Chapter Text
Tubbo’s current favorite place in the entire world-- aside from a pond he can only appropriately call a ‘favorite’ in the summertime when it shines with sunlight and fills him with a wholeness, which is rather poetic of him, nice-- is a fucking convenience store.
Which, to be fair, only one of those places sells obscure fruity gum and packs of AAA batteries just an aisle apart, so the contrast is one of more practicality, if anything. And, well, aside from heading back to his kind-of house and playing video games on his kind-of couch with his kind-of brother Tommy, homework be damned, there aren’t a lot of other places to stop by right after school in September.
So, once the overhead announcements turn off and all the kids in his Chemistry class shove haphazard papers into their messy backpacks and flick their hoods up to avoid the rain as they slip out the door, Tubbo pulls out his phone and sends Tommy a text before following suit.
tubbo: do u wanna c wil today
Tubbo lets the text message simmer as he walks through the school halls, phone shifting up and down in the pockets of his jeans as he shuffles from one foot to another behind the steady hoard of teenagers in front of him. A lot of them are too tall for him to see past their shoulders, with the fucking potent scent of AXE deodorant to them too, but he manages off of muscle memory.
Muscle memory of hopping down the stairs with his left shoulder against the railing. Muscle memory of nodding his head at his math teacher in some sign of hey sorry, I respect you a lot, dude, but if I make small talk with you right now everyone walking behind me will eviscerate me. Muscle memory of finally stepping outside and hanging under the roof while waiting for his best friend to reply to his text messages and show up.
It’s a pretty common routine for him. Sure, Tubbo’s rode on busses alone, walked a few miles in the rain, and ditched on a plan just for the hell of it. But, he’s found it a lot more fun to wait for Tommy, forget weather, and go on some adventure before Tommy’s dad calls them asking, cordially, where the fuck they are.
(Despite the fact that there aren’t a lot of places the two of them can go, to be frank. They could stop by the really good ice cream shop or bakery, but the first one gets a lot busier after school and all the summer specials run dry, and the latter obliges them to get stuff for the rest of Tommy’s family, as well. Parks are a pretty common location, libraries are not, but either way, it usually ends up being somewhere with an easy back-road straight to home in ten minutes or less.
Phil-- if Tubbo can really call him that-- tends to worry a lot for no reason. No reason, Tubbo figures, seeing as both of them don’t tend to go anywhere alone. Not on a school night, anyway).
Today, Tubbo’s aiming for the convenience store that’s about a six minute drive from his kind-of house, parking not included, to grab some snacks and visit Wilbur, Tommy’s older brother who takes smoke breaks leisurely and plays his favorite bands a little louder than he should. Though he’s supposedly heard complaints about both situations and plenty more, he hasn’t come close to losing his job, and Tubbo thinks it makes the whole place a bit nicer, anyway.
The two of them-- Tubbo and Tommy, that is-- usually like to drop by on Wilbur’s shifts just to hang out and pester him. Sometimes, when he has long and drowsy summer shifts, they’ll snag him an ice cream cone (any flavor; he likes to try something new every time, so Tommy picks out the weirdest shit with toppings all over while Tubbo pays for it with Wilbur’s credit card) and help him with minor stuff. Those days are usually pretty nice.
Now, though, there are no ice cream detours. Just Tubbo, and the light drizzling rain, and the introspective mood Wilbur is probably in because of it, and the fifty text messages Tommy, his aforementioned kind-of brother being corrected to eighty-percent nuisance, is sending to his phone.
He slides it out, rolling his eyes a bit and slumping further against the wall to read them all:
tommy: wil? nah i hate that guy
tommy: he listens to bad music nd shit. Also his glasses make him look dumb
tommy: i will be there in a few minutes i am speaking to women
tommy: our last math test was bullshit
tommy: i will tell you later. tom is on the move
tommy: you better still be waiting for me
Tubbo had thought the last math test was fine, actually, and Tommy doesn’t exactly have great eyesight either, but Tubbo will leave him to talk to his supposed women as all good friends do.
He puts his phone back, eye-ing people as they rush to their parents’ cars and drive home. One kid puts an instrument in the trunk, one hand covering his forehead as if that will deflect the rain entirely, before settling in the backseat. Another calmly pulls out an umbrella and immediately hits her friend’s head with it, the two of them laughing before they start to walk away together. A few flock into a cluster and rant loudly about some project, while another group congregate by the bicycle rack and pay no mind to the one person trying to get their bike out. Overall, it’s an organized mayhem, something familiar and fine if you don’t think too hard about the noise level and find a perfectly safe place to stand.
While more people flood out from the main doors as others slowly filter out, Tubbo leans down to look through his backpack and pull out a tangled mess of wired earbuds. Usually, he tries to keep it neater, since looking at super messy shit makes him near gag, but earphones are impossible to keep all nicely folded together and he has since navigated how to effectively listen to music even when all the wires are actively intertwined. So, he slides them in, picks a show tune that Tommy will definitely make him turn off once they start walking together, and shuts his backpack up again.
He only gets through one song, with a banger beat in the background and lyrics he has committed to his memory and can decently recreate in the shower, and the first thirteen seconds of another one, before something collides with his shoulder.
He catches himself on a wall, turning to glare at Tommy while the other laughs, loud enough that the lack of external stares is likely due to the entire student body all developing a herd ignorance of it. He is horribly dressed for the weather, with just a t-shirt on and no jacket anywhere, and he seems entirely unaware that this will pose a problem in a few seconds once they start the fifteen minute trek to get to the store.
Tubbo would be pretty content to wave it off and say that it’s Wilbur’s burden, now, having to clean up after a larger and slightly more intelligent drenched rat walks into his store, but Wilbur is most likely not the one who will be hearing the bitching.
At least Tubbo has an umbrella. Somewhere. Probably.
If not, they’ll just book it.
“Fuckin’ geometric trig,” is the first words Tommy says to him, just after running right into him. “That was bullshit. Actual bullshit. I hope my teacher shits himself.”
Tubbo rolls his eyes for the second time at the expense of the other and sighs. “Just retake it, Tommy.”
“ Just retake-” Tommy cuts himself off, huffing. “Who do you think I am? I am Big Man Tommy and I do not just-”
“I will teach you if you just shut up about it.” It’s going to start raining heavier, anyway. They really should get on it and wait out the rain inside.
Tommy carefully considers his options, before nodding and shifting the straps of his backpack. The two start walking, Tommy scowling at the rain before ultimately deciding to speed-walk his way through it, and he soon starts telling another story. “We got another bloody project in history, and-”
“History’s sick, dude.” Tubbo has a consistent C in that class, but, hey. It’s passing, and it’s not like the content is bad or anything, it’s just the consistent long passages that he cannot fucking read. But, like, learning about medieval weapons and trends and shit? Sick.
Tommy scoffs, “No, but listen, Tubbo. I have to work with Jack on it.”
“Ah.”
Jack Manifold is a friend of the two of them, someone that Tommy had a strange sort of chemistry with and has been close friends with since. And, well, Tommy’s friends are Tubbo’s friends.
Jack Manifold is also the easiest of all their friends to poke harmless fun at, much to the guy’s chagrin.
“I feel sorry for you. Nobody should have to suffer that.”
“Exactly! Jack is-” Tommy inhales deeply, shutting his eyes briefly. “Jack is stupid, he just fuckin’- he doesn’t know the last thing about history. Him and his stupid fuckin’ 3D glasses. We’re going to fail and my teacher will be all Tommy, you are not living up to your potential, I am highly disappointed with you, and Jack will do his cackly laugh and shit.”
“Invite him over and convince Phil to help you?” Tubbo suggests, kicking a puddle and watching the water sink into the tip of his shoes. He wiggles his toes, faintly feeling the shift in texture, before he keeps walking.
“No, I can’t do that, because- because Phil will be all like, Tommy, my favorite dearest son, you have to do it all authentically, it’s about the- the fuckin’ process. Or some shit.”
“That does sound like him.” Tommy nods, running his hand through his slightly damp hair and shaking it once, twice, before putting it back in his pocket. “Uh, maybe Wilbur? He’s good at history, is he not?”
“Oh, he is.” Tommy pauses, then he grins. “I’ll ask ‘im when we get to the store. You’re sure he’s working today, right?”
“Mostly.”
“What’s that mean?”
Tubbo shrugs. “I’m pretty sure. I dunno. He usually works 4pms. Worst case, we pester another employee ‘til he comes.”
“We’re not terrorizing the fuckin’ staff, Tubbo.”
He shrugs again, and Tommy’s laughter carries them through the time it takes to get there.
--
Tommy’s a little soaked by the time they get to the place.
His shoes squeak a bit as he wipes off most of the rainwater on the pavement, stepping in and immediately dripping water on the tiled floor. Tubbo watches in mild amusement, but is more interested in peering just behind him, to see the reaction of the man at the counter.
Wilbur, eyes fond yet sharp, scolds, “Don’t get the whole place wet, Tommy.”
“Well, I wasn’t tryi-”
“Hello, Tubbo,” Wilbur greets cordially, immediately cutting off Tommy and leaving the other to let out frustrated sighs. “What can I do for you?”
“Let us hang!” Tommy answers instead, but Tubbo’s pretty much in agreement, there. Wilbur opens his mouth to respond, but immediately gets distracted as his brother tries to change the music away from whatever indie shit is playing to, likely, some atrocious rap music only Tommy likes. In a second, Wilbur goes from being behind the counter to having his arms around the other, trying to grab for the phone.
Tubbo takes the distraction and goes to look for stuff he can pocket.
He has a running shopping list in his head, most of the time. He doesn’t write it with the communal list his kind-of family keeps on the kitchen counter, seeing as, well, family money is only his kind-of money, and all that. Which means using it would be a kind-of burden, kind of. It’s complicated to explain out loud, but Tubbo’s had three years to get accustomed to it.
See, Tubbo has been staying with Tommy’s family since he was fourteen. It’s an unofficial sort of stay-- while Tommy and his oldest brother, Techno, were formally adopted into the family years ago, Tubbo mostly just crashed enough couches and stayed enough nights that he got his own room, up in the attic.
Initially, it had been uncomfortable; it was pretty clear, to Tubbo at least, that Tommy was the only one who wanted him there, and nobody in the family really knew why he was there. Over time, though, Tubbo thinks the others have gotten accustomed to it. Phil calls him his son sometimes, and Tommy started introducing him as his brother instead of his best friend a year into it. Hell, even Tubbo sometimes thinks, whenever the five of them sit down to have movie nights or go out to a restaurant every once in a while, that he’s really part of the family.
All the same, though, it’s only his kind-of family. Because he’s not adopted into it, and he doesn’t use the same shopping list as them, and he’s never been able to make ‘family’s discount’ jokes to Wilbur whenever he comes by the store.
So, he just allows himself to float in the kind-ofs and messy middle grounds, taking the adults’ credit cards and never asking them to buy him anything, the like.
Some things don’t need to be explained. Like why a fourteen year old boy suddenly needed to sleep on his best friend’s floor for a few weeks that extended into months and then into years, or why the snack aisle is missing significantly more chocolate bars.
Really, chocolate bars weren’t even on the list. He needed other shit, like a flashlight and ziplock bags. But, any chance to get dark hazelnut chocolate is a chance well taken.
When he finishes his little adventures in ‘shopping’, he heads back to the front and sees Tommy and Wilbur chatting, a small smile on Wilbur’s face while Tommy rambles about something or the other. No rap music is playing, thankfully, and no other people have wandered into the store yet, so they’re all safe for the most part.
Wilbur raises his eyebrow as Tubbo approaches, gesturing at the hands stuffed down into his jean pockets. “You better not have taken anything,” he warns.
“It’s borrowing,” Tubbo corrects, “and you wouldn't stop me anyway.”
And because Wilbur is a cool employee who lets people shoplift and plays political songs loudly during his lunch breaks, he just nods and taps his fingers on the desk. “What’d you get?”
“Chocolate,” he says. And those ziplock bags. No flashlights yet, though. He’ll check the stock next week.
“Well done.”
“Can I have chocolate?” Tommy asks, already wandering off to the aisle Tubbo was in before. Tommy, too, does not tend to explain things well. Tubbo gets the feeling this is in a different sense, though.
Wilbur sighs loudly, “You two are going to make me lose this job, you know.”
“Fuck you!” a voice yells from the chocolate section.
“That seems like a personal problem,” Tubbo adds.
“Bastards.” The song switches to something from a similar band, with brighter chords and light humming in the background of the intro. Wilbur shuts his eyes and grins wider. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard this one.”
Tubbo opens his mouth to ask what the song is, but before he can, he hears a distinct jingle indicating that someone walked into the store.
Immediately, they all assume positions: Wilbur straightens up at the desk and puts on a more forced smile, Tommy makes a weird scream-sound of surprise and hides further in the aisles, and Tubbo steps to the side to usually join Tommy in whatever he’s up to and leave Wilbur to handle it.
This time, though, Tubbo’s eye catches on the person who entered a little longer than it usually does. Most of the time, the customer walking in is someone boring-- just a random, nondescript person needing a bag of chips and a soda. On occasion, he’ll see someone he knows from school, but it’s usually someone Tommy knows better, and someone Tommy won’t care enough to talk to. So, it’s all fairly boring, and Tubbo sticks to the sides to wait for them to leave so they can immediately get back to menacing Wilbur.
However, today, the person who entered doesn’t seem to fit the usual boring category. Rather, the person who walks in has some of the most bizarre looks Tubbo has ever fucking seen, with half-dyed hair, unusually pale skin, and a height that’s even taller than Wilbur’s.
Tommy peeks his head out from behind one of the aisles, raising his eyebrow and looking at Tubbo. He moves his hand to gesture above him and mouths, they’re fucking tall, which Tubbo nods at with agreement before continuing to people-watch.
The customer looks to be about their age, with hands that are constantly shifting anxiously-- maybe due to the fact that Tubbo is staring not-so discreetly at them-- and pupils that flicker around. For a second, Tubbo catches that both their eyes are different colors, which makes this person single-handedly the first person he’s ever seen with heterochromia.
How the fuck has Tubbo not seen this person around earlier?
“Hi!” Wilbur greets, voice crisp and charismatic. “Can I help you with anything?”
The teen pauses, before nodding a little. “Yeah. Is there, um, any- well, obviously there is, uh, sorry- any, uh, acetaminophen?” Their voice is low-pitched but quiet, barely teetering on being heard as they mumble half their request to themself.
Wilbur blinks, seeming both taken off guard and slightly amused. “Yeah, Tylenol is in the aisle with all the medicines. Should be easy to spot. Want me to show you?”
“No, uh. No. I think I can- yeah. Yeah. Okay, thank you.” After that mess of a sentence, they step away and walk very quickly to the medicine aisle, mumbling something to themself.
An opening.
Tommy mouths something at Tubbo again, but the other misses it in favor of moving towards the very same aisle, running on sheer impulse. Wilbur gives him a look like don’t harass the customer, we don’t get enough business as it is, but Tubbo just shoots him a grin before lazily walking into the area.
There, he finds them standing, staring directly at the pill bottle in their hands and rolling it over in their palms a few times. Tubbo is pretty sure that it doesn’t take that long to process if a medicine is Tylenol or not, but maybe this is the other person’s first time using an extremely common painkiller. You never know.
After a minute or so of this person staring at the medicine while Tubbo stared at them, he starts to get a bit bored. So, he clears his throat, and says in a conversational voice, “They sell pretty damn good Tylenol here, don’t they?”
They jump, clearly taken aback by Tubbo’s appearance. Here, Tubbo can get a clear look at their eyes-- one green, the other brown, both hidden by dark eyelashes (so the platinum blonde in their hair isn’t the natural color, noted.) They blink at him once before nodding slowly, clearing their throat.
“Isn’t, uh, most Tylenol the- the same everywhere?” At the very least, the other doesn’t seem like they’re genuinely confused on the subject, which means Tubbo feels a bit better messing with them on it.
“I dunno, is it?”
“It is.” There’s a beat of silence, then they add, “It would be really- uh, really weird, if one kind of Tylenol was just, really powerful for no good reason.”
Tubbo laughs a bit, which seems to surprise the other person again (what is with them?) and counters, “You never know. Wilbur might have just thrown cocaine into one of these.”
From the desk, Wilbur shouts, “No! I did not do that!”
“That’s kind of sus, Wilbur!” Tommy yells back.
“Oh,” the stranger says.
“Tommy’s right!” Tubbo calls out over his shoulder before turning back to the customer. He squints at them a bit before asking, “How tall are you?”
They hesitate. “6’6. I think.”
“Holy shit, bossman, I’m 5’5.” Tubbo’s neck hurts a bit looking at them, actually, the more he thinks about it. “Oh, wait, maybe I shouldn’t call you bossman, I don’t know your… Who are you?”
“You can, uh, call me that. I don’t… mind?” They seem confused about that, but Tubbo will let that slide. “I’m Ranboo.”
Tubbo grins. “Hi, Ranboo.” That’s a strange name. Huh. “I’m Tubbo.”
“Okay. It’s nice to meet you, Tubbo.” Ranboo delivers awkwardly.
“Do you go to the high school here?” Considering that they’re 6’6, they might be in college or something, but Tubbo is mostly just hoping that this conversation isn’t happening with an incredibly confused, like, 30 year old. Not that that’s likely-- Ranboo looks young, mostly, in terms of facial features and the band t-shirt they have on-- but still.
“Which one?” They tilt their head to the side a little.
“There’s only one here, bossman.”
“Oh.” They pause. “Well. I’m in school, so I guess so? Yeah.”
“How come I’ve never seen you around, then?” The other doesn’t reply, so Tubbo starts walking back to the front of the store. Fair enough. Tubbo doesn’t know how he would answer that, either. “Well, you should probably be on your way. Unless you’re still staring at the Tylenol.”
“Why would I be staring at, uh, at the Tylenol?”
Tubbo squints. “Was that not what you were doing?”
“Oh, was it?” They sound genuinely confused.
There’s something really, really strange about this person.
Ranboo hands up giving Wilbur the pill bottle, Tommy coming from around the corner to look at them, then Tubbo. Instead of allowing his best friend to make a remark on the other, which would be fairly characteristic, Tubbo introduces, “This is Ranboo. They- or, uh- yeah, they- they go to our school.”
Wilbur looks up at that. “Ranboo?” he asks, pausing his checking out shit. “I’ve heard that name before. You’re Niki’s friend, right?”
Tubbo raises an eyebrow. Niki is Wilbur’s best friend, who is currently living with her friend-maybe-girlfriend over near the local bakery she basically runs. Tubbo’s talked to her plenty of times, and the two of them get along really well, so he’s confused how this Ranboo guy fits into this whole equation. Or how Ranboo fits into any equation at all.
“Uh. Yeah, yeah, I, uh. We live together. Kind of.”
A kind of living together situation. Tubbo can understand that.
“Oh, and also, uh,” they glance at Tubbo, “you can, uh. Say he. If you want.”
“Cool.” Tubbo gives a thumbs up.
“You live with Niki?” Tommy asks, confusion showing in his tone more clearly than in Tubbo’s. “Doesn’t she live with Puffy or some shit? You don’t look like Puffy.”
“I’ll explain later, Tommy,” Wilbur says, handing the Tylenol back over to Ranboo. “Take care, and I’ll see you around, Ranboo, yeah?”
Ranboo gives a nervous laugh, shoving the bottle in his pocket and shaking his head a bit. “Uh, maybe? Yeah. Maybe. Uh. Bye, sorry.” He quickly leaves the building, and Tubbo watches as he settles himself into one of the cars and begins to back out of the parking space. For someone with shaking hands, he seems like a pretty smooth driver.
At the desk, Tommy looks at Wilbur in utter confusion. “How do you know this guy?” he asks. “And why is he so fuckin’ tall?”
Wilbur taps his fingers on the desk again, hitting it to the rhythm of the song playing. “Niki told me a while back that she was sharing her apartment with someone. Since she’s living with Puffy mostly, now, she usually only cycles back there every once in a while. Apparently, her roommate is Ranboo.”
“How the hell did he get there?” Tubbo asks, finding himself more and more curious as more information about Ranboo unfolds.
“Niki never told me exactly how the whole arrangement started. She doesn’t really know a lot about the guy, you know. But he’s sweet, apparently, and she thinks of him like a sibling, or something like that.” Wilbur shrugs, glancing up at the clock. “More people start coming in when we hit 5, so you two should probably head back. Don’t want to keep Phil waiting too long.”
“That’s… a weird, like, living situation,” Tubbo comments, still hooked on the Ranboo thing. He gets his hood back up to prepare himself to walk back to Tommy’s place, which is at least a bit closer to the store than the school is to it. “Wonder why I’ve never seen him before.”
“He seems really weird,” Tommy adds.
“Nah, he’s fine.” Wilbur waves off. “And we know plenty about weird living situations don’t we?”
Tubbo pauses, shoulders tensing a bit, before saying, “We should head back.”
Wilbur nods. “Yeah. Goodbye, Tommy, Tubbo. I’ll see you back around ten.”
“Bye, bitch!” Tommy says cheerfully. He opens the door for Tubbo and the two of them set out with a concluding jingle, mood instantly souring when he sees that it’s still raining. “You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”
“How come we’ve never seen Ranboo before?” Tubbo asks as Tommy grimaces and starts walking, muttering swears to himself as the rain comes down a bit harder than before. That’s September for them, Tubbo supposes.
“Dunno.” Tommy opens up his phone, swiping away a few messages from Jack and closing it when he confirms Phil hasn’t called yet. “I bet he doesn’t even go to our school. I bet he’s just really weird. Who goes into a store just for Tylenol, not like any chips or shit or anything?”
Tubbo doesn’t reply to the last part, thinking back to all his classes. He doesn’t think Ranboo is in any of them, but his English class this year is pretty big, and he barely knows any of his classmates in electives: he’s either sleeping through them in the back or sitting in the front to only talk to the teacher. His friends are Tommy’s friends, and he’s pretty sure Tommy’s never seen this guy before, either, so it’s not like they’ve really interacted much.
Huh. Tubbo will keep his eye out for him later, maybe. It’d be pretty sick if he was in one of his classes. Not that Tubbo particularly cares all that much, but, Ranboo is… weird, and Tubbo’s curious, and Tubbo likes mysteries so long as they don’t really involve him.
And, well. If it’s another person he can talk to that isn’t the same people he’s known for years, now…
“Oi, Tubso!”
Tubbo glances at Tommy. “What?”
“Jack keeps texting me.” His grin betrays his fake agitation. “Says he wants to hang out with us this weekend. For project shit, but also just to hang. You down?”
Tubbo’s lip quirks up. “I will always take an opportunity to hang out with Jack Manifold.”
“As you should.” Tommy says, then pauses. “Also, Phil texted me asking where we were. We should probably hurry up.”
In lieu of a response, Tubbo walks faster, ignoring how the rain falls a bit quicker and Tommy loudly bitches about it beside him. Instead, as he slowly breaks out into a run, his eyes stray towards the streets beside them, looking over the smooth faces of cars to see if he can catch any heterochromatic 6’6 approximate 17 year olds in them.
He doesn’t. But it cements that there’s a distinct curiosity there, at least.
And Tubbo will be damned if he doesn’t pursue that.
--
By the time Tubbo gets home, plays a quick round of Mario Kart with Tommy, finishes up his homework with zero fucks to give, and bids the others goodnight, it’s about 1:00 AM.
He’s laying in his bed, then, on his side and looking at his phone. Sometimes, he would sneak up to the roof-- there’s pretty easy access, seeing as he sleeps up in the attic and the window leads out to a part flat enough that he doesn’t risk falling too much-- but the weather is too shitty for it and the clouds are covering up the stars. So, he stays inside.
On his desk, he has the ziplock bags emptied out. Truth be told, he doesn’t explicitly need any more of those. There are some in the cabinet downstairs, but he always feels weird about taking things from there, so… whatever. Might as well snag a few more bags and leave them on the table to put away into his stash in the morning.
Speaking of… mm. Tubbo rolls out of bed, setting the video he had been watching aside to make his way to the loose floorboard near his bed. It’s a little unsettling, having a bit of the floor be unstable near the top of the house, but it’s not all that fucked up, just a little more wiggle room than usual for Tubbo to jam things into. And jammed under there is a small collection of things that he will one day transfer to his backpack when the time comes.
Packs of gum. A broken flashlight he still hasn’t thrown out. A map of the town. Battery packs. A flask. A multitool. Bandage wrap. And some other shit.
All just sitting there. Just in case.
Tubbo sighs before standing up again, snatching the ziplock bags and throwing them under there and fixing up the floorboard before heading back to bed. It’s a growing stash, kept for the most probable worst case scenario that will happen one of these days, he’s sure of it.
A kind-of likely scenario for all the kind-ofs in his life. It’s a pretty fitting thing.
Knowing that all his stuff is safe and secure, he shoves his phone under his pillow, still plugged up to the charger, and does a quick look outside the window before laying down and shutting his eyes. A muscle memory routine. For the most part.
When he sleeps that night, he has one of his usual weird dreams. The ones where Tommy and him are in some strange fictitious scenario, and it’s a nightmare but not a real one, because these are the ones with aliens in it and shit.
And in the background, he swears he sees someone with split eyes and split hair, holding a bottle of pills.
When the morning comes, he doesn’t think too much about it.