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Tommys teeth chatter, the cold weather affecting his scrawny figure far too much for a boy his age. “I don’t want to do this.” He whispers, breath coming out in puffs-- white air filling the surrounding area in eyesight. Trees loom over the patch in which he resides, not doing much to comfort him. Daunting if anything.
“The faster you get this done, the faster you can go home. I’m almost there,” Wilbur asserts. Louder than need be, due to the sound of their old beat-up 2000’s Jeep Cherokee- muffler, needing to be patched up basically since they bought it. Wilbur had spent $700 of his savings on it, desperate for the transportation, no matter how beat up or revolting the insides had been at the time.
Tommy curls his fingers into the soil below him, rocks getting in the way, making it harder for him to rip into the dirt. His fingers are trembling, dirt getting under his fingernails making it progressively more uncomfortable to keep his part up. “I’m cold,” he stresses. Knees digging into the wet grass near the open dirt hole. Knowing later that green stains will blossom onto his favorite pair of jeans.
“You’re cold?” Wilbur barks out a laugh. “If you’re cold, I must have hypothermia.” he snarks. “You want to see your friends again? You want to see me again, Tommy?” Wilbur pauses, letting silence ring out across the call. Giving the desolate forest around him a haunted feeling. He can hear the indistinct sound of the car beeping from being parked with the lights still on, shrill and familiar. “Keep digging, you can be done soon.” The car door slams, he’s not too far out now.
Tommy bites his tongue, he wants to say No! I don't want to! And move on. He wants for this to have never happened, he wants to close his eyes and wake up in his springy bed, in his worn house, walk down the stairs- not trip on the bottom step that has a piece missing where his memory is too fuzzy to remember why, and find his brother in the kitchen, at the stove with his amicable smile cooking his favorite meal.
But that's not going to happen, no matter how much he wishes for it. So he digs, bringing his arms down into the hole and throwing the dirt onto the adjacent area. He reaches down to grab the next heap of soil and slices his hand on one of the serrated rocks. His hold on the side of the hole wavers and collapses in on itself, as he lets out a cry, tumbling into the ditch of his own creation. Tommy curls into his wiry body, sore, exhausted, and cold.
“Wilbur!” he weeps, getting up to his feet and wavers. Wanting to be anywhere but this cramped, damp, space. One that he could swear was closing in on him, panic spiking unlike the usual slow build-up he was used to- the kind you'd get when you hear your brother's footsteps being heavier and more unpredictable instead of poised and almost practiced. “Wilbur!” Thomas wails once more, eyes blurring- scratching at the edge of the pit. Frail arms are unable to lift himself up. Once worried about his jeans getting dirty, here now, throwing his body onto the dirt wall in his trepidation.
“Toms,” he hears just steps away, feet crunching against the frostbitten grass, a thud. Arms encompass his own, pulling him up, kicking up at the dirt walls, escaping the hole altogether. Burying his face into his brother's chest, any irate thought previously directed at the man fades from his mind when he brings his hand up to his pale, unruly hair, and pulls him in. Melting into his brothers cold, wet, but welcoming embrace.
“Hey, hey, breathe” Wilbur coos and combs through his hair, “What happened?”
Tommy sniffles, “I fell.” A nostalgic feeling passes over the worn boy, remembering the times he'd been saved much like this as children. Under very different circumstances. Savoring the feeling of secureness in his brother's presence, he finally brings up his hand between them, showing off his newest injury.
“Toms,” Wilbur starts “you need to be more careful with yourself” he fusses, taking hold of his hand inspecting the wound. “You’re gonna need stitches.”
“I di-didn’t think it was that bad” Tommy manages, stepping back out of his brother's reach. “And you’re freezing, why are your clothes wet?”
“It was bad enough for you to cry out for me,” he remarks, changing the subject with ease knowing his brother like the back of his hand. Knowing how to rile him up.
“It wasn’t like that,” Tommy steps back defensively. Foot getting caught on something, the ground fell from under him once again as he caught himself on his arms. Letting out a small groan from the fall, he looks over to the culprit by his feet. “What the fuck!” He screeches. Kicking as far as he could away from the body bag, hand flying up to his mouth at the sight of the man's head hanging out of the bag, not quite decayed, but limp and lifeless.
“Calm down,” Wilbur calls out to him.
Tommy turns toward the trees, looking anywhere but the man on the ground “I’m gonna be sick,” he admits. Nausea pooling in his stomach, face paling ever so slightly.
“Hey,” Wilbur says calmly. “Come here."
Tommy shakes his head, still with fear. Wilbur steps over the corpse and starts toward his brother. Taking his face into his hands. “Hey.” He tries, Tommy fighting from his arms, hands trying to rip away from Wilbur. “Hey.” He says more sternly this time, stabilizing his head. “You need to calm down, get up, and help me.”
“No!” Tommy cries, flinching away from his brother's hands.
Wilbur lets him, bringing his hand up to rub his face. “You think I want to be doing this? Huh?” He snaps, “You think I want to be in the woods, in the middle of the night with you of all people, burying a body? Do you think I'm that much of a shitty brother?”
Tommy wrings his hands together., “I didn’t say that!-”
“But you were thinking it!” Wilbur spat., “I’m an awful brother, just say it.”
Tommy swallows the lump in his throat, given up on wiping the fallen tears from his face. Now his soul purpose remains to convince his brother he wasn't awful, even though at the moment it didn't feel like that was the case. “You’re not-”
“Stop lying!.” Wilbur cuts off, snapping his head toward Tommy. “I just want the best for you.” he chokes, tears clouding his own vision now. “You’re too young to understand. Don’t you ever want to see Tubbo again? Ranboo?” Throwing his arms into the air, running his hand through his hair he continues, “This is on you too Toms.”
“What?” Tommy wobbles out.
“Sunshine, you’re helping me bury a body,.” He trills. “You’re an accomplice to a crime, you think they’d let you off of this? What just because you didn't commit it? No. Trust me, they would lock you up and you’d never see me ever again. Is that what you want?”
Was that what he wanted? Thomas thought, No of course not! He pushed his soiled fingernails into his palms. Why would he even think that?
“Tommy,” Wilbur walks forward. “You know I love you, right?”
Tommy looks up for the first time reeling from the whiplash his brother had given him. Searching his brother's face, He realizes he's tired. Why did he even try picking this fight in the first place? “Yeah,” he whispers. And a sick sense of dread fills his chest, he can't bring himself to say it isn't true. But the lingering anxiety makes him think of all the times he's spent with Tubbo and Ranboo. They've never made him feel this way. But they aren't his family, he supposes. It's different.
“Yeah, and now I need you to trust me as much as you know that I love you.” Wilbur reaches out, hands on his forearms now. Slightly crouched to reach his eye line. “And i’ll promise you that everything will be okay.” Wilbur smiles slightly, bringing his hand up to rest on the boy's cheek running his thumb from the corner of his eye to his temple.
“Promise?” Tommy breathes, looking up into his brother's eyes.
“Promise.”
“Okay,” Tommy swallows. Leaning into his brother's hand subconsciously.
“Good,” Wilbur praised. Bringing his face down and leaving a kiss on his forehead. “Now, I want you to go back to the car. And wait for me to get back.”
“But-”
“Toms.” Tommy's interruption is followed by Wilburs cut off, giving his brother a sharp look.
Tommy, once again searches his brother's face, eyes darting around the older boy's front. “Okay.” He murmurs. Wilbur lets him go, and lightly ruffles his hair as he turns to walk off. Not once turning around to see his brother pick up the deceased body, but hearing the sound of plastic being drug across uneven ground makes him pick up his pace. Tomorrow he would wake up, go to school, see his friends, and everything would be okay. Because that's what his brother promised him. And Wilbur never breaks a promise.