Chapter Text
Tommy had fallen harshly and distraughtly off of his sobriety wagon, waving goodbye to it as he sporadically took a drag off of his joint just a few roads over from his college.
Mayhaps it was a cry for attention, or maybe it was his obstinate nature that always brought him back to his poisons.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was Tommy’s last pleas to be okay with change, to rejoice in his smaller victories and move forward from minor setbacks.
Tommy loved being in motion, he loved the subtle changes in the seasons, but Tommy always wanted to stop and smell the roses. To defunctly forget his mistakes, to forgive and most importantly forget.
Forget he did, so wrapped up into the tactless nature of time, that he had forgotten his planned meetup at a local park with Wilbur.
For fucks sake, he grumbled to himself, stubbing the nearly finished roach with the sole of his trainers.
It was nearing 4:30; he was almost half an hour late.
With a spinning body, and racing heart he motioned begrudgingly in the direction of the park located 1.2 miles away. He didn’t bother checking his messages, he had already known what kind of ramifications he would soon face.
His brain started to float away as he mingled through his thoughts and tried to ingratiate ways that would have Wilbur on his side. Unfortunately, he tentatively knew that he was so very and ungracefully; fucked.
Unconsciously he clung to the other rolled joint in his signature blue jacket, rolling the end between his fingers as he came upon a clearing, soon revealing the mumbling mess that was the beanie clad figure yelling into a phone.
“Yeah- he’s here now. Alright,” an afflictive raise of his brow, “yeah, bye. I’ll keep you updated,” his phone dropped to his side, and if it wasn’t for the passerbyers, Tommy would have an earful as of current.
Wilbur did not need words to communicate his affronted, clearly not passive, gaze.
“C’mon,” he commanded, barely keeping his volume steady.
Tommy did not follow, instead his hand clung to the taller’s wrist, distributing the small substance between the other’s finger’s.
He turned around, eyes blown wide but in a sad non high sense. He pocketed the rolled plant, his wavering yet firm face stood neutral.
“Wil,” the frigid boy muttered first, “I need help.”
His high, already wearing down a bit, let him feel an impact of his emotions. This similar feeling that dated almost characteristically back to that fateful day months ago where Wil had confronted him.
A thin line of the tower’s chapped lips opened, “Toms, I don't know what to do for you anymore.”
A wave of turmoil surfaced, “What?” He spoke softly in an unsure voice as he withdrew his hands from his pockets.
The brunette shoved his hair out of his face, fixing his glasses so that he could nervously shift his eyes away from the younger briefly.
“We, I- your parents know now, Tom,” His heart dropped, “I was on the phone with your dad.” Silence as the ignoring crowd passed by them, too busied with their holiday plans.
A bittersweet feeling rested over him. He had admitted he was in the wrong, displayed his drugs, and now, without a proper trial, he had been convicted.
“You need professional help Tommy, we’ve been here time and time again. I know the story, I was you.” He nestles into his scarf as the wind rustles by, “That family member? He was a replacement story for me Toms, I lost myself once, he, I- I- I-, that person doesn’t exist anymore.” His heart pounds, that wasn’t right? Wilbur was perfect.
The Wilbur he knew was not a snitch, a druggie, a failure. Wilbur was successful. He was a confidant, an artist, he was family.
“Th- th- no, you-, you’re lying to me,” he flared his nose in discomfort, “stop playing games.”
He really wished that this was a game and that he had reached some story point he could skip past and never have to replay again, but reality was a cruel hard bitch, and Tommy felt the air around him crash violently against his reddened nose.
“You’re supposed to be untouchable, unhurtable and unmoving Wil, my three u’s that have never failed me until now,” he shuffled his shoes into the dirt, “I got clean for you last time!”
“You were never supposed to get clean for me!“ Their voices carried, and a few people and their dogs drew stares at the scene.
“You were supposed to get clean for yourself !”
Motion stopped for a few seconds. They tugged at time’s strings, crashing back to the present after the uncomfortable voided tension became too much.
“Self-help Toms, self-love ,” he chuckled forcefully, filling the gap as he led the both of them to a nearby bench. “Did you stop seeing your therapist?”
His brows tensed as he sat willingly, “Yeah, after she told me the same things you did.”
“Don’t you want help?”
“Of course I do!” He shook against himself in slight anger, “I want to wake up and routinely look after myself and function like everyone else does!”
He sniffled, his head bursting with a headache, “But it just doesn’t work like that! Talking about myself is pointless, we’ve already established how I feel!”
“It isn’t about how, it’s about why,” his voice tugged at his larynx, dry and hoarse as he gave his hopeful words.
“Why?” He crossed one leg in on himself, “I feel like shit because I just do, do I need a reason?”
Wil waned up a harsh smile, “but you have a reason.”
He was absolutely right in a way, he did have a reason. Whether or not he had realized it, the accumulating stress had piled on, and his inability to see himself in another perspective had blinded him and his horizons.
“You’ve done a lot Tommy. You’re doing big things without me, you’re your own person. Just because I’ve achieved a lot in my lifetime doesn’t mean your accomplishments are monotone.”
When Tommy had stopped taking his meds weeks ago and thought he had also quit with the drugs; he hadn’t the slightest idea that he would end up in the middle of a park, slightly high, and talking to Wilbur.
Tommy knew deep down that the Wilbur he was talking to didn’t exist and that the funeral was months ago. So why had he turned to drugs? And to other methods of validation to live up to Wilbur’s nonexistent expectations and success?
Why had he been so isolated and alone while grieving the loss of his friend, his confidant, his brother.
Why had no one initiated the conversation first, “How are you?” They were simple and easy words, but they were hard to find rolling off the tongue in an easy manner.
“Tommy, I have to go okay,” he whispered as he nodded. “No, wait!” He scrambled towards the imaginary atoms of air, “A-are, are you proud Wil?”
“You already know the answer to that,” the moment was so fast that as soon as he had blinked Wilbur’s figure was gone.
It was so gut-wrenchingly hard to watch his brother disappear once more, but the explicit voices in his head calmed him as he took out his phone and dialed away.
“Mum?” She had answered, “I think I’d like to go back to therapy.”