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There is someone standing in his doorway.
That’s not the unusual bit. Oftentimes there is someone standing in his doorway, nudging the door open with their foot and poking a head in. Sometimes it’s Phil, with the call for dinner. Sometimes it’s Techno, holding a sheet of paper and fluttering it in his face and asking for help with his maths. Not like Wilbur’s of any help– but it’s more fun to struggle together.
This time, the door creaks open. Wilbur’s lights are off, the laptop warm and heavy and bright on his stomach. The hall night light is on, backlighting the figure just enough to show their outline. Wilbur squints.
The figure just stands there.
“Can I help you?” He croaks after a moment, and goddamn, his mouth is dry. The clock on his laptop reads almost one in the morning, and yet the house is still pretty active. Phil’s just gone to bed, he knows, and Techno is definitely still up in the room next to his. Tommy’s the wildcard. Sometimes his youngest brother’s in bed at nine pm, sometimes he’s awake until five.
The figure says nothing.
“Stop bein’ a prick,” Wilbur groans, flopping his head back. “What do you want?”
Tommy had shot up last summer, following Wilbur and Techno in the “tall genes” department. Phil’s the shortest of them all now, and suffers the consequences. See: Techno moving all the cereal to the top shelf, or all three of them buying him a stool for Christmas. That had been a funny joke, and Phil’s laughter had practically brought the house down upon them from the force of it.
Regardless, the figure in his door is tall. So it’s either Tommy or Techno, and based on the tinny blare of music from next door, Techno is still curled up under his blankets.
So, Tommy then.
A suspiciously silent Tommy.
“Are you just going to stand there?” Wilbur asks, voice low in order to not wake Phil or bother Techno. “Being creepy and shit?”
“I am not being creepy,” says the figure, voice small and muffled and kind of clogged– oh.
“You are,” Wilbur insists, shuffling a bit to sit up against his mountain of pillows and headboard. Wilbur likes pillows. He sleeps with as many as he can find– Techno’s the opposite, with just two. Tommy’s somewhere in the middle. “It’s like someone’s broken in and is just waiting for me to notice so they can murder me.”
“I might murder you,” says Tommy’s outline, still standing in the doorway and only shifting slightly on his feet. Not moving to come in. “With my many knives. That I have many of. And stab people with.”
“Right,” Wilbur says, rolling his eyes, and then glances back at his screen. “So, mass murderer, what do you want?”
Tommy is silent. He just stands there.
“Come in or out,” Wilbur demands, voice a hushed but insistent whisper. “Stop standing there.”
“No,” Tommy says.
“Yes,” Wilbur insists.
“Nope,” Tommy says again, and there’s a shuffling noise as he shifts his weight, leans on the doorframe. “I’m staying here.”
“Now you’re just being a brat,” Wilbur informs him sagely, because he is right and Tommy is being a brat. He turns his nose up and focuses his gaze back on his laptop screen, on the bright light of the movie, and reaches to pop his other earbud back in.
A moment later: “What are you watching?” Tommy cuts in, louder than he probably should’ve been, and they both go silent for a moment and listen.
The house is still.
“ The Truman Show, ” Wilbur says. “We watched it in English once. I’m watching it again. It’s very poignant.”
“It’s pregnant?”
“No, you– oh for fuck’s sake, just come here.”
“But what does that mean,” Tommy insists, stepping over the threshold of Wilbur’s room, fucking finally, and creeps his way over the to the bed. “Poig-nant.”
“Poignant,” Wilbur corrects, shifting over on his bed. It’s a twin, and it’s long. Phil had to look for these types of bed and mattress specifically once they’d all shot up in height. It’s worth it, since now he doesn’t have to worry about his feet falling off the end and getting cold. Cold feet suck. “It means… it’s a feeling. It’s evoking a certain feeling, usually sadness. Thought-provoking.”
“So why can’t you just say that,” Tommy asks, scrunching up his nose as his face becomes visible in the light of the laptop. On the screen, Jim Carrey sits frozen, mouth half-open as he stares at another character. It looks quite funny.
“Because why use three times as many words when there’s one that fits fine?” Wilbur asks, sitting and waiting as Tommy pushes himself up into the bed and settles by Wilbur’s elbow. He’s all stick and bone, sharp edges and pointy corners, but he curls up next to Wilbur with his eyebrows scrunched together and just stares at the screen.
“Whozzat,” he asks flatly. Wilbur stares for a moment longer, taking in the slight red of Tommy’s eyes and the occasional sniffle, and then turns back to the screen of the laptop.
“Jim Carrey,” Wilbur explains. “He’s the main character. Here, I’ll rewind–”
“Nah,” Tommy says, shaking his head as Wilbur starts to shift his hand to the touchpad, gnawing on the inside of his cheek and settling his cheek against the pillow, staring at the paused screen. “Just give me an earbud.”
“Sure thing,” Wilbur acquiesces, and it takes a moment of maneuvering but sooner than later he’s got one earbud in and Tommy’s got the other and he hits the spacebar without any grandeur. The sounds of The Truman Show start up again, and Wilbur watches the screen, and Tommy out of the corners of his eyes.
His face is red, his nose even more so. His eyes look heavy– like maybe he’d just woken up and decided on impulse to slink over to Wilbur’s room. That makes sense. Wilbur had been fairly sure that Tommy had gone to bed earlier tonight. After a minute or two of silence and the sound of the movie, Wilbur shuffles around, kicking up the blanket and Tommy catching on, grabbing the corner to pull over himself. It’s just on the precipice of springtime, the night air still freezing enough to warrant three or four blankets, but the daytime getting warmer and warmer. It’s Wilbur’s favorite time of year, personally, when all the trees start to bud and green slowly creeps back into the world. The movie creeps steadily by in bright colors to match the coming spring, but Wilbur finds it unsettling. In a good way, as Truman starts to realize.
An eternity later, Tommy speaks up.
“This movie’s fucked,” he says quietly. “These people are all dicks for playin’ along.”
“That’s the point,” Wilbur contends, waving a hand out in front of them both. “It’s commentary on what our society deems acceptable, and how we all depend on the make-believe to–”
“Boring,” Tommy juts in, yawning wide. Wilbur wrinkles his nose, leans away.
“Your breath stinks,” he complains. “Fucking raccoon.”
“Fuck you,” Tommy spits, but there’s no real vitriol. “I don’t get it. How does he not know he’s in TV?”
“It’s all he’s ever seen. He was born on TV.”
“Gross.”
“Agreed.”
They both go quiet, staring at the laptop screen in silence. Jim Carrey shouts and screams, and there’s the barest hint of a flinch from Tommy. Wilbur says nothing about it.
“I think I’d rather die than live on TV,” Tommy says quietly. “Have my whole life broadcasted.”
“It’s very scary,” Wilbur agrees.
They go quiet once more, and the screen flashes. Lightning and thunder, a boat, crashing through the waves.
“A lot of things are scary,” Tommy says from where his head drooped, forehead resting against Wilbur’s shoulder. Wilbur had said nothing when it had happened– just leaned his own cheek against Tommy’s hair, inhaled. He smells like shampoo– not his own, Techno’s. That explains why they’d been running out so quickly.
A foot bumps against his own.
“You know what’s scary?” Wilbur asks, trying to joke. “The prospect of you putting your toes on me.”
“Blugh,” Tommy replies, then promptly does that. Wilbur wears socks to bed– Tommy does not. And his feet are cold. Wilbur hides a shriek, stifling himself with one hand and wriggling away as Tommy follows, laptop jostling and earbuds coming loose as they both giggle quietly and shift in the bed, Wilbur trying to escape and Tommy relentless in his torment. Eventually they both settle again, the laptop sideways across their laps and blankets ruffled. Wilbur’s sure his hair is a mess, but it’s too dark to tell.
On the screen, Jim Carrey opens a door. He takes a bow.
“I’m of the opinion that this movie is shit,” Tommy says, and Wilbur just rolls his eyes.
“Sure,” he says. “Except it’s not.”
“It is. I’m right. I’m always right, and I say this movie is shit.”
“It’s got a good message.”
“It’s scary and shitty and he didn’t even really escape.”
“I mean–”
“It’s shit! His best friend was a liar. His wife was a liar. They all were liars, even his mom. How could you do that to your kid? That’s so fucking mean! And scary! He escapes, but now everything changes. Change is scary!”
Wilbur swallows, and in one of his ears, the tinny music of credits rolls over his soul. He stares at Tommy, who’s staring at the screen of the laptop and frowning.
“Is something wrong?” Wilbur finally asks, broaching the subject they’ve clearly been dancing around for the past few minutes. Since Tommy had gotten out of bed to lurk in Wilbur’s room, actually.
Tommy shrinks, sinking into the blankets and bed as he goes. Like he wants to disappear, staring at the frozen credits. The screen is darkened just enough to cast shadows on his face, elongating the triangle of his nose and deepening his eyebags. He looks tired. He sounds tired, when he finally answers.
It’s a quiet, honest, “yes.” It’s not elaborated on.
Wilbur sits there, and then casually, turns back to the laptop and throws an arm over Tommy’s shoulder. He can feel him tense and then relax into it, head tipping just slightly back to where it had fallen before they’d gotten into their toe-squabble.
“Well,” Wilbur says, scouring his brain in blind panic for something to say. He’s the best at comforting out of all of them– Phil freezes up and offers platitudes, Techno just goes quiet, and Tommy just gets loud. Wilbur at least, can try his best. He taps his fingers on the touchpad of his computer, the warm weight of it heating up his thigh as he clicks out of the movie screen and then unconsciously clicks on some blog site, scrolling, scrolling. It’s poetry, mostly. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Are you not going to make me talk about it?” Tommy asks a second later, voice a bit raspy. He clears his throat. Wilbur shakes his head, and his eyes linger on a poem– rage and grief.
“Nah,” he says nonchalantly, but he knows the words have greater meaning than that. “You can if you want to. But you don’t have to. I’m not like dad.”
“No,” Tommy says. “You’re not.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re just… not.” Tommy snickers, and it’s half muffled in how he tips his head and presses his nose to the shoulder of Wilbur’s sleep-shirt. It’s one of his old emo band phase shirts, with faded lyrics across the back and a stretched-out collar and cotton soft enough to be sinful. He doesn’t blame Tommy for sticking his face all over it. “In a good way, I ‘pose.”
“Well, thanks.”
“Welcome, boss man.”
They fall into companionable silence for a bit as Wilbur scrolls through an aimless poetry site, as Tommy’s breathing gets a bit slower, and slower, until Wilbur thinks he’s fallen asleep. That, is, until.
“Wilbs?”
“Mhm?” He hides his surprise, turns his head just a bit. Tommy’s still hiding in his shoulder.
“When you go–” he says, and oh, everything clicks a little in his head. The sudden overwhelming clinginess in Tommy’s behavior, in tandem with Wilbur’s letter of acceptance arriving only a few days before. “--promise we won’t ignore each other?”
“Tommy,” he says, smiling a little. “Tommy, I’m not going far. School’s like, a twenty minute drive away.”
“But you’ll be on campus, and I’ll be here, and–”
“And you weren’t this broken up about Techno going.”
“He was online. It’s different. You won’t be here. ”
Wilbur clucks his tongue in a way that makes him feel like a mother hen, bundling Tommy up with the one arm he’s got around him, and pulling him close. He can smell Techno’s shampoo again in his hair and the faint scent of life, the stuff that is just so intrinsically, wonderfully Tommy. “Of course I won’t ignore you,” he says. “It’s twenty minutes away. I’m sure Dad’ll tug me back every moment he’s got. And you can come visit my dorms. And we can still go to the shop together, just us.”
“And you promise,” Tommy insists. Wilbur nods, tipping his head gently to the side, pressing his temple to the crown of his littlest brother’s head.
“Swear on my life. On Tip-Tup’s life,” he says, kicking aimlessly at the stuffed rabbit that’s sitting at the bottom of the bed, the one he’s had since he was tiny. “You know how I feel about Tip-Tup.”
“Motherfucker needs a spin in the wash cycle,” Tommy complains, and Wilbur pinches his arm, laughing with a snort when Tommy flinches away.
“It’s your fault I flinch now,” he complains more, and Wilbur can only laugh a little harder, patting the spot he’d just pinched, fingers fidgeting with the hem of Tommy’s pajama sleeve.
“Sorry not sorry,” he teases, and then carefully, shuts off the laptop. Slips the top shut, lets it fall in between the bed and the wall with a thump. The room is dark, only the slight glow of the hall night light from Wilbur’s half-open door to give them any reprieve.
Wilbur’s halfway to dreamland when Tommy pipes up again, and based on the sound of his voice, he is too.
“Night,” he whispers. Wilbur inhales, exhales, and curls closer into the warmth under the blankets. In the morning, they will wake up and Tommy will shove him out of bed and Phil will make pancakes. They will drag Technoblade out of bed and sit in the kitchen and shoot jokes, and Wilbur will pinch Tommy and Tommy will punch him back. Wilbur will finish the housing application for university– Tommy will look on, watching with slightly narrowed eyes. Wilbur will give him a look, and then purposefully bring up how visitors are allowed as long as they check in at the front desk. Tommy will beam.
But for now, Wilbur just sighs.
“I love you,” he tells him. Tommy stiffens, then relaxes.
“Love you too,” he mumbles, and for now, they sleep.