Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They say that one who is born into a burning house believes the whole world is on fire. That the insufferable warmth suffocates one's lungs until there is no more room for the oxygen needed to survive. That chalky ash gets lodged deep down, irremovable from the body of one who did not ask for a life in the kindling flames.

This was the life Wilbur Soot was born into.

Soot, he would often think, what an ironic name.

He had spent the first six years of his life engulfed in flames, seemingly with no escape. That is, until his little brother was born.

That was the first time Wilbur could remember being truly happy, a memory that he could replay over and over without any sense of misery.

It was spring, and Wilbur remembered very vividly how the week prior to his brother’s birth the world had been drenched in a never ending rain. His mother’s hand clung onto his own tighter than ever as they made their way to the hospital. His stepfather (whom he had little to no sentiment for) was in the driver’s seat.

He wasn’t allowed in the room during the actual birth, but he heard the screams triumph over the sound of the storm. It dragged on for hours, and Wilbur could not seem to wrap his mind around what exactly was happening.

A kind nurse brought him some apple juice. That made him feel better.

A moment after the clock alerted Wilbur that another hour had passed, the screaming stopped and Wilbur heard a small cry through the walls of the delivery room. A heartbeat, maybe two, passed before a doctor came into the hall and invited him in.

It was then that the rain had stopped.

His stepfather was busy talking to a clearly exhausted nurse, but nothing compared to how his mother appeared. Her eyes were sunken, but through her tiredness Wilbur could feel pure joy radiating in waves off of her body. He slowly walked to her bedside, careful not to startle anyone.

He was only six but he had some heightened awareness of the world around him only found in a small percentage of adults.

Peering over the bed he could just barely see over, his mother turned to him and smiled. “Wilbur, would you like to meet your new little brother?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but his stepfather had finally made his way back over, cutting him off. “Give me my son!” He said almost too harshly. Almost.

The little baby continued to wail as the large man scooped him out of his mother’s arms. Wilbur noticed how awkward he looked as his hands lifted the baby up by the armpits. He couldn’t even manage to cradle his newborn son before placing him back down on the warm breast of his mother.

His stepfather gave a stern nod and then made some comment about grabbing them some food. Wilbur’s mother turned back to him, an invitation to hold the baby.

With the assistance of a nurse, Wilbur was able to hold his little brother across his lap (minding his head, of course) in front of the large window. The crying had ceased.

“Let’s get some light in here,” his mother said from her bed, “I think the rain stopped.” The nurse did as requested and pulled open the blinds. Wilbur’s wandering eyes noticed how perfectly the sun crossed over his brother’s face to highlight a pair of half-open blue eyes. He could not fathom the idea of his mother producing a blonde, blue eyed brother when there was no evidence of either genes in his parents.

The room was completely silent as Wilbur remained transfixed on the small child before him.

“Do you want to know his name, darling?” His mother’s gentle voice called his attention away from the babe.

He nodded, brushing a small golden curl out of the baby’s eyes.

“Thomas, but I’d like to call him Tommy.”

***

Tommy was a drop of sunlight peeking through the dark clouds of an ash ridden world. Wilbur was ten now, making Tommy the most curious four year old on the planet.

The four of them, Wilbur, Tommy, their mother, and Wilbur’s stepfather, had a small apartment on the lower east side of the city.

The lower east side was not an ideal place to raise a golden ray such as Tommy, and Wilbur had grown quite protective of him over the last few years.

He remembered, although his therapist often reminded him it was better not to, one instance where Tommy had managed to find his way into the China cabinet and smashed a one-of-a-kind, gold encrusted, plate. An old and unused wedding gift.

No one except Wilbur had witnessed this event and he knew how his stepfather would react, even if Tommy was barely four at that point in time.

When Wilbur was questioned by “le Dictateur,” as Wilbur referred to him only in the envelopes of his imagination, he fully admitted it was his wrongdoing.

He saw the raw end of a black, leather belt for a week after that.

It was just after Wilbur had turned eleven that he started hanging out with “that fucking street punk,” as his stepfather referred to him as. In truth, Techno was just another burnt kid like Wilbur. He was a few years older but had the street smarts to run circles around the mob bosses of the lower east side.

That’s how Wilbur got into the drug business.

It started as a quick way to earn money, but by age fifteen Wilbur and Techno were running one of the most efficient and successful underground drug rings their city had ever seen… or not seen. Tommy was still Wilbur’s priority so he often justified his “work” as a means to an end so one day he could get Tommy out of his fire ridden world.

He made sure Tommy went to school, often driving him himself before meeting up with Techno. Wilbur went to school for maybe a few hours everyday, just learning enough information to stay on top of his grades to suppress any suspicion from his mother and stepfather.

One time he slipped up.

It was a week before Christmas holiday so the roads were slick with freshly fallen snow. Wilbur and Techno were working long hours to get ahead on orders before the holidays. Techno insisted they both deserved a few days off, Wilbur was indifferent but accepted it nonetheless.

He’d skipped four days of school in a row packing orders and delivering drugs to suppliers and buyers. One can hardly blame him for falling asleep and forgetting to pick up his brother from school.

That is, if one knew what Wilbur was up to and why he appeared like a Walker from The Walking Dead, but his mother and stepfather had their own shit to worry about and he was good at hiding it.

It was 5pm when he woke up to his stepfather yelling in his face, their noses touching and the spit from the monster-ish scolding flying onto his face. Just past the nightmarish face of Le Dictateur were a small bundle of golden curls Wilbur was all too familiar with.

They were strung out across his face and darker than normal, giving the impression he had been standing out in the rain for a long period of time. His bottom lip was slightly pouted and tears were falling from his face.

Wilbur jumped out of bed, disregarding the lecture from his stepfather. He knelt down to his brother, who at this point was still significantly smaller than him, and tousled his hair. “Tommy,” Wilbur’s voice shook, “I’m so sorry. I-”

His stepfather grabbed the collar of his shirt before Wilbur could finish. Despite being almost half a foot taller, there was something about his stepfather that made Wilbur feel small. The grasp on his shirt was so tight he thought he could hear the strands of cotton begin to rip as he was thrown out into the hallway.

His head hit the wall and landed sideways on the moldy wood flooring. He felt dizzy, his vision blurred.

“You are a worthless piece of shit!” The stomps of his stepfather's boots grew closer and Wilbur felt himself being picked up by the front of his shirt. His whole body slammed against the wall again, this time pinned by a mean fist and the force of a man he could not fathom how his mother loved.

A fist flew at him, and Wilbur took it square in the face without a fight. “You are weak.” Another fist. “Pathetic.” Another.

“T-Toms,” Wilbur spit out through bloody teeth. It wasn’t a cry for help. It was a statement toward his stepfather to alert him that his innocent sun was gazing upon a world ablaze.

His stepfather pulled his last punch and let Wilbur go. His weak knees buckled and he slid to the floor, his blood dripping all over his shirt and pants. It took all he had just to breathe in and out, and something inside Wilbur wished it would all stop.

He must’ve passed out because the next thing he knew he was back in his bed, the pain rippling through him like the waves of an ocean’s storm. Tommy was at his bedside, and suddenly Wilbur remembered what he had to live for.

Everything was for Tommy.

***

Wilbur’s mother was quite the passive woman. He’d never known his own father, but based on his mother’s infatuation with his stepfather, he could guess what kind of arsonistic man had assisted in his conception.

As Wilbur got older he noticed how much his mother chose to ignore. A bruise here, a new scar there, she never asked questions because she already knew the answer. He didn’t hate her for it, though. He knew she was as much thrown unwillingly into the flames as he was.

Wilbur was sixteen when his mother died. Tommy was ten.

It was very sudden, but at the same time seemed prolonged in a way specifically designed to torture Wilbur. She’d gotten sick shortly after the incident around Christmas. Their lack of funds meant she was being cared for by the cheapest doctors, given the cheapest medicine, and treated like a cheap piece of lower east side trash.

It made Wilbur sick.

The next eleven months were some of the worst of Wilbur’s life. The drug business was expanding, meaning more hours devoted to Techno and away from Tommy.

A means to an end.

His stepfather cut off nearly all visitation with his mother, making each living moment of uncertainty one of agonizing pain. He knew Techno noticed a change in his demeanor, but the fact that he didn’t ask about it left Wilbur feeling more isolated and alone. Although if he did ask, Wilbur was unsure if he would tell him the truth.

He did his best to shield Tommy from the worst parts of the world, but something like this that hit so close to home made it hard to hide. The two grew more apart than Wilbur would have liked, but he made sure any falters Tommy made resulted in Wilbur taking the blame.

His skin was covered in burn marks, but the porcelain nature of his brother’s acted as a barrier between one beating and the next.

The funeral was held at the end of September that year, but Wilbur hadn’t seen his mother since before her third hospital visit when things started to get bad.

That was eight months ago.

The casket was lowered into the ground without a single goodbye. Wilbur Soot, Thomas Simmons, and Le Dictateur, were all dressed in black as the gray clouds filled the sky with an ambiance like that of an old 1920s film.

Wilbur held an umbrella over Tommy’s head, so as to shield him from the unfortunate weather.

Chapter Text

When Wilbur and Tommy showed up at Techno’s doorstep it was out of pure desperation. Wilbur did his best to keep his work and home life separate, but the events of the night had driven him to his lowest point.

Techno was the only one he could trust besides Tommy himself.

It had been a year after his mother died, so the weather was in that awkward phase between summer warmth and the slight chill of autumn. A thunderstorm rattled the whole complex that night, and Wilbur was trying to catch up on sleep from his non-stop delivery runs the day prior.

If it wasn’t for the slam of the front door at 2am things might have progressed differently.

Wilbur jolted out of bed and peered out into the hallway. A flash of lightning allowed him to see his stepfather near the kitchen counter for a brief moment. He was attempting to balance himself on the counter as he lit a cigarette. Wilbur saw it all unfold in slow motion through the light of the storm but he did nothing to stop what happened next.

The cigarette lit after a few attempts and his father proceeded to place his hand down on the stove dials, unknowingly turning on the gas. Clearly drunk, the cigarette fumbled between his lips and a puff of smoke emerged shortly after. But no fingers had met the cigarette at the base of his lips, and Wilbur saw as it fell from his mouth and onto the lit stove top.

It was like a chain reaction, something Wilbur vaguely remembered learning about in school. Let’s say a trash can falls over and this scares a cat who then jumps and knocks over a glass of water, that's a chain reaction. Except in that case the worst thing to happen is a few shards of broken glass and a cat who’s scarred for life.

In this case, Wilbur’s already burned world became completely engulfed in some very hot, very real flames. The explosion was quick, but luckily Wilbur was quicker. He threw open Tommy’s door, already coughing as smoke filled their unventilated flat.

The young twelve year old was half awake, rubbing his eyes and yawning as his big brother grabbed his arm and dragged him out of bed.

Wilbur had heard of maternal instincts, but nothing could have prepared him for how the adrenaline pumping through his veins made him feel. His heart was beating faster, he could feel every artery pounding against the layers of his skin, and his muscles were twitching as him and Tommy came face to face with a wall of flames blocking their only exit. Another boom of thunder rattled the light fixtures above them.

“How?” Tommy's pre-pubescent voice said softly.

“Tommy,” Wilbur said, turning to his brother. The heat of the flames was heavy on his back as he knelt down to his little source of light and golden rays. “Get on my back and close your eyes.”

As mentioned prior, the two of them hadn’t been very close at this point in their lives, but the trust they had for each other never faltered. Tommy did as told without another word.

With Tommy on his back, Wilbur sprinted faster than he thought was physically possible through the flames. The only thing on his mind was the door and he didn’t dare look back to see if his stepfather was alive.

Even now, Wilbur felt no guilt for his decision to save Tommy and only Tommy that night. His stepfather died in a field of flames, something he ought get used to given where Wilbur knew he was going.

They showed up at Techno’s doorstep looking charred and exhausted. Tommy never questioned where they were going or who his brother’s strange, older friend was.

Wilbur slept for twenty-four consecutive hours.

***

Techno accepted the two newly orphaned boys with open arms. Him and Wilbur had never shared much about their personal lives, but after that night Wilbur told Techno everything.

The older boy listened without interruption until he was sure Wilbur was finished. Wilbur talked about his mother’s unfortunate life, how his stepfather was abusive, how he never knew his real father, and, most importantly, he talked about just how special Tommy was.

A drop of sunlight. A piece of rare gold.

Wilbur was a victim of the flames, and Tommy had pulled him out in more ways than he would ever know.

In return, Techno told Wilbur about his own rough childhood. Wilbur knew the basic story: Techno’s parents gave him up for adoption so he bounced from foster home to foster home. He never asked, but Wilbur knew just how awful some of those foster parents were to “delinquent” children such as his friend.

“When I was seventeen I was adopted,” Techno shared. “A little too late if you ask me, but it ended up being one of the best things to happen to me. I mean, that was when I started the drug business and later met you, but my home life improved dramatically.”

“So you have a family?” Wilbur asked curiously. Techno had really never mentioned this before. Wilbur realized that prior to this moment 99% of their conversations consisted of business talk, with the other 1% complaining about… business talk.

“Not exactly. Philza is my adoptive father, but he’s become more of a best friend. He’s out of town now, but he does live here with me.”

Philza. Wilbur didn’t know why, but that made him smile.

***

Over the next six years, Wilbur made sure Tommy went to school and had his own friends. The two of them, Techno, and Philza became a family of sorts, but the drug business had been struggling for a few years and all those funds Wilbur had been saving up slowly disappeared. He insisted on paying rent against Philza’s pleas, but life on the lower east side was aging Wilbur.

He couldn’t walk as far as he used to and had little energy for business meetings. Techno did more of the heavy lifting, but even he was starting slow.

God, they were both under thirty but had the eye bags of a forty-five year old and the back problems of a seventy year old. By Wilbur’s calculations, they had maybe ten years left until both of them would be completely unable to work.

Ten years to get out of the lower east side for Tommy’s sake.

He kept his brother out of the drug ring, and Tommy never really asked about it. The two of them had gotten closer, but there was still a silence that filled their conversations with suffocating air every so often.

Maybe Tommy was thinking about their mother. Maybe he’s thinking about his father, Wilbur shuddered at the thought. He didn’t know if Tommy remembered all the beatings his father had given Wilbur, and given that it was something Wilbur tried not to revisit, the topic never saw the light of day.

***

It was a week before Tommy’s eighteen birthday. April in the lower east side meant troublesome weather. One day would be filled with bitter-cold rain, the next a stuffy humidity.

Either way, their air conditioner and heater didn’t work.

Wilbur and Techno spent their days packaging a sad amount of orders. Wilbur had avoided consuming, inhaling, or smoking any of their drugs for two thousand nine hundred and fifty four days, aka the day Techno introduced him to the business.

On the two thousand nine hundred and fifty fifth day, Wilbur was consumed by an overwhelming sense of temptation. Techno had taken Tommy to some school function for the night, and Philza was out of town for work, so Wilbur found himself alone in their basic three bedroom apartment. A light rain storm had begun outside, followed by a knock at the flat door.

The next thing he knew he was placing a little white pill on the base of his tongue.

The events that followed are up to interpretation.

“My legs feel like sand.” He couldn’t move. He laid supine on the couch? No, he laid supine on a marshmallow like cloud as the walls wiggled around him.

“Are we at the carnival?” The pictures on the walls began to dance, coming out of their picture frames and lifting him up as if he was crowd surfing. They spun him around the room, which he had just noticed no longer had a roof. The sky above him was pink and when he reached up to touch it, it rippled like water.

The pictures had put him down, but his feet no longer reached the floor. He was flying! He moved in a butterfly stroke-like motion in an attempt to reach the tangerine sun that was centered in the now purple sky.

He felt tears fall down his face although he had no reason to cry. It was just so beautiful. He closed his eyes and rubbed them with vigorous force.

When he opened them again he was in his bed, feeling lighter but at the same time heavier than ever. He told his legs to move, but they refused. Lifting his head with extreme force he saw them shackled to the bed. When he went to reach for them, he found his arms tied down in a similar matter.

“Kinky,” he chuckled. No, he laughed.

He laughed and laughed and laughed. He couldn’t stop, it just felt so good. His chest rose and fell with each long, exuberant exhale. What was so funny, he didn’t know.

What he did know was that he felt happy.

The door opened suddenly, but Wilbur continued to stare at the bare ceiling and laugh. He felt his chest tighten as each fiber of muscle knotted around each other to form a row of bows lining his thoracic cavity.

“Wil?” A voice said, seemingly from the heavens. It echoed through his ears, playing his drums with the light patter of a jazz musician.

“H-Hi,” Wilbur coughed out through laughter. He could practically feel the corners of his mouth on the lobes of his ears.

“Techno! Techno get in here quick!” The voice said, a little harsher. That light patter changed to a hard pounding. The rock music was so loud in his head, Wilbur forgot to keep laughing.

Actually, he forgot how to breathe. He was grasping at straws, and the oxygen around him seemed to disappear as the rock music got louder and louder.

A new sound entered the room, but Wilbur’s vision was tainted and the world was spinning in six different directions. “Fuck, Tommy, get Phil on the phone.”

***

The next week was a blur, but the light at the end of a hazy tunnel was Tommy’s birthday. Phil took the four of them to a Chinese restaurant a few blocks away. It wasn’t too expensive, easing Wilbur’s tension when Philza insisted on paying.

After dinner, when Techno and Phil had fallen asleep, Wilbur decided to take Tommy for a drive. Living on the lower east side meant they weren’t far from the city border, meaning the busy intersections quickly turned into one way rural roads in a matter of kilometres.

Wilbur had stopped the car on the side of an unlit byway, instructing Tommy to get out of the car.

“You still haven’t told me why we’re out here.”

Wilbur shut the car door and met Tommy’s eyes above the roof of the vehicle. He hadn’t realized how tall his little brother was. “Just go wait out by that tree.”

Tommy shook his head and did as told.

A moment later, Wilbur met him in the field with a handful of fireworks. Legal, illegal, Wilbur had a fun time getting his hands on them.

“Pick one.” He fanned them out like playing cards in front of Tommy’s face.

“Which one is the loudest?” Tommy chuckled and took one called The Hulk Rocket out of Wilbur’s hand.

The next three hours were filled with silent conversation and the sound of fireworks exploding, causing a ripple of colors on the black background of the night sky.

It was at this moment, Wilbur swore to never lose focus on what he wanted.

Everything was for Tommy.

“Do you want to stay here, Toms?” Wilbur meant in terms of the lower east side and with Techno and Philza.

Tommy was so transfixed on the flashes of blue, green, red, and purple, he must’ve thought Wilbur meant here here, in this field. “I want to stay here forever.”

Wilbur wouldn’t revisit the topic of leaving for a while after that.

“Happy birthday, Tommy.”

Chapter Text

Maybe it wasn't a burning house that alerted Wilbur’s perspective of the world. Maybe it was something in his DNA, something chemically wrong with him that prompted chaos to loom over him like an unwanted shadow.

He did his best to escape the dark, but every moment of light was fueled by fire, turmoil, and at the end of the day, pain.

Except Tommy. Tommy’s light was different.

Deep down, he hoped there was some deeper explanation for why every high moment of his life was contrasted with a new low. That way, he could explain more clearly why his life had played out as such, and what led him to seek therapy in the first place.

***

“Wilbur, bud, you got to calm down. I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Then where the fuck is he?” Wilbur snapped.

It was 10:14pm on a Thursday night in late May. There was a slight drizzle of rain, but the warmer temperature made it somewhat bearable. Tommy went out with a few friends after school and had not returned. The sun had set about four hours ago and the darkness of the night was not easing Wilbur’s nerves about the situation.

“Phil, he was supposed to be home at 9:00. He texted me saying he was on his way back. Where is he?” He was speaking nearly three octaves higher, his heartbeat quickened with every word that left his mouth.

“If I knew, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Philza half-laughed.

Wilbur scoffed, turning to Techno for backup. “This could potentially be serious, Phil,” he said much more calmly than Wilbur would have.

“Well we can’t all freak out. How would anything get done around here?” Wilbur could tell Philza was trying to keep himself composed, but his apparent lack of empathy caused Wilbur’s panic to double almost as if he was making up for it.

Wilbur gripped his chest, his vision blurring as he stumbled over to the couch. “Wil?” Whose voice it was, Wilbur could not tell. The whole world seemed to be upside down.

Wilbur hadn’t drank much water that day.

He could feel the sweat dripping from his hairline, past his eyes, and down the tip of his nose before diving off toward his chest. Each drop sounded of an explosion as his ears began to ring. His vision was blackened at the edges, he could barely feel the sensation of the couch on his skin even though he knew he was laying on his back.

“I- I can’t breathe,” he managed to say through trying breaths. A shadowy figure on his right approached him. Despite the tingly nature of his hands he managed to feel the figure’s tight grip. His hand nearly slipped out because of the sweat, but either Phil or Techno made sure to hold on.

This wasn’t the first time Wilbur had had a panic attack, nor would it be the last.

He remembered when they started. He was only five and his mother had been late to pick him up from school. He sat on the curb, sweaty hands rubbing together, his head between his knees. His mind wandered to the worst possible scenarios, which was happening again now.

He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.

It’s my fault. It’s my fault. It’s my fault.

The door handle turned.

Wilbur’s vision instantly cleared.

***

He didn’t yell at Tommy that night, nor did he ever acknowledge his panic attack except when he briefly thanked Philza and Techno before bed that night.

Tommy wasn’t a child anymore, and Wilbur had to learn to accept that. He was allowed to hang out with friends. He could afford to miss his curfew once or twice. He was allowed to not worry about Wilbur as much as Wilbur worried about him.

Wilbur woke up the following Saturday around 2pm, usual for a weekend when he and Techno didn’t have any deliveries (which was happening more frequently these days). Tommy was already awake, propped up by his computer playing some videogame Wilbur couldn’t make out from his bed.

What Wilbur could see was a box in the middle of the room. The box.

He gulped. “What’s that doing out?”

“I was doing some spring cleaning, thought you wanted to take a look at it before I threw it out. Looked pretty important.” His tone was unreadable. Wilbur couldn’t tell if Tommy had looked in the box while Wilbur was asleep or if he was simply focused on his game.

Wilbur sat up and placed his feet on the floor. He rubbed his eyes and pushed back his hair. “Did you, uh, did you look in it?”

“Seemed like private stuff…but ya.”

“And?”

Tommy paused the game and swiveled his chair to face Wilbur. The corners of his lips were turned slightly downward. “When you asked me on my birthday if I wanted to stay here… you meant like in London, in the city ‘n all that. You meant with Techno and Phil and mum.”

Wilbur felt relieved he didn’t have to say it out loud but he still felt unsettled by the fact that this was all coming to light out of his own accord. “Yea, I did. You just seemed so happy and I didn’t want to correct you so-”

“Do you want to leave, Wil?” He cut him off.

Wilbur took a second, slightly shocked. “It doesn’t really matter what I want.”

“Then what’s with the stockpile of cash and ads for flats in the south and maps in this box?” Wilbur put his face in his hands.

“I wanted to surprise you,” he said lightheartedly. “I’ve been trying to save up enough money to get us out of the lower east. Look! Look!” He picked up the box and showed Tommy the wads of cash wrapped together in rubber bands. “I’ve nearly got enough for us to get a lovely place in Brighton. We’ll be right on the water, there’s a lot of job openings so both of us could work, the city’s much safer, an-”

“I don’t want to leave.”

So ensued the biggest argument Wilbur and Tommy ever had. Both sides had a good case, depending on who’s perspective you saw it from.

Remember how Wilbur realized Tommy wasn’t a child anymore? Well in this argument he called him a child approximately 27 times.

Tommy, on the other hand, couldn’t sympathize with where Wilbur was coming from. “Everything I do is for you,” Wilbur kept repeating and repeating and repeating. Tommy never asked for him to do anything. He had never given any inclination of wanting to leave London. Sure, his childhood was pretty fucked up, but they had Philza and Techno now.

He, unlike Wilbur, had hazier memories of his mother and father. Philza was truly the only father he’d ever known, he was someone who took care of him, pressured him enough to keep him in school but backed off when it got too much. They watched late night television together waiting for Wilbur and Techno to get home. Philza taught him to cook, and although Tommy wasn’t very good, was as encouraging as any father should be to their own son. What had Wilbur been doing these last six years? He’d been getting high and selling drugs on the street.

Tommy never wanted to be like Wilbur.

Wilbur truly could not fathom how Tommy's vision of the world was so pristine…

***
They didn’t speak for days which made family breakfast and dinner… awkward, to put it lightly. Philza and Techno were silent mediators through the whole thing. Neither of them took sides because, in all honesty, no one was in the wrong.

Wilbur, a burn victim, and Tommy, the golden hair drop from the sun, were simply on two different railways heading in opposite directions.

***
Tommy graduated on May 27th, two weeks after their fight. There was never any real resolution, but the family dynamic had returned to some form of normal. Wilbur and Techno officially shut down their drug business, letting go of their four remaining clients. At least Wilbur would have a freer summer before Tommy went off to university.

Tommy had applied and received nearly a full scholarship to University College London. He’d start school in late August, and Wilbur would be left alone with Techno and Philza.

Maybe it was his age, maybe it was something in his DNA as previously mentioned, but Wilbur didn’t feel a strong tie to neither Phil nor Techno. He should’ve though, right? They took him and his brother in when they needed a home. Not simply a place to live, but a true home. They rarely asked questions about their childhood, and Wilbur rarely offered up any information with the only exception being that first night and the day Philza had come home. He saw how close Tommy had become with them, so what had been stopping him from doing the same all these years?

Days felt like an eternity, but somehow mid-July snuck up on Wilbur. Hot days in an air conditioned-less flat made life unbearable. He truly had nothing going for him. He barely finished secondary school, his only work experience had been completely illegal activity, and his only motivation was fading away like a summer sunset over the horizon.

“Where you off to?” Wilbur asked Tommy one evening in late July. He, Phil, and Techno were all spread out across the living room watching the news and trying to cool the flat down the best they could.

“Just hanging with some mates. Be back soon.” The golden hair boy left without another word.

Be back soon, he’d said. Be back soon.

Chapter Text

“Wilbur, do you want to continue or stop for the day?”

“I think I’m okay to keep going, just need a moment.”

“Take all the time you need.”

***
Tommy didn’t come home that day. Or the next. Or the day after that.

Each passing second was one filled with a sickening pain and a thorn in his stomach that insisted on pushing his vital organs to the brink of collapse. He was unable to get out of bed but he couldn't fathom shutting his eyes to sleep.

The darkness behind his eyelids was so cold, so empty. It filled his mind with the worst thoughts. His little drop of sun had yet to come home.

“Be back soon.”

When Wilbur saw Techno and Philza pass by his room from the hallway, he saw the trepidation in their steps. He could barely tell, but it appeared Techno had been biting his nails again. Philza brought Wilbur three meals a day but usually only took away one empty play. The room had begun to smell of rotten food, unwashed clothes, and misery. The lukewarm water on his bedside had a thin layer of dust, but Wilbur couldn’t muster the energy to clean it out.

After the first few days Philza had filed a missing person’s report, but they had yet to be updated by the local police. One week passed, then another. The silence was dead and drawn-out, making each day feel the same as the last.

Treated like a cheap piece of lower east side trash, Wilbur thought back to another unhappy moment but quickly shook it off. He’d been having frequent panic attacks so hyper-focusing on his mother’s death was the last thing he needed.

***
August 3. Aside from the day Tommy was born, this was the day Wilbur remembered with an uncanny amount of lucidity.

The weather was warm but not to the point where the flat became stuffy. It was a perfect summer’s day, and the first time in weeks Wilbur had actually managed to sleep. Granted, it was dreamless and only lasted for about two hours, but nonetheless.

He rolled out of bed, taking a second to focus his attention on the empty bed beside his. It was neatly made, no wrinkles or random clothing items laying about. The pillows were propped up like that of a hotel and a small, stuffed chicken sat front and center.

The two of them would often bicker about the practicality of chickens. Wilbur would explain how eggs and chicken meat were used in everyday life while Tommy would note how they “were practically half-birds.” He had a point; they could barely even fly. For Tommy’s first birthday after the fire, when they had first started living with Techno and Phil, Wilbur had bought him the same stuffed chicken that sat on the now unused bedding.

He walked down the hall and into the main room. The living room shutters had been opened to allow the summer sun to paint the room in an array of yellows and oranges. Philza was cooking up breakfast and Techno sat across the bar in silence.

That’s what Wilbur noticed the most: the silence. It acted like a fourth person in the room, or perhaps it was attempting to replace the fourth person.

“Morning,” Wilbur said a bit under his breath. This was truly the first time since Tommy’s disappearance the three of them had been in the same room in a somewhat normal manner.

“Oh, Wil,” Philza turned around with a pan of scrambled eggs, “I didn’t expect you to, uh, come out here.”

“Well, it’s a nice day. Thought I’d take a walk around the flat before climbing back into bed.” He noticed Techno and Phil exchanged a look. “What?” No response. “What was that look?”

Philza put the pan down and rubbed the space between his eyes. Wilbur had never noticed how old Phil looked until this moment. “We got a call from-”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Wilbur cut him off. “You’re-you’re tone, the silence in the room…Tommy’s dead.” Maybe that’s what was different about today. The last few weeks had been filled with unusual weather. Grayer skies, more thunderstorms, a weird day where the temperature fell below 15°. Today was undoubtedly a Tommy day.

Philza gave a solemn nod, and Techno put his coffee cup on the counter and left the room without another word. Wilbur heard a door slam.

Wilbur’s hands began to tremble, his eyes watering. “Wil,” Philza said mournfully. Wilbur met his eyes and embraced him.

Wilbur couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hugged and who hugged him. Had it been his mother before bed one night? Tommy before their big fight? It didn’t matter. At this moment he was in the arms of someone who loved him more than Wilbur could ever reciprocate. The tears from his face were drenching Phil’s shoulder, and when the two pulled back Wilbur noticed a similar stain on his own.

“Where did they find him?” Wilbur’s voice cracked. Wiping the tears from his eyes was a useless feat but he did it anyway.

“Just outside the city in an open field.”

Wilbur’s heart felt like it had dropped three stories, the contents of his stomach were quickly making their way up his throat. “Was he murdered?” Wilbur could barely speak. The question came out before he could determine if he really wanted to know the answer.

“No,” Philza choked back, “his car crashed into a tree. No signs of a struggle, just probably didn’t see it.”

Wilbur found the bathroom quickly, hurling out the contents of an already empty stomach.

“Just go wait out by that tree.”

He sat on the bathroom floor for hours, going back and forth between throwing up and crying. The singular window above the shower let him know the sun had completely set once the final piece of yellow and orange was consumed by blackness.

***
“He was so young and had so much more to live for than I did. If I wouldn’t have taken him out there for his birthday, if I hadn’t-”

“Wilbur,” Dr. Niki placed a gentle hand on his knee, “none of this is your fault. Some things are out of your control, and you have no idea what Tommy was doing that night and why he ran into that tree.”

Wilbur wiped a stray tear from his eye. “I think he was looking for me,” Wilbur paused. “Not in a literal way, but in the way that I think he was looking for a reminder of how our relationship used to be. That’s why he went out into that field.”

“Even if that’s true, you have no reason to blame yourself.” She glanced up at the time. “I’m very happy with our progress today. I’ll walk you out.” They stood up at the same time and made their way to the office door. He opened it for her and she led him out to the front waiting area of the counseling center.

“Any fun plans this weekend, doctor?”

“Hanging out with the kids, the usual. And yourself?”

“I think I might catch the train home for a bit. I believe our next meeting is scheduled for next Friday so I’ll see you then.”

“Goodbye, Wilbur,” she said with a maternal smile.

Chapter Text

They say that one who is born into a burning house believes the whole world is on fire. That the insufferable warmth suffocates one's lungs until there is no more room for the oxygen needed to survive.

That was something Wilbur Soot used to believe.

In reality, the burned world he was brought into was only so charred because of his refusal to see the good. He focused his attention on the flames and deemed himself the protector of his golden hair Tommy.

When he couldn’t save him, Wilbur felt drawn back into the inferno. He constantly picked at the soft places of his skin in an attempt to remove the charred remains of his time in the lower east side, but it was useless. That life would always be a part of him, but as Dr. Niki was trying to teach him, it did not have to be the thing that was holding him back.

His savior complex stemmed from the moment that little drop of sunlight landed on this mortal earth. Those innocent blue eyes, Wilbur decided, would never be tainted by the world on fire Wilbur had experienced in his first six years of life.

It was that same savior complex that drove him to be a punching bag, but the bruises and scars were hardly the price to pay for Tommy’s safety. He never did get the chance to ask Tommy if he knew what went on behind closed doors or if he remembered that day Wilbur forgot to pick him up. Maybe he didn’t want to know, maybe it was better to think Tommy was completely unaware of his stepfather's tyrannical hobby.

He doubted his brother was so clueless, but he admired the fact that he never brought it up. His silence was thanks enough.

Dr. Niki also mentioned how this savior complex led to that big fight between Tommy and Wilbur. Their communication had never been the best. They were close and they trusted each other to a fault, but Wilbur had never directly asked where Tommy saw himself after he finished college. Wilbur always assumed his view of the world was the same as his brother’s: one filled with evil, lies, deceit, and everything in between.

It took Wilbur years to understand Tommy’s side of that argument. Tommy didn’t see the world as a bad place because Wilbur made sure he didn’t. That was his goal after all, wasn’t it? Who knew it would come back to bite him and be the driving force behind the hurt that filled their relationship until Tommy’s death.

When Wilbur was alone, usually sipping some calming tea on his balcony watching the sun set, he pictured where Tommy would be. It didn’t make him sad, if anything it was the one thing that kept him truly connected to his brother.

Tommy would be 21 now, most likely graduating university in a month and entering the workforce. He had mentioned to Wilbur when he was a younger how he’d love to go into social work to help kids and orphans similar to them. Wilbur hadn’t asked 18 year old Tommy if that was still true, but for the sake of his imagination he pretended it was.

Wilbur never saw himself getting married or having kids, but he could picture Tommy with a boy and girl just over a year apart. Of course, that wouldn’t be until he was thirty or so because he would’ve spent his early twenties traveling the world and grasping the true beauty of life in all of its forms. Maybe on one of those adventures he’d meet the future mother of his kids. Wilbur liked to imagine himself hopping the train back to London at Christmas time to visit his brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew.

And then there was Philza and Techno. It took Wilbur an entire year before he returned to London to visit the only people he would ever call family.

He apologized to Philza for being so cold and intolerable in his early twenties. Phil insisted he hadn’t noticed but he accepted the apology nonetheless.

After Tommy’s death, each of them found ways to distract themselves. Philza cooked more food than the three of them could consume, Wilbur sought out a therapist, and Techno got into martial arts. He was now a full time teacher at a local studio. A step up from the drug world, Wilbur often remarked.

It had also been 1,154 days since the last time Wilbur had consumed any sort of psychedelic, a vow to Tommy he kept across worlds.

Sometimes, Wilbur wondered what life was like after death. If there was true peace, he knew Tommy and his mother had reached it, and his stepfather was on the opposite end of the spectrum. But where would he go? Would he pass away one day and wake up only to start his life over, or would he cleanse his soul enough to reunite with Tommy in another world? He didn’t know. Maybe he just wanted a never ending sleep. Yeah, that’d be quite nice.

He didn’t dwell on the unknown too much these days, though.

***
The train departed early Saturday morning. Wilbur settled into his seat, adjusting his glasses to read the latest GQ magazine he had bought at the marquee. The slight breeze outside caused the trees next to the station to lightly tap on the glass beside him.

He saw it as a little hello and mentally waved back. One of the train guards came by to take his ticket and a complimentary meal was given to him.

Chicken with a side of potatoes and broccoli. He exhaled softly to conceal a laugh.

“What would you like to drink?” The attendant asked.

Normally he’d go for some water, maybe a tea if he was feeling anxious. “Apple juice, if you have it,” he said with a smile.

He felt the slight jolt of the train a moment later. He ate his chicken, following it with a nice sip of apple juice.

It made him feel better.

Outside the window, the once tree covered station area was replaced with a view of the ocean. He saw the larger buildings of the downtown area and the pier. The carnival games and a large ferris wheel were lit up and packed with people. All of them were on different paths, living completely different lives, but at this same point in the grand scheme of time they were all at that little pier winning a goldfish that would die in a week or stuffing their faces with greasy food until their belts popped.

The first time he’d ridden the ferris wheel he’d felt like he was flying, like he was rising above the flames up to the heavens to be with his mum and Tommy. When he looked back down, he realized the flames weren’t there. The sunset wasn’t being engulfed in the smoke and ash of the lower east side, instead it was being extinguished by the calm, blue eyes of the ocean.

In that moment, Wilbur thought he might cry but he forced his eyes to remain open to fully experience the beauty before him.

As the train passed the “Now leaving Brighton” sign, Wilbur couldn’t help but breathe in and out with a new sense of ease.