CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
june 30, 2021
The drive to Toby's house is rather loud. Red has control of the aux, and is blasting The Greatest Showman. Wilbur is only mildly amused. Most of the amusement probably comes from Laney and Tommy screaming the lyrics at the top of their lungs. I have never heard Tommy so loud. This is saying a lot, considering more than half of Guilia's interactions with Tommy are screaming/swearing matches. I consider putting on my headphones, but I quickly come to the conclusion that it would be both utterly useless and incredibly overwhelming, so I just start to sing along. There are a lot of voice cracks on the high notes that no one is willing to own up to. Wilbur laughs.
"Well, fuck you too," Red laughs.
Wilbur puts his hands up. "Hey, I didn't mean anything by it."
"Sure you didn't, stickbug-man."
"That's a new one. Stickbug-man!" He says it like he's Stan Lee announcing the name of a new superhero comic. It's a sequel to Ant-Man and The Wasp.
We pull at Toby's place. It's a nice home, with a small front porch and a sage green front door. Toby's mum opens the door. She's a rosy-looking woman with a kind weight to her eyes. She looks out at all of us, looking overwhelmed, but she lets us all in. She grabs Toby and Laney, kisses them both on the head and says hello.
"Hi, Mum!"
"Morning, Mother Dearest." Toby says.
Tommy leads us all to an extension room off of the house and boots up Toby's monitors.
Ranboo goes through the game plan. I can't help laughing my ass off.
"Who the hell came up with this?" I ask.
Tommy raises his hand from the desk. Of course it was Tommy.
"Are we all good?" He asks. I survey the room. We're all here.
"Seems like it."
Wilbur gives the OK hand signal. We all pile into the corner, except for Tommy, Toby, Red, and Laney who gather desk chairs and pile them in front of the camera.
"Going live in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1." Red announces.
Tubbo is Live!
hashtags amirite
"Hey gamers, what's up?! What's up you guys. What's up!?" Red shouts, taking on a perky, hyper-outgoing persona.
"By the way guys, there's been some issues with the camera today, just a heads up," Tommy says evenly, sticking to his script.
"My God, my internet's being shitty as hell today!" Toby attempts to throw some casual tones into his voice.
Red catches on to his intentions, the two of them clicking through some mental link. "Mate, you seriously need someone to look at it. I could call someone in?"
"Call them in later," Tommy waves off. "We're on stream, guys, Jesus. Pull yourselves together."
The four of them share a look and burst into laughter.
"Alright, fellas, I'm gonna turn mediashare on. Do we have enough mods in here?"
Laney and Red lean into the computer. "Yeah, we're good, Tobes," Laney says, knowing full well we notified the moderators beforehand.
"Awesome! All right, you guys. Start sending them in."
A couple TikTok memes come in, followed by Quackity's Lice Song, a DNF compilation (not received well; everyone made gagging gestures), and the That's What I Like meme. Tubbo, apparently restless, spins around in his chair so many times Laney has to physically grab the back of the seat and stop him on account of her sanity.
Tommy and Red carry most of the conversation, cracking jokes and starting debates. Laney, who is a rare appearance on her brother's channel, mostly laughs and tries to input likable answers.
"So, the question for the ages. Cereal milk alternatives?"
"What the hell kinda question is that?" Tommy busts out.
"Answer the question, Tommy."
"I don't fucking know, man. Water?"
They scoff. "You're unimaginative. Think outside the box."
Everyone else raises an eyebrow. OK, that was a challenge. I think.
"Oh-ho-ho, okay, woman!" Red makes a slight cringing face.
"C'mon. Try harder than that."
"One of my friend's aunts uses yogurt," Laney suggests.
"See! That's creative! A tad nasty, but creative nonetheless."
Tommy studies them for an unusually long period with a look on his face that I don't know him well enough to identify.
Will is here to remind us of staying on task. He snaps his fingers as quietly as possible. Tubbo gets the signal and turns off the camera. He lets Tommy and Red banter for a bit more so they all can act like they don't know the camera's glitching.
"No video?" Laney reads, sounding personally offended.
"Oh, is that right? Let me get on that, gamers," Tubbo says.
"Go, go," Wilbur whispers. Ranboo grabs a lampshade, runs to a corner of the room near the glass sliding door and puts it on his head.
Toby "fixes" the camera.
"We back, boys?"
The 'I look like a burnt chicken nugget but I still love myself' audio coming from the mediashare provides a sufficient answer. Toby lets out a little giggle at this one.
"Chat, no, this lamp was already here," Red insists.
"Chat," Tommy scolds. "We know you like your little theories, but this is getting out of hand."
I stifle laughter by shoving my first knuckle in my mouth. A meme from 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' plays.
Guilia gasps. "Khloé." I elbow her in the shoulder. They gasp again.
"Shut. Up." I murmur.
"Sorry," they whisper back, "I can't help myself around the Kardashians."
"Do we need to have an intervention?" I ask.
"I'll put it on our bucket list," Will says, "Guilia. June. You're up." He gives Tubbo another thumbs-up. Guilia and I run to the back of the room, face the camera, and join hands, creating a formation with a remarkable resemblance to a horror movie pair of possessed twin sisters.
Laney checks that we're in our positions. She indicates that we tilt our heads to the side. We do, and she gives us an enthusiastic double thumbs-up. The camera returns, and the original four return to their normal conversation, which, apparently, is a sports-league style rundown of which recurring 'Stranger Things' character is the best. Currently, Nancy Wheeler and Joyce Byers are the favorites. Max and Lucas are sharing a close third. Hopper is at rock-bottom. They completely ignore chat, who is screaming through text-to-speech about the two of us. Toby leans into the two of them, invested, but still not knowing anything about what they're talking about. Tommy makes an occasional comment regarding the attractiveness of the actors. He makes frequent comments about Natalia Dyer and Joe Keery. Fair enough.
Ranboo remains a "lamp". He hasn't moved once, which is rather impressive, because it's taking most of my willpower to not itch my jaw or the eczema behind my knees.
"Guys, I don't see anything, stop saying 'look behind you.'" Laney rolls her eyes.
The text-to-speech voice reads out a dono:
shay has gifted $20
dude there are people behind you you blind-ass main characters
There's a moment of silence before they finally break character, crumbling into laughter. "IT WAS A BIT. THIS WAS A BIT WRITTEN BY ME. THIS WAS PLANNED, YOU FOOLS. YOU MORONS."
Tommy shouts this as Ranboo takes off the lampshade from his and Wilbur walks into frame. Me and Gules drop the act and retrieve the chairs that were piled into an out-of-frame corner. Guilia lunges for the stool. Damn, okay, get the tall chair I guess. We all crowd around the monitor and wave our hellos.
"Do you know what I think is funny?" Will starts, "I think it's funny that they already had photo evidence of all of us together, but we still tried to surprise them."
"Hi, everyone! For those who are new to the stream, I'm Laney—" She grabs her brother by the shoulder, "—and this is my brother Tubbo." We all do the same.
"Yo, I'm June, this is my emotional support animal, Guilia," I grin. She frowns at me. I laugh.
"I'm not a streamer because I refuse to conform to expectations." She bites her lip. Red and Guilia high-five.
We talk for awhile, debating and laughing for a couple hours.
My phone buzzes from its place in my back pocket. I ignore it.
Today, we're here, in the moment.
We're taking little steps.
a/n: a little bit insecure about how i wrote the end of this one but still hyped because this is first update of the year!!! how are we feeling?? are we liking it so far?! i got some heartstopper leaf stickers and i put them on my walls and it looks really nice i'm very happy with it
anyhoo! drink some water!! i've been failing at that lately but im working on that
love ya lots,
- patchyshack