Chapter Text
The next morning, he’s startled by the door opening far earlier than it usually does. He doesn’t have a clock, so he doesn’t know what time it is, but the sun is usually much higher in the sky when the guard brings in his first meal of the day (lunch, Wilbur assumes). Even stranger is that the person in the doorway is Quackity.
“Morning, Siren,” Q says, breezing through the door and letting it shut behind him. “Hope you haven’t gotten too bored while I was busy.”
Wilbur doesn’t answer. He has been bored, and Quackity knows it. That’s the point. He fights back the urge to glare at Q. He thinks he might hate the man, but on the other hand he gets it. Wilbur wouldn’t want someone like him to be able to use his power either.
Eventually, Wilbur settles on, “Why are you here?” in as neutral a tone as he can manage.
Quackity raises an eyebrow. “Can’t I just come to see you because I miss you?” Wilbur doesn’t respond at all, keeping his hands folded neatly in his lap and his gaze locked on Q. “Well, if you insist, you’re moving to a more secure room. Somewhere less… exposed.” He gestures to the window.
“Why?” It’s a bold question. The kind of thing that Wilbur never used to get an answer to. Wilbur thinks about how he likes the way he looks in blue and asks it anyway.
“Word on the street is that there’s a storm coming. My sources are saying it’ll be real dark out tonight, and I don’t want you to get noticed by all that. So we’re going someplace else. Someplace you’ll be safe. Come on, Siren.”
Wilbur turns the words over in his head. Something about it catches his attention, something in the way that dark and storm have extra emphasis, and the bit about getting noticed by it. It might be nothing, but Wilbur’s known Quackity for a long time, and Quackity loves to play games with people. Little things like making very specific word choices that reference very specific people and seeing if the person he’s talking to catches on. Little things like giving his Siren the chance to be clever enough to understand what’s happening.
Wilbur knows exactly who he thinks the storm and the darkness might be.
He takes a deep breath and reaches for his power like Tommy, Theseus, who can call the wind, taught him. “You’re going to let me stay here.”
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Wilbur doesn’t forget the conversation all day. He turns it over in his memory, again and again, until it feels worn and fragile.
What if he imagined the weight behind those words? If there’s some real weather event coming, then he’s done something stupid for no reason. It’s worth it, he reminds himself. For Phil and Techno and Tommy, the risk is worth it.
He misses them. It hits him like a rock the moment he lets himself have the thought. He misses the warmth in Phil’s eyes when he smiles, he misses the way Techno carefully braids his long pink hair every night before bed, he misses Tommy’s friendly cursing, he misses them.
He curls up on his bed and cries.
He wishes he were brave enough to get the red shirt from under the mattress.
Time passes at the exact same rate it had before. He forces himself to eat the food he’s brought. He paces, and stares out the window, and listens to the distant voices on the casino floor.
Sunset comes, and Wilbur lays on his back and thinks that he probably just heard emphasis that wasn’t there. There’s probably no one coming. Who in their right mind would go against Las Nevadas for one person?
After all, this isn’t a fairy tale. There’s no knight in shining armor.
Outside, the neon lights go off in one smooth moment, like they’re all on a dimmer switch that’s been turned down. Wilbur frowns. The lights are never supposed to go down, especially not at the start of the evening. (Stupid people don’t keep regular hours, Wilbur, but they’re especially abundant just after dinner, he can remember Q saying.)
He stands and walks to the window. Maybe they’re just all pointed away at the same time? No, looking at it, they’re definitely out. Come to think of it, he can’t see the moon or stars either. The street outside is empty and unnaturally dark. Wilbur’s heart is in his throat.
Somewhere else in the casino, there’s an earth-shaking crash. Wilbur can hear that far away, on the casino floor, the chatter stops, then starts again, quieter.
Wilbur lays back down on his bed, but every muscle in his body is tense. There’s nothing he can do now, he reminds himself. The best way to be useful is to stay out of the way.
The crashing comes again, closer this time. Wilbur can’t deny that it’s scaring him.
He presses down the fear. What right does he have to feel that way? No one told him he could be afraid. He’s disobeying enough just by being in this room, who is he to act like he isn’t strong? He’s sat one room over while Quackity killed someone; he can stand to be calm through some noises in the casino.
So he waits. He lies on his back and forces himself to relax and breathes deeply and evenly and he waits. He falls asleep (or maybe zones out) a couple times, only to be woken by renewed crashing and some shouting in the building. The music from the casino floor gets louder, but it can’t drown out that there’s undeniably some kind of fight happening.
Wilbur can only pray it’s Sleepy Boys Inc, and that they’re not getting hurt. He doesn’t think he could forgive himself if one of them got hurt.
He falls asleep again, and he’s startled awake by a chill on his chest. When he focuses his eyes, he has to blink a couple times to make sense of what’s happening.
There’s a crow sitting on top of him, kind of, but it’s only a crow the way a sketch is a person. It’s made of pure darkness, with eyes like tiny blue stars, and as he tilts his head back and forth it shifts from two- to three-dimensional and back again.
“Hello,” he says. He should probably be scared, but he’s still a bit out of it, and he’s pretty sure the shadow crow is Phil’s anyway.
With a staticky croak, the creature flaps off his chest and slides fluidly under his door into the hallway.
“Goodbye,” Wilbur says.
He can’t just keep waiting now. He paces the room until he gets dizzy, then stands by the door and listens to the ever-closer sounds of people causing problems. He goes to the window and looks out. The neons out front are back on, but the street is still eerily empty for this early in the evening.
There’s a crash behind him, then the sound of the door banging open, and Wilbur flinches hard. He can’t bring himself to turn and see who got to him first.
“Wilbur!” It’s Tommy’s voice, and Wilbur lets out a ragged sigh of relief and spins to face him. He’s dressed in his full villain getup, which Wilbur’s never seen close up before today. In white and red and a single emerald stud earring, mask covering the top half of his face, he looks more like a storybook hero than anything else. “We’ve gotta get outta here, Wil, Protesilaus is holding ‘em all back but there’s a fucking ton of people in here—” He cuts himself off and grabs Wilbur’s hand.
Wilbur pulls towards the bed, but Tommy’s in such a hurry he doesn’t notice and leads Wilbur straight into the hall. Wilbur almost tells Tommy to stop, so he can get the red shirt from under the mattress, but it seems like a bad time. He doesn’t want to seem ungrateful.
Tommy pulls him down hallway after hallway, and the air rushes along with them, pushing them forward. They reach a stairwell, and Tommy gestures him upward.
Wilbur looks at Tommy, confused. “That way goes to the roof.”
Tommy grins. “Do you trust me?”
Wilbur doesn’t even have time to get out, of course, before Tommy starts up the stairs and drags him along.
As Wilbur had expected, the stairs reach the roof. What he hadn’t expected was that the moment they reach the roof, Tommy gives his green earring three sharp taps, then jumps over the side. Looking over the edge, Wilbur can see that Tommy’s using the wind to slow his fall, and he’ll probably be fine despite the long drop. Wilbur, though, can’t call the wind, and is still several stories above the ground.
He hears a sharp whistle to his left, and turns to face the sound.
Phil swoops down, carried by huge wings of pure darkness. His smile is a mix of sadness and relief. “Oh my gods, Wilbur! It’s gonna be okay, mate, we’re gonna get you home.”
Wilbur can only smile back as Phil picks him up and flies them both towards the ground. The sudden movement tears the air from his lungs, but he just presses closer to Phil. Home.
He’s finally going home.