Chapter Text
“Tommy,” Wilbur gasps, “keep running.”
He doesn’t have to be told twice. Feet pound against the cracked pavement, the arches of his feet aching as he runs. He hauls himself over a fallen tree in the road, gasping for breath. It’s near-impossible to see in the darkness—he operates more on instinct and through feel alone, thorns of overgrown undergrowth slicing his palms and tearing through his jeans. He trips over a crack in the road, only hauled back to his feet and saved from bloody palms and knees by Wilbur, fist clenching the back of Tommy’s shirt like he’s holding a cat by the scruff of its neck. He shoves Tommy back into motion, the two of them running and stumbling over the broken road.
The thing behind them roars. Tommy’s breath catches in his throat. The air crackles with something colder than lightning, and he sees the cracks in the road start to glow. He sees them begin to spread into the air around them.
Tommy flails a hand out to his left. His fingers curl into the fabric of Wilbur’s sleeve, and they crawl down to grip his hand tightly. They stay together, no matter what. He can’t breathe. The scent of ozone is overwhelming, and Tommy doesn’t dare look over his shoulder.
Reality warps and the universe cracks open under their feet. Tommy’s breath leaves him all at once, his lungs burning with the sensation. Wilbur’s voice breaks on a shout, and Tommy’s stomach churns. Something brushes his leg. He wrenches himself to the side, sharply, yanking Wilbur along with him, and the two of them tumble into the undergrowth.
Light erupts from the space they’d just been standing in. The asphalt melts into nothingness.
Tommy’s breath comes in short bursts. They’d be dead if they’d been standing there. He can’t think past the fear, and all he can hear is WIlbur breathing hard beside him.
It is the end of all things, and Tommy can’t get his feet under him again. Wilbur hauls him to his feet only for his knees to buckle. He grips Wilbur’s sleeve tightly, trying to steady himself. There is still crackling light in the air, stretching up into the sky, and there’s that staticy roaring coming from the creature somewhere behind them. Tommy sucks in lungfuls of air, taking an unsteady step forward.
“Tommy,” Wilbur repeats, “Tommy, c’mon, c’mon, one foot in front of the other—”
“I’m trying, dickhead,” Tommy spits, stumbling forward. “We can lose it in the woods.”
Wilbur nods, they set off running again. There’s another crack behind them, darkness beginning to close in again. Whatever it is, it’s eating up the sun, it’s eating up everything it can get its hands on to get to them, and the faster they find a way to hide from it, the better.
He can’t feel his feet anymore. He can hardly feel anything, truth be told, only the solid warmth of Wilbur’s hand in his. Even then, his fingers have gone all but numb as they squeeze ever tighter, the two of them dragging each other through the pitch black wood.
Reality shifts again. Tommy can breathe, suddenly, and sunlight creeps in around the edges of the canopy.
They likely don’t have long. Tommy tightens his grip on Wilbur’s hand and drags him toward the nearest hollow space he sees, a half-rotten tree with skeletal roots that arch up high enough to crouch beneath, covered by leaf litter and damp foliage. Tommy ducks underneath it, kneeling in the mud and pulling Wilbur further beneath the alcove.
It’s cold and wet and miserable, but it’s better than being disintegrated by a reality-warping monster.
He doesn’t know what sense this thing operates off of, but best to cover all their bases. Tommy curls into the mud, rolling his shoulders into it, scooping up some with his hands and smearing it over his hair and face. He shoves Wilbur into it as well, dumping a handful into his hair.
His nose wrinkles at the scent of rotting earth. It’s strong, though, and hopefully enough.
The darkness begins to seep back in, and Tommy holds his breath. Footsteps shake the earth, and he thinks he may be crushing Wilbur’s fingers beneath his grip. He chances a glance over at him. The whites of Wilbur’s eyes gleam in the dimming light, and Tommy can read the fear on his face plain as day. He swallows, turning his attention back to the space between the foliage in front of them. There’s no monster standing there, but he can hear it, and the hair on the back of his neck rises as the air becomes charged with electricity and ozone.
Tommy pushes himself into Wilbur’s arms, his back to Wilbur’s chest. Wilbur doesn’t say a word, just wraps his arms around Tommy’s torso, holding him tight. He presses his face into Tommy’s hair, dead silent. Both of them are trembling, Tommy notes.
I WILL FIND YOU.
The dirt lights up with a blue-white light. A crack opens up in the earth, then creeps into the sky, and the light erupts from it. Tommy can’t see anything but white, blinded by it. The resounding crack shakes him down to the bones, and his sweat-slicked fingers cling to Wilbur’s sleeves, pressing further into his chest.
Slowly, the darkness begins to fade, and sunlight returns. Neither of them move for an eternity.
Tommy feels like he might vomit. He can't quite hear over the pounding in his ears, and he takes deep breaths to try and steady himself. Faintly, he hears Wilbur doing the same. Their breaths sync up, and Tommy notices this from outside himself, the way their chests rise and fall in unison. It pulls him back into his body, and he quickly becomes aware of a sharp pain in his leg and the stinging cuts along his arms.
"It's gone," Wilbur finally says. "We need to keep moving."
They shuffle around, Wilbur crawling out first. Tommy can only move a few inches before he has to stop, leg burning. He looks down and sees red staining his trousers and the dirt beneath him.
"Wil—"
"It could be back any minute, Tommy, c'mon—"
"Wil," Tommy says, quietly. Wilbur's head snaps around, eyes wide. "My leg hurts."
Everything halts. It’s like Tommy can see what Wilbur’s going to do before he does it—swoop in, mother hen, peel the bloodstained pant leg away to look at the wound. Time feels frozen as Tommy realizes how deep the injury goes. He’ll hardly be able to stand on his own. Walking seems out of the question, let alone running. He watches this realization dawn in Wilbur’s expression from somewhere beyond the both of them, a detached sort of fascinated horror as he and Wilbur realize it at the same time.
“Fuck,” Wilbur says, vehement, and reality crashes back in again.
“I’m sorry,” Tommy says at almost the same time, barely overlapping, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can—Wil, please don’t leave me here—”
“I’m not.” Wilbur’s hands plant themselves firmly over the wound, and Tommy can’t help but whimper. “Tommy, I’m not leaving you here, Tommy, just hold on for a second, I’m gonna fix it.”
The blood still drip-drip-drips onto the ground, seeping past Wilbur’s fingers. He swears, but Tommy hardly hears it—instead just staring at the reddening mud. Wilbur tears part of his coat away, wrapping Tommy’s leg with it so tightly it almost hurts more, but slowly the pain fades into a dull throbbing, rather than the same sharp sting. At least until he tries to stand. It gives out near-instantly, and Wilbur swears again (at him, this time).
“Stay still,” he snaps, and Tommy nods, mutely. Then, there are arms around him and his leg burns as he’s jostled around, but—he pulls himself onto Wilbur’s back, arms wrapped around his shoulders, clinging to him with shaking hands.
Movement is slow, but it’s better than the alternative. They begin retracing their steps back to the road, Tommy pointing out where they’d crashed through the undergrowth. Some splatters of blood along the leaf-littered ground certainly help guide them. Soon, Wilbur pushes through the bushes, and before them is blackened, scarred earth. Further to their left is cracked asphalt, and to the right is… arguably less cracked asphalt.
Tommy’s tired. His eyelids are heavy, and his chin rests against Wilbur’s shoulder, cheek pressed against his hair. It’d be… so much easier to take a nap, let Wilbur get them somewhere safer without him having to worry about it alongside him. A few minutes, even, wouldn’t hurt.
It takes him a bit too long to realize they’ve stopped moving. He blinks open his eyes once he notices, feeling weirdly light as he looks at Wilbur. Wilbur’s turned his head to look at him, and one hand is pressed against Tommy’s forehead.
“You’re burning,” Wilbur says, quietly. Tommy blinks, opening his mouth to speak—but he feels strange, and the words don’t really come out right. He lets out a gravelly squeak, throat suddenly feeling as though it’s been scrubbed down with sandpaper. He coughs, an awful, wheezing thing that makes his ribs ache.
“M’tired,” he manages, letting himself lean on Wilbur again, eyelids fluttering. Wilbur jostles him, pain shooting up his leg and proper waking him up. He chokes on a gasp, chest seizing with the pain. “You fuckin’ suck,” he gasps.
“No sleeping,” Wilbur says, voice weak. “Stay awake, Tommy, don’t fall asleep.”
He’d like to. He’d really like to fall asleep. But he can hear the panic in Wilbur’s voice, and he doesn’t like being the reason Wilbur is panicking, so he keeps his eyes open for as long as he can. Forest falls away and houses begin to spring up along the road, all empty and collapsing in on themselves. The pavement is still cracked, and the air has gotten dry and uncomfortably warm.
And Tommy really wants to close his eyes.
A nap won’t hurt. Right? There’s no way in hell they’re going to run into a person, they haven’t for this long. He doesn’t need to be on his game right now—he wouldn’t be much help, what with his leg and all. And Wilbur’s strong, he can handle himself.
It’ll be fine. He reassures himself of that one more time. Eyes flutter shut, and he lets the darkness take him.
SLEEP.