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Out of all of Wilbur’s addictions, hospitals are his strangest one. Most people hate the place. The cold atmosphere is off putting to most, and oftentimes, hospitals are associated with the worst points in somebody’s life. But Wilbur can’t stop coming to these things. He’s in here every other week.
Well, not this one. He’s never been to this one before.
In fact, he hasn’t been to a hospital around these parts in years. This one is located just outside of Brighton, near a line of suburban houses close to the beach. It’s been years since Wilbur lived in the UK. He escaped to America years ago. Many have scoffed at him for saying he escaped. Many don’t realize how miserable Wilbur was on this tiny little island. He’d take California with its wildfires and water shortages any day over London.
He’s used to hospitals from all his unnecessary trips to them. But this one is different. Well, the hospital itself isn’t very different. The circumstances are. Usually, Wilbur is here for himself. He walks down white hallways to go bother some doctor and waste their time.
He’s not here for himself this time. There’s a reason he caught an eight hour flight to come here.
“Tommy Soot is in room 515. You have to be out of there by 6, that’s when visitor hours end.”
That’s what the lady at the front desk had told him. Wilbur repeats that number over and over again in his head. 515. 515. How many rooms are there in this place? How could they have filled up so much that Tommy is in the five hundred and fifteenth room?
He makes his way up to the fifth floor, then once again, paces down a hallway. It seems to stretch on forever. Just like his flight felt like it took twenty four hours and the uber ride here took even longer. Longest was the wait for Tommy’s doctor to call him, saying whether or not Tommy was in stable condition. Those were five nerve wracking hours.
It’s still hard to believe that Tommy got in a car crash. Not just that, the doctor said he caused the car crash. Tommy, his tiny little brother. Not only old enough to drive, but old enough to nearly die trying. Last time Wilbur saw Tommy in person, he was a far cry from eighteen. Tommy wasn’t even a teenager yet when Wilbur departed; he still had a couple of months until his thirteenth birthday.
Wilbur wishes he could say he’s surprised that the accident was Tommy’s fault. But, well, Tommy was a young driver. And he wasn’t exactly the most responsible kid Wilbur ever knew.
Still. Old enough to drive. Wilbur can’t get over that.
He reads the plack for 523 and realizes he’s gone too far. He backtracks, and finds himself in front of 515. There’s a new record for longest wait in Wilbur’s life. That wait is the moment that it takes Wilbur to prepare himself. He can’t just step through the door. He can’t just waltz right in there. He hasn’t seen Tommy in years. He has to think of what to say.
He thinks he’s got it.
Just like that, he’s survived the longest wait yet.
Wilbur walks into Tommy’s hospital room and he says, “I wish we could’ve met under better circumstances, but it’s nice to see you again, kid.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets and waits for a response. Then he looks down and realizes that Tommy’s eyes are not open. His breaths are long and slow. Oh. He’s asleep.
Tommy’s hooked up to all sorts of tubes. One goes in his nose and another in his arm. The monitor next to him is displaying a steady heart rate, with a quiet beep that’s bound to get on Tommy’s nerves when he wakes. He always hated repeated sounds like that. Wilbur’s gotten used to them from how often they play out in his nightmares.
There’s a chair in the corner. Wilbur pulls it up to Tommy’s beside, flinching when it scrapes against the floor. Any noise could wake Tommy. Well, Tommy has to wake at some point, doesn’t he? Wilbur has a little bit less than an hour to visit him. What happens if he doesn’t wake up this entire time? Wilbur came all the way here, booked a thousand dollar flight, just to spend an hour watching his brother sleep.
Well, he can come back tomorrow. And he will need to speak to the doctor. Last he heard, Tommy had woken up before. For now, all Wilbur can do is wait. Yet again.
He takes out his phone and starts playing a game. That gets old quickly, so he turns to his notes app and starts writing out ideas for his D&D campaign. While writing is usually able to hold his attention, Wilbur finds himself glancing up and around this hospital room. Glancing up at the IV fluid, at the heart monitor, and at the windows. The curtains are drawn. Wilbur decides to open them. Tommy always liked a bit of sunlight.
He pads over to the curtains and is careful not to make much noise. He ties them off carefully, looping the little ties around each other and pulling them into perfect bows. He takes a deep breath, and damn, he needed that. Needed to breathe for a moment, to feel the air filling his lungs. He does that a lot, as he tries to parse out if there’s really something wrong with his lungs or if he’s just out of shape. Maybe it’s the anxiety getting to him.
He holds back that bit of anxiety for a little bit longer, because he can’t let it overtake him right now. He turns back, intending to walk back over to the seat he took earlier. But when he turns, wide blue eyes are turned straight on him.
Suddenly, Wilbur can’t breathe. That bit of anxiety welled its way back up and its nasty.
Tommy makes a sound that vaguely sounds like Wilbur’s name. His speech is slurred and it sounds more like “Hnn mmm ” than anything else. But it’s the way he narrows his eyes as he says it.
Wilbur clears his throat, forcing air down it. “Um, hey, Tommy.”
Tommy brings up one arm to rub at his eyes or scratch his forehead or something, before abandoning the motion, because that’s the arm with the IV. For a second Willbur wonders why Tommy isn’t using his other hand, before the blanket drops away to reveal that Tommy’s other arm is in a sling. Oh.
“It’s been awhile–”
“‘re’ve you ‘een?” Tommy asks, and for a second it’s hard for Wilbur to decipher. He has to think about it.
“America.”
“Knew that.”
Yeah, Tommy would know that Wilbur’s been in America. Wilbur told his entire family where he was going, and occasionally, he sent postcards from sunny California. The last one was the card he sent last year on the 4th of July; a picture of him and his girlfriend at the time. Sally broke up with him just weeks after that, but that day was a good one.
“What happened to you?”
“Ask the doctor.”
“Okay, I will, but do you feel okay?”
Tommy glares at him. “Half my fucken body was just crunched like a glowstick, of course I don’t feel okay.”
Well, at least he’s talking in full sentences now.
“I can ask the doctor to get you more painkillers–”
“Do that later.”
Later? Is Wilbur wrong for taking that as an invitation? What does Tommy mean for him to do in the meantime?
Wilbur ends up rounding the bed to sit back in his seat. Tommy glares at him, but Tommy’s been glaring at him this entire time. Wilbur’s surprised that Tommy can think this clearly with how much pain he must be in. Wilbur stares past Tommy, not quite making eye contact.
“Look at me.”
He looks Tommy in the eyes, and he feels that he’s been put under a microscope. Tommy’s examining every twitch of Wilbur’s eyelid, every shallow breath. He must not like what he sees. He makes a low noise like a growl.
Wilbur tries to decipher this, tries to figure out what Tommy’s thinking. The entire trip here, Wilbur’s been feeling uneasy. He had this pit in his stomach, because he didn’t know what awaited him once he got to Britain. He tried to imagine this meeting in his head. Every time he pictured it, Tommy was this frail little twelve year old kid with a high pitched voice. Tommy was plenty abrasive back then, so he did have an idea of what Tommy would be like. But he had no clue whether Tommy was going to mellow out over the years or get worse.
Even now he can’t tell. Tommy certainly seems angry. Wilbur can’t blame him for that. The first time they’re seeing each other in six years and it’s under these circumstances.
Wilbur’s been claiming for a long, long time that he hasn’t had the money to come over and visit. But he just bought his own ticket to come over here. It’s emergency money, to be fair. This is an emergency after all. If this accident was a little bit worse, then Wilbur would be seeing Tommy on his deathbed. Actually, if the accident was a little bit worse, then Wilbur would probably be too late. The flight from California to London is too long. Add in the time at the airport, the uber to Brighton, all the other delays… he’s lucky. Wilbur’s really, really lucky right now.
He should say that, shouldn’t he? Should he say, “I’m glad you’re okay?”
No. He knows Tommy. Tommy will just bite back, “I’m not okay!”
Over the years, Wilbur has imagined seeing Tommy again. He tries to avoid daydreaming over it, but Tommy was the best part of his teenage years.
That wasn’t saying a lot.
So it does hurt sometimes, thinking about what he lost. But it didn’t matter in the long run. Wilbur lives a happy life in America.
He hopes Tommy’s been living a happy life as well. He didn’t have Wilbur’s miserable ass dragging him down, after all.
“I… I want…” Tommy trails off, and it’s clearly hard for him to speak.
Wilbur should give him time, but instead he says, “You want…”
“I want– I want to fucken– tell you what I’ve…”
This time Wilbur does give him some time. He tries to fill in the rest of Tommy’s sentence. Tell you what I’ve been doing. Tell you what I’ve been thinking about.
“What I’ve been writing.”
Writing? Since when is Tommy a writer?
“Saw your stupid little– stupid little indie band, on YouTube– with a drummer who can’t drum and a bass who can’t play–”
“They’re amazing, thank you very much. Better musicians than I’ve ever been.
Somehow, Tommy musters the energy to roll his eyes. “It’s a… it’s a reference, you dumb shit. But I saw that and I knew you wrote in the past. You used to write up a storm. Like you were running out of time–”
“I see what you did there. I’ll always catch a Hamilton reference, especially one that obvious.”
That pulls a grin from Tommy. Wilbur has no choice but to mirror that grin, ear to ear. That’s the first positive reaction he’s gotten from Tommy this whole time. He half expects Tommy to wipe that grin off his face once he sees Wilbur doing it. But no, Tommy keeps smiling and it’s audible in his voice.
“Yeah you fucken prick, it’s ‘cause you played the soundtrack in the car every single time we got on the road.”
Okay, fair, but it’s a good soundtrack.
“I really hate you sometimes, you know that?” Tommy says. “I really, really hate you.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“That was retching-oracle question or whatever the fuck.”
“Rhetorical.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Wow, rude.
“You were always writing,” Tommy says, breezing right past that whole exchange like Wilbur had never butted in. “You spend every waking moment doing it. And I was watching you, over your shoulder. I saw all that angsty ass poetry and lyrics. And I saw how scared you were of hospitals.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m scared of them.”
“You were at the time.”
Maybe that was true. Wilbur can’t quite remember. That time in his life… it was a blur. Wilbur started truly living at twenty one, when he had been living in America for a couple years and he finally felt he had his life together.
“I saw you writing and you did it cause you were a sad sack of shit.”
Tommy realized that?
“And so when I became a sad sack of shit, well, I thought that writing was just what you were supposed to do.”
It’s not exactly… surprising that Tommy didn’t do well when Wilbur left.
He doesn’t know what he expected. There was no way that Tommy would be completely fine. They were brothers. Like it or not, they spent every day together. They stewed in their troubles together and they had their rare moments of happiness together. Then it was all ripped away when Wilbur left, because Tommy was not a strong enough anchor to keep him from drifting away.
Does Tommy blame himself? Does he ever ask himself what would’ve happened if he tried a little bit harder?
Nothing. Nothing would’ve changed. Because Wilbur was never meant to live in this place. His heart still lives in La Jolla.
Still, Tommy never thought very rationally. He’s always been a little bit dramatic. Or is Wilbur not allowed to say that? After how damn dramatic he himself has been?
Moving to another continent and changing his number… yeah, it’d be pretty rich of him to call Tommy dramatic. Still, it’s what needed to be done.
“I was writing. I was writing this entire time,” Tommy says. “Writing about you and all your– all your bullshit, and shit like that. And writing about my friends. And my teachers. And writing about how I’m such a bad writer because you never told me how hard this shit is.”
“I feel like I mentioned it a couple times.”
“You never explained how long it took you to get good.”
“I still don’t think I’m that good,” Wilbur says.
“Do you write the lyrics for the songs your band plays?”
“Most of them, yeah.”
“Then shut up, don’t be all humble and shit,” Tommy says. “But don’t let this get to your head either.”
Wilbur’s not sure which he’s supposed to listen to more, so he just nods along. Whatever Tommy wants. Whatever will make him happy. Because in the end, Tommy just got his own body wrecked in a car accident. Wilbur is here to make sure his baby brother isn’t dying.
That’s what he’s here for. And well, he has his answer. Tommy is not dead yet. He’s still kicking, after all this time.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but you inspired me,” Tommy says.
“I inspired you, huh?”
“I wouldn’t have started to write if not for you.”
“I’m glad that you could pick up a new hobby.”
Wilbur’s candidness angers Tommy. A vein bulges in his forehead, and he clenches is fist. Tommy being angry is not a surprise. What is a surprise is what he says.
“You better fucken stick around.”
“What?”
“At least for– I don’t know, a month. A few weeks.”
Wilbur does have a couple weeks off right now. His current job is as a janitor at a school. It’s summer right now, he doesn’t have much work. Just sweeping the floors.
“Don’t leave me again, alright?” Tommy still looks angry, but his voice wavers. His jaw twitches, and he turns his head away. “You… you messed me up when you left in the first place. I can’t believe it took me landing myself in the hospital for you to visit.”
“I’m sorry–”
“Oh don’t fucken say that, what’s done is done.” Tommy turns back, looking Wilbur in the eyes. That makes it so much harder. “Just stay, alright? For a little while. Just stay.”
“... I can do that.”
That doesn’t make Tommy smile, but he can see the relief flooding through the kid.
“... Thank you.”