Chapter Text
Wilbur wakes up the next morning filled with an almost overwhelming amount of purpose.
It's definitely a noticeable change. For one, he wakes up and actually wants to stay awake, which is a feeling he hasn't had since he first got promoted. After XD, his life had been little more than a haze, a mindless monotony that blurred together into days, weeks, months, a year. Not painful, by any means, but not purposeful. Not anything that makes him actually want to get out of bed in the morning, and certainly not with this much enthusiasm.
The dull indifference in his chest is replaced with a bright, glowing heat that he can feel all the way down to his toes. Today, after all, he has a purpose — he has a case to solve.
The newfound energy makes sense. What he can't figure out is why he's in a good mood, of all things. He's invigorated, yes, curious, but happy? He barely knows what to do with the word. He doesn't know even know why exactly — maybe it's the excitement of the case, the chance to prove all these people wrong, or that new fucking detective, if he's feeling generous with the term.
Oh, shit. Tommy.
Last night, after several hours of stubborn reluctance, Wilbur promised Phil he'd meet him today. Now that it's actually today, he really, really doesn't want to, but who knows what that brat might do. For all he knows, he might go complaining to Dream and all of it, the faster internet, the higher clearance, all of it will be gone before he'd even get a chance to use it.
Give him a chance, Phil had said, earnest and pleading. Wilbur can do that much, he reasons. If he's anything, he's not a fucking quitter.
He sits up in his ancient mattress and reaches for his phone, lying face-down on the floor — his flat is already almost claustrophobically small, so he can't afford the luxury of a nightstand — finding his most recent contact on autopilot.
"Techno," He calls, knowing it's six a.m and exactly when Techno is asleep. "Do you know where the child is staying?"
"Who are you taking about?" Technoblade asks, voice tinny and drowsy through the phone."That kid? Tommy?"
"That's what I said."
"Where do you think?" Techno asks, a little more alert. "Maybe check the only hotel we have."
He's at Logsted, then (Wilbur blames his lack of foresight on the lack of sleep). He'll be staying at the shitty hotel on the outskirts of town, bigger than any home around here and yet perpetually vacant. L'manberg isn't a place people visit so much as it's a place people you either live in forever or leave at the first fucking chance you get. It's no surprise that their tourists destinations leave something to be desired.
He takes the quickest, coldest shower he can and throws on the first thing he finds.
After a twenty minute drive, he arrives at a sad little white building with a sloped, sagging roof and water-warped wood planks. Intended to be for tourists, it's as close to the beach it can get without water damage seeping through the foundation. Being so close to the ocean is the only perk of getting up this early in the morning and driving out to the middle of nowhere — it's not like Wilbur can see this during his normal commute. When he gets to the door, he just takes a quiet moment for himself — he takes in the gentle lapping of distant waves, the sporadic squawking of seagulls.
It'll be fine. Worst case scenario, you just fucking leave.
Wilbur knocks once. Twice. He debates rapping the door for a final, insufferably loud time before he hears an irritated, "For fuck's sake, hold on." muffled through the door before it's swinging open to reveal Tommy Innit in all his sleep-deprived glory, in a cotton t-shirt and thick sweatpants.
The bags under his eyes are even darker than yesterday, his hair more disheveled. He just stares at Wilbur. "What the fuck are you doing here?" He asks, bluntly.
Wilbur already feels his blood pressure rising. He forces himself to take a deep breath before flashing him his best, most amicable smile. He gestures to the plastic tray stuffed with Styrofoam cups that he picked up earlier. “I brought coffee.”
Tommy doesn’t budge. “Why?”
“So we can work together?" Wilbur says, once again taken aback by the extent of Tommy's skepticism. "I was thinking we go over the details of the case, maybe talk about the murder.”
Tommy’s expression doesn’t change. He looks down from Wilbur’s face to the tray and back again.
“Listen,” Tommy says tiredly, sounding exhausted and so, so much older. “I know you’re only doing this because you have to. You don't have to fucking — do whatever this shit is.”
Wilbur tries not to let his face change in any way. He's a perceptive kid. Or maybe, like him, he's just used to false promises. "What do you mean?"
"You." Tommy says, pointedly. "Here. With your stupid pity drink, acting like we're going to be friends or something."
Wilbur bites back the sharp retort of, Why the hell would I want to be your friend? and instead tries to figure out how he can reason with him. The easy thing to do would be to walk away. He could just tell Phil that he gave him an honest chance, that he put his best foot foreward and came up short. Surely he'll take Wilbur's side, won't he?
Except.
He remembers, clearly, the way Tommy's face lit up yesterday. The way his quiet concentration and pinched expression gave way for a bright smile and curious eyes.
He wants to see it again, he realizes. He doesn't know why. It feels like a challenge. A tiny, tremulous part of him says, When have you ever done things the easy way?
"Listen, We don't have to be friends," Wilbur starts, "Just partners. Just for now. God knows you're the most annoying person alive —"
"At first." Tommy mumbles.
"What?"
"Most people find me annoying at first." He repeats, petulantly, staring at his feet.
Something ignites in Wilbur's chest. He can't put a name to it.
“Alright. So just give it a chance,” He says, an echo of Phil. What the fuck is he doing? “One hour." Then he says what he knows will seal the deal. Nonchalantly, he adds, "Unless you're a bitch, Tommy Innit, which is perfectly fine.”
Tommy's eyes gleam with something fierce, something defiant, something hopeful. "I'm no bitch, Wilbur Soot."
"Prove it."
“Alright,” Tommy concedes. “Where are we going?”
Wilbur’s made a lot of mistakes in his life. Some fickle, some fatal, some irreversible.
Giving Tommy Innit any access to caffeine is possibly the worst one.
It seems like he has two modes — closed-off and abrasive or entirely lacking a filter. Wilbur's stuck with the latter.
“Let’s do murder!” Tommy crows, bounding up ahead of him with the confidence of someone who knows exactly where he's going, not someone who literally got here yesterday and who Wilbur watched get lost three times on a one-way street. He's wearing that too-big windbreaker again even though Wilbur's not, but he figures the kid has to — without it he just looks like a high-schooler who bunked their first class. Under it he's just wearing a red-and-white baseball t-shirt, which he opted for when Wilbur told him they weren't officially on duty yet, with those same scuffed-up white converse. Wilbur feels overdressed, ridiculously, in his sweater and light overcoat, but decides immediately that he won't be embarrassed about his fashion choices by a child.
Despite himself, Wilbur laughs, full-bodied. “Maybe don’t shout ‘murder’ when there's an actual dead body —"
“Then strip club.” He rattles off, ignoring Wilbur. “Crack. M&M world —”
He's such a chaotic little shit when he's out of his shell, Wilbur thinks, somehow already embarrassingly amused by this kid. He just has so much life to him, so much bright, boundless energy. It's hard not to be a little enthralled by it in a place like L'manberg — or, at least, the place L'manberg's become — like a star lacking its light. “You’re seventeen, dumbass. No strip club is going to let you in."
Tommy groans theatrically. “Why do you have to such a loser all the time?”
Wilbur gives him an unimpressed look. "You just met me."
"Yeah, and I can already tell you're a loser. What does that say about you?"
“You’re so embarrassing.” Wilbur groans, words muffled and head in hands. He can't find it in him to be actually upset and he's infuriated with himself — what happened to his unwavering ire from yesterday? What happened to his anger? Is he really so weak-willed?
“Who’s embarrassed?” Tommy shouts, somehow raising his voice even more and gesturing to the empty park. “No one is embarrassed here.”
Wilbur doesn’t think he’s ever laughed this hard in his life. He has to admit, once he gets past his overall abrasiveness, Tommy’s a funny kid. Smart, too. Quick-witted. There are only so many people who can keep up with Wilbur’s verbal jabs, much less be on par with him. He can’t deny that their short interaction felt bright and easy, two words he would never have associated with his life before.
The entire walk to Niki’s bakery is exactly like that, Wilbur points out every monument they pass, with surprisingly Tommy only interrupting with one or two intentionally landmine-filled questions.
("Why does this say 'I heart Penis?'" Tommy asks innocently, a mischievous glint in his bright-blue eyes. "Wilbur, why are you showing me this? A minor —"
"Okay, we're moving on.")
It's surprisingly pleasant. Wilbur wants to show Tommy everything in this city, he wants to hear his stupid jokes and purposefully goading questions. It's been so long since he'd wanted to point any of it out to, well, anyone. Everyone he's ever known is a L'manberg native and had no reason to hear Wilbur's stupid little anecdotes or random facts, but Tommy doesn't know anything about this quiet little city. He's also a surprisingly eager listener, and i f there’s anything Wilbur knows, it’s L’manberg.
It's home, through and through. He loves every inch of its history, every crumbling building, every splintered sign. He knows these streets. He knows these well-worn dirt roads, the smell of sea in the air, the number of steps it takes to get from his flat to the office and back again. He knows the people, he knows the flowers and food and bright, bustling sound of music that used to fill every corridor. Now, it’s little more than a ghost town, little more than a cautionary tale — this is what happens when you fly too close to the sun.
Him and the city are the same, in that way. Twin Icaruses, wax wings a melted and charred caricature of their former glory.
This is your chance to fix it, he tells himself. This is your chance to fix everything.
"Hey, Niki," Wilbur says, smiling tiredly, walking into her bakery with Tommy hot in his trail. "Can we get the usual?"
Even though they're the only ones in there, they sit in the back, at the table closet to the window. At its zenith, the sun shines in dappled streams of light through the windows, illuminating the files and photos Wilbur's strewn out on the table in a light glow. It's a little bit of a foreign sight, if he's being honest — usually he works at the dead of night, his case files illuminated by the fluorescent lights of his office — the only reason he's even working this early is because of the kid, he supposes. He didn't want to keep him up too late.
Even pulling them out of storage had almost torn something apart in him. Seeing that scrawled XD on the box, rummaging through what was important, sifting through what wasn't. The word Unsolved seemed cruel, mocking, and he had to remove that file from the box altogether.
"Why did you bring the stuff about XD?" Tommy asks curiously, looking over his shoulder. Wilbur fights the urge to snap the file shut on reflex, shame bubbling in his gut.
Wilbur's surprised before he remember's Tommy's scathing comment from yesterday. Of course he knows about L'manberg's biggest case. Still, he asks him anyway, "You know about that?"
Tommy snorts. "Of course I know about that, Big Dubs. Almost everyone does."
Wilbur tries not to let that get to him. Almost everyone knows. He had known, on some level, but it still hurts, still twists something sharp and jagged in his chest. L'manberg has that affect on people — it's easy to forget the rest of the world exists.
"I would've thought you'd be too young," Wilbur says, trying to shake the feeling away. "I mere embryo. A glint in your father's eye."
Tommy sends him a withering look with no real heat to it. "Fuck you, bitch."
"What do you know about it, child?"
"He was a wrong'un," Tommy says, rather redundantly. He seems to know it too, because at the look on Wilbur's face he continues, slightly embarrassed, "I mean, a real wrong'un. Stole a lot of shit, blackmailed a lot of people." He glances at Wilbur carefully for a moment before his eyes shoot back down. "He hasn't been caught."
Wilbur ignores it. "Do you know anything else?"
Tommy shakes his head. He takes a seat in the chair across from Wilbur, leaning over the table to get a better look.
“XD’s thing is attachments,” Wilbur explains, spreading the deck of pictures out on the table. “He's a thief, a hoarder. That’s why this death is so important — he’s never killed before. We need to know what pushed him.”
Tommy blinks. "You think this is XD?"
Wilbur almost forgot he didn't know — the only other person who really needed to was Techno, and he already understood exactly what Wilbur meant.
"The body is right next to one of his safehouses," Wilbur explains. "Like, weirdly close. No one goes out that far into the woods, not for a kill as unplanned as this. No one even knows its location except for XD and the officers who worked that case, but they've already been ruled out."
Tommy is — well, he's surprisingly accepting of this information. He just nods, watching him intently, so Wilbur continues.
“He takes things and holds them over people so he can control them. Pets, possessions, sometimes — sometimes people.”
A shot in the dark. An unsigned note. Meet me at our spot, you know the one.
Wilbur almost physically shakes his thoughts away. "His gear's always been on the expensive side, so he know he must hold down some kind of steady income, which means he's a functional member of society."
The other picture is one he's stared at for hours, the one he can map ever crease, ever crevice, every cut. It's of a crudely carved XD in the side of a table, wood chipped and splintered. "This is his signature — that’s why we call him XD."
Tommy’s gaze lingers on one photograph — the most mundane one, strangely. It’s the one of the fish, striped orange and black, sitting in an old tin bucket. It's probably the one Wilbur's studied the least, mostly because he simply has nothing to connect it to. He assumes it's important, he assumes it's personal, but everything else is a whisper in the wind. Who would've thought that Tommy of all people would get hung up on it?
"What is it?" Wilbur asks curiously, studying his reaction carefully.
Tommy startles like he's coming out of a trance. “Nothing,” He mumbles under his breath, leaning back. “It just looks familiar.”
Wilbur blinks. “What, the fish?”
"Don't look at me like that," Tommy says defensively, crossing his arms. “My friend used to have a fish like that. Named it Mars, stupid fuckin’ name. I thought it died a long time ago. That’s what Dream said.”
There it is, that quiet mention of Dream. "Who was the friend?"
"No one." Tommy snaps, immediately.
"Alright, that's okay. Do you see anything else?" Wilbur asks, trying to make Tommy feel more comfortable.
It does the opposite. Tommy's shoulder's just hunch in even more. "Why do you keep doing that?" He interrupts.
"Doing what?"
"Asking me what I think," Tommy says, frustrated, like Wilbur should know. "Why do you care?"
There's no way this isn't a trick question, but Wilbur doesn't know Tommy yet — he doesn't know the right play here. Still, he goes for honesty, earnest and simple, because Tommy seemed to appreciate the few times he tried. "Because you're my partner?"
"But it's not — but you're —" He makes another frustrated noise. "You're my superior."
"Yes?" Wilbur gets the feeling that he's treading dangerous water here.
"Nothing," Tommy says, suddenly. He's painfully tense, Wilbur notices, sitting up ram-rod straight. He's staring intently at the edge of the table and nothing else. "Nothing. Forget it."
Wilbur doesn't want to forget it. He wants to have closure, he wants his friends to have closure, and he solve this case. Tommy Innit is hiding something, something that could be integral to unraveling it. "Aren't you a detective?"
"Why are you asking stupid questions?" Tommy retorts, scowling.
"Why wouldn't I want to know your opinion?"
"Drop it, Wilbur, seriously." Tommy sounds like he's just barely keeping himself from losing it. Like a witness about to snap and spill everything.
"Why wouldn't I want to know your opinion, Tommy?"
"I said drop it, you stubborn bastard." Tommy spits, pushing himself up to his feet, his chair screeching backwards. They would be making a spectacle if anyone else was in here. "It's none of your godamn business!"
"It is if you're going to jeopardize the case."
"I'm not going to jeopardize anything! You're being dramatic!"
"Really? Because this is the third time you've clearly known something about this and you've refused to say anything," Wilbur says, watching as Tommy's face blanches.
"You don't know what you're talking about." Tommy seethes. "You don't fucking know me."
I do, Wilbur thinks, unbidden. I don't know how, but I do.
Out loud, he says, "I know you enough to know you're going to ruin everything I've worked for."
"Fuck you." Tommy snaps, voice dangerously wet. "Selfish fucking bastard."
"And you're an immature child." Wilbur spits, also pushing himself to his feet, trying to cover up how deep Tommy's outburst cut. "I almost thought you were cut out for this — I guess I was wrong. I guess Dream was wrong, too."
Tommy looks stricken. He blinks rapidly and for a brief, horrifying moment Wilbur thinks he might cry. But Tommy just stands there, motionless, curling his hands into fists and just taking deep, shaking breaths. One second passes, then two, then three and after what feels like an eternity he finally spins on his heel and stalks out, slamming the door behind him.
Wilbur is left standing there, alone amongst the scattered pictures and strewn chairs. He feels angry. Empty. Hollowed out, raw, exposed, like a live-wire. He feels sickeningly satisfied because he knows what he's like, he knows this is what he does. He feels —
He feels nothing at all.
A part of Wilbur doesn't expect Tommy to show up at all the next morning.
He isn't as pleased with the thought as he thought he'd be, and he catches himself glancing at the office doors more than once, hoping for something he cannot name.
He doesn't regret what he did — every bone in his body tells him that Tommy's hiding something, and everything about Tommy screams that it's about the case. He needs to solve it — he needs to solve this one, of nothing else, and one skittish kid isn't going to get in his way.
But then he remembers what it was like to be a rookie, to be young and headstrong but passionate and earnest. He knows what it was like to be mocked for it, underestimated, belittled. To want nothing more than for people to see him as an equal, so see him as a fucking person. He clawed his way to get to where he is, pushed back against all the odds against him, and somewhere along the line he lost the piece of himself that promised to never be the person he hated, the person who made him feel small and cowed and insignificant. The world hardened and he hardened with it.
He broke that promise to himself before he even realized it. Tommy is not jaded, at least, not in the way Wilbur was forced to be. He has so much potential — he's still bright and loud and fierce, when he wants to be, and Wilbur doesn't want to be the reason for that fire to burn out. Not when he knows what it was like to feel that spark be stamped out in himself.
He wants to try again, he realizes, surprised at himself, at the determination welling inside of him. He wants to try again even though he failed. All for this stupid fucking kid with his earnest smile and sharp wit. Just for the fucking hell of it.
"Oh," Wilbur says, deflating when a familiar head of pink hair pushes their way thorough the double doors instead. "It's you."
"Were you expecting someone else?" Techno asks, amused and somewhat knowing. Wilbur bristles immediately, sitting up straighter, wiping the forlorn look of his face. "No," He snaps half-heartedly, with a tone that he knows Techno already doesn't believe. "I was just waiting for you. I wanted to actually get on with it, unlike some people in this office."
"Right." Techno says, and walks across the room to pour himself the half-burnt coffee Wilbur already brewed while trying to quell his restlessness.
When Tommy finally does get in thirty minutes after everyone else, he clearly wants nothing to do with him. He walks past Wilbur brusquely, borderline shoulder-checking him on the way to his desk, which, conveniently, is set up right in front of his. Phil told him he was going to get Tommy settled at the office. Wilbur doesn't believe it's just a coincidence.
Wilbur opens his mouth to do — to do what, he doesn't know — Talk? Ask him where he's been? Apologize? — but Phil takes that moment to burst through the doors, harried, and whatever courage Wilbur summoned disappears.
"Alright," Phil says, without preamble. He looks visibly worried and Wilbur's immediately on edge. "We have a busy day ahead of us, so look alive. First, we got an ID on the body."
Techno perks up. "Finally. Who was it?"
"His friends called him MD," Phil says. "He was nineteen. They described him as lively, loud, the life of the party. He was planning to study law right before the accident, and—" Phil pauses. "He's an Essempi native."
Wilbur blinks. Maybe he misheard, he thinks. Maybe Phil meant something else. He asks, "Was he going on vacation here or something? A road trip?"
Phil shakes his head, expression grim. "We asked friends and family, and no, he was — he lived there all his life. Never left."
An Essempi native? This is quickly forming a picture Wilbur does not like. If the victim never left Essempi, how did they dispose of the body in L'manberg?
This can only mean that the victim was never killed in L'manberg. It can only mean something they've never considered until now — that their killer's from Essempi. That XD is from Essempi.
Tommy's face dawns with understanding at the same time his does, and his face drains of color. He's very carefully not looking at any of them, even as they all stare at him.
"Okay, today I need you two to go investigate the scene of the crime." Phil starts, handing Techno and Wilbur two files, either ignoring their shock or too tired to deal with it. "Try to find XD's safehouse. It's — it's been a while. See if you can find anything that connects him to Essempi." Phil hesitates, then hands Tommy the file too, who takes it looking visibly surprised.
"Tommy's coming with."
Without thinking, Wilbur makes eye-contact with Tommy from across the room. He doesn't look nearly as angry as Wilbur was expecting. He just looks tired and very stressed. Even as he stands up, he's quiet and tense, and it's so unlike the person Wilbur met yesterday that he feels a physical pang at the memory.
After a very awkward, very long car ride, the three of them make it to side of the highway again. Using the faded police tape to guide them, they find themselves back to the small clearing where they found the body. Technoblade pulls out the three radios Phil gave them before they left.
"Alright," He drawls. "Who wants to explore the creepy murder forest?"
"Why not all of us?" Wilbur asks.
"Someone needs to stay here in case we get lost, or something. So we know how to get back."
"I'll go." Tommy offers. His eyes are downcast, hands shoved deep into his pockets. "You guys can stay here."
Wilbur confused before he realizes that Tommy probably wants to reduce how much time he spends with them. Wilbur's too guilty to argue with him on it, even if he thinks Tommy's probably the most likely to get lost out here.
"There's no coverage out here," Techno explains, turning the dial to find the right frequency. "So we have to use these. You know how to use a walkie talkie, right?"
"Don't patronize me, prick." Tommy mumbles as he snatches it from him, sounding like his real self. He checks the radio again and looks up at them for a brief moment. His eyes catch on Wilbur and his expression becomes conflicted. His mouth opens like he wants to say something but just as quickly he snaps it shut and marches into the forest without another word.
"Geez, Wil," Techno says, once Tommy is out of earshot. "What did you do to piss him off so badly?"
"Nothing," Wilbur says, clipped and short. "Just make sure he comes back in one piece."
Techno gives him a look. "Wil —"
"The fuck am I looking for again?" Comes Tommy's voice through the radio, high and tinny.
"A big fuck-off cabin." Wilbur deadpans. "Kind of hard to miss."
"I didn't ask you, bitch." Tommy bites, which Wilbur tries not to let sting too much. "Technoblade, what am I looking for?"
"A cabin?" Techno says, obviously uncomfortable with the tension between them. "I guess it's big?"
Only static comes through. Wilbur waits thirty seconds, (He's impatient, he tells himself, not worried) and he's about to ask Tommy to come back when the radio crackles to life again.
"Uh," Tommy interrupts. "Boys. I may or may not be lost."
Wilbur groans, worry dissipating but still lingering at the back of his mind. "Of course you are."
"I didn't say I was lost — it's a hy-po-thetical, dickhead!" Tommy splutters indignantly. "Technoblade, where are you?" He asks, addressing him specifically.
"Uh," Techno replies awkwardly. "What do you see?"
"A big-ass rock — looks a little bit like Lizzie, actually."
"Lizzie?" Wilbur repeats, disbelieving. Is the kid hallucinating?
"The Queen." Tommy says, like Wilbur's an idiot. He seems to have forgotten that he was trying to give him the silent treatment."You don't know her?"
"I don't call her fucking Lizzie!"
"Guess you're not as good of a friend with her as as I am," Tommy says, like he hasn't just said the most absurd thing he's ever heard. Wilbur has to physically stop himself from laughing out loud.
Techno looks like he's rather be anywhere else but dealing with them. He looks around a little bit before his eyes glint with understanding. "Wait, I think I actually remember that. I'll be to your east, then."
There's a pause. "Is east to the left?"
A laugh escapes Wilbur's chest. "East's to the right, Tommy."
"Then I'll be on hard west — no, no north, Techno — wait, no, up —"
Wilbur can't stop himself from cackling again. "That's not left or right!"
Techno looks deeply disappointed. "Confidence is not being inspired within me right now."
"Technoblade, just tell me where you are." Tommy whines.
"I'm just to your east!"
"That doesn't mean anything to me!"
"Look at the sun! You see the direction the sun is in?" Techno shouts, exasperated. "It's the other way!"
"Oh, so you're to the left. Of, course, east's to the fuckin' —"
"I went towards the moon!"
"Look, Technoblade," Tommy says, matter-of-factly."We've established I don't know where east is. Maths isn't my strong point."
Techno looks like he wants to pull his hair out. "It's the moon, you don't need math!"
"There's no time to be arguing about who's in charge of the moon, Techno."
"Bruh." Techno mutters, voice wobbling.
They all burst out laughing at that. Tommy, loud and wheezing, Wilbur, bright and sharp, and Techno, a bark more than anything. It sounds absurdly familiar. Absurdly comforting. Absurdly, like it was meant to be.
Then, like all good things in Wilbur's life do, the moment shatters.
"Guys," Tommy interrupts, voice suddenly drawn serious and tense. "I think I found it."