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Tommy finds that, after the cold, calloused hands of death have cradled his cheeks and swept the heartbeat out of his chest with an inky embrace, the small moments in between are the ones he holds dearest.
Before death, before the shakes, before the white streak, Tommy was a gallivanting force. He was constantly moving, never sedentary, barked laughter at how ridiculous Tubbo sounded when he proposed the idea of just resting, because why would you rest when the world is in front of you? When endless opportunity sits within your palms, forever slipping through the spaces between your fingers unless you clamped your hands into fists and put those fists into action.
(“Because sometimes I want to settle.” Tubbo had retorted, eyes glinting. “Because sometimes I want to go to bed and not hear the echoes of fireworks.”
“That’s fuckin’ stupid, Tubs.” He laughed, bumping shoulders with the brunette. “No offense, man, but you gotta keep moving. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck there forever.”
Tubbo hummed, thoughtful, before rising from the bench. Golden sunlight drenched him in a warm glow, beams of brightness filtering through his messy hair and dipped into the bumps and burns of his scars. “Not stuck,” he disagreed, “settled.”
Tommy would regret it later, not settling, not allowing the day to wash over him. He would regret shooing the sun away, would regret shrugging off the warm cape the big bright star offered. It will taunt him in the form of a big mansion, one echoing with a family he will never truly be a part of, it will taunt him in the shape of an empty hotel, it will taunt him from the shadows cast across the land by the prison.
Tommy wishes to rest. Tommy wishes to have that warm golden blanket again. It makes him think of the golden fleece, something Techno had told him about in the early years of his boyhood, makes his chest feel funny and wrong and achy.
But, well, that could just be him. He always seems to feel wrong these days.)
One of those moments is today, silent, and forgettable, stretching across dusty rubble. The sun, which sinks below the horizon, stretches its arms out and radiates warmth across the ruined memories. As if to remind Tommy of what he forwent, the sun’s grasp stops just before where his feet sit against the glass covering the hole, golden fingertips barely brushing across the tips of his shoes.
Still, even though the sun may be angry with him, the wind whispers through his hair and rubs against his bare arms. He shivers, not too loud, though, out of fear of offending the affectionate breeze.
He hears the footsteps of a brother, of someone cloaked in the same darkness he is burdened with.
(Wilbur did not laugh and scoff at the sun, he had instead challenged it with his own light show, and it had left them in the same predicament. Cold, uneasy, always trembling.)
“Hey,” Wilbur greets, uneasy. And it’s strange, really, to not only have his brother back but to also have an entirely different man back in the shape of his skin. This Wilbur breaks the silence first rather than letting it fester, this Wilbur’s shoulders hunch in rather than standing tall, this Wilbur does not sing or play. There are no hidden meanings in the space between Wilbur’s teeth and tongue.
Tommy is still trying to decide if this is Wilbur or somebody else, some other trick up Dream’s nasty sleeve. Still, even the illusion of familiarity is enough to make the dampness in Tommy’s chest ease just a bit, so he clings. Greedy.
“Ello,” he returns, nodding when the brunette settles down beside him, a couple of feet away. Just enough space to leave an exit. There is safety in running.
“What’s up?”
The question is so conventional that it makes Tommy laugh suddenly, because what the fuck is this world? His brother, half-dead, a shell of his former self, sits in front of the destruction of his own making as the setting sun bids them goodbye, and there is a tear in the left knee of Tommy’s jeans, and there is normalcy.
“Not much, I guess. Bit of a strange question, innit?” He glances over at his brother, feels a flicker of light at the fullness in his cheeks, at the rosy red of his skin, at the shimmer of his hair. Signs of life, of regularity.
“Maybe,” Wilbur sighs, sets his palm onto the grassy ground and leans his weight onto it. “I don’t know. It’s weird being—well, being again. I don’t know how to navigate it, how to talk to people anymore.”
That’s another weird thing about this Wilbur. He talks. He communicates. It’s weird, knowing the words spilling through the gaps in his brother’s teeth are entirely true and transparent. Like water, it adds humidity to the air and seeps through Tommy’s skin, right into his veins.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Wilbur nods, dark eyes roaming over the history encased inside a shield of panes, catching for just a moment too long on the far-away place of where they had tried to resurrect him so long ago. Far too long on the entrance of Ghostbur’s sewer. “I think people are scared of me.”
Tommy laughs again, despite the sudden pained look on Wilbur’s face. “Wil,” he admonishes, guilt gnawing just a bit on the end of his heart due to the shadow of darkened sadness that casts itself in Wilbur’s eyes. “Dude, look, I don’t mean to laugh, but—yeah, people are scared of you.” He gestures to the scene in front of them, the reasoning right in front of them.
The wind blows again, gently knocking against Tommy’s ears, disappointed, asking for an apology.
“You blew up the country, Wil.” He sighs, hugging his knees to his chest, soles of his shoes making a weird noise against the glass as they slide across it. “You, well, fuckin’—c’mon, man, you know. I get it, it was your unfinished symphony, that’s what the discs are—were to me. I get it, really, but actions have consequences.”
Wilbur grows small then, as the stars start to peek through the dying sunset. “Yeah.” He repeats, a whisper.
Another pause of silence, this one is Tommy’s to break.
“I don’t know, man.” He admits, pushing the words into the nighttime air. “Nothing makes sense anymore, it’s all shit. People are scared of me, too. Look at me like a fuckin’ zombie, they do.”
“To be fair, you are pretty ugly.”
Tommy squawks at that, all fake offense and bitterness. He knows what words lay underneath the light-hearted insult, knows the apologies, knows the tears that paw at the words, barely hidden behind a shitty façade. Still, he lets the front play out, for Tommy is nothing more than a coward. Full of fake bravado and bolster, transparent promises, assurances of greatness.
Sometimes the similarities between him and Wilbur make him sick. Today, he doesn’t give the thought the time, doesn’t allow it to settle into his stomach and sink like a stone.
Instead, he smacks Wilbur’s shoulder and allows his hand to settle next to his in the grass, pinky fingers just barely touching. It makes him stiffen for a second, the contact, but he doesn’t pull away. Neither does Wilbur. In fact, his brother’s hand moves forward just a couple of inches, enough to let their fingers overlap.
It reminds him of what the sun feels like on a hot afternoon, how it feels to let the rays beat against his face, how it feels to look in the mirror and see freckles pop up from the time in the golden hours.
So, he curls his fingers around Wilbur’s and squeezes just once.
“All of this glass is fucking ugly.” They pretend Wilbur’s voice doesn’t crack; pretend they don’t notice the sudden tremble in his shoulders.
“Amen.” They pretend Tommy’s voice doesn’t catch and hesitate right before his teeth, pretends it doesn’t end up coming out soft and vulnerable.
They pretend they’re actually talking about the glass. A much easier foe.
Tommy, with his free hand, feels around in the grass until his hand wraps around a stone. He throws it hard, watches it skitter across the glass, lets the sound wrap around them. Wilbur follows his lead, tosses his own stone, heavier than Tommy’s, and watches it bounce once, twice, three times, before settling to a stop.
A spark lights and they’re suddenly up and jumping, slamming their shoes against the glass, laughter bouncing off the panes and rocks alongside the echoes of the shoe falls.
It feels like being a boy again, feels like the early days, before the van, before anyone but Wilbur and Tommy, Tommy and Wilbur, WilburandTommyandTommyandWilbur.
It feels like healing. It feels like comfort. It feels like reclaiming the air above tainted homes. It feels like taking the past and stuffing it into their pockets. It feels like wrapping their hands around the present and molding it into what they want. It feels like ignoring the future for just a moment.
The stars overhead twinkle and giggle above, lovingly watching two boys—boys, they are boys—reclaim their youth. Healing inner children. Beckoning them out from behind their ribcages, welcoming them into the safety of secrecy hidden in the darkness, opening their arms wide, and letting the taste of freedom settle onto their little tongues.
(Freedom is temporary, and before the sun rises again, the boys will shuffle back into their places behind worn and cracked sternums. But for tonight, they are boys, and it is enough.
It is enough.)
And then Tommy stumbles and falls onto his back, big and genuine laughter spilling past his lips, shaking his chest. Still, he doesn’t want their performance to stop, so he smacks his palms against the glass in time with Wilbur’s jumps, bounces the backs of his shoes as a harmony. It’s messy, silly, and stupid. It wouldn’t make sense to anyone but them, and frankly, the scene is one to laugh at, but for once Tommy finds he doesn’t care. For once, Tommy thinks Wilbur feels the same. For once, the watchful eyes of followers, citizens, and expectations fall away, and they are nothing more than boys playing in the night.
Wilbur runs off the find pebbles and stones, throws them against the glass with loud shouts of defiance, screaming profanities at the offensive lid, demanding it open and let them slip into the deafening silence of a forgotten nation. Let them rampage and create noise. He demands they scream life back into L’Manberg, even only just for a night.
The glass, of course, stays in place, and it doesn’t dare shake or shatter, protecting them from the unkempt horrors hidden far below. Tubbo and Jack had worked with Phil to make the glass strong, unbreakable. Some strange science mixed with materials found somewhere deep within the Nether. He doesn’t bother to care, because right now there is nothing more than this moment.
Wilbur falls next to him, their chests heaving as aftershocks of giggles seep through their teeth, giddiness warming their cheeks and turning them pink.
“Fucking stupid,” he huffs, fingers scrambling in the dark until they settle around Wilbur’s. “This is so stupid.”
“We look like dumbasses, Tommy!” Wilbur laughs, raises their intertwined hands to the eyes of the stars, lets them twinkle with approval.
“Wankers!”
“Buffoons!”
“Idiots!”
“Cretins!”
Brothers laugh and smile, the gaps in their teeth are bright and glowing. Darkness has no place here.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispers, cheeks still aching. “I’m glad you’re alive, Wil.”
Wilbur pulls their hands onto his chest, covers them with his free hand. Protective.
“Me too,” Wilbur whispers back.
The stars sing happily, the wind strokes their warm cheeks, the grass dances.
“I’m not scared of you.”
“What?”
“I’m not scared of you,” Tommy repeats, voice solid and tangible and real. “I’m not.”
Wilbur swallows hard, closes his eyes. “Okay,” his brother whispers, voice barely there. “Okay. Thank you.”
It isn’t monumental, nor is it the end, but it’s a start. It’s a beginning underneath the moon, an olive branch, a whisper of hope caught in little hands. They are fresh and new underneath the dark sky, skin rubbed raw, dirty anger and vile bitterness stripped away, leaving nothing more than two brothers. Two boys.
By the time the sun comes back up, peeking over the horizon, they are safely hidden inside of Tommy’s little house. Curled around each other on a stained couch, fingers still intertwined, just a little looser. Less desperate.
Two little boys sit behind ribcages once more, but no longer are there cages. Instead, they find a home inside two hearts—albeit a bit damaged and tattered—and smile at the thump, thump, thump that sounds so similar to the smack, smack, smack of their shoes against glass underneath blinking stars.