Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tommy lets out a groan as the final bell rings overhead. He slowly stands up and begins packing his school things as the other students rush out of the classroom, pushing off the inevitable. “Can’t believe I got fucking detention on a Friday…” he mumbles to himself as he leaves the room and starts down the hallway, ignoring his teacher’s “have a good weekend” as he passes by. Tommy shoves his way through the crowded hallways, not caring to bother with saying excuse me or anything today because, in his frankly very big man opinion, he’s had a shit day and doesn’t care what others have to say right now.

First, he woke up late after staying up to finish repairing a sweater that belonged to his friend, Riley, an oddly tall boy with vitiligo and a mild water allergy. Then, after going downstairs to yell at his brothers for not waking him up, he realizes the two dickheads had left without him and that he’d either have to walk the mile and a half to school or take the public bus. A thing he’s refused to do ever since last summer after getting thrown up on by a stranger. And even after all of that, his teacher decided to give him a detention because he had missed almost all of his first class.

Which leads him back to now, pushing people out the way to get to the back of the school where the detention room was. Finally, after much shoving and prodding, he makes it out of the giant swarm of students trying to leave, he lets out a sigh as he walks up to the detention room and pushes the door open, not feeling like pushing it off any further. As he crosses over inside, a smile crosses his face as he spots two great things. One, the usual teacher wasn’t here meaning he was either very late or forgot he had students to watch today. And second, he spots two of his many (only) friends, Riley and Toby. Toby was a short boy who had messy brown hair and a pair of very overgrown bangs. Said friend was currently standing on a chair at the chalkboard doodling all kinds of things on it, his backpack and jacket slung onto the floor next to him with something…. wet looking on it?

Tommy shrugs before turning his head to Riley, who was currently lying across three chairs, face down and possibly even napping.

“He ended up missing a pretty big test in geometry after accidentally skipping and decided the only way to cope was to take an impromptu nap on those hardass chairs,” Tommy hears Toby explain behind him. He turns to look at the shorter boy with a confused look, trying to figure out how he accidentally skipped.

“Ho– how the fuck do you accidentally skip a class?”

“They forgot which lunch they had and went to A lunch–” Toby responds before turning back to the board with a smile, “It was kinda funny when they saw me and asked why I was in his lunch, their face when I explained he was in the wrong lunch was priceless.” he laughs as he finishes his doodle of a bee before hopping down from the chair he was standing on. He picks up his things that had been abandoned on the floor, dragging them over to where Riley was sleeping before lifting them up and loudly dropping them on the floor, startling Riley awake. 

“WHa– hu—.... hmm?” Riley quickly sits up, suddenly very awake now. He turns his head and stares down at Toby’s abandoned things on the floor before seemingly piecing things together and turning his gaze to glare at Toby.

“Morning bossman, Tommy’s here,” Toby responds with a smile, plopping down in a nearby chair before pulling out his phone.

“Oh, hi Tommy, why are you here?” Riley questions, dropping his glare as he turns to look at the blond boy.

“It's always why are you here, Tommy? What did you do, Tommy? And never how are you, Tommy? How's the many wives, Tommy?” Tommy rants, dropping his bag to the floor as he sits down with his arms crossed.

“I- uh, I’m sorry?”

“Mimimimi, I’m Riley, and I'm a little fucking bitc–”

“Yeah wait, why are you here Tommy, I thought you said you’d try to get less detention this semester?” Toby interrupts him to ask, glancing up from his phone completely unfazed by his friend’s antics. Tommy lets out an annoyed huff as he slouches back against his chair, pouting.

“I got detention after I ended up waking up late and missing most of first period because I stayed up later than usual fixing memory boy over there’s sweater,” He briefly explains, leaning down to pull the soft purple striped sweater from his bag, tossing it over to Riley. Said boy squeaks out a thank you, shuffling the sweater on. “Anyways what the hell is all over your bag and jacket?” Tommy questioned, gesturing towards the items dumped on the floor. Toby’s smile widens mischievously as Riley goes to lay back down, deciding he’d rather continue his nap instead of talking any longer.

“Well… it started in Chem and Physics this morning…”

“You mixed random liquids together again and it blew up, didn’t you?”

“I mixed random liquids together again and it blew up,” Toby responds through a laugh as Tommy facepalms.

“Prime, Toby…”

—-----------------------------------------------------

“Finally! Jeez, I hate fucking detention…” Toby hums, stretching his arms above his head as the trio steps outside into the frigid January air. They would’ve just ditched detention if it weren't for the fact Riley would’ve gotten in a lot of trouble if their foster parents had found out he had skipped detention and that the teacher, Mr. Jaocbs, did end up showing up. Tommy nods in agreement, starting to walk in the general direction of his usual route home, stopping when the other two hadn’t followed. 

“You guys coming…?” He asked hesitantly. The older two glance at each other before Toby sighs and steps forward, Riley following.

“Yeah, I just don’t want to go home and deal with Schlatt’s drunk ass today.”

“Can’t you spend the night at Big Q’s like you usually do?” Tommy asks as the trio begins walking their usual route they follow whenever they all somehow end up walking home together. Toby groans again before hunching over. 

“... he’s spending the night.”

“Oh…” Tommy mumbles before reaching over and patting his back with a sympathetic (and somewhat awkward) expression. With the air between the three suddenly turning a bit uncomfortable. Riley nervously smiles before speaking.

“You guys doing anything fun this weekend…?” Riley asks the two quietly. This seems to snap Toby a bit out of his bad mood as he proceeds to launch into a full-blown rant about how he planned to do research about what other things he could mix in Chemistry and Physics to cause even more chaos.

“How they keep letting you take classes you get to use chemicals in them will always be a mystery to me,” Tommy faintly hears Riley laugh. Tommy rolled his eyes with an annoyed (affectionate) expression at his best friend’s rambling. As Toby continues to info dump on how easy it was to sneak into the school's basement (when did they switch topics? Tommy wonders to himself), he accidentally bumps into his friend's shoulder, causing Toby to let out a pained hiss.

The trio freezes at the sound, Toby’s face turning slightly pale. For a moment, none of them move, unsure of what to do before Tommy hums and slowly reaches over to Toby's shoulder, cupping his hands over the general area he bumped into, asking a silent question he’s asked many times before in the past (much to everyone's dismay), Toby faintly nods before Tommy moves to rest his forehead against his hands. Nothing happens for a moment before a soft red glow surrounds his hands and begins to slowly heal whatever he bumped into under his coat. Tommy's focus wavers slightly when he hears a small sniffle. He glances up at the boy's face, seeing his face flush red slightly from a mix of embarrassment and the cold, tears gathering slightly in his eyes. Tommy doesn’t say anything, closing his eyes before finishing to heal his injury. He pulls back as the red glow fades into orange, then yellow, then nothing.

He makes sure to keep his mouth shut when he sees the shorter boy wiping his face with his arm, instead, he focuses his gaze on Riley. The tall boy was nervously watching Toby, glancing over at Tommy for a moment before looking back at the boy. Tommy’s eyes look down, locking onto the two intertwined hands. He squints at them before, without thinking, mumbling something absentmindedly.

“Fruit Loops…” He mumbles before snapping his mouth shut, face reddening when he realizes he had said that out loud. This sets off a chain reaction, breaking the tense air as Toby doubles over with a shocked wet laugh, momentarily forgetting he was upset. Riley stares at the two with a slightly dumbfounded and disappointed face before turning to look at Tommy.

“You literally went on about a guy wearing eyeliner you saw at my last volleyball game that was on the opposing team for, like, 20 minutes a few weeks ago...” Tommy sputters at this, face flushing even further as he begins yelling, trying (failing) to defend himself. By the end of it, Toby is practically on the ground, Tommy could be mistaken for a tomato, and Riley looks more dumbfounded than he was when this started. 

Tommy smiles as they start to walk again in silence. The trio slowly make their way down the sidewalk, waiting to see who would be the first person to ask the question. Riley ends up being the first to ask.

“Is Schlatt—”

“It wasn't him,” Toby replies bluntly, effectively cutting off Riley’s question. They glance up at Tommy with concern in their face. “I promise he hasn’t hit me in years, it’s—” he lets out a huff, dragging a hand down his face, “It’s that group of dickheads that use to mess with Aimsey and Bill, but since they moved schools over break, they’ve decided I’m their next target I think,” Toby explains, keeping his gaze locked on the sidewalk. There was a beat of silence before Tommy spoke.

“Should’ve bit them,” He responded seriously. Toby lets out a somewhat shocked laugh at his seriousness.

“Mhm, give 'em’ that radiation poisoning,” Riley agreed as he nodded, matching Tommy’s seriousness.

“Yup, hope they enjoy the chance of cancer.”

“We don’t even know if my spit is radioactive like my blood!” Toby giggles out, stumbling a bit as they all walk. The three of them laugh, bumping into each other as they continue down the street, full of happiness in this small moment.

—-----------------------------------------------------

“Bye, Tom!” Riley yells as he crosses the street over to his foster parent's house, waving at Tommy. He lets a small smile slip onto his face as he waves back at them. He waits until the boy has gone into the house before continuing down the street to his own home. His legs hurt from walking to almost the other end of town with Riley just so they could walk Toby home, but he pushes past it as he treks down the street. Just this once he is thankful Riley’s foster family lives on the same street as him. After a few more minutes he finally reaches the little cul-de-sac his family’s house sat on. He slows when he notices the driveway, it’s empty. Both his brother’s shared car and his dad's were missing.

 “Great, another night alone…” he grumbles to himself as he walks up the steps of his porch and unlocks the door. Closing it behind himself, he toes off his shoes before heading straight to the kitchen, not bothering to turn any lights on. “Prime I’m hungry,” He mumbles to himself as he hauls his backpack onto the counter, pausing when he hears the sound of paper scrunching. He pushes the backpack over before picking the note out from under and reading it.

Me, Wilbur, and Phil were called out for hero work, and won’t be back till Tuesday.

— Techno

Tommy stares at the short note for a while before crumbling it and dropping it back onto the counter. He wasn’t that hungry anymore. He stalks towards the stairs, not bothering to take his backpack with him. He roughly shoves open his door, slamming it behind himself before flopping down onto his bed. His family, gone for four days, and all they could be bothered to leave him with was a single note with just one sentence on it. One sentence that not even his dad couldn’t be bothered to write. If it weren’t for Techno, he probably wouldn’t even have been left with any context about where they had gone. Wilbur is usually too wrapped up in his own world to even spend a second to think about others and Phil is constantly out either training his brothers or on missions. At least Techno had enough brain cells to rub together to realize that maybe leaving a teenager home alone for multiple days with no explanation was a shit idea.

The blond rolls over onto his side with a scowl, growing up he had always wanted to join his dad and brothers in being heroes, but that dream had withered away after his power manifested. Healing, a power that wasn’t ideal for a hero but could still make his dream possible you would think right? Wrong, it would be good if it weren't for the fact that not only did he need to use both his hands to heal someone, but he had to also then press his forehead into his hands, lining up the little star birthmark on his forehead to an injury.

When his family learned what his power was, his dad had tried to let him down gently. But before he could, Techno interrupted, telling him that if he were to become a hero, he’d be more of a casualty than one since he wouldn’t be able to fight with both hands occupied and his head down. After that, Tommy stopped talking about becoming a hero altogether. 

Just as he is about to fall down another rabbit hole of angst, he hears his phone ping from next to him, bringing him back to reality. He wipes his face with his sleeve (when had he started crying) before reaching over and unlocking it. It was a single message from Riley to their little group chat with the three of them.

Memory Bitch: Emergency bench meeting, now.

Tommy stares at the message for a moment before mumbling to himself.

“Well, that’s not concerning…"

Chapter Text

Toby waves to his friends as they begin to head back towards their own homes, feeling a bit guilty about having them walk with him all the way to his house when they live on the other end of town. Then again, he didn’t ask them to walk him the full way, but he also knows his friends. The brunette knows that his friends wouldn’t leave him to walk back home by himself after their little moment outside the school. Toby rubs his shoulder as he pushes the front door to his house open, his arm still stinging a bit (Tommy’s aim was a bit off when he healed the bruise, only healing part of it. To be fair though, he healed it through a coat, not bothering to ask him to take it off since he knew Toby would be stubborn about taking it off, having done this song and dance with him about a hundred times in the past now).

Toby pauses as he walks into the house when he notices something unusual. Silence, total utter silence. He furrows his eyebrows, trying to listen to anything, but he's only met with strange and unfamiliar quietness. Toby pulls his shoes off before creeping towards the living room. The sound of quiet snoring finally reaches his ears as he crosses through the doorway. There on the floor, Schlatt, passed out with a bit of drool running down his cheek.

“Gross…” the boy mumbles, stepping around the man. He stares down at him for a moment, mulling over an idea in his head before sighing. “Might as well clean this shit up before Quackity gets here. Might even help prevent an argument too,” He hums to himself. He drops his bag onto the couch before, as quietly as he possibly can, squatting down to pick up the few scattered about bottles. He walks into the kitchen and places them into the trash, trying to not let them clink together on their way in. Walking back to the living room, he picks up his bag before heading upstairs to his room.

Toby lets out a breath as he reaches his room, slumping against the door behind him. Pushing off the door, he takes off his coat and throws it off to the side, he’ll pick it back up later. He makes his way over to his desk, opening up his laptop as he sits down.

“Homework or YouTube… What do you think, Benson?” Toby asked, turning to talk to the small light-up duck on his desk he had gotten at a fair a few years back. He stares into its beady little eyes for a moment before deciding and turning back to the laptop.

“You’re right, homework can wait.”

—---------------------------------------------------

“WHAT THE  FUCK  ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!”

Toby jolts awake to the sound of yelling. He takes a moment to wake up, but when he does, he recognizes the familiar sound of Quackity and Schlatt shouting at one another downstairs. He lets out a groan as he sits up, rubbing his face. He must have fallen asleep, he thinks as he looks up at the laptop. He snickers at the video playing, a video of a spinning fish to Funky Town. Glancing down at the corner of the video confirms that, yup, he forgot to turn off auto-play.

He closes the laptop and picks up his phone. Huh, he was only asleep for like twenty minutes, usually when he falls asleep like that it's for a lot longer. The boy jumps a bit when he hears a door slam somewhere in the house downstairs, closing his eyes for a moment as he hears the yelling pick back up again. Far enough for it to be muffled, but still close enough for him to catch snippets of the argument. Jeez, he’s already dreading spring break this year if the two adults keep this up, if they're still “friends” by then even. Maybe he should ask his aunt if he could come up to the city to stay with her over the break, he could even see if he can bring Tommy and Riley with him. He stares back down at his phone, maybe he shouldn’t bother her actually., He was just over there during winter break—

“ OH FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE! ”

Toby’s texting his aunt, he's decided, for no reason in particular, nope. He unlocks his phone again and opens his messages, clicking her contact as he tries to mentally block the two’s arguing.

You: het Puffy can i spend spring break at urs?

You: hey*

CaptianPuffballz: Of course, Tobs!

CaptianPuffballz: Any particular reason why? 👀

You: schalt and q suck ass

CaptianPuffballz: Ah

CaptianPuffballz: Yeah, no that’ll do it.

CaptianPuffballz: You can stay over here during break, you're always 

     welcome to. That goes for your friends

     too, Tobs.

You: thnskd puffy

You: thanks*

Toby smiles at his phone, at least Puffy was always there in his corner. He shoves his phone into his pocket, standing up and stretching his arms above his head. He walks over to his school bag that he threw on the floor earlier and unzips it, pulling out his jacket that had gotten covered in the aftermath (what even is this all over his jacket?) of his little experiment in his Chem and Physics class this morning.

“What did I even mix together again?” he wonders to himself out loud. He shrugs his shoulders before balling the jacket up and leaving his room. Should probably wash this off before he forgets and risks getting a chemical burn or something next time he wears it he thinks to himself. Thank The Keepers, he had a laundry room upstairs (perks of living in a fancy house he guesses) because he’d rather swallow hot glass than go downstairs and deal with the other two’s arguing right now. He pushes the door to the laundry room open and walks over to a cabinet in the corner of the room, his pace faltering when he hears the yelling suddenly get much louder and much closer.

“You got to be fucking kidding me…” Toby mutters to himself as he rests his head against the tall cabinet. Taking some deep breaths, he closes his eyes for a moment before going to open the cabinet to see if there was anything to get whatever was on his jacket out.

“YOU’RE SO FUCKING  STUPID! ”

Toby jumps when he hears the sound of a thud and glass shattering. This kicks him into action, dropping the detergent and jacket in his hands as he rushes out the door. Outside, he's met with an uncomfortable scene. Quackity and Schlatt were practically nose to nose, glaring at one another. Judging by the dripping stain on the wall behind Quackity and the glass beneath it, Schlatt must’ve gotten pissed at Quackity and thrown a bottle at him (probably missing because he was drunk and has shit aim). Quackity turns to stare down at the broken bottle near his feet before speaking.

“Man fuck this and fuck you, I’m going home,” Quackity responds after a moment of silence, shoving his way past Schlatt. His steps falter when he spots Toby standing at the end of the hall, his face softening a bit when he sees him. Schlatt, noticing the abrupt end of footsteps, turns around. Schlatt’s eyes narrow when he spots Toby, his angry demeanor suddenly disappearing into a more controlled one.

“Toby…” he starts as he fully turns to face the boy. “Would you mind explaining to me why I got a call from your school earlier?” Schlatt finishes, his hands folding in front of himself. Toby nervously swallows, glancing over at Quackity. Schlatt, noticing this, turns to the man, a sickeningly sweet smile appearing on his face. “Maybe you should go home, Quackity,” he says, that spokesman voice he uses for his job peeking through. “Toby will walk you out.”

Quackity flicks his gaze between the two, concern visible on his face. He goes to open his mouth to oppose but gets interrupted. “I’ll walk you out Quackity,” Toby mumbles, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him down the stairs towards the door. Reaching the front door, Toby goes to open the door but is stopped by Quackity’s hand on his shoulder.

“Hey… why don’t you come spend the night at my house like you usually do? We can get take out and Tommy can come over, we can even try getting Riley to—”

“No,” he interrupts, shrugging his hand off. He pulls the door open, avoiding his eyes as he continues to speak. “I’ll be fine here Big Q, just… just go home please,” he murmurs. Quackity stares down at the boy, worry etched into his face.

“Promise you’ll visit me tomorrow, so I know you are still alive,” Quackity jokes, but something in his voice makes it sound like it wasn’t really one.

“I’ll visit you soon,” Toby responds, avoiding to promise anything. Quackity sighs, knowing that’s the best he’d get from him. He nods before ruffling Toby’s hair before stepping out of the door. The brunette stands by the open door, watching as Quackity hesitates to get in his car. He looks back towards where Toby is standing at the door, he smiles and waves at the boy. He gets into his car and drives off a moment later. Toby stares out to where Quackity just was, taking a deep breath as he closes the door. Turning around, he walks to the stairs. Looking up, he makes eye contact with Schlatt. Please don’t go back on your promise Toby thinks to himself as he begins to climb the stairs.

—---------------------------------------------------

Toby sniffles as stray tears roll down his face, not bothering to wipe the blood trickling down his nose. “Fucking promises…” he mumbles with a scowl, stumbling down the street. He's never going back to that fucking house he thinks to himself. He’s never going back no matter what, he never wanted to see Schlatt or another drop of alcohol ever again. He never—

Toby fails to catch himself after a particularly strong stumble, falling to the ground with a harsh thud. He lets out a cry of pain, rolling onto his back as he is hit with a new wave of pain and tears. He places his hand on his side as a small cry pushes out of him. Toby slaps a hand over his mouth, silencing himself as sobs wrack his body. Years worth of tears and suppressed emotions hit him all at once. He can never go back there. He has to promise himself, he can’t put himself through any more than he has already.

Toby doesn’t know how long he stays there, lying in the road, but when he sits up his back hurts worse than earlier and everything is blurry. Despite this, he can make out a nearby sign, Prime Park. He shakily stands up, staring at the sign before laughing to himself. Of course, even without meaning to, he’d end up running here. He rubs his face with a bitter smile and walks into the park, turning and following down a path he’s followed for so many years. The path he and Tommy first discovered when they were eight, hidden away behind shrubs and branches, later turning into the path he and Tommy dragged Riley down after meeting them a few days into middle school. Which was now the path the trio would go down to hang out together after school or to go to after a particularly rough day.

Pushing past a few branches, his face shifts when he reaches the small clearing. Instead of seeing the clearing with an empty bench like he expected, he spots someone curled up on the bench. Toby moves to step back, freezing when he steps on a branch, causing it to snap. The mystery person’s head snaps up and whirls around. The brunette keeps his gaze down, only looking up when he hears a familiar voice.

“Toby…?”

The boy looks up and is met with the familiar face of Riley. Their face shift from confusion to worry when they spot him all bruised up. “What… happened,” They ask, standing up to walk over to him, only stopping when they notice him bleeding. “Sh–shit, come here, come sit down,” he says, backing up and motioning towards the bench before rushing over to their bag that sat next to the bench. Toby walks up to the bench but hesitates when he nears it. Riley, noticing this, pulls a folded-up towel out of his bag along with a first aid kit. He lays the towel down on the bench, turning to Toby. “Now you won't get blood on it…” he whispers with a weak smile.

“Wouldn’t want to turn it radioactive,” Toby weakly jokes, trying to match his smile (and failing somewhat). Despite the poor attempt at the joke, their smile widens a bit. They pop open the first aid kit, placing it on the bench next to him. Because of Toby’s power, it made it hard to patch him up whenever he got hurt since there was radiation in his blood, causing anything it touched to become radioactive. 

After weeks of research and experimenting one random summer, they learned that soaking and washing the injury or where blood was would delude it to a much safer point. Then wrapping the injury with bandages that had been soaked in water would help prevent radiation from leaking out till it was healed (how none of them hadn’t thought of soap and water was beyond them, but what could you really expect from two twelve-year-olds and a thirteen-year-old).

Usually, though, Tommy would just heal the injury after it reached a safe enough point to do so, none of them wanting to go through with the hassle of constantly soaking bandages while waiting for it to heal naturally most of the time.

Riley reaches back over to their bag, pulling out three bottles of water and a small bottle of soap. Uncapping one of the water bottles, Riley goes to start unraveling and stuffing bandages into it but is stopped by Toby whistling at him. They look up and see the boy holding out a pair of gloves, they stare at him for a moment with a confused look before Toby speaks. “So you don’t get water on yourself, bossman,” he responds, tossing the gloves to them.

“Oh… thank you,” they smile, slipping on the gloves from the kit before beginning to stuff the bandages into the bottle, leaving one of the ends sticking out of the bottle as he screws the cap on so he doesn’t have to fish it out later. “We can’t exactly soak anything without a container, so I'm kinda going to have to dump this on you… sorry,” Riley says softly as Toby begins to roll up his sleeves and pants.

“...’ts fine, king,” Toby mumbles, leaning his head back with a frown and closing his eyes. Riley nods before going through the steps of patching his friend up. Wet, wash, rinse, wrap with wet bandages, and then repeat. Over and over again until not a scratch or scrape was uncovered. Riley softly hums to themself as they try to pretend like not knowing the cause behind this bothers them. As they finish wrapping the last scrape, Toby speaks.

“You wanna know what happened, don’t you?” he whispers, staring up at the night sky. Riley shrugs, packing the remaining kit and bottles back into their bag before pulling off the gloves they were wearing and sitting down.

“A bit, but I don’t want to, like, force it o–”

“He took back his promise,” Toby whispers bitterly, voice shaking a bit in anger as he continues. “Schlatt, he— he promised he wouldn’t—” he tries to continue when a sob forces its way out his body, just like it did earlier in the street. He folds over himself as he covers his mouth, a muffled cry making its way out. Riley stares at him for a moment before gently placing his hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him in a way that wouldn’t make things worse.

He sits next to him, rubbing his shoulder until the boy has run out of tears. Toby sits up with a sniffle, shifting to lean against Riley. They rest their head on top of his before speaking.

“We can stay here…” They whisper as they stare out into the forest in front of them.

“I know, but I’m not going back to that house,” Toby replies with a bitter laugh.

“No, the three of us. Me, you, and Tommy. We can’t keep doing this. We can’t stay here in Essempi,” Riley responds seriously. “It’s going to suffocate us.”

Toby glances up at the taller boy before nodding, “Okay.”

With that, Riley pulls out their phone, opens their group chat with the three of them, and sends out one single message. Toby pulls his phone out, reading the message.

Forget_me_not: Emergency bench meeting, now.

Chapter Text

”Bye, Tom!” Riley yells as he crosses the street, jogging up the front steps of his house. They smile as they reach back and pull their keys out of their bag, feeling Tommy’s eyes still on them. Riley knows he won’t leave till they are in their house and things are fine. A faint memory rises from the back of their mind as they begin unlocking the door. One time, Riley showed up at Tommy’s house in a panic after getting in a fight with his last foster parents. It had happened not too long after Tommy had walked them home, and ever since (even after getting moved to the family he was currently with), he has refused to continue onto his house until he knew Riley was fine.

At first, it had creeped them out; the feeling of eyes on them had never been their most favorite thing in the world. But after a while, it had started to turn into somewhat of a comfort that his friends cared enough to make sure he was alright (he still hated the staring thing, just maybe not as much when it was Tommy or Toby). Riley shakes their head, pushing the door open as the memory drags itself back to the furthest part of their mind, to be forgotten by them until something triggers it back to the forefront.

”Riley, hon, is that you?” He hears Monica, his foster mom, yell from the kitchen. Instead of yelling his response back, they walk into the kitchen. She turns away from the stove and gives them a small smile when she sees them. “Hey there, stranger! Did you have a good day at school?” 

They give her a tight smile as he places his bag down on the counter, slipping onto the stool. They give her an affirmative noise before reaching into his bag and pulling out an assignment to work on. Monica smiles before turning back to the stove.

“That’s great! I decided while I was at the store earlier that we would try this new recipe—” Riley suppresses the shudder that runs through his body, trying to forget the disaster that was the last ‘new recipe’ Monica had tried to make, “—and, oh, I almost forgot! Me and your  Father  wanted to talk to…” Riley falters for a moment at the mention of their ‘dad’. It wasn’t that he disliked his foster dad, David, quite the opposite actually. Riley just never felt right about calling either of his foster parents by those kinds of titles or, in this case, having them refer to each other and themselves with it.

Riley kept this to themselves, though. The last time he tried to bring it up was about half a year into living with the family. It had been after coming back from a dinner out with them, the couple had insisted they all eat out that night in celebration of Riley’s six-month anniversary living with them.

They had been having an off day at the time. His clothes were itchier than normal, he was late to almost every class, he’d failed his science final, and most of all, he didn’t get to see his friends that day. 

At the time, Tommy was still in middle school. Being friends with someone nearly a whole year younger than you had some downsides, so he wouldn’t be seeing him till the weekend if it was a normal week. But it wasn’t. 

Not only had Tom been suspended that week (Riley couldn’t even remember what Tommy did, when could he remember anything to be fair though), meaning he couldn’t  ‘accidentally’ skip his last hour to go hang out with them at the Fieldhouse that connected the two school, but Tommy had also been grounded because of the suspension, meaning he couldn’t see him for at least another week!

And sure that sucked but he could’ve always hung out with Toby, right? Wrong! Not only was Tom gone for the week, but so was Toby. He had to go up to the city to help his aunt out with something and wouldn’t be back till next week.

So Riley ended up walking home alone, overwhelmed and upset. And to top off an already horrible day, he ended up having to huddle inside a random building so he wouldn’t get wet and break out in hives from the rain that he had forgotten was supposed to happen later (He really needs to get a book or something to start writing these things down).

When he got home, all he wanted to do was go upstairs to his room and curl up in his warm bed to sleep off the bad day. But the universe clearly hated him at the time (and probably still does) because the second they opened the door, Monica was on him like flies on honey. She excitedly told him that they were taking him out to eat as a celebration for his six-month anniversary living with them. Monica rushed him up the stairs to change out of his school uniform and to get ready.

He didn’t remember much of the car ride there, but the sound of rain pitter-pattering on the window still remains present in his brain for whatever reason (he’s always enjoyed the sound). When they got inside, the calming haze he had been in almost shattered immediately. The inside of the restaurant was loud.

Really loud.  

It felt like a sauna, and it was as if the lights were turned up to the max. Sitting down and looking at the menu, it was all crazy expensive meals. The longer they looked at the menu, the more nervous it had made him felt. He didn't know what to order. What if he ordered something too expensive and they got angry with him, but he ordered the cheapest thing and would feel offended? They had set their menu and mumbled something about the bathroom before rushing off.

They stumbled into an empty family bathroom, barely locking the door before sliding to the ground with a nervous whine. Riley pulled their phone out before shakily texting his friend's group chat. He knew it was a stupid thing to be having a borderline panic attack over, but he knew if he didn’t do anything, they’d spiral into a full-blown freakout. After getting bullied by the two younger people (Tommy apparently stole his phone back from Phil, undetected), Toby looked up the restaurant's menu and found something that was on the cheaper end but wasn’t too cheap to be suspicious. After a bit more chatting, the conversation ended. Toby had to go help Puffy with dinner, and Tommy had got caught with his phone by his brother. 

When they got back to the table, their step faltered. Their table had three meals at it, one of them being his. When he asked, David said he just ordered what he thought he’d like. Riley stared down at the plate, trying to mask a grimace when he saw what it was (awful, watery ravioli). They sat down and forced themself to scarf down most of the plate (an equally as awful texture inside the pasta). After eating gross pasta and basically chugging an entire glass of water, all they wanted to do was leave. But the universe was clearly still running its hate campaign against him.

Just as they were leaving the restaurant, Monica managed to somehow run into a friend of hers that she apparently hadn’t seen since college. Riley stood next to her, scowling at his shoes as they decided now was a perfect time to catch up. As he stood there, trying to stare a hole into the ground to swallow him up, Monica’s friend (He can’t remember her name, it was Nat-something they think) finally asked about them.

“So, wait, who is this?” Nat-something asks, pointing at Riley. Monica turns to look at him as if she had forgotten he was there before visibly brightening.

“OH! Me and David finally decided to start fostering like we always wanted. This is  our  sweet  boy , Riley,” Monica smiles, reaching up to squeeze his shoulders with emphasis. They look up at Nat-something, giving her a tight (and uncomfortable) smile.

“Oh, I always knew you and David would make such great  parents, ” She hums before looking up and locking eyes with Riley (it made his skin crawl for some reason). “I bet she’s been a great  mom , huh? You’re so tall too, girls must love you!” She exclaims, not breaking eye contact with them (VERY uncomfortable, oh Ender please go away–). Monica laughs before David steps in, suggesting they should start heading out. Monica, seemingly remembering where they were, agrees before leaving towards the car.

They didn’t say anything until later that day. David had already left for his night shift at the hospital he worked at, so it was just him and Monica. She had been going on and on about something that had happened in her show when he decided to speak up.

“Why… Why didn’t you correct your friend earlier…?” They asked her nervously, picking at their sweaters' sleeves.

“What, hun, what are you about?”

“Earlier, after the restaurant. She called me your son and then you my mom. Why didn’t you correct her?” He asked, a little more insistently. She stares at him for a moment, scrunching her face.

“No, she didn’t.”

“She di–”

“She didn’t, Riley. Your memory must be lapsing again, but frankly, I’m flattered you think of me as a mom. That’s probably why you remember it like that,” She says firmly in a dismissive tone. Standing up and waving him off when they go to speak again. “In fact, me and Dave have looked after you for a while now—” It's barely been six months “—and you’ve lived under  our  roof too. Maybe we should start moving on from first names and start using titles now, yeah?”

She says, staring him down with something devilish in her eyes (she knows he hates staring, why is she doing this—). She continues watching him until she gets a small, meek response from him.

“Okay…  Mom ,” the words felt sour in his mouth.

“Riley, are you even listening?” Monica asks, suddenly standing in front of him with a weird expression. They jump as they snap their gaze up, realizing he had zoned out for a little too long.

“I— uh…” They sputter out nervously, trying to find their words. Monica lets out a sigh as she sets the spoon she was using to cook down to run a hand down her face.

“Riley, you really need to get this whole zoning out thing under control. No one will ever listen to or take you seriously if you don’t,” She starts, picking back up the spoon before going back to cook. Riley nods their head, humming in half agreement. He goes to speak again, but it quickly cuts off.

“I kn—”

“I mean you are so  lucky  me and your  dad  are your  parents —”, no they’re not, something in the back of his head whispers, “ —because not many people would have the  patience  to deal with you. I mean, with the memory issues and you constantly not paying attention, and that's not even mentioning that power of yours. Most would throw you out within a week!” She continues with a laugh, like she was telling a funny joke and not talking about them like they weren’t there in the room. They nod again, staring down at their half-finished homework as they try to make up an excuse to go up to their room. After a couple of minutes of Monica continuously talking, not having any breaks for them to speak, they get tired. Riley stands up, picking up their bag and school work before interrupting her.

“I'm going to go work in my room,” they respond softly.

“Alright, Riley. Remember not to interrupt people though, it’s really rude,” She says. As Riley heads down the hall connected to the kitchen, all he can think about is how someone can contradict oneself so much.

—---------------------------------------------------

They just finished the last bit of the packet he was working on earlier when a knock on their bedroom door sounded through the room.

Riley jumps at the sudden sound before stuttering out a ‘come in’. The door pushes open, revealing David behind it. “Hey, kiddo, me and your  mom  were wondering if you’d come downstairs for a minute. We need to talk about something,” He explains. They bite the inside of their cheek nervously before nodding. David gives them an off-smile before slipping out the room, leaving Riley by himself.

“Shit,” they mumble to themselves as they slip off their bed and slowly leave their room. Did they find out about the detentions? Are they going to be mad at him for skipping? It really wasn't his fault. He got confused and forgot.

They descend the stairs with a grimace as they pull a tight smile onto their face and step into the living room where his foster parents sit on the couch. “Have a seat, honey…” Monica says softly while patting the reclining chair next to the couch, a complete switch up from how she was acting earlier.  They sit in the seat after a moment's hesitation. They fold their hands in their lap as they carefully watch the couple.

“What’s going on…?” Riley asks in a confused tone. Monica and David stare at one another for a second before the former sighs, scooting forward to reach out and grab ahold of Riley's hands.

“Hun, I’m… this has been a hard conversation for me and Davey to have—” No… “—and I swear to you we’ve thought long and hard about this…”

No…

NO, NO, NO—

WHAT DID HE DO? He's been good, hasn't he? They’ve been respectful and quiet. They’ve even been avoiding getting into fights with people. They’ve been good…

Right?

Sure, maybe he's gotten detention a few times this year because he's forgotten where he’s supposed to be or has been late to class because of the rain. And maybe he hasn’t  actually been avoiding trouble and picking fights at school, as much as he wishes he has (it comes with the territory when you are friends with Toby or Tommy). But most of the time, none of those things are even his fault!

It wasn’t his fault when he was late for his first period because he had to circle back home after realizing he forgot part of his school uniform (fucking private schools, a voice that sounded vaguely like Tommy’s echos in his head).

It wasn’t his fault when he punched that guy in the face when he poured water on them after finding out about their allergy.

And it was  damn sure  not their fault when they walked out of class because the teacher had yelled at them for forgetting a stupid, fucking essay—

Okay, maybe a few of these things were his fault.

“RILEY!” They jump at the sound of their name, their head snapping up to look at Monica and David, forgetting they were still there for a moment. “Did you hear anything we said?” David asks him.

“S-Sorry, I didn–” He starts stuttering. David sighs as he pinches the bridge of his nose. Monica takes a deep breath before letting go of his hands.

“You can’t keep doing this Riley, especially when we're trying to talk about something important!” she scolds him. They flush in embarrassment, turning their gaze to the floor. Maybe they were overreacting and jumping to conclusions, again. “Now, as I was saying, we’ve thought about this for a while now, and we’ve been putting it off for a long time, but we can’t keep pushing it off,” she continues before standing up and facing the door. “Could you come in here, Elena?”

Riley feels as if a bucket of ice-cold water has been dumped on them when they hear that name. That was the name of their social worker. Why was his social worker here today when it wasn’t one of the scheduled check-ins? Did he do something wrong? Riley’s head swarmed with thoughts as a woman in a white suit with a purple tie rounded the corner.

”Hello, Riley,” She greets them in a monotone voice, her smile never reaching her eyes. They hum a sort of response, still trying to figure out why she was here. She stares at them a moment longer before walking forward and taking a seat next to Monica, in front of him. Monica stares at him for a moment before speaking again.

”You’re probably wondering why Elena is here today… and it's because we’re going to be having a difficult conversation,” She starts. “You.. well, you see… we, I—“

“Prime, Monica, spit it out already. The kid’s about to explode with nervousness,” David grumbles, crossing his arms as he leans back.

”Well, if you think you're going to be so good at starting this conversation, then you tell him,” She huffs, switching her gaze to stare him down. David looks over at her before shrugging and mumbling an ‘alright’. He leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees as he looks at Riley.

“This is hard to tell you, but Monica and I found out a few weeks ago that she was pregnant—” No… “— and we don’t have the financial means to take care of  two  children,” please no, Riley begs in his head. “As hard as this is for all of us, we're giving you back up to the state's custody…”

The world begins to feel as if it's crumbling all around him right now. Not because he’s getting moved out of this family, no, as far as he was concerned, he never was even actually a part of their world. He was just the test run to see if they could handle a child. Now that they had one on the way, they didn’t need him anymore.

No, everything was slipping because of where he would now be getting moved to. Riley wasn’t as stupid as they sometimes made themselves out to be. When he started to get close with his friends, he came to the realization that when he was inevitably moved, he would need to know where it would be, too, so he could warn Toby and Tommy. So they did their research. They searched, and searched, and searched. They came up with  nothing.  There were no group homes in this town, and there weren’t any for miles all around here.

So that meant if he got moved for whatever reason, he’d lose everything that brought him joy. He’d lose his friends. The people who knew him, who looked at all their issues and still wanted them around.

He needed to go talk to them.

“…just know that we love you no matter what, honey,” they hear Monica say, shit when did they zone out? They look up at the three older people before speaking softly.

“When am I being moved…?”

“May, end of the school year. We’d rather not pull you out before you finish your sophomore year,” Elena responds calmly. They nod slowly before looking down at the ground.

”Can I be excused to my room now?” They ask. David looks at him with a solemn expression before nodding. Riley nods back and turns to go back up the stairs. As they ascend upwards, they can hear Monica let out a muffled sob and someone shushing her (probably David).

They softly shut their door behind them. “Damn it…” they mumble to themselves, tears of frustration prickling the corners of their eyes. They run a hand down their face before glancing up at the sound of their blinds swaying from the wind coming through their open window.

He needs to get out of here, is all he thinks before he’s clumsily climbing out of the window and down the side of their house.

Maybe a trip to Prime Park will make him feel a bit better.

—---------------------------------------------------

Riley rubs the shoulder of the sobbing boy next to him, brain swimming in anxiety and fear. They can’t go back. If Riley went back home, he’d have to start preparing himself to leave everything he’s ever cared about. If Toby went back home, Schlatt might be the death of him.

Neither of them can go back.

The phrase echos through his mind, like a mantra. They snap back to reality when they feel Toby’s weight fall onto his shoulder. They turn their head to look down at the boy. His face was bandaged up far too much for it to be comfortable. His eyes, blotchy and swollen from crying, stared off into the distance, not focused on or looking at anything specific.

Neither of them can go back.

If he and Toby left right now, ran away before the morning broke, they’d be gone. They would be able to start a new life, a life that was worth living for. They could find a way to finish high school somewhere else, they could finally start over somewhere where they aren’t tormented or taunted. They could finally get to breathe.

Neither of them can go back.

He lays his head on top of Toby’s as he continues to think. Where would all of this leave Tommy, though? The two couldn’t just leave him behind. He was the reason why he wasn’t as scared to talk back to people mistreating them. Hell, he was probably the whole reason why Toby was even still alive right now. He was both of their closest friend. Without Tommy, it would feel like part of their soul was missing. What was the earth and the moon to do without the sun?

None of them can stay here.

“We can’t stay here…” Riley whispers, staring off into the forest. 

“I know, but I’m not going back to that house,” he hears Toby spit out with a bitter laugh.

“No, the three of us. Me, you, and Tommy. We can’t keep doing this. We can’t stay here in Essempi,” They say in a suddenly much more serious tone. “It’s going to suffocate us.”

Riley lifts their head when they feel the boy move his to look up at him. He nods, mumbling a small ‘okay’. Riley pulls out their phone, unlocking it before quickly scrolling down to the only group chat on his phone. As he types out his message, he sees Toby pull out his phone with a curious expression.

You: Emergency bench meeting, now.

Chapter Text

Tommy hugs himself with a shiver as he speed walks down the empty streets of the L’manburg district. When he saw Riley’s message, he stared at it for a moment before a pool of dread began to form in his stomach. Emergency meetings were something that they didn’t take lightly. They are only ever called if something seriously important happened or is going to happen, something major. So after that brief moment, he had jumped out of bed and bolted out of the house, completely forgetting his coat and shoes (which he is completely regretting now).

If it were the morning or even the afternoon, he wouldn’t be as worried. But for a meeting to happen in the middle of the night? That was basically translation for  “get the fuck over here right now, someone’s either gotten hurt again or is on the verge of getting a wellness check called on them” , and Tommy isn’t sure which one he would rather be happening right now. Actually, he knows! 

Neither!

Tommy speeds up his pace when the Park comes into view, practically running when he gets to the path leading to their ‘secret’ little hideout. The clearing wasn’t really secret, people just didn’t go down there since it was technically a closed-off area of the park that had become very overgrown with plants years ago. Riley, Toby, and Tommy just happened to know how to get to the path. After pushing through branches and shrubbery clumsily, the small clearing comes into view. He narrows in on the bench where his friends sit quietly. Not wanting to disturb the silent atmosphere for once, he slows his pace. “What the fuck happened…” he trails off as he rounds the bench, almost immediately noticing the very much bandage covered Toby. “Holy shit man…”

“Yeah, holy shit,” Toby laughs, rolling his head back and staring up at the sky.

“You look like you got ran over…”

“Tommy, just sit, please,” Riley sighs tiredly. He rolls his eyes, grumbling something about how Riley wasn’t the boss of him before sitting down next to Toby, leaning against him.

“Clingy.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Tommy grumbles into the brunette's shoulder. The trio sits in silence for a while, all of them trying to figure out what they all wanted to say as they listen to the Essempi’s nighttime critters. After a long time of silence, it was Riley who broke first.

”…what if we ran away to the city?” He whispers, barely audible to the other two teens. They end up hearing him perfectly well, though, the two immediately sitting up to look at him.

”What?” Tommy says back, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I mean that would be nice but your foster parents would probably flip their shit and come looking for you, besides if this is about Toby, we can just hide him at my house like we used to. Doubt anyone will notice it anyway…”

Riley’s face sours at the mention of their (soon-to-be former) foster parents. Toby looks over at them, immediately noticing the expression. “Why did you just make that face?” He asks.

”What face?” Tommy questions, turning to look back and forth between Riley and Toby. 

“The one they made when you mentioned their foster parents.”

Tommy finally settles on Riley, squinting at him before speaking. “Why did you make a face? Did something happen with them?” he asks, barley trying to mask the concern lacing his voice. “Did they  do  something…” he continues before Riley quickly cuts them off.

”No, no, nothing like  that!” He reassures him, quickly catching onto what he was saying. Both of the other boys let out their own sighs of relief, but Toby turns back to look at them again with a suspicious glint in his eyes.

“But something did happen, right?” He questions.

Riley watches them both before looking down and picking at their sleeve. “...my foster parents don’t want to foster anymore, they’re giving me back up to the state,” they whisper under their breath. Toby and Tommy’s eyes widen, their responses echoing loudly in the otherly quiet forest.

“THATS BULLSHIT, WHAT?!”

“THEY CAN’T DO THAT!” Both of them yell over one another in shock. Riley startles at the yelling before shrugging. The trio knows what this would mean.

Riley would be gone.

There were no group homes in town, there were barely any within miles all around them. The closest one was the one Riley was living at before he got placed with some foster families in the Essempi. And no one ever willingly went to it, especially after it came out years ago that kids were randomly disappearing from there. The scandal got buried in the media, though, after a story was released later that day about a plane that had crashed into one of the city's major train stations. But the story was still passed around between kids as a scary story (something having to do with birds? Or eggs and dragons? Tommy couldn’t remember).

“How… how would we even go about running away?” Toby asks, breaking the tense silence. “None of us are old enough to get a decent job, I mean maybe me and Riley would be able to if we were lucky, but Tom’s only fifteen. No one's going to hire him. And that's ignoring the fact that Riley’s a ward of the state, so the police would immediately start looking for him. Plus, both Tommy and my parents are public figures, so people would also be on the lookout for us,” he explains with a tense face.

“If we’re genuinely considering this, we have to be realistic. No jobs, no housing, no education, no money. If we don’t do this right we’re fucked,” Toby finishes. Tommy turns to look at him in shock.

“Are we actually considering this?” He asks, looking back and forth at his friends.

“Tommy, do you really have anything waiting for you here? Your dad already made it clear years ago who his priorities are. You, from what we’ve all heard, are most likely not one of his highest. Toby has to constantly be cautious going home at the end of the day because he doesn’t know whether or not Schlatts is going to be an actual parent or an absolute piece of shit that day. And I’m more likely than not getting moved thousands of miles away to either an overcrowded group home or to a random family who might decide they don’t even want me after a week,” Riley rambles, grabbing onto his hands. “ All three of us are social outcasts who get relentlessly bullied and ridiculed. We have nothing here besides misery and pain. Do you really want to keep living your life like this?”

Tommy looks at both of his friends before sighing. “You both have made up your minds already, haven’t you?”

“We won’t leave without you, it’s always been all of us or none of us, it will always be that no matter what,” Toby says matter-of-factly. “If you want to stay, we will figure something out and stay too.”

Tommy stares at his friends for a long while, turning over the idea in his head with an unreadable expression. He takes a deep breath and squeezes Riley’s hands before talking.

“Okay.” He says before dropping Riley’s hands and getting up to stand in front of his friends. He puts his hands on his hips with a determined smile.

“Let's get to planning, boys!”

—---------------------------------------------------

The trio quietly rushes down the street, stopping in front of a large house. “Okay, so I’m going to head in through the front door, and if the coast is clear, we’ll go in and pack up my stuff. Just the essentials, though,” Toby explains to the two as they creep up the driveway. “Any questions?”

Riley raises his hand with a worried expression, Toby stares at him before raising an eyebrow. “What happens if the coast… isn’t clear?” They ask. Toby points to one of the windows, silently answering their question. Tommy and Riley look at each other before shrugging and approaching the door quietly. Toby tests the door and cracks it open to peek his head in when he realizes it's unlocked. He sees Schlatt passed out in the living room again, he motions for his friends to follow as a wave of deja vu washes over him. The trio creeps upstairs and let out a collective breath of relief when they make it to Toby’s room successfully. Riley closes the door behind him as the group gets to work cramming things into a single backpack.

“Should we bring your laptop?” Tommy asks, picking it up.

“Yeah, we can pawn it for money.”

“Shouldn’t we keep it just in case we need to monitor the news or something?” Riley asks as he hands Toby some clothes.

“Nah, don’t want them possibly tracking it somehow.”

Riley makes an ‘oh’ noise as Tommy shugs before putting it in the mini pile of things needing to be somehow crammed into the backpack. “Shit does that mean we're going to have to pawn our phones?” Tommy asks with a devastated expression.

“iPad kid,” Toby whispers to Riley with a snicker. Tommy lets out a screeching noise and lugs a random hoodie at Toby. There's a moment of silence before laughter breaks out. Tommy clutches his side as he looks up, noticing Riley staring at the door with a pale face.

“You good over there, memory boy?” Tommy asks him, a few giggles slipping out still.

“I think he woke up, someone's coming up the stairs!” Riley whispers in a panicked voice, pressing his ear to the door. Toby jumps up from the floor, immediately rushing to his window as he zips up the backpack.

“Shit! C’mon, let's get the hell out of here!” He whispers, hauling the bag onto his back and sliding open the window.

“Are we seriously jumping out the window?” Tommy whispers back.

“Do you have a better idea?!”

“No, but even I know jumping out a two story window is a fucking stupid idea!”

“Well, I don–” Toby and Tommy's argument gets cut off by the sound of Schlatt's voice coming from behind the door.

“Toby,” the gruff voice said, the doorknob turns as he speaks, “I thought I told you no—”.

Schlatt abruptly stops talking, causing the duo to turn and look at him. He stands there with glazed-over eyes, his shoulders and jaw slack as he stares dead ahead.

Dead ahead at their friend Riley, who appears frozen with their hands up and tension in their shoulders, sporting the same glazed-over eyes. Tommy and Toby both let out a sigh of relief “Thank the keepers for Riley’s freaky ass power,” Toby mumbles, running a hand through his hair. “What do we do now?”

“Take your shit outside and ditch this place,” Tommy shrugs.

“Yeah, but what about Riley? We can’t just snap him out now, or else Schlatt will know we were here.” The duo stare at each other for a moment before an idea pops into Tommy’s head.

“What if we maneuver them into the hallway and downstairs? If we turn Schlatt around, he’ll be in direct view all the way from the door. We’ll just need to make sure they keep eye contact till we’re out the door.”

“Fuck it, we got nothing better than that,” Toby responds with a shrug. They make their way to the two frozen people and slowly pull and push them out of the room. “How are we going to do the stairs?”

Tommy turns his head to look at the stairs before groaning.

“Fucckkkkk….”

—---------------------------------------------------

After many close calls and quite a bit of stumbling, the trio finally makes it out the door with everything they need. The moment the door closes, Riley falls backwards with a yelp, Tommy rushing to catch his friend. “What happened?” they question as they rub one of their eyes, dry from not blinking for so long.

“No time for questions, memory boy, get to walking!” Tommy exclaims, hauling Riley to their feet as the three of them begin walking in the direction of their next target, Riley’s soon-to-be former house. Riley frowns at the two as they try to regain control of their legs, bumping into Tommy a few times in the process. Tommy looks up at his friend before letting out an annoyed huff. Messing with them today isn’t as funny as usual right now, as it seems. “You trapped Schlatt in that memory block shit you can do after he almost caught us packing Toby’s shit. We had to drag you down the stairs like a rag doll while keeping him in your field of view. We’re now on the way to your soon former foster parents to steal your shit and guilt trip them into letting you ‘stay at my house’.” Tommy explains, doing air quotes when he says the last bit of his sentence.

Riley stares down at Tommy, clinging onto every word before mumbling an ‘oh’ and nodding their head. His gaze lingers for a few more seconds before switching to Toby.

“Don’t worry, bossman, I think you got him before he even realized we were all there, so if you did it right, he'll never know we were there,” Toby reassures his friend with a lazy smile. Tommy slows his pace, falling behind the two as a strange calm falls over the trio. If you had of told younger him that just in a few years he would be planning to runaway with the governor's son who was never at school and the new kid in town that everyone outcasted, he probably would’ve said something along the lines of hating Riley and not believing you (the former he’d still do no matter what, even if he didn’t really mean it anymore). It doesn’t even feel real to him, like at any moment he’d wake up alone in his house and it would be all but a wishful dream.

He’ll get to finally start living, existing outside of his family and the little bubble they created then left behind here, outside of the house he was always confined to. He could start being himself, not The Angel’s son, not Siren’s and Protesilaus’s annoying little brother, but himself. Tommy, the fifteen year old boy who didn’t fear anything and was the biggest man to ever exist. Tommy smiles down at his shoes at the thought of it, almost giddy with excitement.

Tommy snaps out of his thoughts when he hears his friends’ steps begin to slow. Looking up, he sees their next target.

Riley’s soon-to-be former foster parent’s house.

He stops to stand next to the other two and watches as Riley begins to nervously shift their weight between their feet before sighing and handing Toby the bookbag he was holding (they must have switched who was carrying it while he was thinking).

“I’ll be back, I should be able to convince them to let me ‘spend the night’ at Tommy’s, so it's easier for us to plan the rest of this,” they explain, making a hand motion at the three of them.

“Aren’t you not supposed to spend the night over at other people's, essentially without a parent or something around,” Toby asks while taking the bag and slinging it over his back, pointedly ignoring the wince of pain from it connecting with one of his bruises, Tommy assumes.

“They’ll probably still let me go, they already feel bad about giving me up. So if anything, a little guilt tripping won't hurt. Plus… they won’t  know  that unless I tell them,”

“RILEY!” Tommy whisper-shouts in mock shock, “You're going to lie? So scandalous for you!”

“Shut up,” They mumble with a snort before walking over to the house and hopping over the fence enclosing their backyard. A few moments later, they can see them climbing up the drain pipe next to their window before sliding into their bedroom.

“How long do you think this will take?” Toby asks him, walking over to the curb and sitting now on it.

“Twenty minutes tops, or else we leave the weirdo behind,” He responds, following his best friend's actions.

—---------------------------------------------------

It in fact, wasn’t twenty minutes tops, and they didn’t end up leaving their friend behind, much to Tommy’s disappointment. After prime knows how long, the front door creaks open and out slips Riley with an uncomfortable expression.

They carry a duffle bag out of the house as the other two stand up and quietly begin walking with them. Toby turns to Tommy, flashing him a concerned look before they both silently decide not to question them. The trio continues down the street with hushed chatter, the chatter being mostly Toby infodumping, Riley nodding along, and Tommy interrupting him to derail the convo for “funnies”.

The trio eventually stops at the last house of their little adventure. Tommy skips up to the door, unlocking it and opening it for the other two. They immediately split up, already having planned who would do what while on their way here. Tommy rushes up to his room, pulling out two bags. He tosses one down the stairs for Riley and Toby before moving back to his room to pack his essentials.

Toby grabs the bag when it lands at the bottom of the stairs and walks to the kitchen. Him and Riley get to work packing food into the bag, non perishables and food they knew they could probably stretch if worse came to worse. As they begin packing up the last of the cans, Tommy comes down the stairs quickly, skipping the last few steps.

“Tobs! I need your help with something!” Tommy yells, walking into the kitchen.

“What? What is it?”

“I just remembered while I was packing my shit up, my dad has a safe in his office with an emergency fund, I don’t know how much money it is. But I know it's enough for me to think we should swipe it before leaving,” He explains.

“But…?” Riley draws out slowly, catching the silent issue that he was about to mention.

“But, memory bitch, he has a camera in there. It’s motion detected, so as soon as we open the door, that thing's going to alert him where in there,—”

“Which would possibly give us away,” Toby concludes, zipping up the now full bag of food and handing it to Riley.

“—Yes,  unless!  We use your radiation to mess up the footage—”

“Which could help us swipe the money!” Toby finishes for him with a growing, mischievous smile.

“EXACTLY!” Tommy yells as he begins walking back upstairs, the other two following close behind. “If you crack open the door and slip your hand in, holding it right under the camera without a glove on it, it’ll cause it to short-circuit maybe.”

”Are we sure this is a good idea, guys…?” Riley asks hesitantly, fidgeting with the extra bag he grabbed on his way up for whatever’s in the safe.

”YES! Now shut up!” Tommy whispers, showing a finger over their mouth. The trio stops in front of a large door. Toby turns to look at his friends before taking a deep breath and reaching forward, slowly creeping open the door. He pulls off one of his gloves and slips it past the threshold of the door, standing on the tip of his toes to try and reach it.

For a few moments, Tommy starts to doubt his plan, but just as he’s about to speak again, a pop followed by the sound of Toby cursing interrupts him. Toby quickly pulls his hand back, shaking it out quickly as a small burn begins to form on the skin's surface. “I think I broke it…” Toby mumbles as he slips his glove back on. Riley steps forward and peeks their head into the room, glancing up above the door.

”Isn’t Phil going to get suspicious over his camera being broken… and kinda melted?” They ask as they push forward into the quiet office space.

”Don’t careee,” Tommy drags out, pushing past them and confirming that—

Yep, that camera was not just  very  broken, but partially melted. He shrugs, it’s not going to be his problem to deal with for much longer if everything goes to plan. He makes a beeline for the small safe tucked away inside the wall and punches in the code he’s seen his dad put in so many times before. The safe pooped open with a small hiss, revealing the inside.

”Holy shit, that’s a lot of money!” Toby exclaims with a wicked smile. Riley steps forward before crouching down below the safe, holding the empty bag he’s been carrying under it. As the other two begin to shovel money into the bag, Tommy notices something hidden in the far back of the safe. He reaches forward and pulls out the mystery item. Flipping it over, his breath catches, lodging itself in his throat when he sees the front.

In his hands is a picture of a tall woman standing with his dad and brothers. She had long, dark brown hair that curled at the bottom, and she was wearing a big sun hat with a veil and roses on it. She had on a beautiful purple dress, and despite the veil obscuring her face, Tommy could still make out the kind but tired smile she wore. In her arms was a little baby boy, swaddled up with his head barely peeking out. The thing that stood out most to him was the identical markings on both their foreheads.

Twin stars. He and his mom.

”What’s that?” Riley suddenly asks next to him. Tommy jumps and violently scrubs his eyes.

”Fuck off, it’s nothing…” He grumbles, stuffing the photo into his pocket and slamming the safe door shut after seeing it was empty. “If we have everything, we should probably get going now,” he says as he leaves the room to do one more sweep of the house, making sure he has everything he’ll need.

As he leaves, he misses the two concerned and confused faces his friends wore. The two stare at one another before silently deciding to drop it for now and follow him out.

A couple of minutes later and a lot of bickering, the trio meets up at the front door, bags (and a satchel of money) packed. Tommy turns and stares back into his house for the last time before closing and locking the door. And as he walks out into the street with his friends, it clicks that things may never be the same after today.

But when he looks up at the older other two, who were arguing over who got to carry the money bag, he smiles. It will never be the same for any of them, he guesses. He catches up to the duo, loudly boasting about how he should get to hold the bag, and for the moment, he pretends it's just a normal night.

Chapter Text

“Fucckkkk man, my feet hurt!” Tommy wines as they walk down the road. The trio had been walking for nearly two hours now, having left the L’manburg district and the Essempi as a whole a while ago (Thank the Keepers Tommy had already lived on the edge of town). Toby rolls his eyes at his friends' whining, readjusting the bag he was carrying before speaking.

“Quit being a big baby, we’re almost to the next town. We can stop for a bit there,” He says.

“Which town are we even coming up on?” Riley questions, tiredly rubbing his eyes with a frown. Toby thinks for a moment before shrugging. “Fair enough then… I guess,” They mumble as the three continue on in silence. 

Toby stares out towards the horizon, there was nothing but a paved road and trees all around them. It was still dark out, which made sense considering it was probably sometime around two a.m. by now (he wasn’t sure, the trio all powered off their phones right before they left town). He’s then knocked out of his own thoughts by stumbling over his own feet, letting out a quiet grunt of pain when he bumps into Tommy’s shoulder a bit too hard. Tommy turns to look at him with a pinched face, stopping and grabbing his shoulders to steady him.

“Mate! Are you sure you don’t want me to try healing some of…that?” Tommy asks him with a nervous laugh, making a circular gesture at him as he tries to hide his worry. Toby shakes his head stubbornly, trying to ignore the dull headache that is pounding behind his eyes and the ache in his legs. Riley turns to look at the two, not having stopped when they did, before walking back over to them two.

“How about a piggyback ride then, you look dead on your feet,” They suggest handing the backpack he had on off to Tommy. Toby stares up at them for a moment before nodding, sensing Riley wasn’t going to take no for an answer. After a bit of fumbling and complaining from Tommy, the trio set off again with Toby on Riley's back and Tommy carrying two additional bags.

Toby presses his head into Riley’s shoulder as the trio starts to walk down the empty street again. Where are they even? He knew they weren’t in the Essempi anymore, he could just tell by how the surroundings were. The roads looked like they had been paved over recently, not cracked or missing random chunks. The trees weren’t looming and felt like they were watching him. He didn’t feel the unshakeable feeling of doom he always felt when coming back into town from whenever he’d visited Puffy.

Oh wow, he  really hated living there, he realizes. He doesn’t have much time to spiral over that as his eyelids begin to feel too heavy for him to keep open. He yawns, slamming his head into Riley's shoulder, a silent goodnight wish before finally giving in to sleep.

—---------------------------------------------------

Toby starts awake to Tommy’s face inches away from his. He jumps for a moment before his brain catches up and realizes two things. One, they're not in the middle of nowhere anymore; they're in the parking lot of a random rest stop, hidden behind a bunch of trucks and cars. The sun is nowhere to be seen, so he guesses he wasn’t asleep for very long, an hour at most if he had to guess. Two, he’s sitting on the ground, and Riley is nowhere to be seen.

“Where are we…?” He asks, glancing around.

Tommy shrugs, scooting back from Toby. “Riley went into the gas station over there to get directions or something,” he explains, throwing a thumb over his shoulder where Toby can see Riley now quickly rushing out of the building with a poorly concealed, panicked face and an arm full of bags. Tommy, who probably saw his facial expression change and heard the fast approaching steps, turned to look at Riley with a questioning face. “What’s wr—”

“We gotta’ go now!” They exclaim, not wasting any time in snatching up all their things. Toby quickly jumps into action, helping to gather their bags.

“Riley, what is happening?”

“I heard over a radio in there while I was looking for a map, they’re already looking for us!”

“Are you sure?” Toby questions him.

”Unless there’s three other missing teens with our names living in Essempi who are now missing and matching our exact descriptions, then yeah, I’m pretty sure!” They snap.

”Shit! Schlatt must of remembered hearing us before Riley got him.” Tommy grumbles as the three of them begin quickly weaving in between the cars of the rest stop. “What do we do? If that guy recognized you from the description then surely the police will be on their way here any moment.”

The three stand in nervous silence, racking their brains for an idea or even a fraction of a plan. Toby glances around his surroundings. They could try running, but they’d get lost if they tried the woods, and they’d probably get caught almost immediately if they tried their luck with following the road. 

Waiting here for the police and trying to convince them to just let them go was out of the question too. Tommy would go back to being alone with the addition of being put on house arrest by his dad most likely. Riley would never be allowed out with him and Tommy ever again and probably wouldn’t be trusted to be alone. And there was no way in hell he’d ever allow himself to fall back into Schlatt’s hands. That only left—

“Do either of you know how to hotwire a car?” He asks, turning to look at the other two frantically. Tommy stares at him as if he grew another head, clearly about to start yelling again, but is interrupted by Riley slowly raising his hand. Toby furrows his eyebrows, expecting Tommy to know more than he ever would Riley.

”HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW HOW?!” Tommy shouts after a moment of silence, voicing what Toby was thinking. They shrug with an eye roll as they start looking around at the cars around them.

”Bill and Aimsey taught me how before moving schools,” They mumble as their vision locks onto a car a few rows away from them. He starts heading towards the car with a purpose in his steps. Toby and Tommy follow them, nervously glancing around.

”I don’t like how weirdly confident you are about this…” Tommy mumbles. The taller one looks around for anyone before glancing into the car’s driver's window. They hum with a smile and reach down to try the door handle, the car door pops open without issue. They slide into the driver's seat, reaching under the steering wheel and freezing with an unreadable expression when their eyes catch on something.

”Guys, get in the car.”

”What?” Toby asks with confusion, “you haven't done anything yet.”

”The keys are in the ignition.”

There’s a stunned silence for a second before Tommy is running to the passenger door and Toby is pulling open the back door to toss their things in. Riley quickly pulls the door closed and turns on the car, tossing the bags they were holding into the back seat with Toby when they suddenly hear a shout from outside the car.

The trio looks up to see a blue moth(?) hybrid quickly approaching the car (he might be a warden, actually, Toby thinks as he looks a bit closer at the skulk covering him).

”Get out of my car!” He shouts.

Tommy turns to Riley, smacking his arm repeatedly and shouting, “ DRIVE! ” That seems to snap Riley out of their panic. They slam the car into reverse before speeding backwards over a curb and onto the road. Putting the car into drive, they zoom down the empty road, the rest stop quickly fading into dust.

Toby gulps down a panicked breath, staring out the back window with a hand resting over his heart. After a beat of silence, he lets out a giggle, which then turns into full blown laughter. Tommy turns his head around, staring at him with an expression that was both concerned and horrified.

“Why the fuck are you laughing?” He asks, confusion lacing his voice.

“I don’t know!” Toby giggles out, covering his mouth and falling backwards onto the back seats. Toby hears Riley sigh and then a soft thunk, which he assumes is them hitting their head against the steering wheel. Tommy rolls his eyes before turning around and staring out at the empty road. After getting himself under control again, Toby looks around for one of the plastic bags Riley was carrying. He spots it and looks into it at its contents before pulling one of them out. “You bought hair dye?”

Riley makes a soft noise before mumbling something to himself that neither Tommy or Toby could pick up. “Speak up, memory boy, we can’t hear you when you talk like that.” Tommy says.

“I said bought is a strong word…”

“You STOLE hair dye!?”

“I panicked, okay?!” They shout back. “They started to talk about us over the radio and the guy at the counter started to look like he was piecing things together. So I used my power to disorient him and ran with the stuff.” They suck a breath in before continuing to ramble on. “And now we’re in a stolen car, we’ve stolen a bunch of money from Phil, and we are running from the fucking POLICE!”

“Chat, we’re so cooked…” Toby mumbles, breaking the silence that follows Riley’s outburst. Tommy covers his mouth and stares out the passenger side window, poorly concealing a laugh. Riley sighs as they try to stifle a snort.

“We’re so fucked,” Tommy agrees with a smile. The conversations die down after that, leaving the trio in their own little bubbles of thoughts and worries. Toby shifts his gaze to the window. He closes his eyes, thinking about the events of the last two days. Tommy getting ditched by his family for the however many time, Riley getting told they would be given back to the states, the whole thing with Schlatt, promising Quackity he wou—-

Oh shit.

He quickly moves to snatch the bag he had been holding earlier back up to him, ignoring the dull soreness that shot up his arms when he moved them too quickly. Tommy turns around in his seat, raising an eyebrow at his friend, “what are you doing man?”

“Riley what district are we coming up on?” Toby asks, ignoring Tommy’s question.

“Uhhh….” They mumble as they lean forward and squint at the approaching street sign. “Oh that can’t be good…”

“Shit, we crossed over into Two-B Two-T,” Tommy answers for them.

“Good” Toby mumbles as they fish out the map Riley had grabbed and began scanning it.

“No one in the history of ever has ever followed up with the response ‘good’ when learning they’ve accidentally crossed over into Two-B Two-T, what are you planning,” Riley asks nervously, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter while watching him through the rear view mirror.

“I think I know who ratted us out, but I need to turn on my phone to check so we need to be near a pawn shop to sell it as soon as possible,” Toby explains, studying the map in his hands before speaking again. “Riley makes a left at the next stop.”

They hum in response, turning the car. “Pawning electronics here while being missing children cases is probably our best bet.”

“Pull into that scrap yard coming up,” Toby instructs them, stuffing the map back into one of the bags on the floor.

“This isn’t a pawn shop…” Tommy mumbles as they pull in. Toby rolls his eyes as Riley tries to park as neatly as they can in the dirt parking lot.

“It’s in the scrapyard dude,” Toby responds, leaning forward over the center console with his phone that he had just dug out from his bag. Powering it on, it immediately begins pinging loudly with notifications. All being missed calls and texts from various people. He takes a deep breath and clicks on the most recent one.

CaptianPuffballz: Toby where are you?

CaptianPuffballz: Why did I just learn from the news that you are missing??

CaptianPuffballz: What happened????

Missed call from CaptianPuffballz

CaptianPuffballz: Wherever you are, please just tell me you're safe as soon as you can.

CaptianPuffballz : I’m in your corner, don’t forget that.

Toby sighs as he reads his aunt's messages before opening the next notification.

Sunset_Enthusiest: mate why the fuck did i just get off the phone with bill and he says you, tom, and riles are missing?????

Sunset_Enthusiest: did you guys runaway???

Sunset_Enthusiest: why aren’t my messages going through???

Missed call from Sunset_Enthusiest

Missed call from Sunset_Enthusiest

Sunset_Enthusiest: you guys better be alive toby, I swear to the keepers

“Shit, how far do you think the news has reached for Aimsey to already know?” Tommy asks his friends.

“The entire district and the ones surrounding it at least…” Riley responds, “Hopefully it hasn’t reached all the way out here yet.”

“Nah, this area is weird, radio channels only reach locally and news from outside this district always takes forever to get here.” Toby murmurs as he moves onto the next thread.

BigQ: I know I said I wouldn’t bother you till tomorrow but i need to know things with Schlatt went alright

BigQ: Toby?

BigQ: cmon I know your not asleep, your always up at this hour

Missed call from BigQ

BigQ: hello???

Missed call from BigQ

Missed call from BigQ

Missed call from BigQ

BigQ: im coming to your house to check on you idc

There’s about a ten minute difference between that and the next message.

Missed call from BigQ

Missed call from BigQ

BigQ: Toby where the hell are you

Missed call from BigQ

BigQ: why does your room look like it’s been ransacked

Missed call from BigQ

Missed call from BigQ

Missed call from BigQ

Missed call from BigQ

BigQ: where are you

BigQ: tell me your alright please, this better not be some messed up prank

Missed call from BigQ

Missed call from BigQ

Missed call from BigQ

“Guess we know who probably reported us…” Tommy says, rereading the messages. Toby lets out anotger sigh as he turns the phone off, sending the car into near total darkness.

“Yeah, I gu—“

Toby is interrupted by the sudden rigging from his phone, the screen lighting up.

Incoming call from BigQ

Toby curses as he fumbles with the phone, quickly powering it all the way off. He leans back in his seat and grabs the bag holding all their electronics off the floor.

“C’mon, we need to get rid of these, if we can’t pawn them, we’ll just ditch them in one of the trash piles here.”

The trio exits the stolen car, glancing around before Tommy spots the pawn shop. “Who the hell names their business ‘The Shitshack’?”

“A Two-B Two-T resident, that’s for sure.” Riley says, pulling open the door for their friends before following behind.

Inside was a small showcase room with the register being dead ahead when you walk in. Behind it sat a little kid who couldn’t be much older than twelve. He sat at the counter, tinkering with a random bit of machinery, not bothering to look up when the bell above the door chimed.

The trio glance at each other before shrugging and approaching the register. “Hello, is the owner of this place around?” Riley asks politely.

The kid glances up, staring at them through big goggles before standing up and stepping into the back room.

“Did the kid have a full blown mustache or am I crazy?” Tommy asks the other two.

The mustache kid (they seriously need to learn his name or something) comes back through, only this time a strongly built bald man with a prosthetic arm follows him out.

“Hello! Welcome to The Shitshack, what ca…” He trails off as he looks up at the three. “Tommy…?”

Tommy pales when he looks at him before cursing and immediately turning to make a move for the door. Before the other two can follow his lead, an awful shrieking noise fills the air, causing Tommy and the others to stop in their tracks to cover their ears.

After what felt like the longest minute of Toby’s life, the shrieking cuts out. He takes his hands off his ears and turns to look at the front door, which is now being blocked by the mustache boy.

“Tommy… why don’t you and your friends come sit in the back for a minute,” the man asks, though it didn’t feel like they had much of a choice. Riley and Toby glance over at Tommy, the three have a silent conversation before moving to follow the man.

He holds the door open for the trio, following in behind them while yelling over his shoulder, “Watch the store for me, Ramón. We’ll probably be talkin’ for a while.”

Closing the door behind him, he walks forward to the table that sat in the middle of the room, clearly expecting the others to follow suit. The three sit down, a lot more hesitantly than the man.

“Why?” He asks, crossing his arms as he leans back in his chair.

“Why what?” Tommy challenges back.

The man sighs, rolling his eyes and leaning forward against the table. “Why did you, and by extension, your friends here, run away? I got a call from Phil an hour ago asking if I knew where you all were or if you guys passed through.”

Toby cuts in with a confused expression, “How do you know Phil?”

“My name is Fit. Me and Phil have been friends for a long time,” he responds. ”That out there is my baby boy, Ramón. Now, answer  my  question, why?”

Toby hears Tommy let out a heavy sigh before slouching in his chair. 

“This is Toby and Riley—“ he starts, pointing at them respectively, “— and if we tell you, you can‘t rat us out to Dad, please. This is our only chance. We can’t go back there… I,” Tommy roughly rubs one of his eyes. “We can’t go back…” he repeats weakly.

Fit stares at the trio, holding a stern expression as he studies each of them before something in his face shifts slightly, just barely noticeable. He glances up at the ceiling, thinking,  before calling out his son's name.

Ramón walks into the back room, awkwardly lingering near the door. “How ‘bout you go test that new project of yours, feel like it might be useful for a bit,” he says, smiling when Ramón practically begins vibrating at the idea of using one of his projects. He nods his head quickly, running into another room before darting out the back room, the sound of the bell above the front door following quickly behind.

“Should he be out there by himself…?” Riley asks quietly from his seat.

“He’s just goin’ to the roof, he’ll be fine. He’s been wanting a reason to test his new project.”

“Which is?”

“Signal jammer, thought if you guys want to explain yourselves, we shouldn’t take any unnecessary risks, y’know?” He explains, leaning back in his seat once again. “You never know who could be listening.”

That’s fucking ominous, Toby thinks to himself. Ramón runs back into the room, gives Fit a thumbs up, and runs back out into the store to do who knows what. Fit watches him leave and then turns back to them, “Alright, spill.”

And so they do, each laying out their reasons and what lead up to them running away, Phil’s neglect, Schlatt’s abuse, the foster parent situation with Riley. They even talk about the bullying they had been dealing with at school. It’s as if being promoted by someone who seems like they genuinely cared was enough to cause them to spill their guts everywhere.

In the end, the three teens nervously glance at one another as Fit processes all the information they all dumped on him. After a long pause of silence, he stands up. “Alright.”

“Alright…?”

“You guys were never here, Phil and whatever fuckers that are out there looking for all of you right now won’t know. I’m many things, a snitch ain’t one.” He turns to look at Riley and Toby and jerks his head towards the door leading back to the showroom. “Why don’t you two talk to Ramón, whatever you guys came here to pawn, he will handle. I need to talk with Tommy for a second.”

Toby looks over at Tommy, silently checking if he’d be alright. Tommy moves his head towards the door, mouthing the word “go”. Toby nods, trusting his judgement and leaving the room, Riley following him out after a moment of hesitation.

Opening the door, the sound of feet scrambling away from the door is heard. Peeking his head out, Toby sees Ramón at the register once again, trying to pretend that he hadn’t been eavesdropping on their conversation.

Toby and Riley look at one another before shrugging and walking up to the register with their electronics in it. Handing Ramón their phones and the laptop, they stand in silence as the boy begins to carefully examine each electronic. After a while, he breaks the silence.

“Fit was serious, he won’t rat you guys out.” He says softly, giving up on pretending like he wasn’t eavesdropping before. “Two-B Two-T is known for people coming here to run away from bad situations.”

He takes out a bunch of bills out the register and hands it to Toby, finally meeting his gaze. “Fit came here because he made a bad deal with someone to try to escape a bad situation, so for him to snitch would make him a hypocrite.”

“You know eavesdropping is kinda frowned up, right?” Toby says, pocketing the money.

Ramón shrugs, pushing the electronics to the side to start tinkering with the machinery from earlier again. “My advice, don’t trust or make deals with white cat humanoids named Madagio…” he mumbles.

Riley looks down at the boy, confused, “who the hell is Madagio?” They whisper to themself. Before the two could ask more questions, Tommy and Fit exit the back room, the former wiping his eyes for the second time today.

“You guys all set?” Fit asks. Toby nods and the trio exits the store, Fit following them out. As they begin walking to the car, an idea pops into his head.

“Is everything in the scrapyard up for grabs?” He asks.

“Yeah, why’d you ask?”

“We may or may not be in possession of a stolen vehicle and may or may not need a license plate to hopefully try to lessen our odds of getting caught.” He admits. Fit stands and stares at him then shakes his head as he holds up a finger and wanders back inside the pawn shop.

He comes back out with a license plate and walks past them to the stolen car. A few moments later he is holding the original license plate. “Now you guys should be good.” He says.

Turning back to the trio, he begins to speak again. “You guys should probably be on your way now, no doubt the police will be sniffing around soon. This is the first place they usually check.” He takes a long look at Tommy before shuffling his gaze to the others.

“You guys better be safe out there. Don’t do any stupid shit got it? I don’t want to wake up in the mornin’ and see your guys face plastered all over the news for anything other than be missing cases,  ever . Capeesh?”

They all nod and with that, Fit gives them one last look before turning around and heading back inside. The trio wordlessly get in their car and drive off.

Tommy reaches forward, turning on the radio.

“The search party for three missing teenagers from the Essempii, specifically the L'manburg and Snowchester districts, is still ongoing. As we approach hour three of this search for missing teenagers Thomas Craft, Tobias Schlatt, and Riley Love, with no clues on their whereabouts, experts are now beginning to wonder whether or not they will be found. Please if you hav…”

Toby rests his head against the window, drowning out the radio as he watches the sun begin to rise.