Chapter Text
Strangely enough, after their road trip ended things just… went back to normal.
Well, for the most part.
Puffy welcomed them back with open arms, and Wilbur spent hours at the house going through pictures on Tommy’s phone with Puffy watching the both of them. After he left and parked himself back in his usual spot by the shore, he found it unbelievably hard to sleep without Tommy’s soft snores by his side, but he passed out eventually all the same.
It seemed that the road trip used up some of the last of Tommy’s energy. He stopped walking down to the beach, and instead Wilbur would either drive the bus to Puffy’s place to pick him up for the day, or Wilbur would just hang out in the house with Tommy (which was usually just them watching movies in Tommy’s room.)
Wilbur resumed his shifts at Niki’s because he spent a lot of money on the road trip and still needed the work, but he couldn’t ignore the nagging anxiety that lingered in the back of his head every time he wasn’t at Tommy’s side.
At night, he had his phone set so that even if his ringer was on silent, Puffy and Tommy’s numbers both would still ring out loud. That way he wouldn’t risk sleeping through an important phone call.
Tommy got sicker. When he and Wilbur would lay in his bed watching movies together, he slept through more than half the film nearly every time. His appetite decreased and he was groggy all the time.
One day when Wilbur came over, he noticed Tommy’s lips were a faint bluish color. When he mentioned it to Puffy, she gave him a sad look and said that was a sign they were getting close.
Wilbur struggled to sleep. He wasn’t ready, but he didn’t think he’d ever be ready.
Then, one night, he got the call he was dreading.
It was nearly midnight when Puffy called him. He had only seen Tommy briefly that morning before he had to work a full day shift at Niki’s, and it made him restless. Wilbur had been trying to sleep, but was tossing and turning like he did nearly every night now.
When his phone rang though, he bolted upright to grab it.
“What is it?” Wilbur asked as soon as he picked up, not even saying a hello. “He’s not-”
“Tommy’s okay right now,” Puffy told him, her voice hoarse. “But… It's been a bad day. I just- I’m exhausted, and while I don’t know for sure if it’s gonna be tonight, I’m seeing signs that it might be. I-I just really need to sleep, but I don’t want him to be alone just in case-”
“I can come over,” Wilbur said, already climbing out of his bed and moving towards the driver’s seat. “I can sit next to his bed tonight, if that helps.”
Puffy let out a sigh of relief. “Yeah, that would be a huge help. Thank you, Wilbur.”
It was only ten minutes before he was pulling into Puffy’s driveway. He didn’t bother changing out of his pajamas, and wandered to the front door, the water from the sprinklers seeping into the bottom of his slippers.
He didn’t even have to knock before Puffy was opening the door. Heavy circles hung under her eyes, and Wilbur realized that she must’ve been staying awake most nights to keep an eye on Tommy. No wonder she sounded so exhausted over the phone.
She led him to Tommy’s room, telling him she’d be right down the hall if he needed anything. All Wilbur had to do was stay with him because Puffy was too exhausted to keep up her vigil.
Tommy’s room was dark when he walked in, and he tried to walk as softly as possible, but Tommy’s groggy voice quickly cut through the silence.
“Puff? Is that you?” He asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
“No Toms, it’s me,” Wilbur replied, using the faint light from the moon filtering through Tommy’s window to stumble towards the chair Puffy had set up next to his bed.
“Wil? What are you doing here?” Tommy asked, his words slurring.
“Puffy just asked me to come over and stay here with you tonight, because she’s a bit more tired than usual,” Wilbur explained, the chair creaking as he settled himself in it.
“Oh, okay,” Tommy mumbled. “You can turn on a light if you want. It’s dark as fuck in here.”
“If you’re sleeping I don’t want to keep you awake with it,” Wilbur said.
“Nah, it’s okay,” Tommy slurred, already sounding like he was falling asleep again. “Doesn’t bother me.”
“Are you sure?”
Tommy made a humming noise in affirmation, and Wilbur used his phone flashlight to look around before he found the on switch for the string lights above Tommy’s bed.
The light was soft, creating a warm glow in the room. Even though Wilbur had just seen Tommy that morning, he somehow looked even paler than he had before.
“Is that okay?” Wilbur asked, gesturing to the lights.
Tommy, who already had closed his eyes again, nodded. “S’fine.” There was a pause, and then he threw his hand towards Wilbur, blindly searching the side of the bed.
Wilbur reached his own hand out, and Tommy grabbed his hand immediately. He seemed to sigh in relief at the physical contact, his shoulders slumping as he threaded their fingers together.
It was difficult for Wilbur to keep his breathing steady as Puffy’s words echoed in his mind.
I don’t know for sure if it’s gonna be tonight, I’m seeing signs that it might be.
“Night, Wilbur,” Tommy muttered, burrowing himself deeper into his pillows. “Love you.”
Clenching his jaw, Wilbur squeezed his hand. “Love you too, Toms.”
Tommy fell asleep quickly after that. His chest rose and fell, but it was far too slow for Wilbur’s liking. Tommy’s hand wrapped around his was cold, and Wilbur noticed his fingertips had turned blue too.
Wilbur tried to stay awake that night. He really did. He scrolled through Twitter on his phone, before he started writing random song lyrics in his notes app with one hand, trying to do anything to ignore the heaviness in his eyes.
But he was tired, and having Tommy right here quieted the constant hum of anxiety in his chest. If anything happened, he would be right here.
And so Wilbur’s head dropped onto the edge of the bed, and he fell asleep with his hand tightly gripping Tommy’s.
☾
Tommy’s death wasn’t anything poetic. There were no tender last words. No dramatic moment where Wilbur watched the life fade out of his eyes.
Instead, Tommy’s death happened quietly. So quietly in fact, that Wilbur didn’t even wake up.
When Wilbur’s eyes fluttered open to the light of dawn streaming through Tommy’s window, the hand in his had long since gone cold.
Blinking a few times, Wilbur groaned at the pain in his neck as he straightened up. His phone had fallen to the floor while he slept, and when he picked it up with his free hand, he saw it was almost six in the morning.
Absently, Wilbur squeezed Tommy’s hand, his own fingers having gone numb long ago.
It was then he realized how cold Tommy’s skin was, and his heart dropped into his stomach.
“Tommy?” He whispered, his voice rough from sleep. “Toms, are you awake?”
Tommy’s eyes were closed, and Wilbur noticed his chest was still.
“Tommy, c’mon,” Wilbur said, a bit louder this time. “This isn’t funny. You’re scaring me.”
There was no response.
No. No no no. This couldn’t- This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.
“PUFFY!” Wilbur shouted, lurching to his feet as he pulled his hand out of Tommy’s, bringing his numb fingers to Tommy’s neck in search of a pulse.
He heard footsteps running down the hall as his chest began to burn. The pulse wasn’t there. It wasn’t there.
“Wilbur?” Puffy asked as she ran into the room, her curls sticking up in every direction.
“He’s- Puffy, he’s not breathing and-”
She reached around Wilbur to bring her own hands to Tommy’s pulse. After a few seconds, her breathing hitched.
“Is… Is he-”
After an agonizing two seconds of silence, Puffy nodded. “Yeah… Yeah he’s gone.”
“But- No, I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” Wilbur whispered, his voice cracking.
But you did, a little voice in his head whispered. Just a few hours ago, when he and Tommy had said goodnight. That had been their goodbye. Looking back to the way Tommy had whispered his final words before falling asleep, Wilbur wondered if he’d known what was coming.
“I’m sorry, Wilbur,” Puffy whispered, tears already spilling down her cheeks.
Wilbur didn’t feel like he was awake. His head was spinning as the realization words Tommy’s dead Tommy’s dead Tommy’s dead played on repeat in his mind.
A part of him wanted to cry, but he also just felt a strange numbness wash over him. He stared at Puffy, watching her shoulders shake as she began to cry, and then turned his head back to Tommy.
Without thinking, he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Tommy’s, closing his eyes as his trembling hands moved up to cup Tommy’s cheeks. Despite his hands being cold, his forehead still had a bit of warmth in it. If Wilbur pretended, he could convince himself that Tommy was just sleeping.
He never wanted to move away. He didn’t want to stand up and have to accept the reality that was now in front of him. That his little brother was dead. That he was never going to hear Tommy’s voice again.
In the end, Wilbur’s not sure how long he stood like that, pressing his forehead to Tommy’s with his face in his hands. But eventually, Puffy’s soft sobs broke through the numbness that had surrounded him, and he realized he should give her some time with Tommy too.
As Wilbur pulled away, he pressed a featherlight kiss to Tommy’s hairline. Then, he had to force himself to take a step back, feeling as though a cavern was growing in his chest.
After that, everything was a bit of a haze. He remembered a warm hand on his shoulder, and Puffy’s eyes looking bloodshot as she hugged him with surprising strength. She cried into his sweater, but Wilbur didn’t feel any tears burn in his own eyes. Instead, the fog in his mind just grew stronger.
At some point Puffy let go, and she said something to him that he couldn’t hear over the blood roaring in his ears. He just nodded, not really seeing straight as he let Puffy guide him out of Tommy’s room.
She said something about having to call people, and opened the front door for him. Then she said she’d check in on him, and Wilbur nodded as he stumbled out into the driveway.
His legs moved on autopilot as he made his way back onto the bus. The morning air nipped at his bare arms, and next thing he knew, he was laying on his bed, staring at the sharpie-covered ceiling of his bus.
He skimmed over the different quotes and song lyrics he’d scrawled on there late at night when he was bored and had nothing else to do. Random thoughts, phrases he wanted to remember, it had no rhyme or reason to it and that was what he liked about it.
But then his eyes caught on handwriting that wasn’t his. A small sentence nestled under a test song lyric Wilbur had written when he couldn’t sleep one night.
Big Man Tommy was here!!!
The sentence was underlined several times, and Wilbur wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before. When had Tommy written that? It must’ve been during one of their long drives, but he thought he would’ve noticed Tommy standing up to write something on the ceiling.
Staring at the words Tommy had scribbled onto his bus ceiling only a few weeks before, the truth of everything hit him like a brick.
Tommy was dead.
Wilbur was never going to get to talk to him, or hear his laugh, or just see him smile ever again.
Tommy was gone.
And just like that, the floodgates burst, and Wilbur began to sob.
Ugly, painful sobs wracked his chest as he twisted his fingers into his hair. Tommy was gone gone gone- his little brother was dead and never coming back. They were never going on another road trip. Wilbur was never going to hug him again.
Tommy was gone and only existed in his memories now.
Wilbur shoved his face into his pillow and screamed as loud as he could. And then he just kept crying. Outside the bus, the sun rose higher in the sky, the pink dawn shifting to orange, and soon the sky turned blue.
At some point, Wilbur recognized that he had to get out of Puffy’s driveway. His vision was blurred as he drove back to his parking spot by the shore, and as soon as he shut the engine off, he collapsed against the wheel.
It didn’t take long for him to cry himself out. But every time he stared up at the ceiling of his bus and saw Tommy’s handwriting, hot tears would spill down his cheeks again all the same.
Wilbur wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he heard a knock on the door to his bus. He knew he should go get it, but what was the point? How the hell was he supposed to talk to anyone like this? How the hell was he supposed to just move on knowing that Tommy was dead?
“Wil?” A familiar high-pitched voice called out as the door to his bus creaked open.
Wilbur, who was buried in a mound of blankets, didn’t bother looking up. “Hey Niki.” His voice was hoarse from all the crying, and a fierce headache was throbbing behind his eyes.
“Where are- oh.” Niki cut herself off when she noticed Wilbur buried in his bed. “Are you okay? Your shift started half an hour ago.”
Fuck. Work. He’d completely forgotten about that.
“I… I don’t think I can come in today,” he confessed.
He heard Niki’s footsteps come closer to the edge of the bed. “Are you sick?”
“No,” he whispered.
Niki’s pink hair suddenly appeared in the corner of his eye, and she must’ve been able to see how red and puffy his eyes were, because she gasped.
“You’re crying!”
Wilbur let out a bitter laugh. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
There was a beat of silence, and then Niki made a noise of understanding.
“Tommy?” She whispered.
He couldn’t say the words. He knew that even if he tried, they would just stick in his throat. So he just nodded instead, and Niki sighed.
“Oh… Oh I’m so sorry,” she told him. Suddenly, a blessedly cool hand was brushing the hair back from his face, and he glanced up to see Niki giving him a worried frown. “Don’t worry about coming in. I’ll get Jack to cover for you.”
“Thanks,” he whispered to her.
“Is there anything I can do? Anything you need?” She asked, biting her lip.
Wilbur shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.” Nothing was going to help with this. He already knew that.
“Okay. If you need anything, anything at all, I’m just a text away,” Niki told him.
The bed squeaked as she shifted her weight off of it, and he listened as her footsteps faded away. The bus doors clicked shut, and Wilbur knew he was alone again.
Wilbur didn’t really remember how he spent the rest of that day. It was a haze of falling in and out of sleep, getting choked up every time he saw the handwriting on the ceiling, and ignoring his growling stomach.
The next day was very much the same thing. Nothing felt real as Wilbur watched the steely grey waves lap at the shore, a heavy fog covering the entire beach and reminding Wilbur of how Tommy’s red sweatshirt always made him stand out like a beacon in that stuff.
The thing about grief that Wilbur was only just realizing was not only how all-consuming it could be, but how boring it could be. Wilbur was tired of just staring at his ceiling and thinking over and over about how much he already missed Tommy, but anytime he tried to scroll through his phone or watch something on his laptop, the sadness would swallow him whole again and he wouldn’t be able to focus. Maybe boring wasn’t the right word, because it’s not like Wilbur was bored of grieving his little brother, but he couldn’t think of another term that fit.
It was just that nothing could give him enjoyment. Any attempts at taking his mind off things were quickly proved futile, because even if he managed to forget for a few seconds that Tommy was gone, he’d be reminded again almost immediately.
For Wilbur, it was hard to find a point in trying to do much of anything. He eventually forced himself to eat something because the pain in his stomach was too strong to be ignored, but he didn’t actually feel hungry. While he was pretty sure you were supposed to try and talk to people when in the midst of grief, the only person Wilbur wanted to talk to right now was dead. The idea of trying to hold a conversation seemed like an impossible feat, and despite how mind numbing it was, staring at the ceiling for hours on end was far easier.
Another day passed. He got a few calls, but he ignored them. When he heard Puffy’s ringtone though, the one he had set to ring even if his phone was on silent like it was now, he forced himself to pick up.
It was just her telling him about the rough idea for when the funeral would be, but that she would text him when it was confirmed. She sounded just as shitty as he felt, and it made a tiny bit of guilt break through the mind numbing grief that had consumed him. He should be helping her with this stuff, shouldn’t he? Puffy was Tommy’s guardian, and Wilbur was his brother. He had a duty to try and help Tommy’s only other family with planning his funeral.
But the very idea of planning something like that seemed even more impossible than trying to hold a normal conversation with someone. So maybe it was selfish, but he didn’t offer to help, and Puffy didn’t ask him to.
The next morning, his grieving routine of laying in bed all day doing nothing was broken by another knock on his bus door.
“Niki, you can come in,” he called, not bothering to look up.
The doors opened, but instead of one pair of footsteps making his way into the bus, Wilbur heard two pairs.
Sitting up, Wilbur was shocked out of his sadness for just a moment when he found himself face to face with his father and brother.
“Phil? Techno?” Wilbur frowned, glancing between them. “What are you doing here?”
“Niki told us about Tommy,” Phil explained, looking apologetic. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t be doing too good after hearing that.”
Wilbur glanced at Techno. “And you’re here for the same reasons?”
Techno was a busy man. He had work, and the idea of him taking time off to come comfort Wilbur about a kid he’d never even met sounded… strange.
“Phil told me about the kid, and it sounded like he was important to you,” Techno shrugged. “So I’m here to help.”
“I… I don’t need help,” Wilbur muttered, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I just need time to process.”
Phil pursed his lips before sitting down on the edge of the bed, with Techno sitting on the other side.
“Mate, it looks like you haven’t left the bus in days,” Phil said softly, resting a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re grieving, Wil,” Techno huffed. “You need to be around people.”
Wilbur huffed. “I’d rather be alone.”
“I know you would. Right now, talking to people feels like the hardest thing in the world,” Phil told him, moving his hand from Wilbur’s shoulder to his hair. “But trust me, even if you don’t remember it that well, Techno and I have been where you are right now. We know what you’re going through.”
Fuck. His mother. Of course Phil and Techno knew what he was feeling. They knew probably better than anyone else would. They knew all about isolating yourself after death, and how it didn’t help anything.
“So… What do I do?” Wilbur whispered.
Phil brushed the hair back from his forehead. “You gotta remember how to go through the motions. But we’re here to help you do that.”
“When was the last time you ate?” Techno asked, eyeing the bare counters of his mini-kitchen.
“Sometime yesterday, I think,” Wilbur shrugged.
Phil sighed, while Techno nodded and got to his feet. “I’ll go get food then.”
“I’m not hungry,” Wilbur protested.
“Don’t care. You still need to eat.”
And just like that, Techno was out of the bus, leaving Phil and Wilbur alone.
“This place is a bit of a mess,” Phil commented, eyeing the clothes on the floor. “You’re not using the laundry hamper I got you?”
Wilbur shook his head, not able to summon the energy to even get annoyed with his father calling out his dirty bus.
There was a beat of silence as Phil looked around. Then, he stood up, reached into Wilbur’s fridge, and suddenly a cold water bottle was being shoved in his hand.
“Drink that,” Phil ordered. “I’m gonna clean up in here, and by the time I’m done, I want that bottle empty.”
A part of Wilbur wanted to argue. A part of him wanted to fight against his father and brother shoving themselves back into his life at the worst possible time.
But a part of him also was so so relieved to have them here. To have people to just do these small things for him that had suddenly become so monumental.
So instead of complaining, Wilbur just nodded and twisted the lid off the bottle. And he drank it all, just like Phil told him to.
☾
While things weren’t okay, it was easier with Phil and Techno there.
Phil cleaned the bus. Techno brought him food. When the silence became suffocating, Techno talked about his job, and Phil talked about how their neighbors were doing. It was easier to focus on the words of Phil and Techno than to try and form his own. It was easier to just do what they told him to. To re-learn how to go through the motions, just like Phil had said.
That night, Techno shared the bed with him, while Phil slept in the driver’s seat. Wilbur offered to let his dad have the bed, but Phil insisted he was fine in the chair.
Sleeping in the same bed as Techno was strange, because they hadn’t shared a bed since they were kids. It reminded Wilbur of when he had nightmares not that long after being adopted, and he’d crawl into Techno’s bed with tears streaking his cheeks, and Techno would quietly reassure him that he was okay. Later on, after Kristin died, Techno would be the one crawling into Wilbur’s bed. He wouldn’t want to talk, but he later told Wilbur it helped to just hear Wilbur’s breathing next to him, so Wilbur never protested when he heard his door open in the middle of the night.
So much had changed since then. But at the same time, it really hadn’t at all. Wilbur felt like a little kid again, completely lost on what to do, as if he had forgotten how to function. He was a scared, sad kid, and having his big brother sleeping beside him was strangely comforting.
The next day was similar to the first. Phil made him go to the laundromat to do his laundry, while Techno went shopping to restock his fridge. Then Techno made a comment about Wilbur’s hair looking like a grease pit, and next thing he knew, Techno was shoving him towards the nearest 24 Hour Fitness to make him take a shower.
When Wilbur emerged from the gym with wet hair wearing freshly-washed clothes, he had to admit, he felt more like a human being than he had in days. There was still the aching emptiness in his chest, but at least he didn’t feel like he was sleepwalking anymore.
That night, all three of them were crammed onto Wilbur’s bed, some random documentary playing while they ate veggie wraps from a nearby restaurant that Phil found on DoorDash. Wilbur wasn’t really paying attention because it was still hard for him to focus on movies, but it didn’t seem like Techno was paying attention either, because halfway through the documentary he broke the silence with a random question.
“Did Tommy write that?”
Something painful seized Wilbur’s chest hearing someone say his name, but he tried to ignore it as he followed Techno’s pointing to see what he was looking at.
It wasn’t the writing on the ceiling of the bus that declared that Tommy had been there. This was another scrawl of handwriting that didn’t match Wilbur’s, this time written much smaller next to some random quote Wilbur had written when he’d first gotten the bus.
Wilbur is a pretintious bitch, the message read. Then, there was an arrow pointing to the quote, and without thinking about it, Wilbur let out a startled laugh.
It was the first time Wilbur had laughed since Tommy died. The thought immediately sobered him up as he stared at Tommy’s message.
“Yeah,” he whispered, his voice thick. “That’s him alright.”
“Do you think he realized he spelled pretentious wrong?” Techno questioned, narrowing his eyes.
“Well… he always kind of sucked at spelling stuff,” Wilbur admitted.
He wasn’t smiling, and in fact the ache in his chest was worse than it had been in days. But he could feel the ghost of a smile tugging at his cheeks. Tommy would probably have been thrilled to know he was insulting Wilbur even from beyond the grave.
“When did he write that?” Phil asked, having paused the documentary to look at the writing with them.
“Probably during our road trip,” Wilbur murmured.
Both Phil and Techno’s heads whipped towards him. “You guys went on a road trip?”
Oh yeah. He hadn’t talked to either of them in a while, so of course they wouldn’t know.
“Um, yeah. We did it a few weeks before-” Wilbur cut himself off before he could say the words. He wasn’t ready to say it out loud yet. Instead, he just cleared his throat and reworded it. “We did it a few weeks ago. Drove all over California for eight days.”
“That sounds like a lot of fun,” Phil mused.
There was an empty space after that comment. Normally, a comment like that would be followed up with what did you guys do? But clearly, Phil wasn’t sure if Wilbur wanted to talk about that.
Tears burned the corners of his eyes again, but a part of Wilbur wanted to talk about the trip. It had been one of the best weeks of his life, and despite how painful the memories were, a part of him knew it would be good to talk about it. To try and focus on the happy times.
“We drove all the way up the coast to see the Redwoods,” Wilbur started, pulling out his phone and opening up his photos app. “The first place we went was Santa Monica Pier, and god- it was so fucking stupid but Tommy bought me this cowboy hat-”
As Wilbur talked, Phil and Techno listened. Wilbur showed them pictures of the two of them from each of the places they went, and yeah, Wilbur started crying when he saw all the stupid pictures he had of Tommy again. But at the same time, he found himself laughing through the tears as he recalled some of the funniest moments from their trip, and neither Phil nor Techno commented on his crying. They just let him go through the complicated mess of emotions with patient nods, listening to the stories and asking questions at the appropriate times.
It hurt. It reopened the gaping wound in his heart, and Wilbur ended up sobbing into Phil’s arms before he’d even gotten to Palm Springs. But it was a start.
☾
Soon, it was the day of the funeral.
The day before, Phil and Techno had rented suits for the three of them to wear, since Phil and Techno’s suits were back home, and Wilbur hadn’t owned a suit since high school. Looking in the mirror of the beach bathroom, Wilbur saw how exhausted he looked, but it wasn’t as bad as he expected. His cheeks had color in them, his hair was clean, and although he looked sad, he didn’t look like a walking zombie like he would’ve surely been if Techno and Phil hadn’t showed up.
The funeral itself was a rather simple affair, one that Wilbur really didn’t remember all that much in the end. He was told to stand up front next to Puffy, which surprised him, but otherwise there wasn’t much that seemed out of the ordinary.
He didn’t cry, which surprised him. But the whole thing had the same dream-like quality that the first day after Tommy died had had. It didn’t seem real, and Wilbur wasn’t sure if he was mentally there for most of it.
Afterwards, the reception was held at Puffy’s house. Her eyes were bloodshot, but she was still going around to greet everyone there with surprising grace. Her son, Foolish, had seemingly come home from college for the event, and he hovered by his mother’s side most of the time, clearly worried about her.
Wilbur didn’t know anyone at the funeral besides Phil, Techno, and Puffy. There was a brief period of time where Puffy pointed out different attendees and told him who they all were. Most were former foster families of his, and a man with dark green hair was apparently his social worker.
Most people avoided him as they talked with one another over crackers and fruit, and Wilbur didn’t blame them considering they probably had no idea who he was. For the most part, he just hovered in the corner with Techno and Phil, until two teenage boys suddenly approached him.
Wilbur recognized the boys immediately. One was short with bleached blonde hair, while the other was ridiculous tall, his hair a split dye of black and white. They were the two boys from the picture in Tommy’s room.
When they approached Wilbur, both Techno and Phil politely moved towards the food table, although Wilbur had secretly hoped they would stay.
“Hey, are you Tommy’s brother?” The short one asked without any kind of preamble.
Wait, was that who people thought he was here? It wasn’t wrong, but they weren’t technically brothers. Not in the legal sense, or the biological sense.
Still, Wilbur didn’t bother clarifying as he answered. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“Your name is Wilbur, right?” The tall one asked, wringing his hands in front of him.
Wilbur nodded.
“I’m Tubbo,” the short one introduced. “This is Ranboo. Tommy used to go to our school before he moved down here.”
Oh. These were the two friends Tommy told Wilbur about during their road trip.
“Oh yeah, he mentioned you two, but he never told me your names,” Wilbur said, folding his hands in his lap.
Tubbo snorted. “Figures. He was way more secretive than we ever thought. We didn’t even know he had a brother until he started texting us a few weeks ago while you guys were on your road trip.”
Ranboo nodded. “We always thought he didn’t have any family at all, which was why he was in the foster system in the first place. Did you guys get separated in the system?”
Staring at the two of them, Wilbur realized he had a choice.
He could tell the truth and explain that he was just some random guy Tommy met a few months before.
Or he could go with the assumption the two boys were making. That they were biological brothers who had been separated in the foster system when they were kids, and only recently reconnected.
A part of Wilbur wondered why Tommy had never clarified the nature of their relationship to his two friends. Maybe he just didn’t feel like explaining the whole story of how they met. Or maybe he was worried it would delegitimize their relationship in his friends eyes. That the two might not see them as real brothers.
In the end… what did it matter if they weren’t legally brothers? Tommy was his little brother through and through. It didn’t change anything in the end. If Tubbo and Ranboo assumed they were biological brothers, well, it’s not like it made much of a difference.
“Something like that, yeah,” Wilbur shrugged, dropping his eyes to the floor.
“Well, I’m glad you two found each other before… yeah,” Tubbo said, clenching his jaw.
“That road trip you took him on seemed really awesome,” Ranboo chimed in. “He sent us pictures of you guys everywhere you went.”
Something warm blossomed in Wilbur’s chest knowing that Tommy had shared their trip with his two friends. And that he had called Wilbur his brother, never even thinking to add the caveat of well he’s not technically my brother-
“Anyway, we’re sorry to bother you. We just wanted to meet you after hearing so much about you from Tommy,” Ranboo explained, looking somewhat apologetic.
“No, you’re fine,” Wilbur reassured them. “I’m happy to finally get the chance to meet Tommy’s friends.”
Both of them nodded, clearly unsure of how to respond to that, and truth be told Wilbur wasn’t sure how to continue the conversation from here. Seemingly realizing the same thing, the two boys turned to leave, but Wilbur decided something before they could walk away.
“Wait!” He called out. The two boys paused, watching as Wilbur grabbed a nearby notepad and scrawled something across it. Then, he tore the note off, and handed it to Tubbo. “I know you guys don’t know me so this might seem weird, but you were Tommy’s friends, so if you guys ever need something like… I dunno, advice, travel tips, if you wanna learn how to live out of van—then feel free to text me.”
It was random, Wilbur knew this. But it just felt like the right thing to do. He didn’t expect them to contact him, but he wanted them to have the option.
“That’s really nice of you,” Ranboo murmured.
“Thanks Wil,” Tubbo nodded, folding the paper and putting it in his pocket. “We’ll, uh, see you around I guess.”
“See you around,” Wilbur waved as the two boys headed off.
It wasn’t long after he talked with Tubbo and Ranboo that the reception came to an end. When Wilbur was saying his goodbyes to Puffy, she hugged him tight enough that he struggled to breathe, and made him promise to keep in touch. Although there were tears in her eyes, she was smiling, and Wilbur promised that he would keep in contact with her.
After that, Wilbur piled back onto the bus with Phil and Techno. They went back to his normal parking spot, and surprisingly, Wilbur found he didn’t want to sit in the bus.
The cavern in his chest had been growing smaller and smaller with each day, but Wilbur knew it was never going to disappear completely. Now that he was away from the reception, the fog in his mind cleared just enough to let the grief swallow him again as it hit him full force that he’d just gone to Tommy’s funeral.
Wilbur found himself sitting on the sand, watching the sun dip down towards the water. He was still wearing the rental suit, and he was probably going to get charged extra for getting sand in it, but he didn’t really care right now. All he could think of was the last sunset he’d seen with Tommy, when they were at Gliderport only a few weeks ago.
I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner.
Wilbur wished they had more time together. But then again, no time was ever going to be enough. Tommy deserved to see his eighteenth birthday. But that hadn’t happened.
As he watched the sun get closer and closer to the water, lighting up the shades of grey blue with fiery yellow light, he wanted nothing more than to turn and see Tommy sitting next to him. He wanted to hear him make some smartass comment about how stupid Wilbur looked in his suit, and how shit it was that they served boring stuff like crackers, cheese, and fruit at the reception for his funeral.
Suddenly, there were footsteps beside him, and Wilbur glanced to his right to see Phil settling down next to him.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Phil asked as he sat down on the sand, having already changed out of his suit.
“I’m thinking about how much Tommy would’ve hated his funeral,” Wilbur admitted, huffing a bit. “Would’ve thought the whole thing was boring as hell.”
Phil snorted. “That’s fair. I suppose it was a bit of a dry affair, but that’s what most funerals are like.”
Wilbur wouldn’t know. He barely remembered the funeral they had for Kristin.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the sun inch closer to the water. Wilbur thought back to all the times they’d sat on this very beach, watching the sunset together. He thought back to the times they sat on the sand here playing guitar, or how this was the same spot where Tommy told Wilbur about his cancer.
Fuck.
“I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to just go on with my life from here,” Wilbur confessed after a bit, wiping a stray tear from his cheek. “I feel like I’m never going to be the same person I was.”
Next to him, Phil sighed. “I hate to say it, but you won’t be. Things are never going to fully go back to the way they were. You made so much room in your heart for this person, and now that they’re gone there’s going to be a huge hole that’s never going to disappear.” He paused, pushing his hair back from his face. “But over time, the hole gets smaller. And you learn to live with it. You go through the motions, like I said. And it fucking sucks for a really long time, but with each day, it gets a little easier. And there’ll be some days where it gets bad, and it feels like the day after they died all over again. But those days will become less and less common with time.”
Wilbur took a shaky breath. “But how can you just… go through the motions? You and Techno had to come here because I could barely even feed myself.”
“That’s exactly it,” Phil said, giving him a soft smile. “You have other people around you to help you through it. And as the days pass, the weight will get less and less heavy, and while it’ll never go away, you’ll learn to manage it.”
“I just- I miss him so fucking much already,” Wilbur said, his voice cracking. “How the hell am I supposed to handle knowing I’m never going to see him again?”
There was a warm hand on his cheek, and Wilbur turned to see his dad giving him a sad smile. “It takes time, Wilbur. And you have other people around you that won’t replace him, but they’ll be there to help shoo away the loneliness.”
Wilbur stared at his dad, and when a tear rolled down his cheek, Phil brushed it away with his thumb.
He didn’t know what his plans were now. Without Tommy, the loneliness of his bus was already threatening to consume him. Tommy had been his closest friend, his little brother who was there nearly every day. The idea of going back to living alone, only interacting with people when he was at work, traveling to places by himself with no one to joke with or watch movies with late at night—Wilbur didn’t know if he could survive going back to that.
But… he had a place to go, didn’t he?
“Can I come home, Dad?” Wilbur whispered.
“Of course you can,” Phil told him, brushing another tear from his cheek. “You can always come home.”
Bathed in the light of the dying sun, a son sobbed into his father’s chest, knowing that even if he wasn’t okay now, he would be. Eventually.