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Tommy wakes up to the noise of blood rushing in his ears. He doesn’t remember sitting up, but he has, sweaty and panting. He’s had problems with nightmares since he was a kid, but lately, they’ve taken a different turn.
To watch Wilbur, his older brother be- be hurt while Tommy is uselessly frozen in place has been a recent, reocurring theme. Unsurprisingly, it’s just as jarring every time.
Like most nights, Tommy methodically crawls out of bed, grabs his phone off his nightstand, flicks on his lamp light, slips on his shoes and steals the blanket from his bed, pulling it over his shoulders. He needs the added layer- opening the door to his tiny balcony engulfs him in freezing winds.
Tommy closes the door behind him and sits on the cold, dry concrete. The balcony is rickety, the concrete is thin and cracking, and the rails creak and bend under pressure. It’s just enough space to sit in the low light of the city sky and the long shadows cast by his lamp.
In their home at the edge of a busy city, Tommy can’t see a single star in the sky other than a waning moon. During these late winter months, the torrential rain has let up, yet dark clouds still hang in the sky like deadly bombshells waiting to drop. It’s an ugly sight. To call it a night sky would be generous with all the terrible light pollution, but it’s all Tommy has during these bad nights.
That, and Wilbur.
Wilbur moved away just last month, but after living with his older brother all his life, Tommy feels like half of himself has been stolen away.
Wilbur isn’t gone- everyone says that, and Tommy knows it, but he feels gone. (Shouldn’t it matter how Tommy feels?)
Techno and Wilbur are Tommy’s brothers, being twins born six years before Tommy himself. Wilbur had a special connection with both of his brothers, but with Tommy- with Tommy, the two were inseparable.
Tommy can’t imagine life without his big brother. Everything he’s done, he’s done with Wilbur. With every sport he’s tried, every friend he’s made, and every song he’s sung, for Tommy's entire life, Wilbur has cheered in the bleachers, befriended Tommy’s buddies, and sung along with Tommy. Now, that’s hundreds of kilometers away, and Tommy knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help but be a little indignant.
It’s not like everyone could live in their parent’s house forever, yet again, Tommy never expected it to be so soon.
It all felt too much, and with the nightmares and these horrible, endless nights, Tommy just wishes Wilbur were here. So, he does the next best thing.
With fingers trembling from the chill, Tommy unlocks his phone and calls his big brother.
The phone rings loudly, vibrating in Tommy’s hand. He looks at the name and photo of the contact- ‘Wilbur’, with a picture of the both of them at a park, playing on the structures meant for kids.
Tommy had been ten at the time, so maybe it wasn’t as unconventional as he had thought, but sixteen year old Wilbur had been a menace to Tommy, quite literally scaring the other kids off of the playground. He’d chase Tommy, tackling him to the floor and tickling the boy till he screamed. Wilbur would play the most unfair games of tag, and he’d hoist Tommy on his shoulders to climb onto the roofs of structures he wasn’t meant to.
It’s not that Tommy doesn’t love Techno, but Techno isn’t Wilbur. Techno refused to play with Tommy until the kid was a ‘distinguished age,’ and he never tries to understand Tommy in the way Wilbur does.
Tommy’s dad and mom aren’t as aloof, but Phil is definitely Techno’s dad, and Kristin is certainly Wilbur’s mom. Phil is logical and practical, and Kristin is easy going and inherently loving. Of course, Tommy loves them both too, (how could he not?) but even still, neither of them are Wilbur.
When Tommy is hurt, hungry, scared, tired, sad, happy or bored, he goes to Wilbur, and Wilbur is always there for him. Without being too smug, Tommy might say Wilbur is honored by how highly Tommy regards him- often more than their own parents.
Tommy loves them all, but there’s only one Wilbur- who still hasn’t picked up the phone.
Tommy huffs, glaring at his screen. “Come on, it’s only three in the-“
“Tommy?”
“Wil!” Tommy greets, smiling. The wind roars in his ears, and he pulls the blanket tighter around himself. “How are you, big man?”
“How are you, Toms? Why are you calling so late?” Wilbur’s voice is groggy from sleep- Tommy must’ve woken him up.
“Oh, you know me-“ Tommy nervously laughs. “-Just… up late with the ladies.”
Wilbur is silent. Tommy can practically hear his unamused glare.
Sighing, Tommy slumps. “I had a nightmare.”
Wilbur hums. “Want to talk about it?”
“No, not really,” Tommy mutters. “Just kinda wanted to talk to you.”
It’s obvious Wilbur’s smiling. “Okay, then.”
“So…” Tommy starts, looking around the balcony. He didn’t really know what to talk about. “What’s it like there?”
Wilbur hums, and it’s hard to tell the emotion behind his voice. He’s tired, Tommy knows. “It’s quiet. I can hear the water dripping from the leaves.”
Tommy shivers. “I don’t like rain anymore.”
“I know, sunshine,” Wilbur whispers. “It’s just so still here.”
And yet, the wind roars in Tommy’s ears, adding onto the cacophony of city traffic and bustling nightlife. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I never said that.”
Tommy fiddles with the edge of the blanket, picking at the looser threads. He’s always had a destructive side to his inattentive behavior. He misses when Wilbur would hand over his beanies and bracelets, whatever accessories he wore just for Tommy to play with in boring lines or sitting in waiting rooms. Sometimes, he’d give Tommy his hand, and that was enough.
“I miss you,” Tommy says, but it’s nothing new. “Techno’s been trying to replace you.” Wilbur snorts, and Tommy frowns. “Well- not like that, but he’s trying to- to be what you are to me.”
“Ah,” Wilbur says in understanding. “You know he loves you the same, right?”
“Yeah, but he’s not you.”
“No, he’s not. But, he can be Techno. Isn’t that special, too?”
Tommy shrugs. “It’s nice. ‘S not you, though.”
Wilbur chuckles. “I’m flattered you think so reverent of me, Toms, but with that attitude, no one will ever be ‘me’.”
“Sounds stupid when you say it like that,” Tommy taunts.
“Sounds stupid when you don’t listen to your big brother,” Wilbur quips back.
“If I listened to anything you said, I’d be dead by now,” Tommy says with a certain smugness.
“I mean Techno, Tommy.”
Tommy scoffs in offense. “He told you about that?!”
“I have eyes everywhere, darling,” Wilbur jokes. He’s never called Tommy that before, and Tommy smiles a little sadly. “But he is right, you know.”
Tommy’s eyebrows pinch together, and he crosses his arm over his chest. “I just- I don’t know. He’s not like you, Wil. I don’t want him to be upset, or anything, or mad.”
“He won’t be mad,” Wilbur coos in an adoring voice. Tommy’s always had trouble with that, worrying how he made other people feel to a detrimental degree. “He loves you, remember?”
“I dunno, it’s stupid,” Tommy mumbles.
“It’s never stupid when you come to me,” Wilbur points out.
“But it’s- it’s nightmares, Wil. He’s like, all old and stuff. He doesn’t want to hear about that.” Tommy’s own insecurity eats him alive, his heart beating fast in his chest.
Techno’s always been painfully practical, and it’s hurt Tommy more times than he can count. It’s never intentional, but it still stings to hear that nightmares aren’t real, that they don’t matter.
Up until last week, when Techno had said, ‘I get them, too.’
“Then why would he offer? Basically beg you to?” Wilbur queries.
And, why would Techno? To be a version of Wilbur Tommy no longer has? To be his late night knock at the door, a comfortable cuddle in bed, a safe place to sleep at night? Why would Techno offer something so impractical, if not to be what Wilbur is to Tommy.
“He loves you, Tommy. Take advantage of that.”
Tommy laughs aloud, a little sadly. “Isn’t that, like, horrible? ‘Taking advantage’ of someone’s love?”
“Isn’t that what redamancy is?”
Tommy doesn’t know that word. “Sure.”
Wilbur sighs. “Isn’t that what it means to love someone, Tommy? To take advantage of that fact and return it, bask in it-“
“Don’t go emo on me.” Tommy smiles, but he does love Wilbur’s midnight talks. He’s learned more from these than any classroom could ever dream of teaching him. He misses them.
“Whatever, man, if you could just--“ Wilbur exhales, exasperated. “-Please find it in yourself to talk to Techno... Because he loves you.”
Tommy’s eyes fall, and his posture slouches. “Yeah,” He breathes, a mumbled promise, “I will.”
They stay silent for a long while, the rushing wind and blaring, distant car horns of Tommy’s life an antithesis to Wilbur’s.
Tommy breaks the silence, “We kept most of the stuff you left behind.”
“Oh,” Wilbur sounds amused, “I assume you’ve raided my closet?”
“No,” Tommy answers honestly, and like honesty so often is, it’s in the form of an ashamed whisper coupled with teary eyes. “I haven’t been in your room since you moved out.”
Wilbur’s room, right next to Tommy’s, has had its door shut since the day Wilbur left, since Wilbur closed it himself. Since the month has passed, Tommy’s seen his mom inside once, staring at what Wilbur left behind. It was, even at twenty, the man’s childhood room. It was the room he grew up in, played in, cried in and returned to every night.
Wilbur was a part of the house, a living organ of what made this place alive, and without the sounds of guitar strings softly plucked in the nighttime, it’s as if that organ has failed. The house and all that’s inside it has lost purpose, lost direction, and is doing all it can to prevent total collapse.
The rain that continues to pummel the life out of whatever it touches has done its due diligence to the house, and nowadays, it’s as if Wilbur had never lived here at all.
It’s a sort of emptiness Tommy can’t explain, like a body without a stomach, without all the fleshy inside bits. It’s the kind that caves in on itself, an emptiness that kills.
“Since you moved, it’s just felt like… you’re not here. At all. No- that sounds stupid-“ Tommy covers his face with his hand. His other tightens its grip on the device by his ear. “I’m trying to say, without you, it’s like you were never here. Like- like everything we shared is just all… mine now.” Tommy’s eyes water and he takes a shaky breath. He needs to admit this for his own sake. “I miss sharing my life with you.”
There’s silence on the other end for a long moment. “Are you outside, Tommy?” Wilbur asks.
Tommy frowns, a little hurt by Wilbur’s indifference. “The balcony, yeah? Why?”
“Look up.”
Blindly following his brother’s instructions, Tommy tilts his head, seeing the cloudy sky above. The moon shines alone through the dull fog. A half moon, not full, not a crescent, just a boring, stupid half moon.
“Okay,” Tommy mutters, squinting at the white spot in the sky, “Now what?”
“Now we share the moon.”
Tommy smiles for a moment at thought, but it quickly falls. Could Wilbur even see the moon through all the rain? Can he see anything?
“I wish we did,” Tommy mutters, and somehow, Wilbur hears him.
“You’re making this harder on yourself,” Wilbur gently scolds, but scolds all the same. “I think talking to Tech would-“
“Sorry I miss you, dumbass,” Tommy grumbles.
“I’m being serious, Toms. You- You need to keep going, living and all that, even if it feels like there’s no reason,” Wilbur urges, but his insistence is for naught.
“If there’s no reason, why would I,” Tommy rhetorically asks.
Wilbur grumbles to himself like a madman for a moment, huffing, “Because I said so, and I’m older, and it’s for the better. Just trust me?”
Tommy knows Wilbur’s being serious, so he’s honest in return. “I’ll try.” To promise would be to lie.
“That’s all I ask.” Wilbur sounds relieved.
The sky is darkening. Tommy realizes that the lack of stars wasn’t just the light pollution, but the congestion of clouds.
It wasn’t supposed to rain tonight.
“I need to go, Tommy.”
Tommy jolts up, pressing the phone to his face. “What?” He exhales, gripping the device.
“I need to go. You’ll be alright?”
“No!” Tommy exclaims, his mouth agape and eyes wide. “No, no-“
“-Really?” Wilbur clearly doesn’t believe him.
How could Tommy ever be okay with this?
“Yes?!” Tommy replies, “The fuck do you mean, ‘really’?! You can’t leave until I say goodbye!”
Tommy’s hurting Wilbur. He knows he is, he can hear it in his voice, how he begs. So earnestly, but for his baby brother, so gently. “Tommy, sunshine, please. You need to hang up.”
And Wilbur’s right, isn’t he? He can’t keep Wilbur on call forever, keeping him somewhere he isn’t. “I don’t want to!” Tommy cries like a petulant child, yet his entitlement is to his brother- it’s his right to have Wilbur with him, he refuses to let that be taken away. It can’t be. It just can’t.
“Your battery will run out,” Wilbur says, a vain attempt.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re here!” At some point, tears began to drip from Tommy’s eyes, making their way down his cheeks.
“Don’t sacrifice yourself for me.” Wilbur’s desperation means nothing to Tommy. It doesn’t matter what Wilbur wants, because Tommy is on his balcony alone, gripping his stomach and trying not to pass out from his rapid breathing. “You know you need to leave.”
Tommy gasps for breaths, a hand slamming on the concrete and clawing at the floor. “I- I can’t,” He wheezes, his body forcing out air in an attempt to regulate itself.
“You need to.”
Tommy scowls, catching his breath to seethe out, “You don’t get to fucking- You don’t get to- to leave and leave me here! I hate-“ But, Tommy doesn’t hate Wilbur. He never will. He yells in agonized frustration. “Why can’t you just come home?!”
“You know why, Tom-“
“Tell me fucking why!?” The words vomit out, and Tommy curls over in a futile attempt to try to keep his body from hurting anymore than it does.
There isn’t an answer, is there? Tommy can cry at the ugly sky, it’s stupid moon and the clouds brewing overhead, but they don’t have an answer. How badly Tommy wants something to blame, someone to force all this hate onto, some reason to avoid the rain.
“It’s not fair!” Tommy shouts. The phone has fallen on the floor beside him, his hands pulling at his hair.
“Breathe, Toms,” Wilbur softly says, but it sounds like his voice is fading. “One day, we’ll be together again, right?”
“No! No- I don’t wanna! I want you here!” Tommy cries like a kid, because at the end of the night, under a moon he’ll forever hate, he is one.
“You have dad and Techno.” Wilbur sounds forlorn, soft, and fading, and so remorseful. “You know they love-“
“Don’t fucking say that! Don’t- you’re Wilbur, man! I can’t go to Techno if I have a stupid nightmare! I can’t- all I can do is call you and- and you don’t even want me to!” It hurts Tommy to admit more than it probably hurts for Wilbur to hear. Wilbur knows that, doesn’t he? But Tommy- Tommy still wants to believe Wilbur wants him.
There’s silence. “I want you to live, Tommy. That’s all I want.”
Wilbur wants Tommy to live alone.
A lonely balcony, a sky without stars, and a boy with only one brother.
Tommy’s head meets the floor, a gentle thud. It’s quiet, so quiet when all Tommy wants to do is scream. His lungs squeeze out the words, “I don’t want to live without you.”
…
The phone stops ringing.
“We're sorry; you have dialed a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”
Raindrops darken the concrete, and Tommy grits his teeth.
The rain killed nothing, but how it pains him to watch it fall, how he glares at it like a prosecutor to a cold blooded murderer.
He saw nothing, yet all he can see are headlights in the relentless rain and shrouding fog, directionless, swerving headlights avoiding the innocent deer, stranded in the storm.
The mist kept the animal hidden. Wilbur was never a bad driver, never bad enough to be unsafe. The car must’ve swerved, the officers said, clipping the buck.
The deer survived. The nurses who rehabilitated it named the animal Wilbur.
Phil, Kristin and Techno thought it was sweet. An homage, they said, hearing the creature had been nursed back to health and returned to the wild.
Tommy thought it must’ve been a joke, that a stupid deer got to go home when his brother didn’t.
And now, one month later with the same ugly moon and its filthy clouds, rain falls, a mockery of a man’s life.
Tommy lays on his arms and knees until his cries are drowned out by the slapping of rain on concrete and upon his own body.
Against his better judgment, he follows his older brother’s advice. He pulls himself up with aching bones, ones that yearn to sink into the ground. He stumbles into his room, dragging heavy feet and limp limbs. Water drips from his skin and clothes and onto the floorboards, leaving a trail of tears in his wake.
To Techno’s room, Tommy walks like a zombie, but instead of rattling groans for flesh, he’s stifling sharp breaths and whimpering cries for his Wilbur.
With all the strength he can muster, he raises his fist and knocks on his brother’s door.
“Techno?” He whispers.
Within moments, he hardly processes how Techno swings open the door and envelops Tommy in a crushing hug. It’s torturously different from the way Wilbur would hug him. It’s not gentle, nor affectionate. It’s tight and it cracks his bones and somehow Tommy feels safe in arms like bars of iron.
He hears Techno cry, too, and he hugs him back.
The rain patters on the windows of the house, and Tommy clings to Techno like a life preserver, trying to stay afloat.