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Tommy wasn’t a stranger to nightmares.
It was an unfortunate truth that had been his reality for quite a few years now, but had only gotten worse since his kidnapping.
He thought it would be a temporary thing. That waking up from twisted nightmares only to find himself second-guessing if he was actually awake or not was something he would get over after a few months.
But he wasn’t over it. Tommy bolted upright in his bed, the mental image of 404 wearing his own face flashing in his mind’s eye. The dreams always felt so real. And that was because it had felt real when 404 used his powers to fuck with Tommy’s head. Everything had felt real until he had been able to find a mistake here and there. The temperature of glass, the view outside a window—it was always the tiniest of details. Things that were all too easy to miss.
And that was what made these nightmares so terrifying. Because it brought back that fear. The terror that lit up every cell in his body with panic at the idea that he wasn’t actually awake right now. That the blanket he was twisting his fingers into right now was a figment of his mind. That the shadows in his room had never actually been this dark. That the pillow his head was laying against wasn’t supposed to be that soft.
Tommy second-guessed everything around him. It was a fear he was able to shove to the back of his mind in the light of day, but when the moon was still high in the sky and shadows danced along the walls like people? It was harder for him to dismiss the what if’s playing over and over again in his head.
His chest was tight as he struggled to suck in a deep breath. Tommy brought his knees up to his chest, squeezing his eyes shut and counting backwards in his head from fifty. He tried to picture the numbers in his mind, but they kept slipping away, being replaced with the smirking visage of 404 with his stupid fucking goggles.
He opened his eyes again. The room was the same as it had been a few seconds earlier. The lights were off, moonlight was spilling across the floor from his window, and he could see a small green light from his charging Nintendo in the corner.
Slowly, he turned his head to the window. There was no issue with seeing out of it. The backyard was fully visible, trees swaying gently in the wind and stars twinkling above the hills. So 404 hadn’t fucked up the windows this time.
But what if he touched the glass?
It took Tommy a moment to remember that it was summer. Even though the air conditioning was turned high in the house, forcing him to bundle up under blankets to stay warm while he slept, earlier that day it had been sweltering. Each breath had been thick as humid air slid down his throat, the warmth clinging to every inch of his body like a second skin. Despite how late it was, the windows shouldn’t be that cold. He knew that.
With trembling fingers, Tommy reached for the glass. What if he touched it and it was ice cold? Would that mean he was dreaming, or was it just a cooler night than it had been the past few days?
Even if the glass was warm, that still didn’t mean he was definitely awake. 404 had been learning from his mistakes during that fateful night, so what if the error wasn’t the glass at all? Or the windows? What if it was something so tiny, Tommy couldn’t hope to notice it? A thread out of place on a blanket, or his toothpaste tasting slightly different than normal. How detailed could 404 make these dreams?
That was only brushing the surface of his anxiety though. Because if he was still trapped in a dream by 404, where was the line between dream and reality? Had he ever been rescued from Dream and 404 in the first place? Everything that had happened since his rescue—the Syndicate revealing themselves to him, the confrontation and Puffy telling Dream to leave him alone, Wilbur dying and Tommy bringing him back to life—was that real?
Maybe part of that had been real. Maybe reality had stopped being reality when Dream blackmailed Tommy. Maybe they hadn’t found a solution, and Tommy had been arrested with this being his jail sentence. Trapped in a dream for years and years, without any idea that he wasn’t even living in the real world anymore.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. He was spiraling.
Stumbling out of bed, Tommy rushed out of his room and headed straight for the stairs. The carpet was soft against his bare feet, before cold rushed through him as he jumped off the steps and onto the hardwood floor.
His vision was blurry when he turned on the kitchen lights. His hands shook as he took out the pitcher from the fridge, and water spilled over the sides of the glass as he poured it. Then, he set the pitcher down and wrapped his hands around the cup. The glass was cool against his fingers, the water droplets trailing down his palms and onto his wrists.
He took a sip, and tried to focus on tiny things. The cold water soothing his throat, the buzzing of the lights above his head, the sound of his own ragged breathing echoing through the kitchen.
Wait, his breathing. Puffy had told him about breathing exercises he could do to calm himself down, right? They were supposed to help when he felt like he was going to panic. What was the pattern again?
”Four, four, eight,” Puffy’s voice repeated in his mind.
Tommy forced himself to take a breath in, counting to four in his head and picturing the numbers in his mind. Then once he reached four, he stopped, and counted to four again while holding his breath. Lastly, he let out the air as slow as he could, counting to eight and picturing the numbers as vibrant as he could behind his eyes.
It was more difficult than he thought it’d be. His breathing was stuttery, and his mind didn’t want to focus on something as simple as counting. But he forced himself to keep doing it, and it got easier with each cycle. His mind began to clear, and while there was still anxiety humming under his skin, the mind-numbing panic began to ebb away.
He was okay. He was awake, he had water in his hands, and he was in his family’s house.
…right?
Before Tommy could think too hard on that, he heard footsteps walking towards the kitchen. He cursed under his breath right as the incoming figure turned the corner, and Tommy found himself locking eyes with Wilbur.
Wilbur blinked in surprise. “You’re up late.”
Shit. Tommy had to try and act normal now. He supposed that it shouldn't be too hard since he had mostly calmed down, but it was still a struggle to ignore the lingering anxiety crawling up his throat.
“Um, yeah,” Tommy shrugged, avoiding Wilbur’s eyes as he dropped his gaze to the counter. “Just getting water.”
There was a beat as Wilbur stared at him, his dark eyes sweeping up and down as they took in Tommy’s hunched shoulders and splotchy cheeks. Immediately, his brows furrowed together, and Tommy knew he was fucked.
“Are you alright?” Wilbur asked, his voice much softer this time.
“I’m fine,” Tommy quickly told him, which was the truth. He was fine now. Completely fine. He’d just had a moment, but he was better now. He wasn’t panicking, and that was all that mattered.
“Something’s wrong.” It wasn’t a question.
Tommy shook his head. “Wil, it’s fine-”
Suddenly, Wilbur was walking towards Tommy. Before Tommy knew what he was doing, Wilbur had pulled the water glass out of his hands, and set it down on the counter.
“Your hands are shaking,” Wilbur pointed out.
Fuck. Stupid fucking Wilbur and his stupid ability to read Tommy like a book.
“I just had a bad dream,” Tommy said, folding his arms over his chest to hide his shaking hands. “It’s fine now though. Just needed to wake up a bit.”
If you’re awake at all, whispered the traitorous voice in the back of his mind.
A shudder ran down Tommy’s spine at that, and Wilbur’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. He stared Tommy down for a moment, and Tommy had to force himself not to shrink back. This was Wilbur. He didn’t need to be freaked out by his brother.
Unless he’s not actually your brother because you’re still-
“You wanna come up to my room for a bit?” Wilbur offered, and Tommy blinked at how out of left field the question seemed to be.
“Huh?”
“I mean, you’re not planning on going back to sleep right away, right?”
Tommy shook his head. He’d be lucky if he could fall asleep again before dawn.
“Then come hang out with me for a bit. I’m writing some lyrics right now and I want a second opinion,” Wilbur said, his eyes no longer narrowed, something much softer having flashed over his face instead.
Well… Tommy wasn’t going to get back to sleep anytime soon. And his only other alternative at the moment was just staring at his ceiling until the sun rose. Frankly, that didn’t sound very appealing to him.
“Alright,” Tommy huffed, picking his glass up again. “I’ll help you with your dumb writing because I’m such a great brother.”
Wilbur snorted, stepping around Tommy to grab a protein bar out of the cabinet. “Didn’t you just say the other day that I was a genius of music?”
Tommy frowned. “Nope. Putting you and genius in the same sentence is something I’d never do.”
“Okay, well you said I was good at songwriting,” Wilbur argued, grabbing Tommy’s wrist to gently guide him out of the kitchen.
“Ehhh, I still think that’s stretching it,” Tommy shot back, flicking the kitchen lights off on their way out. “Maybe I said you weren’t half bad at it.”
“You’re such an asshole,” Wilbur told him, tugging him up the stairs.
“I’m wonderful, excuse you,” Tommy retorted, the banter falling into place between them like second nature.
That was one of the best things about Wilbur. No matter how out of it he felt, he could always rely on him to bring him back to himself. The teasing was easy, a pattern that took no effort to slip into. By the time they were standing in front of Wilbur’s room again, his lingering anxiety had ebbed away for the time being.
It was still there. Humming just in the back of his mind, waiting to rear its ugly head again. But for a few blissful minutes, it wasn’t the only thing he could think about.
He followed Wilbur into his room, quietly shutting the door behind him so he didn’t accidentally wake Phil or Techno with the sound. Wilbur hopped onto his bed, tearing open the protein bar and taking a large bite before setting it off to the side, and picking up his guitar where it had been left on the comforter.
Tommy sat down next to him. Papers were strewn all over the bed, with scribbled out lyrics and a few random doodles dominating the lined pages. He tried to avoid crushing any of the papers, instead brushing them aside with his hand as he leaned back against the pillows, resting his head against the headboard as Wilbur cleared his throat.
“Alright, uh, I’ve been working on this one for a few hours but it’s pretty rough. Only have a few lines down so far. Tell me what you think of them.”
With that, Wilbur began to sing. Tommy listened intently, paying attention to the way the words flowed into one another, swaying up and down with the pitches of Wilbur’s voice and the strumming of his guitar. This was a familiar routine for them. Wilbur asking Tommy for advice on his songs, Tommy telling him what lyrics he thought he should change or keep the same. It was one of his favorite things to do with Wilbur. Something that was reserved for just the two of them. Huddled together on the bed, bouncing ideas back and forth while bathed in the warm glow of Wilbur’s lamp.
Tommy should feel at ease right now. This tension inside of him should be leaking out, and he should slump back against the pillows, letting Wilbur’s voice soothe away all the anxieties bubbling inside of him.
But he didn’t.
Even though Tommy was trying to relax, the what if’s kept replaying in his mind. What if this wasn’t real? What if this Wilbur was just his subconscious projection of his brother? What if 404 was pretending to be Wilbur right now? What if what if what if-
He wasn’t sure when he’d moved one of the pillows from his back onto his lap, but Tommy was twisting his hands into the dark grey pillowcase now. The fabric was smooth under his fingertips, and he ran them up and down the front of the pillow, trying desperately to focus on the sensation of that and not the hand clawing its way up his throat.
Wilbur continued to sing quietly, and Tommy tried to listen, he really did. But the warm lamp was making everything hazy, and Tommy couldn’t tell if it was just his eyes adjusting to the light, or if it was a sign that this wasn’t real. The pillow was soft, the blankets were soft, everything was soft. Too fucking soft. He needed something sharp. Something to bring everything back into focus so he could prove that this is real and he’s not still dreaming.
Bringing his right hand over his left, Tommy pinched the skin of his palm as hard as he could. His nails dug in, and it stung. But was it stinging enough? It didn’t hurt that much, and everything else was still too soft and calm to feel real. Was he just not pinching hard enough, or was this a dream, and he couldn’t feel the pain properly at all?
He pinched harder, and the stinging got stronger. He’d completely forgotten about Wilbur at that point, and pressed his nails as hard as he could into his skin, hoping for something to- ow!
Tommy pulled his hand away as a sharp spike of pain flashed through his hand. Looking down, he saw bright streaks of crimson spilling across his skin, and distantly realized that he’d pinched himself hard enough to bleed.
Before he could try to stop it, his hand was glowing orange to heal itself. Wilbur, who had had his eyes closed while he sang to himself, whipped his head around at the light and looked down at Tommy’s hand.
“Are you bleeding?” Wilbur asked immediately, shoving his guitar away from him and grabbing Tommy’s hand before he could pull it away.
The orange light faded, and the pain went with it. The marks Tommy had made with his nails were gone, but the blood was still there. It wasn’t much, but it was still visible even in the dim lighting, smeared across his palm like a bright red stain.
“It’s fine, I healed it,” Tommy told him, trying to pull his hand out of Wilbur’s grasp.
Wilbur tightened his grip and yanked Tommy’s hand closer to him. Then, he used his other hand to push his fingers back—not enough to hurt, just enough to make sure Tommy couldn’t curl his hand into a fist and hide the blood from Wilbur.
“What just happened?” Wilbur asked, staring at the blood smears. “Did you give yourself a papercut or-” he cut himself off when he noticed two little white marks hidden under the blood. While Tommy usually didn’t get scars from injuries he healed on himself, sometimes there was a faint ‘echo’ of the wound left behind, which only lasted for a few minutes before fading completely.
The white marks were where Tommy had cut himself with his nails. Two little half-moon crescents. Almost invisible unless you were staring very intensely at his hand, like Wilbur was doing right now.
“Tommy, show me your other hand,” Wilbur said, his voice quiet but firm.
Tommy clenched his jaw. “Why?”
“Don’t make me use my voice,” Wilbur warned, glancing up from his hand to meet his eyes. Even though Wilbur didn’t like to use his voice on anyone in the family, sometimes if he deemed it necessary enough, he would. And right now, judging by the look in his eyes, Tommy could tell he meant it.
Huffing, Tommy lifted his other hand for Wilbur to see. He used his other hand to grab it, and Tommy noticed the blood under his nails at the same time Wilbur did.
“Look, Wilbur, I was just pinching my hand and accidentally used a little too much pressure. It’s fine, really,” Tommy tried to explain.
“Tommy,” Wilbur began, using his thumb to gently rub off the blood on Tommy’s palm. “Why were you pinching your hand?”
Shame welled up in Tommy’s chest. This looked bad. Like there was something very wrong with him. He could tell from the worry lining Wilbur’s face and practically flooding his gaze.
There was nothing he could say to justify this right now though. Not when Wilbur had seen the blood. Not when his skin was still buzzing with anxiety. Not when things were still too fucking hazy for him to think straight.
“I just… I needed to check,” Tommy whispered, dropping his eyes to his lap.
“Check what?” Wilbur whispered back, wrapping Tommy’s (kind of) injured hand up in both of his own.
Tommy swallowed down the lump in his throat, figuring he might as well say it outright. “I needed to check if this was real or not.” A pause. “Dreaming. I needed to make sure I wasn’t still dreaming.”
There was a pause as Wilbur took this in. He wrapped his hands tighter around Tommy’s, and the pressure was… nice. Helpful. It gave him something to focus on.
“Does that happen a lot?” Wilbur asked after a few beats. “Where you think you’re trapped in a dream?”
Tommy kept his eyes on his hand wrapped in Wilbur’s as he thought about how to word his answer. “It… It doesn’t exactly happen that often, but it’s kind of been an on and off thing ever since 404 fucked with my head. If I have a nightmare about that time, then when I wake up I just- I dunno, I can’t really shake the feeling that this might not be real. At least until I wake up a bit more.”
Wilbur was silent for another moment. He glanced between their joined hands and up at Tommy’s face, conflicted.
“You can ask me about it,” Tommy told him after a few seconds.
“I don’t want to make you talk about it if you don’t want to,” Wilbur said, furrowing his brows.
Tommy shook his head. “It’s okay. The dreams weren’t that bad or anything, and, I dunno, maybe it’ll help to talk about them?” He wasn’t sure about that last part, but he could tell Wilbur was curious. And Tommy hadn’t tried ever talking about the dreams with someone in detail before. It was just part of the whole mess that was his kidnapping. A really minor thing in the grand scheme of it all, especially considering that it ended with him breaking nearly all his bones.
“Okay,” Wilbur breathed, squeezing his hand again. “What were the dreams like?”
A pause.
Tommy focused on the feeling of Wilbur’s hand wrapped around his own. He focused on the warm fabric of his hoodie draped over his shoulders. He focused on the soft glow of the lights in Wilbur’s room. He focused on the present, to remind himself he wasn’t there anymore.
“The first dream was just you and me,” Tommy began, thinking back on the dreams that instead of fading away, had been ingrained into his mind like a burn. “This was before I knew you were Siren, y’know, so I was healing, uh, ‘Siren’ in the backroom of the cafe. It wasn’t a hard thing to heal, but afterwards we were just talking and I started hearing this voice. It was this little whisper in my head, and it kept taunting me about how familiar Siren had always been to me. That I knew who you were, even if I didn’t wanna admit it to myself.”
Wilbur clenched his jaw, but didn’t say anything as Tommy kept talking.
“I asked you to leave the backroom because the voice was distracting me, and you did. Then the voice got louder, until I realized it was my own, and had a whole fucking conversation with another version of me,” Tommy continued, huffing at the memory. “I didn’t know this at the time, but it was actually 404, trying to goad me into admitting Siren’s identity out loud so he could hear it. I realized I was dreaming and asked the other me to wake me up, so he did.”
“Wait, I thought there were multiple dreams?” Wilbur questioned.
“Yeah, I’m getting there,” Tommy told him. “I thought he woke me up, because when I opened my eyes again, I was back at the house. I was really freaked out by the dream but I just brushed it off and went downstairs for breakfast, but the whole fucking Syndicate—and I mean, like, in costume since I didn’t know who you all were yet—were just in the living room chilling. Phil was in the full Zephyrus getup making pancakes, Hannah was braiding Techno’s hair on the couch, and I was understandably really fucking confused. I asked Zephyrus if, y’know, you and Phil and Techno knew they were all there, and he said you guys did and it was fine. That was when I kind of made a connection to something that could tell me if I was dreaming.”
“What was it?” Wilbur asked.
“Well, back in the first dream when I’d been healing you, I noticed that the tiles on the floor were weirdly warm even though I knew they were supposed to be cold. When I touched a window in the living room during the second dream, it was also warm even though it was early in the morning and the sun hadn’t hit it yet, so it should’ve been cold.”
“404 can’t control all the details of a dream at once,” Wilbur murmured, his brows furrowing.
“No, he can’t. There’s only so much he can do, so there are usually small tells that reality isn’t, well, reality,” Tommy shrugged, keeping his eyes down. “The other version of me appeared again, so I asked him to wake me up for real that time.”
“But it was another dream?”
Tommy nodded. “It was another dream.” He took a shaky breath to steady himself as he thought back to the dream that hurt the most to remember. “I woke up in my room again, and I went downstairs thinking that if I saw anything weird, I’d know it was a dream. But the only thing I saw was Techno making breakfast. He said you and Phil were out doing work stuff, and I sat down and we just… chatted.” Another pause. “At first it was normal. I relaxed, thinking I’d finally woken up. But then when Techno was rinsing out a dish, he cut his hand on some glass.”
Wilbur huffed. “Techno’s invulnerable. He can’t be hurt by anything, let alone some glass.”
“Well I didn’t know he was the fucking Blade at that point so it made sense in my head,” Tommy snapped.
Immediately, Wilbur winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like-”
“No, it’s okay,” Tommy said, cutting him off. “Sorry, I’m just… I healed him. I healed him and he told me it was good that I finally had a use around the house instead of just taking up space.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, Wilbur squeezed Tommy’s hand again and leaned closer. “Tommy, you know Techno doesn’t think that. None of us do.”
“No, of course I know that now. But while I’m still not sure exactly how 404’s powers work, I think he can, like, nudge dreams in a certain direction? I think he was trying to get it to focus on things I was, uh, worried about.”
“You were never just taking up space, Tommy,” Wilbur told him.
“I know, I know. But back then I’d only been living with you guys for a few months and I was just… I didn’t exactly know where I fit in,” he explained, clenching his jaw. “Anyway, I ended up, uh, doing the same thing I did just now where I dug my nails so hard into my hand I broke the skin. But the weird thing was that it didn’t bleed at all, even though I knew I broke the skin, and that’s what made me realize I was dreaming that time.”
To say Wilbur looked worried was an understatement. “Was that what you were trying to do just now?”
Tommy shook his head. “No. This time was an accident, I swear. I really didn’t mean to break the skin like that.”
Nodding, Wilbur let go of Tommy’s hand, before shifting so he could wrap an arm around his shoulders to pull him in for a side hug. Tommy leaned in, burying his face in his brother’s sweater and trying to remind his rapidly beating heart that he was okay now. That was in the past.
“Was that the last dream?” Wilbur then asked.
“No,” Tommy said, his voice muffled. “When the other me woke me up again, I was laying in my room, but you were there. You looked… really freaked out. And you told me that I’d been kidnapped by Dream.”
“What?” Wilbur hissed, the arm wrapped around Tommy’s shoulders tightening.
“It was a fake out,” Tommy explained. “The dream you told me all about how we’d been on the phone when Dream kidnapped me and 404 put me to sleep. The Syndicate rescued me, but I’d still been asleep and you all thought 404 put me into some kind of coma or some shit. I- I really thought I was awake. I was fully convinced I’d finally woken up because I remembered getting kidnapped. I remembered it and I thought that meant it had to be real.”
“But it wasn’t,” Wilbur murmured.
“It wasn’t,” Tommy confirmed. “I looked out the window and it was just… white. I couldn’t see the backyard or anything. It was like we were sitting in a white void. Because I’d remembered being kidnapped then, I realized 404 was probably fucking with my dreams. You, Phil, and Techno kept trying to convince me it was real, but at that point I knew it wasn’t, and eventually I got 404 to reveal himself. And when I woke up again, I was tied to a chair in that damn warehouse you found me in.”
Silence hung over them once Tommy finished. Tommy’s heart was pounding in his ears as he remembered the terror of it all. Of waking up over and over again. Of hearing his own voice and seeing his own face taunt him. Second guessing every small detail he could see. How powerless he’d been.
“It’s fine now,” Tommy tried to say when the silence went on for far too long. “I just- I get a little freaked out sometimes. But I’m okay. Really.”
Pulling back from the hug, Wilbur put his hands on Tommy’s shoulders and looked down to meet his eyes. “Tommy, that sounds fucking terrifying to experience. You don’t have to be totally okay after something like that.”
Dropping his eyes, Tommy took another breath to steady himself.
“Sometimes, I wonder if all of this has just been a dream,” he whispered, the confession slipping out without thought. “Because sometimes it just seems too good to be true, y’know? I didn’t go to jail, no one’s identities got revealed, Tubbo and Ranboo joined the Syndicate, you- you guys adopted me- it just feels like it all worked out way too well to be real.” He glanced up then, his eyes drifting to the white streak that sat starkly against Wilbur’s dark curls. “How did I bring you back to life if this is real? That shouldn’t be possible.”
Wilbur stared at him for a moment, some kind of quiet storm brewing in his eyes. He seemed… pained. Like hearing Tommy’s doubts was causing a physical ache inside of him.
Then, Wilbur was reaching for his hand again. The one he’d accidentally hurt. He pulled apart his fingers to expose his blood-stained palm, but instead of looking at the faint marks, Wilbur began to pinch the skin himself—albeit in a much gentler way than Tommy had done to himself.
“Can you feel this?” Wilbur asked, the pinching feeling like little more than a light tugging on his skin.
“Yeah, I can,” Tommy nodded.
Humming, Wilbur then took Tommy’s hand and guided it to the window next to his bed. He pressed Tommy’s fingers against it.
“How does the window feel?” Wilbur asked.
“It… It’s cool,” Tommy realized, his palm pressing harder against the smooth glass.
He let Wilbur hold his hand against the window for a few more moments, before he pulled away, and Wilbur didn’t stop him as Tommy folded his arms over his chest.
“Does this feel real to you?” Wilbur then asked.
There was no condescension in his voice. He wasn’t trying to indulge Tommy, but he wasn’t afraid for him either. It was a genuine question.
Slowly, Tommy nodded. “It does.” The anxiety wrapped around his chest loosened its grip, each bar to the cage falling away one by one. His shoulders slumped as the acceptance washed over him.
This was real.
“Tommy, if you ever wake up and you’re not sure you’re stuck in a dream or not, come get me,” Wilbur told him, his voice deadly serious. “It doesn't matter if I’m sleeping or anything, I want you to come to me and tell me. And I’ll do whatever I can to help you realize you’re not stuck in your head anymore.”
“Thank you,” Tommy whispered, a weight he didn’t even realize was there lifting off his shoulders.
Suddenly, there were arms wrapping around him, and Tommy buried himself in Wilbur’s shoulder as they hugged once again. The arms around his back were warm, the fabric against his cheek was soft, and from the angle his ear was at, he could faintly make out Wilbur’s heartbeat reverberating through his chest.
“Can I stay in here with you tonight?” Tommy asked without thinking. “I don’t really think I’ll be able to sleep if I go back to my room.”
Wilbur chuckled, and the sound sent vibrations through Wilbur’s chest and into Tommy’s skull.
“Clingy,” he teased, although his voice was far softer than normal. “Of course you can. But if you kick me like you did the last time you fell asleep in my room, I’m shoving you on the floor.”
Tommy scoffed. “It was one time, asshole. And I was asleep! I didn’t kick you on purpose!”
“But it fucking hurt!” Wilbur protested, his shrill indignation contrasted by the way he was still hugging Tommy and leaning back against his pillows. “I had a bruise on my calf from it!”
“Which I healed,” Tommy grumbled. “Should’ve let you live with the bruise. Fucking prick.”
“Shush, small child,” Wilbur said, readjusting them both so Tommy’s head was on his shoulder, but he still had room to grab his guitar again. “It’s bedtime for you.”
“I’m not even a child anymore. I turned eighteen-”
“Shhhhh,” Wilbur cut him off, pressing a hand over his mouth to shut him up. “You’re gonna listen to me play, and then you’re gonna pass the fuck out because I can see you struggling to keep your eyes open.”
And that totally wasn’t true. Tommy’s eyes definitely weren’t drooping. A wave of exhaustion definitely hadn’t hit him as soon as his body had relaxed enough to feel tired again. Totally not. He wasn’t tired at all.
Tommy was asleep again before Wilbur even sang the first note.