Work Text:
Ping!
Wilbur glanced to his left, at his second monitor, at the sound of someone joining his Discord call. “Tommy?” He voiced his surprise when he saw TommyInnit’s icon appear next to his own in the otherwise empty call. “Hey, chat, say hi to Tommy.”
Wilbur’s stream chat exploded, going from spamming DOME to TOMMY as Wilbur paused his game of Rust to make his webcam full screen.
“Hey, Wil,” Tommy greeted around a yawn. He turned his webcam on so that only Wilbur could see him, revealing his awful bedhead and messy eyes. “Mind if I join for a bit?”
Wilbur couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. “Tommy, it’s 1 am, why aren’t you asleep?”
Tommy shrugged, lifting his left shoulder and letting it drop half-heartedly. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Don’t you have college tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“Tommy,” Wilbur said it with a tone of finality, like a father putting a stop to a bickering child. “You should go to bed.”
“I just got out of bed because I couldn’t sleep like I said, dickhead,” Tommy snapped. He pulled the mic close to his face, slumping forward so that Wilbur could hear him breathing into it. “And you have no room to talk, streaming Rust at fucking 1 am.”
“Okay-” Wilbur said, already exasperated two minutes into this conversation. “Let me reiterate that I am a fully grown man and you are but a child. A child with a bedtime much earlier than 1 am.”
Tommy grumbled at that. “I don’t have a bedtime. I’m just responsible and usually go to bed before midnight and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, you should learn from me.”
Wilbur rolled his eyes with a click of his tongue. “Okay, Tommy, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind from now on. Why’d you join my call? Do you want to hop on Rust for a little?”
Tommy shook his head and rested his chin in the palm of his hand. His eyes fluttered for a moment before resting in a lidded look. Wilbur thought that he somewhat resembled a lazy cat in that position. “No, I just wanted to chat. You can keep playing if you like.”
Wilbur glanced back over to his chat, seemingly remembering that they were there. He scanned the names and messages going by, trying to gauge what his viewers wanted. Some of them were still chanting DOME and RUST but most were spamming TOMMY and JUST CHATTING .
Wilbur gave a small smile before closing out of Rust. “Okay, chat, sleepy chatting with two of the sleepy bois!”
Tommy scowled off-camera. “Don’t call it ‘sleepy chatting.’ That sounds dumb.”
“But we’re the sleepy bois and we’re sleepy and we’re ‘just chatting.’ I think it’s quite clever,” Wilbur defended.
“Of fucking course you do.”
“Why is sleepy Tommy so mean all of a sudden?” Wilbur turned and acted as if he were addressing his chat. “Guys, sleepy Tommy off-stream is so cute. He’s like a puppy-all mumbly and cuddly and-”
“Stop right now or I’ll kill you and your family. I know where you live,” Tommy cut in aggressively, although when Wilbur looked over at him, he was completely hunched over his desk, both arms holding his head up. For such bold accusations, the blond looked no more intimidating than a baby bird.
“Is it because I’m streaming? Why are you always so mean to me when we’re live? Chat, I wish you could see how Tommy acts around us when the cameras are off-he’s a completely different person-”
“No, no, no, I’m even worse off-camera. You think I cuss a lot now? Chat, you should hear me when I’m allowed to say the worst word I know-”
“Okay! Okay, enough of this bit,” Wilbur swooped in and stopped Tommy from taking that particular joke too far. He noted the kind of mindset sleepy Tommy was in-silly, transparent, and without a filter, apparently. He knew that if he wanted to continue talking to Tommy like this, he should probably end stream. “Uh, sorry guys, but I think I’m gonna end stream. Tommy is barely lucid and I don’t fancy getting banned for his blabbermouth. I’m gonna raid Sneeg-go watch him and give him a follow. Thank you again for another wonderful stream and goodnight!”
Wilbur clicked the END STREAM button and watched both his live-video and his viewers disappear, only to be replaced with the sight of Tommy using his arms as a pillow as Discord moved to his main monitor. Wilbur suppressed the urge to audibly coo over him.
Wilbur hadn’t been lying to chat earlier when he said that Tommy usually went docile when he was tired. The rowdy and brash personality was still there, just buried beneath layers of exhaustion and idleness. Wilbur remembered how surprised he was the first time he had gotten in a call with sleepy Tommy, expecting the teen to be grumpier and brasher than usual, not...whatever this was now.
“Wilbaaa,” Tommy whined, rolling his head slightly so that he could peer up into the camera without lifting his head. “Why’d ya end stream?”
Wilbur rolled his eyes and smiled fondly at the blond’s childish tone. “Because you were being mean and saying things that you would probably regret later.”
Tommy wrinkled his nose cutely. “No, I wasn’t being mean. I was being normal.”
Wilbur blinked slowly, eyebrows raised. “That’s what that was? You being an absolute dick was you trying to act like your normal persona?”
Tommy squinted at him, reaching up and pushing his bangs off of his forehead. “I wasn’t being mean,” he repeated, albeit a little uncertainly.
“Well, you weren’t acting like normal sleepy Tommy acts. Was it because I was live?” Wilbur voiced his earlier question again, already sure of the answer he was going to get.
“Maybe…,” Tommy mumbled and Wilbur smiled cheekily. Sleepy Tommy was always easier to tell the truth than regular Tommy.
“Did you not want the viewers to see you like this? All sleepy-like?” Wilbur pressed, leaning in closer to the camera and speaking softly.
“Not sleepy…” Tommy sat up fully now, unfurling his arms and stretching them out over his head. His cheeks had a reddish tint, betraying the embarrassment that he couldn’t quite say.
“Then what? Cute? Cuddly? Wholesome?” Wilbur said it teasingly, delighting in the fact that he could see Tommy’s face and ears going redder in the dim lighting of his bedroom. “Awww, is Chommy embarrassed?”
Tommy buried his face in his hands, a low groaning sound emitting from the back of his throat. “‘M not embarrassed.”
“Oh, really? Then what’s all this, then?”
“I’m not embarrassed! I just-I don’t want people I don’t trust to see me like that. Like this.”
Wilbur softened immensely when Tommy took on a more serious tone. “Aw, Tommy,” the teasing from his voice was completely gone, replaced solely with tenderness. He longed to reach through the computer and touch Tommy, to run a hand through his blond locks and shush him and soothe him and tell him that it’s okay to be vulnerable. But when he did, his hand bumped into the screen. “You trust me?”
“Well, yeah?” Tommy said it like a question, peeking out from between his fingers. “You’re Wilbur. Of course I trust you.”
Wilbur went all warm and gooey on the inside. He smiled, letting his face betray all of the emotions he was feeling as he watched Tommy about to fall asleep at his desk four hours away. Of course, Tommy was too busy avoiding eye contact to see how lovingly Wilbur was looking at him.
“Go to bed, Tommy. You’re obviously delusional with exhaustion if you’re going all soft.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up, dickhead. I’m going to bed. G’night.”
“Goodnight, Tommy.”