Chapter Text
It was a weirdly quiet night. Maybe he’d used up all his dark and stormy nights for his other various traumas. Maybe it was oddly fitting that his turbulent life would come to a head on a cool and clear night. More proof no one cared. He wore only jeans and his favourite red and white t-shirt but even so he barely shivered.
As he rode towards the bridge, the air brushed his hair back freely and he smiled, small and silent. He couldn’t remember the last time he smiled. He knew this would be the last.
Tommy swung his leg over the side of the bike and leant it against the wall. He checked the note inside it and read it once again with a shiver. It wasn’t his best work, simple and to the point, but it was real enough. His bike to Tubbo, his Nintendo to Ranboo, his love to them both. He’d written pages and pages of his love and how sorry he felt, he’d written excuses, poems, but they all felt wrong. This time his last words would be plaintive and simple.
Packing his backpack full of the stones he’d gathered in his bike’s basket he glanced up, thinking he saw someone moving. He didn’t know whether it was wishful thinking he’d be saved or fear he’d be stopped but it didn’t matter either way. It just meant he had to be quick. He swung the pack onto his shoulders and tightened the straps before clambering over the railing and facing down to the swirling depths below.
“Stop!” Someone yelled, out of breath and desperate.
In shock his foot slipped and Tommy instinctively grabbed the railing behind him.
“Oh my god!” The person said as Tommy whirled around to glare at them over his shoulder. How dare they make this harder? Ugh, why was nothing in his life easy?
“Okay, okay,” the fucker muttered, approaching him with open palms as though attempting to calm a wild animal. He was tall and lanky, bent over as he cautiously approached. His hair was dark and curly but Tommy struggled to make out his features in the dim shine of the nearby streetlight. “Hi, I’m Wilbur. What’s your name?”
“Please leave me alone.” He turned back, ashamed of the weak shakiness in his voice betraying his fear. “Please.”
“Why don’t you climb back over and we can-”
“No!” Tommy yelled, sure once again. “No, fuck off.”
“You can’t jump, it’s my birthday!”
There was a beat of silence. The fuck?
Wilbur clearly took this as a win because the tall man kept talking, tripping over his words in his eagerness to continue.
“Yep! It’s my 21st today, big one right? I’m just on my way back home now, my dad dropped the cake so I picked up a new one. The last one was carrot because my brother made it but that’s a stupid flavour so I got a chocolate one which is much nicer. Probably. I haven’t actually tried it yet but it’s got to be better than carrot. I bet Phil dropped it on purpose actually. Techno kinda has an addiction to carrots and he definitely put too many in the cake. I don’t know if he even followed a recipe or just chucked a bunch of carrots in a regular cake, there might have been jam in it too. A mess really.”
“Techno?” Tommy asked before he could stop himself, mentally cursing his stupidity. Of course he’d get caught up in this rambling fucker’s story.
Wilbur was unfazed however and just laughed. “Yup, my brother. Stupid name isn’t it? Not his fault though really, he was young and it just stuck in the end.”
“Stupid name.” Tommy mumbled in accordance. The desire to jump was just as strong but the urgency had completely left him. He just stood there shivering, the air knocked out of his lungs. The pain in his chest shifted to his stomach. He was hungry. He was supposed to be jumping but all he could think was he was hungry. Trust him to screw up.
“Mmm it is. In fairness now he’d have himself named after some Greek myth and can you imagine that? Prometheus! Or, or… Thanatos or something! Almost as bad in all honesty.”
Wilbur paused his jumbled tirade and just looked at Tommy. They stared at each other for a while, Tommy thought there was a tiredness in his dark eyes that might match his own. Then Wilbur hurled himself forward before the boy even had a chance to react and bounced over the railing so he was standing not even a metre away from Tommy, both facing out to the horizon.
“What?” He squawked. “No! Get down!”
Wilbur only laughed. “Don’t worry kid, I won’t if you won’t.”
“You-“ Tommy spluttered indignantly. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to jump off cliffs after people? Stupid reason to die on your birthday.”
“Just come back over with me and have some cake.”
Tommy grumbled as he swung his leg back over and landed safely on the bridge. “You’re a real bitch you know?”
Wilbur just laughed again as he followed, tumbling to the ground. “You’re a rude child for someone I was going to share my birthday cake with.”
“‘M not a fucking child!”
Of course the only response he received was another warm chuckle. Did this weirdo never stop laughing?
Wilbur sank to the ground and pulled a slightly squashed chocolate cake out of his bag along with a pen knife. He tore open the box unceremoniously and carved out a piece to hold it out for Tommy.
Defeated partly by the persistence and partly by the smell of chocolate cake, Tommy collapsed to the ground beside him and grabbed it. A small “Happy Birthday” was mumbled through large chunks of cake.
They sat there a little while. Maybe twenty minutes if Tommy had to guess. The silence was weighted and tense but not nearly as awkward as it should have been considering.
“I’ll just do it tomorrow.” Tommy finally muttered just loud enough, rising and shoving his back pack into the basket on the front of his bike.
Wilbur stood to follow him and the same heavy fatigue reentered his eyes. “I’ll be back then.”
“Bitch,” Tommy muttered as a goodbye as he swung his leg over his bike and kicked off. The wind picked up on his shameful retreat home making him shiver with the cold and the reality of the night. He would wake up tomorrow and it would start again, the hunger, the cold, the bone crushing loneliness.
One more day. He could make it one more day.
By the time he fell through the unlocked door and into his house he was shattered. He climbed the stairs and fell into his bed, he knew he was nearly out of toothpaste and there was no use in wasting more money on it now. A fitful sleep soon took him away and he dreamed.
He never dreamed but that night images of warmth and family enveloped him, the hands holding him were warm and strong and the face they belonged to was unfamiliar. Something told him these weren’t his parents, dream-Tommy searched for them on all the planes of existence he could conjure up but each time he reached out for them his fists grabbed the cool misty air. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he tossed and turned.