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Wilbur doesn’t drive often.
It’s annoying and cumbersome, with wings; he’s managed to find a relatively comfortable position for them, if he leans his seat back all the way and just sits up straight, but he had to buy this big, roomy car specifically so he could fit inside it, wings and all. Still, he doesn’t drive often. Only when he needs to go to the store, or if the weather is shit, or something.
He rarely drives for fun , though.
But today he needed to clear his head. He loves it at home, because he loves spending time with his family―of course he does―but sometimes it gets suffocating, and he needs to get out for a night.
So he drives. He picks a direction and just drives, and drives, and drives, and drives, until it’s ten p.m. and he’s been driving four hours and he’s in the middle of nowhere, parked on the side of a dark country road lined by tall, ominous trees. He turns the car off, pitching everything into darkness save for the silver light of the moon, and slumps onto the steering wheel.
There’s no particular reason he’s feeling a bit off-kilter today. Things just….build up, you know? Enough little things, stacking on top of each other for months on end, can eventually push someone over the edge. He just needs a breather.
Maybe he should have asked Techno to come along, though. He needs to be away from home, but that doesn’t mean he needs to be away from his family.
“Fuck,” he grumbles, turning his head so his cheek squishes against the steering wheel. His russet wings look inky black in the darkness, splayed out awkwardly over the back seats. Silence settles back over the car.
After a moment, he closes his eyes and listens to rain patter against the roof of the car. He stays like that for a good five minutes or so before he hears...a sound. A not-rain sound. A very familiar not-rain human sound.
It comes again, and he sits up straight and looks behind him, narrowing his eyes. That was definitely Tommy’s snore.
He takes his seatbelt off and, carefully maneuvering his wings, climbs back to peer over the back seat of the car into the trunk. Sure enough, Tommy is curled up in the back, wearing The hoodie (the very one he stole from Wilbur before Wilbur officially gifted it to him), nestled into the mess of blankets Wilbur has piled back there in case he has the urge to nest while he’s away from home. (He can just pop down the back seats and there’s enough room to make a little nest back there. It’s rather nice―not as nice as his nest at home, but rather nice nonetheless.)
“Tommy,” he says quietly. “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.” His wings are tucked around him in a way that must be incredibly uncomfortable―Wilbur has a feeling he’ll regret falling asleep back here when he wakes up.
He scrunches his nose as he looks down at Tommy, contemplating what to do. On one hand, Tommy is asleep. Tommy does not like to be woken up when he is asleep. Wilbur things he looks very peaceful and would rather leave him be. But, on the other hand….he really wants to get Tommy into a better sleeping position before he gets cramps from being in such a horrible sleeping position for too long.
Eventually, he decides to wake him up, but first, Wilbur stows the back seats away into the floor (one of the best features of this car) after several minutes of carefully maneuvering around the car without putting himself in too much pain. “Tommy,” he finally whispers, crawling back and plopping himself into a cross-legged position beside Tommy. “Hey,” he urges, pushing against his shoulder. “Wake up.”
Tommy groans and blinks sluggishly up at Wilbur, his body shifting as he wakes up. “Fukc...ngg…...ghhh,” he mumbles, sitting up slowly. His control over his wings has gotten a lot better since the manifested a month ago; he manages to shake them out without spazzing out and injuring himself, before settling limply into a sitting position with his wings curled up as comfortably as he can probably make them. “Fuck,” he says, with more clarity than before. “Wilbur.”
“You’re in my car,” Wilbur points out.
“Yes. It does appear that I am,” Tommy replies dubiously, clearly trying to gauge whether this is a good or bad thing. His eyes drop to the blankets he’s sitting on. He stares at them for a moment. “Huh.”
Wilbur raises an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I saw you packing a backpack with snacks and shit so I was like, ‘hey, Wilbur’s probably being real fuckin angsty right now, he’s probably going to go drive off somewhere like he does every few months, why don’t I tag along?’ and here i am.”
“I see.” Wilbur does not appreciate the callout on his predictable behaviour, so he ignores it. “I can’t believe you managed to stay quiet for over four hours, Tommy.”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“Only if you take it as one,” Wilbur laughs. “I am glad you came, though.”
Tommy visibly relaxes. “Well. That’s good.”
Wilbur leans back on his palms and looks out the window. He can’t see anything outside, and it’s raining ―a good, aesthetic sort of weather, but not exactly optimal driving conditions. It’d probably be best to sleep here before heading back in the morning. He glances back over at Tommy. “Would you like to make a nest with me?”
Tommy’s eyes light up, even though his mouth is twisted into a frown. “Maybe.”
Got him, Wilbur thinks to himself with a small chuckle. “Have you gotten the nesting instinct yet?” he asks, gesturing for Tommy to move aside so he can grab a few blankets. He begins arranging them in a circle around the two of them, as big as he can make it (which isn’t that big, considering the car isn’t all that big).
“Maybe,” Tommy yawns. That means yes, just a little in Tommy speak, Wilbur deduces. “Will you show me how to nest?”
Wilbur stops short, momentarily forgetting all about the blanket he was focused on draping perfectly onto the makeshift nest. “Well, Tommy,” he laughs awkwardly. “It’s not really something you teach . It’s just….it’s just instinct, I dunno.”
“Well, surely you’ve got some sort of general instructions, yeah?’ Tommy grumbles, sounding angry in the way he gets when he’s trying to hide that he’s just self-conscious. He really doesn’t like it when people act like he’s stupid, and even though that’s not Wilbur’s intention, he can see why Tommy might interpret it that way. “I’m not really sure where the fuck to begin, that’s all.”
“You….you just.” Wilbur huffs out a breath. Nesting’s just kind of like….a thing. It’s not really explainable because it’s pretty straightforward (but also, at the same time, kind of not.) “You just listen to what your heart says, I guess. Take whatever materials you have on hand, and kinda just...arrange them how you feel like they should be arranged. It’s hard to explain. I don’t like...I don’t expect you to know how to do it, if the instinct hasn’t fully developed yet―I mean, you did just manifest―but that just makes it a bit difficult to. Explain.” He finishes draping one blanket onto the nest, then sits back. “It’s kind of like building a blanket fort, like you used to do when you were a kid, but there’s more behind it. More...emotion. I dunno.” He picks up a blanket and hands it to Tommy. “Here. Put this on the nest, however you like. Actually, scratch that―build the rest of the nest. Arrange it however you feel it should be.”
Tommy gives him a look that says I’m going to do this terribly and you’re not going to tell me I did it terribly or else I will cry , and begins building the nest. He starts to get focused, and rearranges everything Wilbur had already done, and starts adding all the blankets and stray clothing items to it until all of them are used up.
Now, watching Tommy build the nest―it does give Wilbur a bit of anxiety. He really doesn’t like watching other people nest. Techno and their dad do it in their special, very unique ways, and it just sets Wilbur on edge to watch them do it, because he just wants to fix it, to make it how he wants. That’s why they don’t have a big shared nest, like some families do. They all have their own nest, in their own room, and they can go share whenever they want because they know their own nest is still perfect and tailored perfectly to them. It’s...weird. He likes being in Techno and Phil’s nests, but the one time he watched Techno rebuild his nest after he had to tear it apart to find one of Tommy’s t-shirts, he had to go make himself some tea and sit in the other room until it was done. And then when Techno was all finished, he went and relaxed in Techno’s nest with him, and everything was fine.
Again, it’s very weird. He taps his fingers on his thigh while Tommy builds the nest. It’s all wrong, but Wilbur contains himself, because Tommy wants support with his first nest, and that’s okay. When they get home, Tommy can go and build his actual nest, and they’ll all spend a night in it so it’s slept in and comfortable, and everything will be fine.
“I think I’m done,” Tommy says after a while.
Wilbur smiles at him and stretches himself out into the nest comfortably. “Nicely done,” he lies, knowing full well that the nest would have been much better if he’d made it. (Okay, okay. All jokes aside, it’s not that bad of a nest.) “Do you want to just sleep here tonight? We can drive back in the morning. I’ll text Techno so they know we’re not dead.”
“We’re parked on the side of the road, Wilbur.” Tommy looks outside with a frown. “In the dark. And the rain.”
“So? It’s not like this is a very busy road.”
“How would you know?” Tommy objects. “You don’t even know where we are!”
“We’re...somewhere. Somewhere not very populated. It’s fine.” Wilbur pulls his phone out of his pocket and shoots a quick text to Techno. I’m with Tommy. We’ll be back tomorrow morning. It takes a while to send, since they are in the middle of nowhere and the cell service is absolute shit, but once it sends, Wilbur puts his phone on the charger in the front seat and settles back into Tommy’s nest.
“Someone could slide in the rain as they’re driving past and hit us.”
Wilbur sighs and grabs Tommy’s arms, pulling him down to cuddle beside him. “Shhhhh….” he chides softly, ignoring the little yelp Tommy lets out when Wilbur pulls him down into the nest. Tommy grumbles incoherently, but shifts around until he’s got his forehead pressed to Wilbur’s chest and they’re both wrapped around each other comfortably. Wilbur drapes one of his wings over the both of them. “It’ll be fine. It’s just a few hours. Go to sleep, mkay? If you wake up before me, just wake me up and I’ll get us back home.”
“Mm,” Tommy hums. It doesn’t take him long to fall back asleep, so he’ll probably be out within the next couple of minutes. He’s already starting to sound sleepy. Wilbur runs a hand through his brother’s hair, then cups his hand around the nape of his neck.
“Gnight, Wilbur,” Tommy says through another yawn, his wings stretching slightly before settling back down.
“Goodnight, Tommy,” Wilbur replies, his eyes fluttering shut. He lets the sound of rain lull him gently into sleep.