” Kristin agreed. “How did that happen?”

Tommy and Wilbur looked at each other and laughed before turning back to their friends.

“It’s a long story. We’ll explain when we sit down for dinner.”