killing time 𖥻 TOMMYINNIT

XXXI. free bread

iris hadn't been out to dinner with her mum in a really long time, which made sense considering her mum was usually working at a place people went out to dinner. it had been rough for the last handful of years even before the pandemic, and iris's mum had spent more time at work than with her kids, but things were definitely beginning to look up.

she'd gotten a promotion and a raise about a week before and they'd gone into affect that day, which meant she not only was able to work the day shift, but she also got more free days. spending less time on her feet and more time in management, which is what she was trained for and what she actually liked doing.

she was more proud of her daughter than she'd ever been before, and with her first single coming out in a few hours, she'd wanted to take iris and lachy (and ranboo, who she adored) for a nice early meal before people came over to their house for iris's little release party.

lachy didn't think he'd ever seen his little sister as happy as she was sitting across from him. she was beaming, listening to ranboo tell a story about themself in high school as she ripped up her piece of complementary bread into little pieces.

their mum started talking, her and ranboo holding most of the conversation at the table. lachy was looking at iris and her bread, and he'd just decided to try and nudge her across the table when ranboo reached over.

without even taking his eyes off iris's mum, ranboo placed his hand over iris's constant moving ones. she stopped ripping up the bread, looking down like she didn't even realise that she'd done it.

with their mum being gone so often, lachy was pretty much iris's only form of constant supervision over the past six or seven years. which obviously became less and less needed as she got older, so he'd tried to give her as much space as she needed to grow up, not smothered by her older brother who had no idea what she was going through.

he knew that she had had a pretty rocky year in relation to eating, and he'd done some googling as to how best to support her, starting with a 2am google search in the dark of i think my little sister has eating issues. while that in itself hadn't been very fruitful, she had appreciated his effort. 

but seeing her with ranboo, it gave him a lot of comfort to know that iris had surrounded herself with people who noticed the signs of her not being okay and were able to help when he couldn't. she'd ordered a kale pesto, and had very resolutely not looked at any of the health information about the number of kilojoules or calories or anything. they'd let her pick where they ate, and iris had picked a vegan place near campus that aligned with her dietary restrictions. 

she'd been a little quiet all afternoon, but that was mostly down to a nervous excitement. it was only half past four, but they'd wanted to eat early before people were meant to arrive at seven, since iris would probably avoid eating at the party with so many people around. despite her standoffishness, lachy had approached her while their mum stood at the hostess stand and ranboo ducked to the bathroom, pulling his sister into a hug. "i'm so proud of you squid,"

she pushed him off, smiling shyly. "don't call me that," she shook her head, but she looked pretty pleased. "but thank you."

"who knew, huh?" he laughed. 

"all those years of practicing my grammy acceptance speech in our bathroom mirror really payed off."

"woah, woah," he placed his hands on her shoulders. "let's not be too hasty."

iris shook her head as both ranboo and their mother approached, ready to head home. "nope, you've got me all excited now. i call shotgun!"

ranboo started running, iris taking off behind him, but they were over 6 feet tall and iris was just generally not great at running, ranboo slammed into the side of the car first. iris misjudged her landing and crashed into ranboo, who's head hit the side. 

"you okay?" ranboo groaned, clutching his head. 

"no," iris whined. "you?"

"me either."

"seems like you kids need an early night," iris's mum tutted sympathetically as she reached the car. "straight to bed when we get home."

"no!" both iris and ranboo moaned. "you said we got to stay up late," iris said. 

tubbo's family were already in iris's driveway when they got there, with tubbo having plans to sleep on tommy's couch and his parents and sisters grabbing a hotel for the night so they didn't have to make the four hour drive home at midnight. "hi! tubbo bounded over to hug iris. "sorry, we're early, i texted you a bunch but dad didn't want to drive here too late."

"don't apologise," iris shook him off. "i left my phone here, i wanted to kinda just have some time with my family before everything got hectic. the song comes out at midnight, and most people said they'd be here around eight, nine-ish. but tom's meant to be over in about an hour with his parents to kinda give us a hand with things."

they didn't want to go all out with everything, but they had a few little decorations for their small living room, plus some generic non-vegan snacks at iris's insistence, and over the next few hours people began to trickle in. first was tommy, who stayed glued to her side the entire night, then her manager, then wilbur and by eleven pm everyone was packed in there, ready for the debut. 

since this was her first ever drop, she'd wanted to do something a bit bigger than she'd ever usually insist for herself, and she'd be more chill with subsequent releases. it was a really nice night, though, even before the actual anxiety set in (she'd had a panic attack in front of tubbo and tommy in her bedroom at eleven-thirty. she was fine). it was probably the most fun she'd had in a really long time, and as the night wore on she couldn't imagine being happier, surrounded by people she loved, all there to celebrate her. 

— AUTHOR'S NOTE
god iris being happy has been such a long time coming and i'm so hyped for her (i was the one who made her suffer) (i could have stopped at any time) (it was a very intentional decision)