Archive of Our Own ^beta

Wilbur didn’t remember the road being so bumpy the last time he drove over it.

His car dipped and shuddered as he turned off the main road and onto the dirt. Golden stalks of corn swaying stiffly in the breeze surrounded both sides of the car as he pressed down on the gas. While most of the corn was still held back in its proper place away from the road, a few dry stalks had crept forward and arched in front of him, a few even smacking against the windshield. Dust from the dirt road created a heavy beige cloud that followed his car like a trail marker.

He couldn’t tell if the corn was in worse or better condition than the last time he’d seen it. It’s not like his father had done a good job caring for it in the first place.

Suddenly, on the right side of the road, the corn opened up. It was pushed back into its neat squares once more, forming a driveway that Wilbur turned the car onto. Then, after a nearly twenty hour road trip, Wilbur found himself staring at his childhood home for the first time in ten years.

It looked exactly the same as it had in Wilbur’s memories—the epitome of what one would imagine an old farmhouse to look like. The whole house tilted slightly to the left, as if a giant had come along and tried to squish it down. Paint that might’ve once been a pale blue, but had since been sun-bleached to a strange shade of greenish white, was peeling off the sides. Large windows caked with dust stared out at Wilbur as he slowed the car to a stop, reminding him of eyes.

There were two cars in the driveway. One he recognized as the used pickup truck Phil had bought off their neighbor when he was seventeen after he spent an entire summer working at the local grocery store to save up for it. The other—a mercury—seemed to be in slightly better condition than the pickup truck, but was still coated in a thick layer of dust. He didn’t recognize that one.

At the same time, there was another car that was missing from the driveway. Another pickup truck. The dingy, rusted thing their father had driven throughout their entire childhood. Its absence was almost a relief to Wilbur.

Slowing the car to a stop, Wilbur stared at the house through his windshield, debating if he should turn back. All he’d have to do is throw the car in reverse and back out to the main road. If Phil saw him through the windows, he’d assume he was just a guy who made a wrong turn. There’d be no questions. No confrontation. Wilbur could go back to the life he’d carefully crafted for himself over the past eight years without having to see either of their faces again.

He could do it. It would be so easy.

But even if he wanted to, he knew his fingers wouldn’t pull the gear into reverse. His hands wouldn’t turn the steering wheel. He wouldn’t be able to press his foot down on the gas to leave.

When he’d left this place, he’d imagined it like he was snapping invisible roots that had always grounded him here. But Wilbur could always feel the roots trying to reconnect. Reaching back for the stalks of corn they had grown from. And now that he was here, staring at the corn, he could feel them reconnecting to one another as if they’d never been broken in the first place. Tightening their grip around his legs and twisting up to his chest. Squeezing the breath from his lungs as the corn stalks watched.

Wilbur was part of this place, whether he liked it or not.

Letting out a shaky breath, he cut the engine and took a moment to rest his forehead on the steering wheel. Through the windshield, the sky was a mix of swirling grey clouds and dusty pinks painting the edges. Wind continued to sway the corn stalks.

As Wilbur stepped out of the car with his boots crunching against the dirt driveway, he heard the hinge of an old door squeaking. A rock dropped into his stomach as he stared out at the corn, waiting for the voice.

“Hey there! Did you get lost? Main road is back that way.”

For a moment, Wilbur didn’t do anything. Didn’t say anything. He breathed in the smell of dirt and dust and the threat of a storm, and let these last few seconds of being unknowable tick on.

“Uh, mate? Did you hear me?” The voice was getting closer. He could hear footsteps coming towards him. “I asked if you’re-”

The voice cut itself off as Wilbur turned around. Their eyes locked over the hood of his car. Phil’s face fell.

“I’m not lost,” Wilbur said quietly.

Blinking, Phil took a step closer to the car, before hesitating. His brows furrowed as he looked Wilbur up and down, like he wasn’t sure if the man he was seeing was a ghost, or something worse.

“Wil?” Phil then asked, his voice also having gone soft. “Is- Shit, is that you?”

His brother’s voice cracked saying his name. It cracked in all the wrong places. A broken mirror held inside a single syllable.

“In the flesh.” Wilbur’s own voice was hoarse, his words low enough to be carried away by the wind. Despite the fact that he was more than a full head taller than Phil, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so small.

Phil took a step towards him. Wilbur took the next.

When they were standing in front of each other, Phil looked up at him like he still wasn’t sure if the man he was seeing was real. Wilbur couldn’t blame him. He was rather transparent these days.

After another beat, Wilbur tried to smile. Like the way Phil had said his name, it was cracked in all the wrong places.

“Can I at least get a hug from my brother?”

Phil dropped his eyes and nodded. “Yeah, fuck, of course. C’mere.”

Just like when he was fifteen, Wilbur had to hunch over to hug Phil. Even still, when Phil wrapped his arms around him for just a moment, he couldn’t feel the roots twisting around his chest. The roots, the watchful corn, the wind blowing through the plains—it was gone. It was gone and the only thing he could feel was the warmth of Phil’s arms.

But then the hug was over. Phil let go, and as Wilbur straightened back up, he noticed another figure standing back on the porch.

“Fuck,” Wilbur muttered as soon as brown eyes locked onto blue.

While he didn’t think Tommy could hear him from that far away, his brows twitched like he did. He had his arms folded over his chest as he leaned against the doorframe, staring Wilbur down in a way that was so different from how Phil looked at him.

Where Phil seemed to be unsure if he was actually real or not, Tommy was the opposite. Tommy stared at him like he was far too real for his liking.

Phil glanced over his shoulder, stiffening when he noticed Tommy. “Fuck.” He looked between him and Wilbur for a moment, before lifting his hand to wave Tommy over. “Tom! Look, Wil’s back!”

“No shit,” Tommy called back, and Wilbur jolted at how deep his voice had gotten. “Dinner’s gonna catch on fire if you don’t stir it, by the way.”

“Ah dammit- here, Wil, come in. We were just about to have dinner,” Phil told him, trudging back up the porch steps to hurry inside.

Wilbur felt like a puppet as he followed Phil up the steps. Wind continued to blow between the corn stalks and the driveway, ruffling his hair as the pink on the edge of the horizon got darker. He wrapped his coat tighter around him. It didn’t stop a chill from running down his spine as he walked towards the door Tommy was still leaning against.

Even if hugging Phil had made it easier to breathe, he was suffocating all over again being face to face with his little brother for the first time in eight years.

For a moment, Tommy only stared at him. He pushed off the doorframe, straightening up to his full height. He was only a few inches shorter than Wilbur now, and while Wilbur was grateful he wasn’t taller than him, it was still disorienting given that Tommy had barely reached his shoulder the last time he’d seen him.

That wasn’t the only thing about Tommy that changed. It shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was startling to see a grown man wearing his little brother’s face. He had a square jaw dotted with razor burn, wavy hair only a few shades lighter than the deep gold corn encircling the driveway, and pale eyes with a cold glint Wilbur didn’t remember being there before. One of the few comforts though was that despite all these changes, he could tell by how loosely Tommy’s t-shirt hung on his shoulders that he was just as long-limbed and lanky as he’d always been. Just like Wilbur was.

“It’s-”

“Tom! Can you make another place at the table for Wil?” Phil called out from the kitchen, cutting Wilbur off before he could even get a word out.

Tommy clenched his jaw. His eyes narrowed at Wilbur, looking him up and down before he turned on his heel and headed back into the house. “Yeah yeah, I’m doing it!”

Unsure of what else to do, Wilbur hesitated for a moment before following Tommy inside.

Wooden floorboards creaked under his weight as he stepped through the portal back into his childhood. Parts had been switched out—the sagging, faded red couch replaced with a newer brown one, a rug that had once been stained by a decade’s worth of beer and mud switched out for one in a crisp shade of orange that reminded Wilbur of autumn leaves, shining picture frames filled with memories Wilbur hadn’t been here to be part of—things had changed here under Phil’s care. But even if you cleaned the grime off the surface, you could never fully get rid of the blood stains underneath.

Wilbur saw pieces of his past in the hole in the wall above the coffee table. The long scratch in the floorboards caused by pushing the old couch across the room. The faint brown shadows staining the walls near the front door from years of kicking muddy boots at it.

Looking to his right, he saw Tommy setting another bowl down at the table for him to eat at. Three bowls total—one at the head of the table where Phil would sit, one to Phil’s right, and another to Phil’s left.

Tommy noticed his staring and paused, a spoon in one hand. Wilbur swallowed down his nerves as he shut the front door behind him, stepping through the foyer and into the dining room.

He had to say something while Phil was out of the room. Anything to try and break the tension running between him and Tommy like a livewire.

“So, uh,” Wilbur shoved his hands in his pockets, struggling to figure out how to word this. “How have you… been?”

Tommy raised an eyebrow. Wilbur winced.

“Little late to ask that, don’t you think?” Tommy asked, setting the spoon down on the right side of Wilbur’s bowl. “Like, three years too late? Five? Hell, maybe even eight if I really wanna be a petty bitch about it.”

“I did ask Phil about you in the first year-”

“You didn’t ask me,” Tommy snapped, cutting him off. “You asked Phil, but you didn’t ask me directly even though I kept begging Phil to put me on the phone with you.”

Clenching his jaw, Wilbur looked at the wall behind Tommy’s head. The floral wallpaper that he was sure was older than even their father had been was peeling at the edges, and he wondered why Phil hadn’t replaced it yet if he had already replaced the couch and rug.

“I… I’m asking now,” Wilbur tried.

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Like I said, it’s a little too late for that.” He turned on his heel to head back to the kitchen, but before he could take more than three steps-

“Do you still have nightmares?”

Freezing in place, Tommy dropped his arms to his sides, not turning around to look at Wilbur.

Seconds ticked by like hours. Wilbur struggled to take a breath with the invisible vice wrapped around him.

“Don’t really remember my dreams,” Tommy finally answered.

Then, he hurried into the kitchen, leaving Wilbur alone in the dining room.

A few minutes later, Wilbur and Tommy were seated at the table as Phil dished out soup into each of their bowls. Wilbur stared down at his dish, doing his best to avoid Tommy’s eyes as steam curled up from the soup and into his face.

“So, uh, Wil,” Phil began once he’d sat down at his seat, spoon dipped into his soup. “How long are you going to stay for?”

Wilbur almost breathed a sigh of relief at the question. Because he’d been expecting Phil to ask where he’s been the past eight years. Why he left. Why he’s back. Those were all things he couldn’t answer. This one he couldn’t answer either, but at least it was easier.

“I’m not sure,” Wilbur admitted, stirring his soup without taking a bite. He paused, glancing up at Phil through his fringe. “Is that okay?”

Phil considered this for a moment before nodding. “Of course that’s okay. This is your home too.”

It wasn’t. It hadn’t been Wilbur’s home for a decade, or maybe even longer. But Phil didn’t need to know that.

“Thanks,” Wilbur murmured, not missing the way Tommy stiffened in his seat.

The tension between them was back. It was alive and thrashing, pressing down on Wilbur’s shoulders and tugging at his roots in all the wrong places. He kept stirring his soup, chunks of broccoli and carrots wilting in the heat of the melted cheese. Across from him, Tommy kept tapping his spoon against the edge of his bowl. A rhythmic clink clink clink that felt like a jackhammer being drilled into his skull.

Stir.

Clink.

Stir.

Clink.

Stir.

“Are either of you going to eat?” Phil finally asked.

And that seemed to be the thing that made Tommy snap.

“Not if we’re just going to act like this is normal,” Tommy said, dropping his spoon into his soup with a loud CLANG!

Phil sighed as he set his own spoon down and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tommy, c’mon-”

“No! He can’t just waltz back in here like he never left! That’s not fucking fair!” Tommy argued. “We haven’t seen him in eight years. You haven’t even heard from him in seven. Why the fuck are you just okay with this, Phil?!”

“Because he’s our brother, Tommy,” Phil explained. “What, do you want me to just kick him out?”

Groaning, Tommy shook his head. “Fucking- no, of course not. But I just don’t get why-”

Tommy cut himself off. He and Wilbur locked eyes across the table, and Wilbur tightened the grip he had on his spoon, his knuckles turning white. Despite Phil’s stare boring holes into each of their skulls, the two fell silent as they stared at each other.

Do it, Tommy, Wilbur thought to himself, knowing Tommy would be able to read it in his eyes. Ask me why I left in front of Phil. You know what my answer’s going to be.

Wilbur took one breath. Tommy took another.

“Whatever,” Tommy huffed, pushing out of his chair and grabbing his bowl. “I’m gonna eat in my room.”

Phil didn’t argue. Instead, he just sighed and went back to his food, not even looking up as Tommy stormed up the stairs.

Once he was gone, Wilbur pushed his bowl back and dragged his hands down his face.

“I’m sorry if this is, like, fucking things up for you guys,” he said, resting his forehead on the table.

“You’re fine, Wil. He’ll calm down,” Phil said, reaching out to pat his shoulder.

His chest constricted again. Wilbur shrugged Phil’s hand off of him. “He has every right to be pissed at me.”

At this, Phil laughed. But it wasn’t a friendly laugh. It was far too bitter for that, and the sound of it made Wilbur wince.

“He does. And he’s not the only one,” Phil said, moving his hand away as he stood up from the table.

Frowning, Wilbur lifted his head to meet Phil’s eyes, and saw Phil giving him a dead-faced stare.

“What?”

“I said he’s not the only one who’s upset. I’m fucking furious with you,” Phil told him, his voice surprisingly even.

“Then why are you letting me stay?” Wilbur asked, his voice small.

Phil shrugged as he walked towards the kitchen. “Like I told Tommy, you’re part of this family. Even if you can’t decide whether you want it or not.”

Despite being part of this family, Wilbur couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so alone.

🜂🜃

That night, Wilbur struggled to fall asleep.

Like the downstairs, his childhood bedroom was an attempt at scrubbing out the past but with only marginal success. New bedsheets covered in wrinkles were stretched thin across his mattress, because apparently the ones that had already been on there had collected so much dust over the years that he would have a sneezing fit if he even sat on them. So Phil had given him new sheets, and it took Wilbur fifteen minutes to get them on his twin mattress.

Papers that were once scattered all over his desk had been shoved into a paper folder and left in the corner, while a few ratty notebooks from school were stacked on the other side, both covered in dust. The lightbulb from his desk lamp had been removed, because apparently a lamp downstairs had burnt out one day and they didn’t have a spare one on hand. His old band posters had been taken down and left in a neat pile under his bed. The scribbles he used to draw on the walls as a child were painted over in shades of blue.

But despite the changes, there was still a dent in the wall behind his bed that was his reward for being fast at ducking. Phil hadn’t gotten around to fixing that one yet.

The knots and whorls in the wooden planks above his head were familiar in a way that made him nauseous. He’d spent hundreds of sleepless nights memorizing every line, every spiral, every imperfection in that wood. When he left, one of the few comforts he had was that he’d never be stuck under this ceiling for another sleepless night again.

But now he was right back where he started, eight years later.

Sitting up in his bed, hair rose on the back of Wilbur’s neck. The shadows in his room twisted like living creatures, invisible eyes staring at him as he rose to his feet.

Something was watching him.

The wood floor was cool against his bare feet. He padded over the creaky floorboards, ignoring the chill that ran down his spine when his shadow twisted against the wall again, and made his way to the window.

Cornfields stretched out for acres upon acres underneath a crescent moon. The stiff stalks were still swaying, their dark golden hue washed out by the faint moonlight mixed with shadows. The sense that he was being watched grew stronger.

Wilbur’s eyes flickered down to the edge of the cornfield facing their driveway. The corn rustled in a way that was too jarring to be done by the wind.

Seconds passed. Nausea crawled up Wilbur’s throat.

He didn’t remember falling back asleep.

🜂🜃

Wilbur didn’t wake up till noon the next day.

For his first minute of consciousness, he didn’t remember where he was. He thought he was back in his apartment. His tiny, shoebox apartment nestled on the third floor of a street constantly being bombarded by horns and sirens. His apartment where you couldn’t shower for more than five minutes without the water turning ice cold, and the window he’d accidentally broken when he’d gotten too lost in the memories and put his hand through it. The only reason he’d signed the lease for that shitty apartment was because it was one of the only places he could find that allowed pets. He didn’t have a pet, but had always talked about getting a cat.

Wilbur was coming up on three years in that apartment. He still didn’t have a cat.

When Wilbur rolled over, he heard the bed creak underneath him, and that was what jogged his memory as to where he was. Because the mattress in his apartment didn’t have a bed frame underneath it, making it impossible for it to creak.

Sticky eyes blinked open to a familiar wood-planked ceiling. He squeezed his eyes shut again, dragging his hands down his face before forcing himself into a sitting position. He was exhausted. More so than usual. His back ached from the stiff mattress, and his legs felt like they would collapse the moment he put weight on them.

A caffeine headache pounded behind his eyes. If he collapsed getting up, then so be it. He needed coffee.

Thankfully, Wilbur’s legs did not collapse out from under him as he stumbled down the steps towards the kitchen. He paused before stepping off entirely, listening for any signs of life besides his own labored breathing.

One beat. Two.

He knew how to tell when there was someone else in this house besides himself. It was the kind of skill you learned as a child and never really let go of. Just like how he, Phil, and Tommy all knew how to avoid the creaky spots on the stairs, or how to shut the front door without making a sound.

Making his way into the kitchen, Wilbur beelined for the coffee machine. Like many other things in the house, this had also been upgraded. Gone was the sludge-maker that kept him alive during exam season as a teenager, now replaced by a shiny, plastic keurig machine.

A keurig that had a sticky note stuck to the top.

Wil,

I went into town to run some errands and probably won’t be back till tonight. If you’re not sure where something is, Tommy should be somewhere around there, and if he’s not he won’t be gone for long. Or you can just text me. My number hasn’t changed, but in case you deleted it here it is again.

The note then listed Phil’s phone number. A lump grew in Wilbur’s throat as his eyes skimmed over the note, before he took his phone out of his sweatpants pocket and pulled up Phil’s contact.

With a few taps, he unblocked Phil’s number. Then, he stuffed the phone back in his pocket, before crumpling up the note and sticking it in there as well.

Something that hadn’t changed in the past eight years were the mugs in the cabinet. Wilbur quickly spotted his favorite—a white mug with a faded orca design on the side—and placed it under the machine as he grabbed a coffee pod from the stack next to it.

The smell of roasting coffee wafted through the kitchen. Once his cup was done brewing, he went to the fridge to grab some half and half. Then, when his coffee was a light shade of brown, he put the half and half back in the fridge before grabbing the mug and making his way back upstairs.

The wood floors creaked under his feet as he made his way down the hallway to his room. A sliver of light cut across the planks, and Wilbur frowned because he could’ve sworn he shut the door to his room before he left.

Stepping back into his childhood bedroom, the air felt heavy. The closest way Wilbur could come to describing it was comparing it to the feeling of stepping outside on a humid day. There was an almost intangible weight that wrapped around him that moment he walked through the doorway. It wrapped around his shoulders. It wrapped around his throat.

The hair on the back of Wilbur’s neck stood straight up.

Nothing in the room seemed out of place. Blankets twisted together at the foot of his bed, dirty clothes piled on the ground next to his nightstand, muddy boots sitting by the door—it was exactly how he’d left it just a few minutes ago.

But something had changed. Wilbur could feel it.

Setting down his coffee mug on his desk, he wandered into the bathroom and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Dark circles painted under darker eyes, hollowed cheeks, and a hint of stubble on his jaw he really should shave off all made him look older than he was. Though even if his face was clean-shaven and his eyes were bright, the thin streaks of grey threaded through the curls that fell over his eyes were enough to age him well past his twenty-six years.

His eyes fell away from the mirror and down to the sink. He reached to turn the water on so he could splash some on his face, when something red flashed in the corner of his vision.

It was… a handprint.

Not a complete one. More like someone had tried to grab the edge of Wilbur’s sink only for their hand to slip off. Four fingers, not five. Mostly smeared. Barely comprehensible as fingers at all.

This was already troubling in itself, considering Wilbur was the only one who had been in this bathroom in the past twelve hours. The more troubling part however was that the handprint was done in blood.

Brows furrowing, Wilbur brushed his finger over the blood, the handprint smearing because it was still wet. Fresh.

Looking at his hand, Wilbur noticed faint red staining his fingertips. He placed his hand over the handprint, noticing how it almost seemed like a perfect fit.

Holding his palm up to his face, Wilbur searched for any sign of a cut or gash. He turned the water on, running both his hands underneath it until the pink faded away and the water ran clear, then he searched again for the wound the blood could’ve come from.

And searched. And searched.

Nothing. He wasn’t injured.

Despite the fact that the light of day chased away the shadows that had tormented him the night before, Wilbur felt a heavy gaze pressing down on his shoulders once again. He was still being watched.

Wilbur made his way out of the bathroom and to the window. His eyes scanned the golden stalks of corn swaying in the breeze, searching for the strange rustle that he’d noticed the night before.

The corn was still.

Suddenly, the distant sound of a door opening echoed through the house.

“Phil?” Wilbur shouted, heart leaping into his throat.

No response.

“Phil!”

Silence ticked on. It was getting difficult to breathe.

Forcing his feet to move, Wilbur hurried out of his room and down the steps once more. Maybe he should’ve grabbed a weapon, but at that moment he couldn’t do anything but move.

One step.

Two steps.

Three four five-

“Phil!” He shouted again as a last ditch effort.

Then,

“Wrong brother, dipshit!” Tommy’s voice echoed from the kitchen.

Wilbur couldn’t even bring himself to feel the dread that he expected when he heard Tommy’s voice. Instead, he almost collapsed in relief, leaning against the bannister as the pounding in his chest began to subside.

Seconds ticked by. Wilbur felt his pulse slow.

Finally, after a minute, Wilbur went down the remainder of the steps and turned into the kitchen once more. He spotted Tommy sitting on the counter next to the coffee maker, a steaming mug in one hand and his phone in the other.

Tommy glanced up when Wilbur walked in, eyes flickering over his threadbare band t-shirt and stained sweatpants.

“You look like shit. Did you just wake up or something?” Tommy asked.

The hostility Tommy had shown to him the night before wasn’t gone, but it was subdued. The tension still hung heavily in the air between them. Wilbur’s skin prickled the longer Tommy stared at him.

“Have you been in my room?” Wilbur blurted out, the bloody handprint still flashing through his mind’s eye.

Tommy frowned. “Like, ever?”

“No, I mean this morning.”

“Why the fuck would I go in your room?” Tommy questioned. “Also, I literally haven’t been home in, like, three hours. I just got back from hanging out at Tubbo’s.”

Wilbur blinked. “You’re still friends with him?”

“Yeah, I see him all the time. Because he stuck around,” Tommy huffed, setting his mug down as he hopped off the counter.

Ignoring the barb, Wilbur narrowed his eyes. “Someone was in my room ten minutes ago.”

“Oh yeah, forgot to mention there’s a real ugly asshole who spent the night there. He’s great at pretending his family doesn’t exist until he wants something from them. Maybe it was him.”

“Tommy-”

“I wasn’t in your fucking room!” Tommy snapped, cutting him off. “The entire reason I went over to Tubbo’s this morning is because I was trying to avoid you, but now you won’t stop bugging the shit out of me.”

Wilbur couldn’t hide his flinch at that. “You were trying to avoid me?”

“Doing a shit job of it apparently, but yeah,” Tommy said, folding his arms over his chest. “If you thought you could just come back home and act like the past eight years didn’t happen, then you’re even more of a dumbass than I thought.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Wilbur let out a breath as he reminded himself that Phil wasn’t here. It was just him, Tommy, and the tension sucking out all the air between them.

Letting out a breath, Wilbur asked, “When are you going to stop pretending you don’t know why I left?”

Tommy went rigid, before his frown twisted into something much darker.

“Don’t pull that bullshit with me.” Tommy’s voice was dangerously low. “You chose to leave us. No one was chasing you. No one asked you to go.”

“But I had to, and you know why,” Wilbur argued. “You of all people know better than anyone why I didn’t have another choice.”

Tommy scoffed. “That’s a fucking lie.”

“It’s not! I left because it was the best thing for you-”

“Stop it!” Tommy snapped, storming over to Wilbur so they were face to face. “Don’t be a bitch and tell me you left for me because you didn’t. Don’t say you left because you didn’t have another choice. You left because you wanted to, Wilbur.”

“That’s not true,” Wilbur tried to protest.

“It is. But even if you did ‘leave for me’ or whatever the fuck, you could’ve tried to stay in touch. You could’ve tried calling once a year at least. But I guess it was just too much to ask for you to remember I exist,” Tommy exclaimed, his eyes burning as he glared at Wilbur.

Wilbur’s heart was pounding. His head spun as Tommy’s fury battered him from all sides. He left for Tommy’s sake. That’s what he always told himself. He thought after all these years Tommy would understand that. But he didn’t. He was still furious with Wilbur for leaving him in the first place.

“You are such an idiotic child,” Wilbur spat, vitriol leaking into his words. “I thought you’d grown up enough to understand, but you haven’t. Even though you’re older now than I was when I left, you’re still too immature to see past your own bruised ego.”

At this, Tommy clenched his jaw and took a step back.

“I think I’ve realized it now, actually,” he said, his voice cold. “You’re selfish, and you don’t understand that the world doesn’t revolve around you and your shit problems.”

Ouch.

“I- I am not selfish!” Wilbur stammered.

“You are. You’re a selfish bastard,” Tommy told him, taking a step back to lean against the counter.

Wilbur fought to take another breath. “So what? Should I just never have come back in the first place?”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have,” Tommy answered without a second of hesitation.

Even after all these years, Wilbur’s very existence was still fucking everything up.

“Fine. Then what if I leave again? Will that make you happy?”

For the briefest of moments, Wilbur could’ve sworn hurt flashed over Tommy’s face. But it was gone as quickly as it came, and Tommy shook himself off before nodding.

“Actually, yeah, that’d be fucking great.”

There was something off in his voice, but Wilbur was too blinded by his own frustration and guilt to notice.

“Fine. Tell Phil I said thanks for dinner,” Wilbur said, storming out of the kitchen and back up the stairs.

Tommy stayed where he was. Wilbur rushed into his room, picking his dirty clothes up off the floor and throwing them back on. His suitcase was still in his car. All he had to do was get dressed and head out.

He didn’t let himself pause to think about what he was doing or where he was going to go. Wilbur wasn’t wanted here. He knew that when he drove up the night before, but it was practically burned into his skin now. Tommy didn’t want him to come back, so why did he in the first place? What was he going to get out of this?

Leaving his pajamas on the bed, Wilbur hurried back down the steps with his car keys swinging around his finger. Slamming the front door open, the dry, October heat swallowed him as he made his way to his car.

Even though he didn’t turn around, he could hear the crunch of sneakers against dirt behind him.

“Why are you following me?” Wilbur asked as he unlocked the door.

A beat of silence. Wilbur opened his car door, but hesitated as Tommy’s gaze weighed on him once again.

Taking a deep breath, Wilbur glanced over his shoulder to see Tommy standing only a few feet behind him.

“What? I’m doing what you want. I’m leaving,” Wilbur snapped.

“Where are you going?” Tommy asked, his voice thick.

“It shouldn’t fucking matter to you, should it?” Wilbur shot back.

Tommy flinched. “But what if it does?”

For fuck’s sake.

“You’re asking a lot of questions for someone who wants me out of his life,” Wilbur pointed out.

A beat passed. The corn rustled in the breeze.

When it became clear Tommy wasn’t going to say anything, Wilbur realized he had a choice. He could push back against his spinning thoughts and the fire burning in his chest. He could give into the heaviness pushing down on his shoulders and stumble back over to his little brother. He could let the air get squeezed out of his lungs as he pulled Tommy close, and apologize for all the pain his very existence had created for his family.

Or he could force air in and out of his lungs. He could let the fire overwhelm him. He could get in that car and save himself from the daggers shooting out from Tommy’s mouth.

Wilbur’s head throbbed as he climbed behind the wheel of his car.

The corn was still swaying as Wilbur pulled out of the driveway and onto the dirt road once again. The corn was still swaying and rustling in ways it shouldn’t. The corn was still watching.

Tommy was still watching in his rearview mirror.

Wilbur turned onto the main road, ignoring the way his chest ached. He drove back towards the main part of town, having no idea where he was going to go next. What would make the most sense would be for him to stop at a gas station to fill his tank, and then drive back the way he came. Go back to his shoebox apartment with the sirens and the cold showers. Settle back into the hollow shell of a life he’d carved out for himself over the past eight years. Look into getting a cat again.

Instead, as Wilbur drove past the town park with its yellowed grass and family-owned stores dotting the square, he turned his blinker on and pulled into the nearest parking spot he could find. He stepped back out into the October heat, and wandered down the sidewalk until he pushed open the door to a place he hadn’t set foot in since he was sixteen years old.

The dive bar was shrouded in shadows despite the afternoon sunlight spilling in from the windows. Only two patrons were there this early in the day—an elderly man sleeping with a beer in his hand, and a middle-aged woman nursing a glass of wine with a book in front of her.

Neither one of them looked up as Wilbur settled himself at the far end of the bar. Despite having been in this bar plenty of times throughout his life, he’d never been able to sit at the bar itself. He left before he was old enough to. Despite how shit he felt right then, it sparked the smallest sense of victory in him. He was old enough to sit at the wooden bar and spend his evening sipping his drink of choice while watching the parents of his childhood friends place bets on their pool games.

The bartender was bent over, rummaging through what Wilbur guessed was a mini fridge. He could only make out dark hair and a blue beanie, which for some reason rang a bell in the back of his mind. But it wasn’t until the bartender straightened up and turned to him that he recognized who it was.

“Quackity?”

For the briefest of seconds, Quackity furrowed his brows like he didn’t recognize him. But then,

“Am I seeing a ghost right now, or is that Wilbur fucking Soot in the flesh?” Quackity asked, eyes going wide as he walked towards his end of the bar.

“Yeah! Holy shit, Big Q, it’s been years!” Wilbur exclaimed, standing up and holding his hand out.

Quackity did the same, the two leaning awkwardly over the bar to half hug and half shake hands. Even with the bar in between them, their height difference was obvious, and Wilbur had to bite back the urge to tease Quackity about the fact that he hadn’t grown an inch since high school.

“God, this is insane, man,” Quackity said after he let go, Wilbur settling himself back in his seat. “I haven’t seen you in, what, a decade?”

“Close to it. Eight years,” Wilbur clarified.

Quackity let out a low whistle. “Damn.” His dark eyes flickered over Wilbur’s face, catching on the grey threading through his hair. “I’m gonna be honest, I kinda thought you were dead.”

Wilbur huffed out a bitter laugh. “Well if I’m being honest, I wasn’t far from it.”

“I can tell. Which is why the first thing I’m gonna ask is what do you want to drink?”

Given the ache in his chest and the flames in his head, the answer was an easy one.

“Vodka on the rocks.”

It was certainly a choice for this early in the afternoon, especially considering the fact that he hadn’t put anything in his stomach that day besides a cup of coffee. Quackity raised an eyebrow at it, but didn’t comment as he turned to grab a glass.

Once Quackity slid the glass over, he rested his elbows on the bar, and Wilbur mirrored him as he took his first sip.

“This is… weird,” Quackity said, eyes lingering on Wilbur’s glass as he set it back down. “I feel like I’m watching a ghost right now.”

“Do I really look that bad?” Wilbur shot back in an attempt at a joke, although his voice came out far smaller than he expected.

Quackity gave him another once over. “If you’re going for ‘depressed middle-aged father in his twenties’ then you’re doing great. Otherwise…” he trailed off, and Wilbur huffed.

“Good to know you’re still just as much of a dick now as you were in high school.”

“I always said you were the only one in this town who ever really knew me,” Quackity teased, flashing him a sharp grin.

Wilbur rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help giving him a small smile back. “Because I was the only person who could stand being around you.”

“Don’t be so cocky, Soot. You weren’t exactly Mr. Popular either.”

“Fair point,” Wilbur chuckled, taking another swig of his vodka and sighing at the familiar burn.

A beat of silence passed between them. Quackity’s smile had faded, and slowly, Wilbur’s did the same.

“You left, like, the day after graduation,” Quackity pointed out after a minute. “You didn’t tell anyone you were leaving. Not your family-” Wilbur flinched, “not the counselor. Not even me.”

Not even me. Another name to add to the list of people he’s fucked over.

“If you’re looking for the why of it all, I can’t give you a good answer to that,” Wilbur said, running his finger over the rim of his glass.

“Nah, I’m not asking why. The why never mattered with you,” Quackity told him, folding his hands on the bar in front of him. “You did what you wanted when you wanted. That’s how you’ve always been.”

Unlike Tommy, Quackity’s tone wasn’t accusatory. He wasn’t angry with Wilbur for his nature. Instead, he explained it like an inarguable fact. The sky was blue, a rock would fall if you dropped it, and Wilbur Soot did what he wanted. A nicer way of saying that Wilbur was selfish.

“Do Phil and Tommy know you’re back?” Quackity asked after another minute of silence.

Grimacing, Wilbur nodded. “I came back last night. But, uh, it might just end up being a one night stay.”

Quackity raised an eyebrow. “Heading out already?”

“Tommy wants me gone,” Wilbur explained, words coming to him easier than they’ve come to him ever since he crossed the county line yesterday evening. “We just got into a huge argument, and he said I shouldn’t have come back at all. So I told him I’d leave and ended up here.”

“Got into a fight with your brother and immediately went to drown your sorrows in liquor. You really haven’t changed, Wilbur,” Quackity snorted. “Like when we were fifteen and you got into that really bad fight with Phil, so I stole that bottle of wine from my parent’s liquor cabinet and we sat down by the creek and took turns drinking from it.”

Shit. Wilbur hadn’t thought about that in years.

“That was a good night,” Wilbur murmured, remembering how strange everything looked that night—with his vision spinning from the wine and the harsh light of their flashlight creating sharp shadows against the trees crowding around the creek. Quackity had looked almost dream-like in that white glow. Like something Wilbur could pass his hand through if he tried to touch him.

The Quackity in front of him right now though didn’t seem dream-like at all. Wilbur still got the urge to reach out and touch him, just to see if his hand would pass through or not.

“I really shouldn’t have come back here,” Wilbur then said, staring at the melting ice in his glass. “Tommy’s already fucked up enough from me. He didn’t need me to make things worse.”

At this, Quackity scoffed. Wilbur lifted his head and raised an eyebrow.

The two stared each other down. For one second. Two.

Then, Quackity relented.

“Look, I’m not trying to say I’m an expert on your brother or anything, but I’ve probably spoken to him a lot more than you have since you left,” he began, leaning further across the bar so he and Wilbur were face to face. “From what I can tell, Tommy’s really pissed at you for leaving.”

Wilbur scoffed. “No fucking shit.”

“Shut the fuck up, I wasn’t done yet,” Quackity snapped. “Tommy’s pissed at you, but that’s because he’s missed you. Badly. After you first left, the kid came to me begging me to tell him where you were, because he thought you would’ve at least told me. And it hurt having to tell him I had no clue where you went, but you didn’t tell me jack shit so I couldn’t help.”

“That’s kind of why I didn’t tell you anything, Q,” Wilbur admitted, his voice low. “You’ve always had a soft spot for Tommy. I knew whatever I told you would get back to him.”

Quackity bristled at this. “So you were that desperate to cut all contact with him?”

Wilbur fell silent. Quackity’s brows twitched.

“He was ten, Wilbur. What the hell could a ten year old have done to piss you off so badly?”

Flinching, Wilbur fought the urge to curl in on himself. “It wasn’t anything he did. It was a me thing.”

For a beat, Quackity stared at him like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Like he didn’t think Wilbur could be that stupid.

After another beat though, he let out a breath and looked at the wall.

“Years later and I still don’t understand what happened between you two,” Quackity muttered. “You used to be practically attached at the hip. Even when you said you were annoyed at Tommy for trying to tag along when you and I went to hang out, I could tell you didn’t really mind him sneaking out with us.” He paused, dragging a hand through his hair. “Then your dad went missing, and next thing I know you can’t even stand to look at Tommy.”

Fighting to keep his face neutral, Wilbur took a long swig of his vodka, focusing on the faint buzz already starting in the back of his head.

When Wilbur didn’t say anything, Quackity’s eyes narrowed.

“Do you guys ever, like, talk about it?”

Wilbur set down his glass with surprising force. “What do you mean by talking about it? Just sit and go ‘huh, our dad is still missing, that sucks I guess?’”

Quackity rolled his eyes. “Don’t play dumb.”

“I’m not. You know how we dealt with that whole thing. Phil came home from college-”

“And there was the search party and you didn’t come to school for two weeks and after six months we held the funeral even though no one found a body blah blah- yeah, I know that shit.”

Wilbur narrowed his eyes. “Then what are you saying, Quackity?”

Another pause. Another staredown.

“Look Wilbur, your dad was a piece of shit,” Quackity said, his voice barely above a whisper. “You knew it, I knew it, Tommy knew it—pretty much the entire fucking town knew it.”

“Yeah, he was. I never tried to say he wasn’t,” Wilbur said, nausea crawling up his throat once again.

Quackity raised an eyebrow at him. “You know, a week before I stole that wine and we got drunk by the creek, I remember you and I walked all the way to the drugstore downtown because neither of us could drive yet. You bought the cheapest concealer you could find, and then I helped you figure out how to cover up your black eye with it.”

“Then I got good at doing it myself,” Wilbur muttered, folding his arms over his chest.

“I could always see it.”

Wilbur almost laughed at this. Almost.

“Well you’ve always been able to see right through me, haven’t you, Quackity?” He asked instead.

Quackity folded his arms over his chest. Then, he was leaning in close again.

“Something changed between you and Tommy the night your dad went missing. Now I have my own ideas for what went down, but the point is that I don’t think Tommy ever wanted you gone. I think you just told yourself that so you’d have a reason to leave.”

“I thought you said the why didn’t matter, Q,” Wilbur pointed out, although his attempts at teasing had completely disappeared now.

“You’re right. It doesn’t. What matters is that you’re doing the same thing again,” Quackity told him. “You know Tommy. He doesn’t actually want you to leave. But you want an excuse to run again.”

Wilbur frowned. “He told me to my face that he wanted me gone.”

“And you believe him?” Quackity asked, giving him a doubtful look.

Taking a breath, Wilbur glanced down at his glass again. Then, his eyes flickered back to Quackity. His fingers curled into the wooden counter. He tapped his foot against the rickety legs of his barstool.

His head was still spinning. Spinning like Tommy was still shouting at him about how selfish he was. Spinning like he was fifteen and wine drunk and staring at Quackity under the white glow of a flashlight.

“I think I want another round,” he finally said, pushing his empty glass towards Quackity.

Quackity considered him for a moment. Considered the bags under his eyes. Considered the hollows of his cheeks.

Then, because Quackity was Quackity, and because Wilbur was Wilbur, he relented.

“Only the first one was on the house. Your tab starts now,” Quackity told him, taking the glass back to add fresh ice and more vodka.

“I didn’t think I had any on the house, so I’m okay with that,” Wilbur snorted.

“We’re gonna wait to see how I feel about you by the end of the night,” Quackity huffed as he poured the vodka.

It wasn’t quite genuine, but Wilbur smiled anyway.

Several hours later, and Wilbur was realizing the consequences of drinking straight vodka on an empty stomach. Although he’d like to think of his tolerance as pretty high, he was already slumped over before he even finished his fourth glass. That was when Quackity forced him to eat some pretzels and almonds, which gave him enough energy to order a fifth round.

Except Quackity refused to serve him a fifth vodka on the rocks, so he negotiated to get a beer instead. More bar patrons had come in by then, and Wilbur stuck to his spot at the far corner of the bar, sipping his beer and snacking on pretzels as he watched faces both familiar and not make their way inside.

His head was spinning for an entirely different reason than before now. Darkness had fallen outside, and Wilbur wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry every time he remembered what Tommy said to him earlier that day.

With his head resting on the bar, Wilbur ran his thumb over the label printed on the side of his second beer bottle. Quackity was busy talking to other patrons, but he still kept shooting questioning looks Wilbur’s way. Checking to see if he was still awake.

Maybe Wilbur fell asleep for a few minutes. Maybe he was just too caught up in his head to notice. But at some point, Quackity made a phone call, and only a few minutes later-

“Wil?”

There was a hand shaking his shoulder, and Wilbur groaned as he lifted his head up to see who was bothering him.

“What?” He slurred around a yawn, struggling to focus on the person in front of him. “Can’t a man take a nap around here?”

“Not when the bartender is sick of your shit,” the familiar voice said.

Wilbur blinked a few more times, Phil’s face finally coming into focus. He groaned again because Phil was one of the last people he wanted to see right now.

“Fuck. It’s you.”

“Quackity called me,” Phil explained, gently prying the beer bottle out of his hand.

It took all of Wilbur’s strength to sit up, his temples throbbing as he struggled to find Quackity in the sea of color around him. When his vision finally focused enough to make out his friend, he scowled.

“Snitch!” Wilbur called out.

Quackity made his way back over to Wilbur’s side of the bar, rolling his eyes. “I would’ve called someone else if you had any other friends.”

“Didn’t need you to call,” Wilbur mumbled, head feeling like it was full of water. “Could’ve slept in my car.”

“You already look homeless enough. Don’t need to give the cops another reason to target you,” Quackity told him, taking the beer bottle Phil had grabbed out of his hands and putting it behind the bar. “Go with Phil. You can get your car in the morning.”

Wilbur groaned yet again. Quackity huffed and turned his back on him to talk to an elderly man who wanted to order a shot of tequila. Phil tugged on his arm, trying to get him to stand, and Wilbur ignored him in favor of flipping Quackity off while he wasn’t looking.

“For fuck’s sake-” Phil pushed his hand down before dragging him off the barstool. Wilbur stumbled and would’ve fallen over if Phil wasn’t there to catch him. He slumped into his older brother’s side, his stomach twisting as the room began to spin even more.

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” he breathed.

Wrapping his arm around Wilbur’s back, Phil began to lead him towards the door. “You’re fucking twenty-six now, Wil. Wait till we’re outside.”

Wilbur grumbled out what was supposed to be a complaint, but sounded closer to incoherent angry noises instead. Then, following Phil’s lead, he straightened up and let his brother lead him out of the bar.

In contrast to the October heat of the day, the autumn air was pleasantly refreshing at night. Wilbur took a deep breath as soon as they were outside, letting the sharp contrast between the cacophony of the bar with the silence of the evening cool down the heat in his head.

Then, he ran to the nearest planter he could see and threw up.

Wilbur didn’t usually throw up when he drank, nor did he get this drunk at all. He blamed it on the lack of food in his stomach, and was sure the coffee he’d had didn’t help either. Phil patted his back as he heaved, and Wilbur felt like he was fifteen years old again. Fifteen and dealing with his first hangover from the wine bottle he’d split with Quackity, throwing up in his bathroom as Phil pushed his hair back from his face while trying not to laugh.

Neither one of them had brought up the fight that led Wilbur to go drinking with Quackity down by the creek. Phil must’ve thought his hangover was punishment enough to put the rest of his hard feelings aside.

This time, Wilbur didn’t think a hangover would be enough to let them move on.

Once his stomach was empty, Wilbur spit a few times into the dirt, before straightening up and breathing in the cool night air again. Although he still felt like his head was underwater, it was significantly easier to put one foot in front of the other as he followed Phil to his car.

He climbed into Phil’s Mercury, already cursing himself for the fact that he’d have to come get his car tomorrow. Phil didn’t say anything as he started the engine and reversed onto the street, the roads mostly empty despite the fact that it wasn’t that late.

They passed by the town park, the yellowed grass turned orange by the streetlamps. Wilbur leaned his forehead against the glass, the dull vibrations of the wheels making his already developing headache even worse.

“Where are we going?” Wilbur finally asked as they drove out of the town proper.

“Home,” Phil answered, keeping his eyes on the road.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Wilbur muttered, dragging a hand down his face.

Phil hummed. “Why not?”

“Because I got into an argument with Tommy today and I asked him if he wanted me to leave again,” Wilbur admitted, the words tasting more sour than the lingering vomit in his mouth. “He said yes, so I left.”

“Is that why you went and got piss drunk?” Phil asked, glancing at Wilbur.

“What do you think?” Wilbur huffed, resting his cheek on his hand.

Phil fell quiet at that. The road around them was completely dark now, only illuminated by the glow of Phil’s headlights and the faint moonlight falling over the cornfields.

Minutes ticked by as they got closer and closer to the turn in for their house. Wilbur waited for it. Dreaded it.

Finally, as Phil flicked his blinker on to turn onto the dirt road, he asked, “Did you think this was going to be easy?”

Wilbur blinked, taking an extra beat to process Phil’s question. “What?”

“Coming back. Did you think it would be easy?”

Shit.

“No, obviously not. I just-”

“Did you think Tommy wouldn’t hate you for leaving him?” Phil continued, cutting Wilbur off. “Did you think he wouldn’t resent you for refusing to speak with him at all in that first year you still called me?”

“No, I knew he would. I’m not that much of a clueless prick,” Wilbur huffed.

“Really?” Phil scoffed. “Because it sure fucking feels like you are sometimes, Wil.”

Wilbur clenched his jaw. “Why are you bringing me back to the house if you hate me so badly? Why not just drop me at a motel and tell me to never come back?”

Suddenly, Wilbur lurched forward in his seat, his seatbelt being the only thing holding him upright as Phil slammed on the brakes. A cloud of dirt rose behind their car, and Wilbur slammed back against the seat cushion, his heart pounding against his ribs.

“What the fuck, Phil?!”

Phil stared at the dirt road, his knuckles white as they gripped the wheel. In the dark, the cornfields on either side of the car swayed like they were alive. Moving back and forth in time with Wilbur’s own breathing. Watching him. Watching both of them.

Wilbur looked at the corn, then looked back at Phil.

Phil’s eyes stayed on the road.

“Do you want to be back here with us or not?” Phil finally asked, his voice low in a way that Wilbur hadn’t heard in years.

Wilbur blinked. “Wh- I don’t understand.”

“Do you want to be here or not?” Phil repeated. “Because I want to think you wouldn’t have come back at all if you didn’t want to be here, but then you keep asking if you should leave or why I haven’t kicked you out yet, and it makes me think you’re just looking for an excuse.”

“You know, Quackity said the same thing to me,” Wilbur murmured, watching the corn.

“And what did you tell him?” Phil asked, raising an eyebrow.

A beat of silence ticked by. Then another.

Letting out a deep sigh, Phil rested his forehead against the edge of the steering wheel.

“I’m trying, Wilbur,” he said after a minute. “I’m trying so fucking hard, because I don’t want to lose you again. But you’re making it next to impossible.”

Phil’s voice was tight with pain. The roots Wilbur had felt wrap around him when he first drove back to this place were there again, tightening around his lungs and squeezing the air out of him. They kept squeezing him tighter and tighter every time he glanced between Phil’s face and the constantly swaying corn.

The silence in the car was drowning him. Phil waited for him to say something. Anything.

The silence was almost a relief.

“If it’s any consolation, I wish I wasn’t like this either,” Wilbur finally whispered.

Phil took a deep breath.

“You know, Wil, that doesn’t mean as much as you think it does.”

Then, the car started moving forward again, and neither one of them said anything for the rest of the drive back to the house.

They pulled into the driveway, the porchlight casting eerie shadows across the dirt. Wilbur spotted Tommy immediately, sitting on a sun-bleached wicker chair, arms folded across his chest.

He tried to climb out of the car on his own, but his vision began to spin and Phil had to run over to keep him from falling over.

“Fucking- Tommy! Come help me carry him!” Phil called out, grunting as he hoisted Wilbur back to his feet.

Tommy didn’t say anything as he pushed out of the chair and made his way towards Phil’s car. He refused to meet Wilbur’s eyes as he wrapped an arm around his side to help him up.

“Christ, he’s heavy,” Tommy cursed as they began to shuffle back to the porch.

“I can fucking walk-”

“If you wanna crack your skull open you sure can,” Phil huffed, holding Wilbur steady as he made his way up the porch steps.

“I’m not even that drunk!” Wilbur complained, stumbling over his feet as Phil and Tommy carried him through the front door. “I’m just dizzy!”

“Let’s see if you say that when you have to face your hangover in the morning,” Phil muttered under his breath.

It was a group effort getting Wilbur up the stairs. The spinning in his head was only getting worse by the second, and he was glad he’d already thrown up the little he had in his stomach because if he hadn’t, he would’ve thrown up again.

By the time they reached his room, Phil and Tommy were breathing hard. Tommy rather unceremoniously dumped him on the bed, with Phil’s hand lingering on his shoulder for a moment before pulling away.

“I’ll go get you some water. Tommy, keep an eye on him so he doesn’t try to get up,” Phil said, hurrying out of the room.

Tommy groaned and slumped against the wall. “If he falls out a window and dies, that's not my fault.”

“I’m not gonna fall out a window,” Wilbur slurred, his exhaustion mixing into the liquor and making everything seem hazy. He rolled onto his back, staring at that damn wooden ceiling once again. Then, after taking a few moments to catch his breath, he forced himself to sit up and squeezed his eyes shut when his vision went haywire.

“Hey! Don’t get up you dumb shit-”

“I’m not getting up,” Wilbur said, smacking Tommy’s hands away. “I’m just getting my damn shoes off.”

That made Tommy back off. He stepped away, and Wilbur hunched over as he struggled to unlace his boots. His fingers were clumsy. Like individual tiny puppets he was fighting to control instead of appendages attached to his body. It took him three tries to unlace his first boot, and that was when Wilbur realized that maybe Phil and Tommy had a point about how drunk he was.

Tommy watched Wilbur struggle, his face unreadable with his arms folded over his chest. Wilbur ignored his silent judgement, and finally kicked his shoes to the other side of the room with a sigh of relief. Then he shed his coat and tossed it to the other side of his bed, before leaning back against his pillows.

Before Wilbur and Tommy could be left in another awkward silence, Phil hurried back in, holding a glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen. He shoved the water in Wilbur’s hand gesturing for him to drink, and Wilbur didn’t really feel like arguing with Phil anymore tonight so he downed half the glass in a single go. Once he came up for air, Phil placed two ibuprofen pills in his hands, and Wilbur popped them in his mouth before finishing the second half of the water glass.

“Thank you,” Wilbur said as he handed the glass back to Phil.

“It’s whatever, mate. I just don’t wanna hear your bitching in the morning,” Phil shot back, although something in his voice had softened since the car ride.

“No, seriously, I owe you,” Wilbur pushed, not entirely sure what he was saying anymore but not wanting to leave things as they were. “Like- fuck, I dunno. You haven’t even asked me why I came back yet, but you’re still helping me.”

At this, Phil paused. He held the empty water glass in one hand, the other setting the ibuprofen down on Wilbur’s nightstand.

Silence ticked by.

Then,

“Would you tell me if I asked?”

In his drunken, exhausted stupor, Wilbur didn’t think twice before the words slipped out.

“It’s been ten years,” he muttered, slumping back into his pillows. “Felt like I had to come back for that.”

Phil stared at him for a moment, a crease forming between his brows. Wilbur kept his eyes shut, not wanting to think too hard about whatever Phil was doing at that moment. Not even realizing that Tommy was still standing by the bed as well. Not even noticing how Tommy’s entire body stiffened at Wilbur’s answer.

Then, Phil let out a breath and shook his head. “Get some sleep, Wil. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Wilbur’s eyes flickered open as Phil left the room. For a moment, he wondered if he was alone. But then his gaze fell on Tommy who was staring at him like a deer in headlights. And in a way, wasn't that comparison fitting? Tommy, the deer who was minding his business trying to get through his life. Wilbur, a car barreling towards him at full speed, having lost the ability to stop in time several miles back.

Earlier that day, Tommy told him to leave and Wilbur did. But there had been a waver in his voice. An uncertainty flashing across his face. Wilbur saw it. He just pretended he didn’t.

Since Wilbur had come back home, the only conversations he’d had with Tommy were arguments. The only thing he seemed to be able to talk about with the little brother he hadn’t seen in eight years was when he was going to leave again.

Wilbur didn’t know the first thing about Tommy anymore. He didn’t even know if he graduated high school yet.

If he was sober, he probably wouldn’t have said anything. But then again, if he was sober he wouldn’t even be here right now. He’d be in his car fifty miles out looking for a roadside motel to spend the night in.

“What are you doing, Tommy?” Wilbur asked, turning onto his side so he could face Tommy.

Tommy flinched at the question, shaking his head as he took a step back. “Sorry, I just- I zoned out for a second. I’ll leave-”

“No no,” Wilbur cut him off, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean like that. I meant what are you doing? Like, with your life?”

Pausing, Tommy frowned at him. “Huh?”

“Have you graduated yet?” Wilbur asked. “You should have graduated a few months ago, right? Are you going to college?”

Tommy blinked, like he wasn’t quite sure if he heard Wilbur right. “Uh… yeah, I graduated back in June. And I’m gonna take a gap year because I don’t really know what I’d wanna study yet.”

“Do you have any ideas yet? Or are you completely in the dark? Like, it’s okay if you are. I never figured out what the hell I’d wanna do badly enough to spend four years studying for it, so I just never bothered.”

Wilbur wasn’t sure where this was coming from. Maybe it was a desperate attempt to glue together the glass bridge that had shattered between them long ago. Maybe he just didn’t didn’t want to be afraid of what Tommy was going to say to him when he woke up.

Or maybe the answer was much simpler than that. Maybe he just missed his little brother.

“I like-” Tommy hesitated, furrowing his brows. “You’re gonna think it’s stupid.”

“Try me,” Wilbur said.

Tommy considered him for a moment, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to entertain this conversation any longer. Wilbur wouldn’t blame him if he decided to leave. If he didn’t want to even bother with the glass, and was instead mentally preparing to sweep the last shards of their relationship into the trash.

After what could’ve been the longest silence of Wilbur’s life, Tommy sighed and gestured for Wilbur to move his legs over on the bed.

“Let me sit,” he grumbled. Wilbur immediately moved his legs out of the way as Tommy took a seat on the edge of his bed. “So I’m really into movies, right? Like, I love thinking about all the different moving parts of making one. From the shots to the writing to the music…”

And from there, Tommy began to ramble. He rambled about different movies he liked and what he liked about the directing styles, the scores, the color palette choices—Wilbur was too drunk to really understand most of what he was saying, but something warm washed over him anyway. Because this was Tommy. This was who his little brother had grown into while he was gone.

When Tommy finished his spiel, he fell silent, eyes fixed on his lap as he waited for Wilbur to say something. Seconds ticked by. Then, a minute. Wilbur struggled to grab hold of all his wayward thoughts and use them to form a coherent response.

“I think you should go for it,” Wilbur finally said after another minute.

Tommy’s head snapped up. “Really?”

“You clearly love this kind of stuff, and you know so much. If you want to study film, you should do it,” Wilbur told him. “It probably doesn’t mean much considering I haven’t seen you in eight years, but I think it fits you.”

Considering Wilbur’s words, Tommy nodded, bringing his knees up to his chest. “Thanks.” He paused, staring at the wall for another few seconds. “What do you even do?”

Now it was Wilbur’s turn to be surprised. “Huh?”

“Your job. You have a car, so I assume you had to do some kind of work to get it,” Tommy clarified. “Unless you stole it.”

Wilbur flushed. “If I were to steal a car do you really think I’d steal a piece of shit like that?”

“I dunno. Doesn’t stealing a piece of shit car make you less likely to get caught?” Tommy joked, almost smiling but not quite.

“Did Techno teach you that?” Wilbur asked, remembering all the jokes Phil’s best friend used to make about how to steal.

“Nah, he never taught me about cars. But he always said that if I’m gonna steal, I should do it from big brands with a lot of stores. Overthrow the chains of capitalism and all that shit.”

Tilting his head back, Wilbur let out a surprised laugh. “Fuck, that sounds exactly like him.” He took another breath, noticing how much easier it was now compared to before. “Where is Techno anyway? Would’ve thought he’d show up by now, considering he basically lived here when we were kids.”

“He’s off in some big city doing a stupid PhD program” Tommy huffed, resting his chin on his knees. “He came back to visit a few months ago, but he won’t be back again till Christmas.”

Oh. Although Wilbur and Techno had never had a relationship he could easily describe, Techno was still family in some way or another. Despite how much he’d been dreading a confrontation with yet another person he’d upset with his disappearance, he couldn’t help but be disappointed realizing that confrontation was probably never going to happen.

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur murmured.

“Eh, it’s fine. He calls to check in pretty regularly,” Tommy explained, and Wilbur didn’t have to lift his head to feel the pointed look Tommy was giving him.

The silence had been comfortable just a moment ago. Now, it was tense. Wilbur forced more air into his lungs, and once again ignored the way it made his head spin.

“I do freelance,” Wilbur said after another minute.

“What?”

“You asked what I do for work. I do freelance for, like, writing and stuff,” he explained, avoiding Tommy’s eyes. “It’s mostly marketing. Writing copy for ads and email blasts and all that shit.”

Tommy hummed. “Sounds boring.”

“It is for the most part. But sometimes I get a fun brand that wants to be cheeky and I get to come up with ways to talk about cum without saying the word cum.”

This startled a laugh out of Tommy. “You got this fancy marketing job and you use it to talk about cum?”

“Gotta appeal to the youths,” Wilbur explained, his eyes growing heavy as he sunk further back into his pillows. “Trying to find the upsides where I can, y’know?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Tommy muttered, glancing between Wilbur and the window.

Although he didn’t mean to, Wilbur found himself starting to drift off. He might’ve slurred something to Tommy about a great dick joke he tried to slip into an instagram ad he wrote for a company once, or he might’ve just told Tommy about it in his head. Either way, as soon as Wilbur began to slip away, his sense of awareness disappeared in seconds.

“Are you falling asleep?” Tommy’s voice sounded muffled and far away. Wilbur turned towards it anyway.

Wilbur grunted out a ‘no’, and the bed dipped as Tommy got to his feet.

“Where’re you going?” Wilbur managed to say as he listened to Tommy’s footsteps head towards the door.

“Letting you pass the fuck out,” Tommy snorted.

Wilbur cracked open one eye and saw Tommy standing in the doorway, almost like he wanted to say something else. Despite how his thoughts were growing more incoherent by the second as sleep dragged him under, he wanted to hear what Tommy had to say, and forced himself to stay awake.

One beat. Two,

“Thanks for, uh, coming back by the way,” Tommy said, his voice low.

And with that, Tommy let the door to Wilbur’s bedroom shut behind him. Wilbur turned to stare at the wooden ceiling once more, the planks swirling together as his vision continued to spin and spin and spin.

But the nausea wasn’t there anymore. He was surrounded by warmth as sleep dragged him under.

🜂🜃

Wilbur woke up to someone’s hands wrapped around his throat.

Jolting into consciousness, Wilbur’s eyes flew open as he reached up to claw at whoever was choking him. The hands around his throat were rough. He gasped but no air reached his lungs.

He tried to grab at the hands, but his fingers wouldn’t stick to them. He gasped again. And again. And again. Trying to get air. Trying to breathe.

His vision was spinning too badly to make out the face of the dark figure hunched over him. He coughed and tried to yell, but the hands squeezed harder, and pain blossomed around his neck.

No no no no not again not again-

On instinct, Wilbur squeezed his eyes shut.

And just like that the hands disappeared.

Lurching up in his bed, Wilbur grabbed at his throat, his breath wheezy as he looked around for his attacker. His hands shook violently as he turned on the lamp on his nightstand. The room lit up, and Wilbur’s heart pounded in his ears as he tried to see where the man went.

But… the room was empty.

Fear choked out the little air he’d gotten back after being strangled. It turned all the blood in his veins to ice, and the roots grounding him to the cornfield outside pulled taut as he reached for the closest thing he had to a weapon in his immediate vicinity—a pillow.

His legs trembled underneath him as he got to his feet. The eyes were back. They were burning holes into his skin as he walked towards his bathroom door. Every breath he took was pained. He could feel the imprints of the hands on his throat.

Wilbur flicked on the light in his bathroom, tensed and waiting for the attacker to jump out at him. But the bathroom was empty as well.

Every nerve in Wilbur’s body felt like it was on fire as he checked behind the bathroom door and even in the bathtub to make sure his attacker wasn’t hiding there. Then he went back into his room and checked under the desk, the bed, and then finally he found his feet carrying him to the one place he didn’t want to check.

The window.

The crescent moon sat high above the corn, painting everything in dim, white light. The fields swayed as they always did. Shadows twisted between the stalks. And then, just like before, there was a rustling that was too jarring to be the wind alone.

But this time the shadow moving the corn didn’t disappear the moment Wilbur spotted it. Instead, it solidified. It made itself known between the towering golden stalks. It was little more than the outline of a man, its face completely obscured, yet Wilbur knew that it was staring right at him.

The roots twisted tighter. Wilbur couldn’t breathe.

Wilbur wasn’t sure how long the stare down lasted. It could’ve been hours. It could’ve been days. Wilbur felt pinned in place by the figure’s stare.

Finally, after an eternity trapped inside a few seconds, Wilbur blinked and the figure in the corn disappeared. He gasped for air again, dark spots dancing across his vision as he stumbled back to his bed.

Once again, Wilbur wasn’t sure when he went back to sleep. But one thing he knew was that after the figure disappeared, he couldn’t stop smelling blood and gunpowder.

🜂🜃

When Wilbur woke up again, the first thing he saw was the corn.

He flinched back, his legs sore as he stumbled away from the window. Blinking a few times, he looked down at himself and then at his empty bed, realizing that he’d been asleep standing up.

But he went back to his bed after that strange… incident the night before. He remembered that much. So did that mean he was sleepwalking?

As far as Wilbur was aware, he’s never been one to sleepwalk. But when he thought back to last night, he did recognize what could’ve happened with the figure that strangled him. Even if he was a stranger to sleepwalking, he wasn’t one to sleep paralysis. Although he hadn’t had an episode in years, the last two years of his life in this house before he left were spent dealing with constant sleep paralysis episodes. Jolting into consciousness feeling like he was suffocating while a strange, inhuman figure watched over him. Waiting for him to wake up or die.

That didn’t make the episode any less terrifying. Because even if the figure in his room had only been a figment of his imagination, whatever had been watching him from the cornfields hadn’t been. Wilbur was sure of that.

After a few seconds spent catching his breath, Wilbur wandered close to the window he’d woken up in front of again. The sun was high in the sky, beating down on the golden stalks as they stretched out towards the horizon. Like always, the stalks rustled as the breeze passed between them. Wilbur watched for any sign of something moving. Something alive down there.

There was nothing.

Wilbur’s head throbbed as he shuffled towards his bathroom. Despite the ibuprofen he’d taken the night before, his hangover was far too present. It pressed behind his eyes, wrapping around his skull like a band as he splashed cold water on his face. The bloody fingerprints that he’d noticed on his bathroom counter the day before were gone, and Wilbur wondered if Phil had wiped them off.

When his eyes flickered up to the mirror, Wilbur found his gaze roaming over his neck, searching for any sign of bruising. Even though he figured it was only sleep paralysis, he could still feel the imprints of the hands that had been around his throat as if they’d been burnt into his skin.

Yet, these imprints seemed to only exist in his mind, because his skin was smooth and unmarked.

There had been a time when those imprints weren’t only in his mind. A time when he looked in the mirror and saw purple and green hands painted across his throat as clear as the corn outside his window. As real as the dirt and blood buried deep under his fingernails.

Wilbur looked down at his hands, and noticed there was dirt under his nails once again. He didn’t have any memory of touching dirt over the past few days. He supposed it was just a consequence of being in a place like this again. His hands would get stained no matter what.

Before he went downstairs to the kitchen, he popped two more ibuprofen in his mouth from the bottle Phil had left on his nightstand. Nausea pushed at the back of his throat like an old friend, and Wilbur dug his nails into the bannister as he stumbled down to the ground floor.

Unlike yesterday morning, Tommy was already in the kitchen as he made his way over to the coffee machine.

“Do you always wake up at noon?” Was the first thing Tommy asked, feet propped up on the kitchen table nestled by the windows. “Or is that only when you drink yourself stupid the night before?”

Mouth sticky with the sourness of morning breath, Wilbur didn’t bother giving Tommy a response. He flipped him off instead as he popped a coffee pod in the machine, gripping onto the edge of the counter for dear life as he waited for his saving grace to brew.

Tommy snorted, taking a long sip from his own coffee mug—a dark red one with a chipped rim. Once Wilbur’s coffee was ready, he breathed in the bitter aroma, warmth seeping into his palms as he moved to grab the half and half out of the fridge.

It wasn’t until he was sitting in front of Tommy and had taken at least three sips of his coffee that he spoke.

“I feel like shit,” he breathed, the coffee doing little to wash the sour taste out of his mouth.

“And you look like shit,” Tommy shot back, sunlight from the windows haloing the back of his head. “Do you even remember what happened last night?”

Wilbur snorted. “Trust me, as much as I wish I didn’t, I was nowhere near drunk enough to blackout. You would know.”

“I actually wouldn’t,” Tommy said, not looking at Wilbur as he took another sip of his coffee.

Shit. Yeah. Tommy had always already gone to bed the handful of times he stumbled back to their home wine-flushed and tipsy when he was a kid. He’d never actually seen Wilbur drunk before until last night.

The coffee warmed the back of Wilbur’s throat as he thought back to the night before. His conversation with Phil in the car ride back was something he didn’t want to focus on too much, because if he did he had a feeling he’d break down. But his conversation with Tommy was… nice. Really nice. Almost nice enough to make him forget the terror he experienced only a few hours later when he woke up feeling like he couldn’t breathe.

“So you remember what you said to Phil before he left?” Tommy continued, something in his voice strained in a way Wilbur couldn’t place.

Frowning, Wilbur played through the memory in his mind again of Phil giving him the water and the ibuprofen. The way he’d almost forgotten Tommy was there, until Phil left and he was met with Tommy’s wide-eyed stare.

What did he say?

“You told Phil you came back because it’d been ten years,” Tommy said before Wilbur could pull up the memory on his own.

Oh.

Oh.

Immediately, Wilbur looked over his shoulder to see if Phil was nearby. He strained his ears, trying to listen for signs of other footsteps in the house. But then-

“He’s not home,” Tommy told him.

Wilbur was almost ashamed of the relief that washed over him at that. “Thank fuck.” He dragged his hands down his face, wiping away some of the crust embedded in his eyes. “I can’t believe I fucking said that to him.”

“I couldn’t believe you said it either,” Tommy said, his face unreadable. “I think he just took it as it being ten years since Dad went missing, but still.”

Sucking in air between his teeth, Wilbur took a beat to collect his hazy thoughts, before looking up to meet Tommy’s eyes again.

“Has he ever suspected…”

Tommy shook his head. “I don’t think so. At least he’s never asked.” He set down his coffee mug, wrapping his arms around himself as he curled back into his chair. “What the fuck did you mean that you ‘felt like you had to come back’ though?”

Those damned roots were pulling taut around his lungs once again. Wilbur squeezed his eyes shut.

“I- I don’t know. I just knew it was coming up, and something in my gut told me I had to come back for it.” He paused, opening his eyes again to look at Tommy through his fringe. “Something told me to come back to see you.”

Tommy’s brows furrowed. “Me?”

“You,” Wilbur nodded.

Tommy considered this for a moment. Then, anger flashed over his face.

“So after ten years, now you come back for me?” He asked, disdain dripping from his words.

“I only left eight years ago. The first two years after-”

“You always went out the day of,” Tommy snapped, cutting Wilbur off. “You wouldn’t even look at me that entire week. You’d just go off with Quackity and I wouldn’t see you again till the morning after.”

Clenching his jaw, Wilbur tried to breathe in the steam curling from his coffee mug again, but his lungs fought against it.

“It… It was hard,” he confessed after a minute of silence.

“Seeing me?” Tommy challenged.

Wilbur nodded. The challenge in Tommy’s eyes died as quickly as it appeared.

“Oh.” He shrunk back against his chair.

“You just- you were a reminder,” Wilbur explained, the roots cutting into his chest now. “A reminder of all that shit I didn’t want to think about.”

Tommy sucked in a shaky breath, his eyes unfocused as he stared at the table. “I- I think I get it now,” he said, his voice small. “That’s why you left. Because of me.”

No. That wasn’t- no, that’s not how Wilbur meant it.

At the same time though, that’s exactly how he meant it. Because Tommy was the reason he left. But not in the way it seemed Tommy meant it.

“Tommy, that’s not-”

Before Wilbur could continue, there was a flash of movement outside the window behind Tommy’s head, and he froze. The corn was rustling again. Despite the sun sitting high in the sky, the shadows that twisted between the corn were rustling in that jarring way Wilbur knew wasn’t natural.

Mouth snapping shut, Wilbur got to his feet and made his way over to the window. His vision began to spin again as he made out the faint outline of a man standing between the golden stalks. A man so familiar to him, he could practically feel the phantom hands around his throat once again.

“Wilbur?” Tommy asked, moving to stand next to him in front of the window. “What are you looking at?”

“You can’t see it?” Wilbur asked, feeling like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

Tommy shook his head. “I mean, I see corn?”

Beats ticked by one by one by one. Wilbur stared at the figure, and the figure stared back. Until he blinked, and suddenly it was gone.

“I- Are you sure you didn’t see anything?” Wilbur stammered as he turned to face Tommy, blood roaring in his ears.

“No.” Tommy took a step back, frowning at him. “Are you okay? You look, like, really fucking pale all the sudden.”

Wilbur still couldn’t breathe. He could never fucking breathe in this house. Not when he was a kid, and not as an adult either.

“I- I just-” He blinked several times. “I thought you would’ve seen…” he trailed off, knowing how insane he must’ve sounded to Tommy right then. “Sorry. It must’ve been a trick of the light.”

Tommy considered him for a moment, eyes far duller than they’d been a few minutes before.

“Okay,” he said, his voice soft. “Um, if you’re fine then, I’m gonna go to Tubbo’s for a bit I think.”

Still so out of it, Wilbur nodded without thinking. It wasn’t until Tommy was halfway to the front door that he remembered what they'd been talking about before Wilbur saw the apparition.

“Wait, Tommy, about what I said before-”

“I’ll see you tonight!” Tommy called out, keeping his back to Wilbur as he hurried out the front door. Then, before Wilbur could say anything else, the door was slamming shut behind him leaving Wilbur alone.

Falling back into his seat at the kitchen table, Wilbur buried his face in his hands and let out a loud groan. This was fucked. Right when things started to go well with Tommy, he went and fucked it all up again because he was stupid and hungover and his brain wasn’t working. Good fucking job.

After wallowing in his own self-pity for a few more minutes, Wilbur gulped down the rest of his coffee and decided that he needed to do something to make himself feel human again. He went out to his car (because apparently Phil had gone and gotten it for him from the bar before he woke up) and took his suitcase out of the trunk, head pounding as he dragged it up the porch steps and into the house.

It took him another ten minutes to hoist the suitcase up the stairs without throwing up from his hangover. He managed well enough though, and didn’t risk looking in the mirror again as he turned the shower on as hot as it could go before stepping inside.

Nearly an hour later while Wilbur was still hungover, his head felt significantly clearer than it had in the past few days. He wandered between the corners of his room, searching even the tiniest of places a twisting shadow could’ve been hiding.

Instead of a shadow though, Wilbur found himself digging up memories he’d rather forget. The dent in his wall was only the tip of the iceberg. Several different dried out tubes of concealer sat in the top drawer of his bathroom counter from all the times he had to cover bruises for school. There was a first aid kit sitting under his sink, filled with pokemon band-aids he’d bought with the little money he had to calm Tommy down with when Wilbur had to patch him up.

But the memories weren’t only bitter. There was a card his father had written him for his thirteenth birthday stashed in his desk, telling him how if he wanted, he could become a singer like his mother had been. Old notebooks frayed at the edges, with childish stories scribbled between the lines that his father used to read over before giving him surprisingly thoughtful feedback—I like that you made the sheep blue. It’s a good way to tell the readers that the ghost is dreaming.

His old notebooks didn’t just contain his first attempts at storytelling though. There were also his random thoughts and complaints he was too afraid to voice out loud. Hidden between the pages about blue sheep and ghosts.

Dad told me I should stop hanging out with Quackity today. Said he didn’t like the way he looks at me. I don’t get it. How can you look at someone weirdly?

It took Wilbur years to understand what his father meant by that.

I dropped a plate tonight and broke it. Phil took the blame again. Tommy won’t stop crying.

A type of debt he could never fully repay Phil for.

Phil taught me how to shoot today, just like Dad taught him when he was my age. The gun is heavier than I thought it’d be, and I cried when it was over. Phil says when I’m older I’ll have to teach Tommy how to shoot too. I don’t like guns though. Even picking it up scares me.

That one left a bitter taste in Wilbur’s mouth that wasn’t from his hangover.

Phil left for college today. Now I can’t sleep. I don’t think I want to sleep until he comes back.

Wilbur snapped the notebook shut at that, shoving it back into his desk drawer and shaking his head to get the words out.

In the back of his mind, he felt the weight of something watching him again. This time, he refused to walk over to the window and meet its gaze.

He wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.

🜂🜃

That night, dinner was only slightly less awkward than it had been Wilbur’s first night back. Tommy was strangely quiet, keeping his eyes on his plate as he pushed asparagus around from one side to the other. Although it was an improvement to the arguing, Wilbur found himself wishing for Tommy’s anger again, because his silence was so much worse.

Phil asked Wilbur and Tommy what they both did that day. Wilbur talked about finally getting his suitcase out of his car while nursing his hangover, while Tommy only said he went to Tubbo’s. Tommy didn’t mention Wilbur’s ‘moment’ when he saw the figure standing in the corn, and Wilbur didn’t mention Tommy’s hurried exit when it became clear their conversation had ended.

It wasn’t long before Wilbur was back in his room, wondering if he’d wake up to a shadowy figure strangling him once again. He stared at the ceiling and traced the whorls with his eyes, waiting for… something. Something to happen. Something to get him out of his bed. Something to flicker into his line of sight.

A soft knock at his door startled him out of his thoughts.

“Wil?” Wilbur was relieved when Phil’s voice echoed through. “Is it okay if I come in?”

“Uh, sure.”

The door swung open. Phil walked into the room, pausing when he noticed the way Wilbur had curled around his pillows with one leg hanging off the bed.

Suddenly, Wilbur felt like a little kid again. On the nights he couldn’t fall asleep when he was really young, Phil would somehow always know. He’d come into Wilbur’s room asking if he was alright, and when Wilbur said he wasn’t, Phil would stretch out on the bed next to him and threaten to kick him on the floor. Wilbur would climb on top of his brother and wrap his arms around him as tightly as he could so Phil couldn’t push him off, and Phil would pretend to be annoyed as he moved them into a more comfortable spot. And next thing Wilbur knew, morning sunlight would be pouring through his windows.

Like a tradition to be passed on, Wilbur did the same thing with Tommy when he was young. Except unlike with Phil, Wilbur never knew when Tommy could or couldn’t sleep. Instead, Tommy would come to him, pushing open his door in the dead of night to worm his way under Wilbur’s blankets.

His bed was barely big enough for him as it was. It had never been big enough for two. Yet somehow, on those nights it was.

“Hey,” Phil said softly as he approached the bed. “How’s the hangover?”

“Mostly gone,” Wilbur told him, sitting up but keeping his arms wrapped around his pillow. “Just feel tired now.”

Phil nodded. “That’s good.” His eyes darted between the open space on the bed and Wilbur’s face. “You mind if I sit?”

“Why do I feel like I’m about to be the subject of a family meeting?” Wilbur tried to joke. Phil didn’t smile, and after a beat, Wilbur sighed. “Yeah, you can sit.”

Phil sat down on the edge of the bed, leaving plenty of space between them.

“I, uh, wanted to ask you about something you said last night,” he explained.

Wilbur tensed. Thankfully, either Phil didn’t notice, or he decided not to comment on it because he continued with, “You said something about it being ten years. And I won’t lie, I’m a little embarrassed it took me so long to remember what happened ten years ago.” He paused and gave Wilbur a pained smile. “Kinda wish I didn’t remember, if I’m being honest.”

“Me too,” Wilbur huffed, picking at the threads of his fraying pillowcase.

Silence fell between them. Wilbur waited. Phil waited. Neither one of them wanted to make the next move.

Finally,

“Do you think it’s better that we never found out what happened to him?” Wilbur asked, the words leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

Phil sighed. “I’m not sure. A part of me wants to say it doesn’t matter. That I’m just glad he’s gone,” he said, pushing his hair back from his face. “But- I don’t know. It’s fucking stupid, but sometimes I get paranoid that the bastard might show back up one day.”

Wilbur’s jaw clenched. “Phil, c’mon, he’s- he’s not coming back.”

“I know he’s not. But that just nags at the back of my head. It’s the only time I wish we really had an answer about what happened, just so I know for sure he’s dead in the fucking ground.”

When Wilbur looked down at his hands, he realized they were shaking. Although his hangover had come to pass, the nausea was back and clawing at his throat as a headache began to throb behind his eyes once more.

“Does Tommy ever talk about him?” Wilbur asked, his voice strained.

Phil shook his head. “No. When he was younger he used to wake up screaming, and even though he never told me what the nightmares were about I could figure it out well enough on my own. But those stopped eventually too.” He took a breath, staring at his hands in his lap. “Sometimes I wonder if Tommy doesn’t remember him like you and I do, Wil. Like maybe he was young enough to… I dunno, forget a lot of that shit.”

It took all of Wilbur’s willpower not to flinch at this. Because Tommy hadn’t forgotten any of that. He hadn’t forgotten their father in the slightest. Wilbur knew that, but Phil didn’t.

“Maybe,” he lied, still picking at the threads.

More silence. A minute ticked by.

“I remember the day I left for uni I was fucking terrified for you two,” Phil suddenly said, making Wilbur look up. “I didn’t know what was going to happen without me around, but I knew it wouldn’t be good.”

At this, Wilbur couldn’t help himself as he ripped a thread out far more forcefully than he needed to. “Yeah, it wasn’t very good.”

Phil winced. “You know I told you that you could always call, and no matter what time it was I’d come back.”

Wilbur scoffed. “You didn’t mean it though.”

“I did,” Phil argued. “Of course I meant it. If you were in trouble-”

“What, you would’ve driven thirty hours straight to come get us? You would’ve bought a plane ticket with money you didn’t have?” Wilbur shook his head. “The kind of help we’d need from you wasn’t the kind we could wait around for. So calling you was pointless.”

Phil considered this, and the air between them felt heavy.

“...did you ever need me like that? But you didn’t bother to call because I was too far away?”

Wilbur squeezed his eyes shut, the roots twisting once again. “Yes. But we-” he hesitated. “We were okay.”

We were okay. We handled it. We didn’t know what else to do. We were panicking. We needed you-

“Sometimes I wonder if things would’ve turned out differently if I hadn’t left,” Phil admitted, his voice low. “Maybe Dad would still be around. That would suck, but at least we’d know where he was.” His eyes flickered towards Wilbur. “Maybe you wouldn’t have left.”

Phil didn’t have the slightest clue how right he was. And while Wilbur didn’t want to say anything, the bitterness bubbling up his throat was too strong to ignore.

“You’re right. I don’t think I would’ve left,” Wilbur said, avoiding Phil’s eyes. “I learned to run away from you after all.”

The words were sharp. Biting. Phil stiffened as soon as they left Wilbur’s mouth, and suddenly the somber air between them turned into something that almost… festered.

“What do you mean by that?” Phil asked.

Wilbur shrugged. “You said it yourself. You left us. Then you act so surprised when I get up and leave too.”

“That’s not fucking fair, Wilbur. I was going to school, and I did my best to keep in contact with the both of you-”

“But you still left,” Wilbur cut him off. “You left us here on our own.”

“You left for eight years,” Phil pointed out.

“After Dad was gone, when I knew you would be taking care of Tommy,” Wilbur shot back. “And let’s not lie to ourselves. You only came back in the first place because Dad went missing.”

“I wanted to graduate and start working so I could get a place of my own and take custody of both of you.”

“Bullshit,” Wilbur snapped. “You abandoned us here with him and you fucking know it.”

“Wilbur-”

“I was thirteen!” Wilbur exclaimed, his voice cracking. “I was thirteen, and you left me alone with him and a five year old!”

“So was I!” Phil suddenly snapped back, making Wilbur flinch. “Mum fucked off when I was thirteen, leaving me to deal with Dad, an eight year old, and a newborn! Do you think that was any fucking easier?”

“Phil-”

“No Wilbur, you had your say, now it’s my turn,” Phil said, glaring at him. “I did the goddamn best I could to try and keep you and Tommy safe when we were growing up. But I was a kid too, and I wanted to get out.”

“So you abandoned us,” Wilbur said, although his words lacked the bite they had just a few moments ago.

Phil tensed and pushed to his feet. “Fine. I did. And I wish I’d done things differently, but I was a kid who didn’t know any better and I was doing the best I could. If you want to hate me for that, fucking go for it,” he told Wilbur as he began to walk towards the door.

“I just don’t think it’s fair to blame me when the reason I’m like this is because of you,” Wilbur shot back.

Freezing midstep, Phil looked back over his shoulder at Wilbur and frowned.

“I may have fucked up raising you, Wilbur, but you didn’t exactly make it easy on me,” he said, his brows furrowed. “And at least I remembered to call.”

With that, Phil slammed the bedroom door shut behind him, leaving Wilbur alone once again.

The headache behind his eyes was still throbbing. Nausea was still crawling up his throat. His chest ached.

He stayed on his bed, staring at the ceiling in silence. Maybe he owed Phil an apology, but he couldn’t bring himself to get to his feet. Bitterness formed a tight ball in the center of his chest, making the roots twist tighter and tighter as the minutes ticked on.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he forced himself to take a deep breath to try and calm his raw nerves. When he opened them again though, he nearly fell off his bed.

“Fuck!” He yelped, eyes going wide at the shadowy figure standing in the corner of his room.

The silhouette was silent as it watched him. Wilbur was frozen in place, blood rushing in his ears as he tried to make out any details of the figure itself. But even in the light of his nightstand lamp, the figure was little more than a blurred shadow. Something Wilbur’s eyes kept trying to slide right over, forcing him to put effort into staring directly at it.

“Why are you here?” Wilbur whispered.

The figure silently continued to watch him.

“If you’re going to do something to me, just do it,” Wilbur then snapped, sitting up straighter on his bed. “Strangle me again. Try to kill me. Don’t just fucking stand there!”

The figure cocked its head to the side, like a predator observing its prey. Wilbur’s breathing hitched.

Then,

“Wil, can I come in?”

Tommy.

Wilbur was still locked in a staring contest with the figure. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Tommy couldn’t come in. Not with this thing here.

“Uh-” Before Wilbur could choke out a response, the door was swinging open anyway. Then, in a flash the figure darted for the door—darted for Tommy—and ice cold terror washed over Wilbur as he shouted, “NO!”

And then, the figure disappeared.

Tommy froze, one foot through the doorway as he gave Wilbur a wide-eyed look. “Um, bad time?”

Wilbur blinked, eyes darting around in search of the shadowy figure. But none of the shadows in his room were moving now. There was no strange silhouette. Whatever had been watching him was gone for now.

“Shit, sorry,” Wilbur breathed, heart still pounding in his ears as he slumped back on his bed.

Concern flashed over Tommy’s face as he stepped fully into the room. “Are you okay? You look like you just about shit yourself.”

Wilbur took a moment before responding. He dragged his hands down his face, taking a few breaths to try and calm his racing heart as he debated what to tell Tommy. He could lie and say he saw a spider. That was the reasonable thing to do in a situation like this, because he doubted Tommy would react well to Wilbur saying he just saw a person that wasn’t actually there.

But at the same time, this was Tommy. The only other person who might understand what Wilbur was going through.

“Do you ever think you’re being haunted?” Wilbur whispered between his fingers.

Tommy walked over to the bed, his frown fading to something more somber as he took in Wilbur’s pale face and shaking hands. “Yeah. Used to happen when I was younger. Thought I was seeing someone out of the corner of my eye and shit, but whenever I looked over they’d disappear.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “I think it was just, y’know, stress and shit. From… the whole thing.”

Stress. Yeah, that could’ve been it. Even if the figure felt real, even if Wilbur was convinced it was watching him nearly all hours of the day, even if it had choked him last night—no, it was stress. Just from being back here after so long. Memories and all that.

“Yeah, probably,” Wilbur breathed out, sounding far surer than he actually felt. After another beat, he forced himself to sit up again, and gestured for Tommy to sit on the bed beside him.

Tommy considered the spot next to Wilbur for a moment, like he was debating turning around and leaving Wilbur’s room. But then he sighed and sat down, and just like Phil, he made sure to leave space between them.

“Uh, so,” Tommy began, twisting his fingers together in his lap. “Speaking of haunting shit and whatever, remember the other night when you asked me if I still had nightmares?”

Wilbur nodded. “You said you didn’t remember your dreams.”

“I don’t,” Tommy confirmed. “But that wasn’t, like, all of it. I don’t remember my dreams, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have them.”

“So you do have nightmares?” Wilbur asked, keeping his voice low.

Blinking fast, Tommy nodded. “They used to happen a lot more when I was younger, but now it’s only every once a while.” He wrapped his arms around himself. “It sucks though. I can’t even remember what the nightmares are about. I just wake up smelling fucking gunpowder with my hands shaking so badly I can’t even turn on my lamp.”

And there it was again. The roots forcing the air out of his lungs.

“That sucks,” Wilbur offered for lack of anything else to say.

Tommy snorted. “Yeah, no shit.” His smile faded almost as quickly as it came. “I just… I dunno. I wanted to tell you that.”

Wilbur thought about how Phil said Tommy’s nightmares stopped a few years ago. Clearly, they never did. Tommy just got better at hiding them.

“Look, you can say no if you want but-” Wilbur hesitated, dropping his eyes to his lap. “If you wanna sleep in here tonight I- I don’t mind. I know I haven’t been sleeping super well since I got here.”

Tommy’s eyes widened for a moment, before he glanced down at Wilbur’s bed and huffed. “I’m not eight years old anymore, Wil. I don’t think we can both fit in this tiny ass bed of yours.”

Despite the fact that Tommy’s point made sense, Wilbur could hear the disappointment under his words.

“Then we go to Plan B,” Wilbur said, pushing to his feet and gesturing for Tommy to do the same.

“Plan B?” Tommy questioned.

Reaching down, Wilbur grabbed the edge of his blanket and yanked it off the bed in one fell swoop. He let it fall to the ground, and bent down to spread it out across the wood before he reached for his pillows and let them fall too.

“There’s plenty of room on the floor,” Wilbur told Tommy, flashing him a small smile.

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that gonna kill your old man back?”

“Excuse me! I’m twenty-six, not ninety!” Wilbur exclaimed in mock offense.

“Am I wrong though?” Tommy challenged, smirking now.

Wilbur scowled, but couldn’t argue because Tommy was right. He was already experiencing old man back pain, and sleeping on the floor certainly wouldn’t help.

He didn’t care though. Because Tommy told him he was having nightmares, and Wilbur was seeing a strange figure in his room every time he was alone, so for tonight he wanted to pretend they were kids again. That he’d never failed Tommy before. That they were in this together no matter what.

“Go grab some extra blankets,” Wilbur said instead of answering.

Tommy’s smirk turned into a genuine smile as he nodded and rushed out of the room.

A few minutes later, the two were laying on Wilbur’s floor, wrapped up in Tommy’s comforter as the wood dug uncomfortably into Wilbur’s back. The lamp had been shut off, and there was barely any moonlight filtering in because of the new moon outside his window.

Wilbur stared at the wood on the ceiling, listening to Tommy’s soft breathing beside him.

A minute of silence ticked by. Then another. Wilbur wondered if Tommy had fallen asleep when,

“I used to come in here to sleep,” Tommy confessed in a low whisper. “The first few years after you left. If I had a nightmare I’d come in here. Because even though you were gone, it just… helped, I guess. Being around your stuff again.”

It took all of Wilbur’s willpower not to flinch at that.

“I should’ve been here,” he said.

“Yeah,” Tommy agreed, rolling onto his side facing away from Wilbur. “Maybe.”

Another silence fell between them. Wilbur listened as Tommy’s breathing began to slow. It didn’t take long for Wilbur to be sure he was asleep.

Like clockwork, as soon as Tommy was asleep, Wilbur felt the eyes on him again. He knew that if he looked to his right, he’d see the figure standing in the corner of the room again. It was waiting. It wanted him to fall asleep too.

It didn’t matter though. Wilbur was here now, so if that thing wanted to do something to Tommy, it would have to go through him.

🜂🜃

Once again, Wilbur didn’t remember falling asleep. But he remembered waking up.

He jolted awake as a cool breeze washed over him. His eyes fluttered open, and for a moment he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Because he wasn’t staring at the wooden beams of his ceiling.

No, he was staring at the corn.

Wilbur stumbled back, dirt crunching under his socks. He blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, his heart pounding as he slowly realized where he was.

The stars were brighter than ever, twinkling around the new moon against the black canvas of night. Corn swayed stiffly in the breeze that blew through the plains, the sound of dry leaves rubbing against each other grating Wilbur’s ears.

He was outside.

Looking over his shoulder, Wilbur saw the porchlight to his house was still on, while the rest of it was dark. Tommy and Phil were still sleeping inside. Wilbur was out here.

Somehow, Wilbur sleepwalked all the way to the edge of the cornfield.

Another breeze blew through the field, stronger than the first. The corn began to rustle. The hair on the back of Wilbur’s neck stood straight up.

It was there. The figure was there, standing in the shadows twisting between the corn.

He stared at Wilbur, and Wilbur stared back.

But unlike all those other encounters, Wilbur wasn’t frozen this time. Despite the blood rushing in his ears and the fear seizing every cell in his body, Wilbur knew he could move if he needed to. He could turn around and run back to the house. That’s what he should’ve done. That’s what any normal person would’ve done in a situation like this.

Wilbur was tired of running though.

“What do you want from me?” Wilbur asked, taking a step into the cornfield.

Soft dirt crumbled under his socks. Dried leaves smacked at his face, and Wilbur pushed them aside as he tried to move towards the dark figure. But with every step he got closer to him, the figure moved further back.

“Why won’t you leave me alone?” Wilbur continued, the corn stalks rustling around the figure as he twisted between them.

The figure didn’t respond, but instead began to move faster. Wilbur picked up his pace so he wouldn’t lose him. “Don’t you dare run away from me!”

Shadows wrapped around the corn stalks, pushing them down and in front of Wilbur’s eyes as he moved deeper into the field. The figure continued to speed up, and Wilbur realized the only thing more terrifying than being in the field with this thing right in front of him was being in the field with this thing and not knowing where it was.

“Hey! Where are you going?!” Wilbur called out, running now to keep up with the figure.

His chest was heaving. The roots were twisting over his lungs again and again, making each new step harder than the last. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. His cheeks stung from all the places where the dried leaves scraped across his skin. Damp earth clung uncomfortably to the bottoms of his socks.

The figure was getting smaller in the distance. But Wilbur kept going.

And going.

And going.

Until, the figure stopped dead in his tracks, and turned around to face Wilbur once again.

There was nothing distinctive about the place he stopped. No marker. No empty patch of dirt where the corn didn’t grow. The stalks were spread out in their neat rows, a few bent over here and there but mostly upright all the same.

There was no reason for Wilbur to recognize this place. But as he stared at the patch of dirt where the shadowy figure was standing, he knew.

“No, I-” Wilbur’s breathing hitched as he stumbled back, the adrenaline that kept him going during the chase disappearing into thin air. “I told myself it wasn’t you. I refused to think that it was you but- but-”

The figure watched him. And what Wilbur had known deep down since he first started seeing the figure in the corn spilled out of him.

“I guess you always wanted the last laugh, huh, Dad?”

Wilbur’s voice broke halfway through. His eyes flickered down to the patch of dirt the silhouette of his father stood on, and his stomach twisted.

“Why are you back?” Wilbur asked, trying to sound braver than he felt but failing all the same. “Are you trying to get revenge? Is that what this is? I came back so you decided to come back too?”

The figure still didn’t respond. Despite the fact that every detail of his face was shrouded in darkness, Wilbur swore he could make out a pair of white pinpricks where his eyes should’ve been.

“Or have you been here the whole time?” Wilbur continued, his heart slamming against his ribcage. “Are you the reason Tommy still has nightmares?”

At this, the figure cocked its head to the side. Then in the distance, Wilbur heard a voice shout,

“Wilbur! Where the fuck are you?!”

Wilbur’s blood ran cold. Even though he couldn’t see the figure’s face, he could feel his raised eyebrows.

“No- No, you’re not going to fucking touch him!” Wilbur exclaimed, taking a step towards the figure again.

The corn began to rustle again, and Wilbur knew that Tommy had run into the field to look for him. The figure stepped off the unmarked grave he stood on, and Wilbur tensed.

The two stared each other down. A silent standoff.

Then, Wilbur turned on his heel and bolted.

“Tommy!” He shouted, sprinting through the corn as he heard footsteps pound behind him. “Tommy, don’t come in the field! Stay outside!”

“Wilbur?” Tommy exclaimed, and Wilbur jumped realizing he was much closer than he thought. “Wilbur, where are you?!”

The footsteps behind him were getting louder. Wilbur ran blindly through the corn, desperate to find Tommy before he did.

He called out Tommy’s name a few more times, and Tommy called back like it was the world’s most fucked up game of Marco Polo. His arms and face were littered with scratches from the corn stalks now, but Wilbur didn’t care. He could still see the shadow twisting towards him. Trying to find Tommy first. Trying to hurt Tommy again.

Suddenly, the corn parted, and Wilbur ran right into his little brother.

“Fuck!” Tommy exclaimed as Wilbur slammed into him. “What the shit, man?! You could’ve broken my nose!”

Wilbur stumbled, grabbing Tommy by the shoulders and shoving him behind his back as his eyes darted around, searching for any sign of the figure.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Wilbur said, his breath coming in short gasps. “It’s- It’s dangerous.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re the one who’s running around a cornfield at one in the goddamn morning!” Tommy argued, trying to shove Wilbur’s hands off of him.

Wilbur shook his head as everything inside of him screamed to get Tommy out. “You need to go back to the house. Go inside, lock the doors, and- and wake Phil up.”

“Wilbur, what the fuck are you talking about? Why are you out here? What’s not-” Tommy cut himself off mid sentence, spotting it the same time as Wilbur.

The figure was standing only a few feet away from them. Shadows warped around him, the corn looking as though it was almost being pulled towards his silhouette. Panic clawed at Wilbur’s insides as he shoved Tommy further behind him. The figure cocked its head to the side again.

“No, no that’s- this isn’t real. I’m dreaming. I have to be,” Tommy stammered, no longer trying to push Wilbur away.

“I don’t think we are,” Wilbur whispered, digging his fingers into Tommy’s arms.

“No, you don’t understand, this has to be a dream,” Tommy pushed. “Because that- that thing only shows up in my nightmares.”

Wilbur froze. “I thought you said you didn’t remember your nightmares?”

“I didn’t either until that thing fucking jogged my memory!” Tommy exclaimed, pressing himself against Wilbur’s back.

So Wilbur was right. Dad wanted his revenge on both of them.

“Tommy, you’re not dreaming,” Wilbur told him, stumbling a bit when the figure took another step towards them.

Tommy tensed. “Then what is it?!”

Forcing more air into his lungs, Wilbur stared right where the thing's eyes should’ve been as he said, “I think it’s Dad.”

Sucking in a sharp breath, Tommy froze as he stared at the silhouette over Wilbur’s shoulder. The thing stared back, seeming to enjoy the back and forth game it was playing with the brothers.

One beat passed. Then another.

Wilbur reached for Tommy’s hand to grab in his own. But it was then he realized Tommy’s hands weren’t empty.

He turned around to give Tommy a wide-eyed look. “What-”

“Don’t!” Tommy shouted, yanking the gun away from Wilbur before looking back at the silhouette again. Before Wilbur could react, he was lifting the gun and pointing it right at the figure. “Don’t fucking- don’t touch me! Don’t come near me!”

Wilbur knew Tommy wasn’t talking to him. Even still, he kept his hands in front of him as he took a careful step towards his brother.

“Tommy, where did you get that?” Wilbur whispered, although he had a feeling he already knew the answer.

Tommy gulped, his eyes flickering to Wilbur for the briefest of seconds.

“Same place you got it last time,” Tommy whispered back, his hands trembling as he kept the gun aimed at the ghost.

Wilbur couldn’t help but flinch at that.

“Tommy! No!”

Wilbur’s voice echoed out too late. He watched his little brother sprint out of the house, followed by his father’s bellow of rage.

“Don’t you run away from me!” He shouted, running after Tommy as he disappeared into the corn.

Fuck. This was bad. This was really bad. Dad was angrier than he had ever seen him. Even though Wilbur tried to take the blame, Tommy was fed up. In all his eight year old bluster, he called their father every curse word he could think of, topped off with calling him a bully. And that alone would’ve been enough to fill Wilbur’s night with comforting Tommy as best he could in the aftermath, but now Tommy was running. He was running and so was Dad.

Ever since Phil left three years earlier, things had been getting worse. Slowly but steadily, their father’s temper grew shorter by the day. The liquor cabinet opened earlier. The eggshells he and Tommy were always walking on were weaker than ever before.

Wilbur felt rooted to the ground as he watched his father race outside after Tommy. He had to do something. Anything. If Dad caught Tommy now Wilbur didn’t know how far he would take things.

Through the cracked front door, Wilbur heard his father shout Tommy’s name again. The rage in his voice was enough to feel like a slap across the face, and it wasn’t even directed at him for once.

At that moment Wilbur knew one thing and one thing only: his father very well could kill Tommy tonight.

“Tommy-”

“No! I’m not letting him do this again!” Tommy shouted, his hands still shaking.

The figure continued to watch them. And watch. And watch.

Then, it took another step towards them. Tommy flinched, and the memory of screams echoed in Wilbur’s ears as he lunged.

He expected Tommy to panic. He expected Tommy to pull back.

Instead, Tommy didn’t resist as Wilbur wrenched the gun from his hands. He just continued to stare at the figure, and the figure stared at him.

The gun was heavier than Wilbur remembered it being.

It was an old thing—a pistol his father had gotten before even Phil was born. Despite its age though, Wilbur knew it was in perfect working condition. It hadn’t even been a month since he took Tommy out to the backyard and taught him to shoot just like Phil did for him several years prior.

His hands trembled violently as he slotted the shots into the revolver. Through the window he saw Tommy dart into the sea of corn, with his father quickly following.

As soon as the gun was loaded, Wilbur sprinted out of the house after them. He could still hear his father’s angry shouts. But it wasn’t till he reached the spot where the two had run into the cornfield that he heard the first of Tommy’s screams.

This time, his fear didn’t root him to the ground. It spurred him forward. It made his head spin as he sprinted into the corn, the ice cold metal of the gun digging into his palms.

He couldn’t let his father hurt Tommy.

He wouldn’t.

Wilbur couldn’t breathe as he swung the gun at the silhouette. Stars danced in his vision as he took a step towards it, and then another.

And to his surprise, the figure mirrored him.

It took a step back. Again and again and again. The closer Wilbur got, the further back it moved. Like the thing was afraid of him. Afraid of the protective thing curling around Wilbur’s chest, screaming at him that he couldn’t let this happen again. He wouldn’t fail Tommy again.

Wilbur broke into a sprint, and the figure did too.

Corn whipped at Wilbur’s cheeks as he ran deeper and deeper into the field. Tommy’s cries for help echoed in his ears, and he pushed himself to run as fast as he could. His shoes pounded against the dirt. His lungs burned in his chest.

Suddenly, there was a shrill scream. Wilbur’s blood ran cold, and he stumbled over his own feet.

“LET GO OF ME!” Tommy shouted somewhere ahead of him.

Tightening his grip on the gun, Wilbur ran even faster than before. The corn was an endless sea of dark brown earth and bright golden leaves. Everywhere he looked, he felt like he’d been there already. Wilbur searched for any sign of movement. Any sign of life besides the voices echoing over his head.

And then, all at once, he found them.

Wilbur raced through the corn as fast as he could, memories flashing behind his eyes as he fought to keep up with the figure for the second time that night. He could hear Tommy yelling something behind him, but ignored the words in favor of focusing on keeping his pace.

“Stop running!” Wilbur shouted at the silhouette as it continued to flee from him. “Actually face me you fucking coward!”

His father was holding Tommy by the hair, cursing and shouting as tears streaked down Tommy’s face. There was a large red mark on his cheek in the shape of a hand, and Wilbur could already tell it was going to bruise.

Neither one of them noticed Wilbur as he stumbled to a stop. Dad was too busy yelling at Tommy for running away from him, and Tommy was crying too much to open his eyes.

Suddenly though, Tommy reached up and tried to slap Dad’s hand to get him to let go of his hair. When that didn’t work, Tommy’s eyes shot open, and Wilbur’s entire body flinched as he watched his eight year old brother slap their father across the face.

For a few breathless moments, nothing happened. Dad didn’t react. Tommy stared at him, frozen in place, like he wasn’t sure what he just did.

As soon as his father’s hand reached up to wrap around Tommy’s throat though, Wilbur was lifting the gun.

“Let go of him, Dad.”

Wilbur chased the silhouette between the stalks of corn, Tommy’s footsteps echoing just a few steps behind his own. They ran and ran and ran. Wilbur felt like his chest was one fire. The roots kept pulling his feet to the ground only for him to rip them out again. He had to keep going. He had to destroy this thing before it hurt Tommy again.

Two brothers chased the shadow deeper and deeper into the field.

Then, the figure stopped again, and Wilbur realized he was right back where he’d been before. The unmarked spot he could recognize blindfolded.

The figure stood over his grave, and Wilbur pointed the gun at him once more.

“Are you pulling a gun on me?”

Wilbur’s entire body trembled as he met his father’s eyes, but he refused to lower the gun. Instead, he reached up to click the safety off, and his father’s eyebrows shot up.

One second passed, and it felt like an eternity.

Then another eternity passed. And another.

Finally, Dad let go of Tommy. He fell to his knees, tears still streaming down his face as he looked between Wilbur and their father.

Wilbur’s father took a step towards him.

Footsteps echoed behind him. Wilbur jumped, but realized it was only Tommy as he came to stand beside him. He kept the gun pointed at the figure, stepping closer to Tommy’s side so their shoulders were brushing.

“I- I should do it, right?” Wilbur asked, his voice shaking almost as badly as his hands.

“Would it do anything?” Tommy pointed out, sounding equally as freaked out. “Like- it’s a fucking ghost, right?”

Wilbur squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, before opening them again. He forced another breath through his lungs, and felt the roots taking hold around his chest once again.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I don’t know anymore.”

The figure cocked its head again. Wilbur’s finger twitched over the trigger.

Then suddenly-

It turned to smoke.

“What the fuck?!” Tommy yelped.

The figure was gone, a cloud of smoke and shadows left in its place. Wilbur watched as it moved further back into the corn, snaking between the stalks and spreading out more and more like a dense fog.

One tendril reached out along the ground towards Tommy’s ankle.

No no no-

“Don’t touch him!” Wilbur shouted at the fog, wrapping his arm around Tommy’s shoulders and pulling him into his side.

His father began to walk towards him. At first, his gait was slow. Steady. Then his steps picked up. His face twisted with rage.

Wilbur still had the gun pointed at him.

He needed to shoot. It played on loop in his head, a constant voice screaming at him ‘pull the trigger pull the trigger PULL THE TRIGGER-’

He couldn’t breathe. The invisible roots had traveled up his legs and were around his chest now, constricting his lungs as he watched his father get closer and closer.

This was it. This was the moment. If he didn’t shoot now, it wouldn’t only be Tommy who probably wouldn’t see tomorrow. It would be both of them.

He had to protect Tommy. Phil told him to protect Tommy. That’s why he grabbed the gun—to protect his little brother.

His father stood right in front of the barrel. Waiting for him. Watching him.

Tears blurred Wilbur’s vision. His finger wouldn’t move.

Grabbing the gun by the barrel, his father wrenched it out of his hands and tossed it behind him. Wilbur could only stare in shock, distantly wondering why he’d let that happen. But before he could think about it for too long, there was a hand wrapping around his throat.

Wilbur couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move.

It was just like that day. The tendrils on the ground were reaching for him and Tommy, and Wilbur couldn’t do anything to stop them. The gun was cold in his hands. His finger hovered over the trigger, but no matter how many times he tried, it wouldn’t push down.

His shallow breathing got faster. The roots were truly suffocating him now.

The same words he told himself that day repeated in his mind. He had to protect Tommy. He couldn’t let him get hurt again.

But the darkness got closer. His finger still wouldn’t move.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it-

Wilbur couldn’t breathe, but it wasn’t because of invisible roots this time.

His father’s hands were wrapped around his throat. Writhing under his grip, he tried to grab at the hands, but his father was too strong. He gasped but no air made it to his lungs.

He gasped again. And again. And again. Trying to get air.

His father was saying something but he couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t hear anything anymore. Not above the sounds of his own desperate gasps for air. Everything else had gone muffled.

Dark spots clustered over his vision. His father’s face blurred above him. He coughed and tried to kick out, but the hands squeezed harder, and pain blossomed around his neck.

“Wilbur? Wilbur, can you hear me?!”

Tommy’s hands were on his shoulders. Wilbur was gasping for air, but it felt like none of it was getting to his lungs. He still couldn’t do it. After all this time, he still couldn’t protect Tommy like he was supposed to. He couldn’t even protect himself.

This was how he was going to die. It was getting harder to struggle as the blackness over his vision spread. His father’s face became a mess of vague shapes.

He choked out another weak cough. One last attempt at a gasp.

The gun in his hand fell to the ground, silent and unused.

Wilbur collapsed to his knees, the tears in his eyes making it impossible to make out Tommy’s face in the darkness.

“I can’t do it, Tommy,” Wilbur whispered, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry.”

There was the deafening sound of a gunshot. Something warm splattered across Wilbur’s face.

The hands around his neck went slack. Then, his father collapsed.

Wilbur gasped for air, his neck aching as the dark spots cleared from his eyes. He took a few breaths, struggling to understand what just happened.

He pushed his father off of him, grunting under his weight. Once he sat up, he blinked a few times, noticing the dark red liquid coating the entire front of his sweater. Bringing a hand up to his face, he wiped off some of the wet stuff on his cheek, and noticed it was more of the same red liquid.

“What the fuck are you sorry for, Wilbur? For not shooting at smoke?” Tommy asked, kneeling in front of him.

Then, he looked down at his father.

Something in his mind screeched to a halt the second he saw the hole blown through his father’s face. Blood and viscera dripped down the place where his nose had once been, and onto the dark earth beneath his head.

Slowly, Wilbur lifted his head, and found himself meeting a pair of terrified blue eyes.

The gun in Tommy’s hands still had smoke curling from the barrel.

“For not being able to protect you,” Wilbur gasped out, forgetting entirely about the dark shadows as he met those same, terrified eyes. “I should’ve been the one to kill him. I had the gun pointed at him and I just- I couldn’t do it.”

His head was still spinning. He still couldn’t breathe. But the roots around his chest were starting to loosen their grip.

“What?” Tommy asked, frowning now. “You would’ve fucking died if I hadn’t shot that bastard!”

“But you shouldn’t have had to shoot him! I should’ve done it!” Wilbur exclaimed. “I’m the older brother! I’m the one who was supposed to protect you and- and I couldn’t even fucking do that right!” He took another shaky breath. “I’m a fucking coward, Tommy, don’t you get it? I was too scared to shoot Dad so my goddamn eight year old brother had to do it to save me. Then I was too much of a coward to live with that, so I left as soon as I could. I failed you over and over again when you needed me and just-” He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until colors burst behind his eyelids. “I’m so fucking sorry you got stuck with me.”

The words spilled out of him like a dam had broken. The twisting roots of his own guilt wrapped around his legs and circled his chest over and over again. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered anymore. It was out there, the words floating through the stalks of corn just like the smoke settling along the ground. Thousands of ears surrounding them, but only one person who could actually hear him.

“That’s why you left?” Was the first thing Tommy asked after a minute of silence. “Because you felt guilty?”

Clenching his jaw, Wilbur nodded. Tommy narrowed his eyes.

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Tommy huffed. “You’re so goddamn stupid I- I can’t fucking believe you. You left me for eight years over something I didn’t even give a shit about?”

Wilbur stiffened. “You- what?”

At this, Tommy scoffed. “I shot Dad because he was going to kill you, but I have no clue how I did it. I don’t even remember pulling the trigger. I just remember opening my eyes and seeing Dad’s blood all over your face.” He winced at that, taking a breath to steady himself before continuing. “I don’t blame you for it though. Yeah, I have nightmares. Yeah, sometimes I think to myself, ‘I killed my own dad, that’s fucked up.’ But I never thought to myself, ‘wow, Wilbur should’ve manned up and shot Dad himself instead of making me do it.’”

“But I had the gun pointed right at him. I had the shot and I just couldn’t-”

“You couldn’t take it, and that’s it. One of us was going to shoot Dad that day, and it ended up being me. And yeah, it probably fucked me up, but you wanna know what fucked me up worse?” Tommy asked, raising an eyebrow. “Not being able to talk about it with anyone. Ever. Because the only person on the entire planet who knew what happened decided to ignore me for the next two years, until he moved out and never spoke to me again.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Wilbur lowered his head. “I… I’m sorry, Tommy.”

A beat passed. Then, Tommy was pulling him into a borderline painful hug.

“You should be,” Tommy said, his face buried in Wilbur’s shoulder. “I’ve missed you so much, asshole.”

Wrapping his arms around Tommy’s shoulders and pulling him close, Wilbur felt the roots wither away as he took his first full breath all night. “I’ve missed you too. Fuck, I’ve missed you so much.”

The two stayed like that for several minutes. Crouched beside the makeshift grave they’d given their father when they were children as they hugged for the first time in nearly a decade.

Wilbur’s breathing slowed. The roots disappeared completely. And when he finally looked up from the hug, he noticed something else had disappeared as well.

“Tommy,” Wilbur whispered, “is it just me, or did the weird shadows that might’ve been Dad’s ghost disappear?”

Lifting his head from Wilbur’s shoulder, Tommy narrowed his eyes as he glanced at the ground. Then, he snapped his head up at the corn surrounding them, searching for any sign of the figure that had been following them before.

Both their eyes fell on their father’s grave. The figure wasn’t standing above it anymore. In fact, the figure was nowhere to be seen.

It wasn’t chasing them. There were no tendrils reaching for them. Nothing was watching them anymore.

“Do you really think it’s gone?” Tommy whispered, sounding so child-like in that moment it made Wilbur’s heart seize.

“I don’t know,” Wilbur confessed, glancing around until he spotted the gun he’d dropped a few minutes before. “But I think I know how to make sure it doesn’t come back.”

They made sure to dig a few feet away from their father’s grave so they wouldn’t come across his bones. But it had to be close. It only felt right that way.

After taking out the bullets, Tommy placed the revolver in the hole they dug. Both Wilbur and Tommy took a moment to stare at it, before Tommy nodded once and began to cover it up.

The dirt caked under Wilbur’s nails was familiar to him for all the wrong reasons. But the hole was dug. The gun was buried.

Wilbur got to his feet, and held a hand out to help Tommy up as well. The two began to make their way out of the cornfield, except Wilbur couldn’t shake the lingering sense of wrongness that still wouldn’t go away. Like there was one last thing they needed to do to put their minds at ease.

Corn leaves rustled against one another, sounding eerily reminiscent of voices whispering to one another. This was the corn that had hidden their father’s body for years. The corn that had always watched Wilbur from the windows. The corn that had too many shadows twisting through it to be normal.

They reached the edge of the cornfield and looked at the house they grew up in. Then, Tommy dug into his pocket, and pulled out a lighter.

He raised an eyebrow at Wilbur. “Yeah?”

“The guys Phil rents this field out to will be pissed, but yeah. Do it.”

Tommy nodded, flicking the lighter on and holding it up to one of the corn stalks. With how dry the corn was, the flame caught in seconds. Tommy then moved the lighter over to the next corn stalk, and the next one, and the next.

He stopped at the fourth corn stalk, because the blaze was already spreading. The smell of smoke filled the air as heat washed over Wilbur’s face. The orange blaze reflected in the windows of their house, dancing like it was something alive.

The flames grew and grew. Once Wilbur was sure the whole field was going to burn, he took out his phone to call the fire department. Then, as soon as he hung up, he heard the front door slam open behind them.

“What the- FUCK!” Phil shouted, rubbing sleeping out of his eyes as he stumbled towards the two of them. “Wil, Tommy, we need to-”

“It’s okay, Phil,” Wilbur reassured him, showing him his phone. “I already called. The fire department’s on their way.”

Phil blinked a few times, clearly still half-asleep as he glanced between Wilbur and Tommy and the ocean of flame taking over their field. “Did… Did you two just get out here?”

The two shared a look.

“I think I was sleepwalking because I just woke up out here,” Wilbur said after a beat.

“I woke up to take a piss and noticed Wil walking around outside in the middle of the night like a fucking moron,” Tommy jumped in. “Ran down here to ask him what he was doing, but then we noticed the fire.”

Frowning at that, Phil glanced between them and the flames again. “Since when do you sleepwalk, Wil?”

Wilbur shrugged. “It’s a recent thing.”

Phil considered this for a moment. Then, there was a loud pop! from one of the flames, and all three of them jumped back.

“Motherfucker!” Phil yelped. Then, he grabbed Wilbur and Tommy’s arms, dragging them back towards the porch so they were a safer distance from the fire. “Are you guys sure-”

Before either of them could answer, there was the sound of tires screeching, and Wilbur looked up to see an unfamiliar car speeding into their driveway. He tensed, pushing Tommy behind him as he silently wondered if burying the gun was a good idea, when the driver’s door was thrown open and a familiar face popped out.

“What the HELL are you all just standing there for? Did you not notice your corn’s on fire?!” Quackity asked, flinching at the heat.

“No no, Q, it’s fine,” Wilbur reassured him, already rushing over to his car. “I called the fire department. They’re on their way.”

There was another loud POP!, and Quackity jumped back. “Fucking Christ! I was just driving back from the bar when I noticed some of the corn was on fire, and I thought to myself, ‘huh that sucks’ but then I realized it was your corn!”

Despite the emotional rollercoaster he’d been on that night, Wilbur couldn't help but snort at this. “Awww, you were worried about me?”

Quackity gave him a flat stare. “Not the time. There’s a giant fire raging behind you right now.”

“I think I got that bit,” Wilbur deadpanned, folding his arms over his chest. After a moment though, his face softened. “I appreciate the concern though. We’re fine.”

“Good. Would hate for you to come back to town only to be burnt to a crisp the next day,” Quackity joked, although his voice was still tight as the smell of smoke grew thicker in the air. He looked back at Wilbur, eyes flickering up and down as he took in his pajamas and the dirt smeared across his cheek.

Lowering his voice, Quackity then asked, “You’re okay though?”

Wilbur knew he wasn’t just talking about the fire.

“Yeah,” Wilbur said, giving him a pained smile. “Not great but- I’m doing better.”

Quackity nodded, understanding flashing through his eyes. “I’m glad. Though when you stop by the bar again, I’m not giving you any free drinks after last time.”

“I think that’s fair,” Wilbur chuckled. “Guess I’ll just be there for your company then.”

“Just like high school?” Quackity asked, raising an eyebrow.

Smile fading, Wilbur glanced back over his shoulder at Phil and Tommy. Then, he turned back to Quackity and shook his head.

“Nah, not like high school,” he said.

Too much had changed since then. Wilbur wasn’t the same fifteen year old who asked Quackity to help him figure out how to use concealer to hide his bruises. Wilbur wasn’t the same sixteen year old he was when he helped his eight year old brother bury their father. Wilbur wasn’t the same eighteen year old who ran away the day after his graduation.

He wasn’t the same, and he was relieved about that.

🜂🜃

Later that night, after Quackity left and the firemen had gone, the corn was nothing but ash. The smell of smoke hung heavily in the air. It permeated every inch of their house. Every pillow cushion and every blanket. It sent Wilbur into coughing fits, but he didn’t care. It was worth it to not feel the corn watching his every step. To know his father’s grave was buried under the charred remains of the corn he spent his life caring for.

Then, Wilbur and Tommy sat Phil down and said they had some things to tell him.

And Phil listened.