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William Wisp liked to believe that he was a pretty calculated person. He tried his best to weigh out the risks and rewards of his decisions when fighting with a villain and, sure, sometimes it backfired on him. He was human, after all. Or, as close to human as you could get without calling him a walking cadaver. And humans make mistakes without fail.
So, as William looked at the scene in front of him, he thought, “ God, this was a big fucking mistake .”
But before we get to the matter at hand, some backstory is definitely needed.
The mornings at Mark’s house were usually quiet. With only two people taking residence in the house, it never got too rowdy at any time of the day, let alone the mornings. If Mark didn’t have any business to attend to, he enjoyed sleeping in. And by sleeping in, he usually slept until noon or later. Never earlier.
And Ashe? Ashe was just a quiet person. He tried to wake up at a normal time, if he was ever sleeping in the first place. If he never ended up going to sleep, he at least left his room at a sensible time to look like a functioning human being.
Even though William, Dakota, and Vyncent were new to the house, they wasted no time changing the flow of the mornings. Well, at least Vyncent and Dakota did.
William was sleeping soundly for once in his “life”. Even though he had been sleeping on a blow-up mattress for the past couple of days, he would swear that it was the best sleep he had ever gotten. After the initial sweep of the house that he and Vyncent had done the first night they were there, the fear of being in this new house with a villain (?) had seeped out of his bones and was replaced with exhaustion. When dealing with the betrayal of someone they had dared to call a friend, William found that he actually wanted to sleep at night. He figured that in some sick way, if he went to sleep, he could wake up and it wouldn’t be true. That he could wake up and not be in Wavelength’s house. Or, that the place he and the others once called home wasn’t a huge pile of ash in the fucking woods. But unfortunately, this was reality and he’d just have to deal with it.
After what felt like a solid 7 hours of sleep, William began to regain consciousness. Everything was peaceful as it always was and he could feel himself sinking further into the mattress below. Stuck in that limbo between awake and not, tangibility was slowly starting to become a foreign concept and, as his body was about to hit the hardwood flooring, a loud crash made William jolt.
The loud metallic clang rang throughout the house. He figured it had to have come from somewhere in the house based on the way it echoed and pierced through his still groggy mind. The jolt that the calamity caused forced him onto the floor next to the bed, tangible as ever.
“Fucking ow,” William mumbled, splayed out on the cold ground. He had definitely smacked his elbow on the wood as he tried to catch himself and he could already feel a bruise coming on.
He contemplated staying on the ground, content to fall back asleep and let Vyncent deal with whatever the hell that was. That is, until he heard yelling from the other room. He pushed himself up onto his knees and went in search of wherever his phone had fallen after he fell asleep and eventually found it inside the pillowcase of the pillow he was using.
Clicking the phone awake, the time said that it was 7:30. Looking around the living room, William was the only one still here. Which, to be honest, was really weird. Back at the base, Tide was usually the first one awake; and he didn’t start moving until at LEAST 9 on a day that they didn’t have anything to do. So, best believe that the three boys weren’t up until after then.
Will let out a sigh, dropped his head to his chest, and mentally prepared himself to get up and find out what was going on elsewhere in the house. Pushing himself off the floor and grabbing his sweatshirt he had taken off sometime in the middle of the night, he started to walk down the hallway towards the kitchen, pulling the sweatshirt over his t-shirt as he went. Growing closer to the kitchen, the yelling got louder and words could begin to be made out.
“-know pancakes are the only breakfast food that I’ll eat,” he heard Dakota yell.
“But what if I wanted waffles? Huh, Dakota? What then?,” Vyncent yelled back at him.
It was obvious that it was just a lighthearted, silly fight, but at 7:30 in the morning, William wished they weren’t like this. Stepping through the doorway of the kitchen, he clocked that the loud noise he had heard was a stainless steel bowl that had fallen off the counter and they hadn’t bothered to pick it up yet. As he quietly shuffled in to pick it up, he saw Ashe sitting at the kitchen table, head resting on it. He was obviously sleeping, blocking out the commotion around him with the headphones he always had.
“Guys, you’re going to wake Mark up and I would really like to continue to have a place to sleep at night,” William said, placing the bowl back on the counter and moving to sit next to Ashe at the table. He could hear the voice of Gerard Way blasting through his headphones and winced, thinking about the state of Ashe’s hearing. The two boys that were arguing stopped long enough to mutter a quick “good morning” to William, and then went right back to bickering; his statement fell on deaf ears, based on the way their volume remained louder than necessary for the abysmally early time.
William closed his eyes and pressed his hands into them, silently praying that the argument would fizzle out soon. He felt really bad that they had somehow dragged Ashe from his room, but he really wanted to know what had sparked this issue between Dakota and Vyncent. Trying his best to not startle Ashe, he put his hand on Ashe’s shoulder and shook him lightly. It was obvious that his efforts to not startle him didn't work as Ashe jolted and smacked the headphones off of his ears. As he shot straight up in his chair, eyes wide and crazed, he looked over at William like he had two heads. When he saw that it was just Will, he visibly relaxed, sagging back into the chair and laying his head where it was before his sleep was disrupted. This time, however, his head was turned to look at the other boy, hair falling wildly across the table and his face.
“Hey Will. What's going on?,” Ashe mumbled sleepily. His eyes were unfocused and tired and it was apparent that he was seconds away from falling asleep again, even though shouting was still filling the kitchen.
“Well, I was going to ask you the same thing,” William replied, leaning his head onto his propped up hand. Ashe groaned and picked his head up from the table once again and said, “Around 7 Dakota came crashing into my room complaining about how hungry he was and how he needed me to show him where all of the ‘pancake making materials’ were. Then proceed to drag me, literally drag me, out of bed. As we passed the living room, Vyncent saw what was happening and followed. Then, when we finally got into the kitchen and I started to pull shit out, Vyncent and Dakota were discussing what to make and dissolved into this. They haven't stopped since. William, you've gotta stop them, please ,” Ash said, almost in one breath, which was concerning. As he was speaking, he grabbed the front of William’s sweatshirt and shook him a little, y’know, for emphasis.
William blinked as he and Ashe stared at each other, both thinking about how it was too god damn early for this. He reached up to remove Ashe’s hands from his sweatshirt and held them in front of him, standing up to put a stop to the madness that was unfolding. A wisp materialized and William sent it over before he followed, making it smack Vyncent in the back of the head to shut him up. After it hit Vyn, it ricocheted and hit Dakota on the top of his head. This effectively made them stop and they began to stare at William.
“Okay, that’s enough. I want you,” William pointed at Vyncent, “to explain what’s going on.”
“We were just trying to decide what to make for breakfast but someone wanted to be difficult,” Vyncent replied, turning his head sharply to stare menacingly at Dakota.
“All I was saying is that waffles and pancakes are literally the same thing, they're just different shapes. You’re talking about me being difficult? That’s INSANE,” Dakota replied, reaching over to the bag of flour that was open on the counter, sticking his hand inside, grabbing some, and chucked it at Vyncent. The flour struck him right in the middle of his face, billowing out in a cloud upon impact. There was a moment of pure silence before a huge, toothy grin spread across Vyncent’s face. In a split second, Vyncent reached across and grabbed the hand that Dakota used to throw the flour and pulled it forward and towards the ground. In this motion, he put Dakota in a headlock and did the same thing Dakota had just done. Except this time, he smashed the flour onto the top of his head, rubbing the flour into his hair, effectively fucking up the red locks.
“ God, this was a big fucking mistake ,” William thought before he stepped over to try and pull them apart. He didn’t know if it was just because of how early it was and how fed up he was with this entire situation, but he was able to separate them, holding them both at an arm's length away in the opposite direction of each other; much like how you would separate two cats from fighting.
“Why don't you just make both,” William shouted. As soon as he said this, the resistance he was feeling from both sides stopped instantaneously. It was almost like a switch had been turned off, and the anger that the two felt seeped out of their bodies. William’s eyes widened as he said,”Did you guys not think of that? Are you kidding me?”
Both of the boys in front of him looked down and William groaned, placing his head into his hands. Lifting his head back up, he looked towards the table where Ashe was sitting, surprised to see Ashe sitting up, watching what was happening.
“Do you have a waffle maker?,” Will asked, smiling at Ashe, the hilarity of the situation catching up with him.
“Yea of course. What house doesn’t have a waffle maker?,” he replied, getting up from the table, moving over to a cabinet and retrieving a small waffle maker that he plugged into the wall. William grabbed the bowl of batter that he assumed Ashe made, as Vynce and Dakota were pretty preoccupied, and pushed the two boys out of the way. He put the pan on the stovetop and began working on the pancakes as the waffle maker heated up.
“Are y'all going to get cleaned up or just keep standing there with flour everywhere?,” William asked, not even looking back at the two. He heard them shuffle off quickly, laughing quietly as he poured some batter onto the pan. Turning to look at Ashe, he said,”You can go back to sleep if you want? I think I’ve got it from here.”
Ashe shook his head,”Nah, it’s okay. We probably needed to get going early anyways. I think my dad has some info on Overlord he needed to show us.” He was standing by the coffee maker, pouring coffee into a white mug that had rainbow drawn-on stars on it. William hummed and got back to making the pancakes, and later, he would move on to making the waffles. And soon after, the two boys he sent away would return, clean of flour and ready to eat.
At this moment, there are no cares as they all gather around the dining table in the small kitchen of the suburban home. They each have a mug of coffee and are having unimportant conversations that have nothing to do with the terrible things they will face in the near future. Ashe, happy to have friends after such a long time, and the three visitors in the home happy to have a tiny semblance of normalcy in such a weird time.
William smiles, looking at his friends; his dumbass friends that got into arguments over trivial things.
“This is where we’re meant to be,” he thinks in an 8 AM haze, tired and warm for once in his life.