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Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Wilbur is incredibly late.
In his defense, the week leading up to today has been stressful as all hell, and he’s not quite sure how to transition from a handful of mind-bending, low-income gap years to knowledge. Wilbur’s been slacking, but now, it’s time to get to work. The problem is that he’s spent so long out of it that he doesn’t entirely remember how to fall back into the easy groove of things.
A Bachelor’s degree in songwriting didn’t help him as much as he thought it would. Of course, the good old American Dream is hard to come by these days; he knew he wasn’t going to make it big as an artist, or anything crazy like that. But it’s been two years, and retail and gigs aren’t getting him anywhere interesting.
He’s been stuck in the same flat for at least four years, and it’s not that the people are bad— Wilbur loves the whole gang with his entire heart, really. The problem is the fact that waking up at seven every morning to haul his ass to Wal-Mart and then spending his weekend nights drinking cold coffee and playing around with new music (not to mention trying to find places that’ll let them rent and perform) is getting old.
Wilbur’s never really hated the idea of being a teacher, so now he’s here. Except he’s not really great with tardiness— not really a master of time management— so now he’s practically sprinting for a coffee before his first class of the year, an art history class that he’s determined not to let kick his ass. Coffee is just the slightest bit addictive enough to have him bent out of shape if he goes without it for a day (especially if it's a weekday).
Wilbur takes the steps down by twos and barrels toward the cafeteria with heavy breaths, Adidas sneakers pounding into the floor with every step he takes. The bag hooked around both his shoulders jostles, and then he turns a corner into the canteen, and his legs are long and the boy is just the slightest bit shorter than him and then there’s a blond guy sprawled across the floor. Within three seconds, Wilbur’s hands are over his mouth, and the second hand on his watch is slowly ticking on.
He’s going to be late. The kid struggles to his feet, and Wilbur bites the inside of his cheek, kicking himself for sticking around. It’s not every day that he runs into somebody so hard they fall, though, which means he definitely feels too bad to just keep on walking like nothing’s wrong.
When Wilbur finally gets a good look at the kid’s face, he realizes several things at once, the first being that this is a kid. And oh, brother, thinks Wilbur, because actual children are not something he’s willing to put up with at quarter to eight in the morning (and before his coffee, too!). He’d like to be a teacher, sure, but not yet, and he’s shooting for some nameless high school smack dab in the middle of nowhere, USA— not the cafeteria of his college.
This guy looks… small. The kid is gangly, probably skinnier than him; a shock of untamed blond hair falls into his eyes when he straightens up, and his clothes hang off of him. His eyes are the color of a cadet blue Crayola crayon, wide and owlish, and his cheeks are stained with a pink that he can’t seem to shake.
“I’m so sorry,” the boy immediately rushes out, sticking his hands out in front of himself. “So so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going— sorry, just— here, let me get out of your way.” The kid trips over his own words and then ducks his head as he moves to the side, allowing Wilbur space to pass by. Wilbur doesn’t yet, though, giving the kid a peculiar look after his thorough examination. He spots a purplish bruise blooming on the side of his arm and he can only hope that that wasn’t his fault. It seems fresh, though, so Wilbur winces and tries to progress through minding his damn business.
Well, until he doesn’t. His feet seem frozen to the floor, and he can’t bear to move. “Little young to be in college,” he remarks, still a little shell-shocked by the collision. As much as he’s decided he likes how polite the kid is, especially for a Monday morning, the blond looks like he could do well with a little teasing. It doesn’t matter that Wilbur doesn’t know him personally, or that he’s probably going to be late to class— fuck.
“‘S what they all say,” the boy shrugs, and then, again: “Sorry. It won’t happen again.” It doesn’t answer any of the questions Wilbur has— in fact, it’s a little entertaining, and it leaves him with more. Wilbur is tempted to laugh. They might not even see each other on campus ever again after this. The boy is clearly fresh out of high school (or maybe even middle school with that baby face) and doesn’t quite get the whole college thing; Wilbur pities the way that his hands fidget relentlessly and his weight is so clearly shifting from foot to foot.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Wilbur snorts, and then steps forward. As he goes, he finishes, “Relax. I don’t bite. Just get to class, man.” And he moves on (only two minutes lost), and the boy moves the other way, and it isn’t until later when he’s pushing the door open to his first lecture in years, halfway done with the coffee he needed so badly, that he realizes he never even apologized in return.
Tommy is so fucking late.
He knew this would happen, but after the mess in the canteen, he raced to the bathroom, terrified to show his face to the world after such a stupid mistake. They told him one of the requirements was that he was only allowed to attend this place if he was on his best behavior— as if he’s fucking eight years old, or something— which always made him shift uncomfortably and sit a little straighter. Now, though, it’s twenty-five minutes past the start of class, and Tommy’s just found the right room.
Fuck it, he thinks to himself, leaning against the wall to catch his breath. There’s no point in rushing— he’s already late enough that it doesn’t really matter, anyway. After running into some random bitch in the cafeteria, Tommy immediately sprinted to the bathroom to hide for five minutes. After that, he had to go back to the cafeteria to get breakfast, because the tall brunet guy knocked his bagel out of his hand, and he kind of needed a handful of minutes to nurse the bruise he’d acquired on his arm. And then, after that, he couldn’t find his lecture hall for… well. An embarrassingly large amount of time.
Anyway: Tommy’s kicking himself, as he leans here against the wall, because what if they look at him? What if they all turn their heads to stare at the boy who was never supposed to be here in the first place? Agh, his anxieties get the best of him sometimes.
Well— not anxieties. He’s not diagnosed. He shouldn’t self-diagnose.
Anyway, again, trying to keep himself on track, Tommy lets out a slow breath. He’s crazy. The inhabitants of Survey of the History of Western Art 1 are not going to give a single collective shit when he steps through that door, and the professor (lecturer? He still doesn’t know the difference, or if there even is one) isn’t even going to spare him a second glance.
With one more breath, Tommy steels himself, moving off of the wall and facing the door that he dreads so much. It’s just a door, he reassures himself, squaring his shoulders in hopes that it’ll make him look more confident. He’s not here for nothing. College books aren’t cheap. Tommy runs a hand through his hair to fluff it slightly, because maybe it’ll look better like that, and then that hand migrates to the doorknob.
One last mental check: bag, phone, drink (there’s still half a Red Bull in his left hand, one he bought from the cafeteria this morning, and it was definitely a terrible fucking idea), wallet, keys. That’s about it. No reason to hesitate now. He needs to go. Another glance at his phone tells him that he’s now twenty-eight minutes late for class. With his luck, he’ll have missed the entire syllabus discussion and any important introductory matters. And he doesn’t even have any friends in this class— or the entire fucking school, either— so it’s not like he can just ask someone what he missed.
Ugh. He’s psyching himself out again. Tommy turns the handle before he has the chance to lose courage and unenroll himself from this stupid fucking college (or from life, whichever’s easiest).
Immediately, Tommy glues his eyes to the floor, in turn convincing himself that nobody else’s are on him. He makes his way up to the back of the lecture hall, avoiding the clear gazes of some of the students. If they’re not looking, good. If they are, no they aren’t.
The teacher (professor, lecturer, what the fuck) doesn’t stop to belittle him, and doesn’t even acknowledge him. He doesn’t say how nice of you to finally join us and he doesn’t say wow, somebody took his sweet time getting here, and at least that’s better than high school. Workloads are about to get a lot fucking harder, though, and he’s not excited for that.
Tommy settles in an empty seat at the end of a row, making sure to choose one with at least one other spot in between him and the person closest on his side. If Tommy concentrates hard enough, he can tune in to what the man in the front of the class is saying, but Tommy has no energy to focus and no room to concentrate on new information.
Really, they should have synced this class to start up right after he gets out of this patch of executive dysfunction disorder. (But oh, for fuck’s sake. He doesn’t have that, either. At this point, he’s just making shit up.)
With a nervous breath, Tommy lets his bag slide off of his shoulder and onto the table in front of him, setting his energy drink down to the side. This is a mistake, he realizes instantly, and his eyes widen when he catches sight of what exactly is happening because of his own stupidity. Oh, no. Oh, fuck. No, no, no.
Tommy makes a grab for his laptop, but it slides out of the unzipped part of his bag (maybe he should invest in a drawstring) and off the front of the desk, out of his reach, with a deafening thud.
Go to college early, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.
Tommy’s face burns brightly red, because all of the eyes in the hall are turned his way after that genius maneuver. Thanks a lot, fucking… there’s nothing to blame it on but himself, which is admittedly a little frustrating when one is trying to find an outlet through which to channel all the irritation.
The eyes of the students won’t move yet, and the teacher (professor, lecturer, what the fuck) has faltered for a moment, and Tommy is feeling incredibly cornered as he snatches up his laptop to his chest and then drops into his chair, sinking lower and lower until he has room to decide that he’d rather just be absorbed into the floor, at this point.
And then there is salvation—
Somebody’s textbook slams into the ground across the room.
All eyes turn on the new person, and Tommy’s definitely going to be replaying that scene over and over in his head for years, but that took away a little of the sting. Especially when his savior says, “Sorry!” in a voice that’s just the slightest bit too…
Tommy pays the diverter a look, and of course it’s fucking Cafeteria Guy. This day truly can’t get any better.
Sitting three rows forward from him and much farther right, Cafeteria Guy makes direct eye contact with Tommy, who feels his own internal organs shrivel and die instantly upon the look. There’s a subtle thumbs up thrown his way— at least, Tommy’s pretty sure that’s what that is— and then the brunet guy waves a hand to everyone and sits back down after swooping up his book, and then…
Class continues as usual. The professor (teacher, lecturer, for fuck’s sake) cracks a quick joke about the disturbance and then moves on, and Tommy feels his soul slowly returning to his body, sinking in between the cracks that he left open for it to sneak back through. That was a bit of a life-changing experience— life-changing in the sense that Tommy’s never going to recover from this moment.
It’s mentally painful that he knows exactly what they were all thinking when they looked his way, too. Who let this fucking kid in here? It’s always on the tips of their tongues, and it never shows its face, but Tommy can feel it— that slim, slippery ghost of patronization and condescension that floats in circles around his head.
Oh, well, he thinks, pulling his laptop open to take what little notes he possibly can from Survey of the History of Western Art 1. At least nobody directly said anything to him. Even if he becomes known as the kid that made his debut by throwing his laptop on the ground immediately, at least he’ll maybe have a tiny hint of an idea of what the fuck he’s doing.
His laptop screen does not light up when he opens it. Tommy blinks, and presses the power button: nothing. He holds it down. The flashing low battery symbol pops up.
Tommy’s laptop is dead.
With a hefty sigh, he pulls Plan B from his bag and starts handwriting everything there is to know about surveying the history of western art.
Wilbur hasn’t been to the library in years. It’s a very humbling experience, to return to the school that once held all of his worries in its two cupped hands. It’s long since dumped them out onto the floor, and now Wilbur is sent searching for them all over again, trying to scrounge together the shattered pieces of a life from years ago.
That’s why he starts with the library. This is where he spent most of his time as a fresh college student, and it’s where he’s going to spend a damn good portion of it now that he’s back for round two. At least there’s a bright side; at least he doesn’t have to live in a dorm. At least he can still work his dinky little retail part-time, even with the hours shifted slightly, to pitch in and help with the rent at the flat.
He digresses. When he steps into the first floor of the library, the smell is instant: vanilla and the hundreds of creased corners of old, leather-bound books. Wilbur takes it in quickly and moves on, not willing to spend too long standing in one spot and looking like an idiot.
Whatever. It’s college. Nobody cares. Wilbur ventures further into the rather spacious library, passing aisles and shelves in search of somewhere to set his shit down and work.
As he walks, the scene from about a week ago replays in his mind, stuck on a never ending loop that apparently decided not to vanish with a few rounds of good night’s sleep. How ironic that he’d assumed (on his first day, in the cafeteria) that he’d never see the blond kid again, and then, just like that— blond hair and blue eyes were making the loudest fucking crash Wilbur’d heard in a classroom in years.
It was only natural to cover for him.
...Okay, no, maybe it wasn’t natural, but in Wilbur’s defense, he still feels bad about the downright mortified look hanging off of the boy’s features, so frozen that a small gust of wind could most likely knock him over. It was easy to recognize him and even easier to slide his own textbook off the edge of his desk with a thunk against the floor that proved to be even louder than the last.
He’s not really sure why he did it, honestly. Probably had something to do with the leftover guilt from not apologizing to the boy when they ran into each other (read: when Wilbur fucking trampled him) and the sheer shock at actually seeing him again. The face is seared into his mind and engraved there by now, Wilbur muses as he passes another nook that’s already inhabited. Blue eyes and slightly downturned lips (lips that look awkward wearing so deep a frown, lips that look like they’re much better suited for smiling) are behind his eyelids half of the time now, which is maybe a little strange, but—
—then they’re not behind his eyelids. They’re in front of them. Because when Wilbur reaches the next corner, it’s taken up (hardly) by the lanky laptop dropper, who’s staring at his screen like it just bit him in the leg.
Laptop Boy looks up when Wilbur’s footsteps stop, supposedly acknowledging his presence, and then flushes almost immediately. Great— so the guy is embarrassed by Wilbur’s very existence. This will be good ammunition.
“Oh,” says the kid, shifting awkwardly and sitting up straighter from where he was slouching something awful. “Oh.” Then he seems to fidget for his bag, creeping toward the edge of his seat. “Sorry. Do— do you need a place to sit? Because I can—”
Wilbur snorts. “Don’t move,” he says, and then drops into the booth seat directly opposite Laptop Boy, because what the fuck— why not? You only live once, or something. “There’s a perfectly good one right here.”
The boy stares owlishly as Wilbur sets his bag down and pulls his laptop out, and Wilbur is half tempted to laugh at him. Instead, though, he goes on, sparing the boy another chance at a disjointed sentence. “So what’s your name?”
With an awkward clearing of his throat, the boy seems to wait a second, and once he figures out the question, he squints. “Uh— me?”
It’s taking every single brain cell Wilbur has left not to laugh in his face. Clearly, the kid is freaked out, and Wilbur takes pity on him in that regard— because he doesn’t want to make it worse— but holy fuck, this kid is so comically skittish that Wilbur can’t help a little teasing. “Well,” the brunet says, gesturing broadly to the booth they’re currently sharing, “I don’t see anyone else around here, do you?”
Laptop Boy laughs, shoulders falling slack and head ducking forward, and Wilbur thinks, finally. There was some part of him that was waiting for this. There was some part of him that was waiting to see the boy finally smile— because, Wilbur recalls, he’s only ever seen Laptop Boy in a state of national crisis or discomfort.
“Right,” the boy says, tugging at his shirt collar. Wilbur eyes the bruise peeking out from under his sleeve and says nothing, guilt churning in his stomach. “Sorry. I’m Tommy. And you’re…?”
Wilbur realizes in that moment that really, it’s kind of rude to ask for someone else’s name before first introducing oneself. He’s just a little intrigued, though, by the spindly build and slightly pitchy voice of this laptop-dropping messy-haired Tommy. Wilbur still can’t tell his age, and he’s trying to figure out if it would be insensitive to ask. Maybe the guy’s just a late bloomer. If he goes by Tommy, though...
Wilbur is so curious.
He pushes the thoughts away and opens Canvas, scrolling through his dashboard nonchalantly. “Wilbur,” he says with a nod, “it’s nice to meet you.” A beat, and then: “I suppose you’re new this semester, then?”
Tommy nods, pulling his laptop over once he sees Wilbur’s eyes on his own. Wilbur fights back a smile. This can’t be a college aged individual— and even if he is, Wilbur’s most definitely older. “Yeah, I, uh… they kinda... well,” says Tommy, and he fizzles out there, like a star that doesn’t burn bright enough to live. Wilbur lets his own expression fall lopsided.
Then he decides this will only be awkward if he lets it. “Jeez, kid, you sound like someone’s going to shoot you if you share too much about the subject,” Wilbur snorts, and Tommy rolls his eyes.
“I’m not a kid, dickhead—”
“Finally, some fucking balls,” Wilbur replies instantly, and then raises an eyebrow. “What did you say? You’re not a kid? I didn’t know they let liars into this university—”
“Oh my god, you sound so dumb right now, you absolute fucking—” Tommy trails off, and then flushes when he finds Wilbur staring at him. “Sorry. I mean— sorry. Swearing’s a bad habit. I don’t mean to…”
“Oh, shut up. I liked you better when you apologized less. Where’s that five seconds of confidence?” Wilbur jokes, like they’re already old friends, and Tommy’s expression flickers into something unreadable before he seems to relax. Even if only slightly, it gives Wilbur hope. Before he can try to retaliate, Wilbur pushes on. “Really— you don’t look a day over fourteen, dude.”
And Tommy instantly gets redder in the face. Sore subject; noted. “Uhh,” he says, and Wilbur waits patiently as he scrambles for an answer, knowing that Tommy will come around when he comes around. He seems like the type to give in to the important stuff. “I’m, you know…”
A deafening pause.
“Sixteen,” Tommy squeaks, and holy fuck, that’s not what Wilbur was expecting.
He has to force his jaw not to drop, because that’s not even possible, last time Wilbur fucking checked. “Sixteen!” he exclaims, eyebrows practically merging with his hairline, and Tommy’s own eyes widen. His hands come out in front of him as he glances furtively to the side, shushing Wilbur once and then seeming to regret it.
“Tell the whole damn library, why don’t you!”
“Sure, sure,” Wilbur waves off with a half-smile. “Dude, that’s… insanely impressive.” And Tommy just shrugs, which drives Wilbur crazy, but oh, well— he probably gets told this on the daily. At least, Wilbur hopes he does, because that’s… Wilbur can’t imagine being in college at sixteen. He would have spiraled. Maybe that explains the look that sat on Tommy’s face when Wilbur first approached.
“I don’t know, dude. They just were like…” Tommy rubs his face. “Well, I skipped a grade in elementary, and then I took enough advanced classes, and then…” He can’t seem to figure out a way to properly end his sentence, trailing off and switching routes again and again.
To be brutally honest: it reminds Wilbur of himself. He grins, gesturing towards Tommy. “Well, there’s nothing to be worried about. Everyone can handle a little dropping of laptops.”
“Hey—!”
“What’re you working on?” Wilbur interjects, hiding a laugh, before it can escalate to a library shouting match. “You looked like you were about ready to murder someone when I got here, man.”
Tommy wilts instantly; terrible question, it seems. “Fuckin’ chemistry, you have no idea.” He presses his palms into his eyes, sinking into his seat, and Wilbur cocks his head. Somehow, despite his burning hatred for science and math, he’s wildly inclined to lend a hand.
“I feel like I have a little bit of an idea,” Wilbur rebuts, playfully affronted. For a man in his twenties, though, Wilbur has to admit— he’s not as good at chemistry as the curriculum seems to want him to be. “We’re literally barely a week into school,” he tells Tommy then. “You can’t have had more than, like, two classes so far— is it really that bad?” And then guilt settles on his shoulders, because this kid— this kid is straight from high school. Of course it’s fucking hard. Wilbur can recall how bad it was for him, first starting out, and from the way the kid bounces his knee and fidgets with everything in reach, Wilbur can’t imagine it’s any easier for him.
Tommy shrugs, turning his eyes to his laptop abashedly. “It’s— it’s not awful,” he mutters. “But… well, I don’t know. I’ve just never done this before.” And there’s a pause, Wilbur’s own thoughts entwining with Tommy’s as they sit there in a serene sort of silence.
His brain whirrs, and then he makes a decision before he can talk himself out of it. “But I have.”
Tommy looks up, hair falling into his eyes as he fixes his befuddled gaze on Wilbur’s. “What are— what do you mean?”
“Well, I’m not in any hurry,” Wilbur says, and immediately, Tommy’s eyes widen to the size of saucers. Wilbur fights back a laugh. “I always have days free,” he adds on, which seems to make Tommy even more ecstatic.
Much to Wilbur’s chagrin, though, he soon backpedals, seeming to force down his elation. “Oh, you don’t have to—”
“Come on, Tommy, don’t be a nice person. You won’t get by in college by refusing help— it’s a way of life.” Wilbur gestures for his laptop, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. Tommy turns it only after a brief hesitation, and two become one, and ah, yes, Wilbur can remember how his first English class went. It’s probably similar for Tommy.
By late afternoon, arrangements have been made, and Tommy’s already fussed about missing money, and Wilbur’s already placated the quickly beating heart of another soul labeled Gifted & Talented whose title is slowly smudging to read Crashing & Burning. Wilbur knows exactly what it’s like, and there will be band nights, and there will be drinking nights, but there are always quiet, shut-in nights. There are always lazy days. There will be room for a gangly kid with bright intentions.
And he could never even attempt to refuse anyway, because there’s something so visceral about the way Tommy nods along to his every word with a gentle sigh and the way Tommy laughs a little too loudly at every joke Wilbur makes (and the way Wilbur can already agree with himself, in the back of his mind, that he’s just collected a new baby brother— albeit by accident or not).
“Wilbur,” Tommy groans loudly, flopping forcefully down across from him into their favorite booth seat. Wilbur looks up from where he’s been staring at his phone for the past twenty minutes and raises an eyebrow, cocks his head, just to get the point across to Tommy: he cares. He’s listening.
“Tommy.”
“I’m gonna jump off a bridge,” the blond says, slumping forward until his forehead presses against the table, and Wilbur sits up straighter, setting his phone down.
“Pretty sure I’d rather not have that haunt me for the rest of my life,” he says, definitively. “Sorry. You’re not allowed to jump off a bridge because it would affect me personally.”
Tommy lifts his head and rubs at his face, grinning as he pulls out the laptop. “You’re never gonna believe this,” he says, shoving it towards Wilbur, and voila— it’s fully charged.
“My god,” Wilbur breathes, an air of mocking following his every word, “I never thought I’d see the day.”
This is their fifth meeting in the library, if you count the first time, and they’ve decided to meet on Wednesdays and Fridays. By now, though, it’s a little less like ‘unpaid tutoring’ and a little more like ‘hanging out ft. homework,’ which he thinks makes Tommy a little less guilty over the money.
Notable, and the thing Wilbur is teasing Tommy about, is the fact that at the past two, Tommy’s shown up with his laptop on less than ten percent, no charger with him either time. Today, though, he’s broken the pattern. Wilbur’s broken a pattern of his own, too. Instead of a coffee sitting with him at the table, there’s a bottle of water.
The makeshift tutoring has probably been a lot funnier than it has been beneficial, but Tommy says he’s not failing any courses (yet, it’s always followed by a yet), and Wilbur will take his word for it. The elder is slowly coming to realize, as Tommy gets more comfortable, that Tommy likes to say the first thing that pops into his head. He often leads conversations with questionable things, and Wilbur is the one who’s forced to come to terms and try to bounce off of it.
To be quite frank, Tommy’s the funniest sixteen year old Wilbur knows. (He’s also the only sixteen year old Wilbur knows, but he can let that slide.) The problem is that Tommy reminds Wilbur of himself, so it’s a little conceited to shower him in compliments.
Oh, well. Wilbur will give Tommy what he never had at that age.
“What are we working on today?” he asks, and Tommy rolls his eyes.
“Chemistry. Again. Dr. D thinks its a great fuckin’ idea to try and shoot me dead with the power of balancing equations, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that I was never alive to begin with— she’s really not that bad of a lady, you know, except I fuckin’ hate her and I hope she chokes on a raisin because the stupid, shitty fucking method she’s having us use for—”
Wilbur smiles, relaxing into his seat and uncapping his water bottle. The laptop is charged, and Wilbur’s pumping more than just sugar into his bloodstream, and maybe they haven’t actually gotten any work done yet, but it’s a good day.
“Hello,” says Tommy quietly, dropping into his seat across from Wilbur tiredly. Instantly, Wilbur can see the way his legs pull up onto the seat with him. He questions, but it’s not his place to ask, so he doesn’t mention it when Tommy’s shoulders slump lower than usual, and when his eyes are so darkly shadowed that the skin around them is near purple, and when he doesn’t arrive carrying all the bravado of a sixteen year old stumbling through university work.
No; instead, Wilbur replies with a different welcome of his own. “Fancy meeting you here,” he says, and extends a hand. “Laptop charged today?”
With a sigh, Tommy mumbles, “No, sorry. Shit night.”
“Shit night,” nods Wilbur solemnly in an echo, extending his own laptop so Tommy can log in instead and use it. He doesn’t want Tommy to realize how quickly his heart is beating for him. Wilbur’s a little too worried about how out of it Tommy is today, but he digresses. It’ll be fine. Everybody has off days. Wilbur’s most recent was… well, yesterday. He supposes he shouldn’t be a hypocrite.
The point being: if he acts weird on just their seventh day spent together, a Friday where the sky is cloudy and the air is muggy, Tommy’s going to run and hide like a skittish little rabbit, and Wilbur doesn’t want that. Wilbur wants Tommy to have a lifeline. Maybe it’s arrogant to consider himself Tommy’s saving grace, but Tommy rarely has mentioned other friends, and he never mentions home. Wilbur’s here to take the edge off of college, and he doesn’t want Tommy to lose that.
Even so… “Doing okay?” asks Wilbur, tentatively, and Tommy yawns.
“Yeah.” A pause, and the silence is tense, like he’s too afraid to go on. Tommy fidgets and shifts, knee bouncing incessantly. And then: “Can I have some of your coffee?”
A regularly functioning Tommy would first swear at him and then practically demand the cup from his hands. This is not that. Wilbur eyes the drink, trying to determine if he wants to let a sixteen year old drink his coffee. Tommy probably wouldn’t like it, anyway— but judging by the way his dark eyes seem to plead with Wilbur, he seems to realize that beggars can’t be choosers. (Wilbur does wish he had more creamer, though, because he’d like to give Tommy a chance to be a choosing beggar every once in a while. He deserves it.)
After thorough consideration, Wilbur slides his steaming hot cup across the table. Tommy needs it more than he does.
The eighth day is a Wednesday.
It’s half past three in the afternoon, which is half an hour later than their normal meeting time, and Tommy is nowhere to be found. In fact, Wilbur’s a little bit worried at this point. He keeps his mouth shut, though; thirty minutes is thirty minutes. Maybe Tommy’s distracted in an arcade somewhere. Maybe he scheduled something with a friend that overlaps and forgot to mention it.
Wilbur checks his messages again. The only thing on the screen is his own hey are you gonna be here today :) text from twenty minutes ago; there are no new notifications from mud eater. He sinks lower in his seat.
He sets his phone on the table and sighs to himself, lifting his hands to slave through another paragraph of an essay he doesn’t want to be doing. The radio silence extends fifteen minutes past that, and just when Wilbur’s sure that Tommy isn’t coming, just when Wilbur’s sure that he should just pack up and go home, there’s a quiet shuffling noise to his left.
Tommy looks… like a corpse. There’s no better way to put it.
“Whoa,” says Wilbur softly, soaking in the sight of Tommy’s drooping posture and a rat’s nest of hair so bad that it looks like he just rolled out of bed. His eyes are pink and puffy and holding no sign of hope, and Wilbur feels like he’s drowning just looking at them— so he can’t imagine what it’s like for Tommy.
When the boy sits, he doesn’t flop, which is the most alarming part of it all. Quietly, and gingerly, Tommy breaks another pattern, settling as lightly as possible into the same booth Wilbur’s sitting in.
“Tommy,” Wilbur murmurs, turning his full attention on the boy. “What happened?”
Pain seeps into Tommy’s expression. He doesn’t speak, swaying slightly, and then he closes his eyes, the corners of his lips downturning.
“It’s okay,” Wilbur says worriedly and quickly so as not to upset him further, studying him briefly. “You don’t have to tell me. But do you need me to…” He trails off, unsure of how to comfort the boy that is using him as a lifeline (and as much as Wilbur wanted to be his cornerstone, it scares him now that Tommy really needs help— because is he really qualified to be taking care of him like this?).
There’s a long, terse stretch of silence. Wilbur’s hands hover, and he doesn’t know how to ask, and Tommy isn’t saying anything, and the whole thing is in shambles. And then Tommy leans forward and drops his head on Wilbur’s shoulder— and his body shakes with tears.
It is then that Wilbur learns exactly what it means to love.
“He was twenty-six,” says Tommy brokenly, the first thing he’s spoken aloud since his shattered arrival, and it is then that Wilbur learns the intricacies of empathy, too.
“Take your time,” says Wilbur quietly when Tommy struggles to breathe after that. Somehow, he’s found that his arm has migrated to wrap around the trembling figure that’s pressed into his side, that hand holding tightly to one of Tommy’s shoulders. “Breathe,” Wilbur adds, and Tommy locks up, unmoving in a way that worries Wilbur to no end.
“His name,” Tommy starts, and falters, taking a huge gulp of air and pushing perseveringly through his voice of deep vibrato. “His name—” A sob wracks his body, and Wilbur gives up with the formalities. His arm tightens around the boy familially, because he has an urge that it’s exactly what Tommy needs, and he smooths his hair down with a gentle shush.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Wilbur whispers, grasping for straws or any semblance of comfort that he can offer, and Tommy shakes his head.
“No.”
Wilbur splits at the seams.
It takes Tommy all of four more minutes to finally speak again. Wilbur waits with him the whole time, carefully stepping around the broken glass that hangs in the air, surrounding Tommy’s body, to hold him up while he sags, his own body unwilling to support him. Wilbur rubs circles into his shoulder with his thumb, swallowing and eyeing his laptop followed by the people around them. To anyone who looks their way, he serves a glare so hot it bores holes through their skulls.
After a moment’s hesitation, presumably to try to compose himself, Tommy lifts his head, again revealing tear stained cheeks and desolate blue eyes. Wilbur’s hand moves to his upper arm, squeezing once, and Tommy looks as if he’s in physical pain with the simple caring movement. At first, Wilbur thinks he’s hurt the boy by accident, but then— then Tommy’s bottom lip quivers.
“My brother,” Tommy says (Wilbur hanging on every word), and then takes a gasp of air so aggressively that Wilbur nearly thinks he’s going to hyperventilate. There are no more after, though, and Tommy looks like he’s choking on words that won’t rise to the surface. Wilbur is quiet as ever, and finally, finally, Tommy opens his mouth, and Wilbur doesn’t expect to hear what he hears, but:
“My brother,” Tommy chokes, all but whispering, “flatlined last night.”
Instantly, tears well in Wilbur’s own eyes, and he gathers Tommy up into his arms like he’s a small child in need of consoling. Because at heart, that’s what everyone is, right? At heart, they’re all a bunch of small children in need of consolation. At heart, Tommy is wracked with a pain he will never forget, and Wilbur thrums with the urge to do something about it.
His arms wrap tightly around Tommy to ground him, and Tommy presses his own hands to Wilbur’s chest, swallowing back his own cries. Wilbur can’t remember the last time he was held like this. It’s gratifying, in a way, to give the same opportunity to Tommy. He hopes Tommy never forgets this, because Wilbur won’t be able to whether he wants to or not.
Tommy cries as quietly as he can into Wilbur’s shoulder, heaving dry sobs when he runs dry, and Wilbur caves and presses the side of his head against Tommy’s, his hand cradling the back of the blond’s head. He doesn’t know when it will be over, but he doesn’t need to; Tommy’s presence beckons him far more than any essay ever could.
Today isn’t a charged laptop day or a dead laptop day, Wilbur thinks, as he reaches gingerly out to close the lid of his laptop. Today is a no laptop day. Today is inherent yet never ending. Today will be written into the history books of their friendship.
“Okay,” says Wilbur quietly, shifting and nudging Tommy forward gently. “Okay. You’ve done well,” he commends quietly, smoothing down Tommy’s hair again. When the blond finally leans back, turning his scrunched face up to Wilbur to listen, the elder of the two nearly buckles and pulls him back in again. But no— as much as he wants to, Tommy needs a stabilizer right now, and Wilbur can’t exactly accomplish that by just coddling the boy.
“Listen,” Wilbur requests, figuring that one word commands may be a lot easier to follow. He breathes in, wildly exaggeratedly, and puffs his chest forward to indicate Tommy to follow. The blond’s breath is jagged, and it breaks off after halfway through, but he exhales in harmony with Wilbur. Slowly, they regulate, and when Tommy gets frustrated with himself, Wilbur nudges him. “Step by step,” he reminds quietly, and Tommy swallows hard and tries again.
“Sorry,” Tommy murmurs as soon as he can breathe naturally again, wiping at his face, and Wilbur crosses his arms.
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” He inclines his head forward, and then his eyes soften once again, crinkling at the corners. “Do you want to talk… about him?”
From the looks of it, Tommy’s on the brink of collapse yet again, but he gulps and inhales. Nods. Fiddles with the hem of his shirt. “Yeah,” he mutters. “His name is— his name was Technoblade.” And even though the sentence seems to cause him physical pain, he cracks the tiniest of smiles when Wilbur stares at him in disbelief.
“Technoblade? And I ended up with, what, Wilbur? You’re fucking kidding me—”
Wilbur learns a lot about Tommy’s late brother in the handful of minutes that follow. Each time Tommy’s voice grows a little too tight, and he chokes on his words, Wilbur waits patiently for the next fun fact. Techno had long pink hair, and his eyes were such a violently bright shade of brown that they almost looked red. He was a fencer with a black belt in both karate and taekwondo. He was an English major. He was stubborn, he was sarcastic, he was kind.
The most important takeaway Wilbur gets, despite the fact that it’s danced around the whole time, is that Tommy misses him so badly he’s in agony.
Wilbur smiles encouragingly when Tommy finally pauses, offering him a nod. “Sounds like he was good to you,” he says softly. “I’m glad.”
Tommy swallows, head dropping down onto Wilbur’s shoulder again. “You’re good to me, too,” he whispers, barely audibly, but it’s so close that Wilbur picks up on it anyway.
His stomach twists with something like love. His head is murky with something like clouded judgement. Wilbur doesn’t send Tommy home that night until hours later, after they’ve talked and laughed (only once, from Tommy, but it was there) and shared earbuds to a Netflix movie that Wilbur’s already seen a thousand times over. When it finally gets too late to stay in the library any longer, Wilbur drives Tommy home himself.
On the way back to his flat, Wilbur re-evaluates, trying to ensure that Tommy copes in a healthier way than just replacing Techno with him. Loss is an ugly bastard; Tommy shouldn’t have to shoulder it alone. After he forces himself to socialize and eat, just a bit, Wilbur shoots mud eater a couple texts before he goes to bed (to make sure he ate at least something, and to make sure he’s going to be okay through the night) with a smiley face after the last one. He lulls himself to sleep with the heavy consideration of family, and second thoughts about how much coffee he’s consuming per week.
After all, if he’s going to try and fill the void that a guy named Technoblade left behind, he’d better get to work.