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Tommy and Techno sat in the front room, waiting for Phil and Wilbur to come downstairs so they could go caroling. A couple of others were planning on joining when they grouped up at Bad’s house before visiting the surrounding houses.
“Come on, you guys!” Tommy called, fidgeting with his gloves, “we don’t want to get to Bad’s house last!”
“Hold your horses, Tommy.” Techno responded, glancing up from his phone briefly. “They’ll be down in a second.”
Tommy sighed and sat down next to his brother, dramatically draping himself on top of the older boy.
“Get off me, Gremlin child.” Techno shoved Tommy away, “here comes Phil now!”
Tommy bolted upright, looking at their dad with hopeful eyes, “ready to go?”
Phil’s face was apologetic and it immediately put Tommy on edge, that face was never good.
“Sorry boys, Wilbur’s not feeling well. I’ve already texted everyone else and they’re okay with rescheduling if we want to, but I figured I’d ask you two first.” Phil stated as Tommy’s face fell.
“Oh. Alright. Is Wil okay?” Tommy asked
“Yeah, Tommy, he’s fine. He’s feeling a bit miserable, but is mostly upset for ruining tonight.”
“He didn’t ruin it! We’ll just go caroling some other night.” Techno reached over to help Tommy as the younger got caught up in his coat as he tried taking it off.
Tommy nodded in agreement before pausing slightly.
“Wait a minute guys, I have an idea.”
A couple of texts, and 15 minutes later, Tommy was entering his oldest brother’s room, smiling at the knowledge that there was a surprise downstairs.
“Hey, Toms.” Wilbur said, forcing a smile and sounding like absolute trash.
Tommy wrinkled his nose, “you sound awful.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry for ruining your night. I know how excited you were.”
“Nonsense, Big Man. I just hope you get better soon because it wouldn’t be fun to be sick for Christmas.”
Wilbur chuckled a little, cutting himself off with a wheezing cough. The coughing fit lasted for what felt like forever before Wilbur was able to take a full breath, laying back down.
“Whoa.” Tommy’s concern and slight panic was quite clear, and Wilbur reached out to pat him reassuringly
“Don’t worry, Tommy, really. I’ll be fine.”
Tommy was hesitant to respond, but eventually nodded, “Alright, Wil. If you’re sure.”
There was a small pause before Tommy straightened, full of excitement as he remembered the surprise.
“Oh! I have a surprise for you, Wilbur! Hold on one second.”
Wilbur gave a weak, “oh,” putting on a brave face as he desperately wanted to take a quick nap that may or may not last until morning.
But before he could protest at all, the young blond had already darted out of his room. Leaving Wilbur to give a sigh and settle down to wait for whatever was going to happen.
What he didn’t expect was to see his family and a few friends pile into his room, bright smiles on their faces.
“It’s probably not a good idea to be in here, you guys. If you don’t get out, I’ll get everyone sick.” Wilbur protested.
“It’s fine, Wilbur! We just figured that we'd bring the caroling to you since you can’t join us tonight.” Bad said with a smile.
They paused for a second as they realized something key. Wilbur was the strongest singer, and the one who was going to provide music to sing to.
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Tommy said, “We’ll just sing acapella or whatever. This is fine.”
“Well, what do we sing?” George asked.
There was another pause before Tommy started to nod his head to a nonexistent beat, “Life isn’t quite what I thought I’d be.”
Everyone erupted into laughter, recognizing the slightly off tune lyrics Tommy was singing. Wilbur groaned and hid under his blankets.
“When I was a kid on VoIP. I thought when I get older, I'd marry her, I told her” Nearly everyone was singing along, all off tune and mumbling the words they didn’t know.
Tommy, who was standing closest to Wilbur, broke off for a second, mumbling “something, something else.” before joining in for the chorus.
“But he’s in your bed, I’m in your twitch chat.” Tommy started to aggressively play the air guitar, shouting the lyrics.
They continued, pretending to know all the words, and the tune. Tommy and Tubbo worked together to create the most chaotic version of the song that Wilbur had ever heard. At one point, Wilbur’s laughter had triggered yet another coughing episode that made the whole production stop at a stand still until Wilbur could breathe again.
He made a “continue” gesture with his hand, and the group did so. Singing along in that same wretched tune.
Eventually though, they finished, and promptly erupted into laughter.
“Guys,” Wilbur said, “that was horrendous. I loved it. Although… It’s not really a Christmas song.”
“Who says we need Christmas songs for caroling?” Tommy pushed Wilbur’s legs out of the way so he could sit on the bed, “the songs only need to be good, right?”
“True,” Wilbur agreed, a smile on his face, “Too bad that wasn’t good.”
Tommy scoffed, taking mock offence, “when have you ever heard me sing something that wasn’t absolutely magnificent?”
It was quite as everyone waited for Wilbur’s answer, which came in the form of a muttered song.
“Jump in the cadillac, girl let’s put some miles on it.”
Everyone started to laugh again as Tommy shouted, “In my defense, I wasn’t singing that video, alright? I was lip-synching”
“Alright, Tommy, whatever you say.” Phil smiled and ruffled Tommy’s hair before turning to everyone, “we should probably head downstairs now so we can let Wilbur rest a bit.”
There was a chorus of “goodnight”s and “Merry Christmas!” as people filtered out of Wilbur’s bedroom, Tommy stayed however.
He laid down next to Wilbur, quietly snuggling into the welcome embrace of his older brother.
“You’re clingy, Tommyinnit.” Wilbur whispered, wrapping his arms around the boy.
“Shut up, conserve your strength. I can hear you wheezing.” Tommy muttered back, clearly smiling.
“You didn’t deny it.”
“Shh. Sleep or something. We don’t need to talk about what’s happening.”
Wilbur chuckled and let his eyes close, the two boys fell asleep quickly, wrapped around each other.
Techno may or may not have snapped a picture half an hour later.