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Phil was well aware that Wilbur and Tommy were close. He had seen firsthand— both in person and online— how affectionate the two were with each other. He had seen them shout playful jabs at each other, but also cuddle together on Wilbur’s couch after a long day of vlogging. He had seen them make fun of one another’s insecurities, but also reassure each other that they were cared for and loved. Phil knew the two were as attached to the other as one could possibly be.
But there was something else that Phil was beginning to notice.
Wilbur had a laugh reserved for Tommy.
No, Phil was not insane— he swore he wasn’t! He knew what he heard and saw, and there was simply too much evidence to deny it. Wilbur absolutely had a laugh reserved for Tommy.
Now, Wilbur laughed at a lot of things. He laughed at Jack when the man did something dumb, he laughed at Fundy’s bits on stream, he laughed Schlatt’s persona, he laughed at himself when he messed something up.
With Tommy, however, the laughter was different.
When other people’s jokes were mediocre, perhaps Wilbur would say “not funny, didn’t laugh” or roll his eyes, all lightheartedly of course. But when Tommy made a joke, no matter how silly or incomprehensible, Wilbur laughed.
It wasn’t a fake laugh, by any means. Instead, it was a full bodied laugh, something that took the air out of Wilbur’s lungs and left his stomach aching. The smile on his face would be wide and his eyes would be gleaming. It was a more genuine laugh, if anything.
Wilbur seemed to find any mildly humorous word that came out of Tommy’s mouth absolutely hilarious— like the world is ending and he might never hear a joke again hilarious, like he hasn’t heard a joke in seventeen years hilarious. The bits Tommy did that might get a small chuckle out of Phil got a boisterous laugh from Wilbur.
And Phil didn’t just have circumstantial evidence— he had access to the quote book. Practically half the quotes in the book were from Tommy. Sure, all of them were pretty funny— there was a threshold of humor to be able to get your joke into the book— but it seemed that Wilbur placed that threshold lower for Tommy.
So, here was where Phil found himself, unsure of what made Tommy so funny to Wilbur. His plan? To figure out why Wilbur was so endeared to all of Tommy’s jokes.
-
“Philza Minecraft,” Wilbur greeted in a faux serious voice as he joined the voice channel. Phil rolled his eyes, but smiled nonetheless.
“What’s up, Wil?” he replied, keeping his focus on his hardcore world in front of him.
Wilbur gave a short hum. “Not much. Saw you were streaming and thought I’d join.”
Phil couldn’t help but be skeptical. “What’s the real reason?”
Wilbur gave a small snicker, knowing he’d been caught. “Tommy and I were supposed to call this afternoon, but he isn’t responding to my texts so I decided to come bother you instead.”
“I don’t know what else I expected.”
There was silence for a few moments as Phil continued to work on his hardcore project, a zombie spawner for collection of rotten flesh. Eventually, Wilbur let out an over dramatic sigh.
“Entertain me, Phil.”
“You joined my stream!” Phil accused. “You can choose to leave if I’m boring you!”
Before Wilbur could respond, Tommy joined the voice channel with a very loud “Hello?!”
“Tommy!” Wilbur exclaimed. “You weren’t responding to my texts!”
“I was busy talking to my mum,” Tommy shot back. “Not my fault you’re clingy!”
Wilbur huffed. “I’m not clingy!”
“Mimimimimi I’m Wilbur and I can't go five minutes without big man Tommyinnit texting me back or else I’ll cry!” Tommy mocked in a poor imitation of Wilbur’s voice.
“Can you two take this argument somewhere else?” Phil asked with an exasperated tone, though the fondness that leaked through was obvious.
“Fine,” Tommy huffed. “We’ll go over and fight on Karl Jacobs’s channel and then we will convince Mr. Beast to buy the winner of our argument a Tesla.”
And then, there it was. There was that boisterous laugh from Wilbur that was reserved solely for Tommy. Phil could practically see the beaming smile on Wilbur’s face, and the proud look that Tommy would surely have after making the brunet laugh.
-
“-and then Tubbo was all ‘I’m busy with my boyfriend’ and it’s like— what about ‘bros before hoes,’ hm?” Tommy rambled on, just telling whatever story came to his head.
Phil, walking beside the boy as they headed towards Wilbur’s flat, hummed in acknowledgement. “I don’t know what to tell you, mate. He’s in the honeymoon period, so he wants to spend all his time with his partner.”
“Has he simply considered not being in the honeymoon phase?” Tommy replied nonchalantly. “If the honeymoon phase came for me, I would simply say ‘no thank you, not today!’”
Phil gave a small laugh at that, and Tommy looked proud of his little joke.
Looking forward, Phil spotted Wilbur standing outside the door to his flat building. Before he could even wave to the man, Tommy was rushing forwards and throwing himself at the brunet. Wilbur took it in stride, catching Tommy in his arms and spinning him around.
Phil made his way over to the two, who were still hugging with Tommy’s face buried in Wilbur’s shoulder and Wilbur’s chin perched atop Tommy’s head. The two finally parted once Phil came to a stop next to them. Wilbur gave Phil a short side hug before the three began to walk towards the restaurant Wilbur had insisted they go to when Phil visited.
Unsurprisingly, Tommy and Wilbur easily got swept up into a conversation about Tommy’s next vlog. Phil didn’t mind being excluded from the dialogue, as he was busy checking the texts that Kristin had sent him. About halfway to the restaurant, Phil tuned back into the conversation and realized Tommy was rambling about Tubbo abandoning him again.
“I simply think he should stop being in the honeymoon phase!” Tommy declared, repeating his joke from earlier. “If the honeymoon phase came for me, I would simply say ‘no thanks!’”
And there it was again, Wilbur’s full bodied laughter that was saved only for Tommy’s jokes. Wilbur had to stop walking completely, basically folded in half and holding his stomach as he laughed. Tommy had on a small smile, reaching a hand out to Wilbur and pulling the brunet back upright.
As Wilbur finally caught his breath, the three of them continued walking, but Phil’s mind was stuck on the way Wilbur had found Tommy’s small joke breathtakingly hilarious.
-
“You’re out of your mind, love,” Kristin told him, not tearing her focus away from her food.
“What- I- No!” Phil stuttered out, desperately trying to defend himself. “I’m completely serious!”
“It sounds like you’re just making stuff up in your head,” Kristin shot back, but her tone was lighthearted nonetheless.
Phil went a little read. “I’ve seen it in action, though! Wilbur really does have a special laugh just for Tommy— he finds Tommy funnier than anyone else!”
Kristin gave him a skeptical look. “And what proof do you have of this?”
“You have to have seen it when they come into VC on my streams!” Phil cited.
Kristin gave a small laugh. “I mean, I’ve seen Wilbur laugh at Tommy’s jokes, but I don’t think he finds Tommy funnier than any of his other friends.”
Phil thought for a moment, scrambling for any more semblance of evidence, when it hit him.
“The quote book!” Phil exclaimed.
“What about it?”
Phil was already pulling up the link to it on his phone, scrolling to the most recent quotes. “Wilbur puts Tommy in there more than anyone! It’s proof he finds Tommy funnier than anyone else!”
Phil turned the phone around to show Kristin, revealing the most recent quote, which was from Tommy, reading, ‘If I made eight million dollars off my merch, I would give none of it to charity and use all of it to bribe Ash Kabosu to let me into Lovejoy.’
Kristin raised an eyebrow. “Dear, you know that Tommy is probably just in the quote book more because he spends the most time around Wilbur, right?”
Phil spluttered for a second, but eventually let out a defeated sigh. “I give up.”
Kristin laughed and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “It was a valiant effort, but I think you’re just getting into your own head about this.”
-
Phil was beginning to think that maybe Kristin was right. He was probably just overthinking Wilbur’s laugh, and Wilbur hung out with Tommy so much that it made sense that the blond was so heavily featured in the quote book. With that acceptance, he let it go. Tommy and Wilbur were just close friends— practically brothers— who found each other funny, that’s all there was to it.
This whole perception fell apart when Phil found himself back in Brighton one weekend, just there to visit some friends, but Tommy had quickly caught wind of Phil’s proximity to his flat.
Tommy: big man philza
Phil: yes, child?
Tommy: i heard ur in brighton
Tommy: come over
Tommy: wilbur is at my flat rn too
Phil: ok ok i’ll come over
Tommy: WAIT
Tommy: will u pick up some food?
Phil: fine, what do you want?
Tommy: thai pls :] get some pad thai and some pad see ew for wilbur
Tommy: ur the best big man
Phil: no prob, see you guys soon
Tommy: just let urself in when u get here
And so Phil was off to the Thai restaurant closest to Tommy’s flat— a place that Tommy had taken him before and that he had quite enjoyed. He had to wait a little bit for the food to be ready, but didn’t mind at all, and was quickly back on his way to Tommy’s home.
Soon, Phil found himself climbing the stairs to Tommy’s floor, cursing the fact that the elevator was way too rickety for him to trust. He really didn’t know why Tommy hadn’t moved yet, and vowed he would work harder to convince the blond to get a better flat with a nicer landlord.
Eventually, he found himself standing in front of Tommy’s door, which had paint chipping off and hinges that looked as though they hadn’t been replaced since the sixties.
Remembering what Tommy’s text had said, Phil pushed the door open and walked in, his attention immediately turning to the couch that had people on it. Phil only blinked in shock as Tommy and Wilbur, who had been sitting close to each other, quickly flung themselves to either end of the couch, looking away from Phil with flushed faces.
It was clear what had just been happening from the two’s swollen red lips and the faint bite marks along Tommy’s neck. Wilbur and Tommy had been quite clearly caught and neither dared to face the man who had seen them.
With cautious movements, Phil shut the door behind him and moved to place the takeaway bag on the counter. After doing so, he made his way back to the living room and took a seat on the chair adjacent to the couch. Still, neither Tommy nor Wilbur met his gaze.
“I fucking knew something was going on,” Phil claimed, though he sounded more victorious than upset. “I wasn’t crazy!”
Wilbur’s head shot up to stare at the man. “What are you on about?”
“I’ve been noticing that you have this laugh that’s reserved specifically for Tommy, and I swore up and down that you found Tommy funnier than anybody else— but Kristin said I was just making things up! But I knew there was something going on!”
“Wilbur has a laugh reserved just for me?” Tommy questioned, giving Phil a puzzled look.
“Are you kidding?” Phil asked, incredulity dripping from his voice. “Wilbur laughs harder at your jokes than at anyone else’s— it’s a total, full bodied laugh— and he puts you in the quote book more than anyone else!”
Tommy and Wilbur gave each other a look before turning back to Phil.
“I have zero clue what you’re talking about,” Wilbur told him.
“I think you’re just making things up,” Tommy added on.
Phil could only place his head in his hands in utter defeat as the couple laughed in the background.