Chapter Text
Wilbur stares eyes wide open at the ceiling, pupils dilated so large that his irises are barely visible. His mouth is moving, small and quick and fervent, whispered prayers under his breath that Tommy can’t understand or make out full words from.
Tommy has seen this far too many times - a stupid, dishonest, dramatic act, but powerful nonetheless. He knows better than to disturb him.
Still, he stands around for a while to watch. It always seems possible in the moment that this time Wilbur will turn around and smile at Tommy and reveal that all this religion and prayer and speak of vision-like dreams is a long, extended joke, and he’s just waiting to catch Tommy unawares and laugh at him. Wilbur’s eyelids flutter closed then open again. The whole time, they bore upwards into that ceiling like he can see right through it to look directly at the bright noon sun.
“Wil,” Tommy starts to say, loudly, but then he claps a hand over his mouth. He mustn’t disturb him. Something horrible will happen if he does; it feels like tendrils of choking cloud personally creep into his mouth to gag him at the thought. Instead, he tries again, whispering. “Wilbur.”
Wilbur’s eyes screw shut suddenly. It looks intentional. Pretended. A bright glee enters Tommy’s heart, and he steps towards him on light feet, ready to place his hands on his shoulders and shake him to attention, startle him a bit. Just a prank, right? Well, let’s see how you take a prank, let’s see if this scares-
“Dream, DreamXD,” Wilbur intones, suddenly, the first discernible words to come out of his mouth since he had started praying. His eyes remain shut, but now relaxed as if in sleep. His lips begin to move as if singing along to some quiet, unheard song, hymnal lyrics echoing: “here comes the sun…. It’s all right, all right, here comes..”
Tommy backs away into a corner, eyes fixed on his brother. “What the fuck ,” he whispers to himself, hands rubbing over his own forearms, feeling chillingly cold all of a sudden. He looks to the door, thinking to escape, but then Wilbur’s eyes fly open once again.
He looks faraway for moment, before he breaks out into a huge smile, head whipping around to greet Tommy. “Oh! Hey, Tommy, I didn’t see you there, why were you watching? You know, you should really try praying to DreamXD one day, it’ll do you good, I promise you,” he says.
“N-no thanks, that’s-” Tommy takes a shaky breath, wringing his hands out restlessly. “I’m not interested in your weird culty shit, dude. You’re fucking delusional, that’s what you are.”
“Aww, no, Tommy, listen.” Wilbur reaches out towards him suddenly, grabbing him firmly by the shoulders and shaking him about in barely-contained excitement. “In my prayers just then, His Brilliance took me into a real Dream, for real! A real, capital D Dream. I’m not joking. And- and he showed me all sorts of cool stuff, about- about the sun, and a golden child, his prophecies… It’s all coming true soon, man, all the prophecies, I just know it. Like He’d always said. You’ve got to trust me.”
Tommy nods uneasily, prying Wilbur’s hands off him. They feel slightly cool to the touch, and he shivers, grimacing. “Sure, dude, totally,” he says, rolling his eyes. “What was it?”
For a second, Wilbur doesn’t answer - a huge smile comes over his face, eyes wide and ecstatic and teeth bared. He looks up towards the sky again, then back down at Tommy.
“Tommy; little darling. The final sun is coming.”
xxx
The next day, Tommy has a fever. It spreads, starting from his chest and growing into his head and down through his core, too-warm bedding and chattering teeth and a headache that pounds and pounds and pounds at his skull. It is very difficult to get out of bed at all; he makes it to his bedroom doorway and then starts yelling rather than trying to walk any further.
“ Wilbur ,” he whines, sitting down cross-legged on the ground. “Wilbur, come help me, I think I’m sick.”
A sleepy Wilbur rounds the corner of the hallway after a minute or two of this, scratching his hair as he walks. “What?” he asks.
“My body hurts, man, it’s all cold and hot and weird, help me.”
“Mmm… got a fever?” Wilbur mumbles, waking up a little and coming to kneel in front of Tommy.
“I don’t know man, fucking uh. Feel for me. I dunno how to tell.”
“Mhm, hold still then.” Wilbur lifts a hand, placing the back of it against Tommy’s forehead after brushing a couple strands of curly blond hair away.
Instantly, his eyes shoot open, incredulous. His hands go to Tommy’s shoulders, gripping them tightly. “Shit. Tommy. Tommy, look at me. How do you feel?”
“Tired. And cold,” Tommy grumbles.
“You’re really fucking burning up, this- this is definitely a fever, and a fucking high one too, this is definitely- shit this could be 40 degrees already, what the fuck , are you okay?”
“I said. Tired.”
Wilbur grabs his face on both sides in an attempt to convey a little more urgency, smushing his cheeks together comically. “Nothing else?”
“Nomthing, ‘m not that bad,” Tommy repeats. He shakes his head, freeing himself of Wilbur’s hands to speak properly. “Just get me some panadol, I’ll be okay.”
Wilbur doesn’t even reply, running off down the hallway. He returns with the requested medicine and his phone, now frantically searching google for medical advice. “A fever that feels as high as this should have way worse symptoms than that, you could be struggling to breathe, you shouldn’t have even walked over here, could be nauseous, shit, let’s get you back to bed, come on.”
“I can walk,” Tommy says, getting up. For a second, his head spins, but it feels better within seconds and he makes it back by himself perfectly fine. “It really doesn’t feel that hot to me, seriously, I’ll be all better in a couple days.”
Wilbur stands and stares at him for a while. “I’m going to measure your temperature,” he says, and darts off to get a thermometer.
When he comes back, he’s holding not just a thermometer, but a realization as well- one that took the walk to the kitchen and back for him to come to. When he lifts Tommy’s arm to place the thermometer in his armpit, his voice is whispered in reverent tones. “Tommy, I…do you think you’re the one?”
“What? The fu- what the hell are you on about?”
Wilbur’s voice rises as he speaks, nodding as if it all makes sense, now. “It’s as His Brilliance said. An omen, in the form of a golden-haired boy. The bringer of the end- Tommy, don’t you see?”
“I really don’t. Stop- Wilbur, can you stop being weird for once? I’m sick right now for fuck’s sake.” He pouts, eyeing the thermometer and extracting it from his armpit. He looks at it for a moment quizzically, before gasping quietly. He shoves the thermometer firmly back in and squeezes his arm tight to his side. “Uh. You can go to uni now! You have class right? School? Somewhere to go? I’ll be okay, man, go think about your weird cult shit somewhere else, I’ll call you if I suddenly feel worse.”
Wilbur dithers, makes a reach for the thermometer, but then gives up when Tommy shakes his head and shies away. He opts to place a hand against his forehead again, nodding solemnly when it feels just as hot to the touch as it had before. “I don’t know, man, you’re really fucking feverish.”
“I mean, what are you going to do, take me to hospital if you think it’s that bad? That won’t work very well if your weird cult shit is real right? Check. Mate. See you later when I’m all better, which will be in no time.”
Wilbur smiles - it is sweet, and very easy to believe. “I want to be here for you, that’s all,” he says. Only slightly begrudgingly, Tommy leans his head against his shoulder, and nods.
“Alright, Wil.” He is so incredibly tired, and Wilbur’s shoulder feels cool and soothing. He sighs, somewhere between content and resigned and scared. “Stay here with me then.”
xxx
The fever does not get better. Tommy falls asleep at some point, nodding off silently while Wilbur sits beside his bed with DreamXD’s bible - both volumes, revival and death, one hand on each - praying quietly as he reads. When he notices Tommy is fully asleep, he quietly stands up, intending to take his temperature while he isn’t awake to refuse to let him see.
He doesn’t have to. The moment Wilbur takes hold of his brother’s wrist, it is so startlingly, inhumanly hot, that he drops it again immediately. More carefully, he sticks the thermometer in his armpit just to check; it comes back reading 45 degrees.
Any normal person would be dead at that temperature - several degrees before it, in fact, if what he googled earlier is to be trusted.
Clenching his fist in excitement, he shakes Tommy awake, already rambling about how there’s no way he’d be alive right now if this isn’t an omen, if Tommy isn’t DreamXD’s golden child, if he isn’t the new-coming sun. He is stopped in his tracks the moment Tommy opens bleary eyes to look directly at Wilbur.
“Tommy, your eyes ,” he says, mouth falling open in surprise and a sort of awe that makes Tommy’s skin crawl. Tommy turns away immediately, screwing his eyes shut. “Tommy, Tommy look at me, look me in the eyes, I need- I need to see this again.”
Tommy shakes his head. “I don’t want to Wilbur, fuck off.”
“No, no please Tommy, come on, just- just let your big brother see, I’ll-”
Tommy snarls, hesitates for a moment, and opens his eyes wide, glaring.
Terrifyingly bright eyes, one green and the other gold, stare at Wilbur through pupils in the shape of Xs.
There is a tense, surreal moment of silence. Tommy’s face falls. “What is it?” he whispers, lost. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing at all,” Wilbur whispers. He is frozen in place, staring in wonder. “There’s nothing wrong, your eyes are- Tommy, your eyes are beautiful .”
xxx
When he convinces Wilbur that he’s feeling well enough to go to the bathroom and wash up, he looks at himself in the mirror and screams so loud his throat burns. Hot water overflows out of the cold water tap unprompted and Tommy lies on the bright white bathroom tiles, shaking.
xxx
Tommy is not allowed to leave his room without Wilbur to supervise him, from then on. Wilbur carries him back to his room, cool (normal) hands on burning-hot skin, and tucks him back into bed. He finds that he staggers under the weight of his brother in a way he never had before. The boy feels almost double his usual weight, even as the skin of his cheeks sink in with the weary grimness of sickness. Heavier than his body, he feels as if the gargantuan figure of DreamXD Himself looms behind him, watching and evaluating. He has to do well: it’s the final days, and he - he! Wilbur Soot himself, just a humble follower of His Brilliance - has been entrusted with the final sun himself.
“I’m gonna take a nap,” Tommy says, when he’s in bed and seems to have calmed down again. His eyes are screwed shut so tight it looks like it hurts.
“Yeah, I’ll, I’ll turn off the lights and stuff, you can take a rest,” Wilbur says. A soothing finger traces up and down Tommy’s forearm. “Can you look at me just once first before I do that though? I just- hey, it kinda hurts me when you won’t even look at me, you know? I haven’t done anything wrong to you.”
Tommy sighs and opens his eyes, fixing them on Wilbur.
“It’s not real, is it?” Tommy asks. His pupils shake with fear and the glimmer of almost-tears, all the more visible in the crosshaired slits of their new shape. “You’ve… you’re playing a prank on me, aren’t you, you’ve given me contacts or something, you’re just. You’re just trying to make me believe in your stupid religion. Stupid cult thing.”
Wilbur shakes his head softly, finger now forming the shape of an X over Tommy’s burning skin, over and over again.
“No, Wilbur , don’t lie to me, please , this is actually scary, this is weird, I don’t- Wilbur. I want this to stop.”
He watches as his brother gets up, walks over to the light switch, and flips it off. When the lights are closed, the only thing that can really be seen in the room is Tommy’s eyes, gleaming lightly in the black. “I’m sorry,” Wilbur says, smile wistful. “But it’s best for the world if it doesn’t.”
xxx
Wilbur dozes off somewhere between whispered encantations and the tattered corners of biblical texts and words-visions-feelings buzzing at his veins so intangibly they make him feel like he is deluding himself more than they strengthen his faith.
When he wakes up again the lights are on, and Tommy is still sleeping - he has not moved an inch.
He gets up gingerly, stretching his limbs out and walking over to Tommy. He’s covered himself entirely with his blankets, probably from how cold the outside world must feel to him at this point. Only the top of his face peeks out from beneath, hair messy against the pillow. Wilbur brushes a little aside, frowning when some of it comes off, ends of each strand looking singed. His skin is now so hot that Wilbur can feel it radiating off him even if he isn’t directly touching it. He shakes him lightly through the blankets. “Wake up, Tommy.”
Slowly, those same unnervingly - beautifully - green and gold eyes open and look up at him. “Hm?” he asks.
“Did you get up and turn the light on while I was asleep? Why’d you do that?”
Tommy squints at him. “I didn’t? Did you?”
“No…” Wilbur gets up again, going to the light switch. When he flicks it, nothing happens- the lights stay on, looking back at Tommy’s wide, bright eyes like it’s some sort of competition of who can shine the brightest. “That’s. Huh. That’s weird.”
“Wilbur,” Tommy says, voice softer and more uncertain than Wilbur’s heard from him since he was a child, and Wilbur turns around to see him sat up. He is clutching golden puffs of hair in his fingers, staring down at his own hands. “I- well my hair is coming out and… Wilbur, does it look like my skin is glowing?”
Wilbur blinks. “Let me see,” he says, taking both of Tommy’s hands in his. They scald, but not in the way that a stove does - not one tap and the instant instinct to flinch back. Instead, they scald like a hot bowl of soup in the hands. He can hold it for a while; it’s comfortingly warm for the first few seconds, even, before that warmth starts to sting. When it gets too much to bear he drops them; pieces of singed hair, curled and tangled together, fall onto the bedsheets. “Yeah- that’s, that’s quite marvelous, isn’t it? Your hands really are glowing, and it looks like it’s spreading everywhere else too.”
Tommy shakes his head. “This isn’t real. Of course it isn’t, why would this… this Dream ecks dee fella of yours be real in the first place, let alone. Me.” He barks out a too-loud laugh. “Me? Some fucked up omen of his? No.”
“Tommy…”
“It doesn’t even hurt , anymore, Wilbur. I can tell from the way you react that I’m beyond feverish but I don’t even feel sick anymore, just tired, but only, like, physically you know? Like my arms are made of fucking lead.” He tears his fingers through his hair, letting out a shaky breath as he feels more of it fall off into his hand. “I don’t want this to be me- I don’t. Fuck. I don’t want the world to end. ”
“But it’s glorious , you’ll see,” Wilbur insists. The glow seems to have increased from even a minute or two ago, now quite obviously coating his skin in the sort of glare that’s difficult to start at for too long. It casts white-yellow light onto the bed around him.
“Pray- pray to your god, make it stop , make this stop happening to me.” Tommy curls up into a little ball, trying to cover glowing skin with glowing arms and burning palms. He is bright enough now that the light shines through his clothes and duvet. “You can tell him to stop right? If you’re so fucking chummy with him. Tell him, please, Wilbur, I hate this so much.”
“No. You stop.” Wilbur’s voice cuts through his ramblings like a guillotine. The lights overhead buzz audibly, as if too much electricity is running through them, even as the switch is set to off. At the sight of Tommy’s scared face, Wilbur softens. “Sorry, I just… you know I worry for you, Tommy.”
“Make it stop then,” he says, quieter. His voice is wobbly.
“But I can’t, I don’t have that power, and I… it’s time, seriously, that you believe. It’ll be easy; it’ll be like coming home Tommy, I promise. Believe me , even if you don’t believe DreamXD.” He tilts his head, soft eyes watching the way Tommy’s glow strengthens visibly as the seconds go on. “Hey, come here. Lemme give you a hug. It’ll be okay, yeah?”
Wilbur stretches his arms out to either side in an open, exaggerated invitation. Tommy looks at him for a moment, lips quivering slightly, and then, all at once, wraps his arms around his brother.
It burns. Holy mother of god, Brilliant DreamXD Himself, it burns .
Wilbur has half the instinct to push him away instantly, but neither his loyalty to religion or his love of his brother let him. Instead, he holds tight to scalding-burning-scorching skin, face pressed against the remnants of singed off hair at the top of his head, and grits his teeth against the pain so hard that it looks like he’s smiling.
The final, new sun is so real. It tears almost-fire tendrils of heat into Wilbur’s skin and cries quiet little boiling-water tears against his shoulder and clings to him like he’s its last dying lifeline. It doesn’t want to become the sun any more than it wants the world to end, and it hates the God that made him this way almost as much as Wilbur reveres them both for it.
Its name is Tommy, Wilbur’s little brother, and he loves him like a deity.