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Wilbur had been sitting on the floor for the last few minutes now, guitar in hand lingering over the last note of Tallulah’s song. Of course he wouldn’t get a response immediately, he knew that; but still, it would’ve been nice to get something out of it apart from the silence.
Maybe he shouldn’t have asked Phil and Cellbit to leave.
Then again, maybe it would have been more awkward if they were still here. A stranger and his father, staring at him from behind with a lingering feeling of needing to move on being in the air with nobody brave enough to take hold of it and move things along.
Wilbur swallowed, grimacing. That probably would’ve been worse than this. Staring at the dusty chest alone, waiting for something that surely wasn’t going to happen in the speed he wanted it to. It was better than having eyes over his shoulders burning into his neck.
Did he want to get a response so soon, really? Sitting here thinking about it, he was beginning to feel unsure.
On one hand, getting word from Tallulah would be great; but it would also be very overwhelming. Whether it was good or bad, Wilbur was almost certain that any kind of response happening so soon would probably be what sent him off the deep end - if his argument with Phil earlier wasn’t already evidence of this entire thing stressing him the fuck out.
But why then? Why was he still sitting here, clinging on to that one part of him that still wanted something to happen? Was he that stubborn? Really?
He couldn’t help but scoff. How childish of him to stoop as low as to call his own brother stubborn in the past, when he himself could clearly behave in the same way - albeit under different circumstances.
Maybe comparing Tommy’s reluctance to wait for plants to grow to his reluctance to wait for a message from his missing daughter wasn’t exactly the most balanced thing to base things off of, but he didn’t care.
Anything was better than sitting here any longer waiting on empty promises.
Speaking of, Wilbur hadn’t seen a letter from Tommy in the mailbox outside, had he? He had been far too caught up in the letter from The Federation to notice it then, but he thought Tommy would have replied by now. Or at least sent something of his own, no?
He could only swallow down a roughness in his throat as he went down from Tallulah’s room and stepped outside, guitar placed against the wall inside before he left. His fingers meekly pried open the latch with some sort of sickening expectation of being surprised, even though he had seen already that nothing was waiting for him.
Tommy still hadn’t written back to him.
Wilbur grimaced. How long had it been now? Nearly a whole year? Surely the kid can’t get that distracted and forget to write back to him for this long. It wasn’t like it was purposeful either - because he had written to him after he had left the shores of the SMP, even though that too took some time to actually get into the rhythm of.
Even that wasn’t nearly a whole year, though. A few weeks at most but - fuck. He needed to sit down. This was not helping.
After fixing the entrance to his house in the laziest way possible, Wilbur sat down on the couch and hastily ran his hand through his hair. He’d been gone so long now, he couldn’t even remember the last time he had written to Tommy. Was it before he had left? Or had he written while he was away?
He genuinely couldn’t remember at all. It kind of made him feel sick.
An ache that was blossoming in his chest from Tallulah’s absence only seemed to worsen, guilt pooling inside of him as Tommy’s radio silence only sought to make him worry more about things he surely couldn’t fix just by sitting here and waiting for things to happen.
He had tried though, hadn’t he? He’d looked around and - and he’d asked people about her and they didn’t know so he didn’t know either and - Fucking hell. This just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all.
Tallulah had all of this attention on her which was great all things considered - but what about Tommy? What about his brother who had been with him through thick and thin who was now completely absent in his life to to point where he might even be dead without him fucking knowing it?
His breath hitched. He gritted his teeth, biting down hard before forcing a smile. No. Tommy wouldn’t be - he couldn’t be dead. Surely not. No. For fuck’s sake - Tubbo was here! Tubbo had been with Tommy for so much of their adventures together why hadn’t he just asked him when he -
Wilbur’s hands gripped at his hair in nothing but frustration of his own blindness. He had been considerably overwhelmed - sure, but fucking hell. Why has he only thought of him now? When he was a wreck; far too much of one to even send a message to Tubbo to ask him, never mind fucking meeting up with him to ask him in person if he knew whether his best friend was alive or not.
That alone spoke wonders about what was going through his head right about now. Going to the worst case scenario, like Tommy had always said. Oh he’s not here? Must be dead. Oh he’s sick? Must have poisoned himself.
That sort of thing usually would have made him laugh, but not now. Not when there was nobody to laugh with. No bark of a laugh and no hand shoving him off, no sharp-toothed grin and impish tail flicking in agitation with the mouth that housed said grin struggling to tell him to kindly ‘fuck off’ through the laughter of what was currently causing him to struggle keeping his ground otherwise.
Wilbur missed that. He missed Tommy. He missed him a lot. He’d do anything to be back on that shore again and take him with him. At least he’d be safer here than where he’d left him like a fucking coward.
What was with him and leaving defenceless things behind just because they told him they could fend for themselves?