TW- arguments
Wilbur's POV:
"What are we doing for the last day?"
"The popular kids are all going on the train over to that massive party in the park." Joe said.
"How do you even know about that? You deserting us?!" Mark asked.
"No! I can't think of anything worse. There was just this girl in my history class who wouldn't shut up about it. Wasn't like we were doing much anyway. Mr Michaels had just put horrible histories episodes on, they weren't even related to the course, but she kept asking me if I was going and like topping up her lipstick or lip gloss or whatever."
"No way! Hang on, was it Milly or Grace?" Mark asked again.
"Why do you even care?" I butted in.
"It wasn't either anyway, it was umm Kayla?"
"Oh her! Oh okay." Mark winked at me. It felt like he was telling me an inside joke I wasn't a part of.
"Again, wha does it matter?" I pushed.
"Cause Marks got a crush on one of the girls in her year and he won't tell me who. So now he keeps asking about tonnes of the girls in our year to try and put me off."
"Why am I only finding out about this now?"
"I thought we told you?" I looked to Ash who rolled his eyes and laughed, yea maybe I was better missing this out.
"Anyway, what are we doing for the last day of school?"
"I don't know, could just hang around in town for a bit?"
"I could ask my parents about you lot coming over?" I suggested, which had been the whole point of the conversation.
"Sounds good to me."
"Okay, I'll text the family chat now, I literally saw Dad earlier."
"Oh yea, Tommy came into our art class earlier." Ash said, quietly. "Your Dad waved at me and it was kind of funny."
"Yea Tommy was today, Tubbo is in tomorrow, I've been pestering for Dad to come to our science class when they're in."
"That'd be funny."
"Don't! You know how it's going to be next year, we'll be walking around school waving at all 3 of my brothers."
"See that sounds fun!" Mark protested.
"It doesn't." I mumbled.
"See, I think it'd be fun having siblings, and you've got cool siblings!" Joe protested.
"Yea, I mean my older sister sucks, I'm so glad she's at uni now. But your brothers are pretty cool. Like you can play videogames with them and Techno will be able to drive you around soon."
"Mhm." I sighed and bit into my sandwich.
"What? Family troubles?" Joe asked, picking at his slice of greasy 'pizza' from the school canteen.
"Nah, just kind of weird to think how I've just got 2 more brothers now. Like, within a few weeks."
"Hasn't it been a few months now?" He asked.
"Yea, just I'm lucky I guess."
"I would think so, being an only child sucks sometimes." Ash nodded, agreeing with Joe's point.
"Yea, I mean when my sister comes back to the holidays, she takes me to the cinema, and it's kind of nice. I mean she's annoying, and hearing her kick her football around the garden does my head in. But then she brings her guitar round and we jam together."
"I'm looking forward to that. Jamming I mean. Tubbo's learning the ukulele and this cool music program, and Tommy's learning the piano and maybe the guitar. I think it will be nice this summer, to sit in the music room with the doors open and just play music?"
"We've got to do that this summer!"
"Definitely!"
"Dad will probably jump at the chance to hear us play again properly to be honest. Also, I was thinking we should sort out the band's social media this summer. Get some videos posted. Tiktok could be a good way for us to get clips of us playing out there. I think I've got some videos from the prom."
"Sounds cool." Everyone else agreed. I leant back on my hands, feeling the sun on my face. A group of year 7's ran past us, scrambling for a football and I realised that sitting on the field might not have been our best idea.
Kristin's POV:
I knocked on Techno's door, waiting for him to answer before I went in.
"Hey brain box, Dad and Tommy are going to be back soon and apparently the meeting went really well." He hummed in reply, not looking up from his laptop. "Did you see the work school have sent through? There's not a lot." He shrugged. "Did you want to talk or?" He shook his head. "Okay, well I'll be downstairs if you need me. Did you want anything to eat or drink?" He shook his head again. "Okay, love you bud."
"Love you too." He mumbled.
I returned downstairs to Tubbo also in his bedroom, and also sat on his laptop. "You alright bud?" He nodded with a smile. "Can I ask what you're working on?"
"Song."
"Oh, on that new music program?" He nodded.
"Could I listen to it?" He winced. "Maybe a bit later?" He nodded. "Okay then, did you want anything to eat or drink then?" He pointed to his cup of squash and I nodded. "I'll leave you to it then."
With everyone I was supposed to be looking after, sufficiently looked-after, I leant back on the sofa and began watching some tv. I had been meaning to catch up on it, but our lives had been so busy recently and all normalcy was only really just getting back together. I was catching up with episodes of the Crown I had still not gotten round to, and secretly enjoying a small bag of chocolate pretzels that I'd hidden in the back of the snack cupboard.
Time skip:
I handed the bowl of potatoes over to Wilbur. "So good day at school then?"
"Yea, it was alright. Ash said he saw you in his art class."
"Oh yea, Tommy did you see Ash in the art classroom?"
"Yea." The table fell into silence.
"Has no one heard him say that before?" Everyone shook their heads.
"James said he started saying it at the trampoline park."
"I'm right f-cking here." Came the robotic voice from the iPad.
"Hey, we have talked about using words like that, would you like to repeat yourself in a nicer way?"
"Please stop talking about me like I don't exist."
"Thank you, and yes you're right, we all need to get better with involving you in conversations about you."
"Not all of us." Techno mumbled.
"Hey, I don't think that was necessary."
"Well I do," Techno huffed.
"Would you like to explain why you think that?"
"I always talk to Tommy both like he's my little brother and also like he is an actual person and I don't think it's that difficult. So I don't think we all need to get better."
I looked to Phil, "okay mate, that's a valid point, thank you for talking to us about it instead of getting angry."
"So you're saying that you were expecting me to get angry?"
"No, bud think about what your Dad's actually trying to say."
"I'm saying that it's better when you talk to us about it, rather than getting angry. When you were younger, you used to get angry instead of talking remember. All I'm saying is how proud of you I am for the ways in which you've grown up."
"Sorry."
"It's fine. It's been a rough day." Phil paused, took a sip from his glass of water and sighed. "So Tommy, you can say yea now? Can you say words we haven't heard yet?"
"Sometimes my brain just does it. Sometimes it doesn't."
"Would you like to say all the words you can say right now? So we stop acting surprised all the time."
He laughed, "yea." It was still a joy to hear him talk. He was a completely different person to the one we met 10 or so weeks ago. His face lit up and he sat for a few moments in deep thought. He pointed to himself, "Tom." He pronounced the 'm' as a 'mmmm' sound but he was clearly proud of himself and we were all still amazed. Tubbo was nearly in tears already. Then he pointed at Tubbo, "Tubs." Then at Wilbur, "bur." Wilbur audibly squealed at this. "Te, Ma," and finally he pointed at me, "ph-ph-ph."
He was obviously trying really hard but defaulted to his iPad. "I can't do it."
"That's alright mate, and hey everything else you said was amazing! And, you talk to us so much using your iPad. We don't mind how you talk to us, so long as you keep doing it, okay?" He nodded.
"Wow," I said, "this has been an interesting family dinner huh? Who wants some dessert?"
"Dad?"
"Yes Wilbur?"
"You know how I asked about having my friends over, do you think we could have a barbecue?"
"Good idea actually mate, everyone up for a barbecue on the last day of school?" There was unanimous agreement. "Why don't we make it a bit of a gathering? We could invite Grandma, Beau and her Mum, oh Wilbur tell your friends their parents are more than welcome to come too. Anyone else we could invite?"
"James."
"Yep, and Tor. How about Mr and Mrs McMillson from next door?"
"We'll have to go shopping," I half-joked.
"Does that mean we can get ice creams?" Wilbur suggested, helping to put plates in the dishwasher after Phil had told him it was him turn.
"Okay, before I start sending messages, is everyone okay with this? We aren't going to force any of you to socialise."
After finalising a few other details, including Wilbur giving an extensive list of what ice creams needed to be available, we settled down on the sofa to watch a Wallace and Gromit movie. Techno decided he wasn't up for it, but Phil went up to talk to him quickly and when he came back down, it seemed like everything was okay.
When we went to bed that night, we checked in with each of the boys individually, realising that the week had been hectic and maybe we all needed a bit of time to talk about it. As we lay in bed, the whole house was silent. I turned to Phil in the dark, "you think we're doing our best?"
"Of course."
"Okay, just checking."
"You think we could be doing more?"
"No, I think we could be doing different stuff. Tommy's been making so much progress, but I think Techno's really struggling right now and we could be putting stuff in place to help him."
"He's 17, he doesn't want all our help. He won't even talk to us properly."
"You said he was okay when you talked to him earlier."
"He was, sort of. He said he felt very lonely again, feels like he's got no one there for him. He mentioned a job, but he would only talk about it briefly. I promised him I'd help him apply for it this weekend. And I also promised I'd help him finish ordering all the pc parts this weekend. He seemed to perk up a bit after that."
"We've got to stick to that promise. Why don't I take the other 3 out somewhere during the day, give you some time out with him?"
"That could be good actually. Give him that bit of space. He is 17, and I think his lack of independence frustrates him sometimes. Maybe we need to start building him up again?"
"A job could be a good way of doing that. Give him that independence bit by bit. When he gets his driving license, he could start going by himself."
"Yea."
"We'll work it out."
"Of course we will. Night, love you."
"Love you too." He hugged me and we lay there for a few minutes. Having 4 secondary school-aged boys was a challenge but Phil and I were ready to prove to ourselves that we could do it.
A/n Hey, guess who forgot it was Friday! My fault. Here's the chapter, hope you enjoyed.