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Wilbur's return home had none of the slight hesitation that he had felt last time he had come to meet his brother. It had never truly been awkward, but there was a certain sort of doubt that both of them had about meeting each other in person. There was the slight fear that the relationship that they had maintained through emails and online messages and phone calls for so many years wouldn't be the same when they stood in each other's presence again.
That, thankfully, had been thoroughly destroyed by the time that Wilbur had left America. Best friends had firmly become brothers again by the time that he had left, adopted by a family of inhuman creatures that had taken both of them in as their own.
His time in the UK had been marked by days of forgetfulness, waking up wondering if his trip to America had been a dream. Sometimes it felt like it was, the existence of those strange creatures that lived in the forest, the monster that seemed to exist at the edge of reality, hidden among the trees.
But every day Techno would be just a call away, gently reminding him where he put his journal so that he could read through what had happened to him the day before.
It took him a while to be able to hold onto the slippery memories of each day before, waking up still expecting to be in Techno's forest home half the time. But he recovered eventually, being able to recall what had happened in his life for longer without having to re-read everything he had written down. Eventually he was able to hold onto the week, the month before, and somewhere along the way his memories of his last two weeks in America filtered back in.
And now he was colliding with his brother, his twin, his best friend.
Techno chuckled and patted his back after nearly being knocked over. "Hey, Wil."
"Hey Tech," he responded with a grin, face buried in the other's shoulder. "How have you been?"
"I mean, I had to get up early to pick up an idiot from the airport, take that as you will," he said flatly.
Wilbur just laughed and finally released Techno, rocking back on his heels as his grip returned to the handle of his bag. "No worries, I know you missed me. How have the cryptids been?"
"Phil is the same as ever, and I'm pretty sure that Tommy has only gotten more feral. I swear he took down a moose the other day, he brought the antlers around the house and was trying to whack me with them."
Wilbur couldn’t help but cackle at that, throwing his head back as they walked towards the baggage claim. “Of course, of course, I don’t know what else I expected. I’m excited to actually see them again.”
Techno just smiled, and hefted one of his bags onto his shoulder as Wilbur pointed it out, and the brunet took the other. “Then let’s get back, we should have time for lunch before sunset.”
It was a nice car ride, just as long and winding as Wilbur remembered from the last time they had driven this route. The road broke away from city streets to quiet towns, until finally they hit the beginning of the forest.
What Wilbur wasn’t expecting was the way that his heart seemed to suddenly thrum with feeling when the car drifted onto that long stretch of road, and he was reminded of the first time he drove this long path. The way that it felt like a river splitting through the forest, a canyon made of trees and asphalt, stretching on into endless green.
It felt like he could breathe easier, like he had been breathing in smoke and fumes for so long he had forgotten what it was like to not struggle for each inhale, to choke as he exhaled.
“You alright?” Techno hummed, glancing over at him.
With a chuckle and a grin, Wilbur sank back into the car seat and closed his eyes. “Never better,” he said truthfully.
It felt like home, to sit beside his brother, to be returning to that house nestled at the very edges of civilization.
When they arrived, he couldn’t help but lay down in the grass outside of the home. There was a faint chill in the air, the heat of the sun not quite sinking into the dirt below him like it did with his jacket. But it felt nice, different from the stuffy air of the city he usually called home.
Eventually Techno laughed at him, and threw one of his bags onto his stomach, which drew a wheezing breath and a curse from the brunet. But he had extracted himself from the dirt and the greenery and followed his brother inside the house with a grin.
And when the sun finally set, and he heard the first of those once-terrifying screams, he laughed and threw the door open – just in time for a small body to slam into him in the most familiar of ways.
He went tumbling with his expected surprise, just to find Tommy seemingly trying to dig himself into Wilbur’s chest.
The youngling wasn’t much bigger than he had been the last time the brunet had visited – still small enough to be held, but maybe somewhat heavier. He was squirming, like he couldn’t get close enough even while laying on top of the human, furious chattering mixing with needy warbles and chirps.
It was adorable, especially as Wilbur wrapped his arms around the squirming thing and gave the youngling a squeeze, cooing back at him. “Aww, Tommy, I missed you too.”
That seemed to settle the creature, as Tommy wiggled once more to tuck his head under Wilbur’s chin and give one more grumbly-sounding chitter. It just made the brunet giggle as Phil approached him as well – much slower than the youngling had done, thankfully. Wilbur could still remember what it felt like to have the fully adult cryptid slam into his back to knock him to the ground, and it was something that he would rather not repeat, thank you.
Still, Wilbur leaned his head into the taloned hand that Phil ran through his curls, those dangerous claws preening through his hair.
“Missed you too, Phil,” he murmured, letting his eyes close with a smile. The gentle scratching against his scalp made a tingle run down his spine, relaxed and once again entirely aware of how easily the creature standing above him could take his head off if it wanted to. This time the feeling didn’t come with even the lingering apprehension that he remembered, though.
But that thought was abandoned when Techno huffed quietly. “What, no greeting for me?” His twin’s voice was flat as ever, only a touch of amusement giving away his sarcasm.
In return, Phil tilted his head as Tommy chittered what Wilbur could only imagine was probably some sort of cryptid insult.
Then the adult cooed, feather-fur fluffing slightly, before giving that laughing twitter that Wilbur remembered from last time. It made the brunet snort in surprise, cackling when he realized that Phil was blatantly teasing Techno for being needy.
“I can’t believe this, betrayed by a bird for my own brother,” the pink haired man said with a sarcastic eye roll.
Wilbur just laughed. “Well, you’re not the one that’s been gone for a year and some change, Tech, let me enjoy the spoiling.”
“Yeah, yeah. Any thoughts on what you want for dinner?”
At that, Phil looked up at Techno and gave a loud chirp, rolling into a chirring sound that was almost like an admonishment. And then Wilbur was being pulled up, Tommy abandoning the grip he had on the human’s shirt to instead bound to the door.
The twins shared a glance, and Wilbur grinned.
“Looks like we’re going hunting, oh dear brother of mine,” he said with a laugh.
Techno just sighed with a nod. “Alright, alright. Phil, don’t go just yet, let me get a couple of lights for us.”
The cryptid fluffed his feathers but leaned against Wilbur while they waited, and the brunet couldn’t help but sink into the feeling of home that he felt like this.
It was good to be back.
~~~
Within just a few days, Wilbur felt himself settle back into the schedule of his life here. It was as if he had never left, though the weather had gotten significantly colder since the last time he was here.
What had been a heady, warm summer last year was slipping back into the fall weather that he had missed out on with his departure. The rain that came so often was no lukewarm, humid downpours, but chill and foggy weather that dunked the forest into a mystical sort of scenery.
It was as if, during those storms, the rest of the world ceased to exist at all. Even the occasional sound of planes flying high overhead seemed to be muffled within the clouds, nothing being able to penetrate into the fog. It was just the four of them and the forest, the trees that hid the creatures that scurried through the underbrush.
He found that there was something peaceful, and terrible, about the fog.
But every afternoon, Wilbur woke up and shook the lethargy out of his skull to get up and enjoy his breakfast with Techno. They would sit together in those lazy days, Wilbur plucking out chords on his guitar while his brother wrote his stories, and simply exist.
When they were joined by the creatures of the forest, Phil and Tommy seemed content to stay in with them, washing the remaining blood from their mouths and claws and spending peaceful nights with them. Or, y’know – at least as peaceful as it could be, with Tommy around. The youngling always seemed to be dragging some sort of trouble with him, not that Wilbur could complain.
The little creature seemed to be delighted when Wilbur mimicked his chirps and chitters back at him, rough as they were. The moment he did, the youngling would throw himself into the human’s chest with furious little noises, as if he was truly trying to talk to him.
And even when it became clear that Wilbur couldn’t actually understand him, it didn’t seem to deter Tommy at all. It was precious, really.
It was only when the morning began to lighten the sky, and Phil scooped a tired-out Tommy into his arms to return to the forest, that the fog finally cleared. Staring out at the morning as the sun burned away the thick fog was like finally waking up from a dream, no matter how long the rain had kept up.
So it probably shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as it was, when Wilbur realized he really was dreaming.
It was a shock, to be looking out of the window at the coming pink-pale-blue of the sunrise, only to open his eyes to a clear afternoon and hear Techno calling.
“Wil, if you want breakfast, you gotta get down here,” his twin drawled from the bottom of the stairs, as the brunet dragged himself up into a sitting position, staring at his hands.
He was used to losing time – of waking up and checking the date, finding that it was days or even weeks past what he was expecting. Though he had repaired what he could of those issues, and seemingly recovered from it, he still had days where he couldn’t hope to guess what day it was.
Now, as he slowly leaned over to check his phone, he found that the number on the screen was one less than what he last remembered seeing.
Shaking his head, he dragged himself to his feet, and slunk down the stairs.
Techno served him a small stack of pancakes, with a couple strips of bacon on the side. They hadn’t lost the natural way that they had learned to move around each other from the last time that he had been here. It was easy to slip into the unthinking habits they had developed, a comfort to the brunet.
It made him think of the way he never quite fit in with the family that had adopted him. While the couple that had taken him in were kind, he had never truly clicked with them. Not like the way he had with Techno, or Phil and Tommy in their own ways.
He still visited them for holidays and was more than happy to call them his mum and dad, they just- weren’t the same.
“Wilbur? You alright?”
Techno’s voice was the one to knock him out of his thoughts, and with a jolt he realized that he had been staring at the table, mindlessly chewing on a mouthful of bacon until it turned flavorless.
He looked up at met his twin’s eyes, giving a quiet sigh and nodding. “Yeah, sorry. Just had a weird dream, made me feel like I was messing up my days again.”
At that, Techno raised an eyebrow. “You need me to run through things? Do you have your journal?”
“Yeah, I got it- don’t worry, I just had to kinda… recenter, I guess.”
A shrug seemed to make his twin relax slightly.
“Alright, well… just let me know if you do start feeling weird. I don’t know if being here will trigger any weird stuff, so…”
Wilbur gave him a curious look. “What do you mean?”
Techno gave a shrug in return. “I mean, psychologically, returning to the location of trauma can sometimes cause relapses, so…”
“Trauma?” A small laugh escaped him – he wouldn’t call the memories he held of this place trauma, as disturbing as it had been at first.
“I mean… I dunno about you, but maybe experincing whatever eldritch magic Kristin did on you counts as trauma? That’s what I’ve more or less been equating it to.”
Wilbur narrowed his eyes at the pink-haired man sitting opposite him. “... I guess.”
Techno snorted quietly and rolled his eyes. “Uh huh. Now, before tonight- I wanted to see if you’re up to try some new games with Phil and Tommy.”
Oh, that sounded like fun – Wilbur sat back in his seat and gave his twin a wide grin. “Oh? What kind of games?”
“Capture the flag, ghost in the graveyard, maybe some other versions of tag if you want to help with teaching them the rules?”
“Capture the flag? In the forest? That’s just asking to get tackled into a tree, Techno-”
“Okay, okay, but hear me out-”
“You’re just trying to kill me at this point-”
~~~
… capture the flag with the cryptids was actually quite fun.
To keep it even, Phil was teamed up with Wilbur, while Techno and Tommy played as a team.
The ‘flags’ were glowsticks – held in protective, thick plastic containers, because Tommy had immediately tried to bite the things the first time they tried to play. The moment Techno had broken the sticks and made them light up, the youngling had lunged for them, ending up with a glowing purple mouth and a lot of angry chattering.
Wilbur had been sent into a laughing fit until he slid to his knees and wheezed, Techno not too far behind him. Every time it seemed close to stopping, he simply looked up to see Tommy sticking his glowing tongue out and was sent spiraling again.
But when they finally managed to play, it was fun, hilarious, and terrifying all at once. Watching Phil launch into the air and glide silently through the trees in an attempt to grab the other team’s flag reminded Wilbur of the way the creatures had nearly killed his brother, once. But then Tommy came crashing through the bushes with a shrill shriek of a war cry, and Wilbur’s thoughts were cut off as he tried to keep the youngling from stealing his and Phil’s glowing flag.
Back and forth, they played for hours – he had to admit, all the night games played with the cryptids did wonders for his fitness. He was able to actually keep up fairly well now, though he was nowhere near Techno’s ability. Not yet, at least, as a small voice whispered that he would have more time to catch up to him on that front.
By the time that the two humans had returned to the house that morning, the forest creatures had already disappeared off to wherever it was that they went during the day.
It was with a wonderful ache and a grin on his face that Wilbur slid into his bed, a soft coo in his throat as he nestled his face into his pillow and crashed into sleep.
~~~
When he awoke again, the house was empty. No sign of Techno, no hint of him in the man’s room, or at the chicken coop when Wilbur peeked out the door.
A chill lingered in the air, and he wondered where Techno had decided to go for his hike today.
Wilbur simply went about like he usually did, pouring himself a bowl of cereal, the cold of the gallon of milk seeming to burn his hand as he added it over the top of his food.
Then he sat in his usual chair to wait, eating as he watched the world turn. He ate, jaw working mechanically – chewing, chewing, thoughts drifting through his mind with a sluggish feeling.
He thought, and sank. Slowly swirling fog, and the chill in the air, like the biting cold of frozen lakes and icebergs in far-out oceans.
Colors blurred in his eyes, vision becoming twisted and hazy.
Techno didn’t go for hikes, did he? Wilbur didn’t know why he had thought that at first. Where was his brother?
Standing up, he found his gaze frozen on his bowl of cereal. It seemed a bit too sharp in the dulled, fuzzy vision that he had of everything else. He became a little too aware of the way his jaw continued moving, working his food into a mash that he couldn’t swallow. He was too aware of each texture, each crease and crevice, every wear and peak of his teeth in his mouth.
He could not look away from the table, even as he moved towards the front door. His vision simply stayed put, as his body moved away – until his hand brushed over the doorknob, and-
Wilbur blinked, and he was staring out of the window in his room, his fingers brushing over the cold pane of glass.
Just outside, there were delicate curls of frost creeping over the glass, thin and fine enough to melt with the warmth of his barely-there fingertips.
The fog outside still had yet to burn away in the sun, clouds hanging heavy over the sky, and Wilbur shuddered. It was too cold to be out of bed, so he turned away from the grey of the window and returned to the blankets that were already losing heat from his absence.
~~~
There was something off about this day – or night, he supposed. Wilbur wasn’t sure what it was, even as he pinched his hand to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming.
It had been happening more often, over the last week. Vivid dreams, odd and startlingly realistic, ones where he wasn’t really sure when he woke up from them. It was an unnerving experience, and he knew that Techno was starting to notice that something was off, but he didn’t know what to tell his twin.
They were just dreams. That’s what he had convinced himself of.
They had to be, because otherwise- otherwise he was losing his mind. Whatever Kristin had done to him had been much worse than either of them had thought, and that was a terrifying notion to him.
But it was like- like something was crawling into his mind. Something was picking at his brain, little secrets that were tapping at the entrance of his consciousness like the scratching of mice in the walls of an infested house. Little secrets that were picking and prying and threatening to rend his brain into two.
It started with the thought – more like a realization, really – that he knew with startling clarity how many skulls were buried in the forest soil.
Shallowly covered, barely hidden with dirt and moss, always at risk of being crushed by claw and foot and hoof. He knew how many of them belonged, how many of them had been born and given and devoured by the forest herself. He knew how many of them were intruders – things that had wandered into the trees with ill intentions and been dealt with.
He knew when the blood on Phil’s fingers was too intelligent, too aware for it to be anything but human. He knew when the creatures that he called family had feasted on something that wasn’t truly animal.
For some reason, he couldn’t find it in him to fear. Not for either him, or for Techno who still remained unknowing of the knowledge afflicting him.
The forest had made it clear that they both belonged here, among the trees and the green that stretched on, and on, and on.
He slept soundly.
~~~
The day felt entirely normal. Techno smiled and laughed at some memes that he found in the process of trying to cure his boredom. It had been hours already, and the sun was slowly, ever so slowly, beginning to crawl towards the horizon.
Their loved ones would be there soon.
“Two weeks,” Techno answered, and Wilbur looked up.
“Huh?” He asked dumbly. “Two weeks until what?”
His brother just raised an eyebrow at him, clearly somewhat annoyed at his lack of context. “Until Kristin comes back. Or at least, it should be something like that.”
Wilbur blinked and nodded. He had known that already – he could feel the energy in the forest rising, waiting to wake up again.
It was a sacred cycle, of course he had known, the timer in his chest winding tighter and tighter-
“You’ll be alright, Wil,” Techno reassured.
He didn’t know how to respond to that. He didn’t know how to tell Techno that he wasn’t worried.
All that tightened his chest was joy. A sort of giddiness that he hadn’t been aware that he was capable of.
Wilbur was terribly excited to see Kristin again. He knew that he would only feel better, be free of the fog that invaded his senses when he got to see her.
But for now, he kept his mouth shut and nodded to Techno.
He would understand, when the time came.
~~~
“Phil!” The brunet called out to the trees, a grin splitting his face as he saw the guardian’s wings flare in greeting.
Tommy shrieked and barreled forward, hopping up to slam into Wilbur’s chest, though he was prepared enough to catch the youngling instead of toppling like he often did.
He just held onto the small creature, spinning the two of them around with a wheezing little laugh, swallowing down the noises that wanted to escape him. He wasn't ready for that yet, but it would come when the time was right.
Instead he just squeezed Tommy and released him, letting the little thing drop to the ground with all the lithe grace of a cat. And then he started running, letting Tommy chase after his heels, playing in the way that they had taken to. Both him and Techno had realized that the creature half of the family were very prey-motivated, always enamored by the thought and encouragement of a chase.
So they played games under the waning moon, tag and capture the flag, Techno even found some tough playground balls that they could toss around in an odd form of dodgeball that usually turned into chaos in one form or another.
Tonight it was tag again, and Wilbur relished in the chill that came through the trees with the fog.
Back and forth, they played and chased each other through the forest. Wilbur could hide for short amounts of time – from Techno, at least, as both Phil and Tommy seemed to have the same knowledge of the forest that Wilbur did.
It was only when Phil found his hiding spot that Wilbur stood from the small hollow he had crouched down in, and started sprinting away. But nothing could outpace the winged creature, and he went down into the dirt soaked with old blood with a shriek that could nearly match Tommy’s.
And Phil didn’t seem surprised at all, though he could hear Tommy through the trees explode into chirps and twitters and that almost-angry chattering that the youngling often scolded them with, shocked and excited in equal measure.
“Phil?” Techno called through the trees. “You all good over there?”
Of course, Techno hadn’t seen who had made the noise, and with Tommy making his ruckus elsewhere…
Wilbur grinned at Phil and held a finger to his mouth to keep him quiet.
Techno would find out, all in good time.
And then Wil lunged, and tapped a hand against the creature’s shoulder.
“No tag backs,” he said cheekily, before running through the trees towards his brother, as Phil followed towards easy prey.
Wilbur watched the cryptid launch himself over the human’s head, and with a blink he woke up to a peaceful afternoon with a feeling of contentment crawling through his skin.
~~~
His dreams were beginning to feel more real than his waking world.
In his dreams, he ran through the trees with his brother and the creatures that they had come to love, the chill of the autumn nights biting at his nose and ears until his twin shoved a hat over his curls and rolled his eyes. It was everything he had ever wanted, everything that he had dreamt of returning to since he had left.
When he woke up, he could only feel as if the world had been tilted on its side, reality being seen through a warped lense.
It was then when he could feel the forest, all the things crawling through dark, living dirt. He could hear the low, ever-present breath of the earth and trees, waiting to wake again between its next inhale and exhale.
He could pinpoint where half of his family retreated to during the day, where living branches had been twisted and warped into structure, where bones were worked into a nest where the youngling curled, all covered in ever-flowering ivy. He could feel the restless energy of all the creatures of the forest, eager and dreading the first snow.
It was only ever the heat that reminded him that these days were real. That the eternal chill that he felt in his dreams didn’t follow him out of them, that he could feel the warmth of his bed and sink into the reassurance that this was real.
Every little spark of warmth, every accidental stumble with hot coffee, every bite of warm food that Techno prepared for them reminded him of that.
It left him with a sense of contentment as well, when the cryptids arrived at the house each night and filled his head with chatter, Phil’s wing settling warm and weighted across his shoulders when they sat together on the couches for a quiet night.
The days were growing shorter as well, he noted. The sky would turn color and burn into the livelihood of night earlier and earlier, until he and Techno were nearly waking up at sunset.
Wilbur felt the forest waking more and more each day.
Reality slipped away with it, even with the reassurance of the warmth that cocooned him.
~~~
Wilbur woke up early, this day. He couldn’t be bothered to count, with all the dream-days and impressions of more behind his eyelids when he woke, but he knew that the forest was brimming with energy, just waiting to open its eyes.
It just needed one final push, one final call to wake.
He dreamt of dying, of suffocating under dirt and decaying leaves, becoming one with the forest.
He breathed in the scent of rain and fog, felt the chill in the air, forgot what the warmth of his blankets around his shoulders was like.
When his bare feet touched the grass and green outside the door, he breathed with the forest.
He wandered through death and frantic, fluttering heartbeats. He could dig his toes into the soil and feel worms and skittering things push back.
Wilbur could count the splinters of bone joining the dirt, slowly taking the place he so desperately wished to join among the forest.
Death was not a harsh thing. It was only peaceful, a return to all the things that had drawn him into this home of his. Like the crows and ravens that had been here long before him, like the creatures that they seemed to mimic, he too would become part of the forest’s breathing, beating chest.
He climbed up among flowering vines and stilled, and he could feel the shift and shudder of wings. The pull of muscle and bone that were waiting to emerge from the precious youngling still tucked into its nest.
It was too early for them to wake though, so he gently eased the creatures back into their rest with a quiet coo. Then on he moved, towards the source of the heartbeat beginning to ring through his skull.
The center of the sprawling forest, miles from where he started, untouched by weariness or pain. He stood in the presence of everything around him, a perfect glade and pocket of infinity where everything turned to the simple essence of death and life. He was the infinite, stretched thin and touching everything that he had come to learn as he had waited.
Wilbur felt the chill of his dreams and pressed a hand to thick, dark feather-fur, and opened his eyes.
~~~
Wilbur was gone.
Techno stood beside the chicken coop, the last place he had bothered to check for his twin, and fought the panic slowly rising in his throat.
He had known that Wil was acting weird. Always a little spaced out, a little… frayed, around the edges, is the only way he could describe it. Sometimes conversation would end with no warning, the brunet staring at the wall and not saying a word more until he woke up the next morning and acted like nothing had happened.
It had started with little things, maybe that’s why Techno had shrugged it off for so long, and now he was regretting it.
Wilbur hadn’t come down for breakfast when he called, he hadn’t been in his room when he had checked – he hadn’t been in the bathroom, or the living room, or out at the coop.
But his shoes were still beside the door, and the jackets that he usually layered on to go out were still hanging in their places, or tossed over the back of the couch. He was just gone, without any cover from the cold that was starting to turn biting even during the day.
Techno turned around, and stared into the forest, glancing at the sun’s position. It was starting to dip towards the horizon, but it wasn’t quite dusk – it would be a while until Phil and Tommy were around, able to hopefully lead him to wherever Wilbur had run off to.
Fuck, he should’ve just gone to the UK like Wilbur had asked when they first planned on visiting again. It started as a joke between them when Wilbur had left and declared he was never coming back to America. And then Wilbur’s memory was still shaky at best, so they thought that it would be best to not confuse the brunet more if he ended up missing days, or even regressing by nearly a full year.
But then Wilbur had suddenly changed his mind, and insisted on coming back to America – back to the forest.
Had that been the true start of it? Maybe Wilbur’s odd behavior had started before he had even stepped foot in America. Maybe it had started with the longing that he had heard in Wilbur’s voice on the calls that they had shared before his return. The wistful note that he took on when he reminisced about his trip, when his memory recovered enough.
He remembers the way that Wilbur had shuddered on the car ride to his house, the way that he had seemed restless until they had entered the trees. The way that he had slept for hours more than he usually did, blaming it on jetlag, the way that he had laid out on the grass and dirt just outside the brick and metal that made up Techno’s home until he had nearly dragged the brunet inside. He had written it off as a normal sort of enjoyment, getting a vacation and being able to see his family again.
Techno had thought that Wil had been missing him, maybe missing Phil and Tommy as well. But perhaps none of it had been normal. Maybe Kristin had done something more to him, instead.
A flash of fear, or something like anger burned through his chest, freezing him in place.
Kristin. The new moon was coming that night, how could he have forgotten? If this was something that was caused by the creature that had stolen Wilbur’s memories for so long, he-
He didn’t know what he would do. What could he do, other than hope?
Hurrying back into the house, Techno started gathering a backpack. Water bottles, extra jackets, Wilbur’s shoes, the idiot, whatever first aid supplies he could find in his rush. Anything that he could think of, everything that he could carry that could potentially help.
A quiet laugh bubbled out of him at the absurdity of the situation. He had long become used to the outright strangeness of his nightly companions, but something like this? His twin wandering out of the house without a word while he was supposed to be sleeping, disappearing without warning?
He didn’t even know where to start looking, and that thought nearly brought tears into his eyes before he forcefully blinked them back. Techno didn’t cry often, and he certainly wasn’t going to break down now, not while he still had to find Wilbur.
So he slung his bag over his shoulder and stepped out of the door, leaving it unlocked in case his twin came back on his own.
There was probably an hour until sunset, and he checked his pack for the extra batteries he had grabbed for his flashlight just in case. Without the moon, it was going to be terrifyingly dark when the sun was gone.
As absorbed as he was in his thoughts, he didn’t realize that he wasn’t alone until he heard the rustle of the bushes and a quiet coo.
He looked up and met the dark, headache-inducing eyes of Phil.
The bird creature chirped at him, reaching up to run rough talons through his hair, squinting against the light of the setting sun in a startlingly human expression of annoyance. But then those talons caught on the strap of his backpack and tugged gently.
“Do you know where Wilbur is?” Techno asked him desperately, eyes flickering around and finding no hint of Tommy. Maybe the younger creature was still sleeping then, or doing whatever the creatures did during the day?
Phil bobbed his head in the mimicry of a nod and again tried to tug him along, Techno following the movement this time around.
Quickly, the trees seemed to swallow them into shadow, making the path ahead of his feet rocky and hard to follow. But Phil was patient, and helpful, and moved slow enough for him to keep up. Step by step they went deeper into the forest, until Techno was almost sure that they were further in than he had ever been.
The sun set, and soon there came familiar screams and shrill calls through the greenery that Phil echoed until Tommy joined them.
He could feel, and clearly see the giddy energy of the two creatures. Tommy kept rushing ahead, only to turn and chatter in annoyance at the human’s slow pace, nearly shoving him along until Phil got him to knock it off.
It had been like this each time that Kristin had come around, woken up, arrived again, whatever it was that made the entity come around with such a pretictable, steady pace. Every three months on the night of a new moon, in the darkest of nights, it would come back. Phil and Tommy would be just as giddy and excited as they were now, pulling him out to the forest to go meet it.
But now Wilbur was gone from his bed, and Techno just had to hope that the creatures on either side of him had understood his urgency to find his brother.
On, and on they moved. The last of the light drained from the sky and Techno had to rely on the beam of light that his flashlight provided.
He didn’t recognize any of the trees around them, he didn’t even recognize what kind they were. They twisted unnaturally, too straight or curling in odd ways, like someone had simply bent wire and made it look tree-like.
Techno felt as if this place that he had been led to had been made, much more deliberately than the rest of the forest that had been allowed to grow around it.
Finally, it was only when he saw a black mass of too-big feather-fur that he slowed and let Tommy and Phil truly move ahead of him.
Kristin shifted with that silent, terrifying way that it had, shaking Techno to the core as it cooed a greeting.
“Techno, Wilbur, hello,” it hummed, a lovely and horrifying sound. Techno had never gotten used to it.
But the entity’s words weren’t lost on him.
“Do- do you know where Wilbur is?”
A laugh, a skittering giggle that grated at his nerves and his mind like sandpaper, and Kristin held forward a massive, clawed hand.
Techno thought that it was an invitation to step into its palm, but no-
Cradled in that horrifyingly clawed, twisted palm, was his brother. Pale and shoeless, almost looking as if he was dead, laid Wilbur.
He gave a quiet gasp and scrambled closer, a hand pressing to his brother’s neck, trying to feel for a pulse – for breathless seconds he thought that there was nothing.
But then there was a gentle thrum against his fingers, faint and slow as it was. But it was something, and Techno set about pulling socks and jackets and the idiot’s stupid shoes onto his feet- (why he was fixated on that, he wasn’t sure. Probably some sort of stress response, but he would put that aside for later.)
Only to nearly be shocked out of his skin when Wilbur reached up and grabbed his hand.
He flinched at the too-cold touch of the hand on his and stared down at his brother.
Techno’s eyes met ones that were not his brother’s – they couldn’t be, not with the way that darkness bled into the soothing brown of his irises, infinite pools of everything and nothing that was too similar to the way that Phil’s were-
“Wil,” he croaked, unsure of what to say.
But Wilbur just squeezed his hand, and his eyes closed once more. He returned to that still, almost dead state, as if he had never moved at all.
So instead he looked up at Phil, perched on the claws hovering above the brothers, and at Kristin.
“What’s happening to him?” He said, voice tight and choked.
Phil attempted to soothe him with his quiet cooing, but Techno just sat up with a flare of anger.
“Kristin! What did you do?”
The entity above him gave a low hum that nearly shook Techno’s head apart, not a growl or anything so aggressive – but it was a gentle warning all the same.
“Mine, mine,” it sang quietly.
It stopped Techno in his tracks, staring up at the monster of the forest. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“Love, love- mine, my Wilbur, my Phil, my Tommy, my Techno.”
“We- Kristin, Wilbur isn’t yours-”
“Mine, mine, my love, mine.”
Techno gasped, hands clamping over his ears as his head bowed. Kristin’s voice seemed to crawl, skittering, wriggling into his mind until it started to pull him apart. He was going to go insane, if he hadn’t already, listening to the echoes of its voice start up and slither through the forest and repeat itself a thousand times over.
But then it stopped, and when he managed to look up again the entity’s body was leaning close, faceless form mere feet from his own. What would have been a comfortable amount of space between him and another person turned claustrophobic, suffocating with the way Kristin’s body seemed to crush him against its palm.
“Love, love, sorry,” it cooed, gentle now. “Techno, Wilbur, love.”
The pink-haired human again found the will to breathe, and lowered his eyes to look down at Wilbur’s too-still form.
“Yeah… love you too, Kristin,” he said reluctantly. “But really, can you explain… what you’ve done with Wilbur?”
A scuttling laugh ran through the trees, silently shaking leaves. Techno had become more used to that in the time that he had spent in the forest, with Phil and Tommy, and the entity that Wilbur had given a name.
“Mine, mine,” was the repeated response.
Techno breathed out a sigh. “What does that mean, though?”
“Understand,” said the entity, and the human looked up at it. Usually, even Kristin kept to small words. Obviously, whatever was happening with Wilbur was… complicated.
“You’re not turning him into something like Phil and Tommy, are you?” It was half a joke, but as he glanced over at the two creatures that visited them nightly, he felt a sense of dread. “You… please tell me you aren’t. Not that I mind our local cryptids or anything, but I would like to continue to be able to talk to my brother, y’know.”
Another laugh, and Techno closed his eyes for half a second.
“No, no, not stolen.”
“Then…?”
A long, low hum, contemplative and slow – it felt like it ground the entire world to a halt around them.
“Halfway,” Kristin sang. “Yours, mine, love, Wilbur.”
“Halfway…?” Techno ran his hands over his face and gave a long sigh as he sat beside his brother’s body. The brunet was too cold, too unmoving, it was terrifying.
Just to keep himself from breaking down, he wrapped a hand around Wilbur’s wrist, fingers on his pulse as he worked to puzzle out what Kristin meant. It was in moments like this that he hated the fact that he couldn’t properly communicate with the creatures he shared the forest with.
“Do you… do you mean that he’s- going to be like, only halfway between me and you, or…?”
“Almost, almost- mine, yours, ours, Wilbur.”
“What does that mean though?” Techno pressed his free hand to his face with a deep sigh, looking up towards the sky if only to try to find the stars past the dark shape of Kristin’s body. “He’s mine, and yours, so- is he going to have to stay in the forest with you, or…?”
An echoing, slithering giggle, and one of Kristin’s terrifying claws tapped against his back. “Some, little, wake, sleep.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” he whispered.
“Show?”
Techno looked up at her once more and pursed his lips into a thin line. The last time he had seen Kristin do anything to anyone, Wilbur hadn’t been able to retain his memories for nearly a full year.
The entity seemed to know what he was thinking though, and it gave another giggle.
“Careful, careful, promise.”
Another tap against his back encouraged him to let Kristin do whatever it is the entity holding him intended to do.
So Techno sighed, and shrugged. “Alright. Just- don’t fry my brain, please.”
A low hum, and that claw pressed against his back more firmly.
It started as a faint trickle, a phantom sensation that left him shuddering – an awareness, knowledge seeping straight into his consciousness.
Dark feather-fur, shifting, unfamiliar chirps and trills, blood running over too-human hands, love and brothers and returning to dark earth and impossibly infinite things.
Footsteps pounding over earth, hooves and flowing red and the creeping of fog, slow and slowing breaths.
A mouthpiece, flowing water, dark talons dragging gently through hair.
Halfway, teaching, leading, learning.
When Techno came back to the real world, he felt as if he had been held under for the entire night. It was a shock when he looked up and saw nothing but dark feather-fur and stars.
“Oh,” he whispered quietly.
Wilbur was… going to be a translator, of sorts. That’s the only way that Techno could understand it, the way that he was going to be a halfway point between him and Phil, Tommy, and Kristin.
The lump that had formed in his throat at the thought of his brother being taken away from him eased, looking down at the brunet and squeezing a still too-cold hand.
A deep breath, and he gradually relaxed more.
It would be okay. Kristin wasn’t going to take away his brother.
In some ways it felt as if it was too easy, too simple, but perhaps he was desperate.
He had been left behind once, when Wilbur had been adopted without him. He had been left alone, left to struggle along on his own while his brother was pulled an ocean away. While Wilbur had a family to lean back on, parents to love and dote on him, Techno was left to his own devices and dumped into a cruel world.
The insistent fear that he felt when Wilbur was struggling with his memories had gripped him constantly. Falling asleep before dawn, waking up to his brother’s confused calls, he was terrified that Wilbur would start to forget him.
But thankfully, by some miracle, Wilbur had remembered. He had recovered enough that Techno felt safe enough for him to return.
So now he just had to trust that Kristin wouldn’t hurt him any further. If the entity that he had become so familiar with had managed to not break him, perhaps it could do the same with Wilbur. Maybe it could even fix his brother – or maybe neither of them would be the same again after this.
Slowly his eyes closed, and as the two humans were lifted from the ground he allowed himself to breathe in the magic of the forest.
~~~
Wilbur was gone from the house until Kristin disappeared back into the trees at the end of the final night of the forest’s wakefulness.
His eyes fluttered open to the coming morning, and Techno was immediately hovering over him with worried hands.
“Tech…?” His voice was a rough croak with its disuse, his head swimming, body stiff. “What happened?”
The pink-haired man gave a relieved sigh and sat back, face pressed into his hands. Kristin was gone, the forest slumbering once again and safe for humans to roam – for the most part, at least.
“Fuck,” his brother muttered, a rare curse that made Wilbur instinctively snort. He didn’t feel any danger around them, not in the heart of the forest. Phil and Tommy were still there as well, Tommy curled up into a messy nest of moss and leaves that he seemed to be dozing off in. “Jeez, I didn’t know-”
When he cut himself off, Wilbur raised an eyebrow and slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. His head felt clearer than it had in days, maybe weeks. “What? Seriously Tech, what’s going on? … what day is it? Have- have I forgotten things-?”
“No, no- not like that, I don’t think. What was the last thing you remember?”
Wilbur’s eyebrows pulled together as he wracked his memory, scrubbing his face with his hands as Phil scooped up the sleepy youngling. “Um… we had- Phil and Tommy brought us out to hunt, I think that we had quail or something for dinner?”
Techno nodded and gave another relieved sigh, slumping. “Yeah, that’s about it. You’ve… been asleep, Wilbur.”
He knew that. The dirt whispered to him about it, the leaves and the grass below his hands, the decay beneath his fingers where they met decomposing plant matter. “Yeah…? What happened?”
His brother stared at him for a few moments before huffing, a noise that was nearly a laugh. “You- Wilbur, it’s been days. I thought that you were dying, I thought that you were-”
Wilbur cuts his brother off with a tight hug. He can feel Techno’s fear in his chest, the tightness that translates across the distance between them. The earth and vines and seeds around them whisper all the events that he had missed, all the aching hurt that he hadn't been there to soothe, and he rests his forehead against the other’s shoulder.
“I’m okay, Tech,” he murmurs, all the reassurance that his brother needs to wrap his own arms around the brunet and hold on as tightly as he dares.
They cling to each other, friends, brothers, twins – everything they need to be.
At least, until Tommy wriggles his way into the embrace as well, angrily chattering despite the sleepiness that continues to pull at his eyes. Then Phil is there, wrapping midnight wings around their shoulders, tucking them all close together with a soft coo of adoration.
And Wilbur sighs, feeling the forest brush love across his consciousness like thin paint, faint as it falls into slumber once more.
He is home, just like Techno is as well, just as Phil and Tommy have been home in this place for as long as they have been here.
This time he cannot be made to leave, to catch the flight beckoning him back to the UK, to the house across the sea that does not have nearly as much love woven into the roots of the forest. This time he will stay, and sink into the forest earth, and breathe the foggy air, and dream.