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Chapter Text

Football, Gob Bluth decides, is the worst present his father ever gave him.

The entire team and basically everybody in the school knows that George Sr. paid for all the equipment, a new field, and new cheerleading uniforms in exchange for Gob securing a spot as a permanent benchwarmer. It wouldn’t be so bad if Gob ever really had the chance to play, or if he was even included in practices. Instead, he’s on equipment duty, and no one cares or calls him out on it if he skips.

Which is what he’s doing today. The weather is finally turning towards that California version of fall when the wind starts stirring the stale, warm air into something brisker. Something more magical. It’s Gob’s favorite season for this very reason. People seem more open-minded during the fall, more willing to dress up for school and talk to their seat neighbors in homeroom before the classes start getting hard and everyone at Newport High remembers that they hate each other.

The magic club puts on most of their performances during the fall. New teachers eagerly authorize their requests for stage time during pep rallies, probably under the misguided impression that letting the magic club perform is going to give these kids the chance to be cool. The older teachers refuse to sign the permission slips anymore, too aware of how their last dozen performances ended up going and potentially feeling like giving the magic club kids false hope is cruel.

Not that Gob is uncool. And it’s not that magic is inherently uncool. It’s just that a lot of his friends in the magic club aren’t the kind of kids he’s friends with in the hallways or outside of school.

Which is probably why his father bought him that spot on the football team. So Gob could have friends he’d be allowed to bring home, to be seen in public with. The magic club is on the ‘hard no’ list, and his stoner friends he likes to ditch classes with are only barely a tier above the magic club, according to his parents and the distinct social hierarchy of Newport High.

The stoners are alright though. They think it’s hilarious when he skips football practice, and even if they aren’t also magicians, they’re incredibly enthusiastic about his illusions. They’re an easy crowd, and they’re good for a laugh, so that’s where Gob goes today, to the shaded spot beneath the trees right by the edge of the campus property line.

Stacy and Jenna are already there, lounging on one of the beach towels they’ve started stashing in the branches of their favorite tree. Stacy’s trig homework is in front of them, but it’s pretty obvious they’ve gotten distracted since Jenna is giggling like she only does when she’s high and Stacy is teaching her how to blow smoke rings without much success. Jenna’s the first one to notice his approach, waving him over with a grin.

“George Oscar Bluth Bluth! Is today Wednesday or Thursday?” Jenna laughs, even though it’s the same joke about his name that she makes every time she sees him.

Gob shrugs off his backpack and takes a seat, enjoying the soft cushion of overly tall dry grass folding underneath his ass. The grounds staff never make it this far with the mower, and the grass is left to grow wild and die without interference. “It’s Thursday, so if Coach Carter comes over, I’m not here.”

Jenna and Stacy nod their agreement, even though they all know Coach Carter isn’t going to come looking for Gob. Stacy offers Gob her blunt, but he shakes his head, bangs that he really needs to get cut stinging his eyes a little with the movement.

“I’m just killing time, I have to take stupid Michael and Lindsay home after nerd word club and cheerleading,” Gob explains. His parents don’t care if he comes home smelling like drugs, but Michael tends to throw a fit and refuse to get in the car.

Stacy smiles. “It’s cute that your brother is in debate club.”

Gob wouldn’t really call it cute. More like another point for Michael in the Gob vs Michael Olympics of Parental Favoritism. But it’s funny to watch Michael yell at other sophomores about things like taxes and unions, and sometimes Michael will help him with his English homework if Gob drives him to tournaments.

He doesn’t say all that though, because this is just Stacy Who He Sometimes Parties With, so he settles for scrunching up his nose in the universal signal for ‘my younger sibling is annoying and if you knew just how annoying they are you wouldn’t think anything they do is cute, ever’.

Stacy and Jenna go back to piecing together the answers to their trig homework, and Gob quietly pulls out his own statistics revisions. When it’s just Stacy and Jenna, Gob can do this, can sit still and do his homework and try and make sure he passes junior year this time. When the others are around, the ones who don’t always come to school and are actually trying to get expelled to piss off their parents, he tends to go louder, rougher, harsher in order to keep up. So it’s nice on days like this one to try and mitigate the damage to his GPA, sometimes.

Michael didn’t talk to him for a week after Gob broke the news that he was going to be held back. Apparently, it was ‘embarrassing’ for Michael, and if Gob got held back a second time and wound up in Michael’s grade, he would never speak to Gob again.

Sometimes Gob wants to scream.

Most days he doesn’t though. He tries to handle high school like Lindsay does, like being popular is a job he has to work at until he graduates.

After he graduates, he’ll have a different job, but it looks like it will still be being popular, just with his parents and their friends and the family business and-

“-You okay, dude?” Jenna’s voice crashes through Gob’s thought tornado, and he realizes he broke his pencil clean down the base by gripping too hard.

He laughs it off, because of course he’s okay, he’s Gob Bluth.

He has to be.

~~~

Driving his siblings home is an exercise in both patience and futility. Patience because Michael and Lindsay are constantly talking about kids he doesn’t know and doesn’t care about. Futility because Gob has zero patience and also winds up hyper-invested in the sophomore drama his siblings are privy to.

“And that’s when I told Lisa that she either needs to take up her stepmom’s offer of a boob job or start wearing push up bras during performances.” Lindsay’s height and physical precociousness have finally turned into something valuable, and she holds on to those advantages with an iron grip.

Michael frowns. “Glad to hear you’re psychologically damaging your co-cheerleaders, Lindsay, that’s excellent leadership. Mom would be proud.”

“Thank you.” Lindsay reapplies her lipstick in Gob’s rearview mirror, kissing her reflection and leaving behind imprints that fog up the glass, which would be an issue, but he really doesn’t use that one, so he’ll let it slide.

“That’s not a compliment.” Michael sighs. “I can’t believe how shallow you can be.”

Lindsay sniffs. “I’m not shallow, Michael, I’m just mature enough to recognize that looks matter in this world. It’s people in denial, like you, that are really the shallow ones. Take Tracy, for example-”

“ -don’t bring her into this!” Michael’s voice raises, and Gob wonders if he could get away with dumping his brother by the side of the road.

His sister, of course, brings Tracy into this. “She could be very pretty, with the right hairstyle.”

Michael Bluth has been in love with Tracy Lowell since freshman year, and has spoken to her exactly twice. The first time, she introduced herself and asked if she could sit at his table. Michael choked and never responded. The second time, she mentioned that she had a meeting with what Michael misheard as the debate club, which he promptly joined. It was actually the bake club where Tracy was a member. Gob knows both of these things because Michael talks about Tracy Lowell constantly, and tends to spend at least a week after an interaction with her in total meltdown mode.

So all be told, it’s not surprising that Michael responds by pulling Lindsay’s hair.

“Shit, Michael, stop it!” Lindsay tries to reach around to hit Michael, but she called shotgun and is at a distinct strategic disadvantage.

And this is why Gob hates driving Michael and Lindsay most of all. “If either of you messes up my car, I’m going to tell everyone at school you don’t know who Madonna is!”

“That’s the dumbest-”

“-you call that a threat?”

“-thing I’ve ever heard in my entire, and I mean my entire, life.”

Gob shrugs. “It’d work, and you two would be ostrich eyes. Totally freaky.”

“Do you mean ostracized?”

For the rest of the ride home, Lindsay and Gob outnumber Michael in the resulting argument, and that’s what really counts in a family.

Or at least, that’s what family means to Gob Bluth. When he’s not driving Lindsay and Michael to and from school, when they’re all back together in the penthouse, Buster included, they don’t really interact. Michael retreats to his room, to study and plot his way to greatness. Lindsay is always leaving, always going to a party with her friends or bringing people she doesn’t actually like to the penthouse to intimidate them. Buster’s still a child, an eleven-year-old kid who acts more like five, nursery and all.

Gob has places to go, people to see, of course he does.

He just doesn’t always know where that’s going to take him. The football team makes plans last minute, and sometimes his number never gets called. The magic club has asked him a few times to hang out, but there’s never any alcohol and Gob Bluth does not do socialization without the option to get drunk.

Sometimes Gob thinks about asking if Lindsay or Michael want to hang out, but he knows that the answer would be a suspicious glare. It’s the Bluth way.

There are a lot of rules about the Bluth way, actually.

~~~

Gob’s favorite class is sixth period English. The ratio of magic club friends to football friends is tilted decidedly in favor of the magic club, and even though Mrs. Paulson hates him, she’s on a personal mission to prove to the administration that she can handle the infamous Gob Bluth on her own, without kicking him out of class. So far her ‘difficult student management techniques’ have mainly ranged from ignoring Gob (impossible to keep up, he’s an excellent instigator), staring unblinkingly at Gob (his mother’s face is scarier), offering other students extra credit to ignore Gob (more effective, but he can still get them to crack with the right stunt), and a dog training spray bottle (honestly, it mainly just throws him off his rhythm, but it seems to be what she’s settled on).

Plus, they’re doing a Shakespeare unit. Macbeth has witches, and Hamlet has those two dudes that have all the best lines, and Mrs. Paulson believes in performing Shakespeare, not just reading it. Sixth period English, then, is basically a blank check for Gob to perform, to entertain, to practice his stage voice and costume changes and slight of hand tricks, as long as he can dodge the spray bottle.

Michael once asked if Gob would consider “just joining the drama club already”, but that only shows how little Michael understands. Magic might be a mix of pageantry and skill, but it’s completely different from putting on plays. Magic is about making something new each time, even if it’s the same trick, because with magic, you get to bend the rules and leave behind the script. Besides, the theater kids are just weird.

“And now, for my first illusion, I will set this copy of Hamlet ablaze!”

Mrs. Paulson isn’t in the room yet, so Gob can use her large, teacher desk as a platform. There are only a few kids milling about, chatting with their friends or trying to sleep before class starts, but hey, an audience is an audience.

“That’s not a trick, I could do that!” Bryce Sands is a reoccurring heckler, smaller than Gob, smaller than Michael, even, so Gob blocks him out, per usual.

Because obviously, Gob knows just setting something on fire isn’t an illusion. “The book, however, will be unharmed! Behold!”

Gob has practiced this one nonstop since the summer. All he has to do is make sure the book is slightly damp (thank you, spray bottle), and the air slightly more flammable with a few pumps of hairspray, and-

“George Oscar, put that fire out immediately!”

Mrs. Paulson’s voice is squeaky and shrill and Gob really hates it, he really does. He shakes out the fire and presents the unharmed but still slightly damp book to her with a bow, but she keeps screaming, and that’s when Gob realizes that his letter jacket is actually on fire too, a little bit.

There’s an unfamiliar short kid standing next to Mrs. Paulson who helps Gob pull of his jacket and stomps out the flames. He’s even careful to avoid leaving footprints on the white part of the fabric, so once the fire is out, Gob rips his eyes away from his favorite jacket, maybe he can exchange a chill nod with the guy, but he’s struck by steel blue eyes and a small smile and a lot of eyeliner and forgets how to be a person for a minute.

Of course, that minute is plenty long enough for Mrs. Paulson to break her ‘no kicking Gob out of class rule’. And after only three weeks of school at that.

Gob thinks that maybe the new guy winces when Mrs. Paulson yells at Gob, thinks maybe he waves a little as Gob begrudgingly heads down the hall to meet with the vice principal yet again. He also thinks that maybe he’s paying too much attention to this guy, someone he barely knows, someone he doesn’t know, really. Why should it matter if Gob wants to stay to hear Mrs. Paulson tell the class about this person who is probably a new transfer student, who probably has some sort of interesting backstory for why he’s transferring in mid-September, on a Friday.

Because it could be the leftover fire fumes affecting his brain, not anything else, so Gob probably won’t even remember the guy on Monday.

Probably.

~~~

It’s not like Gob starts looking for the new kid or anything.

He just keeps popping up, then disappearing before Gob can say... something. He’s not sure yet what it is he wants to say. Hi, I’m very popular and you should know that? Hi, thanks for helping me with that fire, but I had it totally under control, I’m very popular? Hi, like me like me please like me?

Matthew Corbin mentions in statistics that he saw an unfamiliar goth kid run surprisingly fast in gym. Gob’s not sure he would classify the new kid as goth, but in Newport, anyone who doesn’t have a tasteful collection of pastel summer polos gets some raised eyebrows and veiled comments about doctors still willing to prescribe pep pills.

Gob thinks he sees the new kid in the hallway on his way to fifth-period lunch, but before he can push through the rumbling hoards of too many students in hallways too small, the guy is gone again.

He scans the cafeteria just to be sure, but either the new kid is hiding in the bathroom or he has a different lunch slot. Not that Gob has ever hidden in the bathroom during lunch, no, but Michael has and told him it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.

There’s no sign of him though, no sign of jet black hair and eyes that Gob remembers surprisingly well.

Lunch is business as usual, eating at a table with the football team, the cheerleading team, and Sally Sitwell. Lindsay’s there, trading barbs with her teammates and trying to simultaneously convince Sally Sitwell to either join the squad or transfer schools. Gob laughs at the right places, but no one asks him why he’s staring at the clock. No one asks him anything directly at all, actually.

Gob gets to sixth period English class ten minutes early.

Mrs. Paulson has also arrived early, and she lectures Gob about property damage and respect until it’s time for class to start. Gob keeps trying to look behind Mrs. Paulson, to see when and if the new kid walks in, but she’s rather adept by now at positioning herself directly in his field of vision.

She eventually lets Gob slink to his seat in the back. The new kid is sitting by the window, three chairs away, quietly scribbling something in a dark leather-bound notebook. And okay, Gob kind of gets why everyone has been calling him the goth kid. He’s dressed in all black, for one, and there is that eyeliner that Gob privately thinks looks fantastic. But he doesn’t seem angry like everyone says goth kids are, and Gob’s pretty sure that just wearing a black shirt with black jeans wouldn’t register as goth at another school. The new kid just looks sophisticated or something.

Mrs. Paulson is apparently still mad about Friday. She gives the class a fifty question quiz that takes the whole class time and puts her head in her hands for the duration, muttering too loud to really be considered muttering about the Bluths driving her towards an early retirement.

Shit, Gob is going to have to do some damage control for this later. The kids around him are shooting him dirty looks, even the geeky-nerdy-Michaely kids in the front row don’t look happy.

A party will fix this though, a Bluth party in the penthouse or a rented boat. His mother will let him use her credit card if he asks the right way, if he reminds her that he needs to assert his dominance or whatever over his peers.

The new kid doesn’t look mad, he just sighs and works on the test, even though there’s no way he’ll do well since he only just got here. Gob spends the rest of the period circling random answers and considering ways he could steal the answer key and give the new kid an A. And himself, give the new kid an A and give himself an A. Not because he feels bad, or anything, but because how badass would that be? To be able to smile at the stranger and say “ Hi, I’m Gob Bluth and I fixed that test for you. I’m very popular and cool like that.”

When the bell rings, he tries to stall in the back, waiting for something he doesn’t know how to articulate. As his classmates stomp out, the new kid turns to him and smiles and Gob suddenly feels unprepared, even though he’s been running variants of this introduction scenario in his head since Friday.

“Your shoulder alright?” The new kid’s voice is even, and almost gentle in a way Gob didn’t expect.

Right, the jacket fire. “Yeah, if I hadn’t been interrupted, it definitely wouldn’t have done that.” Gob tries to return the new kid’s smile, but he feels jittery and wired, like he’s stolen some of Michael’s coffee to prove a point about being tough enough to like coffee too, even though he doesn’t. “I’m pretty sure I’m fireproof by now.”

The new kid laughs, and even though Gob was being serious, he doesn’t mind, it’s kind of an amazing sound, that laugh. “Glad to hear it.” He loads up his bag and tilts his head at Gob. “See you around.”

The fast feeling doesn’t go away for hours, even when Gob realizes he still doesn’t know the new kid’s name.

~~~

Here’s the thing about Gob Bluth.

He feels too much and none of it’s good, not really. He feels fast sometimes, on top of the world sometimes, but that’s a scary feeling that has hollow bones and always cracks eventually.

If he could just bottle the fast times, use them like Michael uses his slow and steady determination to succeed, maybe he could start winning the love back. He knows he was loved once. There’s a letter from a typewriter that he keeps taped to the ceiling of his closet. It was written by his mother a few months before he was born, and it’s full of plans and hopes and wishes. Gob found it when his family moved from the condo on Seventh Street to the penthouse on Second Avenue, when he was eight and scared to leave behind his old room, the one he shared with Michael.

His mother denies it now, stiffly insisting the one time (fine, five times) Gob asked about the old home that there’s no way Gob could possibly remember living anywhere else but The Penthouse because the Bluths moved in “shortly after” Gob was born. It takes Gob a while to realize that this is his mother’s revisionist history, one of her rules, and once he realizes that it’s a rule, he doesn’t mention it again.

Gob does wonder, sometimes, if Michael remembers when they shared a room with bunk beds and nightlights and toys that were like what normal kids had.

Michael was four or five then, and painfully scared of the dark. Gob doesn’t mind the dark, doesn’t mind confined spaces, which is good because a solid twenty percent of being a magician is being comfortable somewhere small. So Gob would let Michael join him on the top bunk, even though the bottom bunk was smaller, because the top bunk had the better tactical advantage.

When they moved to the penthouse and everybody got their own room, Gob remembers trying to find Michael at night, in case he was scared. His parents let him visit Michael a few times, then started insisting that Gob had to stay in his room through the night if he was ever going to grow up.

Gob also wonders sometimes if that’s when Michael started growing up too fast, when Gob wasn’t allowed to help him sleep anymore.

His little brother’s room now is shockingly neat. It’s one of their mother’s few frustrations with the golden son. Michael keeps his clothes off the floor, Michael makes his own bed, Michael never leaves anything for the maid to do, and Lucille Bluth views that as a sign of weakness.

Gob is much better at giving Rosa things to do, but his mother never thanks him for it.

“What do you want, Gob?” Michael is sitting on the edge of his bed, balancing a pre-calc book in his lap. His comforter is perfectly straight, pillows in the ready position at the top of the bed, with zero stuffed animals in sight after his purge when he started high school. Gob’s not heartless like Michael, he keeps his old bear in a duct taped shut shoebox under his bed.

Gob shrugs. “Just wanted to chat.”

Michael shoots him the patented Bluth Look Number 3, the one that says ‘there’s no way you’re socializing with me without an ulterior motive, let’s not embarrass ourselves any further’.

“Fine.” Gob takes a deep breath. “Do you still volunteer in the front office instead of doing sports like a normal person?”

Michael scowls. “I have asthma, Gob, I know you know this.” His brother sighs. “Yes, I do still work there, but no, I will not help you expunge anything. I only did it the one time because you told me that if I did it once, I’d never have to help you again with anything ever.”

Shit. Gob did promise that. Still, it’s not like he needs Michael to break any rules for him now. He’s just wondering if Michael happened to overhear anything about the new kid.

But it suddenly strikes Gob that it might be weird, or something, to ask that.

Gob walks out of Michael’s room without another word, and if Michael thinks it’s because Gob’s mad he won’t help him erase a detention or two, that’s a lot safer.

He does push over a few of Michael’s books on his way out. Just to liven up the place.

~~~

Tuesday morning, Lindsay announces that if she can’t order some stupid dress from London for homecoming, she’ll “die, Mother, just die”. Their mother, perched on her barstool and clutching a Bloody Mary, just laughs at her daughter’s distress.

“Lindsay, I think you’ll find it much more helpful to add a T to that statement. A diet is-”

“-the best defense,” Lindsay grudgingly completes. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t be skinny and wear a beautiful dress, Mom! I contain multitudes!”

Buster is running around in yet another freaky outfit chosen by Lucille. Michael is the only one eating breakfast because he’s the only one of them that’s enough of a morning person to make breakfast. Gob just wants to get to school, because it’s Tuesday and on Tuesdays, he has magic club. Lindsay is the one holding them up, and Gob is fighting the urge to spill his juice on her as a political statement.

His mother just pats Lindsay on her head and says she’ll take care of it, which is Lucille code for ‘I’ll buy the opposite of the dress you want, but it will be expensive and people will still be jealous’, which Lindsay accepts it with a sigh.

Michael is suspiciously quiet in the car ride to school. When Gob pulls into the student parking lot, taking up his usual double spaces, because, come on, it’s a nice car, Michael lingers after Lindsay bounces out. “I’m going to ask Tracy to go to homecoming with me,” he announces, not looking at Gob.

“That’s nice? Michael, I don’t-”

“Gob, just-” Michael pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes deeply. “Just tell me it’s fine, and I’ll be able to do it. Please.”

Gob looks at his brother, really looks. Michael has the same greenish tint he gets after going on roller coasters or getting a B on a test. He’s clutching his backpack tightly in his lap, so hard that Gob can see his knuckles turning white.

He thinks about hugging Michael or punching Michael, something other than having to put encouragement and comfort into words Gob doesn’t know how to wield. He tries though, because that’s what Gob does, he tries and fails and keeps going. “She’ll say yes, dork. You’re two dorks of a feather.”

Michael blinks. “Do you have to call me a dork when you’re being nice, for once?”

“Duh. Dork.”

And with that, the Bluth brothers (minus Buster) start their day at the brutal social death match known as high school. Gob runs into the football team loitering in the entryway, and decides that he can stand to be ten minutes late to homeroom.

Jeremy Carson gives him a high five. “We heard about that totally awesome prank in Paulson’s class!” The linebacker laughs. “Did she flip or what?”

Gob grins. “Obviously.” The team goes nuts, slapping Gob on the back, and he’s reminded that this is why his father bought him a spot, so that he can have moments like this. Gob feels a rush of affection for his father, for his family that might not be fully functional but they have the ability to do this, to make this happen for him.

“Hey, I’m going to try and get my mom’s Amex for a party soon, are boat parties still fun, or are they like, too trite?” Gob winces internally, trite is one of those words he’s picked up from Lucille that he’s trying desperately to purge from his school vocabulary. This time though, no one notices, no one teases him, everyone just starts talking over one another about where Gob should throw his party.

The buzz around a Gob Bluth party starts to make its way through the halls, following Gob from class to class until it’s sixth period English and Bryce Sands makes some asshole comment about Gob buying popularity. Everyone brushes him off though, partially because that’s just the truth, and partially because it doesn’t matter, everyone will show up anyway.

Gob just kind of wishes Bryce hadn’t said that in front of the new kid, who is still hovering by the edge of the classroom like he’s letting the student body get accustomed to his presence before joining in on any drama or gossip.

The new kid gives him another small smile when they leave though, another friendly wave, and Gob doesn’t know what to make of that.

~~~

It figures that when Gob finally learns more about the new kid, it’s completely on accident, completely unexpected, and in the middle of magic club.

The freshman twins are recounting their latest experiments in contortion when there’s a knock on the door of Room 23. One of the Nicoles bounces up and gets the door, so Gob is still focusing on the twins when a familiar even voice asks “is this where the magic club meets?” and whichever Nicole it is replies with a perky “yep”.

Gob is pretty sure he manages to turn around at a reasonable speed, but he’s still struck by the suddenness of the new kid’s appearance in the doorway. He’s standing there, all dark hair and eyeliner and black clothes, and Gob can’t believe he missed this, missed how much sheer stage presence the guy has.

He waves at Gob, the same wave he’s been giving in English, and then addresses the group. “I’m Tony, Tony Wonder.” Tony grins, and it’s beautiful, and Gob’s not quite sure where that thought comes from. “And I’m here to do some magic, if you all can keep up.”

Chapter Text

The thing about magic club with Tony is, he’s good. Like, really good. Like, after about half an hour Gob just wants to shut him up, wants at least one of his sleight of hand illusions to fail because then there’d be something understandable and attainable about the guy. But Tony teaches them all new skills with ease, and before Gob can get his group (because it’s his, it’s his, he started the club and he found the room and he did it all on his own, for once) back on track, Tony is grinning and talking about this plan he has for a public performance.

“So the basic idea is, if we want to raise the profile of magic on campus, we need to bring magic to the campus, you know?”

The thing that kills him is that Gob does know. Gob wishes that the magic club was as popular as the football team, that he could be Gob The Magician instead of Gob Who Is On The Football Team By Technicality. He just isn’t sure he likes this handsome (handsome?) stranger taking over. But just when he’s about to cut in, about to insist that no, they’re fine here in the magic club and they definitely don’t need any new members, Tony walks over to Gob and puts his arm around his shoulders and suddenly Gob can’t remember why he was mad.

“I mean, you have some incredible talent here. That book fire? Priceless!” Tony seems to realize how close he’s standing, how deeply he’s in Gob’s personal space and he takes a few quick steps back. Gob wants to tell Tony that it’s fine, that Gob doesn’t believe in personal space either, but Tony keeps going, a monologue that’s starting to sound rehearsed. “All we need is something big, something public, that can be tied to the magic club as a whole. I mean, it took me a while to find out you guys even existed.”

That’s partially by design, if Gob’s being honest with himself. The magic club doesn’t advertise, and they definitely don’t make their meeting room particularly public.

Tony finally pauses to take a breath, and Gob knows he should take the opportunity to jump in, reign this in, and politely inform Tony that they don’t need any new members.

“What do you have in mind?”

Gob doesn’t know why he said that.

Tony smiles. “The Impalement Illusion.” And he says it so confidently, like he knows it’ll work, like if they can all just listen to him, everything will turn out just fine. “If,” he continues, “you aren’t scared.”

Technically, Gob knows that there are five other magic club members in the room right now, that the world isn’t really empty except for him and Tony Wonder. It’s just adrenaline, a rush from being challenged, that makes Gob feel like this is the most important moment of his life, choosing how to respond to this guy that popped up and turned everything in his life upside down.

“I’m never scared,” Gob laughs, and the rest of the room rushes back in. The freshman twins cheer, the Nicoles giggle amongst themselves, and Eve Holt shouts her name, as she is prone to do. It’s a cacophony of noise that adds up to agreement, that Gob Bluth is never afraid, never scared, and never backs down from a challenge.

Tony looks pleased. “I knew I’d like you guys. Alright, I have some plans drawn up, let’s go over them now, okay?” And Tony looks to Gob when he asks, as if all Gob has to do is say no, not now, and he’d put away his black notebook.

So of course, Gob and the rest of the group crowds around Tony and what Gob can now see are elaborate sketches, material lists, and bullet point notes about various illusions.

The page Tony has open is mainly filled by a drawing of a sword braced up by a plywood stand. There’s a stick figure labeled ‘assistant’ impaled by the sword, and diagrams showing how the sword doesn’t really go through the assistant at all, that it collapses up against their back and that the edge that protrudes is just hidden in their jacket.

Gob raises an eyebrow. “Who would be the assistant?”

Tony shrugs. “I’d be happy to volunteer. I’ve practiced it enough.” He coughs. “Of course, under non-new-kid circumstances, I’d be more of a lead magician, but I’m not an idiot.”

One of the Nicoles laughs, high and flirtatious. “Of course you’re not an idiot, Tony, this is brilliant!”

It is, but Gob suddenly feels annoyed at Nicole just saying that. “I can take the lead magician role. Nicole and Nicole and Eve Holt, you three could run crowd control.”

Stephen, Twin A of the freshman twins, frowns. “What do you want us to do?”

“Yeah,” Steven, Twin B of the freshman twins, agrees. “We’ve been working on contortion.”

Sometimes, Gob wonders how his magic club got populated by a group of students named Steven, Stephen, Nicole, Nicole, and Eve Holt, but then he remembers that his name is initials pronounced like a different name, and decides that maybe Newport Beach just has some parents that really suck at naming.

Tony shoots Gob a look, like he’s searching for permission to take this one. Gob nods a little, and it makes Tony smile, and Gob thinks maybe he could get used to this, maybe he can name Tony vice president or co-president or something.

“Well, George Oscar...” Tony trails off, probably because Gob is looking at him like he’s lost his mind.

But maybe that’s unfair, since Tony is new. “It’s Gob,” Eve Holt offers. “Like the initials?”

Tony has twin specks of red on his cheeks. “Right, sorry, I heard people calling you that, but I wasn’t sure if I should - anyway. Gob is going to need some extra hands to get me up onto the sword, so maybe you two - sorry, I didn’t catch your names either?”

Stephen sighs. “Stephen with a ph.”

“Steven with a v.” His twin rolls his eyes. “We know. It’s confusing.”

Tony shrugs. “How about I call ‘Stephen with a ph’ P-Hound? You know, to keep the distinction?”

P-Hound blinks, and Gob thinks he can see moisture building in his eyes. “I will treasure this name forever.”

“Woah, man.” Tony sounds freaked out, but really, he just gave P-Hound his first unique nickname ever, he should expect some level of emotion.  

“I will pass this name on to my first born.” P-Hound is really going now, so Steven gently leads him out of the room, patting his twin comfortingly on the back.

“Thanks for the nickname! We’ll check back in later, Gob!” Steven calls back behind him.

With Steven and the newly minted P-Hound gone, the remaining members of magic club collectively realize that the meeting has lasted more than an hour past their usual end time. As Eve Holt leaves with the Nicoles, chatting about the statistics test scheduled for Friday, Tony starts putting away his notebook, and Gob feels suddenly weary, like too much has happened for his body to keep up with.

He wonders if he should say something to Tony, something welcoming or presidential, but just like in Mrs. Paulson’s class, he blanks on actually coming up with words.

It doesn’t take long for Tony to pack up his bag, doesn’t take long for the silence to start making Gob feel slow and stupid. Tony tilts his head a little at Gob, questioning, but Gob has no idea what the question is, what Tony is looking for from him.

“So, uh-” Tony gestures at the door, and right, it’s pretty painfully obvious that they both need to leave the room and walk over to the student parking lot. “I think I’m still getting the hang of the layout here, do you mind, maybe-”

“-Yes!” Gob cringes. “No, I mean, I don’t mind, yeah.”

The hallways are mainly empty, mainly quiet, with just a few leaking threads of music snaking out from band practice to muffle the sound of their footsteps in these halls that suddenly feel too big. Gob tries to subtly adjust his stride, tries to make sure he keeps a good amount of space between him and Tony. Tony, who seems oblivious to these calculations, whose eyes scan each poster and flyer they pass with idle curiosity.

Gob coughs. “So, uh. Where did you go to school before now?”

“New York, actually.” Tony grins. “That’s where I was before here, technically. But I wasn’t really ‘in school’. My family went on vacation for the summer, but man, it was such a perfect city, I wanted to stay.”

Gob has never left Newport Beach, not really. He wants to make it to Las Vegas someday, thinks that maybe that much light and energy could be good for him, could be a good place for magic.

Tony continues. “So, I did stay, I pulled it off for like, two weeks. Of course, eventually my family found me again, but it was so worth it.”

“That’s awesome.” And it is. Gob’s not sure his family could find him in two weeks though, not sure they’d try that hard until the second month. “How did that land you here? I mean, I haven’t seen you before this year, I don’t think-”

“That’s the thing.” Tony winces. “My parents made me see some behavior specialist or whatever, and somehow everyone got the idea into their head that I was ‘bored’ and ‘under  stimulated’, so they made me transfer here, since you guys have harder classes.”

Gob blinks at that. “We do?” That might explain why Michael spends so much time on homework.

“Yeah, man. So my parents moved us over like, eight blocks, and now we’re in district and I’m going here.” Tony and Gob push through the school double doors, nearly tripping over an irate Michael sitting on the steps.

Crap. “Gob! Magic club is only supposed to go until five, you promised!” Michael is fuming, and Gob thinks Tony might be actually hiding behind him a little. “I’ve been waiting here forever, and I already did all my homework, and because you said magic club ends at five, I didn’t bring any extra work, I’ve wasted so much time-”

“Sorry, Mikey.” Gob tries to think of a good excuse, a good way to explain that this was the most effective meeting of magic club they’d ever had.

Tony steps out from behind Gob and offers Michael a sheepish grin. “That’s my bad, actually. I came in late, and I think I derailed things a little.” Michael seems to accept that, breathing becoming a little more even, and Tony continues, “I’m still finding my way around, I just started on Friday.”

Michael dips his head slowly, contemplative. “Right, yeah, I think I processed your forms in the front office. Anthony-”

“Tony, actually. Tony Wonder. And you’re Gob’s brother, I’m guessing?” Tony is smiling like this is no big deal, to be talking to Gob’s little brother even though he’s only a sophomore and is Michael.

Michael seems similarly impressed. Maybe less impressed than Gob, but still. “Michael Bluth. And it’s nice to meet you, but I do want to get home eventually, so, Gob?”

“Hey,” Gob starts. “Do you like, want a ride, Tony?” Because Gob’s car is cool, it’s so cool, and he’s not sure he wants to walk away from Tony yet. After all, they still need to work out the kinks in their performance plan, so it’s only responsible to offer. Of course.

Tony shakes his head. “I’m actually just parked over here, thanks though. I’ll see you in English?” He pitches it like a question, like there’s a chance Gob will say no, don’t talk to me in English. Which, to be fair, is what he tells the other members of magic club. But Tony is different, so Gob just nods and starts walking a newly quiet Michael to the car.

Lindsay told them in the morning that her cheer squad friends were going dress shopping after school, so it’s Gob and Michael alone in the car for the ride home. As they pull out of the parking lot, Michael announces solemnly that he likes Tony, and it’s all Gob can do to refrain from saying ‘me too’.

~~~

When Gob and Michael walk through the penthouse entryway, something is off. Michael doesn’t notice, Michael grumbles about needing to study and closes himself up in his bedroom. Gob doesn’t follow him, doesn’t go into his own room, he just stands still for a moment, trying to figure out why his stomach is sinking.

There’s a light on in the kitchen, so Gob starts there. The Bluths aren’t big on food, in general, but there are still wrappers littering the floor, which is really all the confirmation Gob needs for what went wrong here today. There’s a pulse of frustration Gob tries not to feel guilty about, because this means his evening is going to be stolen just like every hidden snack food in the penthouse. He didn’t ask for this, didn’t do anything wrong. And he actually wanted those chips.

His parents aren’t home. Gob contemplates dragging Michael out here, making Michael handle this because Michael is always so confident he can handle anything and everything, and Lindsay is his twin, afterall.

Gob starts picking up the few visible wrappers, but he doesn’t throw them away. He checks the trash and finds more remnants, leaves them there but writes down what else he needs to replace.

It only takes him fifteen minutes at the supermarket to replicate the food, only another ten minutes to put everything back. Five minutes is spent burning the evidence, the receipts and the wrappers, and wiping down the surfaces where cereal spilled and juice leaked and something that looks faintly like green jello was left behind.

In Gob’s room, there are two joints hidden under his bed. He grabs one and knocks on Lindsay’s door, half expecting her to refuse to answer. Today must be a day that isn’t so bad, or maybe is so bad Lindsay doesn’t care anymore, because she does open the door, puffy eyed and looking miserable.

Gob shows her his offering, silent. Lindsay lets him in, and they make their way to her balcony like they’ve done this a million times before.

Which they haven’t, not really, but when Lindsay doesn’t seek out Michael and when Gob isn’t too deep into his own crises, they meet up like this, like if they draw attention to the fact that they’re together and helping, not hurting, the fragile peace will shatter. Which it probably would, Gob thinks, but this is good for as long as it can last.

“How much?” Lindsay eventually asks.

Gob shrugs off the question. “Thirty bucks, don’t worry about it.”

Lindsay stares at him, and he knows that’s not what she meant.

“Not too much, Linds.” And it wasn’t, not really. Gob doesn’t know what happens when she does this, when she snaps and decides to punish herself, but he’s seen the aftermath and knows that it could be worse, a lot worse. Gob understands snapping, understands punishing himself, he just can’t imagine doing it with food, but then again, he’s not Lindsay with a mother like Lucille, he’s Gob with a father like George Sr., and that makes all the difference.

She exhales and grabs the joint. “Good.” She sucks in and this is why it’s Gob and Lindsay to share these moments, not Michael, because Michael is the walking epitome of an after school special and would never do drugs but also Michael can’t be around smoke without his throat closing up. “Sally Sitwell wants you to ask her to homecoming.”

“Really?” Sally is nice, but Gob can’t remember ever having a full conversation with her.

Lindsay nods. “She wants to make Jason jealous, I think. His dad has been harping on about how our family keeps beating theirs out of land deals.”

That’s how romance works in their world. It’s a game of one upmanship and spite and Gob is really sick of it, he really is.

“Are you gonna ask her?” Lindsay asks like Gob has a choice.

He lets the question settle in, tries to consider it. Sally Sitwell is pretty, he guesses, and George Sr. desperately wants one of his sons to have sex with her before they all graduate. Gob just doesn’t think of her like that, thinks her teased blonde hair is more impressive than attractive. Maybe she reminds him too much of Lindsay to date, something like that, he reasons.

“I don’t know yet.”

And with that, the two rawest Bluth siblings let the night air scrub off the latest scabs and scars until it’s time for a dinner that Lindsay skips and Gob sits through in stoned silence until Michael calls him a terrible influence and his mother calls him selfish.

~~~

Gob spends his Thursday lunch period outside with Jenna and Stacy by their tree. He can’t deal with his usual table right now, not with Lindsay sitting across from him picking at a salad and pretending everything is fine, and definitely not with Sally Sitwell with expectations in her eyes. It’s safer to sit with Jenna and Stacy, to spend one lunch period hiding from the world at large with two girls who never seem to want more than he’s able to give.

Halfway through what he considers a rather rousing discussion about how to best smuggle alcohol onto boats with security, he spots Tony across the yard, eating lunch with a group of theater kids. Gob loses his train of thought, and Jenna turns to follow his line of sight to Tony.

“Who’s that?” Jenna prods Stacy out of her book and draws her attention to a conversation Gob wants desperately to end immediately. “The one with spiky hair?”

He shrugs. “Just someone from English.”

Stacy frowns. “I haven’t seen him around before. Is he talking with your brother?”

Gob checks again, and yep, there’s Michael with the theater dorks. His brother never got over that dumb play about the trial of Captain Hook, and although he’s never gotten another lead, Michael auditions whenever there’s another play about lawyers. Which is surprisingly often, Gob thinks one of the PTA donors has an agenda about Newport High students interning for her law firm.

Tony is laughing, then saying something to Michael that makes him laugh in turn, and although Gob knows there’s no way he can lipread at this distance, he feels like he knows they’re talking about him. Michael is probably telling Tony that Gob is the worst brother ever, and that Gob is on his second junior year because his first one passed by with entirely too many nights partying and school days playing hooky. Tony is probably deciding to never come back to magic club, and to stop giving Gob little waves in class.

When the sixth period bell rings, Gob skips English, electing instead to get high enough that the afternoon meanders by in a blur of interestingly shaped leaves and thoughts Gob can let pass through him without comment or reflection.

The sun is setting by the time Michael sits down beside him. Gob’s high is fading along with the light. Michael is the first one to speak, because of course he is. “Did you really set a book on fire in Mrs. Paulson’s class?”

Gob nods. “Worked pretty well too.”

“Tony said you caught yourself on fire.”

Well. “Technically true, but the book was fine, and I didn’t get burned or anything.” Gob would call that a success. “Why were you talking to Tony?”

Michael shrugs. “He’s pretty cool. And he doesn’t really have anyone else to sit with yet. He said he’d audition for the next show as long as it didn’t interfere with your stuff, magic club.”

“He said that?” Gob’s face feels warm, which is weird because it’s not hot out, the wind is picking up and Gob is glad he has his jacket on.

His little brother is giving him a funny look, but Gob doesn’t care. “Yes, he did.” Michael takes a deep breath. “You’re not going to be mean to him, right?”

Gob thinks that sometimes, Michael lives in his own world, where he makes connections that make zero sense. “Why the hell would I be mean to Tony? Tony is-” and Gob doesn’t know how to finish that sentence without it being weird. “Tony is a great magician,” is what he settles on, and he knows that it’s not quite what he means to say, he actually hasn’t seen Tony perform yet, even though he can tell he’ll be wonderful, he’ll be great, but it’s good enough for now.

“Sometimes, I don’t know if I want to live in your world, Gob, or stay as far away from it as I can.” Michael shakes his head.

“Same.”

Michael tilts his head like he still doesn’t get it, but before Gob can attempt an explanation, Lindsay shows up, pissed about the delay and ready to head home, so the three of them grab their bags and get the hell away from Newport High.

~~~

Gob is deeply tempted to skip Thursday’s English class as well, but Michael threatens to walk him to class to make sure he goes and Gob really does not want to repeat junior year a third time. Mrs. Paulson greets him with a glare when he arrives, so Gob knows his absence was noted and recorded and probably filled in triplicate in the front office just to spite him.

Tony is sitting by his now usual window seat, but doesn’t give Gob his usual wave, doesn’t make eye contact, and that bothers Gob more than he thinks quite makes sense.

Which is probably a factor in why Gob stands on his chair and makes an announcement to the class.

“Attention, losers! The magic club will be presenting our most spectacular, spooktacular illusion yet tomorrow on the front lawn!” Gob is tall enough that he doesn’t really need the height, but he thinks that he looks better from this angle, looks longer and leaner and more dramatic soaring over the rest of the class. “At lunch, by the flagpole, prepare to be amazed!”

Unexpectedly, Tony stands on his chair too, and Gob feels strangely touched by the show of solidarity. “Yeah! This fabulous magician, Gob, will impale me on a spike!”

The more excitable members of the class gasp, but Mrs. Paulson is walking towards Gob with the spray bottle, so Gob jumps down and gestures for Tony to do the same. His hair is elaborately gelled, and he probably wouldn’t like getting sprayed.

Mrs. Paulson does spray them both, unfortunately, and Tony does seem particularly miffed as he tries to push his hair back into position. But Tony shakes the water out of his eyes and smiles at Gob, and passes him a note ten minutes later with an address and a brief explanation that Tony has almost finished building the spike, but could use an extra hand to get it done in time.

Thursdays are theoretically for football practice.

Gob gives Tony an enthusiastic thumbs up when Mrs. Paulson isn’t looking.

~~~

Tony’s family lives in one of the old fake Victorians built in the 1950s off of Third Avenue. There’s a real yard, and trees that look so great for climbing that Gob has to make himself look the other direction as Tony guides him to the garage. A pile of plywood is already leaning against the side, and Gob can spot a spray painted pvc pipe that looks like the start of a fairly convincing impalement spike.

“So,” Tony starts, not meeting Gob’s eyes. “It sounds like you do a lot of close up stuff, do you think you could handle building the protruding piece?”

“Sure.” Gob does like that kind of problem, where there’s one end result but lots of ways it can happen, and since the protruding piece is what will convince their audience that Tony has been impaled, it’s basically the most important part to get right. Tony nods and passes him a slightly smaller set of piping.

Gob could sit on the workbench in Tony’s garage, where all the tools are. But Tony is rolling up his sleeves and studying the pile of plywood, and Gob feels like if he sits at the workbench, he’ll wind up looking over his shoulder too often for it to be normal. He pulls a stool out from under several moving boxes and brings it out to the driveway, startling Tony for a moment but since he doesn’t tell Gob to go away, he figures it should be alright.

“How long have you been into magic?” Gob figures it should be a safe enough question, but it still makes Tony pause, a strange look on his face. “I mean, you’re good at it, how long have you been a practicing magician?”

Tony still looks wary, and Gob wonders if maybe Tony has also been told by teachers, parents, classmates and several angry priests that magic isn’t a real career. “Um,” Tony says slowly. “Not too long, but I’ve always thought it was cool. What about you, when did you start? What made you fall in love with magic?”

No one has ever asked Gob that before. “I was seven, actually.” Gob was seven and Michael was crying again, but their mother was busy with Buster and Lindsay was pouting somewhere. “I realized I could keep my siblings quiet if I could keep them entertained, and I had just seen a magician on tv.” Lucille has called the magician pathetic, but Gob was entranced by the sparkly colors and loud voice the man used. “It wasn’t a very good trick, I think I just threw a blanket over my hand and revealed my sister’s doll or something but I liked it, and they loved it.”

Tony starts putting on another layer of metallic spray paint. He’s careful and methodical, and it strikes Gob that he and Tony are very different people. But Tony is smiling at Gob’s story, and Tony asks Gob who his favorite magician is, and maybe he and Tony are different, but with every question passed between them, something new is being built alongside the Spike of Death illusion.

It’s nice, Gob thinks. Tony is laughing at some dumb joke Gob made about Coach Carter, and he’s almost got the hang of the top spike mechanism. “Hey, Tony, check it out.” Gob looks around the garage, but can’t spot any sort of magician’s vest or cape he can rig up with the spike. “Wait, do you have a costume picked out? I want to show you what it’ll look like on stage.”

Tony pulls himself up from his seat on the ground. “Yeah, I’ve got something, but it’s up in my room and it’s kind of a mess.”

Gob shrugs. “Can’t be worse than mine.” Which is true, his room is a whirlwind of half finished homework, costumes, and props, with the occasional long lost mouse making an appearance.

“Follow me, then.” Tony leads Gob up a set of stairs into the main house. There are boxes everywhere, and his family doesn’t have all their furniture in the living room yet. But the couch that’s there looks like it can actually be used for sitting, and their kitchen table is splattered with bright droplets of dried paint, and everything just looks friendlier than the Bluth penthouse ever has.

Tony’s room is up another, narrower flight of stairs. His mattress is on the floor, and Gob can tell that Tony’s just been pulling his clothes out of a box marked with Tony on top and Anthony crossed out underneath. There’s a sequined suit jacket hanging in the windowsill, and it exudes such a strong aura of magic that Gob has to wander over and touch it.

“I knew you’d like it.” Tony grins and it makes Gob feel like maybe he has heartburn, but he skipped lunch so that doesn’t make sense. “The spike can be fitted in here, between the buttons. Check out the back!” The back reads ‘Tony Wonder’ in dark purple sequins, and Gob thinks that Tony has the best fashion sense out anyone at Newport, ‘gothic tendencies’ be damned.

The show tomorrow is going to be awesome.

~~~

Admittedly, that could have gone better, Gob reflects as Vice-Principal Jordan gives them two weeks worth of detention. Tony is sitting in the chair next to him, nodding along as they’re given a lecture about safety, paperwork, and liability that Gob at least has heard a dozen times before, but which might be novel for Tony.

Really, the trick should have worked. The problem was, once the Steven and P-Hound got Tony into position, everyone quickly realized how hard it was to balance a person on a five foot tall spike. Tony had to keep shifting to keep his center of gravity in the right place, and that plus the arguably excessive amount of fake blood Gob rigged into Tony’s jacket took the illusion from ‘thrilling and exciting’ into allegedly ‘horrifying and disgusting’ territory.

Only two students fainted though, which Gob thinks everyone involved should be counting as a win.

The administrative staff doesn’t see it his way, because they never do, and Gob and Tony (having yelled ‘scatter’ loud enough to let the other magic club members get away) are thrown into what a normal school would probably call ‘in school suspension’ but what Newport High calls ‘particularly urgent detention’.

‘Particularly urgent detention’ takes place in the back of the school, where the desks are carved with decades of old doodles and the air smells like mildew.

Vice-Principal Jordan scowls at Gob and Tony. “You two complete idiots need to sit here, be quiet, and be still-” he glares at Gob at the ‘be still’ part, which he thinks is really unwarranted, “-until six, when you can take the last bus.”

Gob thinks about commenting that he’s never taken a bus in his life, and according to his mother, never will, but figures that can be a conversation for another time.

Vice-Principal Jordan goes on and on about their proctor who will “report any and all shenanigans back to me”, but it’s only Karen from the home economics elective, and Gob and Karen are buds.  As soon as Vice-Principal Jordan leaves, Karen gives Gob a thumbs up, and he knows everything will be okay.

“That was a doozy, Gob.” Karen and Gob have been friends ever since he approached her in home ec with a question about sewing trick pockets into his magic capes. “Jordan is as pissed as a pigeon with a grudge.” The thing about Karen’s accent is that Gob is eighty percent sure it’s as fake as her Lucille Ball orange-red hair, but he’s never been able to catch her in a truly egregious inconsistency about her childhood growing up in Arizona. Although Michael once argued that Arizonans wouldn’t have Karen’s accent, but Michael doesn’t know everything about Arizona, his one week visiting Nana doesn’t beat Karen’s alleged thirty years.

Gob pulls out his wallet, the one with nice leather and his initials (well, name) on the front. “See you in class, Karen?” He passes her two twenties, one for him and one for Tony. She nods and puts them in her purse. “Tony, you coming?”

Tony blinks. “I’m sorry, what’s going on? I thought we were in trouble?”

“We are. But serving detention isn’t the best way to spend an afternoon.” And that’s what this really boils down to, the fact that it’s a gorgeous day outside, and they just pulled off a pretty impressive impalement illusion, and that Gob can use his family’s money to solve this problem at least, even if it can’t solve the problem of Gob feeling like he always has a stomach ache these days or the way Tony’s eyes keep showing up in his dreams.

Gob smiles, because that’s what he does, he smiles and finds a way to make the world more interesting. “Wanna get out of here?”

And Tony smiles back.

Chapter Text

The beach, Gob decides, is the best part of living in Orange County. Not the main beach, the public shithole filled with yelling kids and people sunbathing while completely missing out on the majesty of a roaring Pacific Ocean, but the private, rockier side beaches where technically you aren’t allowed to park and the only way down is either through a mad scramble through rocks of various sizes or knowing a back way in. It’s one of these beaches that Gob drives Tony to, because they’re skipping detention and don’t want to get caught, but also because Gob wants to give Tony this, a quiet place away from everyone else in Newport Beach.

So Gob takes Tony to the beach cottage.

He knows where they keep the key, and he knows that his parents would never invite a non-Bluth to visit or, heaven forbid, rent out the place.

The beach cottage opens up to a smooth stretch of sand and water, but three doors down there’s a bend in the coastline that leaves pockets of hidden caves and rocky outcroppings that Gob prefers to the placid flatness of ocean front property meant to look pretty.

“Wow,” Tony whispers, and Gob can only nod in response.

Here, the water isn’t any deeper than it is by the cottage, but it is frothier, splashing against the rocks and turning white with the effort and aeration. Gob clambers up to his favorite rock, his favorite perch above the waves. Tony is only a few steps behind, and with a little maneuvering, they can both fit, hip to hip and knee to knee. The ocean spray soaks the hems of Tony’s dark jeans and Gob’s Lucille approved slacks, but the tiny pinpricks feel cool against the midday heat.

Gob leans into the spray until his shirt is soaked, long fingers fishing for a particularly well-shaped rock. “This is where I always liked to hide out in the summer.”

He pulls loose an oval-shaped stone, worn smooth from the waves. He’s loosely mimicking the motions for various sleight of hand tricks, but mainly just searching for something to do, some motion to keep his hands busy when there isn’t enough space for them on the rock because that’s Tony’s space. And Gob doesn’t want to intrude, thinks maybe Tony wishes he hadn’t joined the magic club, because then he wouldn’t have gotten in trouble during his first week.

But Tony doesn’t look like he wants to leave, although he does seem distracted. “Yeah? Siblings, right?”

Gob nods, even though when he hides, he’s hiding from his entire family, not just Michael or Buster or Lindsay, and no one really winds up looking for him anyway. “We stopped coming regularly a few years ago.”

“Why?” Tony asks.

And it’s a funny kind of conversation to have, because Gob knows he’s dancing around the point, which is that within his family, Gob is at the bottom of the heap and he doesn’t understand why, or maybe he does and that makes it worse, even though he’s the oldest and the loudest and trying the hardest to follow his mother’s rules when they’re changing all the time.

The best answer Gob can give Tony is the same one his mother gave him when he prematurely packed a bag for the fourth of July and was told in no uncertain terms that the beach cottage was not in the Bluth family future for the time being. “Bad memories, but they weren’t bad for me.”

Sure, when Grandmother Jenkins died upstairs, it was sad. But she was old and that happens when you’re old, you get sick and die and that’s fine because Gob is young and temporarily immortal. His grandmother liked him too, possibly, because she smiled and called him “my Gob” instead of just “Gob” and had requests for favorite magic tricks and favorite piano songs.

His own birth might be something he feels more mixed about, but it’s not like it’s a bad memory, since he was barely there.

Tony doesn’t push for details. “Can you teach me that close up trick?” He gestures at Gob’s left hand, which has apparently decided to make the rock vanish and reappear in his right hand, the first trick Gob learned to do.

It’s hard to show Tony without touch, but Gob has a strange sense that he shouldn’t just reach over and move Tony’s hand with his, the same way he would for the Nicoles or the other magic club members. Touch with Tony seems like something not to avoid, not necessarily, but maybe Gob should be deliberate in this realm. There’s a voice in the back of his mind that might be what Lindsay calls intuition and might be what Michael calls caution, whispering ‘not yet’ and Gob isn’t in the habit of listening to anyone, especially not himself, but this time he does and just shows Tony the trick again and again until Tony grins and does it flawlessly on his own.

“Hell yes!” Tony grins and it’s big and wonderful and Gob feels like he’s going to burst out of his own skin with this weird tingling feeling he doesn’t know how to identify.

He might not know how to use his words, but he does have lighter fluid still wired into this jacket. “Hey, Tony-” Gob flicks his wrists, and for once, the fireball ignites.

Unfortunately, the force of the mini combustion explosion does send Gob tumbling back into the water.

“Gob! Are you okay?” Tony’s voice is warped from the saltwater in Gob’s ears, and there’s definitely sand in his boxers. But the fireball worked, and the impalement illusion worked, and Tony just mastered his favorite sleight of hand sequence, and something about the whole day is keeping Gob Bluth in a very good mood.

He grins, knowing that his shirt is drenched and probably ruined. “I’m fantastic.” And it says something about Gob’s luck today that Tony grins back, laughs a little, but not mean. Tony is laughing like he feels this strange buoyancy the same way Gob is, like the world is full of magic that they can tap into.

Tony extends his hand, and Gob tries not to pull too hard as he scrambles back up the rock. The air on his wet shirt is kind of awful, but the warmth of Tony’s body next to his makes staying here, by the ocean, very much worth it.

“Woah, are those seals?” Out in the distance, small dark shapes surface and disappear where Tony is pointing enthusiastically.

Gob shakes his head. “Those are otters, which, honestly, are so much freaking cuter.” Technically, Gob isn’t supposed to have favorite animals. His mother always said that liking animals smacks of vegetarianism, and his father always said that vegetarians are key players in the conspiracy against the interspecies dominance of mankind.

He figures that he can still find otters cute though, just as long as he doesn’t tell his mother. And Gob fully intends to never, ever, let Tony interact with Lucille Bluth.

Tony turns and looks at him. “You’re clearly freezing, do you have any dry stuff at that house back there?”

And Gob wouldn’t call it freezing, what he’s doing right now, but he is shivering rather visibly and dry clothes do sound good, so he nods, not quite trusting his vocal cords to pull off a smooth and suave reply. Tony hops off their rock, wincing once he gets a taste of how cold the water is. Gob can see that his pants are now also soaked, up to the knee, and the idea of Tony feeling cold is what gets him off the rock and leading Tony back to the beach cottage, only a little reluctant to leave behind the ocean and the otters.

Gob knows they’re tracking sand into the house, but he doesn’t care, he just dashes upstairs to ransack whatever clothes the Bluths left behind from their last visit. Lindsay left behind practically an entire summer wardrobe, Michael’s room is spotless, and his unfortunately only offers a few faded t-shirts from his attempted lifeguard training a few years back. Still, it’s better than nothing, so he pulls one on and tries to ignore the way the rough fabric is comforting in a way that his fancy linen shirts never do these days.

On a hunch, he checks the master bedroom. Sure enough, there’s a bottle of incredibly expensive top-shelf whiskey tucked away in his mother’s nightstand. Gob grabs that too.

Downstairs, Tony has his notebook open, pencil moving quickly across the page in a pattern Gob can’t discern. Before Gob can get close enough to see what Tony’s doing, however, his new friend (a friend?) lifts his head and grins at the sight of the bottle.

They’re several fingers deep into the whiskey when the doorbell rings.

Tony is surprisingly much drunker than Gob. Or maybe it’s not that surprising since the Bluth alcohol tolerance is legendary, but it does mean that Tony just giggles at the sound of the bell ringing, leaving Gob to the task of pulling himself up off the floor and shuffling over to the front door.

Michael and Lindsay immediately press themselves past their brother, maneuvering until they’re standing in the entryway, arms crossed. Lindsay’s hair is tied up in an uncharacteristic loose ponytail, and Michael’s shirt collar is crumpled in a way that he usually guards against with obsessive ironing.

As always, Michael is the first to speak, voice high and indignant. “I can’t believe you ditched me! Again!”

Lindsay shoves a pointy elbow in Michael’s side. “He ditched me too, doofus.” She glares at Gob, pouting. “It was horrendously inconvenient and deeply inconsiderate, and now I’m going to be late for Sarah’s party tonight.”

Right. Gob is the only Bluth sibling who can drive. Legally, at least.

Being the oldest is the worst.

Tony chooses that moment to call out from the living room a messy “hello”, and Michael stills mid finger wag.

“Wait,” he starts. “Is that Tony? Did you-”

“-Oh! Why didn’t you tell us you were stealing Mother’s best whiskey?” Lindsay smiles. “That’s perfectly understandable. Sharing time!”

There are three rules regarding Bluths and alcohol. A weak tolerance is a sign of a weak personality and should be exploited in business negotiations whenever possible, vodka goes bad if left open, and don’t get in between a Bluth and top-shelf whiskey.

Gob wisely steps out of Lindsay’s way. She flounces over to Tony on the floor, barely sparing him a glance and a courtesy nod before prying the bottle out of his hands. Tony acquiesces easily, turning to Michael with a grin. “Michael Bluth!”

Michael hesitates, and because he’s Gob’s brother, because Gob has known Michael all his life, Gob knows that Michael is waging an epic battle internally over his desire to make his grievance over the alleged ‘ditching’ known and his desire to be stupid perfect and sociable Michael.

“Hey, Tony. Are you alright?” Per usual, stupid perfect and sociable Michael wins out, and Gob gives himself a mental high five for that prediction. Michael crosses over to join Tony and Lindsay on the floor, stepping probably deliberately on Gob’s foot, which Gob has to admit that he deserves a little for abandoning his brother (again) at school.

He really just needs to buy Michael a fake license already, waiting for him to get his real one is agonizing.

Gob tries to take another swig from the bottle, but Michael bats his hand away. “You’re the one driving us home, and you’ve already had enough.”

Tony shakes his head. “He’s like, not even a little bit drunk.” Tony sounds amazed, and Gob can feel his chest puffing up with the compliment. “And he drank more than me!”

“Gob has plenty of practice,” Lindsay snorts. “It’s the only kind of practice he does with the football team, honestly.”

“Thanks, mother,” Gob and Michael both utter simultaneously.

Lindsay preens. “Thank you.”

Gob’s never sure what it says about his family that “thanks mother” is their shorthand for “sick burn, bro”, but it’s nice to be in sync with his brother, and Lindsay’s been in a mood lately about wanting to improve her verbal warfare. Tony looks a little confused, but Tony also looks and is drunk, so Gob thinks maybe he can avoid the ‘my mother is Satan with less facial muscle mobility and snappier one-liners’ conversation for a little longer.

So Gob shrugs and goads his siblings and Tony into playing a version of Quarters that uses a leftover poker chip instead of an actual, well, quarter, and by the time that Michael is well and truly drunk for what Gob suspects is the first time in his life, the sun is setting and he can see the sky turning pale orange and pink out the living room window.

Tony nudges Gob’s side. “That’s pretty freaking sweet, isn’t it?”

And it is. It’s beautiful, and Gob wishes he had more excuses like this to watch the sunset and mentally trace out patterns in the clouds. Beside him, Michael stirs, entirely too wasted to fully pull himself upright, but making a valid attempt nonetheless. Tony laughs a little, softer than before, now that his buzz has largely worn off.

“He’s so totally like you, you know?”

Gob isn’t sure what Tony is talking about. “What?”

Tony shrugs. “You and Michael, you’re different in some ways, yeah, but overall kind of similar.”

He wants to ask what Tony means by that, to pull out Tony’s notebook and beg him to sketch it out in a graph or a ven diagram or something. Because his entire life, Michael has been his contrast, his predestined rival, his competition. Lucille dressed them differently, put Michael in little collared shirts with no color and rolled her eyes at Gob’s shirts with way too much color. George Sr. told them that there can only be one alpha dog, that there will only be one future company president from their family, and he always winked at Michael when he said that. Gob has known his entire life that Michael is both the golden son and the golden sun, shining brightly without realizing how that much light can burn, without realizing how his light completely blocks out any other person’s shot at breaking through to visibility.

Before Gob can tell Tony any of that, Michael lifts his head up and blinks blearily. “Thanks.”

He’s asleep again in an instant, but the ‘thanks’ hangs in the air for an eternity, at least for Gob. That single word echoes, again and again, as he drives Tony home, take an overly talkative Lindsay and a comatose Michael back to the penthouse, loads up his brother and sister into their respective bedrooms, and stares up at the ceiling of his own room, trying to memorize that word and this day.

Chapter Text

At the butt-crack of dawn, eleven am, there’s a sharp series of knocks against Gob’s bedroom door. Gob bolts awake at the noise, primed by years of this distinctive pattern. With a sinking sensation in his gut, he retrieves the typewritten memo someone (Rosa, maybe?) slipped under his door.

BLUTH PERFORMANCE REVIEW

SEPTEMBER 21st, 1985

ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY

AGENDA:

NOON TO ONE PM --- COCKTAIL HOUR

ONE PM TO ONE THIRTY PM --- BUSTER ‘BYRON’ BLUTH

ONE THIRTY PM TO TWO PM --- LINDSAY ‘FAT ASS’ BLUTH

TWO PM TO THREE PM --- MICHAEL BLUTH

THREE PM TO FOUR PM --- GOB

FOUR PM TO FOUR FIFTEEN PM --- CLOSING REMARKS

Gob isn’t sure whether it’s a bad sign or a good sign that he’s been apparently bumped up to an hour long slot instead of his usual half like Buster and Lindsay. But he does know that his plan for spending Saturday loosely listening to music and practicing new illusions is totally shot and that he only has an hour to figure out what to wear. Usually, he goes for his whatever suit he has hanging in the back of his closet for special occasions, but at the last performance review, his mother wrinkled her nose at his navy three-piece and asked if Gob was ‘intentionally imitating a shoe salesman’, so that’s out. Eventually, he settles on just putting on the shirt he knows was the most expensive, and the linen pants Lucille says are the only good fashion feature of the decade.

The wait for his David Copperfield alarm clock to tick up to noon is agonizing, but Gob can’t look away. He’s been late to performance reviews before, and he’s been early to performance reviews before, and either option means an unpleasant additional dig on top of whatever other recommendations slash requests slash orders are waiting for him.

Time marches on though, and once the hands on his clock are aligned perfectly at the top of the clock, Gob opens up his door and saddles out into the living room, where his mother is waiting with a glass of wine in hand and a selection of cheese and crackers laid out on a silver serving platter. The silver serving platter, Gob knows, is the only thing Lucille kept from her own mother, a prized possession that she deliberately plays down, leading the rest of the world to believe that obviously, it’s one of a larger set that has been lost to time, really nothing to write home about, just an everyday piece.

Sometimes, the family secrets Gob knows about feel like bees up under his skin.

Michael and Lindsay emerge together, Michael visibly slightly hungover but still dressed like he’s applying for a job at the most boring company in the world. Which, fair enough, but they’re Bluths. They’re already hired, they just need to avoid getting fired, which always rings in Gob’s head as a distinct possibility during these performance reviews, always creeps up on him as he’s sitting in detention or alone in his room.

Lindsay sits down with a practiced air of boredom. She reaches for the cheese platter but pulls back once their mother makes deliberate eye contact. Michael doesn’t sit, just hovers. “Where’s Buster?” he asks. Their mother squints, then pulls their youngest family member out from behind the couch.

“What have I told you about doing that when there’s company?” Lucille’s voice is shrill, but there’s a hint of a smile fighting to break through, evidence that she finds Buster more endearing than the rest of them, somehow.

Buster pouts. “My brother and brother and sister aren’t company.”

“They are when it’s a performance review. Now, I’ve set aside some juice for you, but it’s watered down so that you can still stay sharp.” She punctuates the last word with a cheek pinch that Gob thinks looks painful, but Buster seems to lean into it.

There’s wine on the table for the rest of them, and Gob pours himself a glass of white. Staying sharp for a performance review is one strategy, for sure, but Gob feels so sharp right now that he thinks he’ll shatter if leaned on too hard. He’ll have to dull the world, dull these feelings at least a little so that he can make it through this afternoon. And wine is a good place to start.

Cocktail hour proceeds as it usually does, with Lucille preening in self-satisfied righteousness and the siblings oscillating between boredom and anxiety about the review to come. Michael and Buster don’t drink, although Michael does steal a sip of Lindsay’s wine, while Lindsay and Gob end up splitting a bottle of chardonnay and half a bottle of merlot.

It helps, which is good because Buster’s half hour is just their mother heaping praise on her precious ‘baby’, even though he’s nearly twelve. It’s hard to hear, and not out of jealousy or anything, there’s just only so much ‘fruit of my womb’ stuff you can take hearing from your mother.

After his half hour of unearned affection, Buster is free to scamper off, the only Bluth to get the option of leaving performance reviews before the closing remarks.

It isn’t fair, but neither is life.

Lindsay’s performance review begins with Lucille pursing her lips and pinching Lindsay’s upper arms. “Cheerleading standards haven’t changed since I was captain, have they?”

“No,” Lindsay grudgingly replies.

Their mother raises an eyebrow. “Fascinating. So are your mannish arms a deliberate attempt to scare off the boys in your year, or are you secretly training for an arm wrestling competition I’m thankfully unaware of?”

Lindsay shakes her head. “If you can convince Sarah Matthews to lose ten pounds, I could cut back on the strength training.”

“Are you captain or aren’t you?” Lucille sniffs.

Gob’s sister straightens. “I am, but the other girls need to be coddled sometimes. They aren’t leadership material like you or me.”

“Don’t compare yourself to me.” Their mother pats Lindsay’s knee. “But, far be it for me to argue. Those girls on your squad are largely inconsequential. Just make sure you win something newsletter worthy for Mama.”

Lindsay nods, steel in her eyes. “Can do.” Lucille seems to take in Lindsay’s steel with slight surprise, then adjusts her grin so it’s sharp enough to glint.

“One more thing.”

The air in the room is tight, maybe Gob should open a window? But he can’t seem to make his legs work, can’t seem to pull himself away from the death match happening in front of him.

“Sally Sitwell.” Lucille says her name like it’s all-encompassing, like everything about Sally Sitwell can be summed up in a single breath. Which maybe makes sense, in a way, since Sally Sitwell is a constant ghost shadowing everything Lindsay does, the same way that Uncle Oscar is a threat for his father. He doesn’t want to think about what that means for him, why they bothered to give Gob two names with baggage. “You need to handle her, once and for all.”

Michael and Gob make eye contact, and the same question of ‘does she actually mean murder’ is ricocheted back and forth.

Their mother rolls her eyes. “Not murder, you ingrates.”

Gob would like to point out, for the record, that being the type of person where your children consider murder a legitimate suggestion you might make reflects more on you than it does on them.

“Either get her on the squad and into a pyramid or get her out of the social pyramid.”

Lindsay looks less confident at this order but nods her agreement, and the rest of Lindsay’s review is the typical debate over what fabrics, colors, and cuts are appropriate for school, social life, and Bluth functions. Furs are a hard yes, jeans are still on the never list, and Lucille is willing to concede that neon might not be a part of her repertoire, but it’s vital for the high school social scene. More cracks are made about Lindsay’s weight, Gob bites his tongue figuratively (and literally once) because Honestly, Lindsay’s fine and at this point their mother isn’t even being funny, just mean.

Well. Except for the one about Lindsay looking like a traffic cone when wearing neon orange. That was pretty good.

Lindsay’s turn ends soon enough, but unlike Buster, the older Bluths are expected to be present for the entire performance review. Gob thinks that their parents just want to be sure to incorporate an element of public shaming into the process. It doesn’t not work. Lindsay is staring at Michael in glee, and Gob privately is also hoping that for once, Michael has an agenda item that isn’t just a variant of ‘and obviously, you’re our best hope for an heir’.

“Michael,” their mother begins, and her smile is so much more genuine than any Gob has ever had directed his way, “I have some good news for you.”

Michael leans in. “Yes?”

“Your application to Milford has been accepted! You can start in January.” Lucille beams at Michael, who just looks confused.

“Milford?” Gob only knows one kid who went to Milford, and he started collecting stamps after the first week.

His mother nods but keeps her eyes trained on Michael. “It’s an excellent school, great for business connections. Lucille Austero is sending her niece there next fall.”

“No.” Michael’s voice is watery. “I don’t want to change schools.”

Lucille frowns at the uncharacteristic pushback. “This isn’t a punishment, Michael, it’s a reward. You’re the only one with the grades for Milford, Lord knows Gob couldn’t get in.”

No one tries to argue this. “But,” Michael tries, “what about Lindsay? We’re twins, you can’t just-”

“-I can, and I have.” Lucille’s tone is sharp. “Lindsay doesn’t need you.”

Gob thinks he’s the only one who catches how devastated Michael’s face is before he straightens it out with a scowl. “What about my extracurriculars?”

Their mother snorts. “You mean an occasional foray into the oh so lucrative career of acting?”

“No, debate club.” Michael’s voice steadies out. “I’ve got a good shot at captain next year, I just need to work harder and-”

“-and,” his mother cuts off smoothly, “you can work harder at Milford.” She sweetens, and Gob can’t help but picture a nurse with a needle full of sedative. “We’re so proud of you, Michael, and this is only possible because of your hard work at Newport High.”

And sure enough, Michael goes soft at the praise. “Yeah?”

He doesn’t say yes, but he also definitely doesn’t say no, and the rest of Michael’s hour is dedicated to Lucille mapping out his social and academic conquests at Milford while Michael blinks occasionally, shellshocked under the pounding wave of his mother’s attention and insistent planning.

“And Michael, you’ll have to make sure to say hello to the freshman math teacher, he’s an old friend of Senator Debrosse, who’s an old enemy of Stan Sitwell and could make an excellent political ally.” Lucille nods, satisfied. “Now, we must make sure we keep on schedule, I have a dinner event to attend, so, Gob.”

At the sound of his name, Gob pulls himself up from his admittedly languid position on the chaise. “Hi?”

Lucille frowns. “I honestly don’t know where to begin with you.” That could be a good thing, so Gob tries to hold out hope, but her frown is making the room swim a little. Or maybe that’s just the wine?

“Coach Carter called. How terrible at football do you need to be to get cut from an already paid for bench warmer position?” This would be better, Gob thinks, if his mother’s voice was shrill or yelling, but she just sounds tired, and that’s a thousand times worse.

Wait. “I got cut from the team? When?”

His mother rolls her eyes. “Sometime around the third time you skipped practice, idiot! And between that and the detentions for some bizarre stabbing incident-”

“-Hey, that was one of the best illusions-” Gob’s faint protest gets cut off with a sigh.

“Gob, no one cares about your stupid tricks! And now you’re off the football team, so that can’t protect you!” Lucille is actually yelling now, and Gob was wrong, this isn’t better. Michael and Lindsay are looking at him with a mixture of horror and pity in their eyes, and that’s not how this is supposed to go, they’re supposed to look at him like he’s their big brother, a hero, not a particularly disfigured puppy, even if he sometimes feels like that in private.

Lindsay tries to put her hand on his shoulder, but Gob shrugs her off. He’s staring at his mother, waiting for a punchline or a solution or something he can cling to, because that’s what she does, she takes the rough parts and packages up an answer somewhere in the telling.

She sighs, long and low. “So,” she begins, and Gob knows that he’ll do whatever she says next, anything to make this stop, “you need to find a new route to social domination. Obviously academic is a reach, and we’d be better off focusing on what we actually have a shot at achieving.”

And true, Gob’s grades aren’t great, but he is trying, and it kind of sucks to have, you know, the whole actual point of school and classes dismissed out of hand as a possibility for you.

Still. “What are you thinking I should do, socially?”

“Ideally, Sally Sitwell, if you can manage it. Michael hasn’t been able to.” Lucille gives her middle son a mildly irritated glance. “Sticking it to Sitwell would be a feather in your father’s cap. But you can’t have a messy public breakup with Sally, that’s social suicide at Newport, despite your sister’s inadequate efforts to usurp her. Other than that, you have until tomorrow to write us a proposal for how you’re going to fix this.”

Homework from a performance review is new, but proposal writing isn’t. Gob still has the back copy of his proposal to have access to the Bluth checking account (denied) and liquor cabinet (approved).

“Gob?” His mother pauses. “Your little tricks are conditional on being socially strong enough to withstand the inevitable losses. Do you understand me?”

He’s not stupid, no matter what his grades sometimes suggest (sometimes he loves his mother for this, loves that she’s fast and mean with him like he’s not stupid, even if she’s being fast and mean by calling him stupid, and someday Gob is going to spend so much money on therapy to sort all of this out). Gob nods tightly.

Lucille makes her closing statements, something about family and loyalty that Gob doesn’t really listen to. He’s too busy making promises to himself, pledges he’s not sure he’ll be able to keep.

He can do this. He can totally do this.

Chapter Text

He can’t do this.

Gob has a half dozen balled up papers representing a half dozen ideas that won’t work, and he’s closer to panic than he’d like to be, hanging upside down off the side of his bed, trying to get the blood flow to his head for either an increase in brain power like in the movies or an aneurysm that will put him out of his misery. One of the two.

There’s a knock on his door, and Gob yells “fuck off”, because when you’re drunk and upside down, impulse control isn’t exactly at a high, but Michael comes in anyway, looking concerned and stiff.

“Hey, Gob.” It sounds like Michael is on the verge of saying more, but he stops talking when he sees Gob upside down. “What, exactly, are you doing?”

It would take too much time to explain to Michael about the brain power boost slash aneurysm, so Gob makes the supreme sacrifice of sitting upright. “Nothing. What do you want?”

Michael hesitates. “Are you okay? I mean I know that performance reviews aren’t your strength- I mean, they’re insane, is what they are, and that one was- worse?”

Gob doesn’t need this, doesn’t want this. Like a neon bar sign, Gob can imagine how to win this, how to make Michael sputter with hurt and anger and lose his composure, how to wipe that pitying expression off his face. He just has to make some offhand comment about Tracy not missing him, about her not knowing he exists anyway. He knows that this will make things worse between them. It’ll ruin the fragile peace of last night, of the drinking game and that quiet ‘thanks’.

“Yeah, you’ll never get to bang Tracy now.” The words rush out of him in a torrent, and it feels good in a way that horrifies him as it excites him, the joy of tearing Michael down something both primal and primed from childhood. “No real loss on her part though, am I right?”

Michael exhales sharply, just like he’s been punched in the gut.

Gob continues anyway. “You can’t even talk to her. Can’t even- can’t even ask- ask her-” and this wasn’t a part of the plan, Gob was supposed to make Michael run, make Michael crumble not- “her-her-her-her-” this, not this.

“Shhhhhh,” Michael mutters grudgingly, taking a cautious few steps closer to Gob. He doesn’t touch him, doesn’t bridge that final gap, but he’s closer and that helps. “Shush, alright? I get it. Maybe.”

But Gob doesn’t ‘get it’, not even a little bit, and he can’t even make his voice work right to try and pull an answer out of Michael.

Gob manages to calm down, and Michael manages to be quiet, so the Bluth brothers sit in silence for a while. It’s nice. There’s the steady dull roar of Southern Californian traffic down below, and Lindsay’s bubblegum pop pulses through the wall separating her room and Gob’s. It actually kind of accomplishes what Gob hoped the lying upside down would do. His head feels wrapped in cotton, and the world is duller and more manageable so he can be brighter and better.

Michael sighs. “It’s shitty for Mom to threaten your Magic Club.”

He doesn’t want to fight with Michael, not really, but the contrary, incessant part of himself makes one last attempt. “Mom’s right about the social element. Magic is, unfortunately, a faux pas in Newport at the moment.”

“It’s pronounced ‘paw’ not ‘pass’,” Michael nitpicks. “And why do you care what those people think? They’re as fake as the nose on Lindsay’s face.”

When Gob was about to start kindergarten, his mom pulled him aside, perfectly manicured nails digging a little too hard into his arm. She was worried, looked almost scared, and Gob thinks maybe this is why he remembers it so well, because Lucille Bluth was never scared like that, before or after. “George,” she said. “This is your job, okay? Show no weakness. They don’t need to love you, but they should know you, know your name and your face. You don’t need to like them, but you should never let them know that. Can you do that for Mama?”

And he tried, he really tried. He told the class that his name was George Oscar Bluth again and again until the teacher jokingly told him to save his breath and go by his initials. He put his face real close to the other kids until he got put in timeout for ‘invasion of personal space’. So that first day was a bit of a disaster, but it got easier as Gob got older and he learned more of his mother’s rules.

Gob doesn’t know how to explain it to Michael, because Michael has never learned the rules Gob did, because he never had to. “It’s my job.” Michael just tilts his head, clearly not getting it. “I mean, it’s my job because your job is to be good. It’s my job to be loud because I can’t be good.”

“You could behave better, yeah, but-”

Gob shakes his head. “No, I mean, you’re the good one. You’ll take over the company, it’s been decided forever.” And it might have been decided forever ago, but this is the first time it’s been said like this, between Gob and Michael, and it hangs in the air for a moment before Michael replies.

“Do you want to take over the company? Do you even like real estate?” Michael sounds confused. “I mean, it’s not my favorite, but I like business. And it’s cool to build houses, to build homes.”

It’s not about the company, it’s about the family, but it’s okay that Michael doesn’t understand. “Not really. I just want to do my magic.” Gob sighs. “And be popular and junk.”

Michael shrugs. “Then you’d better get on that, huh?” Because that’s Michael, steady and solid and practical to a fault. Unsympathetic, unimaginative, unmagical Michael. As he leaves Gob’s room, wheels start turning.

Magic might be how he got into this mess, but magic is also how he can get out of this.

He just needs to sneak out first.

~~~

It’s weird, it’s got to be weird to be here, on Tony’s lawn right now, trying to find a path through the tree branches up to where he’s pretty sure he can see Tony’s bedroom window. It’s dark and it’s late and he wasn’t invited, but he’s still sort of panicking and for some reason, this new kid he barely knows is who he wants to - needs to - talk to right now.

He was right though, these trees are great for climbing.

The rough scrape of bark against his hands and forearms feels centering, and the rush from being off the ground helps push away the remaining lazy haze held over from the wine. It’s beautiful out, really, and even though you can’t see the stars in Newport, Gob thinks maybe he can feel them like this, suspended in the tree, reaching out to tap on a window that he’s moderately confident belongs to Tony.

He’s just about ready to call this expedition quits when a bush of curly hair appears in the window, swears, and ducks back below the frame. A few moments pass, and Tony appears (reappears?) with his hair looking suspiciously freshly spiked. It looks nice, but that’s not the point. Thankfully, when Tony kind of pushes out the window screen it lands in a flowerbed that muffles the sound, and Gob can use his long limbs to his advantage as he pulls himself through Tony’s window.

He lands with a bit more of a thud than is probably optimal for ten pm, but it’s a relatively soft landing onto Tony’s bed, so it’s more of a squeak than a thud. Tony isn’t talking, is just looking at Gob like he’s confused but not surprised at this turn of events. He’s wearing a faded tshirt from some band Gob hasn’t heard of, and it’s not like it’s a massive deviation from what Tony wears to school, but it’s definitely a softer look with pajama pants instead of leather pants and Gob really doesn’t know why he’s focusing so much on what Tony’s wearing.

Tony gestures at the floor below, which Gob takes to mean ‘my parents are downstairs, so we need to be quiet’. Gob gives Tony a reassuring thumbs up. Tony waves his hands in the air, the universal signal for ‘what the hell is going on’, so Gob tries to mime out that he got a bad performance review. But Tony gets lost at the report sequence and shakes his head, gesturing with a finger twirl for Gob to rewind, which he tries to do, but it’s hard to use gestures to explain his detentions, even though Tony was there for those.

Then Gob remembers whispering is a thing.

“Hey,” he starts. “Is this quiet enough, or do you want to get out of here? I bet I can help you with the tree. Or you could pull it off yourself, you seem flexible.” Why does he know Tony’s flexible? Why is that something he’s paid attention to-

“-I can totally climb the tree, just lemme grab my shoes.” Tony thankfully cuts off Gob’s thought process.

By the time Tony’s pulled on his boots, Gob has taken in all of Tony’s room in the low light of night, and there’s a strange tickle in his chest when he realizes Tony has those glow in the dark star stickers on his ceiling. “Let’s go,” Tony says with a grin, and Gob thinks about how nice this is, to have a friend for moments like this.

They’re quiet for probably longer than they need to be as Tony leads Gob to a shaded corner of the local park. It’s a gentle kind of quiet though, and it feels right for the coolness of the night and the dim light of the street. They find a bench and sit down the wrong way but fun way, feet on the seat and butts on the back, knees slightly touching.

“So basically,” Gob tries, his voice sounding weirdly loud in the park, “I need to find a way to become popular- even more popular, I mean, -so that my parents don’t make me stop running magic club.”

Tony frowns. “How are they going to measure that? It seems pretty subjective.”

“Exactly, it’s a subject I’m pretty good at, but they won’t know how to measure it!” Gob can’t imagine his parents in high school.

“No, I mean, what if they keep moving the goalpost?” Tony leans back, tilting his head up to the leaves silhouetted against the sky, so far back that Gob is too busy worrying he’s going to fall to really process what he’s saying.

Gob blinks. “Sorry, I’m bad at sports, what does that mean?”

Tony brings his head back down to look at Gob. “Aren’t you on the football team?”

“Oh!” He must have left this out. “I got kicked off ‘cause I kept skipping practice, but honestly, I never liked it too much.”

Tony frowns. “I’m sorry man, that sucks.”

“It’s okay.” And it is, really. Gob never liked football, the uniforms were always sweaty and gross, and running laps is like, the worst.

“So we need to find something you can replace football with, for status reasons.” Tony nods consideringly. “Something preppy, to keep up with your general vibe.” Gob’s not quite sure what Tony means by preppy, but Tony seems willing to help, and that’s more than he really dared to hope for an hour ago. Tony hums a little, a tune Gob vaguely recognizes from a commercial on television. “What if-” Tony looks at Gob, “-you ran for class president?”

Gob winces. “So actually, I’m not eligible because I’ve acquired too many demerits and detentions.” But it’s not a bad idea, and it gets the wheels turning in Gob’s mind. “What if it was for homecoming king instead?”

Tony nods, slowly. Gob builds up more speed. “Yeah! I could campaign, and run with Lindsay, she’d like that.”

“Maybe you should go with someone that’s, I don’t know, not your sister?” Tony offers.

Huh. “That’s a good point.” Gob brightens. “I know a lot of girls! Apparently, Sally Sitwell wants to hook up, and-”

“-I’ve made a huge mistake,” Tony whispers. Or at least that’s what Gob thinks he said, it’s hard to hear with the whispering and all.

“What did you say?” Gob tries to clarify, but Tony just shakes his head and gestures for Gob to go on. He’s looking kind of pale, so Gob thinks maybe Tony’s feeling sick or cold or something. “Hey, let’s head back, it’s getting cold out here.” Really, Gob isn’t cold at all, but Tony might be, and it suddenly feels super important that Tony doesn’t feel cold because Gob doesn’t even have a jacket to lend him. Not that he’d offer another dude his jacket, that’s kind of weird, but, you know. He might find a way to get Tony to wear it? If he was cold and wanted to and this is officially a train of thought that Gob is moving away from.

Tony snorts. “It’s like seventy degrees, man.” He hops off the bench though, and gestures for Gob to come with him. “You Californians are so weak.”

“Maybe my campaign slogan should be, ‘Gob Bluth for Homecoming King: He’ll Warm You Up.” Gob winks at Tony. “Cause you know, it’s getting cold because it’s fall?”

“Ha ha.” Tony rolls his eyes. “That’s a terrible slogan. What about ‘Gob Bluth: You’ll Come Home For Him?’ You know, cause homecoming?”

They spend the walk back brainstorming slogans, about 90% of them unusable for either being too overtly sexual, nonsensical, or referencing magic.

“Vote Gob: He’ll Give You A Magical Evening?”

“Gob Bluth, I’m Cooler Than You, So Vote For Me?”

“Vote Bluth: He’ll Buy Booze.”

Tony high fives Gob. “Hey, that one might be a winner! As long as the school doesn’t complain.”

Gob shrugs. “They can’t complain if they don’t find out. I’ll put the flyers on cars in the parking lot. I was already going to do a party next weekend, might as well make it a campaign party.” His parents are going to Mexico for the weekend, for some business seminar, and the penthouse will make a great party spot. Maybe he and Tony could even do an illusion together, and the thought makes him really, truly excited for a Gob Bluth party for the first time in a while.

Helping Tony climb up the tree is strangely intimate in a way Gob isn’t prepared for. He thinks for a moment that Tony will invite him back to his room, to talk some more, but he doesn’t know how to ask if he can. Gob smiles instead, suddenly feeling shy. “Hey, so, thanks. I better get going, I have a proposal to plan out.”

Tony smiles back, but it doesn't reach his eyes. “I’m sure Sally will love it.” Without saying goodnight or goodbye or anything else, Tony turns his back on Gob and climbs through his window, leaving Gob nestled in the tree branches, confused.

Chapter Text

School on Monday is... strange.

Gob thinks that maybe Tony came down with a cold or something over the weekend, because he seems lower energy than usual, quieter in a way that just feels wrong. Tony is supposed to be sparkling and shiny and pulsing bright like Gob, not absentmindedly doodling and avoiding eye contact.

The thing is, Gob knows how fickle being bright can be. So even though with another person he might bail, might move on to the next shining ball of entertainment, that thought never crosses his mind with Tony.

If Tony’s having some Sounds of Silence time, Gob can work with that.

He does the talking for the party invites, lets Tony trail behind him and pass out flyers without prodding him to be louder. And when Tony starts to look overwhelmed, Gob makes up some excuse about wanting to get out of the cafeteria. They wind up on the edge of the school property, and Tony offers Gob half of his elaborate packed lunch that his mother apparently makes herself.

Gob’s never had homemade food before, and it’s nice, it’s really nice. They split a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that Tony rolls his eyes at, says he’s really too old for, but Gob thinks it tastes like family. Not his family, god no, but like tv families, smiling and happy.

They do another round of detention, but the administration has rolled their detention times back to after school only, so they get English together again. Detention is pretty fun actually, Karen is still their monitor and while she says she can’t always let them skip, she does let them just talk for the hour and a half.

Gob learns more about Tony, learns about his sisters and his brother and that when he was a little kid, he wanted to be a pilot but wound up needing some heavy duty contacts. Gob’s life story keeps spilling out, a well of moments that he thinks sound normal until he catches the expression on Tony’s face. He feels certain that eventually, he’ll run dry, and he’ll stop surprising Tony, but he’s only told a fraction of his favorite stories so far. They aren’t bad surprises though. Tony snickers at the saga of the cornballer and practically dies laughing at Gob’s impression of his mother. He wrinkles his forehead at Lindsay’s freakishly oversized growth spurt compared to her twin, growls under his breath at the first hint of the boyfights video, and fake vomits at the best Buster potty training stories.

By the time Tuesday comes around, so does Tony. He starts laughing again, starts winking at Gob while they campaign together for his homecoming king pursuits. Gob almost feels guilty, and tries to ask Tony if he wouldn’t rather run too, but Tony just turns red and starts to look like he’s about to fade back into himself, so Gob drops it quickly.

There’s a pop quiz on Wednesday that Gob and Tony cheat on together. He’s not sure if this will actually raise their score, since they both studied the same amount (zero), but there are answers Gob thinks he knows and answers Tony thinks he knows, and two heads are better than one, anyway.

Thursday’s detention they do skip, Gob slipping Karen another forty bucks so that he and Tony can start picking up supplies for the party. It turns out that Tony has a fantastic eye for color, and he helps Gob use the right words for the vision he has in his head. Tony’s also good at budgeting, good at being practical, good at pulling together all of Gob’s ideas into something more manageable and cohesive.

Tony’s just good, period.

Gob can’t even keep track of Tony at one point, watching him dart between the aisles of Jo-Ann’s fabrics. Well, literally, he can. But he just has to stand back and watch for a minute, breath somewhere definitely not his lungs as this incredible person explodes in a passionate flury of energy and spreadsheets and damn.

He hopes he’s not coming down with something, hopes he’s not getting sick before the party. His chest feels tight, and the back of his neck is warm in a way that suggests a sunburn that he knows isn’t there.

But then again, that’s been happening a lot lately.

It’s probably nothing to worry about.

~~~

Bluth parties are the best parties, and anyone who claims differently can eat Gob’s daringly tiny athletic shorts.

The music is blaring so loudly the ground is shaking to the rhythm of the base. Or maybe that’s just the natural impact of at least a hundred teens shoveled into a three thousand square foot apartment. Everyone is crammed together, moving like a school of particularly horny fish, and Gob loves this, he really does. Girls keep pulling him into hugs that are 90% boob and guys keep offering him respectful fist bumps, and the world feels right in a way that it usually doesn’t. He’s almost viewing the scene from above himself, moving smoothly on autopilot. There’s muscle memory kicking in, something genetic or learned leaving him fully confident, for once, and Gob thinks that if he can live like this forever, floating in a sea of people that see him and think he’s cool, that want to be him, he could become someone he might actually like.

Even Stacy and Jenna are here, smoking out on the patio, looking typically disinterested in the more raucous proceedings happening in the living room. And admittedly, watching Bryce Sands and Matthew Corbin play beer bong is more cringe inducing than entertaining. The kids at Newport have seriously lame alcohol tolerances. Gob figures that he can spare a few moments and a few puffs to be a good host.

Jenna spots him first, waving at him lazily with a paint splattered hand. “George Oscar Bluth Bluth! A pleasure as always. And the subtext for this party is?”

Thankfully, Gob is used to Jenna by now. “I need Sally Sitwell to go to homecoming with me so I can win homecoming king.” He flashes the girls his best campaign grin. “Vote Bluth, he’ll buy booze?”

“Wait,” Stacy asks, “I thought you weren’t interested in-” Jenna elbows Stacy sharply, who finishes sheepishly with “blondes?” and a wince.

Gob shrugs, distracted. Tony should be here by now, but Gob hasn’t found him yet. He’s definitely not worried, but Tony is on the smaller size, and a freshman did get trampled at his June blowout. “Yeah, I guess I’m more into brunettes, but Sally Sitwell is objectively hot.”

Jenna rolls her eyes. “Objective is definitely one word for it. Objectifying is certainly another.”

For some reason, that makes Stacy start making out with Jenna, which is weird because they don’t even look that drunk and no one is cheering for them to do it. But it is pretty standard Stacy and Jenna party behavior, so Gob decides that he should really track down Tony. Not that he’s worried.

Michael is in the kitchen, pointedly in his pajama bottoms and attempting to boil water for spaghetti. The broken spaghetti strewn across the floor suggests that his attempts have been less than successful. He frowns when he sees Gob. “I hate you.”

His brother declares that he hates him a minimum of once a month, so Gob figures he doesn’t have to start worrying about a boyfights round until Michael breaks out his animalistic roar. “Have you seen Tony?”

Before Michael can respond, a reveler vomits in his pasta pot.

“Ew.” Gob and Michael can agree on that at least, groaning in unison. “Michael,” Gob tries to be reasonable, “couldn’t you just order pizza?”

Michael scoffs. “It wouldn’t survive the walk back to my room and you know it.” He looks sadly at the ruined pot and pushes it into the sink. “I’ll clean that in the morning.”

Gob diplomatically decides not to call his brother’s bluff. “I thought you’d be more into this. I invited that dumb girl you like.” And Tracy gave him a noncommittal answer, but Gob leaves that out.

“What?” Michael squeaks. “She’s here?”

“She could be,” Gob equivocates. “Put on real pants, okay?”

Michael shakes his head. “Like you’re one to talk! If you see Tr- Her, let me know, please?” Michael looks close enough to panic that Gob nods, even though the last thing he wants to do is spend the party trying to track down a second person. Tracy has that red hair at least, and she’s kind of tall, so Gob starts scanning for red hair and dark spiky hair against the crowd.

Because Gob’s life sucks, he finds Tracy first and isn’t sure what to do next. “You’re the one who invited me, right?” She blinks up at him with eyes that he privately thinks are too large to be exactly pretty.

“Yeah, hi. Gob Bluth.” He shakes her hand since it’s hanging there, and he’s suddenly hyper-aware of all the ways this could go badly and Michael would end up murdering him with varying degrees of pain. “Maybe you know my brother?”

Tracy Lowell just keeps blinking at him, and Gob feels his stomach slowly sink through the floor. Crap. Stupid, forgetful Michael. “He’s a sophomore, did the Peter Pan play or whatever? Debate club?”

Thankfully, there’s a spark of recognition in her otherwise infinite eyes. “Oh, Mike?” It feels weird to hear someone not in the family call him Mike. Everyone at school uses Michael, because like, look at him. “I haven’t had the chance to speak with him, unfortunately.”

There’s a flash of familiar dark hair at about the right height, and Gob tries to wrap it up with Tracy. “You should. He talks a lot. Debate club, you know.” It’s not a joke, but she laughs, so he offers up a half-hearted chuckle. “The second bedroom on the left, if you want to say hi.”

Her nose wrinkles. “That’s an awfully private space to invade.”

Gob has figured out what’s so weird about Tracy Lowell. It’s the 80s, for crying out loud, and she’s still dressed like it’s the 70s, all flowing patterns and peace pins. Michael has terrible taste. Her hair is flat and she’s wearing those Jesus-y sandals.

But Gob hasn’t forgotten the point of this party. He’s a Bluth, and Bluths can network with anyone, even an out of date sophomore. “Like, do you believe in private property, dude?” That’s what his mother always complained about with hippies, that they ruined the real estate market with communes. “That’s such a fiction, you know, man?”

“Well, of course, it’s a real-” Tracy starts, but Gob cuts her off.

“Just knock first, okay soul sister?” And with that, he’s officially given the Michael and Tracy project his best shot and full effort. Also, he’s bored with it now.

Gob tries to track the bobbing head of dark hair through the crowd, but it’s rough going. People are starting to couple up, creating a maze of copious PDA and a rising heat that makes Gob grateful for the open windows. Or maybe that’s the buzz talking? Gob’s had a lot of celebratory shots, ‘cause when your campaign slogan is “Vote Bluth, He’ll Buy Booze”, people want you to end that declaration with alcohol consumption, and it’s been adding up.

With a flash of concentration that’s starting to feel more like instinct or classical conditioning at this point, Gob spots the dark hair again. There’s a break in the crowd that lets him slip in front, to cut Tony off, but by the time he reaches the back hallway, he realizes that this dark hair is too long to belong to Tony.

He vaguely recognizes the girl. She’s a senior, and he’s pretty sure she’s on Lindsay’s squad. She winks at him, mouths something he can’t hear over the music, but he can catch “saw you” and “watching me” and “like it?”.

Her hair is exactly the same shade as Tony’s, just shoulder length and less spiked on top.

Gob doesn’t like kissing girls with lipstick, really. It’s messy and sticky and kissing, in general, has never super been his thing. So he tries to avoid getting too much on him while she pulls him down and against the wall, but with her brown eyes closed and dark hair filling up his field of vision, she’s suddenly a lot hotter, and Gob could be into this.

He can hear the lacrosse team whistling at them, cheering and cracking jokes, and yeah, Gob could definitely make this work. Cheerleaders are like worth double points in this game of counting and rating that all the jocks play. Gob likes games, Gob can play this game, Gob can win this game, because he has to he has to he has to.

God, Tony is going to be so proud of him for scoring like this.

There’s a gasp followed by a crash and the sound of a bottle shattering. This is a party, so Gob normally wouldn’t pay attention to that, but there’s beer pooling around his feet and he’s wearing flip-flops, so he pulls away from whats-her-name to cuss out whoever broke the bottle and-

“-Tony?”

Gob doesn’t understand what’s happening, why Tony is staring at him like this, but he feels with a desperate certainty that he would do anything, pay any price to erase how Tony’s face looks right now from his memory.

Because it’s devastating, it’s like every single time he’s been called a screw up is pounding back over his head, because it’s easy to be a screw up when there’s nothing worth preserving, but Gob has somehow managed in this moment to screw up what he didn’t know he needed until he had it, what he was trying so hard to save and keep safe.

He’s shoved the girl aside, can hear her making displeased noises but that doesn’t matter, nothing matters but Tony and his hurt expression.

Gob opens his mouth and closes his mouth, tries to think of something to say, but he doesn’t even know what’s wrong or where to start apologizing. It’s like everything in the world has stopped. There’s no sound except the rapid-fire thump of his heartbeat. The hallway that once seemed so chaotic and dark before is just filled with Tony now. It's like they’re alone when in reality, Gob knows that there’s that girl by his side and the lacrosse team behind Tony, and people pushing in from all angles.

Tony lets out a sigh that Gob feels more than hears.

As he’s walking away, Gob tries to grab his arm, but Tony shakes him off like Gob’s touch burns. “Gob, it’s fine.” But Gob can tell that it’s not fine, and he knows that lying about things being fine means not wanting to fix them, and that means- “I’ve just got to go, okay?”

Gob shakes his head, but Tony keeps talking. “I can’t- I can’t be here right now.”

Before Gob can ask why, Tony’s gone, and Gob is left with this party and these people that he suddenly can’t stand.

Shit.

Chapter Text

There’s something Gob usually finds satisfying about four am. Four am is when Gob is alone in the world, most night owls and morning birds both asleep by this point. The sky is so dark that it feels like infinity staring back at him, without even a hint of the coming dawn to add a sense of managed scale. It’s the only thing keeping him calm right now, this endless sky that seems big enough, at least for now, to take all of his thoughts and absorb them into the rest of the universe.

The apartment is sticky in a way that means their housekeeping service will give him dirty looks for a month. Pretty much everyone is cleared out, except for Lindsay’s friends sleeping over. They’re all girls, Gob checked. Buster somehow managed to sleep through the entire party, or at least faked it well enough that no one could tell the difference.

It was a successful party. Gob should be happy.

He could drink some more. There’s still vodka out, and it’ll go bad soon, but it’s still good for a while longer.

Gob doesn’t know how his classmates do it, how they float through the world without these heavy times that drag so deeply he can barely breathe. They’re steady in a way he knows he isn’t, is aware he isn’t. They don’t drift away chasing ideas or collapse under the weight of their own heartache. And when their hearts shatter like this, they know why.

It’s like everyone else in the world got a copy of a rulebook that Gob isn’t allowed to know about. Like there was a meeting one day when he was ditching class or daydreaming and decided that, okay, this is what we want out of life, and this is how we’ll get it, and we can be worthy of it like this.

Gob understands wants and wanting. He doesn’t understand earning or deserving, doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to learn.

It might only be sixty degrees outside, but his fingers are starting to feel numb by the time Michael finds him. His brother is back in pajamas, but Gob is pretty sure the pattern is different. Michael drags a chair to the edge and pushes Gob into a seated position, not unkindly. He lines up a second chair and claims that one, smiling like an idiot but not dumb enough to rub it in Gob’s face immediately.

“Look.” Michael’s voice is soft. “I heard that you and Tony had a fight, and-”

“-who told you that?” Gob doesn’t think what happened counts as a fight, is the issue. Gob knows about fights, knows about yelling and saying mean things. Kissing a girl and somehow making your best friend hate you without ever saying a word is something new.

Michael shrugs. “I saw Tony drive up, then drive out like four minutes later. Figured he wouldn’t leave without you unless something went wrong. What happened?” Michael’s face is twisted weird, kind of like Lindsay when she’s trying to make herself cry, but Gob suspects that this is Michael trying to look sympathetic.

“Well-” Gob pauses. “I’m not sure, really. I was making out with this super hot chick, and-”

“-what.” Michael’s voice is flat.

Gob laughs, high and nervous. “What, are you a feminist now or whatever? She was great, but maybe Tony wanted to make out with her instead?”

Gob’s pretty sure Michael shouldn’t bang his head like that against the railing, but he killed at least as many brain cells drinking over the last few hours, so he can’t really judge. Can’t judge Michael, can’t judge distances, can’t judge the situation in any productive or objective way.

“Look, Gob, if you’re doing this to be a dick to Tony-” Michael glares, “-don’t. It’s literally the one thing I told you to avoid, and if you have a problem with him, just stop hanging out together.”

Why the hell would Gob have any problem with Tony? Besides this current problem of Tony hating him. “What the shit are you talking about? Is Tony into that girl? I can back off, no problem, there’s plenty of fish in the sea!” He’s slurring his words a little, but the intention is true. Gob is a serial heartbreaker, he can totally manage to find another girl to make out with. Really, he doesn’t need to try, the girls come after him because of the money and the visibility. He spends a lot of his time dodging them, actually, because everyone knows girls are clingy and boys need to play hard to get for the sake of the game.

It’s all a game.

Michael studies Gob, searching for something Gob can’t predict. “You don’t get why I care so much about Tracy, do you?”

Well. Duh. “You’re intense about her, but you’re intense about everything .”

“You think I’m the intense one?” Michael looks shocked, but really, when someone spends half their time studying and the other half feeling guilty over not studying, intense is a perfectly valid adjective.

“Michael.” And that says it all. Michael and intense are just obviously connected, even if stupid intense Michael can’t see it.

His brother groans. “Why do I even try with you, honestly? I’d love an answer.”

“We’re brothers.” It’s that simple, and it’s that complicated. “Mike, if you’ve got something to say, spit it out.”

Michael shakes his head. “Sorry Gob, this one you’ll have to figure out for yourself.”

They sit in silence for a moment, Gob’s swallowed darkness still pounding but less intrusive than before.

“What’s it like?” Gob is met with only a blank stare, so he tries to pull his thoughts together enough to ask Michael in a way he’ll understand. “What does it feel like, caring about her? About Tracy? So much that it makes you crazy?”

Michael weighs the question out, really considers it, and Gob is grateful for that, grateful he won’t have to ask a third time or accept an answer that doesn’t get him anywhere.

“It feels like-” Michael starts. “It feels like I’m going to love her however she wants me to. If she wants me to be her friend, that’s fine, actually fine. Because how I feel isn’t going to change based on how she feels. And I want her to be happy more than anything else.”

Gob thinks that’s beautiful. Gob thinks that’s dumb. But it can be both maybe, pussy in the British way and the American way.

“Pussy.”

But Gob will let Michael figure out which kind it is on his own, the pussy. Michael only punches him at medium strength at that anyway, and he still offers to help Gob clean up.

It isn’t until they’re halfway through clearing out the worst of the contraband that Gob feels steady enough to prompt Michael to spew his newly acquired Tracy lore.

Apparently, Tracy Lowell is a goddess amongst mortal women. She wants to be an artist, likes cats so much that Michael has vowed to never tell her he’s allergic, and most importantly, asked Michael if he’d like to join her baking club (properly, this time) and offered to join the debate club in return. She told Michael she liked his math project, the one where Michael somehow managed to make spreadsheets even more boring.

Tracy also asked Michael he wanted to go to an “alternative homecoming event”, which Gob can only assume will be the lamest thing ever, but Michael is grinning and Gob thought he could handle this but he can’t, he just can’t.

“How are you going to date Tracey if you’re going to Milford? It might make you weird.” It’s an asshole-y thing to say, but Gob is just drunk enough to excuse himself from that tier of self-reflection, thank you very much.

Michael doesn’t wince, doesn’t hesitate. “I’m not going to Milford.”

“You’re not?”

Gob’s baby brother shakes his head. “Nope. And I wanted to talk to you about that. Are you going to be able to concentrate? Or do I need to find something shiny to draw you in?”

Well. “I wouldn’t say no to something shiny.”

Michael fishes out a pocket mirror without complaint. “Here. So, Gob, you know that I have morals, yes?”

“Uh huh.” He knows that the mirror is Michael being a jerk. But it is neat, how it reflects the light and flashes as Michael passes it from hand to hand.

His brother nods fiercely. “Right. So I would never ask you to do something immoral or illegal.”

Gob doesn’t need the mirror to pay attention anymore. “Right. Never.” Gob can do this, can handle a coded request by a family member that needs him. Because he’s the one that’s a little more tainted and a lot more expendable, and this is what he can do.

“Right.” Michael’s eyes are hard. “I’m not going to Milford. Do you agree?”

Gob thinks about Milford. Silent hallways, robot kids, stiff uniforms. On the surface, it’s totally Michael.

Michael who once told Gob, back when they shared a room, that his greatest ambition was to find a way to get his hands on something radioactive so he could get superpowers and save the world.

“I agree.”

~~~

Michael heads to bed when the sun starts to rise, but Gob still feels like an exposed wire, raw and too volatile to do anything as mundane as sleeping. He wants to go out and start a real fight, one with thrown punches and arguments that make sense.

He doesn’t though; he just takes the car keys and starts driving.

His destination winds up being Milford Academy. The buildings are brick, ancient and cut to exactly the right size. It’s a pretty campus, with more trees than Newport High at least, but the grass has “Do Not Walk” signs and there isn’t any graffiti, not even on the dumpsters. It doesn’t feel like a school for children, and Gob knows he’s certainly not a child and Michael more or less isn’t one either, but it still gives him the creeps.

None of the locks look particularly hard to pick. The school has a nice alarm system, fancier than the one at Newport High, but alarms can be worked around. Anything can be worked around, as long as the magician has the proper tools.

An idea hits Gob, and he feels like cursing himself, it’s so obvious. The answer to everything is more magic, so why would any of this be any different? He can kill two doves with one trick.

He’s starting to know the route to Tony’s house by heart, thinks he could be blindfolded and still find his way.

It isn’t until he’s at Tony’s front door that Gob realizes it’s technically only seven in the morning. Unfortunately, this realization hits after he’s already rung the doorbell.

Guess he’s the geo-bead today.

A sunshiney woman opens the door in a rush of curls and smiles. “Good morning!” It’s weird to see a mom without a wine glass, much less a woman who’s clearly a morning person, but this lady is definitely related to Tony. The hair is the right color, and the smile is the same, and Gob has to push down a rush of fear that Tony’s still going to be mad at him.

“Hey. Is Tony here?” Too late, Gob realizes that this might be snitching, that Tony might actually not be home, that he might have gone somewhere else after their almost fight. But the woman nods and calls for someone named Anthony, who must get Tony’s attention because Tony comes down the stairs and starts staring at Gob.

His clothes are the same as last night’s, and he looks like he’s also stayed up all night. There’s a puffiness to his face that wasn’t there before, and a slight wobble to his motions that Gob recognizes as the telltale signs of being on the wrong side of an all-nighter.

Tony tilts his head like he doesn’t understand why Gob is here, like he expected to never see Gob again. “Gob.” His mother gets a funny look on her face, but that’s barely a consideration for Gob right now. All he wants to do is turn back time to their day on the beach, turn back to the magic show, so that Tony stops looking at him like that, like he’s a bird on the verge of flying away.

Gob is a terrible poker player. He goes all in, every time, and it drives Michael crazy because he somehow always beats Michael’s slow and steady strategy with sheer dumb luck and confidence. And stacking the deck.

“I need your help.” Gob glances at Tony’s mom. “It’s about Michael and Milford.”

Tony’s eyes widen. “You want my help? Even though-” Tony hesitates and doesn’t finish the thought, last night hanging in the air.

Gob nods, trying to keep the motion smooth and not filled with the desperation he’s feeling, because this has to work, this has to work. “I need another magician.”

“Come upstairs.” Tony waves off his mom and gestures for Gob to follow him.

They’re halfway up the stairs when she says something about keeping the door open that makes Tony’s ears turn red, but Gob is too busy feeling relief to really pay attention.

Tony’s room is more unpacked now, but there’s still a wall of boxes by the closet. Gob takes a moment to check that the glow in the dark stars are still there above Tony’s bed, and his heart does a funny skip when he confirms it.

“Well?” Tony looks at Gob expectantly. “What’s the news on Michael and Milford? What do you need me for?”

Gob needs Tony for everything, always, because Tony makes everything better.

But in regards to Michael and Milford... “I need you to help me make Michael’s acceptance disappear.”

Tony grins. “Cool.” He goes to his desk and picks up that black notebook. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

And this is why they fit, Tony’s planning and Gob’s jumping in. Together, they’d win at poker, win at life, and this thought coursing through Gob’s mind plus the residual intoxication and sleep exhaustion is probably what makes Gob crush Tony in an urgent hug that Tony seemingly melts into. The hug lingers longer than most hugs, which is nice because Gob thinks most hugs end too soon.

It might be worth reflecting on later how Gob wants this hug with Tony to literally never end, but that’s a problem for future Gob.

Future Gob’s the best.

Chapter Text

It takes most of Saturday to plan the caper. Tony’s the one who insists on calling it a caper, but since he’s also the one doing the bulk of the planning, Gob lets him. It makes Tony laugh a little each time Gob calls it that too, which is just another reason to keep doing it since he’s also scared Tony’s secretly mad at him still about the girl.

He tried to bring it up once, when they were taking a lunch break, but Tony waved aside his questions and just said that no, he doesn’t have a crush on her. For a while, Gob was harboring the theory that she was his sister or something, but then he met Tony’s sisters, and none of them are that girl from last night.

Tony’s family is weird. They all seem to like each other, to the point that it doesn’t even make sense to call them a “family”. Tony thinks they’re cloying, which Gob kind of can see, but it still makes him feel a little sad, thinking about Tony’s family compared to his. He also doesn’t know how to act around them. The Bluths can push each other around because they all know how to push back. Tony’s family acts nice in a way that just registers as ‘fragile’ to Gob, so he’s nervous about pushing too hard, too fast.

The plan comes together though, Gob’s wildness tempered by Tony’s realism, Tony’s hesitancy foiled by Gob’s confidence. It’s a different kind of magic than stage magic, show magic, but Gob thinks this could turn out to be just as addicting.

Tuesday will be their go night. They have three days to practice their lockpicking skills and to come up with a reasonable cover story in case they get caught. Their current best cover story is that they broke in to drink beer, but Tony keeps pointing out that that’s also illegal, even if it’s less illegal than fraud and forgery.

When Gob starts nodding off, Tony asks him how much sleep he’s had. At Gob’s mumbled zero, Tony makes Gob go home, takes charge and insists on walking him back to the penthouse and knocking on the door for him.

Michael answers the door, face twisted into an expression Gob can’t decipher. “Hey, Tony.” He rolls his eyes. “Is Gob finally realizing that human beings require sleep occasionally?”

Tony nods, struggling to keep Gob standing upright. “Michael, don’t worry about Milford, we’ve got a-”

“-don’t tell me don’t tell me don’t tell me!” Michael quickly cuts Tony off. “Thanks, but plausible deniability and all. I didn’t know Gob was going to get you involved.” He pinches Gob, which, ow, hurts, but it does give him enough of an energy burst to stop leaning against Tony.

Maybe he didn’t need to lean against Tony quite that much, but Tony’s surprisingly strong.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” Tony waves goodbye and Gob finds himself waving back, feeling a little like a kindergartener, but it makes Tony laugh so it’s worth it. Michael shuts the door firmly and turns to Gob.

“So? Did you two sort everything out?”

Gob blinks. “Do you really want details?”

Michael’s face flushes bright red. “Um. No, no thanks.” Huh. Gob thinks that Michael must feel really serious about this whole plausible deniability thing.

Before Gob can retreat into the lovely embrace of his bed, Lindsay appears, eyebrows raised. “Are you trying to piss off Sally on purpose? Because if so, congratulations, but if you’re serious about winning, I would recommend reevaluating. And respecting women.”

“What?” Gob hasn’t spoken to Sally Sitwell for over a week. Which, admittedly, might be the issue.

Lindsay rolls her eyes. “She’s waiting for you to formally ask her to homecoming. Preferably with white roses.”

Gob can feel Michael cringing beside him. “Linds, don’t you think Sally would rather go with Jason?”

Their sister’s long hair swings as she shakes her head. “Jason forgot Sally’s birthday, going with Gob is a revenge deal.”

“Can’t she just say she’s going out with Gob instead? That they hooked up at the party on Friday or something?”

It should feel weird to hear his love life bartered and sold, but honestly, that’s par for the course of Gob’s life. Everything is up for public auction, from his spot on the football team to who he dates. It’s the tax he knows he has to pay for being a Bluth. If he was more like Michael or Lindsay or even Buster, he could pay in a different way, by being clever or pretty or the baby. But he’s Gob and all he has to offer are his antics, his charming smile, and reckless nature.

“That’s not enough,” Lindsay protests. “She needs a date to homecoming, Michael.”

Michael squints at his twin. “Why do you even care? I thought you hated Sally Sitwell?”

“Well,” Lindsay hedges.

“Oh my god.” Michael shakes his head in frustration. “You’re bribing Sally with Gob. What, did she finally agree to try out for cheerleading if you get her Gob on a platter?”

“Not on a platter. Just one dance! And Gob wants this, doesn’t he?” Lindsay turns the full force of her glare on Gob. “You wanted to be homecoming king, and this is basically the only shot you have! You’re not even a football player anymore.”

“Hey!” Gob snaps. “I didn’t even like football in the first place. I hate sports, and I hate-” his throat tightens and the rest of his protest gets cut off with a choke. Michael pats him on the back, and Gob can’t tell if it’s a sympathy pat or a practical ‘don’t choke’ pat.

Michael’s voice goes softer. “Lindsay, can we talk about this later? The dance isn’t until Friday. Lay off, alright?”

Gob doesn’t wait to hear Lindsay’s answer, just shoves off Michael and retreats to his room. He closes the curtains tightly enough to block out the daylight, and he sleeps for fourteen hours.

When he wakes up, there’s a note under his door in Michael’s handwriting.

Tony called, he says that he thought of “the perfect cover story”. Don’t tell me anything.

But still, thanks.

~~~

Tuesday night is the perfect night for crime because no one expects anything interesting to happen on a Tuesday.

Gob and Tony are dressed in their best magician outfits. Tony has his sequined suit jacket and Gob has his favorite silk cape and top hat. He likes how with the top hat, he goes from normal tall to unusually tall, thinks it suits the image he wants to project as a magician. Big enough and loud enough and good enough to make people sit up and pay attention.

It also makes him feel like the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, but since that’s on his list of “Don’t Mention in Public” favorite things, he keeps that thought private.

Tony grins up at him as they carefully remove the window frame of one of the Milford classrooms. “Have you ever seen the Phantom of the Opera? ‘Cause I was just thinking, you look like-”

“-the Phantom himself?” Gob completes the thought. “Yeah, it’s actually one of my favorites.”

Tony nods, pleased. “Of course it is. Classic.” He passes Gob the glass, a planned division of labor since Tony is so much better at detail work than Gob. Gob’s job in this is to keep the energy up, to think on his feet, to make sure that if they get caught, the person doing the catching is left with the slightly bizarre but plausible understanding that these two teenage magicians are just here to practice an elaborate break-in illusion.

Oh. Also forging a new (terrible) application for Michael. That’s also Gob’s job.

It won’t be hard to make Michael’s application go from instant acceptance to undeniable rejection. Gob just needs to pull inspiration from his own academic record of sporadic easy As and incompletes, tossing in a few disciplinary notes about being excessively loud.

Ironically enough, the room they’ve randomly selected as their point of entry is the music room. The instruments are clearly expensive, mainly antiques, and all are coated with a distinct layer of dust and a general air of disuse.

“Major creep vibes,” whispers Tony.

Gob nods. This is why he doesn’t want Michael at this school. Michael might be a stick in the mud, but he has the capacity to open up, to laugh and joke with friends, and this school would squeeze that out of him until he’s as hollow as the other sad geo-beads that go here. He wonders if maybe that’s why his mother wants Michael to attend; if she really wants that dark future of a limper, more pliable Michael. But as ruthless as Lucille can be, she’s never careless or wasteful. She might just not know about Milford’s other reputation, the one not talked about at country club luncheons.

The school is dark and all shadows, emblematic of the second part of Milford’s motto. There are hiding places everywhere, perfect for a break in, but it still sets Gob on edge. Being able to hide goes both ways. As far as they know, they’re the only people here at Milford tonight.

Gob has really, truly, terribly shitty luck though.

If that streak of bad luck emerges now, with Tony in tow, he’ll feel guilty. And guilty is Gob’s least favorite emotion, even more so than envy and hunger, because guilt can’t be plastered over with excess like envy or hunger. He’s on the verge of turning to Tony and suggesting that maybe Tony should wait outside, on the cusp of begging Tony to make a different decision and a different friend, when Tony bounds forward with a grin that sort of turns Gob’s bones to jelly in a way that has nothing to do with the squeaky floorboards.

Well, it’s a little bit related to the squeaky floorboards because seriously, those things sound like a whole cage of magic mice.

Gob can’t deny Tony anything when he’s like this, beaming and beckoning Gob forward.

The hallway is long and narrow, and so dark that he can’t see where it ends, even though logically he knows the stained glass double doors can’t be more than a hundred feet or so beyond where they’re standing in the music room doorway. Gob suggested bringing a flashlight, but Tony pointed out the benefits of letting their night vision naturally adapt, so they wait in silence for several minutes, letting the darkness soak into them like mist.

“Hey, Gob?” Tony’s voice sounds lower like this, waiting in the dark.

“Yeah?” It feels right to whisper, Gob thinks. The world is too quiet right now for them to talk normally, too small to let their words take up too much space.

It’s several heartbeats before Tony speaks again. “You do know, don’t you?”

“Know what?” Gob is good at bluffing with everyone but Tony. He can’t even see Tony in this light, but he knows the look Tony is sending his way, knows the patiently even expression that sends across just enough exacerbation to make his point. Gob gives in, because for Tony, he always would, always will. “I might know. I think I might know. But I don’t-” he almost says that he doesn’t know, but that’s not a sentence that makes sense. “-I don’t know how.”

Patient, brutally patient Tony rephrases. “You don’t know how to do what?”

Mercifully, Gob’s eyes are adjusted enough that he can make out which office belongs to the dean. “Hey, that’s the dean’s office!”

Tony trails behind, hissing something about emotional avoidance and conversations they need to have, but he still follows Gob up to the heavy looking door and offers up the pack of lockpicks. “Try the half diamond, you interpersonally stunted asshole.”

“Thanks!” Gob is just focusing on the task at hand, yes he is, yep yep yep. Like a charm, the half diamond tips the lock trigger, and Gob can push his way into the office, Tony a steady, if swearing, presence at his back.

Gob is a Bluth, and even he thinks the decor in the dean’s office is excessive. Everything is plush and velvet, mahogany and marble, materials that only sound good together but actually contrast like the jolt of a car crash of an entirely too large budget. There is an intimidating ancient file cabinet in the corner though, and a stack of papers on the mattress-sized desk, so Gob waves Tony in the direction of the cabinet while he starts to tackle the desk.

The desk is mainly coated with various receipts for furniture rentals and staff luncheons, but near the bottom, Gob spots a promising folder labeled “Fresh Meat”. At first, he thinks it might be a lunch menu or something, but it’s actually the incoming student applications.

Milford is so fucking creepy.

“Tony?” Gob calls in a whisper. “Found them!”

Tony shuts the file cabinet softly and crawls over. “Did you also manage to find your ability to meaningfully engage in a conversation about what you want?”

“Nope! Damn, these applications are the dullest things ever. One kid actually wrote in that his ambition is to invent a completely silent pair of sensible leather shoes.” Michael/Lucille wrote that he wanted to be ‘perfectly helpful in every way’, but at least that’s normal creepy, not niche creepy.

Because Gob’s life is a nightmare, a distinctive flashlight beam appears in the window and starts sweeping across the room.

“Crap!” Tony swears, and Gob can see Tony tensing up, can see Tony wanting a place to hide and-

“Quick, get under here!” He maybe pulls Tony under the desk a little too roughly, but there’s still barely a moment to spare before the beam of light hits the place they were standing only a minute before.

The underside of the desk has just enough space for one tall boy and one short boy. Gob’s legs are tangled with Tony’s, his top hat is on the floor, and their faces are dangerously close. The night vision plan was a terrible one, because now Gob’s field of vision is Tony, just Tony, looking at him like if they can just ask each other the right questions, everything can still be sorted out.

“What are you afraid of?” Tony asks.

And maybe it’s the pull of Tony, the feeling of being caught so thoroughly in someone else’s orbit, that makes Gob answer honestly. “Breaking this.”

“No.” Tony shakes his head as much as he can. “You wouldn’t.”

Gob breathes out a laugh that’s maybe more of a hiccuped sob than genuine laughter. “I would.”

Tony leans forward, and for a moment, Gob thinks he might try to kiss him. But instead, Tony stretches his arm up the wallpaper to pull the fire alarm.

The world explodes in a burst of noise and light. Tony turns to Gob and gestures over the screeching sound for Gob to hurry up and switch the applications. As soon as that’s done, they’re running, Gob being careful not to run faster than Tony. The running is a release, an escape, and it’s tempting to let his long legs fully extend, to leave Tony and dangerous questions behind.

Instead, he grabs Tony’s hand and together, they push forward, the fire alarm blaring in the distance and growing softer as they get farther and farther away from Milford.

By the time their lungs are out of air they’re far enough away that if they get caught, it’ll be proof positive that the universe hates Gob. As they collapse on the wet grass that will definitely ruin their outfits, Tony pulls his hand away, and Gob thinks about calling Tony a hypocrite. He thinks about lashing out, thinks about saying that it’s not fair for Tony to come barging into his school all dressed in black with breathtaking eyeliner. That he wanted to talk to Tony after the party, but Tony said everything was fine, Tony didn’t want to tell him, Tony just looked at him so sadly his heart broke and Gob still isn’t sure he’s found all the pieces again yet.

But Gob breathes once, breathes twice, and as his body slowly recovers from their sprint, he closes his eyes and lets himself imagine they’re back in the darkness and quiet of Milford.

Only this time, Gob will be the one to lead them out.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” He asks.

Tony’s answer comes slowly, but it does come. “Sure. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

School the next day is brutal. It feels like there’s sand in Gob’s eyes, or like he’s on the come down from a truly impressive high. It turns out that spending the night executing an elaborate break-in at the expense of lost sleep sucks ass the next day, especially considering how much sleep Gob’s lost already over this whole Tony thing.

The Tony Thing, as he’s started to think of it in his mind, is larger than he knows how to handle. He can barely wrap his head around it, barely find the words to look at it head-on.

Tony isn’t much help with The Tony Thing. He’s retreated back into a sulky, grouchy mess, and greeted Gob this morning with only a glare and a brimming cup of coffee he refused to share. Gob is being wonderfully good though and is only making the obvious cat references internally. Tony is clearly not in the best mood, maybe from the break-in, maybe from the lack of sleep, or maybe he’s still residually mad over the girl from the party. But he’s still here. He’s still next to Gob in the hallways, still twitching with a barely repressed smile at Gob’s terrible jokes.

Something deep inside Gob’s chest settles at the thought.

Tony has seen the best and the worst of him. And Gob knows for a fact that his highs and lows are so much more mountainous than other people’s.

Unfortunately, this realization happens in Spanish class. Which he doesn’t share with Tony. Classes are really putting a cramp in his personal development this year. He doesn’t decide to skip the rest of his morning classes consciously, but one faked stomach cramp later, he’s halfway to the stoner tree, almost at the edge of a disassociating kind of panic.

It’s a step up from the more panick-y panic of before. Before, Gob felt hunted by feelings he couldn’t control and thoughts he couldn’t stop. Now, everything has shifted without his permission. An answer has been found, the excuses have to stop, and it’s up to Gob to decide what to do about it.

He loves Tony Wonder. He loves him so much that he can’t imagine ever finding the right way to channel it or show it enough for Tony to really know.

The stoner tree has dozens of initials carved into the bark. Most are from couples, circled with hearts or noted with plus signs. The dates stretch back to the 1940s, decades of students long forgotten by now. With only the initials, Gob doesn’t know anything about these couples, really. J’s could stand for Jacob or Jessica.

He thinks about using his pen knife to carve his own heart into the tree, but he’s not sure how Tony feels, so he compromises with drawing a dick onto the bark.

It’s both funny and appropriate for the situation. Gob is and has a dick, Tony is and has a dick, and they’re a perfect fit for a whole host of reasons, but mainly that one. They’re difficult people. Right now, actually, Gob is ditching class and Tony is probably still giving everyone a death glare and writing incredibly detailed notes on what their next great show should be.

The problem is, there are two lives Gob wants, two lives he could choose.

Not many people have the option of living a completely bankrolled playboy lifestyle, the flashy bright distraction for the press while his younger brother and mother actually get things done. And Gob would be good at that, he really would be. He’s practiced for years at being loud and being charming. He knows what to wear and how to make a scene at all the right moments, how to turn a scandal into a stock increase. It’s everything he knows and everything he’s been taught how to do.

The other life is shrouded in a fog of uncertainty. His mental map only goes so far as kissing Tony, and then he doesn’t know what comes after. He can’t be a playboy when he’s stupidly, thoroughly in love with another boy. He doesn’t want to cheat on Tony. He doesn’t want to suffer through another terrible date ever again with a pretty girl that never manages to call him on his constant bullshit. But without the structure of his prepackaged dream, what would his life even look like with Tony?

Can a gay man even be a professional magician?

He’s a Bluth, and he knows how much that name means. To give it up is a risk he’s not sure he’s brave enough to take, and that makes him feel like slime. It’s a nasty mirror he’s forced to look into, and all of his cowardice and fear and need threatens to overwhelm his reflection. But at the heart of it, there’s a pulsing light, and that light is Tony. It can’t be strangled by the rest of it, by the money or fame or shame, and Gob knows this because dear god, has he tried.

He almost decides to skip lunch too, but he doesn’t want Tony to worry, even though he’s still of a split mind and soul. Besides, he’s finally convinced Tony to sit with him inside the cafeteria, at his old table.

It’s weird, being back with the same kids he’s known all his life. His sister and her cheer squad, the football players and other rich kids, everyone that used to play such a big role in how Gob sculpted himself to suit their needs. Even Michael is there, looking a little baffled at being used as a buffer zone for Lindsay and Sally Sitwell, but altogether not unhappy about it.

“Lindsay, I think you’re so brave to experiment with color like that!” Sally smiles and spears a pointedly small forkful of her salad, jabbing Michael in the side with her elbow as she maneuvers the utensil to her mouth.

Okay, admittedly, Michael doesn’t look thrilled.

Lindsay grins back tightly. “Thanks Sal! I’m just happy to have the opportunity to inspire others to reach beyond the beige and basic.” Her lunch is a soup that is definitely not on the menu, something French and requiring a bribe of at least twenty bucks to the school chefs.

“Is that soup good, Linds? It looks very thick, perfect for you!”

Lindsay starts waving her spoon around, splattering Michael’s sensible brown bag sandwich. Michael glares at his twin, and Gob can just hear his brother’s gears shifting from “neutral party” to “about to step in”.

Tony leans in close and asks, “is this typical, or should we start ducking?”

“Both?” Is the best answer Gob can come up with, but it seems to satisfy Tony, who nods and scoots his chair a little bit further away from the table.

Unfortunately, his chair hits one of the rougher football players, Curtis Stevens, just as he’s walking by with a tray of the actual soup of the day (tomato).

The tray tips over in what feels like slow motion, splattering their entire group in soup. Michael gets the worst of it, probably since both Sally and Lindsay use him as a human shield, shrieking in anger and panic. Gob and Tony get decently sprayed though, the soup definitely staining Gob’s shirt and decidedly getting in Tony’s hair. They all smell like tomatoes now, which is so not an attractive scent.

Gob is just halfway through the thought that he should try and help Tony wash it out because Tony loves his hair when he hears the name Curtis Stevens calls Tony.

Without thinking about what this will mean, for his life at home or at school or even his dynamic with Tony, Gob’s body is moving, his fist swinging up to connect with Curtis Stevens’ cheek with a solid smack. Curtis roars back in reply, starts moving his own meaty fists in the vicinity of Gob’s face, but Gob is much better at ducking than Curtis.

However, Curtis’s size and linebacker status are probably both factors he should have taken into consideration before starting a fist fight. Curtis seems barely phased by the punch, which, let’s be honest, was about the maximum strength punch Gob is capable of rendering. Curtis is closing in, and unfortunately, the lunch tables have Gob closed off into a corner. But before Curtis can start landing his punches, he stumbles, and Gob spies Tony pulling his leg back for another kick. Gob’s heart flutters, actually flutters at that, because of course Tony’s with him on this.

Michael joining in and trying to choke Curtis from behind is a surprise.

Lindsay seems to decide that if her brothers are fighting, she should be too, so Curtis is suddenly dealing with Gob in front, Michael behind, and Lindsay flinging her own soup from across the table. Curtis has friends too, but they’re only muscling their way into the circle halfheartedly, and the Bluths don’t half-ass anything related to fighting.

The melee only lasts a minute or so before teachers start pulling everyone apart. And then they’re all on the bench outside the Vice Principal’s office, soaked in tomato soup and bruised.  Tony and Gob are side by side, grinning in a way that will definitely reflect poorly on their detention count, but god, it feels good to be back on the same page. Sally, of course, got off perfectly clean (even though she was the first to start chanting “fight, fight, fight”), so it’s just Gob, Tony, Michael, Lindsay, and Curtis waiting for their punishments.

Curtis, idiotically, is trying to hit on Lindsay, who responds by pointedly filing her nails to an even sharper degree.

Vice-Principal Jordan emerges from his office just when Lindsay is lifting her hand up for a warning slap. “Miss Bluth!” Lindsay slowly lowers her hand, but still steps on Curtis’s foot for good measure. “Mr. Bluth, Mr. Bluth, Miss Bluth. The full set.”

“What about Buster?” Gob pipes up.

Michael groans. “Not now, Gob.” Indeed, Mr. Jordan looks sick at the thought of another Bluth. “Don’t worry,” Michael tries to reassure him. “Buster’s only eleven. You have a few more years!”

“Michael Bluth, I’m surprised you were involved in this altercation.” Mr. Jordan gestures for the group to follow him into the office as he makes way too much eye contact with Michael. “Usually you manage to stay out of trouble.”

Michael shrugs. “Family first, sir.”

“Kiss-ass,” Gob coughs. Mr. Jordan glares at him, but honestly, Michael totally deserved that.

Once they’re all crammed into his office, Mr. Jordan turns to the group. “So. Who wants to tell me what happened?”

Curtis Stevens immediately jumps into a tirade about Tony making him drop his soup on purpose, but Mr. Jordan cuts him off with a handwave. “Noted. Miss Bluth, you’re the closest we have to an objective party. Your thoughts?”

Lindsay shrugs. “Tony didn’t do it on purpose, Curtis totally was rude or whatever, and Gob landed the first punch like a badass.”

“Language, Miss Bluth.” Mr. Jordan pinches the bridge of his nose. “George- Gob, what compelled you to hit Curtis?”

Gob can feel Tony tense next to him, knows just as well as Tony that name calling won’t matter to the teachers. “He has a very punchable face.”

“Hey!” Curtis yells. “I do not!”

Michael nods thoughtfully. “You kind of do.”

By the time they’re finished, Curtis has flipped several end tables and has a month of Saturday detentions, Gob and Michael have three each, and Tony has one. Lindsay gets off with a warning because of course she does, she’s Lindsay.

When they exit the office, Sally Sitwell is waiting. Curtis brushes by her with a scowl, which she happily returns. Gob’s sure that Sally is waiting for Lindsay until Lindsay also breezes by, and then Sally is turning to him, cornering him in a way not dissimilar to how Curtis was cornering him, and oh. Right. He was trying to avoid Sally for a reason.

Michael gives Gob a sympathetic look but doesn’t stay, leaving just Gob and Sally and Tony alone in this hallway.

Sally tries to make Tony leave with a flick of her hair, but Tony catches Gob’s eye and stays, just like he stayed in the fight. Sally rolls her eyes and presses on, ignoring him, but Gob can tell she’s irritated, her shell just a little bit cracked.

“So, Gob.” She smiles, and it’s all perfect teeth. “I wanted to say thank you, it was so totally sweet of you to defend my honor like that.”

Gob can’t help the little snort that escapes, but Sally seems to decide to interpret that as nerves. Which. Not wholly inaccurate. Just not for the reason she’s thinking.

Sally presses on, leaning in closer and closer. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask me something, but I get it if you’re intimidated.” Her victorious grin is a slow moving trainwreck. “But we’re totally going to homecoming together, right? Homecoming King and Queen?”

He starts making the mouth shapes to tell Sally no when Tony cuts in. “Of course he is!” Tony glares at Gob, and he’s clearly trying to communicate something, but Gob is too taken aback to process what it could possibly be.

Sally deigns to look at Tony for the first time. “Evaporate, small person.”

Tony rolls his eyes but does turn away. Once Sally stops looking, he starts gesturing wildly at Gob, who still can’t understand what’s happening, but the thumbs up is a pretty definitive clue that he should say yes to Sally.

“Yes?” It’s less confident than he’d like it to be, but Sally seems satisfied, and so does Tony. She grabs out a ballpoint pen and ouch , writes her number on his hand, ignoring the fact that Lindsay definitely has her number and that even if she didn’t, his mother would. Sally tells Gob that he can pick her up at seven, and she waltzes away, satisfied.

“Wait, so you want me to go with Sally now?” Gob hisses to Tony, shocked.

Tony looks a little pale himself. “Well. You need to, right?” He slumps against the row of lockers behind them. “She’s a lot.”

And that’s the understatement of the century right there. Sally Sitwell is a lot, all the time, so much. “I was about to say no.”

Tony shakes his head. “It’s just one dance, right? And you’ll win homecoming king for sure. It’ll be fine, I’ve-” he cuts himself off with another headshake. “It’ll be fine.”

Gob sure hopes so.

Chapter Text

With an hour to go before homecoming, the Bluth apartment is in explosion of chaos, hormones, and parental induced insecurities.

“Lindsay! Stop laughing and help me with this tie!” Michael somehow managed to spit out enough words to invite Tracey to the dance, and is a hot freaking mess as a result. “I don’t know how it got like this, and I don’t care, but it’s the only one I have in the right shade of blue!”

Lindsay doesn’t stop laughing. “I just can’t imagine how you tied it into a knot like that! It’s Gregorian!”

Michael rolls his eyes. “Do you mean Gordian?”

“Whatever, nerd, good luck getting that untied.”

Michael looks at Gob imploringly. “Your fine motor skills trump mine, please help?”

Under normal circumstances, Gob would be right in there with Lindsay mocking Michael, but his heart isn’t in it tonight. He starts helping Michael unscramble his tie on autopilot, trying to brace himself for tonight. He’s still not sure what’s going on with Tony, he definitely knows he doesn’t want to do anything remotely sexual with Sally tonight, and he just wants this whole clusterfuck to be over with.

He looks good though. Tony helped him pick out a suit, and that was nice, like they were going together, even if Tony’s repeatedly said that he’ll just be staying home and out of the way. Tony picked a dark purple color, and it feels a little wild, a little like he’s about to go on stage and perform a great illusion. Which, in a lot of ways, is true.

This is just an act, and Gob knows how to do that.

He has to.

~~~

Ten minutes before they’re supposed to leave, Lindsay is missing. Michael’s on the verge of a total meltdown, and even their mother is getting pissed, since obviously she still needs to have the maid take a group photo of their perfect, beautiful, normal family.

“Gob!” Lucille snaps. “Find that daydreaming brat and get her out here!”

Yep. Perfect, beautiful, normal. Gob just wants to get this night over with, so he acquiesces. Besides, he’s pretty sure he knows where Lindsay will be.

The door to her bedroom is open on push, and there she is, dressed in four hundred dollars worth of chiffon and satin. The champagne bottle she's holding in her fist completes the picture, and Gob thinks that if Lindsay never figures out a career, she could always sell alcohol. Because she looks like a magazine ad, all sad eyes and perfect makeup against the distant backdrop of the ocean barely peeking out over the glistening city.

"Linds. Mom wants a picture."

Lindsay snorts. "Yeah. Like I want this recorded for eternity." She gestures at herself, although Gob can't really see anything wrong with her outfit, except for the champagne being technically not legal for his fifteen year old sister. Lindsay rolls her eyes. “Gob, honestly. I’m taller than every other girl in my year, I’ve had boobs since fifth grade, and yet I don’t have a date. I’m a failure at the one thing I’m supposed to be good at.”

“You’re good at lots of things.” And it’s true. His sister may be the queen bee of Newport, but she’s also the only member of their family that keeps up with the wider world outside of Newport, and Gob thinks that’s neat. “And you don’t have a date because you told everyone you didn’t want one.”

She made a nice memo about it actually. Wrote it out in typing class and everything.

“Yeah, but that was me playing hard to get. I thought maybe Todd or Ryan would step up and make some big dramatic gesture.” Lindsay pouts like it’s a joke, but her eyes express genuine hurt. And Gob knows how stupid her plan was, and thinks maybe she does too, but at the same time he also gets it. The Bluths are master wall builders. Their parents talk about walls with the utmost tenderness. Walls that keep out non club-members, walls to keep out immigrants, walls to keep out human emotion.

Lindsay sighs. “Do you ever feel, I don’t know, abandoned? Or like you don’t fit into this family?” Gob think about Tony, about football, and nods. He also gently takes the champagne from Lindsay, and she lets him.

“Show them wrong at the dance. This way you can dance with everyone.” Her eyes sparkle, maybe from the tears but also from the sort of nihilistic glee of a night able to be spent ignoring social obligations that Gob is well familiar with.

The photo gets taken, and Gob officially is free to pick up Sally Sitwell for what will surely be the least enjoyable school event since the herpes assembly.

Sally looks great, or whatever. Her ice blue dress compliments Gob’s dark purple, even though they didn’t plan it, and she came prepared with her own corsage. When Gob makes a token protest that he could have found her one, she just laughs. It’s actually not the worst to be hanging out with Sally. She seems to understand what this is, that they both need the publicity, and her direct mercantilism is refreshing in a way.

Other people suck though, and Gob knows their classmates are whistling at them because they think, finally, a Bluth-Sitwell couple. For once, the applause doesn’t fill him up, it only makes him more aware of that empty space in his chest. Bryce offers him a high five, and it takes all of Gob’s willpower to smile while doing it. Girls he’s previously dated are glaring at Sally, and she flourishes under those glares, sucking up jealousy like MiracleGrow, but Gob just feels like a piece of shit.

Stacy and Jenna are here, dressed like a thrift store threw up on them, and he offers them a wave of his own volition. Jenna rolls her eyes, but Stacy returns the wave, even though she looks kind of sad about it. They usually don’t come to dances, and Gob thinks maybe for a second they came to this one so that they could support him, vote for him, and he has to abandon that thought before he runs up and begs their forgiveness for ruining their evening with this bullshit.

The music is great, at least. And Gob is a freaking good dancer. Even Sally seems kind of impressed, and dancing like this, all wide spins and dramatic turns, does mean they don’t need to hold each other close like the real couples.

He knows Tony won’t be here, but it doesn’t stop him from looking.

Lindsay is dancing away with every single dude at the school and seems to be making it a personal mission to flirt with most of the already committed ones as well. Michael and Tracey are definitely Not Dancing, but they are off in a corner giggling and chatting away. Gob’s happy for his siblings, he really is.

Totally.

He just wants this night to be over. He wants to be in bed with chocolate and alcohol. And possibly Tony.

When Vice-Principal Jordan steps on stage to announce the voting results, Gob’s heart rate starts climbing. Because he does want this, wants to give his mother this win, wants to drop it in her lap and run back to Tony and the magic club. He needs this, needs a tribute to distract her so he can be free again.

“And the winner for Homecoming King and Queen - George Oscar Bluth and Sally Sitwell!”

Sally gives a perfect, queenly wave, and Gob focuses on staying upright and not slumping to the floor in relief. There are some cheers. There are also some sobs by the girls who wanted to win instead, but in general, the crowd accepts the result with an air of inevitability. Of course a Sitwell and Bluth would win.

And that’s when the smoke machine malfunctions.

Gob’s the first to notice, since he’d actually been eyeing the smoke machines as a potential illusion prop. Slowly, the dusky white smoke has been getting thicker and thicker, but when their names are announced, with a sputter and a clang, the smoke starts pouring out. Students are coughing, and visibility is dropping. Gob can hear the chaperones calling for someone to unplug them, and there’s general confusion mounting in the room.

When he turns to ask Sally if she thinks they should start evacuating, he pauses, words dying in his mouth.

Because Tony is here, in a black suit that looks so, so good on him, and he’s offering Gob his little shy smile like that first day in English class.

It’s like they’re alone in a cloud that smells of licorice, and Gob wonders if this is real or if he’s slipped into another elaborate fantasy, like sometimes in English class when he gets distracted by Tony’s profile. Those daydreams are pretty great actually, but if this turns out to be not real, not true, Gob thinks he might cry. And then do the chocolate and alcohol in bed thing.

Tony doesn’t say anything for a while, just maneuvers back and forth to dodge the movements of other students that Gob can’t see. When Tony steps on his foot by accident, Gob knows this is real.

He gestures at the smoke. “Did you do this?”

Tony nods, and he looks so nervous, Gob just has to reach out and grab his hand. Tony’s hand is warm and bigger, rougher than Sally’s, and Gob thinks to himself how perfect this feels.

“Hey,” Tony starts, voice low and slow. “Do you wanna get out of here?”

Gob can’t help but let out a laugh. “Yes, yes I do.” He takes a quick scan of the room, and yep, everyone else is panicking and no one is looking.

Kissing Tony is really, really nice. Gob gets to lean down a little to make it work, but Tony pulls greedily at his suit coat, and it’s rough and messy and perfect for them.

It’s magical, honestly.

When they break apart, it’s Tony’s turn to laugh a little. “That answers that question.”

Gob shakes his head. “It was never a question. Let’s go. And tell me how you did this!”

Their hands are still intertwined, so Tony is the one to lead them out through the crowd, seemingly following a pattern well practiced. Gob thinks he gets a glimpse of Stacy manning one smoke machine and Jenna on another. Stacy gives Tony a cheeky salute, and yep, that’s Stacy. “Hey, how did you get Stacy and Jenna involved?”

Tony tilts his head. “I figured asking the lesbians would be a safe move.”

Huh. Gob always thought Stacy was Norwegian and Jenna was from Portugal. But he’s never been good at South American geography. Tony can teach him, and Gob can teach Tony about tax fraud.

Tony smiles teasingly at Gob in the parking lot. “Is it okay that I stole a football player slash homecoming king from, you know, homecoming?”

“Fuck football. Let’s go start a bonfire on the beach.” Because that’s what sounds good to Gob, the ocean and Tony and fire and Tony. And by the look on Tony’s face, it sounds good to him too.

“Hell. Yeah.”