Chapter Text
As the first rays of light from the early morning sun begin to spill into the alleyway, Wilbur wakes with a low groan, bringing a hand up to shield his face from the sunlight that, without fail, seems to always go directly into his eyes.
With a wry little smile, Wilbur can’t help but think that most people his age probably wake up to the sound of an alarm clock, maybe the feeling of a parent gently shaking them awake so they don’t miss the bus to school.
Instead, Wilbur wakes up at the crack of dawn, always being rudely awakened by the rising sun or the terribly persistent cat that occupies the same alleyway as him.
This morning he must be extra lucky, because, even as he tries to roll over to face away from the sun and get a little more sleep, he hears an annoyingly loud sound right beside his ear.
Meow.
“Not now,” Wilbur grumbles as he half-heartedly pushes a hand out toward the cat to move it away, his actions only rewarding him with a tail smacking him in the face in irritation.
“You’re the fucking worst,” Wilbur mutters as he slowly sits up, dragging a hand down his face as something fluffy begins crawling into his lap, the little devil meowing without relent the whole time.
As Wilbur begins reaching into one of the pockets of his tattered black backpack, he says under his breath to the cat, “Okay, okay, I’m getting it, prick.”
The jet-black cat begins meowing even louder as he takes out the small bag of cat food, one of his hands cupping the left corner to keep the food from spilling out of there, that hole probably being the reason why someone threw out a perfectly good bag of pet food.
“Here you go, girl,” Wilbur fondly whispers as he holds out a handful of food, smiling at the way the cat’s vibrant green eyes seem to light up as she begins eating the food.
As his companion begins to eat her breakfast, Wilbur uses his free hand to do the same, pulling a piece of bread out of the package in his backpack. The bread’s a bit stale, a little difficult to chew in some places because of how hard it’s started to get, but there’s little bits of seeds and walnuts baked into the bread, so he can’t really find it in himself to complain.
Once they’ve both finished with their meager meals, Wilbur spends a few moments just petting the cat, wishing that he couldn’t feel each of her ribs whenever his hand brushes over her sides.
“You be a good girl while I’m gone, Simone,” Wilbur murmurs after a little while longer spent petting his cat, having no idea what she gets up to whenever he’s gone at school, but he’s sure the little shit’s up to no good.
Wilbur isn’t sure if cats can be smug, but the way Simone hits his face with her tail certainly seems smug, especially with how she scampers off before he can begin to complain about how rude it is to hit him.
“Prick,” Wilbur mutters as he watches his cat leave, but the smile on his face as he says it is nothing but fond, the boy beyond happy that he has a companion to spend the long nights with.
Without much conscious thought, Wilbur begins going through his daily routine. He ducks behind the dumpster to put on the clothes that look the least dirty, checks his reflection in a puddle of dirty watery. He fixes his hair a bit, then immediately messes it up again by putting on his ratty old maroon beanie. He sprays a bit of cologne to make himself smell a little better, one of those tiny sample bottles that they have in stores so you can smell the product before you buy it. In Wilbur’s case, it was easy enough to slip that bottle into his pocket and leave while the nearest worker was distracted by a question from a potential customer. Not something that Wilbur’s proud of, but hey, he can’t very well show up to school smelling like he lives in an alley, no thank you, that would cause way too many uncomfortable questions.
After doing all that, Wilbur slings his backpack over his shoulder, being much more gentle with the bag than most students are with any of their school things, knowing that his backpack could fall apart at any moment, and he really doesn’t want to have to go to the school’s lost and found again and pretend like he found his missing backpack so he can have something to use.
As Wilbur makes his way toward the school, he stops at the closest store, dipping into the bathroom without even looking at the cashier that says good morning to him.
In the bathroom, Wilbur does his best to wash his face without ever actually looking at his reflection, knowing that he’ll fucking hate whatever he might see.
All it takes is one glance up at himself, and then he can’t seem to stop staring. Can’t seem to stop staring at the tired brown eyes looking back at him. Can’t seem to stop staring at the smudges underneath his eyes that are so dark they look like bruises, the sight telling of many nights filled with insomnia, many nights when a single unfamiliar noise would leave him too scared to sleep at all. Can’t seem to stop staring at his gaunt features, the way his cheeks seem almost sunken in from not eating enough. Can’t seem to stop staring at just how awful he looks overall.
Prime, it’s no wonder why no one ever wants to talk to him.
He looks fucking insane.
With a heavy, weary sigh, Wilbur begins going back to trying to get as clean as he possibly can, knowing that it won’t make much of a difference, but what little’s left of his pride won’t let him show up to school with dirt clinging to his skin.
When he finally deems himself good enough, which is a very generous term for how he actually looks, Wilbur exits the bathroom, once again resolutely ignoring the cashier, absolutely not in the mood to talk to anyone.
The actual walk to school only takes a few minutes–-perks of living in an alley that’s just a short distance away--something he’s thankful for since, by the time he gets inside the correct building, the clock up on the wall tells him that class starts in two minutes.
Wilbur can’t help but sigh in relief as he enters the classroom, thankful that he isn’t late. While his teacher is nice, so terribly nice, even when he acts like an absolute dick to her, Wilbur fucking hates being late, hates the feeling of every student’s eyes darting toward him when that classroom door opens, looking and staring and judging.
As his teacher says good morning to him, Wilbur doesn’t reply, just quickly makes his way to the back corner of the classroom and settles into his seat, trying his best to ignore the eyes he feels watching him, trying his best to ignore the whispers that are just a bit too loud, loud enough for him to notice, loud enough for him to know that they’re talking about him.
With a relieved sigh now that he’s safely sitting in his seat, Wilbur promptly rests his arms on the desk and lays his head on them, willing that this next hour and a half passes quickly.
Whenever he sits like this, he’s sure that most people think he’s trying to sleep in class, and that’s the way he likes it.
He never actually falls asleep, always too on edge to sleep when so many people are around, but it’s so nice to know that people won’t bother him since they think he’s asleep.
Instead of sleeping, he likes to rest his head on his arms and let his mind wander, enjoying the way his hot breath fogs up the surface of the desk, that warmth helping to keep him from freezing to death because these teachers just love to keep their classrooms so fucking cold.
After a few moments, he hears his teacher start to take roll, but he doesn’t pay much attention, not caring enough to tell everyone that he’s here, knowing that no one actually cares whether or not he shows up to class.
Soon, students start talking with their partners, answering some kind of math problem that’s probably unnecessarily complex, but Wilbur doesn’t make any move to join them, instead just continuing to rest his head on the desk, doing his best to suppress shivers as the air around him begins to grow colder and colder, wishing that he could just stand up and punch the air conditioner until it turns off so he won’t be fucking freezing his ass off in here.
He’s sure that most students around him are wearing jackets, but he doesn’t have one, his beige short-sleeve t-shirt doing nothing to keep him from turning into a human popsicle inside this frigid classroom.
“Wilbur,” a low, surprisingly gentle voice suddenly says, the sound of his teacher saying his name causing Wilbur’s head to snap up in surprise and alarm, his blurry vision landing on the petite figure standing in front of his desk. “Is there a reason you’re not participating again?”
“I-I’m s-s-sorry, Mrs. T,” Wilbur whispers as he shivers violently, cringing at the way he stutters because his teeth have started to chatter from the cold.
For a few moments, Wilbur can feel his teacher’s gaze boring into him, and even though he knows that Mrs. Trixtin and her husband are the nicest teachers in the whole school, he wishes that the floor would just swallow him up so he wouldn’t have to deal with her staring at him any longer.
“It’s okay, Sweetheart,” Kristin assures him as a small frown graces her features, her heart clenching with worry the longer she looks at Wil, the boy who never seems to be dressed right for the weather, the boy that her husband has never seen eat even a bite of food. “Would you like a blanket?”
For a few seconds, Wilbur just peers up at his teacher in shock. He knows sometimes teachers keep extra blankets in their classrooms, but he never thought that one would be offered to him, not with the way he’s certain that, if he even touches one, he’ll cause it to be soiled by the dirt and filth that clings to him.
But he’d be a fucking idiot to turn down something that’ll make him feel like he isn’t about to catch hypothermia, so Wilbur just eagerly nods his head, swallowing hard against the threat of tears, refusing to be so pathetic that he cries over a blanket.
With a sad little smile, Kristin crosses the room and grabs a black woolen blanket from one of the cabinets on her desk, unable to help but wonder why Wilbur doesn’t have a jacket on him despite the fact that November’s almost here, and it’ll only get colder from there.
“There you go, Wil,” Kristin says with a forced smile as she hands Wilbur the blanket, a feeling of wrongness settling deep into her gut at the absolute joy and gratitude on the boy’s face as he wraps the blanket around his trembling shoulders, certain that no one should look so happy just to borrow a blanket.
She’s definitely going to have to talk to Phil about this after school ends…
When Wilbur rests his head on his desk again without another word, Kristin has to physically force herself to not give the poor boy a hug, instead making her way to the front of the classroom so she can begin teaching today’s lesson on graphing quadratic functions, wanting to help Wilbur so much more, but she just doesn’t know how to right now.
For Wilbur, the rest of the class passes by in a blur that he spends simply breathing deeply and he buries his upper body underneath the blanket, dreading when he’ll have to give it back at the end of the class, but he does his absolute best to enjoy the warmth while it lasts.
Eventually, the bell rings, causing students to quickly jump to their feet and flock to the door, nearly pushing and shoving each other in their haste to leave so they can enjoy their ten-minute break.
After a few moments, Wilbur slowly raises his head from his desk, squinting at the brightness of the classroom compared to the dark cocoon of the blanket that he had been under moments ago.
As Wilbur blinks blearily, looking terribly lost and confused, Kristin feels her heart clench painfully, the sight causing her to blurt out, “Do you want a hug?”
“Huh?” Wilbur asks in absolute disbelief as he stares wide-eyed at his teacher, certain that she was going to ask for the blanket back, not if he wants a hug.
“Can I give you a hug?” Kristin reiterates as she hesitantly approaches Wilbur, feeling like she’s approaching a skittish wild animal, the tension in the boy’s limbs making it seem like he’s ready to bolt from her classroom at any moment now.
After a few moments of just continuing to stare, waiting for his teacher to laugh it off and say it was just a joke, Wilbur opens his mouth to answer, opens his mouth to say that he doesn’t need a hug.
“Please.”
That one little word slips out of him without conscious thought, his eyes widening and his breath picking up in alarm as his teacher starts coming closer to him.
As Wilbur stands on shaky legs, Kristin pulls him into a hug, keeping her hold loose enough that he could easily pull away from her, but he does no such thing.
Instead, Wilbur slumps in her embrace, the blanket slipping off his shoulders and falling to the floor below as he begins clinging to her for dear life.
After a few moments, a small, hitched sob escapes Wil, that broken sound causing Kristin to hold him a little tighter and softly say, “It’s okay, Wilbur, you’re safe here.”
Instead of saying how those words aren’t really true, Wilbur just nods his head as he keeps hugging his teacher, breathing heavily from the strain of trying to choke back more sobs.
When the bell loudly rings, signaling that he has five minutes to get to his next class, Wilbur jerks away as if he was just burned, harshly shoving down the little voice in his head that screams to never stop hugging her.
Quickly, Wilbur bends down to grab the blanket, reluctantly extending it out toward her while whispering, “Thanks for the blanket.”
“You’re welcome, but you don’t have to give it back yet,” Kristin says without hesitation, knowing that she absolutely can’t take back the blanket, not when Wilbur looked so terribly happy when she gave it to him. “I have others, so as long as I get it back by the end of the school year, you can keep it.”
“Really?” Wilbur asks in a surprised whisper as his head snaps up to meet Mrs. T’s gaze, barely concealed hope on his face as he stares into his teacher’s kind brown eyes.
“Really,” Kristin confirms with a sad smile, wanting to pull Wilbur into another hug when she sees a few fresh tears begin to slip down his cheeks.
“Thank you so much,” Wilbur sincerely says as he clutches the blanket a little tighter to himself, so grateful that he doesn’t have to part with the lovely warmth it provides. “I promise I’ll give it back, it’s just so cold in these classrooms and I don’t have a jacket and I just-”
“It’s okay, Wil,” Kristin reassuringly says when Wilbur suddenly cuts himself off because he didn’t want to start crying in front of his math teacher for the second time today. “I’m more than happy to let you keep the blanket.”
Wilbur simply nods as he wraps the blanket around his shoulders again, his throat too choked with emotion for him to thank his teacher anymore.
Quickly, Wilbur grabs his tattered backpack, rushing toward the door so he won’t be late to his next class, but he can’t help but pause when Mrs. T kindly says, “If you ever want someone to talk to, my classroom is always open during lunch. I know you usually go to my husband’s room, but I’m here too if you need me.”
“Thank you,” Wilbur murmurs with a sad smile, knowing that he doesn’t deserve this kindness, but damn does it feel nice.
With a final wave, Wilbur exits the classroom, pulling the blanket more firmly around his shoulders as he stares down at the dirty oak wood floors of the hallways, not wanting to accidentally meet anyone’s eyes as he makes his way to his next class.
When he reaches the classroom, he once again plops down at a desk in the back corner, determined to actually pay attention during his history class, one of the few subjects he enjoys.
Even though he doesn’t really understand why, Wilbur absolutely loves learning about all the different wars that have happened, especially what led to each of them starting.
And maybe in another life, Wilbur thinks that he could’ve been someone who started a war and led a nation to victory as a fearless ruler.
But since he’s just an awkward teenager wrapped in a blanket in his history class, he’ll stick to just learning about all the different wars that have happened over the years.
As his teacher begins talking about World War II, Wilbur settles into his seat, staring at the whiteboard with rapt attention, feeling warm and content, both the blanket and his conversation with Mrs. T making him feel… better than he has in a long while.
Maybe today won’t be so bad after all...