Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sometimes, Techno thinks Wilbur hates him. That his seatmate, someone he's going to be stuck with for the rest of the school year, absolutely detests his guts.

It's quite funny, he didn't do anything wrong, or maybe he did, but Wilbur never told him and just randomly decided to loathe his existence one day without prior warning or even a simple reason.

Techno tries to avoid Wilbur. Wilbur doesn't try to avoid him; he sits on his chair with a smirk on his face as he stares him down. And Techno would purposely never let their eyes meet, even though projects and group works make it difficult, even if he still doesn't know why he has to do all this to maintain his peace of mind.

Unfortunately, Wilbur's mean glares and cold responses are only a couple of things that float in his vast, never-ending ocean of problems.

The sudden upsurge of the voices lingering in his head doesn't usually occur in school. When it does so happen that his luck betrays him without remorse, it would be in the bathroom or behind the school parking lot dumpsters where no one will hear or care when he starts to scream.

But today, the voices have been clouding his head the moment he stepped into the classroom.

"Hey," Wilbur nudges him out of nowhere. "Social Studies is due today.”

Techno stares at him emptily. Since when was there homework for Social Studies? Since when was he partnered with Wilbur? Oh right. Yesterday..

He wasn't listening.

Neither then nor now.

Idiot, the voices snicker. You shouldn't have forgotten about that. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Now even his professor will dislike him. And Wilbur would request to change his partner and nobody else will want to work with him for as long as he studies in this messed-up college and everyone will look at him as if he's some sort of weird freak as they always do-

"Dude," Wilbur snaps his fingers in front of Techno whose jaws are clenched and shoulders are tense. "I'm asking you if you finished your part in the project.”

“I..” Techno trails off. "No," he mutters quietly.

Wilbur slaps a hand on his desk, fury slowly making his ears bright red. Techno suppresses a wince. "God, you moron, you know that's due today. Social studies was like, first period!" Wilbur starts pulling on his hair in frustration.

"Sor- I'm sorry," Techno apologises.

“Screw that, man, it's due in fifteen minutes max. Tell me, how the fuck are you going to finish your side of the map before then?”

Techno could tell him a thousand excuses, but he knows for a fact that the only reason why he was completely unable to do anything productive last night is because of the voices, their shrill laughter ringing in his ears keeping him up until five in the morning. The thread of his sanity was already being severed before he could even take his pen out of his bag.

But Wilbur won't believe any of that, as true as his ‘excuses’ may be. Techno hopes he finds a decent excuse before his seatmate gets properly mad. Wilbur is scary when he's mad. Techno doesn't know the extent of his anger, and he doesn't want to find out either.

“My neighbour-”

“Oh good,” Wilbur scoffs. “Your neighbour. Last time it was your preschooler cousin, wasn't it? Stop telling me that bullshit when you can't even make up a good reason! This is why I hate being groupmates for you in- in anything, really. You're smart and get good grades and all that, but it's so damn hard to talk to you.”

“I'm sorry, Wilbur,” Techno tries. “I'm sorry.” He's got nothing else to tell him.

“And that too! You keep on fucking apologising when you know that's not gonna change anything. This is all worthless to you, you get an ‘A+’ in everything, don't you? And that's why you think you can just not give two shits about our project. But, I swear to god, I actually work to get my grades up. If you're the reason why I'll be getting ‘C-’ this semester because we fail on this project, I might as well drop out to-”

Techno’s mind starts going blank. Static. Static. Static. And then the voices start screaming in overlapping torrents.

All your fault.

This is all on you if Wilbur fails.

Horrible.

Bad.

Horrible.

He hates you.

He should hate you.

This is why he hates you.

Horrible.

Horrible-

“Y’know what?” Wilbur says in the bleary distance. “I'd rather eradicate myself than be your groupmate.”

His surmise is right. Wilbur does hate him.

You deserve it.

Wilbur doesn't need someone as useless as you are to ruin his academics.

He hates you.

He's going to make everyone hate you.

Everyone will end up despising you.

They all abhor your existence in this classroom.

You're a terrible person.

You're doing this on purpose. You want Wilbur to fail.

No he doesn't.

You want Wilbur to fail. Mean, mean Wilbur. He needs a taste of his own medicine.

This or you gouge his eyes out.

If only he would stop glaring.

Make him stop glaring.

Tear the project apart.

Put the blame on him.

He hates you.

You should hate him too.

You should hate him too.

You hate him too

You hate him too

You hate him too-

Techno flinches as he jolts back to reality. He didn't even realise that he had his head hidden in his hands. The voices are alleviating, replaced by someone speaking. To him. Someone speaking to him.

“-chno? Please, come back to me. Fuck-”

The speaking fades out as quickly as it came.

He can't feel himself. It's as if he's floating around in his own skin. He's not supposed to be here. He should be in his classroom, and he should be defending himself against Wilbur’s accusations. But he can't seem to open his mouth. He can't seem to move his limbs.

“Techno, do you hear me?”

Strikingly, he does. He doesn't know who's talking. Or rather, he does, he knows it's Wilbur because Wilbur is right here—though his lips aren't moving along to the words that spill from his throat. There is a brunette boy in front of him, and he is a blurry picture, he is a mosaic of all the things Techno wishes to apologise to.

“I’m sorry, Wil,” he whispers, pleads. “It’s my fault. I'm sorry. You..you can tell the professor it's my fault. I'm sorry, Wilbur.”

Wilbur clicks his tongue, shaking his head. He kneels beside Techno. “Can you look at me?”

Techno contemplates before following—he has no other choice.

“It's my fault,” Wilbur admits, and they both look as taken aback as each other. “I'm the one who should be sorry. I shouldn't have lashed out on you like that. And- and I understand if you don't want to talk about what just happened. Yeah, I do have a shit ton of questions, but you don't have to answer. Try to breathe with me, alright? You weren't responding to me for a whole ten minutes.”

Ten minutes..?

“In,” Wilbur squeezes his shoulder as he inhales. “And out,” he exhales. “C'mon, do it with me, yeah?”

“In..”

“And out.”

“In..”

“And out.”

In.

Out.

Techno had never felt this sort of silence in his brain in a while. The drumming of his heart slows down to a normal speed, something he isn't used to, because the world spins either too fast or too slow for him most times.

Wilbur sighs tiredly, there is something melancholic in the way his pupils stutter in solicitude. “You..fuck, are you alright?”

Techno shrugs half-heartedly. “Sure. It happens.”

“What do you mean it happens? That isn't supposed to happen!” Wilbur raises his voice. Techno frowns at the abrupt crescendo.

“Oh,” Wilbur mumbles, guilty by the way he bites the inside of his cheek. “Did I cause what happened a while ago?”

“No,” Techno chuckles bitterly. “Absolutely not..Wilbur, why are you doing all this? You hate me.”

“What are you on? I don't. Sure, it gets annoying when you go unresponsive, but I don't hate you.”

“Sorry. The voices, they just get too imprudent.”

“Huh?”

The bell rings before Techno could even ponder on whether he should repeat himself or stay quiet, stay insignificant.

“We've gotta go before someone catches us in here after school hours. Do you wanna go get some beer?”

“I don't drink.”

“Tea?”

“Your British is showing,” Techno jokes. Wilbur pouts at him, offended. It takes him a few embarrassing seconds to realise that he isn't being genuine, that he isn't actually upset.

“Ah, whatever. Let's just get out of here,” Wilbur says.

“Wait, what about the proje-”

“Oh, fuck the project. It can write itself.”

“Technically, objects that aren't sentient can't write.”

Wilbur laughs, although Techno is unsure what he finds funny. “Still, I'm offering you a break over here. Ice cream?”

And he wonders since when has Wilbur been this nice. Or maybe he was just being a bit too sour and cocky that it outshone every inch of kindness, the type that Techno could actually discern.

“Yup. Ice cream.”

The voices erupt into chaos, a surprisingly calmer sort.

E

Ice cream!?

YESS

ok. ice cream good

Ice cream good

E

E

Ice cream good

Strawberry?

SHHH VANILLA BETTER

no

Yes!

E

Ice cream good