Chapter Text
The sunken-in metal quilt of a roof was only growing hotter as the sun stood taller. A handful of meters away, a squirrel was rustling through overgrown underbrush. The dirt and gravel driveway was occupied by a single car: a gleaming gray E320, 1995. Three teens sat in the abandoned barn they called their “rehearsal space”, spattered with folding chairs, small tables, and musical equipment. Their amp was powered by a portable generator stolen from one of their dads.
Ranboo and Tubbo huddled over a legal pad, spewing song ideas loose in graphite. They didn’t need to fuss with writing lyrics, or composing chords; all they had to do was figure out which pre-existing songs would be the most fun to play. Tommy, for one, was uninterested. He had sat down on a nearby chair, going through a catalogue of every uncomfortable sitting position. He was only there to chip in with the occasional “sure, sounds good,” or “fuck no, we are not covering The Smashing Pumpkins.”
Tommy’s thumb caught on the sparkwheel of a lighter, over and over. The melodic scratching sound was almost a song in its own right. The flame kept going out the same second it lit. Tommy scowled.
“It’s too windy,” he complained, speaking around a cigarette. “Can we please just find somewhere that isn’t fuckin’ crumbling?” Tommy gestured to the holes where walls should have been. The breeze passing through the barn was pleasant blowing through their hair.
“It’s free, though,” Tubbo reminded.
“If you want free, we can just go practice at mine!”
“Your neighbors would probably get annoyed,” Ranboo said.
“If they could deal with dad and Wilbur, they can deal with us,” Tommy waved a hand. He tried again to light his cigarette.
“Weren’t Wilbur and Phil just two dudes playing acoustic guitars, though?”
“I don’t know, I like the feeling of having a place that’s really our own,” Tubbo shrugged.
“We are literally squatting,” Tommy jabbed his lighter in Tubbo’s direction, before sticking it in his jacket pocket. The cigarette stayed right where it was, hanging from his lips.
“Well, yeah, but there’s nobody who lives around and cops don’t come here. That makes it basically ours,” the shortest of the three grinned.
“Whatever. If this place is so ours, why haven’t we marked our territory yet? Hm?”
Tubbo’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Actually! I have spray paints in my trunk.”
“Isn’t it illegal to buy spray paint?” Ranboo asked.
“I didn’t buy it, silly,” Tubbo grinned, turning so he could search his backpack for his car keys. “I stole them from my dad. Do you wanna go grab ‘em, Tommy?”
“I’d be honored,” Tommy walked over to grab the keys from Tubbo’s grasp.
“Don’t drive away and strand us here,” Ranboo playfully warned.
“Don’t give me ideas.”
Tommy’s beat-up sneakers kicked through long grass. One thing that bothered Tommy was that Tubbo parked right at the entrance of the driveway. The long-as-hell driveway that reached the midway point on a twenty-acre piece of land. Tubbo always touted some excuse about not wanting to get his car dirty by kicking up so much dust. Tommy wondered what the point even was then. If they had taken Tommy’s car, they would be parked right next to the barn, where getting to and from their transportation would be a cake walk. Instead, Tubbo had to make things harder on everyone. That’s what Tommy told himself, anyways.
He shoved the key in the slot on the trunk, and immediately snorted at how messy the space was. He knew Tubbo’s dad would kill him if he ever saw the sorry state it was in. Tommy found an old Walmart bag filled with a couple cans of spray paint. The paint was definitely developed with construction and labor in mind, but it would make art nicely.
Tommy jostled the bag as he walked back, hearing shakers roll around in tin. He figured that while he waited for them to finally figure out what songs they were to perform, he could run around the lot and go off marking the various buildings. He looked around, taking inventory. There was their practice barn, obviously. There was also a silo with no roof. It had wicked acoustics, but the floor was all mud. There was a house, crawling with asbestos and exposed insulation. And finally, a dilapidated shack that was more a pile of junk than it was a structure. Tommy decided that all of these landmarks would become the victims of his artistic wrath. Starting with the silo. Surely his friends wouldn’t mind if he slipped away from rehearsal for a bit, right?
He made his way over, stepping over debris and feeling sweat bead along his hairline. He could probably stand to lose the jacket, but he thought it made him look cooler. It was brown and ratty and covered with all of his brother’s old patches. Hopefully the University of Chicago was treating Wilbur well. The next time he was slated to visit was his birthday weekend in mid-September, which was only a few months’ wait but it felt like worlds away. Tommy couldn’t wait to show off all the progress his band had made.
He chucked the bag inside the silo first. Then, he hauled himself in the old unloading door, something a foot and a half off the ground and unwarrantedly difficult to crawl through. Once inside the tall tank, he noted the lack of wind. No wind meant his lighter would work. He fished the thing from his jacket pocket, and tried one last time to light his cigarette, finally to avail. He felt as though he could cry, feeling the burn flood his throat. Maybe this rehearsal wasn’t so bullshit after all, not if he was getting away with smoking and drawing on walls. Two things he could never do at home.
He scrounged a red can of paint, and concluded that it was his new best friend. He popped the lid off (with some minor struggle), and shook well before pressing the nozzle to the concrete wall. A few spritzes and toxic fumes later, “THESEUS” was dripping red, messy lettering and teenage passion. A flame swelled in the young man; in his lungs, too. He gave a devilish grin to nobody but himself as he went around the circumference of the silo, producing little doodles and inscribing cuss words. Was it immature? Sure. But more importantly, it was fun, and Tommy couldn’t help but be proud of himself gazing upon his mural of “fucks.” It was honestly poetry in action.
His cigarette dwindled, and he dropped the butt to the ground and crushed it beneath his sole. He decided he missed the feeling, and retrieved another from his pack. Rinse, and repeat. The silo was a cacophony of red before he heard footsteps drawing near.
“Jesus, is this where you’ve been?” Tubbo asked, peeking his head inside. “You’re wasting all the paint.”
“Wasting?” Tommy chuckled. “No, no, my friend. This is utilizing.”
“What’s that say?” Ranboo pointed to a particularly messy scribble. “‘I… heart… hot women?’ Really?”
“Well I mean, I do,” Tommy shrugged.
“You stink,” Tubbo pointed out, climbing inside the silo himself. He found a green paint canister in the bag and began to spray away.
“Like paint, or smoke?”
“Smoke. How many have you had?”
“Just, like… three.”
“In thirty minutes?” Ranboo climbed in as well.
“Yeah, you’re probably gonna get sick, dude,” Tubbo warned, starting his own tag placed over a doodle Tommy did of a house.
“I’ll be fine. I just wanna finish the pack before I get home.”
“Finish the pack?” Ranboo dug around through the bag. “How many do you have left?”
“Like, two?”
“Oh, you’re definitely gonna be sick,” Tubbo laughed, but kept his eyes trained on his handiwork.
“Well I don’t want dad finding them in my room,” Tommy complained. “What do you suppose I do? Keep them in the barn?”
“You could,” Ranboo pointed out. “In fact, that may be the smartest course of action.”
“Whatever,” Tommy rolled his eyes, starting on another declaration of his name. THESEUS.
“Your dad’s gonna smell them on you,” Tubbo said. “Scratch that, Technoblade will.”
“I’d be more scared of him,” Ranboo helpfully added. He found a nice violet shade of paint.
“I feel like you guys are trying to use scare tactics on me,” Tommy shook his can. The paint coming from it was becoming splotchy. “It ain’t gonna work.”
“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you, is all,” Tubbo stepped back from his masterpiece. It read “U235” and was encased in what seemed to be a bomb.
“Holy shit,” Tommy eyed the piece. “You practice that?”
“A little,” Tubbo admitted. “I draw this in my sketchbook, you know. And I’ll spray on some of my dad’s old palettes.”
“That’ll do it,” Ranboo nodded. “Guys, I don’t know what my tag should be. I don’t think I can come up with anything as cool as yours.”
“Sure you can,” Tubbo reassured. “There’s plenty of cool things about you. Like, um….”
“His name is Ranboo. He’s not that cool.”
“Oh! Your tag could be ‘Boo!’”
“Just the word ‘boo?’” Ranboo raised a quizzical brow.
“Hm, maybe with a bit of embellishment. Like… like an exclamation mark. Like you’re all scary and shit. Boo!” Tubbo smiled. Ranboo considered it, rocking his head from side to side.
“That is the stupidest tag I’ve ever heard,” Tommy scoffed. No matter how hard he pressed the button on the can, less and less red was beginning to come out. He cursed under his breath.
“Okay, Theseus,” Tubbo chided back. “Who picked that name for you? Your uncle?”
“Hey, don’t diss Theseus. It’s a really cool name my really cool uncle picked out.”
“And ‘Boo!’ is the very cool tag I picked out for my very cool friend,” Tubbo retorted.
Throughout their paltry argument, Ranboo had been hard at work. He revealed his own artistry, “BOO!” written out in blocky letters. Tommy hummed.
“Needs to be scarier,” Tommy decided, and took initiative by painting an eye on one side of the name in his red. By the time he started on the other, the can was empty. He tossed it against a wall. “Shit! I was trying to have it be, like, two eyes looking at you. Like all Halloween-y and shit.”
“I got it,” Tubbo raised his can, and closed off the tag with a green eye on the left.
“Okay… okay, yeah, that looks pretty sick,” Ranboo grinned.
The three stood together, eyeing up the place. They felt a little more at-home in this new refuge, with their scribbled names surrounding them.
“I told you, you were gonna be sick,” Tubbo scolded. He sat in the driver’s seat, peeling down a long and empty country road. There was nothing as far as the eye could see, other than fields of soy, and the occasional tree or farm.
“I’m fine,” Tommy spat. “I’m only sick because I’m in the car.”
“Tommy, I have never known you to get car sickness,” Ranboo looked at Tommy through the rear-view mirror.
“Fuck off,” Tommy slouched over more, stomach twisting and churning. He had ended up leaving his cigarettes on the lot, after all, tucked away under the barn’s staircase. They had to call it a day after Tommy started complaining about feeling like he was going to throw up. He claimed all three back seats to himself, curling up and not using a single seatbelt.
“Are we coming back, same time tomorrow?” Ranboo asked.
“Yeah, for sure,” Tubbo agreed. It was late May. School had let out the week prior, and Ranboo’s working hours didn’t interfere with hanging out. The boys had nothing but time to kill together.
Tubbo parked in front of the apartment building Tommy and his family lived in. He gave a quick farewell to his friends, as well as asking them one last time if he smelled of cigarettes. He did. He was relieved to see his father’s car absent from the driveway. He wasn’t so lucky when it came to his uncle.
“I’m home,” he called into the two-bedroom unit. On cue, a kettle began to whistle.
“Welcome home, Theseus,” Technoblade appeared in the kitchen beside the entryway. “How was practice?”
“Good,” Tommy quickly made his way to his bedroom to douse himself in cologne—hopefully, inconspicuously.
“Do you want any tea?” Technoblade called after him.
“No, can’t stomach anything right now!” Tommy shouted back.
“You sick, or something?”
“Nauseous!”
Tommy pushed the bathroom door shut behind him. He should really shower, if he wanted to rid himself of the tobacco scent instead of just masking it. It’d probably be a good idea to scrub the paint off his fingers, too. For the time being, he just took a Tums, and sidled up beside the toilet. The bathroom door squeaked open just a crack, where a bottle of water rolled in. Technoblade shut the door right after.
The feeling eventually passed. Tommy took a quick shower, focusing on his hair and hands. When he was finished, he joined Technoblade on the couch, where they watched an old history documentary together. Tommy couldn’t be bothered with paying attention to the tale of some World War II pilot, and instead texted his friends throughout it. Techno didn’t mind. He eventually excused himself so he could prepare dinner for the pair and Phil, who was bound to be home soon.
A few miles away, Tubbo popped a frozen dinner in the microwave. It was Friday night, so his father wasn’t due to return until the wee hours of the morning, reeking of a good time at the bar. After Tubbo ate, he spent his time messing around on his piano, chasing familiar tunes. Once the hour hand hung around ten, he called it quits, and retired to bed.
A few towns over, Ranboo tied the knot for his apron behind his back, and he clocked into his night shift at Mobil. The work was boring—mind-numbing, in fact—but he was getting paid, so he couldn’t complain too much. Hours came and went with few customers rolling in. Usually Fridays were busier, but this night was just lazy, lazy, lazy. Ranboo had nearly fallen asleep when he heard the door chime. He awoke fully when he saw who had walked in.
It was two young men, perhaps a handful of years older than Ranboo. If Ranboo couldn’t recognize them by the navy beanie one donned, or the color-block hoodie of the other, then their voices would have been a dead giveaway as they bickered and laughed.
Ranboo snuck his phone out, and snapped pictures of the two customers while their attention was honed in on the racks of chips. Ranboo sent panicked texts to the sleeping group chat of his band.
Ranboo: GUYS
Ranboo: GUYS?
Ranboo: 2/5 OF THE CREW AT MY WORK
He followed up the texts with the pictures he took: Karl and Alex of his and his friends’ favorite band, The Crew, in the flesh.