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The house was suspiciously quiet when Wilbur returned. It was silent aside from the loud alarm letting the entire world know he came in through the front door.
Admittedly the quiet shouldn’t have been that weird to Wilbur. Tommy, his youngest brother, was at secondary school. Their dad was working in the office rather than at home for the day. So the house was supposed to be void of everyone. Well, except his twin, Techno, a known hermit whose only current occupation was his university work.
Wilbur dropped his bag and called out, hoping to get some kind of response. Instead, silence. Techno was either completely silent or out, and Wilbur knew exactly was he was placing his bets on.
Wilbur closed the door softly, wincing at the click-thud as it shut. He crept towards and up the stairs, skillfully dodging the known creeky sections.
Someone or something had shut all the doors around the landing, even Wilbur's own. It left a pit in his stomach as he continued. As he gently knocked on Techno's bedroom door, the pit got more profound.
The hollow knock echoed around the hallway. Somehow it got quieter. Then a legion of papery shuffle-thuds came from inside the room.
Wilbur shuffled his feet, fidgeting with his fingers, "Ummm... Techno? Hello?"
A click-snap. The door flung open with the force of hundreds of tiny wedges avalanching across the landing, stairs, and down into the entryway. Wilbur's hand shot out to grab one from the flurry, wincing as it got scratched by what felt like a thousand tiny stingers. The bunch he caught revealed the wedges to be a load of little five-pointed stars, some smooth and glossy with magazine paper, some frail and rough with newspapers.
Wilbur could see the room was completely flooded with these rainbow paper stars, peering around the doorway. In some places, it nearly reached the ceiling. It looked like it was heaving against the window, blocking any light. He didn't understand how he hadn't seen it before coming in. Dead in the middle of it all, balanced on a carefully-crafted raft of cardboard, sat Technoblade, a crown of tiny wedge stars mounted on his head (old NHS letters white to compliment the pink braid).
"What the fuck?" Wilbur's mouth was hanging open, but he couldn't quite bring himself to shut it. His eyes could barely tear away from the clogged room.
"I can't explain... I just- stars?" Techno's eyes were just as wide as Wilbur's, hands raised in a calming gesture as if that could in any way change the compromising position Wilbur found him in.
"Stars? Technoblade..."
"Look, I don't know either, okay? I just started makin' 'em, and now they're everywhere. I'm now the Star King, by the way. So I don't know what more you want me to say."
"When did you even start? How long have you been at this?"
"Uhhhh... what time is it?"
Wilbur's brow bunched up even further, "4 pm."
"Heh?! Shit, man, I gotta eat," Techno started to attempt to crawl forward, causing more stars to skitter down into the entryway. "About... nine hours."
Wilbur let out an inhuman squark, running his hands through his hair, "Nine hours? I- Are you okay?"
Techno paused and looked at Wilbur, "You walkin' in was like bein' hit with every Sim effect at once."
Wilbur took a sharp breath through his teeth, "Oh fuck."
The pair continued to try and chat as Techno slowly clambered down from his throne of scrap paper. His pyjama-clad knees displaced stars in droves, and the points sank into them like tiny extraterrestrial teeth, trying to drag him under like grains in a silo. He hoped Wilbur was more concerned than amused by his predicament.
"Hey, Techno?"
Techno froze. His hands were LEGO-gripped, collapsing a jutted ledge of stars, "What do you want, Wilbur?"
"Can you show me your hand real quick?"
Techno turned to look at Wilbur in carefully-neutral disbelief, "I'm a little in the middle of somethin' here. Can it wait?"
"Just show me your hand."
The restrained grin that’d formed on Wilbur's face while his back was turned made Techno scowl as he brought his hand up, still in the LEGO claw.
Wilbur brought his hand up, mirroring the LEGO hold. "Okay, now do this," He spread his fingers into a starfish.
Techno stared, "No."
"Why?" Wilbur's grin widened.
Completely monotone with a deadpan glare, Techno gestured up to his crown, "I'm the Star King."
Wilbur's eyes turned wide. He’d desperately sealed his lips to keep his mouth shut and try to save face. But, unfortunately for Wilbur, Techno could still hear the muffled sob-like huffs.
"Techno," Wilbur's voice was high and strained. "Have you, by any chance, glued your fingers together?"
Glanced down to his rigid, LEGO claw hand, then back to Wilbur thoughtfully, "I don't have to answer that."
Wilbur then broke. A high inhuman wail burst from his lips before dissolving into desperate giggles. He bent over, clutching his stomach with one hand and grabbing the bannister with the other, then slowly sank until he laid, curled up on the carpet, still laughing.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck, the Technoblade superglued his fingers together. The man who got an entire scholarship to continue fencing while at Oxford superglued his fucking fingers together. Oh, this is perfect."
Techno didn't know how long this continued, but he took it as an opportunity to finish climbing down from his mountainous magnum opus. Then, with his feet finally on solid ground, he looked down at his giddy twin, wrinkling his nose before lightly kicking him.
"You're makin' it out like I'm the fool here, but I'm not the one on the floor, still clutchin' the railin's for dear life."
"In my defence, I would've fallen over otherwise," Wilbur was still fighting for breath among bursts of giggles. "Still, we should probably sort that out."
Techno offered his arm as Wilbur's giggles finally tapered off, letting him use it to pull himself back up.
"And how do you plan on doin' that? Callin' Dad?" Techno meant it jokingly, but Wilbur grimaced before grinning sheepishly.
"Maybe?"
Techno felt his face drop, "Oh, please, no, I have a reputation."
Wilbur shot Techno a wide-eyed look, "You could go to the hospital!"
"But Wilbur! I'm the Star King! My reputation, Wilbur!"
Wilbur rolled his eyes, and the back-and-forth continued.
Clearly, neither twin wanted their dad involved, but Wilbur’s paranoia gnawed at him. ‘What if’ seeped into every statement, suggesting anything from hospital to being stuck with superglued fingers together. In the end, they all circled back to telling an adult, specifically their dad.
“I hate to break it to you, but we are adults.”
“Yeah, but adultier adults, ones that might know what to do.”
It all came to a head when Techno froze mid-sentence and hung his head forward, letting out a defeated groan.
Wilbur raised an eyebrow, "What?"
"I feel so stupid. The Internet, Wilbur. Why didn't we think of it earlier?"
Wilbur's reaction was identical to Techno's. The realisation was like a brick to the back of the head. "Shit." He grabbed his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans.
what to do if you superglue your fingers together
Wilbur scrolled down, finding a source he deemed reliable. Then he looked back to Techno. "Okay, so good news! No hospital for now! General news: first, we have to soak your hand in soap and water.”
Wilbur started leading Techno towards the bathroom, but a hand on his shoulder made him pause. He looked back to Techno, who had his face turned away, looking anywhere that wasn’t Wilbur, "Let's just say that upstairs rooms aren't gonna be of use for a while, excludin' Dad's room an' the office."
Wilbur heaved a long-suffering sigh, "Kitchen it is."
"Yeah..." Techno pursed his lips together awkwardly around his tusks, then followed Wilbur downstairs.