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The dirt underneath his nails burns in incrimination.
Wilbur’s contact swims in front of his eyes. The familiar number running across his screen, one that had brought him so much comfort in times of need. Now he just feels the cold hands of dread running their spindly fingers down his spine.
His hands tremble as he clicks the accept call button and slowly puts the phone to his ear.
“-ommy? Are you there? Are you-”
“Hi Wil.” He pretends his voice doesn’t shake. Wilbur does him the justice of pretending not to notice it either.
“Tommy!” He tries not to shudder, tries to keep the tears leaking down his face. He sounds just like he had yesterday, voice dripping with concern, “Tommy, what’s wrong?” “You look like you haven’t slept in ages.” “Are you alright?” “Can I help you?” “Let me know what I can do, okay kiddo?”
He wishes he’d had the courage then to take Wilbur by the shoulders and demand was all the fucking holes were for. Demand why, just why, he kept calling him, telling him to do weird things, and then never mentioning it whenever he saw him in person. Demand why… demand why he was scaring him.
“-you doing alright?”
“Hm?” he says, desperately reeling in his runaway thoughts.
“I asked if you were doing alright. You’re acting funny Toms.”
He takes in a breath, shuddery and shaky and oh so achy down to his bones and wills his voice not to break. “Yeah, sorry bossman. Just tired.”
“Oh, well, that’s understandable.”
He can’t think of anything to respond with, so he just gives a weak “Yeah.”
“I really hate to ask this of you,” his stomach plummets and his lungs seize, “but there’s something I really desperately need help with.”
He places a hand to his lips, pressing against them as they quiver before he can let out a sound. He’s so tired of these games, of sleepless nights and unanswered questions, the lies that keep leaving Wilbur’s lips.
There is silence in which Wil is clearly waiting for a response, but Tommy knows if he does he’ll crumble and there’s something in him that warns him that would be a terrible, terrible idea.
“Toms?” Wilbur says, and there’s the faux appearance of patience that doesn’t really hide the impatience in his words if you’re really listening.
He pulls the phone away from him so he can take a gasp of air without being heard, his attempts to breath normally failing. He struggles with the counting mechanisms that Wilbur himself once gave him to help bring him down from panic attacks. There’s sweat clinging to the undersides of his arms and his temples and sliding down his back next to the hands of dread that have stopped creeping down his spine in favor of grabbing it tightly and making it harder to stay calm.
“Yeah?” he croaks brokenly into the phone, pulling it close to his ear again. There is a moment of silence on Wilbur’s end in which damning tears slip free.
“Good to have you back.” He shudders, a full on body shudder, and manages a “thanks” in return. Those words shouldn’t sound sharp, digging into his skin and pulling free shame that wells up from where the words left gaps.
“Anyways, as I was saying, I need a little bit of help.”
He sinks down to the floor, hunching in on himself.
“What?” The word feels like the nails on a coffin lid, sealing his doom.
“Oh nothing too much different from before. I’ll need you to do it tonight though.”
He rests his head back against the wall, mourning a piece of him that was sure to die on this trip just like all the previous. Mourning a lack of sleep and another handful of lies he’d have to par out to excuse his sorry state and why he all but went silent.
“Okay,” he says, resigned.
On the other end of the line, Wilbur claps his hands in delight. Another tear lands on his free hand curled into a fist in his lap.
“I knew I could count on you,” Wil says, voice all sugary and syrupy sweet. “ You wouldn’t let me down, now would you, Tommy?”
“No,” he mumbles.
Wilbur oozes delight, even from this end of the call. “Wonderful, as I expected. Alright, here’s what I need you to do.”
Tommy gets up dutifully and finds his shovel, crammed out of sight in his closet, and takes it. Once again, Wilbur tells him to forfeit gloves. He finds his airpods somewhere in his mess of an apartment and hooks them up to his phone, hiding Wilbur and his little lies from the rest of the world, leaving the words only for Tommy.
Tommy finds himself missing home. He misses the house that he grew up in. He misses his mum and his dad. He misses the security and safety that came with it.
Instead he’s got his dingy apartment with something gross and wet on the wall his bed is up against. Instead, he’s on his lonesome with only Wilbur on one end of a phone call that shouldn’t exist. Instead he’s out digging holes.
He digs until his hands bleed. Blisters pop and splinters edge their way under his skin and throughout it all, Wilbur mercilessly calls for another scoop of damned dirt.
‘ Please ,’ he’d beg, curled up on the ground, shovel abandoned in the grass, as he weeps and tries to pick the stinging splinters from his bloody hands. ‘Just a moment. Just a quick break .’
‘ A little blood on their hands never hurt anybody ,’ Wilbur would respond, and at his sharp command Tommy would get up and start digging again.
It’s well past midnight, hours even, when Tommy staggers home. Wil murmurs praises into his ears, and Tommy soaks them up like the pathetic, spineless wimp he is. Soft, sticky words slowly dry up his tears and gently propel him back to his apartment.
His steps feel awfully loud as he climbs the stairwell and struggles to unlock the door to his apartment. No one wakes up.
“Put your shovel away,” Wilbur says. “Wouldn’t want anyone finding it.”
No, he wouldn’t. Not when there’s blood staining the handle and the wooden shaft. Not when there’s cold, soft, fresh dirt clinging to the end. Tommy can almost picture Wil hovering over his shoulder, watching him pull the door open and struggle to put the tool away.
“Alright, now to the bathroom.’
He does so. He doesn’t turn on the light, instead fumbling for what he needs in the semi-darkness. The moon shimmers outside his window, giving weak light for him to work by.
“Alright, find your med kit Toms. You’ve bled enough.”
Wilbur directs him in pulling the slivers from his hands with tweezers and wiping the blood away. Off his hands, away from his wrists, clear from where it had dribbled down his arms. Wiping his face clear of smudged scarlet and dirt, running his bandaged hands through his hair to try and clean it. Changing into comfier clothes, and crawling into bed.
“‘M airpods are gonna die, Wil,” he mumbles, dragging his blanket over his head.
“That’s alright,” Wilbur says soothingly. Tommy could see him sitting in his armchair with a book, idly flipping through the pages and occasionally pushing his glasses up his nose as he talked to him. “Go to sleep, I’ll be here until they die.”
That wasn’t what he meant, but he didn't protest. He wakes up in the morning to his airpods out of battery, his phone with no record of the call, and unravelling bandages around his fingers.
Wilbur, the dark, and the stars are the only witnesses to his suffering.