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carnivalcarriondiscarded · 8 months

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Please tell me more about your human welcome home au 👀

!! gladly!!

i don't remember what i said in the first - and like... only lmao - post about it so if i restate some things! fuckign oopsie! (a lot of this is just Barnaby &/or Wally asbdjasj im sorry) also this got! so fucking long!

~ (im gonna talk about their middle/highschool years a lot so keep in mind the time frame is late 90s / early 2000s. they graduate high in either 2006/2007. so. yk. obvious warning for homophobia, transphobia, etc)

fun lil thing no.1)

so Barnaby & Wally briefly meet for the first time in the summer before 7th grade. the town Barnaby grows up & goes to school in isn't tiny, but it's not huge either. - i don't have a very good frame of reference for how many students are typically in a school, bc in both my middle/high there was at least nearly 2k of us. - so we'll just say it's smaller than that - a respectable, normal size, however many students that is. but Barnaby's school rarely, if ever, got any new kids.

so Wally randomly appeared on the edge of the Beagle farm one day, staring directly at Barnaby from across the fields. before Barnaby could go say hi, Wally vanished - but! on the first day of 7th grade, they wound up sharing a class. ofc within the day Wally was known as not only the new kid, but a weird kid at that. for the first week he sat next to a kid who had zeroed in on that and was an ass about it. Barnaby - already having an established rep as class clown & also widely well-liked by his peers - would try to stand up for Wally (from across the room) whenever that kid was being a dick to Walls in front of the class

by the end of that first week, seating arrangements were shifted, and Barnaby was seated next to Wally for the first semester instead. ofc the moment Barnaby sat down, he tried to strike up conversation and cracked a killer joke. and Wally, as we all know, doesn't laugh. he doesn't even blink! it rattles Barnaby to his core - not everyone laughs at his jokes, but there's always some kind of reaction!

class begins before Barnaby can be like "hey that. that was a joke. you're supposed to laugh". the whole hour all he can think about is the strange new kid next to him Who Didn't React To Barnaby's Joke. when the bell rings, Barnaby lingers as Wally (very slowly) packs up to go to his next class and walks him there. on the way he explains the joke, and Wally does the whole "oh. ha ha." thing. this all makes Barnaby very late to his next class (he's usually very punctual and never late - he doesn't want to disappoint his mama!) but for once he does not care.

Barnaby has been struck with this soul-deep need to get a genuine reaction out of Wally. he needs to make that guy actually laugh. it's all he can think about. he seeks Wally out for lunch, tries to find him after school (can't), looks for him in the halls. and to be clear! this is all very platonic! well, ok, these two kinda muddle the line BUT they have no romantic interest in each other. Barnaby just... really wants to be the new kid's friend. he wants to make him laugh. it's a friendship crush! platonic yearning! an inescapable desire to please & be accepted! he wants Wally's approval so so badly!

basically, Barnaby says "you're the weirdest person i've ever met (affectionate, intrigued, entranced)" and Wally replies "thank you (proud)"

fun lil thing no.2)

in my mind, Barnaby was a small kid. he was one of those kids who seemed like they were either gonna stay short, or just barely reach average height. he got his main growth spurt when he was like.... 16. it was very sudden. he lived the classic trope of "teen gets way taller over the summer and startles everyone on the first day of school". im talkin he goes from around 5'7 to 6'3. shoots right up like bamboo! and he's still not full height yet! mf is gonna cap out at 6'6!

on the flip side, Howdy was always just. so tall. he was that kid who towered over his peers from the start! ofc he got teased relentlessly for it (along with the transatlantic accent he started talking w/ at a young age and refuses to stop - among other eccentricities), but yk. he already got constant comments from his huge family about it, so he grew a thick skin pretty early on.

Poppy, on the other hand - the last of the three giants - had it worse than both of them! she wasn't outright taller than Howdy, and didn't have a sudden growth spurt like Barnaby, but steadily grew over the years until she was the tallest teen in town. this hit her hard bc not only did it draw unwanted attention to her & make her a target, but it made her dysphoria way worse (Poppy doesn't realize she's trans until highschool, and then doesnt medically transition until her early 20s)

but! once she started getting super tall, Howdy essentially glued himself to her a la "we tall guys gotta stick together!" a classic 'extrovert adopts introvert' thing. Poppy had no say in the matter.

fun lil thing no.3)

everyone's family sucks - except for Barnaby's, Howdy's, and Eddie's. well, mostly Eddie's. in my head they meant well but just... didn't really see the harm they were doing to him. he never spoke up, and they never saw him deeper than surface level.

but Frank's family? horrible. eugh. he was the school's "out gay kid" - not of his own choice! his peers picked up on it because it was very obvious. then the teachers heard, and let his parents know because of course they did, etc etc. Frank's home life was already shitty, and then getting outed (without any real proof or confirmation) made it a hundred times worse. he was a pretty depressed teen (emo Frank lets go) with mild anger issues & a habit for picking fights. but anyway on his eighteenth birthday he packed up his essentials into a backpack, escaped out the back, and never returned.

and Julie's siblings were alright, but their parents and grandparents were all very ~traditional~. it wasn't as rough as Frank's - it was more of a neglectful, passive-aggressive "you're all disappointments' household. ex: Jonesy was known as the local pothead & dealer, and his parents essentially pretend he's not part of the family despite him living in their basement. Bea had a bad (untrue) reputation, Franny was the goth weirdo who people blamed for their problems, etc. and then Julie was always different from "normal girls", and so her parents chalked her up as a mistake as well. but hey! at least the sibs were in it together! and the parents didn't care if Frank stayed over!

Poppy's family was great up until her parents caught her trying on a skirt Sally had made for her. it was a horrible, terrible downhill slide from there. they forced her to join the basketball team, made her keep her door open at all times, etc. for a while she couldn't even see her friends, though eventually they started sneaking in through her window & passing her notes in class. messaging in a 'secret' chatroom yk how it is. Poppy never directly stood up to her parents (very understandable & valid) but she rebelled in small ways. lying about having an after-school thing so that she could be with her friends, convincing her parents to let her go to a study group when in reality she'd be having a girls' night with Sally & Julie & Julie's sisters @ the Beagle farm.

Sally's family was similar to Julie's in that they were more lukewarm towards her than outright abusive. they thought she was too loud, too flamboyant, too expensive, too obvious, pretty much too everything. they wanted her to be normal - Sally wanted to stand on the roof and wax (loud) poetic about damsels. she wasn't outright bullied for being gay like Frank was, but it was certainly a common rumor that she was a lesbian. as a result, most of the girls at school wanted nothing to do with her, and the guys loved to provide commentary on the subject. her parents tried their best to ignore that truth and acted like she was totally straight. sure. still, Sally always refused to compromise on who she was, and treated it all like a mild annoyance. totally didn't hurt her at all. yep. (sarcasm)

there isn't anything known about Wally's family. not even Barnaby knows about them. the group tossed theories around (amongst themselves) over the years - was he an orphan? foster kid? was his family / home life so horrific that he doesn't want anyone to know? all they know is that he became an emancipated minor as young as legally possible and started living in Home, his (admittedly very spacious & high quality) RV. and they didn't even know about that until their junior year except for Frank

on the other side of the coin!

Ms. Beagle was the friend group's favorite adult growing up. the Beagle Farm was a common refuge & hangout spot for them, and Ms. Beagle let all of Barnaby's strange & delightful little friends know that there's always a guest room open for them, should they ever need it. and as a respected member of the community (and provider for the best chicken eggs in town), anyone who tried to speak up against the kids was Immediately shut the fuck down. Ms. Beagle took no shit. if people were talking ill about that "group of depraved teenage fuckups" and Ms. Beagle turned the corner, all conversation would cease until she was well out of earshot. she likes to say that she has 6 kids, all of whom she loves dearly and is very proud of <3

Howdy's family is too damn big to care. not in a neglectful way, just in a "oh, you're friends with... who was it again? Franz? invite him over to dinner someti- STOP PUNCHING YOUR BROTHER-" there's too much chaos, too many things to keep track of to care if Howdy's friends are gay, or trans, or absolutely fucking bizarre. they'll blend right in! Howdy could bring them over for dinner without telling his family and none of them would blink twice! Howdy mentioned that his friends have bad home lives Once and his parents immediately insisted that he bring them over for next week's thanksgiving so that they don't have to deal with that during what should be a holiday. thus began the All Six Of Us + Ms. Beagle + Franny/Bea/Jonesy Attend The Pillar Family Thanksgiving. its incredibly chaotic every time. there's so many fucking people. they're too busy fighting for survival (bread rolls) to bother with manners or awkwardness. every time they leave feeling like they fought a war. none of the friend group has missed a single year.

fun thing no.idontremember!

Wally & Barnaby have had three fights. each are catastrophic and threatened to tear the friend group apart. because those two are closer than anyone - they are each others person. they would both rather chug rat poison than willingly hurt each other. and while Barnaby - a pretty easygoing guy - can get riled up, Wally... really can't. he's never angry. even things that Should make him angry only make him confused or sad. he's too kind, too earnest, a bit of a pushover. he'll just take it with a smile.

so when Wally stands his ground, they all know shit is going tf down. code red, everyone brace. and if he stands his ground against Barnaby? pack a fucking go-bag and ditch town until the storm blows over.

the first time was when Barnaby found out that Wally lives in a damn RV. Wally got weirdly defensive about it, Barnaby was upset that Wally never even told him but somehow Frank knew (he had a bad night & couldn't go home, Julie was unavailable, and Wally found him and took him to the RV for the night) & that Wally is living alone in an RV at all, etc etc - it was a huge fight. & it just kept getting worse. when Barnaby tried to get Wally to move to the farm - that was the first time he's ever heard Wally snap at anyone, let alone him. and since the friend group is fully established at this point, and they're all hopelessly entangled in each others' lives, it affects all of them. sides have to be chosen - there is no neutral party on this. Wally ended up vanishing for a week without a word, and his RV vanished from where it had been parked thus far. the group was in shambles. when Wally turned back up, he actively avoided them all. it took Barnaby tracking down the rv and not leaving until Wally talked to him to have a conversation and fix things. but hey! the disaster actually helped them get even closer!

the second fight was when Barnaby had to go back to the Beagle Farm for their second year of community (Ms. Beagle had a minor accident and needed his help running the farm). Wally wanted to drop out too & go with him, and it turned into a big deal of Barnaby trying to get him to stay while Wally gets unusually pushy & upset about it. the fight wasn't nearly as bad as the RV one, and was more just sad/distressing, but it was still a fight. they parted on less than stellar terms, which they both felt horrible about. Wally has to go through the last year of community alone - he hasn't been alone in many years at this point, and since they met he's never been without Barnaby.

the third fight comes many years later, and this one is the worst. the friend group has all graduated university(those that attended), they're living in the same town, Barnaby & Wally (technically) share a house, Eddie is part of the group now. once again, its over everyone's favorite RV, Home. Home is very old at this point - Wally has had it for around 15 years, and he didn't get it new, and it's been through a lot. Wally is still half living in it, even though it's starting to fall apart. Barnaby brings up the notion that maybe it's time to send the old thing off to a dump, or find a way to put it in storage. they can't keep up the upkeep. it's time to say goodbye to it. Wally flips his fucking lid - or his version of it, anyway. because, uh. no. absolutely fucking not. it's already a very touchy subject, and emotions rise fast. Wally initially shuts down the conversation immediately. over the next week or so, few weeks maybe, tension between Barnaby & Wally simmers. the entire friend group is holding their breath. Barnaby wants the RV gone, as sad as he is about it. Wally won't allow it. of course they reach a breaking point - Barnaby pulls the "i own the property its parked on" card, Wally threatens to leave. of course that scares Barnaby, but that fear mixes with the anger and he fully yells at Wally for the first time. and then Wally shoves him. or tries to - it does nothing physically, but emotionally? it immediately drains all anger from the situation. Wally has never purposefully raised a hand against anyone ever, for any reason. and yet he tried to shove Barnaby. Wally immediately turns tail and runs - he locks himself in the RV, and Barnaby goes to Howdy's.

at Howdy's, Wally calls Barnaby. at first Barnaby jumps at the chance to apologize and try to work something out, but then he recognizes the background noise - Wally is driving Home somewhere. that RV is absolutely not fucking safe to drive anymore. the conversation immediately derails and goes from 0 to 100 within a second. Howdy is off to the side nervously sipping at his beer as Barnaby argues w/ Wally. the phone call abruptly cuts off, Barnaby says "the little bastard hung up on me" and starts Ranting. he says things he doesn't mean, obviously, and Howdy is trying to get him to chill tf out. he's just too angry/scared/hurt/worried yk?

but don't worry Barnaby! Wally didn't hang up on you! yeah so a while later (a little over an hour i think), Barnaby gets a call! it's from the town hospital! yeah so he's Wally's emergency contact, and apparently Wally "hanging up on him" was actually Wally getting into a horrendous accident. it wasn't his fault! there was a drunk driver! but it's... bad. the drunk driver had died in the crash, and since it was night and no one was around, help was a long time coming for Wally. its a miracle that someone found him & called an ambulance in time! so Barnaby realizes that the whole time he was talking shit & being angry, his best friend was slowly dying in a ditch somewhere, alone and in pain. and that's a whole thing!

time for some fun "facts"!

the first time Eddie went over to Frank's place, he immediately fainted when Frank turned the lights on & Eddie saw that he was surrounded by pet tanks filled with Very Large Bugs. then he fainted again when Frank removed the tarantula from its tank to clean said tank.

Wally & Barnaby's cat is named Welcome! she's usually small & pitch black with a permanently bristled tail! she's actually Barnaby's - he found her in a park as a kitten, and her unnerving stare reminded him of Wally so he took her home. Wally would like a dog! Barnaby would not! the cat is their only pet and will remain their only pet, no compromise. Wally retaliated by gluing googly eyes & dog ears onto a rock he found, then painting it. its name is Barnaby. Barnaby has beef w/ it a la Elmo & Rocco when Wally isn't looking

one time, during a group trip to the annual Pillar Family Thanksgiving, the gang stopped at a cabin-themed diner. Sally gasped at stopped Barnaby at the door "We must leave - you can't eat here". when everyone asked why, she pointed at a decorative sign on the wall: Don't Feed The Bears. it instantly became a smash hit inside joke that sometimes backfires (like that one time they go camping and Barnaby acts like he can't open the bear-proof dumpsters & locks & coolers). Howdy once got a "dont feed the bears" sign to put up in the store's diner section as a joke, but as soon as Barnaby saw it he left and refused to come back until Howdy took it down. he'd stand outside the store window and gaze at Howdy from afar w/ the biggest, saddest puppy eyes. it was incredibly effective

speaking of Howdy's store! they all built it together! Howdy managed to get his hands on an abandoned shell of an old building, and they all refurbished/renovated it! they all had the collective skills to get it done. Wally helped draw up blueprints & directed the color-scheme / painting portion, Sally and Barnaby used their carpentry skills, etc.

when Eddie "reconnects" with everyone, he feels like he's going insane. 'cause he keeps running into people who are familiar enough that it bothers him, but he just can't place where they're from (most if not all of them look very different from the last time he saw them in highschool). it drives him nuts! and then he meets Wally and Wally's like "oh! Eddie! it's you!" and Eddie's all "uh... how did you know myna- OH MY GOD IT'S YOU". he has a small crisis because he's over that time in his life, he's in a much better place, he's grown as a person. then he realizes that it's not just Wally but the entire fucking friend group he agonized over wanting to befriend for years and years. the group that (unintentionally) made him feel completely alone and like he was living a lie. and he keeps. running. into them. so Eddie, who just moved to this town, starts looking at mail carrier opportunities elsewhere bc he is Not doing this again - only for Julie to show up and drag him to a friend group function. because they all got together and went "oh, you caught up w/ Eddie too?? so we're in agreement? great! he's ours now! Julie, go get him". and then they accidentally break Eddie's wrist in a zealous game of soccer-baseball-corntoss & from then on won't leave him alone <3

Wally keeps his hair consistently dyed a rich royal blue - even his eyebrows! he continuously touches it up so his roots are never showing! Barnaby keeps his hair dyed blue in solidarity, but to a lesser extent - his roots show, and he doesn't dye his eyebrows or his sideburns/beard

on that vein, Wally has a very extensive hair-care routine he does every morning. he straightens his natural curls out, manipulates his hair into that absurd swirl, and hairsprays it to death. & gels down everything else. shit's Airtight. then at night he has an equally elaborate routine of washing the hairspray/gel out, treating his hair with high quality shampoos/conditioner/oils, and blowdrying it with impeccable technique to keep it Healthy

continuing on that vein - one time Barnaby was makin' breakfast when he heard a crash from upstairs. he sprinted to go see if Wally was alright, but Wally had locked the bathroom door and refused to open up. after Barnaby convinced him to, the door opened to reveal a very miserable Wally still in his towel. his hair was green. "the bottle said dye-safe', he said. the bottle lied. he wore hats for a while.

ok im gonna stop here! this is an absurd amount! i got carried away!

#this au is.... fun #its uh? speculative in a way?#im holding the neighbors in a tightly clenched fist and asking #'how can i keep you all as accurate as possible in this wildly different setting with completely different life experiences'#'how can i apply human life to you all and still keep you in character w/ lives Believable to your character'#its fun. its interesting. in a way its an exploration & dissection of their characters #rambles from the bog #wh modern human au #i.. enjoy it #its interesting to imagine and think about an consider!#how can i keep them the same and how can i Not while staying faithful!#i hope im succeeding!#sorry for the absurdly long post!!!!#this is over 3k words of wordspill!#actually no im not sorry! i hope you enjoy(ed)!

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