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Around midnight, Wilbur’s door creaks.
Wilbur groans, rolling onto his stomach to bury his face in his pillow. “Mmmm,” he mumbles, particularly garbled. “Go away.”
A shaky breath greets him.
Wilbur pries his eyes open, suddenly a bit more awake, and blinks into the darkness of the night. He pushes himself off the pillow to squint at the door.
Tommy stands there, head ducked, arms wrapped tight around himself. His eyes glisten in the meager light.
“Oh, Tommy,” Wilbur says, pushing himself to a sitting position. “You alright?”
Tommy takes another shuddering breath and pushes himself off the doorway, stepping closer. Wilbur opens his arms for a hug, but Tommy just perches at the end of the bed, curled tight into himself, squished into the corner between the bedframe and the wall.
Wilbur’s voice lingers in his throat for a moment. “Hey, Tommy,” he murmurs. “What happened?”
Tommy’s voice is almost quieter than Wilbur has ever heard it. “I—” he whispers. “Nightmare.”
Wilbur nods. “Do you want a hug?”
Tommy shivers. Wilbur exhales slowly, keeping his movements cautious, careful. He watches Tommy squeeze his eyes shut.
He’s seen Tommy shift a number of times before: to a raccoon, a wolf, a crow. Wilbur watches his skin give a sort-of glimmer, watches his body twist and shrink, and suddenly he’s not human any longer.
The creature makes a tiny squeaking noise and pads slowly toward Wilbur’s hand, resting on the bedspread. Hesitantly, Wilbur lifts a hand to pat the mouse’s head, gingerly, with just the index finger. Tommy squeaks again.
“Hi, bud,” Wilbur murmurs. “You okay?”
Tommy’s tiny nose twitches. He nudges at Wilbur’s index finger until Wilbur picks him up, then skitters up Wilbur’s arm until he can wriggle his way into the chest pocket of Wilbur’s shirt.
“Aww, Tommy,” Wilbur says. “You’re adorable, mate.”
Tommy makes a huffing noise. In miniature. It’s the cutest fucking thing Wilbur thinks he’s ever seen.
It’s still midnight-dark, the only light the stars through Wilbur’s half-curtained window. He feels fuzzy and soft as he leans until he’s squished against his pillow, technically still sitting, one hand preoccupied with petting Tommy’s tiny head. Tommy looks comfortable, at least, curled up as he is with his nose buried in the hem of the pocket, squeaking every so often.
Wilbur feels his eyes drifting shut and stifles a yawn. “Hey, bud,” he murmurs. “You doing alright?”
Tommy makes a tiny, tiny snuffling noise. He scrabbles at Wilbur’s palm, his tiny nose freezing cold, until Wilbur gets the message and offers his hand for Tommy to clamber onto.
He’s tiny. So fucking tiny. Wilbur coos again, and Tommy’s nose twitches. He grips onto Wilbur’s thumb with tiny little paws and jabs his head in the direction of the bed until Wilbur understands and can let him hop down onto the mattress.
A twitch, a flicker, and Tommy is no longer smaller than Wilbur’s palm. He wastes no time in wrapping his arms around Wilbur’s torso and burying his face in Wilbur’s shoulder.
“Hi, Toms,” Wilbur says, and hugs him back.
Tommy exhales harshly against Wilbur’s shoulder after a moment. “Fucking shit,” he murmurs. “Stupid. I hate it.”
Wilbur hums, encouraging him to go on.
“I dreamed about my parents,” Tommy mumbles eventually, squeezing Wilbur tighter. “It was dumb. It—I just—they weren’t dead. And then I woke up.”
Wilbur combs a hand through Tommy’s hair, pulling him close to muffle a sigh over the top of his head. “That’s shit,” he agrees. “You feeling better?”
Tommy huffs and wriggles until he’s lying more comfortably horizontal on Wilbur’s bed. He drags Wilbur with him to use his shoulder as a pillow. “Decent,” he mumbles through a yawn. “Mmm.”
“Are you going to go to sleep?”
Tommy goes still against Wilbur’s shoulder. “I—” He cuts himself off. “Do I have to?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
A beat.
Tommy hugs Wilbur tight, curling further into himself, drawing his knees up to his chest as much as he can with Wilbur in the way. “I’m scared,” he mutters. “I—I don’t want to see them again.”
Wilbur’s heart pangs. He reaches up to ruffle Tommy’s hair again, and Tommy leans into the touch with the tiniest sigh.
“I’ll be here,” Wilbur promises. “If you need me. I can play guitar if you want?”
“Mmm,” Tommy mumbles. Slowly, his eyes flutter shut. “Nah. Jus’ lemme sleep.”
Wilbur laughs softly, until he’s interrupted with a yawn. “As you wish.”
⸻⸻⸻
When they wake up, Wilbur is sprawled across the bed, an arm thrown haphazardly over Tommy. He wants to believe it’s because of all the Brotherly Vibes he’s putting off. Unfortunately, it’s probably just because he has a tendency to grab anything and everything in his sleep, be it brothers or a random raccoon.
(The random raccoon was Tommy, okay? Wilbur just … didn’t realize that at the time. And may have screeched at the top of his lungs. And sent raccoon-Tommy running.)
Tommy, curled on his side with his face still buried in Wilbur’s shoulder, yawns and mumbles something sleepily. Slowly, one eye flutters open. “Will,” he murmurs. “Mm. G’mornin’.”
Wilbur can’t hold back his smile. “Hi, Tommy,” he says.
They spend several minutes quietly, Wilbur trying to force himself awake, Tommy still breathing softly. Then the memories of last night reappear in Wilbur’s head.
Mouse, Wilbur recalls. Tiny little Tommy. Little Tommy mouse.
It’s rather incoherent, but hey, he just woke up.
He pushes himself to a sitting position, ignoring Tommy’s grumbling protest. “Tommy,” Wilbur coos. “You were a mouse!”
Tommy’s eyes flick open. “Fuck,” he mutters. “Shit.”
“Aww, Tommy—”
“Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up, you’re stupid, I hate you, die—”
Wilbur wraps an arm around Tommy’s shoulders and yanks him into a hug, laughing at Tommy’s continuing protests.
“You okay?” Wilbur murmurs, after half an hour of Tommy furiously wrestling away from his grip. Eventually he threatened to shift into an elephant and Wilbur reluctantly let him go.
Tommy huffs. He’s making a furious attempt to fix his hair, wild and curly and fluffy as it is; it’s pretty much a lost cause at this point. “I’m good,” he mutters. “I mean. I’m fine.”
Wilbur hums. “Okay,” he says, and shifts to ruffle Tommy’s hair once more. Tommy elbows him in the ribs.
⸻⸻⸻
Tommy, Techno observes, is impressively skilled in emotional repression.
Which is actually rather hypocritical for Techno to say, but Techno’s hypocrisy is his and his alone. Tommy’s inability to communicate his own emotions, on the other hand …
Eh. Techno’s not that good at big, emotional talks, or even quiet reassurances. That’s Phil’s and Will’s thing. Techno’s more a “stab now, talk later” kinda person.
But it’s Tommy—his little brother in all but blood, and also someone he has to live with, and he’d much rather live with someone who knows how to ask for help. Techno has enough life experience to know that “bottle up your own emotions until they explode and you die” is not a particularly enjoyable lifestyle.
It all comes to a head when Techno walks into the cottage to find a kitten in the corner, curled into a ball and crying.
Techno blinks. “Tommy?” he says. Tommy makes a sad little mewing sound, which Techno takes for confirmation. He crosses the room in two strides and crouches down in front of the tiny cat, AKA Tommy, who’s still mewling in, like, this really pathetic, heartrending way. He bats his nose with his paw as if he’s trying to stop himself but only cries harder.
“Uh,” Techno says. He finds his hands hovering in the air on either side of Tommy’s face, or the cat’s face, or—you know what, he’s not gonna bother trying to comprehend that. His brain isn’t big enough for that level of understanding. “Hey? Tommy? You doin’ okay?”
Tommy whines again, mewing. In the space of a blink, he clambers into Techno’s lap, tiny claws snagging in Techno’s shirt as he cries.
Techno hesitates before he picks him up, bundling the cat in his arms. He moves to slump onto the couch, Tommy curled in his lap, muffling the cat-sob-whatever-noises in the material of Techno’s shirt.
Techno just sits there silently. What else is he supposed to do? He’s bad at comforting people when they’re human. When they can’t speak—nah, nah, nah. Techno’s right out of there.
Thank Trixx-tinn, Tommy shifts back, curled sideways with his legs slung over Techno’s lap. Immediately he buries his face in his hands, wiping at the tears, breaths shuddering out of him unevenly. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Sorry, I didn’t—you can go, if you want, I didn’t mean to—”
“Hey, Tommy,” Techno says. He’s never been too huggy of a person, but he knows Tommy is, and his brain hums Sonder, sonder, sonder. He wraps an arm around Tommy’s shoulders gently and is a bit relieved when Tommy immediately slumps into his hold. “It’s okay. What happened?”
Tommy takes a shaky breath. “You’re not gonna kick me out, right?”
Techno blinks. “Uh,” he says. “No?”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” Techno says, more sure now. “I’m sure. We’d never kick you out.” He jokes, because that’s just about the only thing he’s good at, aside from stabbing orphans: “Phil and Wilbur would kill me. Can you imagine what that would do to my reputation? ‘Killed by a scrawny human and an old man with a kitchen knife’?”
Tommy huffs a watery laugh. “That’d be funny.”
“That’d be just rude, Tommy. I’d be ridiculed!”
Tommy wraps his arms around Techno after a moment, curling closer. Kid’s the walking embodiment of an octopus with all eight arms wrapped around somebody. Huh. Technically Tommy could do that.
Techno wrenches his mind away from that thought. Gods forbid Tommy becomes a sea creature without bones. The amount of chaos he could cause is unimaginable.
Eventually, Techno says, “What happened?”
Tommy stiffens, gripping tighter around Techno’s waist. Techno allows him his time until he mumbles, “I—” He pauses, huffing frustratedly. “I dunno. It’s stupid.”
“I mean, with you it always is,” Techno deadpans. “Go ahead.”
Tommy huffs a tiny laugh. “Mm,” he mutters. “I just—um. Nobody ever really—really lets me stay. So. I dunno—just was—was wondering. Whether you might get tired of me.”
Like in that stupid old children’s book—what was it? The Sminch or something, written by some old author Techno doesn’t remember the name of?—Techno’s heart grows about five sizes. It’s a severe health condition. He immediately convulses and dies.
Not really. He usually resorts to humor to deal with emotional situations.
Anyway, Techno pulls Tommy further into the hug. It’s only a moment before Tommy relaxes into the hold. “We’re not gonna get tired of you,” Techno says. “Never. You’re ridiculous, but we’d never make you leave. We’d never not want you here.”
Tommy hums. “You promise?”
“Yeah,” Techno says. “I promise.”
⸻⸻⸻
“So,” Techno says later. “Why’d you turn into a kitten?”
Tommy flushes bright red. “Shut up.”
“No, I’m not—” Techno pauses, considering. “I’m not making fun of you,” he decides. It’s pretty much the truth. “I was just wondering.”
Tommy huffs and burrows further into Techno’s shoulder. Immediately after proclaiming that Techno was “a much more comfortable pillow than Wilbur, you’re not so fucking bony,” he proceeded to make himself comfortable, and he’s been like this for the last half-hour.
“Um,” Tommy mutters. “The—the kitten. I was a lynx, you know. Not a kitten. A kitten would be dumb.”
“You are literally a child,” Techno points out. “I bet you’re a kitten when you shift into a cat.”
“Fuck off. That’s dumb. You’re dumb.”
Techno chuckles. “The lynx, then. Why the lynx?”
A beat. Tommy grumbles and grips harder, avoiding Techno’s eyes.
“I dunno,” he mutters. “Fuckin’—fuckin’ trauma response or some shit. I had a friend tell me that. She was wrong. I’m just—just so poggers. I don’t have any trauma.”
Techno … severely doubts that. He nods, though, to pacify him. “Yeah,” he says. “Go on.”
“Anyway,” Tommy says. “It’s just—better being small. Or not small, but—different. Comfier. I dunno. It’s better being an animal. When I feel like—like, when things get overwhelming. ‘Cause people usually don’t—they don’t yell at me when I’m an animal, y’know, ‘cause they don’t realize—” Tommy cuts himself off with a harsh breath and grumbles, burying his face once more into Techno’s shoulder.
Techno hums. “Okay,” he says. “That makes sense.”
They lapse into a comfortable silence.
⸻⸻⸻
“What’s that one?” Tommy says, pointing up at the stars. Phil tilts his head to squint at where he’s gesturing.
“That one’s Trixx-tinn,” he says, and nods. “She’s making the world, see? Doing all the cool shit like making the animals.”
Tommy laughs. “She’s making me,” he says. “All the different versions. ‘Cause I’m just—just so poggers.”
Phil ruffles his hair. “That’s right, mate,” he deadpans. “She made the world just for you. Nobody else.”
“Nah,” Tommy says. “For me and you. Mostly me. But you too.”
Phil has to stop himself from verbally awww-ing at that. He fails, and Tommy shoots him a narrow-eyed glance.
“I love you, bud,” Phil says. “You know that, right?”
In the span of a blink, Tommy is gone.
Phil yelps and shoots upward in the grass, glancing around. It’s dark as shit, even with his crow-y eyesight. And Tommy’s up and fucking disappeared—
“Tommy?” he calls. “You alright, mate? Where are you?”
Just to the side, there’s a yip.
Phil blinks and twists around. Behind him, standing awkwardly, with paws far larger than are necessary for his thin little body, is an almost-grown wolf.
“Hey, Toms,” Phil says. “What happened?”
Tommy whines and trots up to him, shoving his head into Phil’s palm like Give me all the pets. Phil obliges, petting his ears as Tommy flops down in the grass beside him.
“What’s up, mate?” Phil says, after another moment. “You alright? Why’d you shift?” Tommy whines quietly. “I’m not mad or anything, I promise. Just wondering why.”
In the span of one breath, the wolf turns into one Tommy “that’s an orphan, innit?” in the wise words of Wilbur Soot, and Phil yelps as Tommy wraps his arms around him and essentially tackles him into the grass.
“What the fuck—”
“I love you too,” Tommy mutters, so furiously and rapidly that Phil can barely hear it. “Shut the fuck up.”
Phil blinks. Tommy appears to possess no inclination to get up. They continue to lie there in the grass, Tommy’s head pillowed on Phil’s chest, his scrawny arms still wrapped around Phil so tightly that he’s apparently trying to squeeze his lungs into deflation.
“Aww, mate,” Phil says, and ruffles his hair. “You okay?”
Tommy grumbles. “I’m fine,” he mutters. “Just—it’s stupid.”
“What? I told you I loved you?”
“Shut up, that’s dumb, don’t—”
Phil chuckles. “It’s okay, mate.”
Tommy huffs and clings tighter, like a fourteen-year-old six-foot-one koala. “You mean it?” he says.
For a moment, Phil pauses. Oh, he realizes. This isn’t just a regular ‘teenage boy refuses to accept fatherly love’ kind of thing.
“Absolutely,” Phil says. “One hundred percent. One thousand percent.”
Tommy hums. “That’s a lot of percents.”
“Yeah.”
“Techno would make fun of you for that. He’d say you’re bad at math.”
“Nah, he’s wrong. Love is not quantifiable.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Means you’re my son,” Phil says. “For as long as you want to be. And I love you.”
Tommy grips even tighter. “Okay,” he says, and Phil doesn’t mention the fact that his voice is suddenly wet. “Okay.”
⸻⸻⸻
Later, Tommy falls asleep against Phil’s shoulder, a hand buried in Phil’s wings because he decided to try and preen them but was too sleepy to do it properly. Wilbur sets his guitar down to provide a better pillow; Techno fetches a thick blanket to throw over the four of them; and, tangled and squished together as they are, they all sleep well that night.