Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wilbur dreams of falling. He feels, clear as life, his heels slip from some wooden floor, and his arms and legs flail through the bright air, his coat billowing around him. Thank God he still has his coat. He hits the water like a bullet, plunging into the refracted cold in a dizzying splash. Sharp red pain drags him down by one shoulder, and the surface quickly slips away from his hands. It feels pointless to try to resist the pull of the waves dragging him down, down, down.

He closes his eyes, and the darkness extends into a long alleyway.

“Going somewhere, kid?” asks a voice from behind him.

Wilbur turns, and behind him is a cop in a neatly-pressed uniform. He is, unfortunately, very good looking, even with his hair parted perfectly to the side like some army-issue square. Wilbur isn’t sure how to respond.

The cop sighs, resting a hand against the wall of the alley. “You can’t always swim alone, kid,” he says softly. “I know you’re trying to - I can see you trying to push everyone to the surface first - but there’s going to come a time when you need to breathe.”

“I don’t- how do you- who are you?” Wilbur manages to say.

“You’re running away from me, and you don’t even know who I am?” the cop asks back.

Wilbur is pretty sure he’s not going anywhere. He feels murky and confused. Suddenly, the cop is not a cop anymore, but an old friend, with the light of the streetlamp reflecting off his glasses like twin suns in wire frames. Thick brown curls sit shoulder-length on their leather jacket, no, red cape? No, party dress.

“I’m Love,” they say simply.

Wilbur wakes with a gasp.

~~~~

Techno opens the front door as quietly as possible. He doesn’t need to wake up the whole house this late- no, early. He closes the door behind him, abandons his jacket on the kitchen table, and heads upstairs to his room.

Wilbur is taking up much more than half the bed, but in a brotherly, endearing sort of way that makes Techno think it might be rude to push him over. He climbs out of his stiff valet uniform, hanging it neatly on a wire hanger for tomorrow, and pairs his undershirt with a pair of striped pyjama pants. The dorky little hat that makes his ears look stupid, he places on the desk. Then he turns his attention to occupying the approximately thirty percent of the bed that Wilbur has graciously left him.

He’s not under the blanket for more than a minute before Wilbur gasps and looks around through half-opened eyes.

Wilbur sits up and runs his hands through his hair, rubbing his eyes. “Oh… Hey Techno,” he whispers. Techno pulls the blanket farther up his shoulders, getting comfortable.

“Hey Wil. What’s wrong?” he asks.

Wilbur shakes his head softly and lies back down. “Nothing, just a dream.”

“Mm,” says Techno. And then, “While I have ya, I wanna talk about the gang.”

Wilbur has to admit, they don’t have a lot of waking hours together. “What about the gang?” he asks, pulling the blanket up to yawn into it.

Techno pulls the blanket back to his side of the bed. “It’s about Ranboo,” he says. Techno doesn’t play around, he tells it straight. It’s one of the things Wilbur admires about his older brother. So Wilbur nods. “He kinda came home from school with a black eye last week…”

Wilbur nods more, looking out the window. “I know, I drove them all home. He tried to hide it with all that hair but…”

“Yeah…” said Techno. “I don’t think I need to elaborate about it, but the kid’s half Ender. It’s only gettin’ more obvious. And he showed up to dinner in a poodle-skirt on Monday, which… I’m not sayin’ it’s a bad idea, but what I am sayin’ is…” he sighs. “Wilbur, this is just the start of him gettin’ picked on.”

“I know,” says Wilbur softly. And he knows Techno knows. You don’t grow up as a Piglin in an American highschool without knowing.

“So I just wanted to check with you, before I, y’know, make the offer,” says Techno. “Should we invite him into the gang?”

The gang in question has, so far, just been their household. Wilbur and Techno, of course, Tommy, because he’s their kid brother, and Tubbo, because you really can’t have Tommy around without having Tubbo around. They’re a package deal. Before last year, there had been Eret too, because he was always hanging around their house and the shop downstairs, propping his ridiculously long legs up on everything with a cocky, leather-jacketed sort of ease that Wilbur hoped one day he’d be cool enough to have. But Eret turned out to be less of a hood than nature intended, because he’d scraped together enough money from summer jobs and part-time jobs and scholarships (and probably poker games too, let’s be honest), and had shipped off for university, never to be seen again.

“I think we should,” says Wilbur. “And I don’t just say that because he’s getting roughed up either, I also just think he’s a good kid to have around.”

“Yeah, no, exactly,” says Techno. He yawns, and his ears flick tiredly.

“You should sleep,” Wilbur says, “It’s late.”

Techno isn’t about to argue with that. “G’night Wilbur,” he mutters.

"‘Night.”

~~~~

Tubbo follows Tommy to the curb after school the next day. Ranboo follows Tubbo. They stand in a line, two pairs of tennis shoes and one pair of hooves perpendicular to the edge of the curb where the moss and grass are poking through the cracks. The other kids are flagging down their mothers’ bright chrome cars, backpacks tucked to their chests as they hop in.

Tommy ruffles his wings and flicks up the collar of his jean-jacket. Tubbo thinks this looks cool, but there’s not much to pop about his dad’s old aviator jacket, so he leaves his hands in his pockets.

“Is your brother coming to pick us up?” he asks Tommy.

“I forgot to ask,” Tommy admits. “I think he’s working today? But we can wait here for a bit and see if he comes by.”

“I can’t go home with you today,” says Ranboo, smoothing back his hair. Half of it is black, half white-blond, and all of it is full of grease. He can’t seem to keep it back from his face, but it’s not for lack of trying. The split in colour continues down his face, down his neck, and presumably down the rest of him, as far as anyone knows; an even line drawn between his Enderman and human sides.

“Aww, why?” Tommy asks.

“‘Cause it’s the Sunshine Festival today,” Tubbo says, proud to know the answer to that one.

“Didn’t that just happen a few weeks ago?” Tommy squints. “Are you trying to pull a fast one on me?”

“Well it… it happens every month, so…” Ranboo shrugs, “It was bound to happen again sometime.” Tommy gives in and nods to that.

They wait a few more minutes, but Wilbur shows no sign of showing up, so he really must be working still. Tommy sighs, pulls a comb from his back pocket, and has a go at the greased-up sides of his head. He hasn’t got much in the way of sideburns yet, but he’s hopeful.

A shout from behind knocks the suavity out of the gesture- “Hey grease!” He turns. Hanging his elbows over the chain-link fence to the football field is none other than Clayton Dream, one of those letterman-clad twelfth-graders. Tubbo frowns.

Dream is what Tubbo (or anyone else in his position) might call a ‘soc.’ He’s got his hair clipped to a respectable length, he wears collared shirts, cardigans, and pants with lines down the front from being ironed, but not by him. He’s been in the newspaper twice, to Tubbo’s count, once for being an upstanding football player and leading the school team to victory, and once before that for getting one of his father’s gorgeous Cadillacs stuck in a ditch while drag-racing.

He’s the bane of their gang’s existence.

Anyway, after the expository “Hey grease!” he continues on with a blithe, “Going to thumb a ride somewhere?”

“Oh piss off, Dream!” Tommy yells back, and turns away. “Come on guys, let’s go.”

"We could go to my place,” Ranboo suggests as they make their way down the sidewalk under the shade of some oaks. It’s getting close to summer now, warm enough that wearing an aviator jacket is somewhat unnecessary, but Tubbo thinks it makes him look tuff, so he puts up with the extra warmth.

They walk through the nice neighbourhoods with trees, and then into the regular neighbourhoods with power lines, and from there into the sort of crummy ones with off-white fences and moldy siding. Ranboo lives in the side of town where most of the Endermen live, and you can tell, because the further you get into his neighbourhood, the more stained glass there is.

He told Tubbo about that tradition once. He explained how the Endermen were expert glass-blowers, and how originally they used soul sand from the Nether. The souls were then given a purpose after death, and the little swirling faces turned content in their new form. Tubbo doesn’t claim to understand it perfectly, but he does think it’s pretty cool. The sun starts to go down as they reach Ranboo’s house, and the light spills out in a multicoloured blanket from the front window, illuminating the tiny front garden where his mother has planted warped mushrooms and thick blue vines hanging from trellises, and all the other things she uses in her cooking. They hop up the front steps and walk in without knocking, chattering on about the current most important topic of debate - whether or not it is possible to dance like Elvis if you aren’t Elvis.

“I think I could do it,” Tommy says. “I think you just have to be in the right… you have to be in the right mood, probably. Then you can do all sorts of dances.” Tubbo snorts.

“The Elvis Mindset,” he mumbles.

Ranboo shakes his head. “Nah, literally nobody moves their hips like that. That’s gotta be impossible for anyone other than Elvi- oh, hello mother,” he says. The boys look up.

Ranboo’s mother is a tall Enderwoman with long black hair and a kind smile, eyes ever so slightly wrinkled at the edges. She closes the eyes in question, and softly bumps her forehead against Ranboo’s.

“Hello boys,” she says, and it almost sounds like a question the way she says it. Tubbo knows it’s not, and isn’t sure why, but all the Ender-people he knows talk like that. Even Ranboo does sometimes. He supposes it’s because of an accent that carries over from Ender to English or something, but he can’t be sure.

“Hello Mrs. Ranboo,” says Tommy. Tubbo waves. He’s become such a common sight at Ranboo’s house that Ranboo’s parents hardly bother with formalities anymore. “When’s the party?” Ranboo asks, as they follow her to the kitchen. She returns to mincing up mushrooms and filling up a big pot with them.

“The guests are coming in about an hour,” she replies, shooing his hands away from a pretty pile of meringue-like desserts sitting on a plate, “So I hope you can be patient until then.”

“Don’t worry,” says Tommy, “Patience is my middle name. Tommy Patience Innit Minecraft.”

“That sounds like a pilgrim name,” Tubbo muses.

“Okay,” says Ranboo, finally managing to steal a bit of mushroom and pop it in his goopy mouth, “We’ll be getting ready upstairs, then.”

“Have fun!” says his mother.

~~~~

The boys make a detour to the living room on their way upstairs. They sit around the side-table where the phone enjoys its privileged position on top of a doily, and Tommy spins the numbers in, and then holds the receiver out so that Ranboo and Tubbo can press their ears close and hear it ringing.

“Phil and Sons Auto Body, how can I help you?” says a voice on the other end.

“Hello,” says Tommy, “This is the president.”

“Knock it off Tommy,” says Wilbur, not without an audible smile in his voice.

“Well sor-ry,” Tommy scoffs, “We just want to know if you’re coming to Ranboo’s place for the Sunshine festival tonight.”

Wilbur thinks about it, leaving the line quiet for a moment. “Yeah, I’ll be there,” he replies. “I’m working a bit late today, but I’ll come over when I’m done.”

“Yes!” Tommy rubs his hands together in excitement. “And can you bring us some soda? I don’t think there’s any soda over here.”

Wilbur laughs quietly. “I’ll see what I can do,” he says. And then, “Alright, I have to go back to work.”

“Have fun!” Tubbo calls. Then the line goes click, and Wilbur is gone.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Ranboo says, and so they do.

Ranboo’s room is small, almost attic-like. The walls are slanted at the sides, so he has to crouch to stand by the bookcase, but there’s a little window with swirls of purple and red that makes all the light coming in look like a sunset. There’s a poster of The Tempest up on one side of the room, and a map of some local hiking trails on the other. He’s already brought up the radio.

Tommy flops down on the bed and tunes it, the volume already up way too loud, while Ranboo adjusts the mirror on the chest of drawers so that his shorter friends can see themselves in it.

“So when does the party even start?” Tommy whines from his place on the bed. Ranboo chuckles.

“Some guests should start arriving in like an hour or so,” he says, fishing around in a dresser drawer. He pulls out a tin. It is, predictably, hair grease. “Anybody want any?”

“Yes please,” says Tubbo, helping himself. He starts to shape his hair into elaborate swirls that he thinks compliment his horns quite nicely. Tommy has finally found a station to stick to, led by his one and only criteria: Does It Have Rock ‘n Roll?

“You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog!” he sings, “Cryin’ all the time!” He rolls over to lie on his back, his hands under his head and his small white wings stretched out against the quilt. “Did you know Dream’s graduating this year,” he says.

“Yeah,” says Tubbo, slight relief in his voice. “With a sports scholarship, right?”

“Yeah,” says Tommy, visibly turning up his nose at the notion of Dream getting something paid for. “And Nick Sapnap, and that Karl guy with the colourful polo shirts, and the guy with the glasses who’s always sleeping on the bleachers at lunch-”

“George,” Tubbo supplies.

“But you know what that means, right?”

“Guaranteed peace for the rest of our high school existance?” Ranboo suggests, buttoning up his skirt. It’s black, nothing fancy, but Tubbo thinks it looks really classy.

“Exactly,” Tommy says with a satisfied nod. “We’ll be free!” he announces dramatically. “We’ll be able to walk alone without getting shoved around, nobody will yell at us from the football field anymore… it’s going to be very nice, boys.”

The song changes, and Tommy nods along.

“Life could be a dream, life could be a dream,” the radio sings, and Tubbo hums along, now picking through the items on Ranboo’s shelf. He finds a blue pez dispenser with Donald Duck on it.

“Life could be without Dream, sh-boom if he could leave up to paradise, up above,” Tommy hums, and Ranboo cracks up, beginning to sing along with slightly different words than Tommy.

Tubbo looks over his shoulder to see Ranboo singing into a hairbrush as if it were a microphone. Ranboo spins, his skirt swirling around him. Tubbo grabs the pez dispenser and joins in.

“Woaaah, life without Dream, life could be a dream,” they all sing slightly different lyrics, but all with the same message…. not to mention volume.

The song comes to a close and Tommy makes jazz hands as the music fades back to quiet static.

“How do I look?” Tubbo inquires, trying to see the back of his hair in the mirror.

“Very tuff,” Ranboo assures him. There’s a soft knock from downstairs. “I guess that’ll be the guests,” he says. The muffled sounds of parents greeting visitors rings upstairs, and Ranboo double checks that the door is fully closed.

“Guess what I nabbed from Wilbur,” Tommy says with a grin. Tubbo is more apprehensive than is reasonable. “Look!” Tommy announces, brandishing a cigarette. Tubbo frowns slightly, and Ranboo raises his eyebrows.

“Are you gonna-” Ranboo starts, but Tommy cuts him off.

“Whatever you were going to say, probably!” He whips a lighter from some unknown pocket and it takes a couple tries to get a spark.

“Inside?” Ranboo grumbles quietly, locking the door.

“Wanna try?” Tommy offers once it’s lit. Ranboo shakes his head, and Tubbo doesn’t really know how to respond.

Before either of them say anything, Tommy takes a drag of the cigarette and doubles over coughing. “Fuck!” he hisses, and Ranboo snatches the cigarette from his hand and dunks it in the glass of water on the bedside.

“Really?” Tommy complains, mid-wheeze. Smoke curls towards the ceiling.

“Really yourself! What are you doing lighting that in the house, are you crazy?” Ranboo snaps back, throwing the now soggy cigarette into the garbage can next to his desk. Tommy puts his hands up in surrender. “My parents will kill me if I make it smell in here!”

“Sorry, big man, I didn’t know,” he says.

Tubbo takes the pause as an invitation to walk across the room and open the window, leaning against the frame when he’s done. The cool summer breeze blows over the back of his neck, a sweet relief from the heat of his jacket. The things he’d do to look good. He wonders briefly if Ranboo has ever smoked before, and if so, if that’s the reason he was so sure his parents would be mad. No- that’s not right. Ranboo doesn’t seem the type to smoke. He seems more likely to be inside, reading, than sitting on some back porch, cigarette between his fingers.

“Ranboo?” a voice calls from downstairs, “Could you bring the radio down here?” It’s Ranboo’s mother.

“Okay!” Ranboo calls back, and collects the radio. “C’mon, we should probably go be present or whatever,” he says, before he kicks the door open and heads downstairs with the other two behind him.

Several Enderman couples, friends of Ranboo’s parents, Tubbo supposes, have already arrived by the time the boys get downstairs. They sit in the living room, chatting in mixed Ender and English, humming in harmony with each others’ words when they agree, and laughing through their pointed mouthparts. The air already smells pleasantly of riced mushrooms - the base of a lot of Ranboo’s mother’s cooking - and several guests are holding glass mugs of some sort of frothed, glowing drink.

Everyone waves when the boys step into the room, and Ranboo lightly bonks his forehead against those of a few family friends before the boys sit down on the carpet and start setting up the radio.

Many of the guests are dressed in yellow today, which Tubbo thinks might have something to do with the sunrise. They don’t really distinguish who wears skirts and who doesn’t amongst themselves, and in fact, Tubbo can’t really tell which guests are men and which are women. Maybe Endermen don’t do that. He thinks that’s kind of neat. While the notion is a little unorthodox, Tubbo supposes it’s not that important anyway, since they’re all just… Endermen. Enderpeople he muses, as Tommy plugs the radio in, quite possibly deafening him in the process.

“Sorry!” Tommy yelps, quickly turning the volume down.

Some more mugs of the glowing drink are passed around, and the boys each end up with one. “What exactly… is this?” Tommy asks.

“It’s like moss,” says Ranboo, “And then you boil it, right, and then you bake it, and then you crunch it all up, and then you put it in milk, or water, or something.”

Tommy takes an experimental sip, leaving a glowing green moustache on his face. Tubbo laughs. His own mug must be one of the ones blown from soul sand, because there are little faces with soft, content expressions drifting across the exterior, illuminated by the glowing drink. It interests him to see just what a soul looks like when it’s at rest.

~~~~

Wilbur and Philza close up shop at eight, easing the garage door down with a chain on either side, and turning out the outside light. Phil is already limping pretty bad, and Wilbur has caught him rubbing at the base of his bad wing a few times when Phil thought he wasn’t looking, so he says “Go get some rest, I’ll finish sweeping up.”

Phil doesn’t argue for long, which confirms Wilbur’s suspicions that it’s a bad day for his dad’s various injuries. He can barely remember a time before Phil’s day was bound by what he could accomplish before his leg and wing started to hurt. He’d been only ten when Phil went to go fight in the war. Techno was sixteen, Tommy was six. But before that, back in the gold parts of his memory, he remembers flying around the house nestled in his dad’s great black wings. He remembers Phil flying at the slightest excuse - a too-high cupboard, or a light that needed changing. And even farther back in his memory, even brighter, he remembers something of his mother, her soft black veil, and even softer smile. But that was very long ago.

Wilbur sweeps up inside the shop, washes his hands in the sink at the back, and pauses at the little mirror beside the door. He’d found it in an alleyway and brought it home, and it soothes his vanity a bit to spend a few moments making sure his hair is in order before heading back into the house at the end of a too-long day in the garage. The hair in question needs grease. Wilbur leaves the garage and climbs the stairs to the main part of the house, wiggling out of his grimy t-shirt and throwing it in the laundry basket in the hall. He opens the door to the room he and Techno share, and heads for the dresser. Techno, by virtue of having the fanciest uniform that needs hanging-up (and also by virtue of being the biggest, and being able to push around anyone who contests him, not that he’d mention it), has possession of the closet, while Wilbur contents himself with the dresser.

He pulls out a new t-shirt, and changes into a new pair of jeans that don’t smell of diesel like the old ones do. He spends a moment looking fondly at the poster with all the fancy cars that’s been up on the wall as long as he can remember. For politeness’ sake, he never mentions aloud that Techno pencils in little stars next to the cars that he’s had the opportunity to drive. It goes without saying that he also never mentions aloud the fact that it will be a good long time before Techno (or any of their gang, really) has enough money to buy a car, even a janky one that never appears on posters.

Wilbur clears his head, and moves on to the bathroom. Sure, he doesn’t have money, and he might not ever have money, but boy, he has his looks, and he can easily pretend that’s good enough. He places both hands on the pink countertop and assesses his hair. He’s tried slicking it all back once, but the pointed way Tommy said the word “hairline” made him conclude pretty quickly that the style wasn’t for him. Instead, he ruffles up the front, slicks back the sides, and spends a minute or two making sure his sideburns look tidy. There.

He’s not entirely content. His face is far too pale, his eyes far too dark underneath, and he’s sure it’s not a health thing - he always has plenty to eat - but it still looks unnerving. He lifts the comb again, intending to give the side of his hair one last pass, but suddenly his hand isn’t present, and the comb clatters to the counter.

Wilbur sighs. He shakes his hand, waiting for it to become corporeal again. It’s not that it’s missing from his wrist - he can see where it fades to translucence at the carpal bones - he just can’t use it to touch anything. At this point, he could stick it into the counter, and it would just phase through.

But he doesn’t, he just waits it out. The whole suddenly-turning-incorporeal thing lost its charm (and, let’s be honest, its terror) after the first few times, and now it’s just a bit of an inconvenience. He blinks the weird green light that accompanies it out of his eyes, feels his hand return, and goes to apply it to the doorknob.

On a second thought, he takes off his glasses and sets them by the side of the sink. They detract a little from the tough greaser look, he thinks. Bit too academic.

Then he nods to his reflection, and heads downstairs.

“Are you good for dinner tonight, dad?” he asks. Phil is reclining in an armchair, his broad-brimmed hat over his eyes.

“I am,” says Phil, “Are you going out?”

“Yeah,” says Wilbur, pocketing the keys for the truck, “Sunshine festival at Ranboo’s parents’ place.”

“Mm,” Phil hums, “Say hello to Calsaa for me, would you?”

“Of course,” says Wilbur. “Could you tell Techno he’s invited?”

“Sure,” says Phil. “Sorry I can’t make it myself, I’m just… a bit tired. But you go have fun.”

“Thanks dad.”

He walks out the front door and down to the curb, letting himself into the truck. It’s about as far as you can get from Techno’s poster - a bit dented, a bit rusted, and the back has a wooden rail around the truck bed so that none of their tools fall out. Wilbur rolls down the window, and lights himself a pre-drive cigarette. Then he steps on the gas.

The night air is pleasantly cool over the forearm he rests on the open window. He wondered if old injuries can get worse. Phil had been more tired than usual recently. In the summers, Phil drives. It’s been like that every year that Wilbur can remember - they’ve taken one long weekend every summer, whenever Phil can get a break from the garage, and driven somewhere. Phil says it’s tradition. Back in Las Nevadas, the homeland of the bird-people, he’d explained, there isn’t a lot of wood. That means that every year, they make a migration to the forests on the edges of the desert to bring back enough to build with for that year. The migration is, according to Phil, a big thing - everyone carries something, there are specific traveling songs people sing, and it’s just generally an Event with a capital E. And even though he doesn’t live in his homeland anymore, Phil wanted his sons to be able to experience a migration, so he takes them on a drive to some local mountain, or lake, or little beachside town every summer. The boys sleep in the bed of the truck, while Phil curls up in the backseat. The stars always look brighter out there, away from the city. Maybe that’s why Wilbur feels that driving is like flying. For a guy with no wings, maybe it’s as close as he’ll ever get.

He wonders what Phil thinks, in the privacy of the mind beneath that hat, about only having flightless children. Techno was adopted some six years before Wilbur was born - a tiny, hard-headed Piglin child who sat in the back of the garage all day until he was old enough to toddle over and see what his father was working on. Tommy has wings, but they’re the soft-feathered, downy wings of a baby chicken. They’re good for slowing down his fall when he jumps down a flight of stairs, but not much else. And Wilbur… Well, Phil says Wilbur takes after his mother.

Wilbur stops at the corner-store on the way, picks up a handful of sodas, and then drives the rest of the way. He pulls into the driveway of Ranboo’s house and meets the boys on the lawn as they run out of the house to greet him. They’ve already got the radio playing, and some sort of bioluminescent something-or-other smeared on their faces, so it’s obvious the party is already in full swing.

Tubbo, Ranboo, and Tommy pull him inside, excitedly popping the lids off their soda bottles, and asking questions faster than he can answer about the nature of… Elvis? Or something? He stops by the kitchen counter where Ranboo’s mother is putting the finishing touches on dinner to give her Phil’s well-wishes, and she thanks him.

Dinner is served, but the table is way too small for all the guests, so they just eat wherever they can sit in the living room. Wilbur sits on the rug with Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo around him, and regales them with the story of a little old lady who had used dishwasher soap instead of window-washer fluid on her car, and then brought it into the garage with the streakiest windows he’d ever seen, asking if he could make it wash.

As the night goes on, they turn up the radio, place it on the windowsill, and go out to dance in the front yard. There are a few other Sunshine festival house-parties along the block that are doing the same. The Endermen have beautiful, swaying choreography, and several of them tell Wilbur that he’s got the limbs for it and should take it up, but he brushes off the compliments, saying that he’d rather be on the singing side of the performance, but thanks for the offer.

Somewhere around two in the morning, Techno arrives. Tommy yells hello, and jumps on him, and Techno goes “I’m gonna throw you! Beware, Tommy Innit!” but Wilbur, perpetually more sober than his younger brother, recognizes the tired slouch in Techno’s shoulders. Fresh off work, and he walked all the way here too. Wilbur doesn’t know how he does it.

Techno doesn’t so much dance as much as he spins, and anyone lucky enough to have him holding onto their wrists when he does gets lifted up so that they’re flying around the yard with their feet off the ground as he whirls aggressively. Sometimes he lets go and launches someone. This time it was Tommy. Wilbur supposes that’s just his way of being brotherly.

Tommy emerges from Ranboo’s neighbours’ bushes, unable to walk in a straight line, and looking like a plant pot. “Is the sun up yet?” Tommy grins, unable to focus his eyes on anything. “I think I could go for a little lie-down now…”

"Or we could go for front row seats," Ranboo suggests. The whole crew knows what he's suggesting, and Tommy and Tubbo race each other back inside, pushing and shoving to get ahead. Wilbur and Techno follow behind, slower.

When the others are inside, out of earshot, Wilbur stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Long day?” he asks Techno.

Techno just hums. “Eh. I guess it’s no harder than doin’ the shop work all day,” he says, and Wilbur knows for a fact that’s not true.

They make it to Ranboo’s room, and climb out his window, onto the awning below. Tommy goes first, then Tubbo, then Ranboo, Wilbur, and Techno. They sit in a neat line along the dirty shingles, watching the sky tint with light oranges and pinks.

“This is always my favourite part,” Ranboo says quietly. Tubbo nods.

A cheer rises up from the garden below as the sun crests over the lopsided chimneys and criss-crossing clotheslines of Ranboo’s neighbourhood. Shimmering purple particles join the cool, late-spring air like a sort of mist. Wilbur has to admit it, the Endermen have a good thing going with this whole sunrise thing. Taking a moment to actually look at it and admire it adds a feeling of something bigger into what he’s pretty sure is just going to be another mundane day in the garage.

After the sun is mostly over the horizon, Techno is the first to speak. "Y’know Ranboo, we've been meanin' to ask you something," he says. Ranboo turns to look at him. "We were wonderin’ if you'd be interested in joining the gang."

Ranboo’s eyes widen. "The gang as in The Gang? Your gang?" he asks.

“What other-” Techno looks like he’s about to laugh, his smile pulling hard on his tusks, “What other gang would I be talkin’ about, Ranboo?”

"Well, I don't know!"

"Is that a yes?"

"Of course it's a yes!" Ranboo laughed, “Guys, I would be honoured to join your gang.”

Tubbo grins. "We'd be honored to have you!"

"So, that settles it," Tommy announces. "Ranbus the Greaser, one of us!"

They don’t leave the roof until the sun is solidly in the sky, no chance of falling out of it. Then Techno says, “Don’t you guys have, like, school or somethin’?” and the boys all groan.

"Why're you so damn responsible,Techno?!" Tommy whines playfully.

Techno just rolls his eyes. "It's your day you're ruinin', not mine."

Chapter Text

Ranboo wishes he hadn’t gone to school. Or at least, he wishes he hadn’t gone straight from his roof to school without getting changed first.

The stares had been one thing. He was used to those - he looked like a Converse sneaker, for God’s sake. But Dream’s laugh of “aaw, the harlequin has a little clown dress! Cute!” from behind him as he walked to his locker was… grating, to say the least. He can’t talk to me like that, Ranboo had thought, full of the misplaced optimism that comes from one’s first day in a gang. So he turned around to tell him to shove off.

And Dream did shove… something! But it was Ranboo’s head into the hard metal front of his locker, so that was less good. His ears rang slightly as he fell over, accompanied by equally ringing laughter.

Tubbo had somehow procured a bag of frozen peas from the cafeteria for the walk to Tommy’s house, Ranboo wasn’t going to ask how. And now they’re kicking pebbles along, not two blocks away, so things are starting to look up.

“Wait, so tell me again what happened?” Tubbo asks for what feels like the hundredth time, but is realistically only the fourth. Ranboo sighs. He likes a nice, circular Tubbo-conversation now and again, don’t get him wrong, but he doesn’t like the topic this one is circling on.

“I was wearing a skirt. Dream beat me up.”

Tubbo is fuming now. “Who does he think he is!?” he shouts, slapping a bush in passing. “And why doesn’t anyone do anything about him?” Tubbo grumbles a noise that sounds suspiciously like a bleat.

Ranboo looks at the ground and kicks a rock. The bag of peas he holds to his eye is getting warm, and has started dripping water down his face. It’s terrible.

“Dream… yeah,” he says, “Dream can impress anyone. All he has to do is take them for a ride in that convertible, and then they could care less about who he’s pushed around. But listen,” Ranboo shrugs. “It’s my fault for not getting changed in the first place. I probably should’ve-”

“Yeah, but I’m sick and tired of him picking on you!” Tubbo interrupts. He’s properly angry now, and Ranboo almost finds it comforting to know that there’s someone in his corner. Even if Ranboo knows it’s his own fault, having Tubbo to back him up is… nice.

“I mean, at least he’s graduating?” Ranboo offers up.

Tubbo nods at this, flicking his hair out of his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, “At least there’s that.”

They reach Phil and Sons Auto Body after a couple minutes of comfortable silence. Ranboo pauses at the side of the garage, for a moment, braces himself for Phil’s concern, and steps in after Tubbo. He’s too damn tall to hide behind his friend, and just sort of stands back shamefully holding a bag of wet, room-temperature peas to his eye.

Phil slides out from underneath a car on a little rolling board, cringing as he rolls off where he’s been lying on his wings, and getting to his feet. Ranboo hears Wilbur slide out from under the same car on the other side.

“Wow mate,” says Phil, “You really did a number on that eye!”

Ranboo briefly considers trying to convince Phil that he tripped, before Tubbo cuts in with a cheerful- “But look! Free peas!”

Phil laughs. “That’s one way of looking at it, sure,” he says. He brushes his hands off on his coveralls and looks towards the door to the house. “Are you looking for Tommy then?”

“Yeah,” says Ranboo. “Is he home?”

“He’s making a snack in the kitchen I think,” says Phil. The boys thank him and head inside. As he’s closing the door, Ranboo thinks he hears Phil mutter something to Wilbur about taking the afternoon off to “make sure the boys don’t get into too much trouble.”

Tommy is spreading peanut butter on top of a cheese sandwich as Ranboo and Tubbo walk into the kitchen. “Afternoon,” he says, and then looks up and gasps, “Whoah, what happened to your eye?”

Tubbo sits down aggressively, but before he can say anything, Ranboo grins a conspiratorial “you should see the other guy!” and Tommy is laughing and handing him a (mercifully peanut-butter-less) sandwich.

“Big man Ranboo!” he exclaims, clapping him on the back. Ranboo samples the sandwich. It’s not half bad. “Since you’re such a big man now, in a gang and all,” he pauses for dramatic effect, and to swallow a sticky, peanut-y bite, “How do you feel about vandalism?”

“Mm, yeah, I’m a big fan,” Ranboo nods.

“Well that’s good,” says Wilbur from the doorway. He stands to his full height, and somehow his coveralls don’t even detract from the grandness he’s applying to the situation. “Techno and I have been thinking,” he says, “That it’s been too long since this town has known just how dangerous a bit of grease can be. Those rich kids up by the casino - do they know the sort of problems we could cause them? If we set our minds to it? I think they’ve forgotten.” He smiles, and Ranboo almost sees that odd, green look his eyes get to them sometimes. “So we propose,” he offers this, palms-up, “With the agreement of our fellow gang members, of course, that we cover the steps of the casino with the old engine grease from the garage, and show them how we can take away even the ability to walk, if we so choose.”

“Yes,” says Tommy, “Oh absolutely.”

“Yeah, I’m down,” says Ranboo. “I’d just, maybe, like to get changed first.”

“Oh of course,” Wilbur nods. “What do you want to wear?”

“Just-” Ranboo sighs. “Anything but this. I wanna… I wanna look like a proper greaser, you know?”

“Oh Ranbus,” says Wilbur, walking across the room to the stairs, “You’re in a gang, you’re already a proper greaser.” He waves Ranboo towards him, starting up the stairs. “But if you want, we’ll make you look as tuff and intimidating as they get.”

Ranboo has been to the drive-through. He’s sat through musicals, and campy teen movies, and he knows that when the heroine sits down in front of a mirror in somebody else’s bathroom, they’re about to declare that a makeover needs to happen, or sing a song about making you popular, and there’s going to be a whole sequence about it, and silly as it is, Ranboo feels just like one of those movie heroines.

Tommy’s sweatshirt with the cut-off sleeves doesn’t fit him. The arms of Tubbo’s aviator jacket are too short, and leave several inches of wrist poking out. There’s a jean-jacket that’s almost right, but then Wilbur shakes his head.

“No, Ranbus,” he mutters, “I think you need something more special.”

He returns with a black leather jacket. The silver zippers on the pockets clink softly. It feels heavy in Ranboo’s hands, but when he slides it on, the weight over his shoulders is actually sort of comforting. The first thing he notices when he looks in the mirror is Tubbo’s wide eyes in his periphery. The second is how cool he looks - the sharpness of his shoulders, the way the dark jacket brings out the glaring brightness of his eyes, and yeah, he could get used to this.

“Where did you get this?” he half-whispers, afraid to break the coolness of the moment.

“Eret left it with me when he went off to college,” says Wilbur. “What do you think of it? Boys?” He turns to Tubbo and Tommy.

“Oh it’s SO tuff!” says Tommy, while Tubbo just says-

“Amazing.”

Wilbur disappears again to find him some of his own blue-jeans to borrow, while Tubbo and Tommy get started on his hair. They apply extra grease, and then brush it back from his forehead, combing it so that the black and white strands overlap in some sort of updo on top of his head. As the finishing touch to everything, Wilbur disappears into the room that Ranboo is pretty sure is Philza’s, and comes out with a little compact case full of pale, powdery makeup. He uses a silly little puff thing to apply it under Ranboo’s busted eye, and then all of a sudden it doesn’t look busted at all. Was that- Had that been Phil’s late wife’s makeup? Ranboo doesn’t know much about her, but he isn’t sure that now is the moment to ask.

He looks at himself in the mirror, and the him that looks back might almost look a bit confident. Everything’s a costume, Ranboo thinks, not unhappily. This might be the one that fits.

~~~~

The casino is about to get busy. The sun is setting, the roads are full of respectable people coming home from their respectable jobs in shiny chrome cars, and more than several of them have their hearts set on a game of poker tonight.

Techno has let the gang know about the timing of the thing. He can’t make it, because he’s supposed to be working in the garage of the very casino they’re vandalizing, as per usual. Tommy knows Tehcno’s job is important, and he knows he has to do his work, and he knows that that’s why Techno can’t come and help with their escapades, but it truly didn’t feel like a proper event without the whole gang there. This was sort of Ranboo’s big moment where he joined the gang, and it felt off without Techno to complete them.

Nevertheless! It’s still pretty fun to sit in the back of the pickup with Tubbo and Ranboo, only bouncing around slightly as Wilbur drives over potholes, until they drive out of the neighbourhood where there are potholes and onto the smoother roads on the hill leading up to the casino. The soft night air has to blow past the driver’s seat window before it reaches them, so it does smell a bit like smoke in the back, but Tommy doesn’t mind that too much.

The casino is big, and that’s the first thing Tommy notices. He’s never hung around it before - he’s heard that some of the socs in twelfth grade have, but he’s pretty sure at that point, they’re just showing off. Hey, they’ve got to stick to their brand somehow!

It’s not like the pictures of Las Vegas he’s seen on TV, so, to Tommy’s eyes it looks more like a hotel or something. There is one tasteful neon sign over the door though. Lots of windows. A fountain out in front, and some little bushes cut into funny shapes. The roof has a bunch of those tiles on it that he thinks are Spanish, maybe, but maybe they’re from Nevada. He’s heard that the H.Q. family, the ones that own the casino, come from Nevada.

Wilbur pulls the pickup into the roundabout in front of the casino steps, slow and steady. There’s no one else in the roundabout but them. He leans out the window on his forearm, one hand only tangentially on the wheel. “You boys ready?” he asks around the side of the truck.

They nod. Ranboo stands up. He gives a look over his shoulder which Tommy would say is actually pretty cool, and nods at the boys. Then he vaults out of the bed of the pickup, and runs towards the steps.

As soon as Ranboo turns back to them, Tubbo tosses the can of grease. Once Ranboo has caught it, Tommy tosses the paintbrush. He slaps the back of the truck twice - his signal for Wilbur to loop around the block as Ranboo works, and Wilbur takes off. The last thing Tommy sees as they pull out of the roundabout is Ranboo slappin’ down grease on those pristine marble steps, and then-

Oh no. Someone else is driving up to the casino.

“WILBUA!” Tommy yells, “DRIVE!!”

Wilbur takes off as fast as one can take off in this kind of vehicle, sending Tommy rolling across the truck bed. He peeks over the tailgate, to see the parking lot behind the casino flashing past, and Wilbur jettisoning his cigarette in favour of gripping the wheel with both hands.

They pull back around the front side of the building, just in time. Some random casino patron is already there giving Ranboo a stern, see here young man, covered in pearls and clutching them worriedly. As she should, Tommy thinks with a mischievous grin. There are some tuff greasers in the neighbourhood, haven’t you heard?

As they pull into the driveway, a dark-haired man in a whole three-piece suit steps out of the casino doors to yell at Ranboo. Tommy wonders for a moment what Ranboo’ll do, and is pleasantly surprised when Ranboo holds the can of grease behind his back with one hand and gives the man a firm handshake with the other. Ranboo then turns on his heel, and half-run-half-slides down the steps, sprints in a slippery sort of fashion to the pickup, throws the can and the brush in, and swan-dives into the truck bed as gracefully as his lanky limbs can allow.

As they pull out of the roundabout, top speed, Tommy looks back and sees the dark-haired man, who he’s only now realizing must be Mr. H.Q., go careening down the front steps of his own casino, cursing the whole way down, and land on the sidewalk rump-downwards, legs outstretched. Tommy tackles Ranboo in a hug, only to find that Tubbo has beaten him to it. They can hear Wilbur whooping from the front seat.

~~~~

There is a diner right at the margin of the rough side of town. It’s what you might call disputed territory. No man’s land, if you will. Phil’s boys’ gang has tried to claim it. Dream’s football team has tried to claim it. The gang of that parrot-winged boy from the south side of town has tried to claim it, both alone and together with Phil’s boys. But none of them seem to be able to hold it for any amount of time. The milkshakes were just too good.

Wilbur pulls up to the drive through with the boys still in the back, and they all hop out like some ratty clown car.

Tommy claps Ranboo on the back, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “I’d say you deserve a Big Milkshake; for a Big Man.” Tommy says. The arm around Ranboo’s shoulders is throwing off his balance, and they stagger into the diner slightly in an almost-straight line.

The good news is, Elvis is playing on the jukebox. Jailhouse Rock is a very appropriate song for the current law-breaking atmosphere, Wilbur thinks. The bad news is, Dream and his friends are sitting in a booth between the door and the cashier. The even worse news is that it’s Phil’s boys’ booth. Their booth. The booth that they always sit in.

Wilbur does his best not to roll his eyes, as he leads the gang up to the cashier. Tonight isn’t the night to go picking fights.

Dream doesn’t seem to agree, though. As Wilbur passes by, he hears him mutter “man, they finally get him some clothes, and this is what they pick?”

“Pretentious prick,” George mumbles in agreement.

Tubbo goes to turn back, but Wilbur shakes his head. “Let’s just eat,” he mutters. Tubbo seems to agree.

“The usual, boys?” the waitress at the cashier asks. Niki’s hair is pink, but Wilbur isn’t sure if it’s on purpose, or if it was an accident with red hair-dye, but either way, it suits her. He takes pride in the fact that he’s never heard her call anyone else’s orders their ‘usual.’

As everyone answers some variation of ‘yes,’ Wilbur reluctantly accepts that he’s the one who will have to choose their seating. If their usual seat is occupied, where do they sit to make it seem like they aren’t scared? That’s the last thing Wilbur wants. As the de facto leader, sitting all the way across the room would just emanate cowardice. He picks the next booth over from where Dream is sitting, as he assumes Techno would have done. There’s still plenty of aisle between them.

It doesn’t take long for Niki to return with baskets generously filled with fries, onion rings, and hamburgers and sandwiches overstuffed with crispy lettuce and melted cheese. There’s enough food that she has to enlist the cook, a little part-fox guy with a black foldable hat, to help her carry it. They eat happily, and mercifully, without interruption.

It’s only when Ranboo is bringing his tray back to the counter when the soc boys start to get loud. Wilbur can see that they’ve finished their food and are looking for better entertainment than a coin-operated jukebox can give you, and he hates that Ranboo seems to be it.

“Any nice boys ask you to go steady today?” Dream calls out. Ranboo keeps his eyes fixed on the table as he walks back. Wilbur can’t tell if it would be worse for Ranboo to just take it and walk back in shame, or to say something back.

“Come on,” says Sapnap, “You’re giving him a lot of credit.”

Dream laughs, but not quite with his characteristic volume. It’s like he wouldn’t waste the effort on a bunch of greasers. “Yeah,” he says, “I wouldn’t.”

Wilbur and Tubbo both stand up at the same time. Tubbo slaps the table, upending the few last chips from a basket. Tommy catches on and stands too.

“Did you hear something?” Wilbur asks, softly, but not pleasantly. “I think I heard a little rich boy crying for attention.”

Tommy crosses his arms. “Yeah, maybe he doesn’t get enough at home. Poor dear.”

Dream’s open palms hit the table shockingly loudly. The cook almost drops his tray of milkshakes, his ears flattening into his hair. “You wanna say that again, you little-”

Wilbur sneers closer across the aisle. “With relish,” he says.

“Boys,” says Niki. Her sternness is the only thing that can stop whatever this is becoming.

Wilbur takes the hint and steps into the aisle. "Shall we take this outside, soc?” he asks.

Dream gestures to the aisle. “Be my guest.”

Wilbur motions for the boys to follow him, and the gang walks out first. He runs the numbers in his head. The guy in the bright polo shirt with the Beatles hair looks easy - he would probably just go down if you pushed him. Same with the guy in sunglasses. But Dream and the dark haired guy are both good athletes - they could probably knock the boys around a little too easily for his liking.

“What do we do?” Tommy whispers to him on their way out.

“Just look tough,” Wilbur replies, “It’ll scare them off.” He hopes he's telling the truth.

Wilbur squares up with Dream as soon as they get to the curb, rolling up his sleeves and pushing his hair out of his eyes. With the boys standing behind him, looking tough like he instructed, it does look like it’s naturally worked out into a duel sort of situation. Thank God.

“Listen, Dream,” Wilbur says, balling his hands into fists. “You pick on my gang, and this is what you get.”

“Bring it on, grease,” Dream grins.

Wilbur throws the first punch, calculated, fast, and directly at Dream’s jaw. Dream barely dodges, his perfectly-arranged, businesslike hair falling right into his face. He ducks down, shoulder-height to Wilbur’s hips, and before Tommy can yell “look out!” he’s football-tackled him. Wilbur, cursing his lack of involvement in team sports that would have given him practice spinning out of this particular hold, goes down onto the concrete. His glasses fly off his face as he curls his chin towards his chest, successfully not dashing his head against the sidewalk.

It’s a bit blurry, but Wilbur can see Dream’s scowl from on top of him, and his fist hurling towards his face. He rolls sideways, away from where he was about to get his face beat in. The concrete takes the blow instead of him. Dream shouts in pain. Wilbur hooks his arm under his leg. He rolls upwards, upending Dream, and they scramble to their feet amid shouted encouragements from both sides.

“Rough him up!” yells Sapnap.

“Get his ass!” Tommy yelps.

Dream jumps forward faster than Wilbur expects, his fist colliding painfully with Wilbur’s mouth. He feels his tooth punch into his lip, hard, and his head snaps back.

But he can’t waste a second. He throws a punch right back into Dream’s eye, and Dream goes down with a hiss. He stays down.

Wilbur leans over him menacingly, and smears the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “Dream,” he says, “don’t you ever. Mess with our gang again.”

Something like fear flashes across his eyes but it’s gone before Wilbur can really acknowledge it. He pushes himself to his feet and scrambles back.

“You’re dead meat, Soot!” He shouts. “C’mon!” his buddies follow him back to their car.

Wilbur lets out a shuddering, bloody-toothed sigh of relief.