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tommy was young, but he wasn’t stupid. people seemed to forget this. he was not older than his brothers, but that didn’t mean he was ignorant, and it certainly didn’t mean he was as oblivious as people assumed.
tommy remembers the first day he ever met his family. it was a long time ago in his mind— 6 years is forever when you’re freshly 15. he was a lot more shy back then, but wilbur and techno were so patient and kind to him. he remembers getting driven to phil’s house, and he remembers that the first thing he saw was wilbur with an acoustic guitar disproportionately propped atop his tiny body under a tree. wil didn’t start growing until he was around tommy’s age now, but he grew incredibly fast.
techno had been laying beside wilbur with his right arm sprawled across his face to shield his eyes from the sun. his hair was still brown then. and short. tommy remembered hiding behind the social worker after she parked and walked him up to the house. wilbur played tommy a song when he didn’t want to speak, and techno helped him with his schoolwork.
tommy had known his new family for basically half of his life. he didn’t really remember the before—nor did he want to. his knew his family as well as he knew himself. him and his brothers were very close despite the age difference, and they were close with phil, too. tommy didn’t care if they weren’t biologically his family, they were more of a family to him than anyone he had known before— aside from tubbo.
his brothers were two of his three best friends. he knew when they were happy, mad, or sad, but for some reason it took him much longer to notice than he figured it should have. for a long time, tommy thought nothing about what was happening. wilbur shutting him down when tommy told him he needed to eat before they got to school, saying he had granola bars in his backpack, “we’re gonna be late if you don’t stop talking”. tommy loved his brother. he trusted him. if he said he had food and would eat, well, tommy would believe him. besides, who would purposely not eat?
it stayed like that for a few months. wilbur occasionally dodging meals, nothing too concerning for a teenage boy with “better things” to do. but then wilbur would steer the conversation away from food if it ever became the main topic. again, tommy didn’t really think much of it, maybe wilbur just wasn’t that passionate on the topic. he had always been a picky eater, tommy could see why he wouldn’t want to discuss things he didn’t even care for, for the most part.
soon though, tommy picked up on other weird behaviors from wilbur. like the fact that he would shower after dinner every single night. it wasn’t that odd at first, until the time techno got in the shower after he rushed some messy school project or something and wilbur got pissed. they argued for ten minutes after techno got out of the shower about how after dinner is wilbur’s time to shower.
and suddenly, tommy started to notice the hair. a peculiar thing to notice really, but there was so much wilbur hair everywhere. typically stuck to the shower walls or in the drain, and there would be so much that it would clog it. tommy didn’t really connect why there was so much hair all of the sudden.
next, tommy became aware of how wilbur rarely left his room. when he did, he always had earbuds in and looked grumpy. he was much more angry recently than he used to be. tommy didn’t like it, he missed his wilbur. not whatever was in his brother’s body now.
then, he started to notice the knuckles and the clothes. wilbur began exclusively wearing baggy jumpers and trousers. and beanies. can’t forget the beanies. his hands were slender and his knuckles were constantly red. tommy thought maybe it was just his pigmentation. then he noticed that it was only that way on one hand.
lastly, the thing that made him really start to get worried and connect what exactly was happening, was the food— or lack thereof. food would go missing in the house, and wilbur would look extremely guilty at the table if anyone asked who finished the last bit of jaffa cakes. there would also be traces of food in trash cans and toilets, like someone had dumped a full plate into them.
and as far as tommy could tell, no one else had noticed the way wilbur was starting to wither away in front of their eyes. he spent all afternoon one day after school researching about eating disorders and what to do if you thought someone you knew had one. he closed the window confused that day when he heard someone walking up the stairs toward his room.
tommy didn’t know that techno had also taken notice. wilbur was his twin brother from another mother. they were born on the same day, and although they weren’t actually related, techno still felt the same connection with wilbur that one would for their actual twin.
he had picked up on wilbur’s habits a little bit before tommy had, and he would occasionally slip some food into wil’s bag or guitar case without a word. the time he took wilbur’s shower time after dinner to see what his reaction would be really solidified his theory on the matter. techno knew a little about a lot of things, so he knew the basic symptoms of an eating disorder. not wanting to be wrong though, he looked them up one day. when he realized wilbur checked basically all of the warning boxes, he cried for the first time in two years.
wilbur had a habit of bottling up his emotions. they all knew this. he would never ask for help, never ask to vent. he would never ask for a hug. wilbur just dealt with his shit on his own with only his guitar as a crutch. that didn’t mean that techno didn’t pick up on when he needed extra comfort though.
so, even though he hated showing his attachments to people, techno made it a point to hug wil whenever he got the chance, to tell him that he loved him when it didn’t feel so awkward he’d want to scrape his nails down his face. techno couldn’t pretend to understand. he would never understand why wilbur, one of the brightest people he’d ever met, was doing something so dumb to himself. but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to be there for him as best he could without encouraging him.
wilbur had picked up on his brothers’ odd behaviors toward him almost immediately. he noticed when tommy began to be a little more hesitant when he would give one of his pre-planned excuses to get out of whichever meal he was next confronted with. red flags went up in his mind the instant that techno, the king of cold hearts himself, would tell him that he loved him and even try to hug him at any chance possible.
wilbur loathed hugs. he disliked how anyone who hugged him would be able to feel all of the pudgy skin on his body. he still accepted almost every one techno was willing to give. wilbur knew that they most likely suspected something was up.
his heart wouldn’t let his brain assume that they knew about his thing with food, however. he didn’t want to have to push them away, but he knew his brain would never let himself keep them close if they knew what was truly going on. to have someone have an idea on the inner workings of his brain was a direct threat to the one thing that had provided him with a twisted form of comfort for the past two years of his life.
it’s not like wilbur wasn’t aware that he had a ...thing— he knew all too well. he knew that this thing was bad enough that he couldn’t physically allow himself to refer to it as anything besides a thing in the fear that calling it by a name would make it real. that maybe, just maybe, if he only refers to it as a thing, it’s not actually a problem and he doesn’t need help. that he’s not just a corpse, already in a casket six feet below the surface, waiting to die.
he knew it was wishful thinking. false hope. he had already accepted that he had a problem a while ago, but he’d be damned if he ever admitted exactly, or said the full name, out loud or in his head.
he knew, logically, that he was killing himself. that if he didn’t recover soon he would most likely end up dead by the time he was twenty. but he also knew that, emotionally, this thing had helped him through some of the hardest years in his life. if he had no one to turn to, no where to go, there would always be the lonely voice of his disease calling him to the pantry, the bathroom, or the isolation of his king size bed in which only he slept. home.
no matter how isolated he felt from everyone he’d ever loved, the voice was always there. it wasn’t warm, it wasn’t pleasant most of the time. but it was there. that’s more than he could say for so many people who had used him until all the resources he could offer them, all the tricks he could display for them, were used up and depleted. when they left him with a little less of his heart and a little more self-hatred.
the voice often lulled him into a state of numbness through harsh words about his appearance or life. it would create false realities in his mind, which had become far from false by this point, in which starving himself, purging himself of the vitamins necessary for his survival were a beautiful thing to do. the correct thing to do.
wilbur hated the voice more often than not. he hated how whenever he saw his family eating normally, it would provide him with the idea that they were disgusting for it. he hated that whenever he walked into a room or met a new person, his brain was already speculating weights and bmi’s, and comparing them to his own measurements.
wilbur hated how he had inside jokes with the voice. how whenever someone mentioned how they were starving because they didn’t get to eat lunch, the voice would get so happy and his lips would be drawn into a smile because “god, imagine if those people were in your shoes wil! you haven’t eaten in two days and haven’t batted an eye,” — that’s a lie. food was in the forefront of his mind at all times of the day, and he constantly wondered if he should say ‘fuck it’ and just indulge himself. he never did. “good boy,” the voice would say.
wilbur hated how he loved watching the bruises on his knees worsen every week as they got bonier and his trips to the toilet after meals became more frequent. he hated that he felt a sick fascination with the way that sometimes, when he threw up carbs or starchy foods, they would get stuck in his throat and for a second he couldn’t breathe and for a second he was dying. wilbur hated how he could never let himself die in those moments. he hated how scared he was of himself in those moments.
he hated how he adored when he was so hungry the emptiness would rip away at his stomach and make his heart flutter and miss a few beats. he hated that he’d practically drool if someone ever said that they wished they were as small as him, wished they had as much self control. that he needed to put meat on his bones.
wilbur didn’t truly know what he looked like. most days the number was smaller than the day before, but despite this he still felt bigger than he had ever been. he wasn’t. he was almost back at the lowest weight he’d ever been since he reached a more steady height of 6’2. he knew he’d probably be taller. each day he would find himself bumping into things around the house that he previously hadn’t. regardless, he lived off the comments made from other people. they signified progress and progress signified that he was one step closer to his goal.
he hadn’t quite decided what that was yet, his goal. bones, maybe. being so small that he hardly took up any air. as it should be. he didn’t deserve to be on the earth in the first place, wasting materials and air that could be used on someone who could actually make a difference. but here he was taking up so much space that shouldn’t even be his to take up in the first place. it was a crime, really, he would think. that he is there instead of the bright young people killed daily from domestic terrorism in so many places around the world. he would do anything to take up as little space as possible, so as to not be a bother. a burden.
not eating was wilbur’s salvation. it saved him from feeling all of the horrible things he’d once thought. purging led to his redemption, after he would inevitably end up giving his body what it wanted.
wilbur thought himself a failure.
he wanted so badly to be like the bones you’d see on the internet or on the tv when someone dared mention the two dreadful words. he wasn’t. his weight put him just above an underweight bmi, and his body told him likewise. he was average. albeit small, not that he could tell, but he wasn’t underweight. that meant he wasn’t that unhealthy, right? that despite what he thought sometimes, he wasn’t actually sick.
well, maybe, wilbur supposed. but he also thought about how almost every day the number dropped at least slightly, and currently his bmi was an 18 (which frankly, was not much above underweight. it was only four more pounds until he reached perfection. a bmi of 17.5. underweight for his age and height). wilbur felt cold all of the time, and his hair, god his fucking hair. it couldn’t stay on his head if he dared it to. his nails broke every time he decided he wanted to grow them out. but then again, long nails weren’t exactly practical when it came to purging. they hurt. provided more of a chance for him to cut his throat. brittle nails were a good thing for him, he decided.
about two weeks after wilbur noticed the odd behavior from his brothers, he began to be a bit more careful. he understood that they were starting to suspect that he had an—
“wilbur?”
the voice outside of his door was young and timid, but the body it belonged to was normally rather loud and obnoxious (in the best way, of course). wilbur was scared. he put on a smile.
“yes, tommothy?”
he heard a little laugh— and although it was forced, it felt nice to hear— before his bedroom door creaked open and his fifteen year old brother made his way through. wilbur bit his tongue in disdain as the voice began to whisper about how tiny his brother’s arms were. wilbur hated thinking that way about his brother. he scrunched up his eyebrows for a second.
“you can sit down, tommy, i’m not gonna bite.”
he said calmly, like he were talking to a stray dog he was trying to pat on the head. tommy scoffed at the irony of the words and looked to the floor, mouth contorted to the side in a surge of mild anger that he felt toward his older brother. he was supposed to be the older one. the mature one. the one who had everything together and was taking care of him. not vice versa. tommy supposed this was selfish. he plopped down beside wilbur on the bed as he huffed an inaudible “i know” under his breath.
“whatcha playing?”
he asked, blue eyes a little darker than wilbur remembered. it scared him. wilbur glanced at the guitar he’d set beside him when tommy had knocked on the door.
“oh, nothing really. just a new song i came up with randomly.”
it wasn’t random. it was filled with some of the worst thoughts his thing made him think up. tommy didn’t need to know that.
“oh, yeah? can you play it for me?”
wilbur smiled a genuine smile this time. the tension in the room was undeniable, but he liked the idea. it felt like both parties were holding their breath, scared that if they dared speak above a whisper the other would shatter and they’d be returned to the lonely world of their thoughts. wilbur swore not be louder than he needed to be.
“of course.”
he reached a long limb to ruffle tommy’s overgrown hair. he hadn’t gotten it cut for a while. wilbur thought it suited him well. tommy thought it made him look like his older brother. he loved his older brother, looked up to him greatly. he didn’t want to see him slowly killing himself like this. he didn’t know how to bring it up to anyone. he returned the smile.
“i have to warn you though, it’s nowhere near finished. i don’t have anything but the first verse and the ending bit done.”
tommy shifted to where his legs were crossed haphazardly on the bed.
“doesn’t matter, it’s been a while since i heard you sing. miss it.”
“yeah?”
tommy gave a pathetic attempt at a reassuring smile, it was more embarrassed than anything, and he nodded his head. but it was something, and wilbur loved to live his life off of uncertainties. he picked up his guitar.
he payed no attention to anything but the floor as he propped it up on his lap. he hadn’t noticed at first that techno had entered the room until the slightly shorter teen had plopped himself down on the floor in front of wilbur. techno smiled up at his brother as he crossed his legs and shifted a braid of pink hair back on his shoulder. wilbur supposed the way they sat was something they all had in common. even if it was a bit of an odd thing to notice, it made his shattered heart reach down into his stomach, pick one of its broken shards up, and stitch it back onto itself ever so gently.
wilbur began playing. he liked the song, if not for the lyrics then for the guitar. it made him seem like he was very talented with it when oftentimes he thought the opposite. oftentimes he was wrong. he was scared about the vulnerability of the lyrics, but he supposed it was okay. his brothers didn’t really need to know what they meant. they might infer anyways.
“i think i’m dying this time,”
wilbur furrowed his brows as his stared down at his guitar in concentration. his brothers shared worried glances at the first lyric.
“i’m not melodramatic, just pragmatic beyond any reasoning for thinking i’ve got fucking rabies or something,”
tommy tilted his head a little as he tried to process the words, and techno started tapping his fingers on the floor to match the strumming. it made wilbur loosen up a bit, and even made his lips quirk upward for half a second before they returned to their natural position.
“i think i’m dying this time, i think i’m dying this time.”
wilbur kept strumming, but he started speaking up.
“now, this isn’t finished. some of the lines still need tweaking, and i don’t have the middle done. there’s supposed to be some lyrics here, but they aren’t written. just gonna cut it short and go straight to the end, if that’s okay.”
it was more directed at techno, who might not have heard him tell tommy it was unfinished. techno smiled
“that’s alright. it sounds amazin’ so far.”
his american accent was thick, and it made wilbur feel oddly more at home. he returned his gaze upon his guitar. wil didn’t want to see his brother’s reactions when he sang personal lyrics. it wasn’t that he was necessarily embarrassed, he knew they were quite good and he was actually rather proud of this song, but he was frightened to see how they’d react initially.
“i think i’ve made my choice, sink secluded in hatred, void the plans friends are making, i think i’ve made my choice,”
wilbur began to wiggle his feet a bit in nervousness.
“i’m a leech sucking blood bags, taste defeat it’s a sandbag. i think i’ve found my voice, i sink secluded in hatred, void the plans friends are making,”
“saline solution. saline solution, to all your,”
wilbur snuck a glance upward to see techno leaning back on his hands now, legs still crossed. wilbur thought he looked content. more content than he had seen him in a while.
“saline solution, to all your,”
and tommy, tommy was looking straight at him when he glanced to his right. he offered up a reassuring smile. a real, genuine one this time. wilbur smiled back.
“saline solution, to all your problems.”
he stopped playing, and his brothers let out little woops and cheers, and tommy even began snapping his fingers.
“isn’t this what they do at those fancy places where people read poetry, wilbur?”
“yeah, tommy. that’s what they do.”
“that was great, wilbur!”
techno’s voice had returned him from the flashback, and wilbur blushed. he sounded like he truly meant it.
“brilliant, wilby. absolutely brilliant.”
wilbur grinned hard at that. tommy rarely called him wilby. only when he wasn’t thinking about it. it made it seem more real. like it was actually out of adoration for his brother. wilbur had pretended to be annoyed when tommy first began saying it, but he’d be lying if he said it didn’t make his heart melt.
“thank you guys. really.”
he wished upon anything that he could be given the words to express to his brothers how much they meant to him, how much he appreciated them. he was never good at voicing those thoughts.
the past five minutes had felt like an eternity to wilbur. it wasn’t often that you got to share your deepest, somewhat darkest thoughts with the people you cared about most and earned praise in return, but here he was. here they all were.
wilbur was suddenly hit with a wave of nausea at the normalcy of the situation. it felt like old times, back before he had developed this thing, this disease, whatever you wanted to call it. wilbur would play covers and half-written songs all the time back then. now he could barely find time to play or write with his mind so constantly consumed by food and numbers.
wilbur despised the way he saw the world in numbers these days. food no longer looked like food, just numbers on a plate that he could choose to consume or deny. numbers on a scale that would act as an oracle for how his day, his life, would turn out. numbers on a door frame that signified growth that he could not control, change. the fact that one day they would all have to leave each other. the number of days until he thought he would be dead. the number of guitar strings he’d broken, the number of times his brothers would smile at him throughout the day, the number of times phil called them for food throughout the week, the number of hours he could go without consuming a drop of anything besides water.
5.
he thought to himself as techno began speaking up about why he’d actually come to wilbur’s room in the first place.
“phil made dinner, guys.”
5 times phil had made food for them this week. it was only wednesday. wilbur had somehow dodged every one.
wilbur felt every bit of euphoria he was feeling before leak out of his pores like water in a broken glass.
“okay.”
they followed techno down the stairs and wilbur was shaking. he was supposed to fast today. he had been fasting since sunday night. he’d binged then. at least, that’s what he told himself. he’d eaten a meager portion of what phil had cooked, hardly enough to feed a small child. it was still too much for wilbur’s brain. at this point, he considered every lick of food he consumed to be a binge. he was supposed to fast today.
as they reached the bottom of the stairs, wilbur was hit with the heavy scent of homemade tacos. what was once one of his favorite meals had easily became one of his least favorites. they were greasy and cheesy, and they were so heavy on his stomach. not to mention high calorie. wilbur swore every time after he finished eating them that he could feel the calories stitching themselves onto his thighs, stomach, and arms.
wilbur felt nauseous again as he sat down at the table beside techno. his dad was sitting at the end of the table to his right, and tommy was to phil’s right. the seat beside tommy was empty. sometimes it was occupied by tubbo, but that was more rare than not.
wilbur looked at his plate with two tacos and some nachos. he’d forgotten about the cheese dip. wilbur hated cheese. he cautiously broke a chip into shards and ate some pieces. he didn’t know how to get out of tacos. they were way too messy to stick in his sleeves or his pockets. he couldn’t feed them to the dogs, they would hurt their stomachs. phil hadn’t made tacos in a long time. wilbur forgot just how badly he detested them.
wilbur felt tears well up in his eyes. he tried to blink them back but they returned in an instant. he leaned his head downward in the hopes that no one would notice. he looked up, and everywhere he looked, people were stuffing their faces. wilbur was envious that they didn’t care about how many calories were in their food. wilbur was envious that they didn’t have to worry about gaining weight because even if they did, they’d still look amazing. wilbur was envious that he wasn’t the same way.
he dropped the taco back on his plate with no bites. the whole family glanced in direction of the sudden noise, and that was enough to send wilbur spiraling. a thin layer of grease coated his fingers, and he swiped his napkin from its resting place. he aggressively began scraping at his fingers in an attempt to get the grease off himself before it soaked into his skin and added on weight. all the while, his brain was screaming “look at them all. they’re staring at you like you’re an animal in a zoo. maybe that’s all you are to them. an animal. a pig. a hippo. a cow. a whale, even.”
wilbur’s eyes were glazed and his mind was hazy. whales used to be his favorite.
“they wouldn’t be staring at you like that if you hadn’t picked up that taco. tsk tsk tsk. look at that grease. there’s no point in trying to wipe it away, it’s already in your arteries. it’s already on the scale. you’re so disgusting. i can’t believe i ever thought you were different. i believed in you, and all you ever do is let me down. you’re worthless.”
the tears started rolling now, and wilbur knew everyone was staring. he couldn’t stop himself.
“mate? what’s the matter.”
phil sounded uncertain, uncomfortable. wilbur felt awful.
“i can’t.”
wilbur felt techno take his shaking hand into his own warm ones. it gave a reassuring squeeze. it set in that now was the time. the time everyone found out. the time suspicions became facts. wilbur was terrified.
“can’t what?”
phil’s voice was as gentle as techno’s hand, and wilbur wanted more than anything to be able to tell them what he was feeling. what all was going on. he wanted help. he wanted to be happy. he didn’t want to abandon the voice though. he didn’t want to have to stop.
“i don’t know.”
he settled for a basic answer. it gave away nothing.
“i think you do know.”
tommy’s voice was steady. clear. he seemed... angry. wilbur looked back down, hair falling over his eyes.
“i don’t know what you mean.”
“dad, wilbur has an eating disorder.”
wilbur’s head shot up, hand flying out of techno’s to slam against the table.
“i do not.”
techno and tommy sighed in unison. their eyes were overly alert, like they were dealing with a feral cat that had made its way into their garage.
“why do you think that, tommy?”
phil asked. he was scared. out of his element. sure he’d learned a thing or two about eating disorders in his life, but he didn’t understand them. he certainly didn’t think it would ever happen to one of his boys. he cursed himself for the sexist way of thinking that had been engrained in his mind. he didn’t understand why either. how hard could it be. just eat. right?
“oh, please, phil! have you not noticed? he’s... he’s fading before our eyes! he never sits down for meals anymore, he’s fuckin’ angry all the time, and he never leaves his room.”
“he also showers after every meal. and starts gettin’ angry when he can’t.”
techno offered in a low voice, diverting his attention to the floor when wilbur shot a dirty look in his direction.
“i don’t know what they’re talking about. i was just sad today s’all.”
wilbur said with furrowed brows looking back to where phil sat. wilbur wondered if he believed him.
“wil, mate,”
phil’s voice was soft. he didn’t believe him. he looked directly into his eyes, a challenge wilbur wouldn’t refuse.
“do you have an eating disorder?”
wilbur kept his gaze and muttered out a strong “no.”
tommy spoke up this time, and wilbur directed his eye contact to the boy’s.
“wil. do you have an eating disorder?”
wilbur felt his eyes begin to fill with hot tears. he blinked. they vanished.
“no.”
“wilbur.”
hearing techno say his full name was almost enough to make him break.
“do you have an eating disorder.”
a tear fell before he could stop it. he broke his newly found eye contact with techno. he watched as his hands fiddled with each other.
“maybe.”
it was barely a whisper, but he knew everyone at the table heard it. techno put his hands over wilbur’s own. wilbur squeezed back this time.
he couldn’t force himself to look up. couldn’t force himself to confront his own actions. his own words. his own family.
“oh, son.”
wilbur felt the remaining pieces of his heart shatter and fall into his abdomen, littering it with ache. he wished he could disappear more than anything in the world at that moment. wished he could die and become a ghost, and float far away from the table. he wished he could time travel. stop himself from crying. force himself to eat just this once. he could’ve always thrown it up later. it was too late.
wilbur’s world came crashing down around him with one simple word, and he wasn’t sure he could handle it. he decided he had to. if not for him, then for techno. for tommy. for phil. he had to keep himself from falling completely off the deep end, just this once.
the voice screamed. condemning him for what he’d just done. he forced himself not to listen.
“i’m sorry. i think,” his voice trailed off for a moment.
”i think i need help.”