Chapter Text
Tommy doesn’t know right now. Wilbur is sitting on the voice call, humming softly, and he’d made a comment about Tommy being his brother, but it just… wasn’t right .
It didn’t fit. He/him was like an itchy, suffocating wool sweater, and Tommy wanted it off .
But, right now, the dress Tommy can glide along in, skirt light and trailing in the breeze that is she/her doesn’t work either. The oversized hoodie that is they/them doesn’t match right now, and Tommy’s…
Tommy is stuck. Tommy wants to cry. Tommy had already tried even the odd blanket-sweatshirt of it/its and nothing. Not a single pronoun felt right, but also just forgoing them felt wrong as well.
“I-I’m sorry, Wil, I can’t- I need to leave- I’m so sorry-” Tommy stammers out. Tommy’s cursor finds the disconnect button, and Tommy very nearly misses it with how much the hand on the mouse shakes.
Tommy pulls the blanket closer, and wraps it around the several limbs, all too long for Tommy’s crisis.
Not even five minutes ago, Tommy had been fine with he/him, maybe a little they/them here and there. (Wilbur didn’t know about the they/them, just that Tommy had been making jokes with him about being a ‘big man.’) Tommy hadn’t even noticed anything changing about that until now.
And now…
Now, Tommy is stuck . Nothing fits, nothing makes sense, and it’s like all of Tommy clothes are too tight, making it hard to breath and choking Tommy whenever the attire is brought up.
Right now, Tommy wants to be forgotten by the world. Tommy wants to stay curled up, hidden from everything in the world by the blanket. The blanket hides the sun that peers in through a window in Tommy’s room.
The blanket is comfort, right now. Because the blanket doesn’t need to refer to Tommy, doesn’t want pronouns. The blanket is a refuge, with blue fuzz that feel as soft as silk, and a much more comfortable inside.
Tommy stares at the darkness, barely able to make out the sheet of the blanket.
Tommy can’t find pronouns right now, the store doesn’t have Tommy’s size, and-
And Tommy thinks for now, hidden from the world, that it should be a stressor.
And so, Tommy falls asleep, deep in slumber. A notification from Discord, an hour old, is what Tommy wakes up to.
Wimblur Foot
I love you, no matter what
And Tommy’s heat melts. Tommy still doesn’t feel pronouns, still wants to hide under the blanket, but-
But Tommy logs onto Discord, and sees Wilbur is still active and calls him.
“ Hey ,” Wilbur’s voice is transmitted through several waves, particles vibrating as they reach for Tommy’s ear canals.
And yet. And yet the sound of Tommy’s brother is as comforting as ever, his voice the same one that had sung to Tommy when bullies had decided to call (Tommy was not Tommy at that moment, but preferred to go by the more feminine name Tommy had chosen) Tommy an incorrect name.
“Hi, Wil,” Tommy’s voice creaks out. It’s not one Tommy agrees with, doesn’t know if that voice will belong for a while.
“ Is something wrong, Toms?”
And that- that’s enough to send Tommy into tears. Tommy sobs into the call, heart wrenching and painful, and Wilbur sits there in silence.
And then, Tommy’s eldest brother’s voice comforts Tommy. First, he hums a small tune. Tommy thinks it might be from his band’s latest album.
Then, the guitar comes in, calculated, methodical, caring .
It stays like that between them, for a while. Tommy couldn’t tell you how long (Tommy could, Discord shows their call length. Seconds tick by, forty-three, then four, then five, and it keeps changing, shifting. Tommy tried to match the breaths that show up in the air to it. The forty minute mark is finally reached,) but it doesn’t matter.
Then, when Tommy can make out the words, ( Since I Saw Vienna, Wilbur had ranted in long bursts about how much he loved the city to Tommy after his trip,) Wilbur’s voice cuts through the haze, like a knife to butter or shears to silk.
“ Do you want to hear a story? ”
Tommy nods, realized that the face can isn’t on, and with all the force able to be used after sobbing uncontrollably, Tommy is able to make out one word.
“Yes.”
And so, Wilbur starts with a story. When he was four, his mom signed him up for dance classes. Wilbur’s asthma wasn’t bad yet, only really noticeable after his bout of bronchitis. But Wilbur sucked at it. No matter what class he was in, his body never moved in the ways like the instructors or the other kids. Up until he was seven, he spent two hours every day he didn’t have school in a dance studio, fruitlessly practicing the choreography for the studio’s play.
Tommy feels sucked into the story, and then (one hour, they’ve reached one hour. Tommy is wasting Wilbur’s time with this stupid stupid stupid brain that is stuck within Tommy’s body) he asks one question.
One question that lights Tommy’s body on fire the same time that chills run through it, electric and cold and hot and fire and happiness, all bundled into one.
“ Do you know I love you? ”
It’s a simple question, one Tommy’s mouth opens to answer on autopilot, but then there’s a pause. Wilbur has told him several times, but Tommy…
Tommy doesn’t really know if Wilbur’s words can be taken at their face value.
“ Because I do, sunshine. I… wasn’t in the best place, writing Jubilee Line. But everyday, you would come on call with me, even if I had slept through most of the day. You’d share every small thing, every interesting thing you saw throughout the day.
“ If I’m being honest with you, there were several days when I went to the tube line. And… then I realized you’d be getting out of classes soon, and you’d call me. And that was enough to make me go back to my flat.
“I’m not saying this to draw away from you, and I don’t want to… ” Wilbur chuckles, dry and humorless, and Tommy is caught up in every sound the brother figure makes. “ I don’t want to pressure you or anything, but… Sunshine, I never want to see you sad. And if there’s anything I can do to make you keep that smile, then I’ll do it. I’m your big brother, yeah?”
Yeah. Wilbur is Tommy’s brother, and that’s all. Tommy is Wilbur’s, and Wilbur is Tommy’s.