Chapter Text
(ok there’s a few bits at school in this chapter but i have no idea how the fuck british people school works and i literally dropped out of american highschool so please forgive me tea drinkers. all hail the queen or whatever)
Tubbo’s idea to get clean was going well, although it had still only been a few days, but he’d resisted enough urges that he figured he was allowed to feel good about himself for it.
One of the main things keeping him motivated was the terrible pain in his leg. He could barely walk, despite the over the counter pain meds he’d take twice a day. He’d done worse than this before, but never on his legs, so he didn’t have to move them around as much. It was some of the worst pain he’d ever felt.
Wilbur had most definitely noticed, which didn’t come as a surprise to tubbo at all. Wilbur knew when he self harmed before he was limping around like an idiot, so he had figured he’d catch on pretty quick.
He brought it up while driving tubbo to school one morning, which he still did everyday despite recently turning into a walking skeleton. Tubbo had told him multiple times he was willing to take the bus, but wil insisted on driving him.
“Is your leg alright?” wilbur asked abruptly, as they were only a few minutes from the school. Tubbo sighed and thought ‘here we go again.’
“It’s fine.” he nodded, avoiding eye contact. It wasn’t necessarily a lie. He had been taking good care of it, and the wounds showed no signs of infection, so he was almost telling the truth.
“Must be bad this time if you can’t even walk right.” wilbur continued, his eyes not leaving the road. Tubbo hated how wilbur always thought he was right about everything, and he hated even more that wilbur actually was always right about everything.
“It’s nothing i haven’t done before. I’ll be fine.” he assured wil, still intentionally staring away from the older boy. It was silent for a moment, until they pulled into the school parking lot.
“I really think you should stop hurting yourself, tubbo.” wil said, parking his car. He finally turned to face the younger boy, who continued to do the opposite. “It’s not worth it.”
“Neither is starving yourself.” tubbo said with a shrug after a moment of silence. He finally turned to wil, who had a shocked expression on his face.
“Sorry..” tubbo said softly. “I’ll see you at three.”
Wil nodded, and gave tubbo a soft smile, before he closed the car door and walked into the school building.
School was probably tubbo’s least favorite thing, like, ever. Not for any typical reason, he was never bullied, and he got pretty decent grades. He just hated being around so many people his age for that long. He didn’t feel like he was on the same level as them. They all saw the world entirely differently than he did, and he had no idea how to connect with them, so he stuck with the couple of friends he had and avoided everyone else like they had the plague.
After suffering through half the day, he was relieved to see tommy and ranboo standing and waiting for him in the cafeteria, lunch trays already in hand. He slowly walked over to them, his leg practically throbbing with pain by this point in the day. Barely being able to walk doesn’t mix well with college.
“Woah, what happened to your leg, man?” ranboo asked once tubbo finally reached his two friends. Ranboo had just recently moved to the uk from california about six months earlier when he started going to school with tommy and tubbo. The three of them had the same interests and senses of humor, so they got along pretty quickly. Ranboo was just a nickname, but he absolutely hated being called his real name, so everyone just kind of stuck with that.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I slipped in the shower yesterday and fucked up my knee pretty badly.” tubbo lied, moving to sit down at the empty lunch table behind them.
“Yikes, you should try not slipping next time.” tommy joked, taking a seat beside him, followed by ranboo.
This was tubbo’s favorite part of most days. Getting to hang out and be semi-normal with his friends. They never really talked about anything serious, unless it was prompted, so it was a nice way to escape from the bad stuff.
Tubbo hadn’t told ranboo about his self harm. Tommy knew, having accidentally walked in on tubbo one day the previous year, but tubbo had asked him not to bring it up to ranboo. He said he wanted to seem at least a little normal to his new friend, rather than exposing himself as some kind of screw up.
“So, did you guys finish that project for photo? It’s due today.” ranboo asked, taking a bite of his pizza. Tubbo turned to tommy, who was supposed to finish putting everything together the night before. Tommy froze.
“Today?” he asked, panicked. “Shit, i thought it wasn’t until tomorrow.”
“Dude, I literally told you to finish it last night.” tubbo reminded him, rolling his eyes, and chuckling a bit. It wasn’t that big of a deal, they had almost finished it anyway, but it did mean their grade was going to be a bit worse.
Tommy apologized, and they all brushed it off.
The three of them chatted for the rest of lunch, and then continued on with the rest of their school day.
Tubbo didn’t eat his food, only a few bites of his apple. He wasn’t feeling hungry at all since trying to stay clean. He didn’t expect it to affect him like that, but when you do something for so long, stopping sort of messes up your entire life for a bit.
At 2:54, he walked out of the school building to see wilbur’s car parked right out front. Wil was smiling kindly, and looked excited about something. Tubbo, confused, said goodbye to tommy and ranboo before hurrying over to the car.
“Hey.” he said, opening the door and climbing in. wil grabbed his bag from him and tossed it into the back seat.
“How was your day?” wil asked, pulling the car out of it’s parking spot.
“It was alright.” tubbo shrugged. “Just a day i guess.”
Wil nodded, and drove out of the parking lot, turning a different way this time than he usually did. Tubbo turned to him, confused.
“Uh, where are we going?” he asked, his eyes briefly lingering on wilbur’s bruised knuckles gripping the steering wheel.
The smile on the older brother’s face grew bigger.
“We, my friend, are going on a little road trip,” he replied happily. “And by little i mean we’re only going like forty five minutes away, but a road trip nonetheless.”
Tubbo gave him a skeptical look. He hadn’t seen wilbur this energetic in weeks, so it was a bit of a shock.
“You still haven’t specified where.” tubbo pointed out, curiously. Wilbur rolled his eyes.
“You will see when we get there.” he insisted, continuing down the road.
The two drove for a while in silence. Tubbo was still pretty hesitant towards wil at first, since seeing him like this was such an unfamiliar thing now. But by about halfway through their drive, wil was blasting music and the two were singing along loudly, acting like idiots.
Wilbur pulled the car into an empty lot, and tubbo laughed and watched as he took his hands off the wheel to play air guitar along with the song, nodding his head with the beat.
The song ended, and the two climbed out of the car.
“So… where the hell are we?” tubbo asked, looking around. They were parked in an empty dirt parking lot, surrounded by trees. There was a trail leading off into the woods on the opposite side from them.
“Come on.” wilbur spoke. He grabbed an old tan bag from the back seat and began walking towards the path, waving for tubbo to follow him. Tubbo raised an eyebrow and gestured to his leg.
“Did you seriously take me on a hike?” he questioned, standing still.
Wilbur looked at tubbo's leg and rolled his eyes.
“It’s like a five minute walk, suck it up.” he responded, lightheartedly. Tubbo sighed and reluctantly followed behind, limping slowly. Wil seemed to notice how far he was ahead of the boy, because he slowed down and waited for tubbo to catch up.
The two walked for only a few moments, as wilbur had promised, until they reached a clearing a bit of a ways down the path. It was an open circle of land in the middle of the woods, lined perfectly by the tall trees. The grass was tall and untouched, and there was an old bench that sat comfortably next to a small patch of yellow flowers. They were lilies.
It was peaceful and quiet, the only sounds being the distant chirps of birds and the low hum of the bugs that inhabited the forest.
Tubbo traced the area with his eyes, amazed at how beautiful it was. Wilbur stood beside him proudly, and threw his arms out in front of himself as if he was showing the place off.
“It’s perfect, right?” the taller asked, turning to face tubbo. Tubbo looked up at him, and flashed a soft smile.
“It is.” he nodded. “How’d you even find this place?”
Wilbur’s expression softened, his tired eyes growing a bit sad.
“It was uh..” he started, pausing for a moment. “It was mom and i’s spot. We used to come here every once in a while and just talk, play guitar, that kind of stuff. It was a sort of escape i guess.”
Tubbo’s chest got a bit heavier, and he simply nodded again.
“And it still is!” wil continued, the tone in his voice cheerful once again. “Only now it can be our spot, right bud?”
“sure, ok.” the younger shrugged. He didn’t really know what to say, and was still confused on why he had even decided to take him here in the first place. If wil wasn’t so scrawny, he might’ve been afraid the dude was taking him out here to kill him.
Wilbur made his way over to the small old bench, sitting down and placing his bag onto the ground beside him. He patted on the spot next to him, inviting tubbo to sit with him. He took the offer, excited to get off his feet, and sat down beside his brother.
“So… what do we do now?” tubbo asked, genuinely curious.
“I figured we could talk.” wilbur replied, in a comforting tone. “I feel like we haven’t done that enough since mom.”
Tubbo stayed silent, feeling tears sting at his eyes at the thought of his mom. At the thought of everything, really. He did want to talk to wil, it’d been a while since he’d sat down and genuinely talked to anyone, but he didn’t know if he was in the place to have some deep conversation right now.
“Or, if you don’t wanna talk, we can just sit for a while.” wilbur continued, smiling gently. He reached over to his bag and started rummaging through it, pulling out two glass bottles. “I brought these.”
Tubbo looked down to see a bottle of beer in wil’s hand. He looked up at him, confused. Wil stayed silent, and simply raised his eyebrows and smirked, as if telling tubbo to take it.
“You’re turning eighteen in a few months anyway.” he shrugged, still smirking. Tubbo rolled his eyes, smiling and taking the drink. The two sat in silence for a bit, drinking their beers and taking in the nature around them. It was the most calming place tubbo had ever been, and it was nice to just sit in the company of someone else for a while.
“So, you wanted to talk?” tubbo finally asked, breaking the silence. He’d started to feel calm enough to have a conversation, and again, he did want to talk.
“I’m willing if you’re willing.” wilbur agreed, taking another sip of his drink. “After what you said this morning… i don’t know, i realized i’ve been distant. I think we both have.”
Tubbo nodded, and looked down at the ground, twirling the glass bottle around in his hand. He sighed, and thought about what to say.
“Dad’s really worried about you.” he shared, softly. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“I know.” wilbur admitted, sighing as well, and leaning back into the bench. “He’s worried about you, too.”
“Why do you do it?” tubbo asked, vaguely. “I mean why starve yourself, or whatever.”
Wilbur was quiet for a moment, probably trying to think of an answer.
“It helped, at first.” he finally responded. “Helped me feel… in control of my life. Like i was the one in the driver's seat. Now i feel more out of control than i ever did before i started.”
It was quiet again, and this time a sort of awkward silence fell over them. Tubbo didn’t know how to respond to that. He resonated with what his brother had said, but he had no idea how to convey that without sounding like an idiot.
“Will you be ok?” was all he could muster up. He was scared for wil, especially after hearing what he’d said.
“I don’t know.” wilbur admitted, laughing it off. “Part of me does want to get better, and part of me…”
Wil stopped there, and tubbo understood what that meant. He decided to shift the conversation onto himself for a bit.
“I’m three days clean.” he said, looking back up at wil and smiling. The older’s face lit up.
“That’s incredible man!” he yelled excitedly, holding his beer bottle up towards tubbo’s, as if to ask for a toast. The two clinked their drinks together and sipped them. “I’m really proud of you kid. That’s great, really.”
“Thanks.” tubbo spoke happily, still smiling.
“Wil?” he spoke again after a moment. “Can you not die.. Please? Cause that would really suck.”
Wilbur sighed, wrapping his arm around the younger’s back.
“I’m not going anywhere.” he promised.