Under the Influence (Benchtrio Troublemakers AU)

Chapter 5

Hello lovely readers! Thank you guys for 800+ reads! It's honestly so insane! I hope you guys enjoy this one because the next few are gonna be really heavy. Thanks again!

TW: Alcohol abuse, underaged drinking, panic attack, trauma, neglect, violence, and child abuse. 

"Aye boys boys. Who's down for some crimes tonight?!" Tommy shouted.

I was a little bit under the influence of alcohol while Tommy and Toby were definitely drunk.

"Yeahhhhh!" Toby also shouted.

"Alright, nothing too illegal and as long as you keep your faces covered the whole time, then I'll join." I chimed in.

"Ranboo, can we make some Molotov cocktails?" Toby slurred out.

"No! Absolutely not!"

"Awwww! You're no fun!"

"Toby, Ranboo does have a point. That stuff isn't dangerous enough. We should get some tnt! Right, Big Man?" Tommy tripped over his words a bit.

"No, actually. That was not at all what I meant." I replied sassily.

Toby and Tommy both frowned at me.

"We could go to jail for that, guys! We should stick to stealing and vandalism. The less serious, the safer we are. If we commit serious crimes, we could get people actively pursuing us. We'd have to live on the run. I'd have to run again. I can't run again, I just found my family. My real, not abusive family. It may suck, but I like it here. I don't want to run again..."

I felt like I wasn't getting enough air, so I quickened my breath and the world started spinning so I dropped to hug my knees. A dreadful feeling felt like it was eating me whole.

"Boo? You ok..." a voice spoke. I couldn't recognize who was speaking, but it was familiar and grounded me a bit. The feeling was still there but I was less disoriented.

"Hey it'll be ok Boo breathe in, one, two, three, four, five, and out, one, two, three, four, five."

I listened to the reassuring voice and took five long, deep breaths before the world came back. Toby hugged me once I visibly relaxed. Tommy stood near me looking very concerned.

"Thank goodness you're back, Ranboo. We were so worried. Are you ok?" Toby slurred, confused, while finally letting go.

"Yeah, I'm ok. Uh let's go do some crime." I managed to steady myself and stand up.

Toby and Tommy reluctantly nodded and walked out the door with me.

We walked down several alleys before finally stopping at a clean wall for spray painting. Tommy had the backpack again, but this time we all spray painted. We quickly painted our tags and moved on to the next alley. We went ally to ally tagging buildings, cars, and even the ground along the way. We eventually stopped to sit against a wall.

"Hey, Ranboo," Toby looked at me with a serious expression, "what happened back in the apartment? It seemed like you had a panic attack and I'm really sorry if anything I said triggered it."

I sighed.

"I guess I'll have to tell you this sooner or later, so I might as well tell you now. I ran away from home because I couldn't live with my mom anymore. She was shitty and I wonder why my parents even bothered to have me in the first place. They were never home; my mom was always at work and my dad left early on. I bet my mom doesn't even know what my favorite color is," I scoffed, "it honestly was like I never had a mom at all except for the fact that the fridge was always full of food. I always had to do and deal with everything myself."

"I'm sorry for bringing it up, Bossman." Toby looked at me.

"No need to be sorry, it was nice to talk about it with someone."

Toby smiled.

We sat in silence for a little while before Tommy spoke up.

"I grew up in the foster care system."

Me and Toby focused our attention on him.

"When I was 6, my birth mother stabbed my biological father because he hit her beforehand," Tommy's voice wavered a bit, " I've been through several foster homes and I always got put right back in the system. I was either too rude or too much of a 'troublemaker'," he scoffed, "I never considered them family. None of them. I've only ever considered Phil, Will, and Techno family when they let me stay at their shop when I was on the streets, Toby family when I met him in 5th grade, and Ranboo family a couple weeks after Toby brought him home. You guys are my real family and I'm so incredibly lucky to have met you dickheads."

Tommy had started sobbing at this point so me and Toby hugged him, until he stopped.

"How about we head home?" I suggested.

They both nodded.

It took about an hour to get back to our apartment. Tommy went to change into comfortable clothes, while Toby headed right for the fridge and got himself a beer. I flopped on the sofa and relaxed. Once Tommy had come back Toby sat down next to me.

"Did you guys know that my dad is a piece of shit? Yeah, uh when me and Lani were younger he'd hit us a lot and never really feed us. Lani and I had to make our own food and buy our own things. We knew where the money was and we just had to steal it. He was an alcoholic. A really bad one. We'd have to hide in our room at night to avoid his fits of drunken rage. I started picking up drinking in middle school. Clearly it didn't get any better at all."

Toby paused and took a deep breath.

"I felt bad that I was the only one who didn't share any of their childhood trauma, so yeah. There you guys go."

Tommy and I smiled and both went in to hug Toby.

"You didn't have to share with me and Ranboo, but thanks for feeling comfortable enough with us to tell us that Toby."

"Yeah, I agree with Tommy. We really should share more things with each other. I think we really need it."

We ended our hug and went back to doing our own things. I laid down on the sofa and let my thoughts consume me.

Even after talking about such heavy things that happened to them in their life, they still manage to be happy and content with life. Why can't I feel happy too? I'll keep the mask up though; I don't want them to worry about me.

I sighed, closed my eyes, and drifted off to sleep.