Chapter Text
Wilbur is entirely unsure of what to think.
He’s had foster siblings before, sure. Lots of them, even. The last time he sat down with his dad and counted, it was more than 10. That’s a lot of siblings. He’s not inexperienced, definitely not. Not with foster siblings as a concept, at least.
This time, the call came in for a fourteen-year-old. He’s been in and out a few times this year, dad had said, so we’re going to try and give him a stable home for the holidays. Even if it’s just a few weeks it will make a difference, he loves to say.
Then, the second call came in. About forty-five minutes later. Also for a teenager. This one, though, is only on his second removal this year. Teachers called because they were worried about him being home for winter break. Makes sense. Three weeks is a long time when you don’t have food or running water.
Wilbur has never had a foster sibling over the age of eight.
There are two supposed to arrive within the hour.
The pre-break placement season is a known and feared enemy of foster parents and their nice, cushy holiday schedules. You go from two kids to six in six hours and then suddenly you can’t make that trip south to visit your parents anymore. And also you need another $200 in Hanukkah gifts bought by the end of the weekend. Suck it up.
Dad assures him that it’ll all work out.
Wilbur is staring at the fresh-out-of-the-IKEA-box bed across from his, the old dresser that they hauled out of the storage room, and a new, dark blue backpack…and he isn’t very sure that he believes him.
But he already agreed, hadn’t he? Already said ‘Yes, father dearest, it is completely alright with me if you invite two strangers to live in my house. Wait what do you mean he’s sleeping in my room.’ Can’t take much of that back.
By the time the doorbell’s rung and he’s made his way downstairs it is entirely too late to have such considerations. The first case worker is gently pushing her way into the house, herding some guy that looks like he’s…maybe sixteen. Maybe older, probably not. But it’s hard to tell past the black eye and bruising on his jaw. Not to mention waist-length brown hair. Still nearly dripping wet— probably a victim of a hospital shower. Meth in his parents’ place?
His boots are brand new and the wrong size. He doesn’t even have a trash bag. It’s absolutely meth in his parents’ place.
“Come in, come in!” Dad rushes to make himself useful but is put off by the abject lack of things to do.
The case worker, whose name was told to Wilbur and then promptly forgotten, looks nice enough. She seems tired, of course, but this is the rush season. She just needs a Monster, she’ll be fine. She is armed with the most massive folder Wilbur has ever seen attached to a kid, though. He flicks his gaze back to the kid, who is standing awkwardly next to the door and staring after her. What did this guy do?
“Phil, this is Techno,” The case worker smiles, gesturing to him. He lifts a hand in a sort of half-wave, but he still doesn’t move. Or talk. Wilbur makes eye contact with him and looks very pointedly at the boot mat to the right of the door, but doesn’t move from his cover past the end of the couch. Best not to spook him. “Is this your other son?”
“Yes,” Dad jerks his head towards Wilbur. “That’s Wil, he’s permanently mine. You’ll be across the hall from him, Techno, so I’m sure he could show you to your room if you’d like?”
Dad’s voice is disgustingly polite. Like talking to the bubbes at synagogue. Wilbur is not entirely offended by the implication that he’d show Techno to his room, though. Maybe he’ll talk once they’re away from the adults.
Wilbur has the vaguest desire to poke him with a stick and see what he does. He’s never met a foster kid over the age of 12 before— except for the rare occasions that he has to follow his dad to training nights and gets dumped in some church basement with a couple dozen other kids of complicated origins. Even then, though, that isn’t a social event. That’s more of a ‘try and stay alive until 8:30 and then sprint to the parking lot’ event.
Techno, however, seems quite content to shake his head and remain rooted to the floor. Wilbur wonders if he’s ever going to take those boots off. They are dripping all over the entryway, and he does not want to be the one to mop up after the new guy.
“That’s alright, then,” Dad nods, looking back to the case worker.
“Could you step outside with me for just a minute, Phil? So we can go over the paperwork. You just need to sign a few things and then I’ll be out of your…” Her voice trails off as dad leads her to the kitchen, which is somewhat protected by a wall.
Wilbur continues to stare at the new guy, who continues to stare back.
“You’re lucky,” Wilbur decides to bite the bullet and attempt to make conversation. “You get your own room. There’s another kid coming today that I have to share with.”
“You a bio kid?” Techno asks after a moment, looking away from Wilbur to scan the photo wall in the living room. The assumption makes sense, given the fact that Wilbur’s face is present since he was a baby. Combined with dad’s vague comment about how he’s “permanently his”, Wilbur can imagine that it’s confusing.
“No,” However, that doesn’t mean that he gets rights to the elaboration. Techno nods absently. Once he finishes his scan of the room he slowly steps to the side and slides out of his boots. He doesn’t set them on the mat, though. Just next to it.
“My room upstairs?” The new guy nods towards the stairs. Wilbur nods. This guy has a deep voice. And, annoyingly enough, doesn’t seem to recognise the benefits of opening your mouth to speak. Wilbur can barely read his lips, so he’s lucky that his voice is that deep or he wouldn’t know what was going on at all.
“I can show you,” Wilbur offers, unmoving.
“No, I’m good,” He rolls his eyes. “Think I can find it by the lack of shit in it and the smell of bleach. Thanks, though.”
Wilbur doesn’t move as he walks past, heading upstairs alone. The door that goes to the guest— Techno’s room— slams shut a moment later.
He decides to take this glorious moment of no supervision to jump over the back of the couch and pull the laptop he stashed out from underneath it. There is no better time to play the Sims, he thinks.
But, because of course, the doorbell rings again before he can so much as sign into EA. He groans, shuts the laptop, and starts to stand just as dad calls from the kitchen to ask him to let the other kid in.
“The other kid” is about eight inches shorter than Wilbur, is in dire need of a shower, and looks abjectly shocked that his ringing of the doorbell actually summoned a person. It takes him a few seconds to peel his jaw up off the ground before asking,
“You Phil?”
“I’m—”
“My son,” Dad interrupts, ducking under the arm Wilbur has braced on the doorframe and offering his hand for the second new kid to shake. He just sort of stares at it.
“I’m Tommy,” The kid says. And then he doesn’t shut up. “My case worker, she’s Victoria, she was on the phone with you earlier, and she said that I should just go up and ring the doorbell while she found her paperwork but I didn’t know that you had someone over or I wouldn’t have—”
“Oh, don’t worry about me!” Techno’s case worker says cheerfully, shimmying through the cramped doorway to get to her car, which is parked on the street. “I was just leaving.”
“This is Lucy, she’s the case worker for my other foster son,” Dad says gently. It’s such a ‘trying not to spook a kid’ voice. The kid in question, though, just turns to look at Wilbur with a double eyebrow raise that screams ‘you are not a foster kid’.
“Not that son,” Wilbur’s dad catches this train of thought as well. “This is Wilbur. My other foster son is upstairs, I think. He also just arrived. Wilbur can take you and show you your room, if you’d like?”
“Sure! That’s cool. I have a Costco tote. Can I bring that in?”
“Do you want help with it?” Wilbur offers. He nods, and Wilbur follows him back out to his case worker’s car, taking the in as it’s offered. He’d rather establish a positive relationship on day one then spend the next six months working up to it. He needs this kid to tolerate him if they’re going to be sleeping eight feet apart for the foreseeable future.
“It’s not super heavy but the tote is big, my aunt brought it for me after CPS showed up the first time because she always thinks it’s absolute bull that my parents just dump me on someone else with a garbage bag. When she said that, though, I was really expecting something more along the lines of a suitcase,” Wilbur takes the front end and Tommy takes the back and Wilbur leads the way back into the house and up the stairs while Tommy continues to talk.
“A tote is sturdy at least, but it’s ugly. Why don’t they make these in other colors besides rip-off bumblebee slash construction worker? Give me a nice lavender any day over this. Is this my room? Wait, who am I sharing with? You?”
“Yep,” Wilbur helps him lift the tote onto his bed, freshly made with crisp white sheets. Wilbur thinks that white sheets are a horrific idea for a fourteen-year-old, but his dad did not care about his opinion. “The other guy is across the hall.”
“Other guy? Was that the other case worker? Why was she here?” He is just leaking words, it’s like he doesn’t know how to get out what he wants to say until he’s said six sentences vaguely about it first.
“He just got dropped off also. Name’s Techno. I don’t know anything else about him, so don’t ask.”
“Geez, sorry. Is this your desk?” Tommy is touching it before he’s even asked the question.
“Yes,” Wilbur watches his tiny little fourteen-year-old hands poke at his setup. He’s been scraping together for months working at a stupid little coffee shop to get a curved monitor and if the new kid breaks it in the first six hours he’s going to kill him and then burn the house down to hide the evidence. “It’s also on my half of the room. Note the divider rug. If you need a desk you can talk my dad into getting you one, there’s space for it. He just didn’t know if you would want one.”
“Your dad? Are you a bio kid or are you just attached-sies?”
“Not a bio kid,” Wilbur repeats. Once again, though, he does not elaborate.
“Inchresting. I want to go meet the other guy.”
Wilbur takes a few seconds to process what was said, since Tommy was facing away from him and speaking at the speed of sound, but in that time Tommy has already bounded across the hallway and barreled into Techno’s room. He only hears Techno’s shouts of “Get out!” before Tommy is quite literally thrown into the hallway again, and the door slams.
Tommy is on his feet within seconds. Unluckily for everyone involved, Wilbur’s dad does not believe in door locks. Only respect of privacy. Tommy does not seem to have respect for Techno’s privacy, or Techno himself, because he goes barrelling into the door, shoulder first, and the door pops open and flings against the back wall.
“What are you doing in here, huh? Hiding? Gonna cry about missing your mommy and daddy?”
Wilbur just watches, slack-jawed at the blatant instigating. Techno is seated on the edge of his bed, staring at Tommy, and stands up very slowly. Wilbur backs all the way up to the top of the stairs, not taking his eyes off the two of them, and shouts down them.
“Dad, you better come here,” In the calmest voice he can manage given that Techno looks about ready to pummel the life out of a kid that’s a foot smaller than he is.
“What’s going on?”
“Phil, he’s trying to kill me!” Techno lunges and Tommy shrieks as he ducks under his arm and back into the hallway.
Wilbur’s dad comes flying up the stairs two at a time and nearly slides down the hallway. Tommy scurries away from Techno, tucking himself behind dad, and Wilbur stays standing at the top of the stairs. Techno’s chest is heaving but he seems…calm, somehow. Not quite calm, actually, but calculated. He’s doing the math on the situation.
“He bullied his way into my room without knocking or asking, and then did it again after I threw him out.” It doesn’t even sound like an argument, just an explanation.
“And insulted him,” Wilbur adds under his breath.
“Forgive me for thinking that there was some measure of privacy allowed in your house. My parents suck but they let me have a lock on my door,” Techno turns to go back into his room and slam the door a third time, but gets interrupted.
“Okay,” Dad says. “New plan. The case workers are all gone for today, so why don’t we go downstairs and have an…introductory meeting, yeah? Yeah. Good talk.” He turns and half-drags Tommy after him, heading back downstairs. Wilbur looks at Techno, shrugs, and follows after them.
Dad seats Tommy very squarely at the head of the table, with him on one side and Wilbur on the other, across from Techno. Techno glares harder, if that were possible, at the blatant fear for Tommy’s life.
“So, I think that maybe we need to have some introductions instead of just being let loose on the house,” Wilbur’s dad claps his hands over the table. “Does anyone want to start?”
Tommy raises his hand but starts talking before he can be called on. “I would like a house rule that roommates cannot tackle you because they feel like it, and also that if you do tackle people you get demoted from having your own bedroom.”
“I agree that we should not be tackling people, but I’m not moving Techno out of his room. I think that this is the best arrangement right now. I’ve got plans to finish another bedroom up there, out of the space above the garage, but for right now we have to make three bedrooms work.”
“Can we have a rule about not barging into people’s rooms?” Techno turns his gaze to Wilbur’s dad. “And perhaps discuss some ducking locks?”
“I think that bedroom door locks tend to become safety concerns, so no. The only doors in this house that lock are ones that go outside and the bathroom.”
“Even yours?” The challenge is painfully obvious, but quickly ended.
“Yep. My closet has a lock, but only because that’s where I keep cleaning chemicals. My door is as undefended as everyone else’s. I would like if we could all agree to respect privacy, especially closed doors. Tommy?”
“Why are you looking at me?” Tommy sputters. “I didn’t do shit. I just wanted to meet the other guy, and he was being an-ti-social.”
“Get used to it,” Techno glares at him. “I’m not here to make friends. It’s three months, tops, before my parents get it together enough and I get ‘reunified’,” He maks a disgusted face to match the air quotations around the word.
“Oh, think it’ll take you that long?” Tommy leans over the table, hands still in his lap. Wilbur as the thought that Techno’s view might be very gargoyle-esque.
“I know that any longer in this house and I’ll be in jail for— well, Phil, what’s the word for when you kill someone that isn’t your family?”
“It doesn’t matter what the word is, because you won’t be doing that. Please don’t threaten anyone living in the house. I think that’s probably a good start to any set of overarching ‘house rules’ we might set up, yeah?”
“‘We’?” Techno raises an eyebrow as he drops his face into his lap, voice dripping with disbelief. Wilbur finds himself quite content to sit and watch this happen.
“Well, you live here too, only seems fair,” His dad raises his hand to stop Tommy from opening his mouth again. “We all live here, for the foreseeable future. And we don’t know anything about each other, so lets start there. My name is Phil, and my favorite color is green. I like spicy food but only if it’s as restaurants. Now, Tommy, your turn.”
“My name is Tommy and my favorite color is blue,” Wilbur grins. He told his dad that blue was the right backpack, he just had a feeling. “And I only like waffle fries, not french fries, because waffle fries are spiced and french fries aren’t. But if there were french fries that were spiced the same way I’d probably like those, the texture is about the same innit?”
“That’s too many words,” Techno says across the table. “My name is Techno, I don’t have a favorite color, and my favorite food is the kind that you eat. See, that’s literally all you need.”
“Well forgive me for wanting to be clear, Techno. Lame-ass name, by the way.”
“It’s a perfectly reasonable name, Tommy,” Wilbur’s dad scolds him gently. “I know lots of people named Techno.”
“Really?”
“Well… no, but I have met someone else named Techno before. It’s not the weirdest name ever. Would you walk up to someone and say that being named ‘Tommy’ is weird?”
“Yes,” Techno replies, snickering when Tommy glares at him.
“Okay, next on the house rules, along with not outright threatening people, can we please agree to at least try to be nice? You don’t have to be nice-nice, but I’d appreciate if you could stop being mean.”
“You’d appreciate it?” Techno challenges. “But you won’t enforce it?”
“Yeah, how are you enforcing these rules?” Tommy sides with Techno for once, the two of them setting twin eyes on Wilbur’s dad.
“Depends on what you did,” He shrugs. “Maybe it means a shorter curfew, maybe it means you lose a privilege for a couple days, maybe it means we have a talk to your case worker if it’s becoming a bigger problem, I don’t know yet.”
“Lose a privilege?” Tommy crosses his arms. “You can’t take our phones, they’re personal property. I’ve talked to Victoria about it before, she says that anything I brought into the house is mine, and anything given to me as a gift is mine, and you aren’t allowed to take anything that’s mine, even if you bought it, if you gave it to me.”
“I wasn’t planning on it. I meant things more like being able to borrow my car if you have your license, being allowed into town by yourself, not being able to play on the switch. I won’t be taking anyone’s property.”
“He says that now,” Techno mutters under his breath, gaze flicking to Tommy. Tommy snorts but doesn’t add anything.
Wilbur considers that he wasn’t asked to introduce himself as the negotiations continue. Back and forth, back and forth. Dad says something, Techno tries to push his buttons, Tommy agrees, Techno glares at Tommy for agreeing, the cycle continues.
It is a miracle when they are released from the table with the singular request to ‘not kill each other.’
Wilbur’s dad rubs his back as he passes him, heading upstairs. Wilbur decides to take the routine permanent-child-style neglect and run with it, returning to the couch and the laptop. Sims time.
Tommy seems content enough to have the bedroom to himself, Techno has once again locked himself into his room, and dad is up in his room doing…something. Maybe crying. Wilbur isn’t sure that he realized it might not be his greatest idea to take two teenagers on the same day.
Yeah… He considers the meeting while watching the endless spinning plumbob. That was a disaster. Aren’t first days supposed to be good? That’s what all the foster parenting books say. Wilbur’s read a few of them in an attempt to figure out how to handle some of the previous little kids. (Spoiler alert: you just can’t handle them. That’s the secret. If it’s bad enough you’re consulting a book, the answer is that you can’t handle it.) They all say that the first couple weeks are your honeymoon period, and then after that come the challenges and the fighting and the arguments.
If this is the honeymoon period, the after is going to be…interesting.
Wilbur thinks that he would like first dibs on the bedroom over the garage, as soon as it’s built.
—
The problems start coming and they don’t stop coming, to paraphrase Smash Mouth’s hit song All Star.
After Tommy being literally thrown out of Techno’s room and the resulting ‘family meeting’, the calm lasted for about two hours. It was a very nice two hours, in Wilbur’s humble opinion, seeing as he was left entirely alone in the living room with his laptop for all of them. Playing without his mouse (upstairs, on his desk, not worth potentially attracting Tommy’s attention) is not ideal, but hey. It worked.
The first major issue comes with dinner. Dad had planned on ordering pizza, since neither of the new kids had anything in their files about food allergies, but it wasn’t until it arrived that Techno said he was lactose intolerant and Tommy declared that he was gluten intolerant. So Wilbur had about two pizzas to himself while his dad went back into town to find something ‘of similar significance’ that they could eat. And probably call the case workers.
Then, the argument about showers came. You know, that wonderful time in the evening when you begin thinking about going to sleep.
Wilbur showered. And then told Tommy where he could find toiletries for his shower. Since he reeks. Not that Wilbur was going to say anything. This quickly turned into Techno saying something. Tommy was probably going to shower until Techno said that he should. Techno insults Tommy, Tommy insults Techno back, and then Techno attempts to put Tommy’s head through a wall.
Wilbur is so, so glad once it is time to actually go to sleep.