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The light can’t reach into the alley.
Shadows cover it with inky darkness, and Wilbur hesitates before it. There is a tension in the air, a warning he can’t decipher. He presses a hand against the rough bricks by the entrance. Nails scratch at mortar as he tries to look through the darkness.
It hasn’t rained for weeks.
He can hear dripping.
“Tommy?” Wilbur asks instead of shouts. Abruptly wishes he had put on his mask, that he had taken the time to don his uniform and make the search an official thing. But none of them had; all three of them had scrambled into the night to look for their missing member, too afraid of a repeat of Dream to take the minutes needed to change clothes.
The alley is dark. It drips.
When Wilbur focuses, he can hear breathing.
He lets go of the brick wall and takes a step inside.
“Tommy?” he calls again, a little louder, and there is not a tremble to his voice. It is steady and professional, and he takes another step forward. “Toms. You there?”
Another step.
The light is behind him now; Wilbur’s eyes adjust, making pitch black into darker gray. He can vaguely make out shapes. Abandoned boxes, a dumpster. Something that has toppled. A lanky frame.
The moon shines down; turns Tommy’s eyes a silvery sheen of light when he looks up. Wilbur breathes a sigh of relief and hurries forward, paying no attention to the wetness he walks through, which clings to the bottom of his shoes.
“Tommy,” he says, and pulls his brother into a hug, professionalism falling away, his voice strained and trembling, “what the fuck, you worried us, you worried me. Don’t ever leave like that.”
His little brother hums. Presses his face against Wilbur’s neck.
“You alright?” Wilbur asks, combs one shaking hand through Tommy’s hair, soothing himself more than the teen in his arms. “Shit, fuck, I need to call dad.”
“Can we leave here first?” Tommy wonders. He’s quiet, but not the scared, confused way he has been for days, weeks. It is softer. Calm. Peaceful, somehow, and it reminds Wilbur of late nights where they used to cuddle and avoid sleep in favor of movies and nonsense talk.
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Wilbur says, pulling Tommy along, one arm over his little brother’s shoulders as he hurries out of the alley. “You’re not even wearing a jacket! What were you thinking-”
The yellow light of the streetlamp washes over them. Wilbur pulls away so that he can reach his phone, hand in his pocket as he looks at Tommy.
Tommy’s pupils are blown wide. Wilbur can barely see the blue of his iris with how the pupils have expanded. It reminds him of Niki’s cat he once saw high on catnip, purring up a storm as it rolled around on the floor.
There is red smeared across Tommy’s cheek. It goes downwards in a messy swipe, touching his chin, the corner of his mouth.
Tommy is smiling.
Just a bit; a quiet kind of smile. A hint of pride at the edges of it, and he looks into space, humming to himself. He doesn’t seem bothered by the blood on his face; the blood and guts splashed across his shirt.
It hasn’t rained for weeks.
The alley drips.
Wilbur’s shoes are stained red.