Piece by piece to love | Sleepy bois inc

Chapter 30: Flickering lights

Ranboo had nonidea how to feel about this house. There was something off about this place, but he couldn't put a finger on what it was. What more Bee and Toms were completely unfazed by it, like all of the things that occured were normal. He might have spent only a few days in this house but it was long enough to notice those weird traits.

There was always food prepared despite no one being in the house beside Boo and he was absolutely sure he did not cook while sleepwalking. His bed was always made, no matter how messy he had left it, it was just always tidied up, the same with his dirty laundry. 

For the first four days the books were constantly falling off the shelves and they stopped as soon as he realised where they were supposed to all be. They just stopped, as if it never happened. What, has the shelf just fixed itself like that?! And man, his paper… Every time he would leave his notebook somewhere in sight, he would find the pages bleeding with red ink circling all his mistakes.

And not to mention that weird guitar. In random moments it would just start playing and stopped as soon as he reached the living room, lying innocently next to the piano. From what he was told it belonged to Tommy's cousins, the same as that violin. But who were those cousins anyway? Tommy never mentioned them before, but to be fair, he never talked about his family other than "mom forbids it '' or "I'll be offline for a week, I'm finally able to visit dad". But his extended family? Ranboo had no idea they even existed. And he couldn't even get in touch with them. Every time he heard them talking on the phone, the phone call would just end as soon as he joined them. He didn't even get the chance to say thank you!

After one and a half weeks he decided that he's tired with all of this and he needs answers. And seeing that he will not get them from his friends he shall look for them himself.

He was just lying on his couch at that point, Tommy probably still in the basement, doing whatever he was supposed to do on a phone call with his cousin. Techno, was it? An unusual name, but who was he to judge? Bless the United States and possibility to name the kids however one pleases. He's stuck with the name Ranboo thanks to that.

He felt that he won't be sleeping anytime soon so he decided to dig out of his sheets and have a look around. Well, he was living in the attic, there could be many things to tell him what kind of people Tommy's family was… He slowly moved the curtain out of his way to find himself in the proper part of the attic, filled with many boxes and old books, even older than those downstairs. The stuff stored here was unusual as well. With the corner of his eye he could catch a glimpse of a replica of a battle axe, there was a wooden bow hanging on the wall, a few swords sitting in the corner. He knew there was a medieval festival going on, but damn, this was a lot of weaponry. All of the things were old, way older than Ranboo himself was. A sewing machine, that had probably seen the war times, old metal kettle, an iron… everything should belong to the museum. Even some of the clothes stored here had historical value! Was Tommy's uncle historian?

Then something else caught Ramboo's attention. A photo album, stored away between the boxes. On the first page was a picture of what he recognised were Tommy's uncle and cousins, and that woman next to them was probably his aunt. Ranboo wondered what happened to her. There were a couple of their childhood photos, even a wedding photo, but it looked so old, made in sepia. Was it an intentional effect? Vintage lovers, huh?

But there was one photograph that changed everything.

It was described as "Boys with their new cousin Sam". It showed Wilbur and Techno holding a baby that was supposed to be Tommy's father later on.

And it was dated.

1978.

That would mean that Toms's so-called cousins would be right now about fifty, his uncle almost eighty. But… they weren't even his cousins, they were his dad's! And he was sure that they sounded not too older than him! What was going on?! Who were they?! And did Bee and Toms know about all of this? Why would they lie to him?!

Suddenly a page fell out of the album. A newspaper cut out with a rather shocking title.

"Well known adventurer Phil Watson and his sons died in a fire"

What?

What did they mean "he died"?

Then who were his friends talking to?

No, no, this… this couldn't be, he heard Mr Phil multiple times. He… did he?

Wilbur watched the boy sinking into his thoughts, his agony. They didn't hide the boom well enough, it appears. But there was no use crying over spilled milk. It happened, the worst way possible. He wished he would get to know their death through their words not a newspaper, but there was no turning back now. He knows. So… There was time for the next step.

Wilbur slowly reached for the flush light, covering the front. The light flickered slightly before going out completely.

The house filled with an ear-splitting scream from the attic, almost making Phil cut his finger off with the sculpting tool.

– Okay, who's getting murdered?- Techno peaked from behind the basement door, soon followed by clearly unhappy and slightly bleeding Tommy.

– I would rather ask why did you try to murder Tommy?- Phil rose his brow at the boy's cut. It wasn't anything deep, looked rather like an accident with a knife, well, in their case a sword. That... sounded bad.

– I got a little off guard because of screamin'- Tommy pouted, clearly unhappy with his "failure" pointed out.- But, seriously, who's screaming?-

– Holy shit, guys, I think Ranboo met Wilbur!

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I'm speedrunning now. Just kidding.
I finally have vacation and some time to write.
Which is still to little, considering I'm writing three SBI stories at once. If anybody curious, and I suspect no one, I have an ao3 account now.
If you want to talk, I'm open
Have a nice day!