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It was quiet when he arose, eerily so. This alone was not unusual, Tommy often fell asleep during his watch, and apart from the whirring machines of their ship and an occasional beeping there wasn’t really much sound in space. It was never silent, never deadly still, if it had been they would have both been long dead.
But still, Tommy was there in his whole loud whirlwind self most of the time, so, as unsettling as it was, he cherished the short moments of quiet he could find in the corners of days, giving him a few minutes to look out into empty space.
He would swear that the universe hummed a small tune when you got this close to touching it, but Tommy had called him crazy when he’s brought up the idea, and he was sure his friends on earth would say the same
Still, he’d promised himself that when they returned safely, he’d write the melody down and try his best to do it justice.
It wasn’t hard for him to move through the station quietly, in an effort to not wake up his colleague. It was cramped, not a whole lot of space for the both of them to share, yet it took another ten minutes for Wilbur to feel the emptiness, a Tommy sized absence that, once noticed, was impossible to ignore.
Suddenly the quiet didn’t seem quite as peaceful anymore, and he cursed the lack of gravity, because moving around in search of his friend felt like slow motion.
"Tommy?" He yelled, not like it was necessary, considering his normal voice would have carried through the station all the same. The sudden shout shattered the silence, nearly making Wilbur himself jump, but there was no reply.
"Tommy? Where are you?"
He was met with nothing but silence. Hopeless, terrifying silence. No sign of his friend to be found.
It felt so incredibly wrong, to be truly alone after months, nearly a year now he’d spent in permanent company of the boy. Tommy had barely been old enough to be an astronaut, bright eyed and bushy tailed, though he would hate Wilbur for describing him so.
At first, they’d hated each other, he had hated the privilege of getting out on a mission so young, just because Tommy had gotten lucky, close friends with Sam, their top engineer, and by proxy most people on the team. All accusations of favoritism had been denied, of course. But it had been clear nonetheless.
Still, there’d been nothing Wilbur could have done to stop it, get someone else on the team, so he’d resigned himself to his fate. And, well, Tommy was… competent. And he was fun. And while Wilbur would have never dreamt to tell him, he’d started to like the kid.
He was too young to die alone in space.
And so, Wilbur shouted again, futile hope that Tommy might be somewhere, hidden, as he searched the ship. He found nothing but emptiness. Would his coworker have been reckless enough to go out alone, without Will to watch in case there was some emergency? It seemed like the kind of stupid thing his friend might do, but despite all his antics, Tommy had never had a death wish, so it wasn’t likely.
He still went to check, of course, but found all the equipment still there, intact and unmoved from when they’d needed it yesterday.
He ought to call in to earth. Let them know what was happening. But, what was he going to say? He’d lost Tommy somehow? The kid had disappeared, without a trace, from an enclosed spaceship, without any equipment?
He might as well tell them aliens were real.
It was at that moment that he was jerked out of his internal dilemma by the hissing of the airlock opening behind him. Wilbur swivelled around quickly, eyes widening when Tommy emerged. Just Tommy. No outside equipment, not even the suit he usually wore. His eyes widened when he noticed his partner staring at him, and he made a slow step backwards, as if wanting to escape back out into space.
“What the fuck Tommy?” Was the only rational response he could think of at the sight.
“What were you doing in the airlock? Are you alright?”
“Yeah…” The response came hesitantly, the boy still looking like he desperately wanted to flee. “I need to talk to you about something.”
The was a pause. Wilbur blinked.
“Why- How- Why aren’t you wearing your space suit?”
“Well, you see, would you believe me if I told you I was an alien?”
He laughed in disbelief, and Tommy flinched at the action.
Wilbur looked him up and down. He looked… very much human. Significantly more so than he’d seen the boy over the last few months. There was nothing alien about him. Just Tommy.
“Wait, I can prove it!” the boy moved back towards the airlock so quickly that Wilbur couldn’t stop him, only able to silently watch what would be his friend’s inevitable death. Maybe he’d gone insane from the solitude. It wouldn’t be a surprise, though he’d regret not noticing earlier for the rest of his life.
Tommy’s face appeared in the window next to which Wilbur had been. Wilbur did not scream, no he did not, and if he did it would be lost to the quiet that was space.
It was weird, how someone as loud as Tommy could seemingly thrive in the silence of vacuum. Because that was a thing the kid could do now. Apparently. Totally normal occurrences that absolutely weren’t making Wilbur spiral right now.
“Wil?” The sudden question startled him, hadn’t even realized that Tommy was no longer by the window and had instead returned to the ship.
"No what the fuck? How did you not just die? How can you live in a vacuum that literally shouldn’t be physically possible? You can’t just break the laws of physics!"
"I told you, I’m an alien. I don’t need oxygen to function and my body can withstand immense pressure. I don’t normally look like this." He gestured to his still very human body.
Wilbur felt like his brain was going to short circuit, a myriad of questions on his lips and he nearly didn’t hear his friend’s whispered "I was going to leave."
"I- what? Why?" Any other question he might have had become unimportant at the prospect of Tommy leaving, of him alone in the ship he’d shared with a boy who was neatly his brother for the last few months. The idea was awful.
"I was supposed to return to my home colony, that’s the only reason I was part of this mission in the first place. But, when I left, I realized I didn’t want to leave you behind." The last part was said quietly, enough that he was straining to hear the words, barely processing them before he asked: "you were just going to leave, without a goodbye?" Truth be told, he was scared of the answer he’d get.
"I didn’t think that you’d care." The fear that had settled in Wilbur’s heart twisted viciously at that reply, and it was all he could do to move towards the boy –yes, boy, for he looked oh so young in this moment–, and pull him into a hug.
"Of course I care, Tommy. Of course I care. How could you ever think otherwise?"
"I’m not even human. I’m nothing like you."
He could feel the shaking shoulders that told of sobs, but it didn’t truly feel like Tommy was crying, at least not in any way he recognized. He wondered how he’d never noticed that before.
Still, this was Tommy. His Tommy. And there was one truth that Tommy needed to hear more than anything in that moment.
"You’re my brother."