Chapter Text
:D
“I’ll call you everyday,” Wilbur said, Wilbur promised.
He’d patted Tommy’s head and gave the thirteen-year-old that saccharine smile, dripping with honey and oh-so-sweet.
Tommy believed him, of course he did.
Like an idiot thirteen-year-old with a stupid idealized ideation of his older brother.
The stupid blond kid would wait by the phone every single night, and sometimes even all morning until he had to go to school. Tommy would wait, and wait, and then he would wait some more!
And every second, minute, hour he spent idly twiddling his thumbs, absentmindedly shuffling cards, and doodling music notes he wanted to ask the meaning of in a little notebook he got for his birthday, was another second, minute, hour he was disappointed. Lonely. Dare he say it, let down.
But still, he waited.
And he was always in the comfortable green armchair. It had a few holes with yellowed stuffing pouring out, but none too big that when he pulled his legs up his feet got stuck. There was an old lamp casting dim, yellow light close to the back of the chair, and if Tommy focused, he could feel the heat warming the back of his neck and where his arms were bare of sleeves.
On the little end table to the right of the chair, in the corner of the living room, sat a phone.
It was a sleek black rotary phone, with a curled cable and a spinny dial.
Like most things in their house—the grandfather clock, the warped wooden chairs, the candle holders and silverware—it was old, and had been Mom’s inheritance when her father died.
Their house appeared as if it was stuck in the past. Dust settled on every surface, all of the tall doors and dark floorboards creaked and when the wind blew harshly, you could hear it against the decorated glass windows.
Wilbur loved this house, as did Tommy and Mom and Dad and Technoblade. It was a nice house, with a big library, and enough rooms for a guest wing with three sound-proofed music “studios”.
So it makes sense as to why Tommy couldn’t wrap his head around why the fuck Wilbur didn’t want to come home, didn’t want to call him, and apparently didn’t want anything to do with his family!
Every time Tommy thought about it, which was nearly constant, he felt more and more… empty. There was rage bubbling under his skin, begging to hurt, but there was nothing else. Mom would hold him when he was sobbing in his room, rocking back and forth and ripping at the blond curls Wilbur loved to ruffle, but shaking breaths always turned to screams and clenched fists inevitably found themselves in walls.
It was only after Tommy got sent home from school for breaking a kid’s nose that he tried to call Wilbur.
He could hear his parents whispering in the kitchen, and the ceiling creaked from where Techno was pacing in his room above him.
The adrenaline was still coursing through his veins as his hand—dried blood caked on his knuckles—reached out to the cold phone. He was shaking, and the plastic clicked uncomfortably against its holder as his fingers gingerly wrapped around the middle and brought it up towards his face.
Tommy held it to his ear with one hand, and with the other, he slowly spun the last number he knew of Wilbur’s. The clicking of the dial as it returned to the top, ready for the next number, drowned out Phil and Kristin’s worried murmurs.
He held his breath as the dial tone rang.
He swore he was gonna keep holding his breath until his brother picked up.
As black spots danced across his vision and the tone clicked dead, he exhaled, and cried. Loud, ugly sobs ripped out from his throat, filling the quiet space with screaming agony.
Tommy threw the phone as hard as he could towards the fireplace on the opposite wall, but he doubted it made it even half way. Still, he hoped it broke. He pressed the heels of his shaking palms against his wet eyes, only for thin, firm arms circled around his own, pinning them to his chest as another body joined him on the chair.
A hand threaded through his hair and pressed his head against a firm chest, right over a calm heartbeat. He could feel ribs through the rough fabric of a sweater, old and familiar, which meant that the hand lightly scratching at his scalp belonged to Technoblade.
“It's not fair!” Tommy warbled into his brother’s collarbone, knocking his head into his chin.
“I know,” Techno whispered. “I miss him too.”
And Tommy knew that. Hell, Techno probably missed Wilbur more than Tommy did.
His older brother’s pink hair was outgrown, black roots at least four inches long with what’s left of years of permanent pink dye staining the bleach in splotchy, uneven patterns. Black to bleach with an unintentional ombre into faded rose gold.
Another thing ruined from Wilbur leaving, because he always dyed Techno’s hair.
Every memory Tommy had, there was Techno’s pink hair, Wilbur’s black, and Tommy’s blond. Every single memory. And then Wilbur burned himself out of the metaphorical picture, leaving their dad with alcohol problems, their brother with messed up hair, their mother with stress knitting, and Tommy with. Well. A couple more things diagnosed and therapy twice a week, to put it nicely.
A kiss was pressed to his curly hair, and a thumb rubbed circles into his shoulder blade and along the muscles lining his spine.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, face wet and gross.
“You don’t have to be,” Techno shifted so that his legs were under Tommy’s, and he was more-or-less cradling the shaking boy. “You shouldn’t be sorry for having emotions, or having the wrong ones.” He paused, a hand returning to card through his blond hair. “Wil told me that.”
And maybe that was the wrong thing to say, because Tommy’s eyes felt hot again even though his eyelids were already stuck together, and another round of tears fell from his eyes. He almost felt bad, knowing the older’s aversion to getting wet, but that fucker was the reason he’s crying again, and a petty voice inside him murmured that Techno deserves the uncomfortableness.
Eventually, their parents came to check on them.
Tommy missed most of the conversation, but the gist of it was that they had heard everything, thought that Technoblade could handle it better than them, and hoped things got better soon.
And he assumed that Techno’s skinny little twig arms somehow grew three sizes, like the Grinch, to carry him up the stairs to Tommy’s room and tuck him in after he accidentally fell asleep.
The nightmares never got better, but as years passed with radio silence, he came to accept that he would never see Wilbur again.
And things got better.
Until eighteen-year-old Tommy ran into him at that god-damned street corner, and so of course he punched that fucker in his face.
end.