Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Cellbit?” Bagi’s voice echoed through the Ordo.

“In here!” Cellbit called back, quickly opening up one of the many books in his inventory. He didn't want her to know that he was just messaging Roier instead of working on investigations.

Bagi entered the room, a concerned look on her face. “Have you seen Pac? I wanted to get his advice on something.”

“What?” Cellbit said, with a frown. “Is my advice not good enough?” With a yelp, he failed to dodge Bagi’s frying pan.

“I don’t want your advice, I want Pac’s!” Bagi said with a huff. “And he’s not on the map.”

Cellbit rolled his eyes and pulled up his map. “If you can’t find his name, he’s probably with Fit or Tubbo,” he told her. “I know the three of them hang out a lot.”

“Ah, found them!” Bagi exclaimed. “They’re at Tubbo’s hole.”

Cellbit closed his map and pulled out his warpstone. “I’ll come with you. I wanted to ask Tubbo about his hole anyway.”

“It’s ridiculous, right?” Bagi replied eagerly. “And so close to my house.”

With the signature sound of warping, the two of them appeared at the top of Tubbo’s hole. Cellbit peered down into it.

“I think I see them, in the middle there.” He told Bagi, swapping his warpstone for his glider. He followed her lead and jumped off the edge, but it took until nearly reaching the center for him to realize what he was seeing.

Curled up on top of each other, Fit, Tubbo, and Pac were all sound asleep. Fit was sitting, legs stretched out and propped up by a raised portion of glass, with Pac’s head on his shoulder and Tubbo’s legs in his lap. Without thinking, Cellbit pulled out his camera and snapped a picture before Bagi could hiss a warning.

The click of the camera echoed in the expanse of the Tubhole, and Fit’s eyes snapped open. With a startling quickness, his gaze flitted about, reading the situation, before settling on Cellbit, who was still clutching the camera in his hands.

“Cellbit.” He said, voice deceptively calm. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you right now and take that photo from you.”

With a grin, Cellbit pocketed his camera. “Because doing so would wake up Pac?”

Before Fit could respond, but not before his cheeks reddened, Cellbit and Bagi moved in unison. They turned and started running, using their grapples to get them as far away from the trio as possible.

Bagi giggled, catching Cellbit’s attention as they grappled up the wall. “And he tried to say he didn’t like Fit.” 

“They are ridiculous, Gabi!” Cellbit exclaimed. “It’s so obvious they like each other, but neither wants to admit it or do anything about it. Richas was trying his best to get them together but-” With a stumble of his legs, as they reached the top, he cut himself off.

Bagi sent him a commiserating look. “Well, I’m sure he would have loved seeing that just now.”

“Yeah,” Cellbit said with a low laugh. “He would have.”

(One of the downsides of waking up so early in the morning is that by the time the server starts to get busy, energy gets low. But going back to your base equates to admitting defeat to sleepiness, which is simply blasphemous. Morning Crew’s solution to this? Power naps.

The problem is that they are all quite bad at power naps. Once they’re asleep, they’re gone until morning. And soon enough, the sight of the Morning Crew, all huddled together, asleep in a random location, becomes a common occurrence.

None of them talk about the fact that the sleep they get together is the best, and in some cases only, sleep they’ve been getting. They may be a family, but they still have secrets to keep from each other.)

“I want a ticket!” Antoine protested, trailing after Pierre and Etoiles.

“I’m sure you’ll get one eventually,” Pierre replied dismissively. He had wanted to check on his machines because he was certain Tubbo kept using them, but Etoiles and Antoine insisted on tagging along. “Everyone’s been getting teleported to roll the dice recently.”

“I didn’t get one,” Etoiles said with a faux pout.

“Yeah, because you’re bad at rolling dice!” Antoine pointed out. Pierre heard him hit Etoiles and heard the resulting attack of Etoiles’s sword, but he ignored both of them, rather making a beeline to his machines. But the sight that greeted him once he got close stopped him in his tracks.

“What?” Etoiles asked, coming up to his shoulder. Pierre was speechless but moved so that Etoiles could see.

Sure enough, Tubbo, as well as Fit and Pac, had been using his machines. But it seemed they had gotten tired while waiting for it to finish because the three of them were fast asleep. Fit was lying on his stomach, head cushioned in his hands, with Tubbo curled up on his left side and Pac curled up on his right.

“When Tubbo is sleeping like this, you can almost forget he is capable of mass destruction,” Antoine said thoughtfully.

“Very cute.” Etoiles agreed sagely.

Pierre scoffed in response. “No, he is not cute. He is a brat who likes to use my machines without asking.”

“Yeah?” Etoiles asked, laughter in his voice. “Is that why you’re going to put a blanket on them?”

Pierre blinked, looking down at his hands. Sure enough, he had subconsciously pulled a blanket out of his inventory.

“This means nothing,” he insisted. Nonetheless, he draped the blanket carefully over the three of them.

“Sure, sure,” Antoine replied, exchanging amused glances with Etoiles. “We definitely believe that.”

Pierre scowled and began to drag them towards the entrance of his mansion. “We’re leaving.” He declared.

Etoiles and Antoine followed, but not without both glancing back to make sure that all members of Morning Crew were still asleep, curled up on the floor of Pierre’s house. Pierre wouldn’t admit it, but he checked before leaving as well.

Every time Forever went down to his storage room, he was expecting something different. Pac seemed to have made it his life mission to get past any security measures he had put in place, which meant that he had to keep upgrading his protections. As he approached the door, he noted the lack of a block in the ceiling. Interesting. Up until now, Pac had been careful to hide how he was getting in.

With apprehension, Forever stepped into his storage room. The scene that greeted him, however, didn’t fill him with rage or with despair. Those were typical feelings when it came to the aftermath of Pac’s thievery. No, today he was filled with glee.

Because Forever had just stumbled upon the best blackmail material he could have ever hoped for. Sprawled across the floor of his storage room were Pac, Fit, and Tubbo, each of them in a different position. Pac was using a chest as a pillow, a hand tucked in between it and his face. His other pinky was linked with one of Fit’s, who was stretched out flat on his back. On the other side of the room, Tubbo was slumped over on a bike, his face pressed into the handlebars. 

Forever went searching for a camera in his inventory but came up short. “ Caralho ,” he cursed without thinking before freezing, looking up with a guilty look on his face. 

Fit and Tubbo remained motionless but Pac stirred, blinking his eyes open. It took him a moment but Forever watched him piece together the situation, starting by looking at him, then at Tubbo, and finally at the pinky he had linked with Fit.

It took only a moment, but then he lunged at Forever.

The two of them went down in a clash of flailing limbs and shouts, Forever laughing hysterically as Pac attempted to murder him with his bare hands. They squabbled for a few moments before the weight of Pac was lifted off Forever, effectively ending the fight.

Forever leaned back onto his elbows, watching in poorly hidden glee as Fit slung Pac over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing. Pac went limp, burying his face into Fit’s back, as Fit grabbed Tubbo, who still seemed half-asleep, by the back of his shirt with his other hand. Tubbo was deposited on the floor, a tad unsteady on his feet, and Fit pushed him towards the door.

“Forever.” Fit greeted him calmly with a nod.

“Fit.” Forever echoed, watching in bemusement as Tubbo made his escape.

“Have a good day,” Fit told him before following Tubbo, still with Pac slung over his shoulder. Forever made eye contact with his friend, intent on embarrassing him, but instead was greeted by Pac flipping him off.

“We still got into your chests, filho de puta !” Pac shouted before they were gone, leaving Forever in the silence of the storage room.

Forever got up and dusted off his suit jacket. With a fond shake of his head, he turned to his chests. Time to reword his security once again.

Bad wasn’t expecting anyone else in the maze.

It had become some kind of self-soothing method for him; walking the halls by himself, looking if anything had changed since the last time he went through them. Even if it was all the same, he could delude himself into thinking he was doing something. Tonight wasn’t meant to be any different.

But as he had approached the maze, he had very quickly stumbled upon an unlikely sight. Three sleeping bags, each with a different member of the Morning Crew, blocked the path in front of him. Bad wasn’t surprised to see Fit and Pac were sleeping next to each other; with Tubbo sleeping at their feet, it was an oddly domestic picture. Disregarding, of course, the fact that they were sleeping right outside the maze.

Bad peered down at them, debating what to do. He was upset at each of them; Tubbo for his hole, Pac because he was Pac, and Fit by power of association. It would be easy enough to do something mean to them; whether it was dumping lava on them, or leaving a hostile mob for them to wake up to.

And then Tubbo rolled over in his sleeping bag, face first on the ground. 

Bad stared at him.

 This was fine, he tried to convince himself. It wasn’t like Tubbo could suffocate himself by sleeping on his face.

Bad turned around and walked away.

Bad turned back and rolled Tubbo over with his foot.

There. Good deed done and he could move on.

Bad placed down a couple of torches.

Now there was no risk of mobs spawning near them. 

Everything was fine.

Bad left before he built a house around them.

Felps had been mining for what seemed like hours. He was making steady progress on Felps Square, only encouraged by the appearance of the Tubhole. As the parent of Felps Square, he had to ensure that his square looked its best. Since, apparently, Felps Square and Tubhole were dating. Good for them. Who was he to judge love?

As Felps paused to check the mini-map, curious to see where everyone else was, he realized quickly that he wasn’t alone in Felps Square. Pac, Tubbo, and Fit all showed up inside Felps Square, not far from where Felps had been mining.

Strange, then, that he hadn’t heard them nearby. But as he went looking, the reason became clear. Just a few blocks away from his current location, the others had seemingly decided it was their bedtime. There were three hammocks, all strung up among the terrain of Felps Square. Felps noticed with amusement that Pac and Fit were sleeping side-by-side, as well as the fact that Tubbo’s hammock was hung one block higher than theirs, likely on purpose.

Well, who was he to interrupt such great sleep? He wasn’t sure why they had picked Felps Square to host their sleepover, but if they were comfortable, he wasn’t going to stop them. With one more glance at them, Felps turned back to his mining.

Actually.

There was one thing he wanted to do first.

Felps rifled through his inventory and managed to come up with a book and quill. He quickly jotted down his message but had to erase it and start over when he realized that he had written it in Portuguese, a language Tubbo would certainly not be able to read. Once it was rewritten in English, Felps dropped the book on top of Tubbo and it disappeared into his inventory.

But the sound of Tubbo’s inventory picking up the book was louder than Felps anticipated, and Tubbo jolted, tipping himself out of his hammock. He hit the floor with a thud and Felps flinched, instantly checking to make sure that Pac and Fit hadn’t woken up. Once he was sure they were still asleep, he met the startled gaze of Tubbo.

Silently, Tubbo opened the book. Felps watched as his expression went from shock to confusion before straight to anger.

“Tubhole will never be Felps Square. Keep trying.” Tubbo read out loud, his voice affronted. “Felps, what is this?”

But Felps took the opportunity to disappear into the terrain of Felps Square. Safely hidden several blocks underneath Tubbo, he laughed to himself quietly as Tubbo complained to himself. Content with his work for the day, Felps decided to take a page from the book of Morning Crew and put himself to bed. He had been productive enough.

It occurred to Phil halfway through reorganizing his backpacks that Fit and Tubbo were being uncharacteristically quiet. Over the past month or so, he had grown accustomed to hearing Tubbo talk his ear off. Before Tubbo, Fit had always been the one to check in on him and force him to socialize. But now, several hours had passed with both of them active, and he had yet to see either.

Curiosity piqued, Phil checked the mini-map. Once he spotted them, he pulled out his warpstone immediately.

“Shit,” he muttered as he warped, “I should have known they couldn’t stay out of trouble.”

Once he appeared at Tubhaus, Phil equipped his paraglider and jumped, aiming towards the main factory. As he neared it, he exchanged the glider for his scythe and landed smoothly. In the back of his mind, he mourned the days he could fly and hold something at the same time.

But as he strode into the factory, the only person to notice him was Mike, who was idly examining one of Tubbo’s machines. He offered Phil a bland smile. “Think I’m dangerous, Philza?”

“I’m just being careful,” Phil replied, but it was clear that Mike was no harm.

A quick scan of the situation showed that Fit, Tubbo, and Pac were indeed unharmed, and the stillness of their nametags on the map had simply been because they had fallen asleep on the floor of the factory. Tubbo was stretched out on his back, using his backpack as a pillow, while Fit had his back to a chest, Pac curled into his side. An unmistakable sense of fondness filled Phil at the sight of them.

“I’m shocked you’re letting Fit so close to Pac,” he commented, tucking his scythe back into his inventory.

Mike scoffed. “I shouldn’t.” But then he glanced at Pac and softened. “But he doesn’t sleep well, so I try not to disturb him when he can.”

“That’s sweet,” Phil told him, before moving closer to the trio.

With care, he settled into the spot on the other side of Fit. A quick shift was all it took to coax Toby’s head to rest in his lap and he stretched out his wings, one of them curling around Pac’s shoulder and the other resting by his side.

“C’mon, Mike,” Phil urged him with a small smile. “We're as much a part of whatever this little group is as they are. Which means that if they’re napping, we are too.”

Mike scowled. “I don’t remember agreeing to that.” He grumbled, but nonetheless, he laid down in front of Pac, looking more like a tense guard dog than anything.

Phil started to hum softly to himself and, sure enough, it was enough to lull Mike to sleep. Content at the sight of the others safe and secure, he allowed himself to drift off as well, comforted by the feeling of loved ones all around him.