Chapter Text
Wilbur’s dead. He’s not really surprised, it’d been a long time coming if he’s honest with himself. Something in the universe had it out for him, and he’d been outrunning it for far too long. So he’s dead, and he’s standing in Hell with his arms crossed over his stomach and his shoulders hunched over to make himself smaller.
Hell’s both exactly what he expected and not at all like he imagined. As he walks, he passes several doors, most of them looking like they belong in an office while being set in brimstone. Wilbur thinks if he touches one he’s not supposed to, he might burn his hand from the heat radiating in the place. Heat he doesn’t feel, but knows is there. This place is weird.
He sees a sign labeled “Hellp Desk” pointing the direction he’s walking. Wilbur hadn’t really gotten a memo on where he was supposed to go, so he keeps walking. May as well see if the Hellp Desk will tell him what torture he’s supposed to be put through for all his wrongdoings.
The Hellp Desk looks just as out of place as the office doors, dark oak wood and various decorations standing out against the distant hellfire and resting against blackened stone. It was bizarre, but the man with wings and a long, blond braid is the only thing that really catches Wilbur by surprise. He can’t tell if the man’s an angel or not, but he figures it doesn’t really matter in the long run.
“Excuse me?” he asks, getting the man’s attention, trying not to wince at the way his brows furrow and his lips purse, “sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt, but can you… tell me where I’m supposed to go?”
Mister maybe-an-angel hums, looking at something Wilbur can’t see that’s settled on the desk. His hands start moving, and Wilbur hears papers rustling. A second later, stark white is lifted into his vision before it’s settled back on the wood and out of sight. Wilbur shifts uncomfortably, glancing around the literal hell-scape to avoid looking at whatever disgust or pity the man might be shooting at him.
“You sure you’re meant to be here, mate?” he asks, and Wilbur’s spine curves more as he hunches further in on himself.
“Well… yeah?” he answers, uncertainty turning the words into a question that raises in pitch with Wilbur’s nerves.
“What’s your name?” the man asks, and Wilbur scuffs a foot against the rock below him.
“Um. Wilbur Soot?”
The man pauses, then his eyes widen and a phone is visible in his hands. Wilbur frowns at the sight, but doesn’t really comment on his confusion.
“I’m Phil, it’s nice to meet you. We’ve actually been wondering when you’d come in, I— Well, I’ll let him explain shit to you.”
Wilbur stares, uncomprehending of where the conversation has gone. Who’s supposed to be explaining shit to him?
“If it’s not too much trouble I think I’d rather get on with the “being tortured in hell” bit,” he says, letting his arms tighten around his stomach.
Phil looks from his phone, his expression pinched with pity. The look has Wilbur tensing his shoulders and his lips thinning into a firm line, but he doesn’t comment.
“You’re not supposed to be down here, mate. You skip the admin deathk?”
Wilbur doesn’t answer, dropping his gaze to the wood of the desk. He had, but it was because he’d known— he’d known— he was supposed to be down here. Good things don’t happen to people like Wilbur, his entire life had proven that.
“Phil?” calls a voice from further back, a voice that has Wilbur’s throat constricting and his mind racing, “What’s with the S.O.S?”
There’s a silence that prompts Wilbur to glance up. Phil’s nodding in his direction, but the action isn’t really necessary because Techno’s caught sight of him and the devastation that fills Wilbur is just as raw and strangling as the day he’d lost his baby brother.
Techno’s staring at him, eyes wide and nostrils flaring with a sharp inhale Wilbur can hear from where he’s standing. His hair’s braided and pink, brown roots peeking from the top and somehow complimenting his brother’s brown eyes and half-moon frames. He also looks so much older than the lanky teen he’d been when he’d died.
“Will,” Techno breathes, sounding reverent and awed in a way he shouldn’t be. Not when he’s looking at Wilbur.
Wilbur hesitates, considering for a fleeting second if he should run, before he anchors his feet to where he’s standing and sends Techno a wave.
“Hi Tech,” he greets, voice cracking under the weight of his emotions.
The crack seems to pull Techno out of whatever state seeing Wilbur had put him in, and the sight turns into a dream. An image Wilbur will never forget, but never believe was real.
“It’s good to see you, uh…” Techno trails off, looking towards Phil with a cry for help Wilbur could recognize immediately. Even with all the years between now and the last time Wilbur had seen him, Techno was still fucking awful at conversations.
Wilbur doesn’t think he knows how to help now, though. Not like he used to when they were kids in high school with their whole lives ahead of them.
Phil seems amused, though the pity from earlier discolors the mirth with the way it lingers. He heaves a big sigh, Wilbur taking an instinctive step back. Techno shoots him a confused look, but Phil doesn’t acknowledge the action.
“Techno, you should probably take him to level one to have this talk. Kid needs it,” Phil recommends, and Techno pauses.
He takes a long look at Wilbur, searching for something Wilbur’s not sure he wants his brother to find. Eternity stretches around him, ending in the few seconds it takes Techno to nod.
“Come on,” Techno says, gesturing for Wilbur to follow him and for a brief second Wilbur wonders. He wonders if Techno had seen how awful of a person he’d been in life and if he had asked to be the one to lead him to the misery Wilbur’s afterlife was going to be.
And then they’re walking through a door and what Wilbur sees is so unlike what he expects, his mounting anxiety crumbles under the shock. The room beyond the door is beautiful. Spruce planks making up the walls, a shaggy, ashy-grey carpet covering the floor. There’s a desk pushed into a corner, looking identical to the old one Wilbur used to sit at back when he’d written his music, right down to his initials being carved into the far right corner. In the center of the room, there’s beanbags sitting to the side of a comfortable looking futon, pink and yellow.
The pink bag is where Techno sits, collapsing into the fabric with a soft ‘oof’ that’s so painfully familiar and yet so agonizingly foreign. Wilbur shifts, unsure if he should take the other beanbag or sit on the futon.
“Level one is basically Hell’s version of therapy, if that’s what’s makin’ you stand there,” Techno speaks up. Wilbur stares at him, soaking in the details of his brother’s face before the words process and he glances around the room again.
“What?”
Techno raises an eyebrow, gesturing towards the yellow beanbag and Wilbur sits without comment.
Silence settles again, and Wilbur does nothing to break it. He doesn’t want to, kind of wants to get whatever this conversation is gonna be over with so he can go back to his misery. Hopefully without Techno to witness it.
“I’ve missed you,” Techno says suddenly, his voice softer than feather down but it cracks against Wilbur’s heart like a bullet.
“I—” Wilbur’s voice breaks, and he takes a second to clear his throat before he’s trying again, “I missed you too. More than anything.”
The look Techno gives him is unreadable. Not because Wilbur doesn’t know what he’s seeing, but because he doesn’t want to read it. He doesn’t want to consider that something so irrevocably good is happening to him when the rug is just gonna get yanked from under his feet later.
“I’ve uh… gotta admit, I’ve been keeping track of you on Mortaltube? Or I had been, until Tommy forced me into a family dynamic. He’s a good kid, you’ll probably like him. As dramatic and loud as you were when we were—” Techno cuts off abruptly, Wilbur wincing in time at the reminder of their younger days.
“When we were dumb kids and you had to save me from my dramatics,” Wilbur finishes, not bothering to fix the break in his voice this time. Not when it was taking everything in him not to cry.
Techno sighs, rubbing his face with his hands for two seconds before he drops them back into his lap. Wilbur watches as he starts to pick at his cuticles, the anxious tell still familiar even with eight years between them.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself for that,” Techno finally says, flicking his eyes towards Wilbur. His expression is uncertain, hopeful. It reminds Wilbur of being sixteen. Of Techno giving him the same look whenever he wanted to hang out with him or hear Wilbur play on his guitar to help him sleep.
Wilbur looks away, staring at the jeans of his pants and doesn’t answer. Sticky tears he doesn’t bother to wipe away track down his face and gather uncomfortably at his chin. Techno sighs again, then groans and sinks low in the beanbag. Wilbur looks at him without lifting his head.
“I want you to be happy Wilbur, life’s not been great to you. I know it hasn’t, and I can see your self hatred from here,” Techno says, and Wilbur grimaces.
“I got you killed—”
“Stop it,” his brother interrupts, anger and frustration so harsh it makes Wilbur shrink back but Techno isn’t discouraged, “what happened wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t mine, it was the fault of the kid with the gun for pulling the trigger. Stop blaming yourself.”
Wilbur’s stomach lurches at those details, his shoulders tightening around his ears while he takes a minute to shove away the images that flash through his mind.
Arms wrap around Wilbur’s shoulders, surprising a hiccuped gasp out of him as his eyes widen. Techno feels warm, and strong, and healthy. His arms feel steady, and it’s the hug that topples the last card of Wilbur’s restraint. He sobs, broken and loud and ugly, but he doesn’t pull away from his brother. Instead, Wilbur lets himself have this. He lets himself lean into the contact and grip at his brother’s shirt so he can sob with a grief he hadn’t let himself process until now.
Wilbur bawls, he cries, and he grieves. He breaks down in Techno’s arms, and the thought that maybe he can heal from the years worth of bullshit he’s gone through enters his mind. It doesn’t leave, and for once Wilbur doesn’t force it to.