Chapter Text
☾
It was the next day and Wilbur, a literal undead being, dreaded knocking on a house door. A house he was invited into, no less. He shouldn’t have any fears about this, the babysitting or being near Tommy again.
But it was the atmosphere he feared. The emotions he shouldn’t feel, the humanity seeping in a supposed limbo.
Before he could knock, voices came from inside. Tommy and his father, Phil. He peered through the window.
“What if I get a part-time job? To cover some of the bills?” Tommy looked up at his dad, face scrunched up and stubborn.
Phil stilled. “No.”
“At least consider it.”
“You’re fourteen, Tommy,” Phil sighed out, sounding so exhausted. “I want you to spend the weekends with your friends, for you to go out to the park in your free time, not that.”
Wilbur swallowed at his tone, his words, everything. Because the care was so obviously there. Strong and outlandish. Present in his face despite a door and walls standing in between them.
Tommy’s eyebrows creased. “It would be easier for you though."
“It would,” Phil agreed, sad and quiet. He kneeled down to Tommy’s height, hands on his shoulders. “But you having fun and a childhood means more to me than a couple hours taken off my shifts.”
Wilbur watched as that kindling expression on Tommy’s face evolved. The scrunch of his face twisted into crestfallen guilt. Blame, maybe. Defeat.
“Alright,” he muttered, sharing that same quiet sadness of his father.
The grip on Tommy’s shoulders loosened. It opened and Tommy sprung forward, hugging him. He tucked himself under Phil’s chin, resting his cheek against his chest. Phil rocked them, kissed the top of his head, and let go.
“Don’t cause too much chaos for Wilbur, okay? The guy looked stressed out of his mind after last time.”
He flinched at the mention of his name. Oh right. He was the babysitter, the onlooker to a dynamic he’d probably never have, not before his death and definitely not when undead. No one wanted to love the dead, only grieve.
Tommy laughed. “We had fun, what can I say?”
Phil shook his head, smiling down at his son, all that quiet sadness forgotten. “You are a menace.”
Wilbur couldn’t watch anymore. He couldn't have this feeling wreck him.
He pressed down harshly on the doorbell, hoping his eyes weren’t as dark as they felt as the door opened.
“Wilbur!” Phil greeted, smiling the same. He did what he did last night, the small talk that didn’t feel small to Wilbur. Then he turned to face Tommy quickly, “Remember what I said, be good.”
After he left, Wilbur didn’t know what to do.
“Wanna play Minecraft?” Tommy asked.
He shrugged and agreed.
Just as Wilbur died yet again in the game, Tommy put down his controller and turned to face him. “You said you have twenty-eight days as a fledgling until the mortal body dies." His words struck a chord with Wilbur. The bluntness of his fate. “How many days is it now?”
Wilbur tried to keep his face blank. As if that number didn’t haunt him each day, as if Schlatt didn’t text him the number at midnight, a constant reminder of long he had left before it would all be taken from him. Either in a grave or giving into a curse of immortality he did not want.
“Eighteen,” he muttered.
Tommy reeled back, surprised at the number. Wilbur was too—he didn’t remember the first week or days after, too numb to it all and clinging onto fading wisps of emotion.
“How can I help?” Tommy asked, that same gaze in his eyes. Unnerving and stubborn.
Wilbur glared. “You can’t.”
But his words didn’t deter him.
“Listen to me and let me help,” Tommy said, voice coated in something else. A familiar tug that pulled at his instincts.
“How?”
Then the brightness returned to his eyes. “I’ll make the rest of these eighteen days better for you. Less stressful.”
“You are the cause of my current stress.”
Tommy scowled and hit his arm. “I’ll make it fun!” he sounded so childish but he was a child. “C’mon, Wilbur. Let’s go bike riding.”
Wilbur squinted at him. “Biking is fun to you?”
“We can make it into a game,” Tommy said. “Chicken. The last one to stop biking has to do what the other says.”
“Tommy, I have inhuman stamina and don’t need to sleep. This is a losing game for you.”
The other grinned. “You underestimate how annoying I can be so you’d want to get off that bike to get away from me.”
“I don’t underestimate how annoying you are.”
“Dickhead!” Tommy hit him again and Wilbur laughed. His abrupt laughter caught him off guard. An immediate frown replaced it.
That was the first time he’d laughed. Since... he died.
He thought laughter was lost. Along with everything else that made him human, that once made him himself.
Wilbur cleared his throat, hoping for the realisation to leave.
“Fine, biking it is.”
Unsurprisingly, Tommy was annoying. Frustrating too and downright irritating. He kept cackling into the night as he tried to elbow Wilbur off his bike. Then rammed into the back of his seat, kicking him as he passed.
But it was nice.
Cycling down pathways he’d once walked down to ease the thoughts in his head. Now they were pathways he raced down to catch up to Tommy so he could kick him off his bike. They crashed into curbs with laughter upon laughter until porch lights turned on and heads poked through neighbourhood house curtains.
Neither cared. They continued with their loudness. Embraced the warmth despite the cold night.
Then Tommy fell into a bush on his own accord. (Wilbur did not push him, it was a slight nudge). This laughter didn’t stop as Tommy whined loudly. It bubbled, with the cast of the moon propelling on his skin, the sky not burning him. The stars greeted him and shared in the brightness instead of scorching him as the sun did. Out here, he doesn’t need sunglasses or a hood over his head. He wasn’t claustrophobic in his own body. All because of the kid currently flaying around on the floor, refusing to get up unless Wilbur lent him a hand.
“Tommy, get up.”
He shook his head, burying his hair further into the bush.
“Nope.”
“Tommy.”
“No.”
“Tom—”
A body flew at him. Tommy tackled him to the ground. Wilbur yelped as his hands poked and prodded at him. Wilbur let it happen, not using his strength. Especially as Tommy laughed. His laughter was infectious with his bright grin and bright eyes. The warmth. The honey in the air. It was glee. Not apathy and indifference.
Eventually, Tommy tired himself out and stopped fighting with him.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked. Wilbur frowned, confused. “You won the game.”
“Oh.” Wilbur forgot about the game. “Hmm, give me a notebook.”
“So you just want to steal from me? Couldn’t you literally steal from stores now? You don’t show up on camera that well.”
“Oh my God, I could,” he gasped. “But I still want one of your notebooks.”
“Fine,” Tommy grumbled.
They went back inside, Tommy immediately leaping onto the sofa, bundling himself with blankets. Wilbur sat on the other sofa and began to list things down in the notebook Tommy retrieved from upstairs before he turned the TV on.
His pen dotted on the page things he would miss if he transitioned completely.
The sun. The sun setting. The beach during the day. Paddleboarding.
He added more detail, lamenting over the loss of the sun because even now he couldn’t feel its rays. As he made another bullet point, a thought crossed his mind. He'd miss feelings, but that wasn’t true as of now. For some reason, he felt. He felt and felt despite how he shouldn’t. He was dead. A fledgling in transition to either a life of eternal misery or death.
And yet, moments prior, under the moonlight, he felt happy. He was happy.
He looked over. Tommy was asleep, the tip of his hair visible from how he burrowed into the blankets. Wilbur sighed and put the notebook away.
His phone vibrated in his pocket.
Schlatt: 17.
He clutched the phone in his hand, almost harsh enough to crack the screen and for it to break. And a part of him wanted it to. For it to smash and sever, shatter in his hands and cut at his fingers. Yet, no blood would prick from these cuts. No sign of living by nature's laws.
Wilbur had seventeen days left.
The front door opening broke him from his thoughts. It was Phil.
“Was he alright?” Phil asked, leaning over to see Tommy. The corners of his mouth picked up at the sight.
“He exhausted me,” Wilbur said, deadpanned despite the grin on his face. It was weird how quickly his emotions went too. Cascaded into another, ascending chords upon a heightened scale.
Phil laughed dryly, “Yeah, he’s good at that.”
Wilbur got up, then remembered the conversation he overheard. The hint of money struggle, the want of a son to provide for a father trying his best to do it for the both of them.
“You don’t have to pay me this much, by the way,” Wilbur said. “He’s not like a toddler or anything even if he acts like one sometimes.”
Phil shook his head, adamant. “I should be paying you more already, Wilbur—”
“Trust me, I don’t need that much.”
I don't need anything. It would be money going to a corpse. Paying for the flowers at a funeral.
A pause struck between them. With Phil considering and Wilbur keeping up that stubborn look, so similar to the one Tommy always had. Maybe that was why Phil’s expression softened.
“Fine,” Phil sighed. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Perfectly fine.”
The exchange of reduced money still twisted something inside of him though.
“Well, I best get this one to bed, you got a ride home?”
He nodded, a lie in his action but it appeased Phil all the same. Phil picked Tommy up and carried him upstairs, bidding Wilbur goodbye over his shoulder.
Tommy’s head lolled onto his father’s chest.
Wilbur gazed at their retreating figures. Something green bubbled inside him. And he left.
☼
Once the bell rang for lunch, Tommy ran out of his class. He had a mission to find Wilbur.
He hadn’t forgotten about that weird vision he had when he touched his arm. He couldn’t forget it. The cold feeling, the cloudiness, seeing something from another person’s eyes.
It was wrong and he needed to make it right. To understand it.
He stepped outside into the courtyard where Wilbur smoked under the trees. Yet as he moved to go over, he noticed someone else beside him. Schlatt.
He clutched at the scar on his arm. The consequence of being scratched by the vampire fucker.
He hid round the corner and peeked over to see Wilbur shouting at Schlatt. Wilbur pushed him away as Schlatt stepped closer, taunting him.
A pressure tapped on Tommy’s back. He yelped and twisted round.
Oh. It was Wilbur’s friend. Techno.
“Why are you spying on them?” Techno asked, skipping over greetings.
“Because he’s bothering Wilbur.”
“A bit messy for a fourteen-year-old to get involved in vampire business.”
He froze. “You know?”
Techno rolled his eyes and bared his teeth. His fangs. Eyes now red. Full-vampire red. Not the bloodied brown Wilbur had.
“I know more than you, kid.”
He stepped back. “If you eat me, Wilbur will get mad.”
“Tommy, I literally work with your father, I wouldn’t kill you.”
He forgot about that. It was originally why Techno was his babysitter since he worked as an admin at the hospital.
“You want to help Wilbur, don’t you?” Techno asked, head tilted.
He nodded.
“And you see visions.” He frowned. “Wilbur told me. Schlatt talks of an oracle, y’know, Delphi. He only tells information about his plans to the full vampires. Wilbur excluded. He needs to find something to complete a prophecy. There’s something buried.”
His eyebrows pinched together. “Is it a jar?”
Techno shrugged. “It’s an item, so it could be.”
“Okay, we’ll take down Schlatt together.”
“Slow down,” Techno said, amused yet at him rather than with. “I’ll take Schlatt down. You’re just the research.”
“So you’ll take all the credit?”
“Yep,” Techno grinned at him. “But it’s also so you don’t die.”
He opened his mouth to argue, to pester that he was involved in this as much as him. Yet Wilbur walked over.
“Why are you two here?”
Techno turned to him. “We were having a friendly conversation.”
“We’re gonna kill Schlatt,” Tommy blurted out.
Techno facepalmed. Wilbur’s eyes widened. “Don’t say that so loud!” he hissed. “Schlatt is turning people left and right, don’t say that here. And no, you're not.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not getting involved. You’re a child.”
“I get visions.”
“You’re a child that gets visions.”
Tommy sighed, annoyed. Wilbur mirrored his expression.
“Leave it to Techno and me, you can still help but no fighting.”
“Fine.”
"Good, now have lunch with your friends." Just as Wilbur grabbed to push him back inside, everything faded.
The coldness returned, less fogged but the clouds were still there. Waning in and out. Swirling with purpose. Wisps of everything and nothing.
Then a book appeared amongst the mist. Old and worn. Greek letters encrusted upon it. Then the letters twisted into English. It was titled 'Work and Days' with 'Hesiod' printed underneath.
“Tommy,” he blinked back to being softly shaken.
It stung with each blink but he needed to have normal lights. A clear vision with no fog, no coldness or clouds.
“I saw something,” he mumbled, disorientated. He blinked more but his eyes didn’t feel it. He couldn't feel his feet beneath him either. Barely recognised the hands holding him down, stabling him. “A book.”
“A book?” Techno repeated.
He nodded. Yet, the moment he relayed the book title and author aloud, a spike of pain pierced his head. He winced. The touch tightened. Oh, it was Wilbur. The hands, prodding, gentleness. His hands weren't cold for once, warm compared to the ice he had just experienced in his head.
“Guess Wilbur has something to do in his free period then,” Techno said, patting him on the back before leaving for his own class.
To be frank, Tommy didn’t even know Techno left. It was still fuzzy. But that touch kept him awake.
“You can skip your next class, I don’t even think you can walk properly right now." He nodded along to Wilbur, not really understanding his words. He let himself be led.
Vaguely, he recalled a water bottle being pressed against his lips, drinking it with a hand tilting his chin up. Then there was a coat laying on a table, his head rested on it like a pillow. Half an hour probably passed before it all blanched.
The warmth from the coat fur-lining seeped into the rest of his body. The cold disappeared and he sat up.
“You alright now?” he looked over to Wilbur sitting opposite him, an oldish book in his hands. It was the same book he saw in his vision.
“You found it already?” he asked.
“Answer my question first, are you alright?” Wilbur pressed.
Tommy squinted, not expecting such concern. He thought this was the undead fledgling, apparently unfeeling with his fading empathy. And yet he said it with such heat, such vigour and stubbornness. As if he cared.
“Better now, thank you,” he answered, quietly and embarrassed. A simple vision had caused that. Revealing a book title had rendered him useless and in pain.
“The book is actually poetry,” Wilbur said after he nodded to his answer. “It’s some Ancient Greek poem about a farmer. I skipped a bit and he’s talking about the Ages of Man, agricultural shit too.”
“So useless?” he sighed. He wasn’t being helpful. He went through all that, the cloudiness, lost feeling, for it to be a dead end.
Wilbur sat up and stared at Tommy weirdly. He moved chairs to the one next to him. His eyes trailed Tommy's movement, confused.
“You’re still helpful."
“I didn’t say I wasn’t,” he grumbled, resting his face in his hands so they covered his red face.
“I can feel it,” Wilbur stuttered out. “It’s sour, this thing coming off you.”
“That’s weird.”
“You’re weird.”
“You’re weirder.”
Wilbur glared and reached over, ruffling Tommy’s hair. He shrieked, backing into his chair but he couldn’t escape Wilbur. The touch was gentle like earlier, but still annoying with how it messed up his hair and kept digging at him. But it didn’t hurt. It wasn’t too harsh.
“Wil, stop, stop, this is unfair! I was ill, like two seconds ago!” he managed to get out between his laughter. Wilbur joined in, grinning as he continued to hit him.
A violent hushing sound came from round the corner. The librarian stood, glaring daggers. Both scooted back into their seats with the decency to look embarrassed.
“Is it a vampire thing?” he whispered. “Knowing what I feel.”
Wilbur’s face twisted into something he couldn’t decipher. “It shouldn’t be,” he whispered back. “I only feel that with Techno and Schlatt because of a coven bond or whatever. It’s weaker than it should be since I’m a fledgling. But that same openness of what you feel... it’s the same with you. I can feel it.”
“Does that mean I’m a vampire?”
Wilbur gave him a look. “No, and you never will be one. Not on my watch.”
“I think I’d be a cool vampire.”
He thought about it. Immortality. Maybe not at fourteen years old because then he’d never be taken seriously. But he wasn’t opposed to the idea of never dying. Endless opportunities, he’d have all the time in the world to learn everything, do everything, they’d be fewer consequences for his actions, and he probably didn’t even have to pay taxes or food shopping. Though, the needing to drink blood was a downside. And the sun, the hunger, and—
“Don’t even joke about that,” Wilbur hissed. His tone surprised him. His face was serious, eyes a muddy red. Anger. It was anger. An apparent emotion Wilbur wasn’t supposed to feel after his death.
Tommy reeled back.
“Sorry,” Wilbur uttered after, his tone still stoic but a bit apologetic.
“I get it, I’ll stop.” Tommy remembered the silver knife from the first babysitting. How Wilbur stepped into it. He would’ve taken another forceful step forward straight into the blade if Tommy hadn’t dropped it. Wilbur despised himself, what nature he had now, his instincts, the feelings and presumed lack of them.
He wished he could feel it back. Feel what Wilbur felt so he could make it better. It was weird. He hardly knew the man, the fledgling, but it was closer than a normal acquaintance. Within an hour of meeting Tommy, Wilbur had saved his life. Then he had done it again the next day. Wilbur didn’t hurt him.
He didn’t know Wilbur’s favourite colour or what he did in his spare time, yet he felt like he didn’t need to.
It was strange. But he welcomed it.
☾
Wilbur didn’t expect his babysitting job of Tommy to now roll over to looking after Ranboo and Tubbo too. But the other two wouldn’t leave the house. Not that he minded them, necessarily. It just meant that as he wrote in his notebook, he needed to look over at the kitchen regularly to check they weren’t messing with the stove or having another food fight.
But for once, they weren’t causing chaos. Ranboo busied himself with that Greek poem Wilbur had given up on and Tommy and Tubbo were playing Minecraft split-screened.
His phone vibrated, distracting him from watching how Tommy and Tubbo punched each other in person as their characters did it too in the game.
Techno: There’s a party going on in the graveyard
Wilbur: alcohol?
Techno: No but Schlatt is currently digging up a grave
Wilbur: ????
Techno: Like I said, a party
Wilbur: THAT IS NOT A PARTY. coming now
He sighed and grabbed his jacket hanging off the armchair.
“Where are you going?” Tommy asked, sparing him a glance from his game.
“Techno needs me.”
“Well, I need you,” he grumbled out. Wilbur froze. “We’re coming with.”
Wilbur may feel things from time to time now, despite being a fledgling, but that didn’t mean he had morals.
“Fine, be quick.”
Eventually, they all left and made their way to the graveyard. It was easy to find Techno, seeing as his pink hair stood out even in the dark as he hid behind a gravestone. The four scrambled to get behind him.
Techno frowned at their arrival. "You didn't bring a stake? Not even a knife?"
"I brought children," Wilbur shrugged.
Techno sighed and pointed over to the crowd across them. “Schlatt has been digging for literal hours trying to find whatever he’s looking for.”
“I thought vampires have good senses of smell," Tommy said.
“We do. Shower when you get home, please,” Techno stated. “But he's looking for an item, not a person, remember. There’s probably not a known scent attached to it.”
Tommy shuffled to get in between Wilbur and Techno. Yet his movement broke a twig on the ground.
Wilbur’s eyes widened. The sound for him, a weak fledgling, was loud but that must’ve been amplified for vampires. He grabbed Tommy, hiding him more behind the gravestone whilst Techno pulled Tubbo and Ranboo closer.
“You fucking—” Wilbur began to whisper-shout but he recognised the lost look in Tommy’s eyes. The grey clouds. He was having a vision.
Techno frowned and reached out to him.
“Don’t touch him,” he hissed, tugging Tommy closer to his chest. “Don’t,” he repeated with less force. But he needed Tommy to be safe.
Tommy slugged into Wilbur's hold when he came back to reality. He blinked dazedly. Wilbur put his hand on Tommy's forehead, hoping his cold skin would ease whatever twinges of pain the vision caused him. Judging by the quiet hum Tommy let out, it helped.
“I know what Schlatt’s digging up, I saw- I saw him get it.”
“What is it?”
Techno nudged Wilbur's shoulder. He looked in Techno's direction. Schlatt was over the dug-open grave holding something. A clay jar.
“It’s that,” Tommy croaked out.
“A jar?” Wilbur thought aloud, his hand still pressing against Tommy’s forehead, trying to ignore the warmth as Tommy leaned into it. He was almost cradling Tommy to his chest. A part of him wanted to. To indulge in the instinct to pull him closer, out of harm’s reach and only his.
“Well, looks like the party’s over,” Techno said as the vampires began to walk out of the graveyard. “I’ll take these two home.”
Tubbo frowned. “How do you know where I live?”
“It’s a side effect of being a vampire.”
Ranboo gaped. “Really?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
Techno took Ranboo and Tubbo, leaving the other two. Wilbur walked Tommy back, silently loving how much Tommy swayed into him with each step.
“You are such a weak human y’know, you can’t even survive a little sleep deprivation," Wilbur teased as they got inside.
“I had a vision and it’s late, Wilbur,” he grumbled, yawning.
Wilbur exhaled a laugh through his nose and guided Tommy over to the sofa. After that, he went to sit on the other sofa where he left his notebook. But Tommy grabbed his hand, stopping him.
“No, you were rude to me. It’s time to become my vampire pillow.”
“Fledgling pillow,” he corrected. “And no.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Please,” he whined louder, tugging on Wilbur’s hand. He sighed, grabbing his notebook and pen.
Wilbur sat next to Tommy on the sofa, who immediately flopped over on his side.
He stilled. But let it happen. He let Tommy squirm about until he found a comfortable position. His head lay on Wilbur’s shoulder, the wisps of Tommy’s hair brushing against his neck. The bundling of the blanket covered the bottom half of Tommy's face.
Soon, the room rumbled with even breathing. Tommy had fallen asleep on him.
Wilbur opened up his notebook, careful to not move that much to wake him. As he uncapped his pen, Tommy's head slid down so it was more resting against his chest. Wilbur wrapped an arm around his back.
Then, he began to write. His list of things he'd missed if he became a vampire was niche. Ranging from the most obvious things to small details specific to him. He glanced down at Tommy, who huffed peaceful in his rest.
Sleep. Nice dreams. Having warm skin.
As the pen scratched against the paper, there was a faint beating sound. A calming rhythm that loudened as he focused on it. It was Tommy's heartbeat. He found himself listening to it, matching the scrapes of his pen to the tune.
Silence.
He missed silence.
More sound echoed in the room as the door pushed open. Phil walked in.
“It seemed you exhausted him this time,” he joked, causing Wilbur to laugh.
Phil walked over and combed a hand through his son’s hair. The hand was so close to him. Wilbur yearned for that hand to move over a bit, to brush into Wilbur’s hair after, to do the same. A cupping, warm hold. But nothing happened. Instead, Tommy nestled further into Wilbur.
“I’m not sure how I’ll detach him from you without waking the little shit up.”
“He hasn’t been sleeping well,” Wilbur muttered, frowning at the dark circles under Tommy’s eyes.
“You’re a good human pillow then,” Phil said. Human. It stung.
“Must be,” he sighed, hoping the hurt doesn’t shed onto his voice. “I’ll help you get him to bed."
Wilbur scooped Tommy up, careful so he doesn’t wake up. Tommy still grumbled up the stairs. He placed him on his bed and stepped back so Phil could tuck him in.
“Thank you, Wilbur.”
“I’m doing this for a tip.”
Phil chuckled and shook his head. “I’ll give you one if you want.”
“No, no, I don’t need your money, I’ve told you this.”
“You’re a good person, you know that right?”
Wilbur stopped for a moment. Everything around him seemed to cease too. Because was he even a person?
He couldn’t be, he wasn’t. Not anymore. Not since Schlatt killed him and forced him into this life, a life that came with a decision to make and he wanted nothing of either. He wanted to be human, to not fear the sun, to bathe in it, to never hear heartbeats so strongly and have his mouth water at the dark thoughts that came with it. He didn't want to not freak when surrounded by humans, to not be this.
A hand pressed on his shoulder. So close to the back of his neck. He wanted it to slide over, to then tug him close into a hug, into something warm.
“You alright?”
He blinked, faltering as everything registered. Phil’s hand dropped. He wanted to grab it back but stopped himself.
“I’m fine, sorry, got lost in my head,” he cleared his throat.
“It’s late anyway, you should get going.”
“Night Phil.”
It was only when he walked outside that he noticed how different the air was. Inside Tommy’s room, it was suffocating. Worse than the sun hues normally pressing coated with each inhale. In that room, there was more to it. there was an earthy scent, grounding and stable. It was smooth.
It was with his seventh breath that he realised it was because of Phil.
“So you’re saying you steal blood from your workplace?”
“Yes. I have a key card to get into the Blood Transfusion laboratory and there’s a cabinet with blood bags in there unlocked," Techno explained.
Wilbur exhaled from the drag of his cigarette. “You are stealing blood from potential patients.”
“And? I only take sips. I have a special straw for it.”
“Techno,” he deadpanned.
“It’s a win for me, what can I say?”
He gave him a look.
“Wilbur, would you prefer me going on rampages painting this town red or some petty theft?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s petty—”
“It’s either this or I starve,” Techno interrupted, serious all of a sudden. “I don’t want to drink from a person, this is the only substitute I can think of.”
Wilbur bit his cheek. As much as Techno helped him with his instincts, when to control himself when the urges got too much, he knew his friend struggled with it to a harsher extent. Because he was a full vampire. He had drunk human blood and knew what the taste was like, he knew what his instincts longed for and that made it all worse.
Whilst Wilbur hadn't even sipped. He only smelt and longed from an unknowing distance. Sure, his hunger was to the same degree as Techno's, especially as it was killing him. But the urges were harder for Techno.
“I guess it’s the lesser of two evils.”
Techno nodded. “How’s it going for you?”
Wilbur threw his blunt cigarette away. “These aren’t helping anymore.”
Before, the nicotine, smoke and the occasional burn of his fingertips from the bud helped with the hunger. It satisfied it enough. An addiction overwhelming another. But now, the want for blood surpassed that.
“It’s day eleven,” Techno reminded. He winced slightly as he spoke. “I’ll get you some animal blood during my free period today for lunch.”
Wilbur gritted his teeth at the mention of animal blood. Even that blood wasn't enough. Having to eat and drain animals dry just for a smidge of that endless want to be gratified. Never fulfilled though. Because it wasn't what his body truly desired. Every part of him screamed to bite into the next person who passed them, to grab them by the shoulders and drink. But he couldn't do that.
Darkness travelled through Wilbur as he stamped down the cigarette on the floor.
“Techno,” the other hummed for him to continue, “do you hate yourself?”
Stillness defrayed between them.
“Not really,” Techno said at last. “I know I’m not the same, but I was never really normal. I dyed my hair pink, for God’s sake, Wil. So this life... it’s just a step-up. A big one.”
“But what about the urges?” he pressed.
“I don’t give into them, not properly. Just enough so it feels like I’ve just eaten food, not fully stuffed.” Techno looked up at Wilbur, eyes mantled with something. Remorse, maybe.
Wilbur hated how Techno still showed emotions despite his transition. He never went through the nothingness that a fledgling did. Schlatt’s taunting rang through Wilbur's head, that you’re just like me. You won’t feel a thing as a vampire and it’ll be perfect. We’ll be perfect.
“How?” he whispered, desperate and strained. “How do you not hate yourself because I can’t—” his voice broke off.
Silence accompanied the sour air.
A hand covered the top of his. Cold meeting icer skin.
“You shouldn’t hate yourself, Wil.”
“I can’t help it,” he grieved out an almost sob. “I still have to make a choice. To feed and feel worse than I already feel or...”
The grip upon his hand tightened. “You’re not dying.”
“Techno.”
“You’re not,” he insisted, harsher.
“But what if I want to?” Wilbur spat out, heated with anger. “Are you gonna take that choice away from me?” Techno wavered back. as if slapped in the face. Wilbur sighed and looked down at his hands. He was shaking. Fuck. “I- I didn’t mean that.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re considering it,” Techno continued. “Not feeding and letting it kill you.”
More silence. Not a single defence or disagreement broke it.
“It’s better than hating who I become,” he whispered. “There’s at least peace in dying with a shred of humanity—"
“Y’know every single time you come to me when the hunger gets too much, I’m tempted to feed you human blood instead,” Techno revealed. “A part of me just wants to turn you because I don’t want you to die.”
He gulped.
“But I never do," Techno said. “I’m not taking that choice away from you, Wilbur. But I will not sit here and let you think I agree with your decision.”
Neither spoke for a while after that. Wilbur knew that if he spoke, it'd break. His voice would falter and bend to the wills of his own hatred.
“It’s getting worse each day, Tech,” he whimpered. “Sure, there are small reminders of emotion, like sympathy, empathy,” love, “but it’s temporary.”
“It’s when you’re around Tommy.”
He frowned. “What?”
“I’m not blind. You care about that kid.”
“I babysit him.”
“And? You’re protective over him. You care, Wilbur. That’s an emotion. It’s there and still will be there if you fully transition.”
He sighed and buried his head in his hands.
“It’ll be alright,” Techno muttered, patting his shoulder awkwardly. “In time.”
Yet, Wilbur only had so little time left.
Wilbur didn't mean to torment himself like this. To pester himself with what he had lost.
He sat under a tree, body deep in the shade. But occasionally, he leaned his hand in the open. He let it rest there, open to the sunlight with no sunscreen or protection. It always burned him, hissed at his skin.
Scorched skin that should be buried under dirt and not walking as if alive. A ghost so deep in denial of its own fate.
He ripped his hand away from the sunlight as his phone vibrated on his lap. He frowned at the caller contact, Tommy usually didn’t call him first. It was always spam of texts asking if he could call and then it’d ring.
Wilbur clicked on the screen and winced at the immediate shouting in his ear. It was a garbled mess, too loud and frantic for him to distinguish anything.
“Tommy! Tommy, calm down, what?” he shouted over him, trying to make sense of it all.
But as he heard a string of words in Tommy’s sobbing, he was sobbing, Wilbur ran. He texted Techno to meet him at Tommy’s house and bolted.
It was only when he reached the house that he understood why those tears were so loud, so distressed and gapful.
Techno was already inside, though he had someone huddled to his side. Tubbo. But not just Tubbo. It was Tubbo with a wound similar to bite marks on his neck and blood around his mouth. Paler skin, redder eyes. Marks of a vampire.
"Does this mean I can conduct experiments on myself? Because human experimentation is illegal but if I’m not human anymore—”
“Shut up!” Tommy yelled, standing metres away from the two. Tears streamed down his face, his nose all stuffy. “Shut the fuck up! Tubbo, you are dead, you’ll never age and we’ll never grow old together and—” he cut himself off, his breaths too quick to function.
Wilbur approached him as Techno continued to talk hushedly with Tubbo.
“Hey, it’s okay," he whispered, bending down to Tommy's height. "He’s just in shock. I was too and so was Techno. He’ll come around soon and realise how serious this is."
“He’s my best friend, Wil, and now—” Tommy reached forward and cried into Wilbur’s chest. Wilbur immediately put his arms around him. “I didn’t want him to get hurt. It’s because of me, it’s because—”
His breathing broke into sobs.
Wilbur tightened the hug. “I thought the same with Techno, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. He won’t blame you, he will never hate you.”
“Schlatt turned him,” he choked out. Wilbur swallowed down his fear. “Why?”
“He needs more vampires for something,” Wilbur said. “Tubbo was just an unlucky target.”
“I had to invite him in,” he sobbed. “He’s always been welcome here, he used to sneak in through my window, even made a fucking cut-out of my house keys once. And I had to fucking invite him in!”
“He’s still Tubbo,” Wilbur said, no matter how hypocritical the words were. Because it was to comfort Tommy. Even if he didn’t feel like Wilbur after being a fledgling, this wasn’t about him.
“He always will be,” Tommy agreed, sniffing with fewer tears.
Wilbur sighed and continued to hold him as Tommy cried. He couldn't help but feel guilty because this was partly his fault too. If he didn't get Tommy involved, Tubbo would be fine. Everyone else except himself would be fine.
Gradually, Tommy's breathing evened, still hiccuping from time to time, but he wasn't hyperventilating anymore.
“At least you’re not the only weirdo in your little trio,” he whispered into Tommy's hair. “A psychic with visions and now a vampire.”
Tommy laughed wetly. “For once, Ranboo is the normal one.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. He’s too tall.”
“You’re just saying that because he’s somehow taller than you.”
“At fourteen!” he exclaimed, grinning. “Impossible.”
Tommy laughed again, calming down. He peered over Wilbur's shoulder to Tubbo and Techno, who were still talking.
“Will he actually be okay?”
“I’ll make sure of it. Techno’s already helping me with my instincts, he’ll help Tubbo too.”
Tommy nodded, relieved. “Okay, good,” exhaled. “Thank you, Wil.”
Softness burst in Wilbur's chest. Something he hadn't felt in weeks. This sweetness, a longing. It was always cold. But now it was warm, warm with Tommy clutched in his arms. He rocked him on his feet like he saw Phil do with him through the window a couple of days prior. Tommy hummed into it, smiling.
Wilbur let go when all seams of panic had left Tommy's system. Tommy walked over to Tubbo in his own time.
Tubbo didn't have the blood on his lips anymore, Techno must've wiped it off. Tommy stared, probably speechless as to what to say to his newly turned friend.
Tubbo spoke first. “It’s all good. The only bad thing is that my dad might ground me when he realises his son isn’t ageing.”
All that tension dissolved from the room at the two's laughter. Laughter that delved into giggles. Tommy threw his arms around Tubbo, firmly hugging him.
“I think vampires are resistant to baldness so at least you don’t need to worry about those genes anymore," Tommy replied, voice still hoarse.
“True!”
It was Tubbo's response that seemed to replenish Tommy. To bring that brightness and humanity back to him, so he could propel it off as if a reflection. Because only Tommy could make a newly turned vampire laugh.
Later at night, Wilbur in an empty house wrote down another bullet point in his notebook. Another thing he'd miss. With this one, he had Tommy solely in mind.
Warmth.
☼
As soon as Tommy exited his class for his break, Ranboo hounded him.
“Something happened last night and Tubbo won’t tell me. He’s just talking about possible nuclear experiments and if he can resist radiation, I don’t understand him.”
Oh, he forgot to tell Ranboo.
“He’s a vampire.”
“Well, explains it,” Ranboo said, then paused for a moment. “Wait, no it doesn’t. He’s a vampire? Like, capital V?”
“I don’t think capitals are needed.”
Ranboo scoffed, “He’s handling it well.”
“If trying to book a flight to Chernobyl is handling it well, then sure.” Tommy had to stop him from doing so after his nightly rant about how much radiation his body could withstand before he felt sick.
“Anyway, I finished that Greek poem you gave me,” Ranboo said as they walked past the canteen. “And this might be a reach but that jar Schlatt dug up, it’s possibly an Ancient Greek artefact.”
Tommy gasped, “No way.”
“Yes way,” Ranboo mockingly gasped back. “So the poem goes on about Prometheus and how he stole fire from the Gods. Did you know Zeus’ chosen punishment was to create a woman? Well, Hephaestus made her but—”
“Get to the point.”
“Pandora!” he yelled out. “He made Pandora, the Olympians gave her all these qualities and Zeus gifted a box. He told her not to open it but one of those qualities was an insatiable curiosity. So, she opened it. Unleashing all the evils into the world." Ranboo paused suddenly, then smirked. “Did you know Pandora’s Box was mistranslated? It was a pithos jar, like what they put oil in. And—”
“That’s what Schlatt found,” Tommy finished. “Holy shit, Ranboo, you’re a genius.”
“I’m just the only one here who likes reading poetry.”
“A genius!” he repeated. “I need to find Wil.”
He found Wilbur smoking in the courtyard, unsurprisingly. His hands shook as he lifted the cigarette up to take a drag.
Tommy cleared his throat, alerting Wilbur. He flinched and stubbed out the cigarette.
“Are you alright?” he asked, frowning at the other's appearance.
“Day eight,” Wilbur said with a wince. “It’s... it’s getting there.”
The hunger, he assumed. Tommy bit his inner check, conflicted. He didn’t really want a reminder of how many days Wilbur had left. It hurt, for some reason. A lot. Even thinking about it stung.
“Well, Ranboo figured out what Schlatt dug up if it helps,” Tommy announced, liking how Wilbur stood up straighter at the news; he moved as if he were still alive. “Pandora’s Box.”
“The Greek thing? Like, what literally contained death, sickness and other shit?” Tommy nodded. “Schlatt wants to release that?”
“He is a prick, after all.”
Wilbur agreed, “Leave it to Schlatt to want to bring a second-coming of disease, war and famine into the world. Nice.”
“You’re babysitting tonight, aren’t you?” Tommy suddenly asked.
“Yep.”
“We’ll figure it out then.”
Later, Tommy thought that in the middle of their building Lego session was a good time to bring up Schlatt again.
“So if Schlatt is trying to unleash literal hell on Earth, I say we stake him before—”
“Can I be selfish?” Wilbur interrupted. Tommy frowned, staring at him. He didn’t look like he was enjoying this, talking about Schlatt or even building Lego with him.
“Selfish?”
“Can we not talk about this tonight?”
Tommy stopped himself from saying otherwise. That Schlatt wanting to bring more evil to the world was more important. But there was a sickly glow to Wilbur’s skin, bruises under his eyes. He looked tired. Exhausted and hungry. Like he was slowly dying. No life in those eyes as brown stared back at Tommy.
A bad thought passed through Tommy’s head. A selfish one. He'd let the world wait if it meant making sure Wilbur was okay. Wilbur came first, more than any human stranger. This whole thing could be put on hold for just a moment, regardless of how people's lives were at stake, all because of Wilbur.
“Okay,” he replied, quietly. “What do you want to do?”
Wilbur dropped the Lego from his hands. “Let’s go outside.”
He stole Wilbur’s coat before leaving and followed wherever Wilbur led him. They stopped in a field. Wilbur draped down a blanket and two pillows, then gestured for Tommy to join him.
As he laid down, he wrapped Wilbur’s coat more around himself, the autumn breeze was colder at night. Yet with Wilbur’s coat, the fluffy hood and familiar cologne fragrance, he didn’t feel as cold.
He looked up at the sky, thankfully it wasn’t starless. No clouds were in sight. The moon shined directly above them. He reclined next to Wilbur, their shoulders touching. Silence followed the night. Though, Wilbur probably heard more, like the grass swaying in the breeze, maybe nearby animals, Tommy’s own heartbeat perhaps.
“Do you know the constellations?” he asked, filling the silence.
Wilbur turned to face him. “No, do you?”
“No.” Tommy peered at the stars, not knowing the invisible lines that connected them. Then hummed, “Let’s make them up.”
“You’re just going to say—”
“There’s a dick and balls right there,” he pointed.
“Fucking knew it,” Wilbur laughed out. Tommy joined in, giggling as he lowered his arm.
When he faced Wilbur, somehow the light in the sky was still there. Light in the form of Wilbur’s face. The bright stars flashed in Wilbur’s eyes, no longer housing a hollow brown. They were light, almost human.
Those brown eyes embellished as the two made up more constellations
Wilbur raised his hand to point at the sky. “That one looks like you,” he whispered, delicate.
Tommy narrowed his eyes at where he pointed. “Wilbur, that’s just a single star.”
Wilbur’s smile widened. “Exactly.”
His face reddened at the realisation and he pushed Wilbur's shoulder. “Shut up. ‘M not a star.”
“The brightest star.”
“That’s the sun.”
“Then you’re the sun.”
Tommy smiled back at him. “I have the hair for it.”
Wilbur laughed again. “You do.”
Quiet returned as neither needed to say anything. No words were needed to embrace the peace between them.
“I miss the sun,” Wilbur muttered when the laughter faded. “It burns now.”
Tommy stayed quiet.
“I’ll never see the sunset the same way,” Wilbur continued, dragging that sadness with him, “because before, it was the end of the day, signalling the soon start of maybe a better one tomorrow. But now, it’s ruined. The sun is ruined.”
“I thought I was the sun,” Tommy whispered, shuffling closer. He sat up to properly stare at Wilbur. “Am I ruined?”
“No,” Wilbur replied, without missing a beat. Not a single moment of hesitation. He sounded the most confident he had all day.
“Then it’s not ruined.” Tommy laid back down closer to Wilbur.
Wilbur sighed, “Okay.”
Tommy scowled up at him. “I’ll get you to like sunsets again.”
“Okay, Tommy,” Wilbur replied with that same defeated tone.
“I will,” he persisted. Because he will. “I promise.”
Wilbur sighed once more. His hand reached out and ruffled his hair. “I believe you.”
But Tommy wasn’t so sure Wilbur did.
The clocktower rang twelve times, signalling midnight. Day seven, a week Wilbur had to live until his mortal body died.
And Tommy rested his eyes and leaned into Wilbur’s hand, hoping that the action was enough to forget.
☾
As Wilbur walked to his normal spot by the courtyard, Techno continued his rant.
“I’m just saying, Tubbo is a better vampire than you.”
“I’m a fledgling still.”
“I bet I can bench press you,” Tubbo inputted.
Wilbur glared down at him.
“He probably could,” Techno agreed. “A fourteen-year-old could outlift you, that’s embarrassing.”
“Shut up." He shoved Techno’s shoulder.
“I can fly too! Well, I can hover. I fell out of a tree last night when I climbed into Tommy’s room and I floated!”
“You know Tommy has a front door, right?”
“That front door gives me trauma, it burned me.” Wilbur assumed Tommy carried Tubbo in then, after his turning, into his own home without inviting him in first.
With Wilbur's next step, something familiar tugged at him. A wrong pull that he never wanted to indulge in. The scent was sour and bitter.
Schlatt stood where Wilbur usually hung out in the courtyard.
“Ah, Wilbur!” he exclaimed as the three stopped in front of him. “Just the person I needed to see. Only a couple more days now, isn't it? Is that thirst getting any better?” Schlatt drank from his cupped drink. The straw turned red.
And it hit him. His mouth ached, watering as fangs tore through his gums. Pain rumbled in his stomach, dryness crept up his throat. A dryness that only one substance could fulfil.
Schlatt had blood in his cup. The redness in the straw was blood.
He heaved forward, arms reaching to snatch the drink from Schlatt. But someone tugged him back. Techno’s hands kept him in place, holding him still. Yet he couldn’t just stay here. He needed it, he needed it so badly that it hurt to even deny it.
He had it now. It would be so easy. So easy to just take a sip and get rid of everything. If he didn’t feel anything as a vampire, then he couldn’t hate himself. He needed humanity to feel that hatred and he wouldn’t have it.
His lips hovered over the straw. His head fogged over, submitting to every instinct that screamed at him.
Yet, as quickly as it came in his hold, it was ripped from him. Techno snatched it from him and threw it in the bin. A pressure moved him, harsh hands on his shoulders, taking steps for him because the world blanked around him.
Hatred seeped in the empty cracks. Hatred for himself. Because he almost gave in. He had almost done it. He hurt Techno, pushed him away, who was only trying to help him, all because the thirst had almost won.
He failed.
“You haven’t failed, Wil.”
Wilbur blinked. His surroundings resumed. No emptiness or hatred to fill in the unknown. Though, that hatred instead moved back inside his heart.
He was sitting down on a bench. Techno and Tubbo crowded around him. But, Tommy was here. Tommy was speaking. The other two must have gone to get him. Why, he didn't know.
"Wilbur," Tommy spoke again.
He shook his head, sniffing. He didn't even know when he had started to cry.
“It’s days away, of course your thirst is going to be stronger,” Tommy grabbed his hands, clasping them together so they wouldn't tremble alone. “Listen to me, please.”
He looked up.
“You think just because you’re a fledgling that you’ve failed the most basic levels of compassion, but you haven’t.”
“I almost did it,” he croaked out, voice so far from him despite leaving his throat. “All this waiting, giving myself more time before the end, and I almost wasted it. I’m sorry.”
Tommy squeezed their clasped hands.
“You haven’t failed me, Wilbur.”
And that was all he needed to hear.
☼
Tommy bit into his sandwich.
“Did you know my mum is a witch?” Ranboo suddenly announced.
And Tommy spat out said sandwich.
“Fucking what?” he choked. “A witch? Which one?”
“Ender,” Ranboo said. Tommy frowned, that was the one with black hair. She always had flowers in it, the same ones that never seemed to wither. “Stop thinking about my mum!”
“Shut it, I was just... nevermind. So she’s a witch?”
“Yep and apparently I’m some spellcaster. Not sure but she gave me this massive book." He pulled it out from his bag. It was a thick book with wrinkled pages. “A grimoire.”
“You can do magic?” Tubbo gasped. “Ranboo, you were supposed to be the normal one of our trio.”
“It’s not my fault.”
“Our human rep has disappeared, this is abysmal,” Tubbo continued lamenting until Ranboo slapped him around the head.
“Is there any magic to help Wil?” Tommy asked.
“Of course that’s your first thought,” Tubbo teased.
Tommy glared “He has five days left, Tubs.”
“I know, I know,” he said, less teasing. “Is there magic for fledglings then?”
Ranboo opened the book, coughing at the dust. He skimmed through it. “Well, there’s a spell to get rid of all vampires. Not sure that’s wanted though.”
“Bookmark it though,” Tommy joked and Tubbo kicked him under the table.
Ranboo continued looking until he stopped. “There’s something to quench hunger. It might help Wilbur in that sense, like short-term.”
“Can you do it?”
“I can try,” he said, reading over the spell. “I’ll try it later, maybe on a juice box to test it.”
“Thank you, Ran,” Tommy said, giving him a smile. “Now, give me the witch book, I need a closer look at the spell to get rid of Tubbo—”
Yet, as his skin met the leather book, everything faded.
The cold returned. A storm of ice. Clouds that circled grey and lifeless. Pain pricked his head, eyes, and fingertips. A scroll appeared. A robed lady in a temple. Letters engrained in Tommy's sight. The 'Scriptures of Delphi'. A book. It was a book. A book above a bowl of water, the numbers '1410' glowing in the stream. Just as the numbers dissolved, a fisted hand punched the water. It wet Tommy's face.
He blinked.
The wetness was still there.
Tears poured down his face. He gasped for air, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't—
“Tommy, Tom, it’s alright, breathe." But he couldn't. “It’s just a vision, you’re with us, it’s fine.”
His breathing didn't even as he repeated the images he had seen.
“Another- another book. We have something else to read.”
Tommy opened up the PDF file Techno had sent him with Wilbur leaning on his desk chair. The two were in his room to go over the book he had envisioned. There was a glossary in the translated version of 'Scriptures of Delphi'. The Taurus Myth, Capricorn Mythology, the Virgo Myth...
"Is this just star sign mythology?" Wilbur complained, glaring at the screen.
He scrolled down at Wilbur's complaint then froze at the next heading. Wilbur stilled beside him too.
The Vampire Origin Story.
"I think that's what we need to read," he muttered, clicking on the heading to bring the PDF to that page.
Just as it flipped to the needed page, Phil called for them from downstairs.
“Boys! Dinner!”
Tommy frowned as Wilbur stilled once more, though for a completely different reason this time. He pulled him along downstairs and sat down at the table, gesturing Wilbur to do the same.
“Tommy, I can’t eat this. It’ll be a waste,” Wilbur whispered under his breath as Phil placed cutlery in the middle of the table.
Tommy felt a smile grace his lips. "I made Ranboo do a spell on the ingredients earlier, you can eat it.”
His smile only broadened at Wilbur's astonishment. He gaped, almost amazed that someone would do this for him.
He watched as Wilbur ate, as his face turned less pale. His hands didn't shake as much when he Wilbur reached to scrape more food on his plate. Tommy's chest tugged as Wilbur engaged in conversation with his dad. It wasn't awkward or forced. It was personal. Phil knew things about Wilbur; Tommy didn't realise the two were so close.
It felt nice. Homely and complete. With someone sitting beside and opposite him, it felt less like an empty table.
He loved the nights when his dad could have dinner with him, but it was better with Wilbur here too. And the big smile on Phil's face made him think that maybe this thought was shared.
“Anything happening at work?” Wilbur asked after he swallowed down another potato.
“Well, there’s a blood thief.”
Tommy and Wilbur immediately shared a look.
“And maybe a ghost. It’s someone opening the blood supply and stealing bags, but they don’t ever appear on camera. It must be a glitch.”
Or a Technoblade.
“How weird,” Wilbur replied.
“I know. Techno said the same.”
Tommy failed to hide his grin at the irony. Wilbur kicked him under the table, starting a kicking match between the two.
“Boys,” Phil reprehended, amused.
“Sorry Dad,” and, “Sorry Phil,” was said simultaneously.
Fondness struck the room and when dinner was over, the two returned to Tommy's room.
“C’mon let’s read the vampire origin story.”
It talked of a man called Ambrogio, the original vampire. He gained his curses from the Gods. Burned by sunlight because of Apollo's jealousy, his soul kept by Hades in the Underworld, burned by silver for stealing from Artemis and given his heightened senses and immortality by Artemis too.
“Is that it?” Wilbur frowned. “Your vision wanted to tell us about the origins of vampires?”
Tommy scowled down at the pages and then scrolled down.
As Wilbur leaned closer to read, his arm brushed against his. The walls in his room decoloured, waning in clouds once more. Another vision. This one was quick and painless, no hurt spiking in his head. Though, the image itself was painful.
It was an image of a man—a familiar man with the text from the origin story behind him. Along with the numbers 1410. The text was the same as what they had just read, the original vampire.
Yet Schlatt's face was pasted all over it.
“Oh fuck," Tommy whimpered as it spiralled back to him.
“What?” Wilbur asked, staring concernedly.
This couldn't be real, this shouldn't be real.
“Schlatt is Ambrogio, Wilbur.”
It felt wrong to even say.
Wilbur faltered. “But- but that means he’s—”
“Literal centuries old, like born in 1410BC old.”
“Why the fuck does he want Pandora’s Box?”
Tommy gulped. The vision was more than the images, it was a feeling. A daunting sense. It was dark. The evil from his vision, the want for the world to burn, for humans to feel how sunlight scarred him, how silver burned his skin. All that pain and suffering, a targeted vengeance. All of it followed the number 1410.
“He plans to bring pain upon humans on the fourteenth of October.”
“That’s in two days,” Wilbur realised.
Tommy nodded grimly. “We have to stop him on that night, it’s when he’s most vulnerable.”
☾
Wilbur sat on the sofa downstairs with Tommy as Phil went to bed early.
“What should we do before then?” Tommy asked, his legs laid across Wilbur’s lap.
“Well, we have two days to prepare. Get as much holy water as possible," he replied absently as he wrote in his notebook.
“What are you writing?”
Wilbur thought for a moment if he should tell Tommy. He had three days to complete his list. He could feel Tommy leaning over his shoulder and reading his writing anyway.
“Things I’ll miss,” he says, vague on purpose.
“Miss?”
He swallowed roughly. “It’s just things I’ll miss if I complete my transition. Things I’ll miss if I die too.”
“Oh.” Tommy tucked his legs back to his chest. “You won’t really die though, right?” Tommy said, sounding hesitant. Voice strained to even ask.
Wilbur paused. An unbearable ache flooded through him.
“Not sure yet,” he muttered.
Silence hit the room. It was quiet and Wilbur hoped it would stay that way. For Tommy to not ask him any more questions, to not make this ache linger with more hurt.
Then a whisper resounded, “I don’t want you to die, Wil.”
He looked down back to his notebook. He couldn't handle staring at Tommy. At those wide blue eyes, eyes almost close to brimming with tears. Because the guilt was bad enough. All because he was selfish, Selfish for not wanting to live an eternal life that he'd spend hating himself. But if he died, they'd be no more Tommy. No more empathy or warmth that he only felt when around him. No family.
His breath hitched.
Family.
He thought of Tommy as family.
With gritted teeth, he scribbled down the next things he'd miss in his notebook. He knew Tommy was watching but he needed these inked words on paper.
Tommy. Phil. Techno. His family.
He angled the book away, clutching it closed to his chest.
"I'm trying," he said at last, "to not hate myself."
"I don't hate you," Tommy whispered.
"I know."
“You’re not a monster,” Tommy continued. “Or evil, or bad. You eat rats for God’s sake. You’re good. You’re still Wilbur.”
He said it with such certainty that Wilbur almost believed him.
“I wish I saw it the same way.”
“I’ll get you to see it the same way.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but Tommy jumped up from the sofa. Tommy grabbed his own notebook from the coffee table and sat down at the windowsill. He stared at the sunset and immediately his coloured pencils began to move.
Wilbur sighed and carried on writing, hoping to distract himself from the sun.
☼
“Techno, is it a good idea?” Tommy asked as he rushed to catch up with the vampire walking away from him.
“Hm, well, I’d prefer if all your brainpower was going towards stopping Schlatt, but I guess it’s a nice side project.”
“I don’t care about Schlatt right now,” he snapped, breathless, as he stopped in front of Techno.
He paused at the implications. Tommy didn’t care about the fate of the world, he didn’t care about those innocent people who would suffer in that jar was opened, all because he wanted these final two days to be good for Wilbur.
“You care about him,” Techno filled in. “That’s a big loyalty for it to surpass a literal world apocalypse.”
Tommy stayed silent.
Techno sighed. “He’ll like your drawings, Tommy,” he said. “And for that one,” he pointed at the second bullet point on Tommy’s list. He had copied out what he remembered from Wilbur's notebook. Techno pointed at sleep. “Invite Wilbur over for a sleepover. I think if you’re there, he could sleep.”
“Why?”
“You’re the reason he feels,” he said, bluntly. Tommy reeled back in shock. “You haven’t noticed? His humanity is slipping. You’re not supposed to feel things as a fledgling. But, empathy, sympathy, everything he had before... it returns when you’re with him.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh,” Techno mocked with a fond smile. “Enjoy your sleepover.”
☾
“So I don’t have to pay you?” Phil said, confused.
“Nope!" Wilbur exclaimed, clasping his hands together. "This is a willing babysitting session. Tommy’s forcing me to have a sleepover with him.”
For some reason, Tommy wanted to have a sleepover with him and tomorrow was the big day (meaning Kill-Schlatt-Day) so today was the only time they could do it.
“You’re a good friend to him,” Phil stated, surprising him.
He didn't like that word to describe Tommy. Friend. Family suited him more.
“He brings out the best in me,” he answered, meaning more to his words than Phil knew.
“Well, I’m glad he has you.” Phil patted him on the shoulder. “Have a nice sleepover, Wil.”
Wil.
Wilbur stayed standing in an empty living room for a bit. His mind attempted to digest that without breaking a little bit. Phil had called him Wil.
Tommy shouting for him to come upstairs broke him out of his trance. He sped to Tommy's room and there was already a blanket fort made inside.
The night was what Wilbur expected of a sleepover with Tommy. There were prank calls (meaning they pranked Tubbo over and over again), dares to do things that almost ended in injury, a failed effort to make friendship bracelets, and finally, vampire stuff.
Wilbur loaded sharpened pencils into the foam pockets of Nerf gun bullets whilst Tommy handled the holy water.
Soon enough, it was time for bed.
“You know I can’t sleep, right?” he whispered after Tommy had stopped ruffling about in his bed.
“Just try,” Tommy whispered back. “For me.”
He sighed and turned on his side in the beanbag Tommy gave him on the floor.
Even if he closed his eyes for hours or days, sleep would never come. He'd never succumb to the exhaustion he constantly felt. He couldn't rest or heal from the damage tearing him apart, deeper with each day.
“Tomorrow we’ll have to kill Schlatt,” he said, breaking the silence.
“Yep.”
“And then the next day I have to choose.”
Tommy didn't reply to that.
“Do you think we would have been friends if this didn’t happen?”
Tommy sat up. “Friends?”
“That’s what we are, aren’t we?” Wilbur asked, turning to face him.
"Well. Yeah, yeah. Friends." Tommy beamed as he spoke. “Kinda like brothers too.”
He froze.
“Brothers," he repeated, mouth dry.
“Yeah,” Tommy exhaled.
Family.
“I think we would have been brothers regardless, Wil,” Tommy said. He uttered those words so simply that it caved everything in.
“I wish I had more time,” he whispered.
Rustling echoed the room. Tommy got out of his bed and settled beside him. Wilbur tugged on his opened arms and tucked Tommy into his side. Relief filled him as his skin absorbed the warmth.
“I wasted so much time in the beginning. I had twenty-eight days in total but the first week I was just... numb.”
“You’re not numb now.”
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. He leaned it against Tommy's. “I feel alive, weirdly.”
“Techno said it might be because of me.”
“I agree with him.”
He let out a low hum, a smile etching on his face. Though, it wasn't a happy one.
“I wish you had more time too, with me. With my dad,” Tommy said and tears pricked in Wilbur’s eyes. “I think if you weren’t a fledgling, I’d go to the beach with you all the time. Skim stones in the sea, paddle board, and splash water at each other. Watch the sunset on the rocks.”
The situations and the words sounded familiar. “You read my notebook.”
“Yeah,” Tommy admitted quietly. “And I mean that I’d do that with you if I could.”
He hugged Tommy closer, eyes shutting as ease rumbled in his chest.
“Thank you.”
As he began drifting off, he heard Tommy whisper, “Please don’t die." His grip tightened instinctively as if needing shelter from pelting rain on an island shore. “Don’t leave me behind.”
With thunder rolling in his ears, his eyes clenched with the tug of sleep as if he was human.
He couldn’t leave his brother behind.
Wilbur stood with Techno by his side. A Nerf gun was in his arms, bullets with sharpened ends attached to him with a sash. Bottles of holy water and silver daggers littered his waist. Ranboo had his grimoire with sticky tabs to help navigate to spells he needed. Tubbo had himself, which was enough as the fourteen-year-old vampire could outlift everyone here.
Then there was Tommy with his Nerf gun. But he had something else in his hands too. His own notebook.
"What's that for?" Wilbur asked. They were about to leave, it was almost time to go to the graveyard to stop Schlatt.
Tommy had a Nerf gun too. But something else was in his hands. His own notebook.
“What’s that for?” Wilbur asked. They were about to leave, to go to the graveyard to stop Schlatt.
Tommy quickly placed the notebook back on the coffee table. “Nothing. I’ll show you later.”
He frowned but nodded anyway. They needed to go.
“We’ve got this, okay?” he smiled down at him, seeing the nerves in Tommy. “We’ll stake Schlatt, celebrate over his dead body, then deal with whatever happens tomorrow.”
“Right,” Tommy nodded.
It was deserted in the graveyard. Alone with gravestones and their crisp plaques. Scratched in the metal, rusted because of nature's water and forces. Withering away.
Wilbur had never resonated that much with a metal plaque before. His bones were eroding. Rusting like the plaques. Leafs fell off trees and that was all Wilbur wanted to do. Fall. To feel the rush of adrenaline with the breeze flying through his hair. To drop and become a pile of his own making.
He had a single day. A single day. To decide whether that pile would stand straight up, undamaged, or stay until dust took its place.
But that was tomorrow's problem. His problem to solely bear. For now, the problem was the man suddenly standing in the middle of the graveyard. The man who had turned him, who turned Tubbo and Techno too. He was the first vampire of their kind. The one to witness and carry curses from Ancient Gods, to see Empires build and fall, nations come and go.
He had borne witness to cycles of pain. Famine, wars, and destruction. And that jar in his hands would bring it all at once.
"Lovely night, isn't it Ambrogio?" Wilbur called, clutching the gun in his hands.
Schlatt didn't seem all surprised that Wilbur knew his true identity.
"Do you want points for figuring it out or are you just here to gloat?" Schlatt drawled out, his fingers itching at the seal of Pandora's Box.
"I want you to drop that jar," Wilbur said.
"Oh, this?" Schlatt tilted the clay in his hands, smirking as the lid wobbled for a second, almost opening. "I could drop it if that's how you want me to open it. I thought smashing it would be a bit insensitive, y'know it's a historical item. But, I guess not feeling anything would make you overlook that, Wilbur."
His jaw clenched.
He wanted to deny it, deny his numbness. Because he did feel. He did feel things. Yet that tugging notion, the coven bond that left a bitter taste in his dry mouth, made him doubt it all. His own mind turned on himself because of his sire's pull.
"Give us the jar, Schlatt," Techno interrupted, voice hoarse. As if he had his own version of the pull, like Schlatt's tug hurt more to resist. And it probably did.
"If tall boy over there stops the spell currently binding me to the ground, then I won't open it," Schlatt shouted suddenly.
Wilbur turned and Ranboo's face flushed red. His grimoire was open in his hands to a pink sticky tab. Pink meant offence spells.
"Ranboo," he muttered and Ranboo stopped mumbling the incantation under his breath.
Schlatt's posture straightened.
"Good because now I can do this."
And everything fell.
A hand gripped at him and raced off. Gripping him as pressure flew through the air. It was Schlatt. Schlatt had him. He had Tommy too in his other hand. Moving beyond human speed.
Then he stopped.
They were in a field. His vision was disorientated from the pace. It was the same field he took Tommy to stargaze in.
"I thought it would be better with less company," Schlatt smirked as Wilbur grabbed Tommy, who stumbled once his feet hit the ground.
Schlatt stepped back, hands now covering the top part of the jar. Wilbur stilled as sharp talons edged under the seal. He threw himself forward, tackling Schlatt, aiming for the jar to seal shut before something came out.
Yet, his strength failed him. His back scraped against the floor, digging into the absent stones in the mud. He winced, talons held him down. Wilbur threshed against him, trying, hoping, for the movement to budge the weapon attached to his waist.
At his fourth flail, the silver dagger was just close enough for him to grab at. Wilbur tussled over, pushing Schlatt down, hovering the silver above his chest. He restrained him there, in his shadow.
"I got it!"
It was Tommy. Tommy's voice.
Wilbur looked over and Tommy held the jar still sealed in his hands. It must've been dropped when he pinned Schlatt down. Relief eased him despite the talons slicing into his skin.
"Go on then," Schlatt cackled. Blood on his fangs. "Do it," he bellowed. "Kill what you will eventually become. Become me, Wilbur." His laughter rang in Wilbur's ears. He couldn't do it, he couldn't bring his hand down to stab him. He couldn't kill Schlatt. Not with that tug echoing in his head. "Oh, oh, but maybe you'll need a push to do that."
Wilbur halted, confused.
“If I’m going down, you’re coming with me."
His body plunged back to the floor, shoved away. He yelped and grabbed for Schlatt, only the original vampire wasn't aiming for him. Wilbur wasn't the new target.
A blurred figure sped in Tommy's direction. Time slowed as two fangs pierced Tommy's arm. Biting him.
Wilbur scrambled off the floor and buried the dagger into Schlatt's back. Straight into his heart. His body doubled over but he didn't care. Because another body lay right next to it.
"Tommy!" he yelled.
He didn't remember at that moment if tears had fallen but inside he felt the moon collide with the sun. An apocalypse on Earth, losing all tides, a solar eclipse leaving him in complete darkness. Darkness because his own sun lay hurt on the ground, squirming with pain as vampire venom surged from his bleeding arm. Red poured over the scar Tommy had gained from Schlatt once before.
His world was ending right in front of his eyes, in his arms.
Wilbur had failed again. To protect him, to keep his family safe. His baby brother.
“Tommy,” he kept gushing out, saying his name and hoping that he could hear it. He cradled him in his arms, not even caring about the blood streaming out of him. He felt no hunger, no urges because his brother was dying.
The venom would kill him. It would kill him and he’d wake up like himself. A fledgling.
Never to age past fourteen, never to experience the world maybe a foot taller, to not smile with the sun, share in its rays as his eyes shined the same brightness. Never to have a future that wasn’t stuck in childhood.
“Tommy, please, please, open your eyes,” he pleaded. He could feel the tears now. They were real.
Tommy laid still in his arms, writhing still with pain, but not answering out of shock.
“Tom,” he begged, sobbing, “Please, sunshine, please.”
A whine left Tommy. His eyes opened but they were already a fading blue. He never wanted that blue to fade. He wanted it to glow brighter, for the blue to reflect azure skylines, to become what the ocean envied.
“Wil?” Tommy croaked out.
Wilbur gasped at his voice. He was okay. He could speak. He was okay for now.
“Hey,” he whispered back, holding Tommy closer to his chest. His hand covered the bite because Tommy shouldn't see this. He shouldn't be put under any of this pain.
He remembered once Schlatt telling him that vampires could take pain away. They could give pain and take it back. Schlatt always said it was stupid, a worthless attempt to cling to forgotten sympathy.
But as Tommy cried in his arms, he clutched onto his injured arm, forehead resting against his brother’s and heaved. Dead veins took in all that hurt and feasted on the agony from a bite of the first vampire. Blood still poured but no pain followed.
Relief clouded Tommy’s face. Lips no longer trembling. But venom still dwindled in his system. The same venom that would kill him and give him eternity. An eternity he didn’t choose to have.
Tommy didn’t have a choice.
“I was bit, wasn’t I?” Tommy stammered, delirious. Sweat clung to his forehead. His breaths weren't rapid but scarily calm. It slowed with each intake. He was dying.
“Yeah,” Wilbur exhaled, more tears wet his face. “But you’re going to be okay.”
“Wilbur...”
“No, you’ll be fine.”
“Wil.”
He sobbed again at Tommy’s broken tone. It was defeat coated in a bittersweet acceptance. But not a willing acceptance. It was forced. Taken from him. Life, the potential future, the brightness Tommy could shine, it all was gone. An extinguished fire.
All because of the venom in his arm. Because of him.
He stared down at the bite, uncovering it with his hand. The blood finally hit him. Yet, it wasn't hunger. His fear, his panic, his love all overcame that. His love for his brother meant more than archaic instincts.
“You mean the world to me, Tommy,” he said, smiling so sadly down at a boy who should live, who should age and have the world show him this love him back. “I’d do anything for you.”
Realisation dawned on Tommy's fading grey eyes. "Wil, no, no, don't do this."
But he didn’t listen. He was never really good at that.
Wilbur bit into Tommy’s arm, fangs dug into the same wound Schlatt had enforced. And drank. He gulped down that venom, siphoning out everything that would take Tommy from him.
Wilbur wasn’t sure how he’d endure life without his own humanity here with him.
He let the blood seep into his mouth, gulping and gulping, so Tommy could live.
It broke him. The blood entering his system broke down the walls that his fledgling mind held up. Shattered beneath him. His fangs lengthened as he tore himself from Tommy's arm.
Power flooded through him. The want inside him was finally quenched. Human blood, he had done it. He had drunk human blood.
Tommy collapsed further into his arms, now unconscious. But alive. And he would stay that way, never cursed like Wilbur, not dead like himself. Tommy would continue to shine.
With blood wetting his lips, Wilbur smiled.
It wasn't long before the field didn't feel as empty as before.
"Wilbur!"
Techno rushed towards them. He turned his head, mouth still coated in red. Techno faltered at the sight. His eyes flickered over to Schlatt's dead body, the sealed jar left on the floor. And then to Tommy.
"You..."
“I- I had to," he spat out. Panic shook at his hands because it was real. It was real. He was a vampire now. A vampire.
But Schlatt said he was like him. He wouldn’t feel anymore.
Then why was this warmth still rushing through him? This affection, care and love. It still heated him up as he cradled Tommy’s sluggish body close to him.
“It’s okay,” Techno said, quiet as he knelt down. “You did a good thing.”
“I did,” he agreed, smiling despite how he shook. His eyes pricked and his nostrils flared because everything was so much more. Heightened senses, more strength. “I was good.”
“You were,” Techno echoed. “Now, let’s get him home.”
Techno reached for him but something screamed at him. He clutched Tommy closer and hissed at Techno, fangs so long. Then he flinched. He didn’t mean to do that.
Techno froze. But he didn’t seem scared.
“Should’ve expected that,” Techno grumbled. “You always were a territorial shit even when alive. You take Tommy then.”
The next thing he knew, they were outside Tommy's house. Phil opened the door.
“Oh fuck,” Phil exclaimed.
“Hi, Phil,” Techno greeted casually.
“For fuck’s sake, come in both of you.”
Wilbur rushed to place Tommy on the sofa. He made sure the pillows comforted Tommy's neck before he stepped back. Phil was quick with his medical supplies, dressing Tommy's wound.
When he finished wrapping the wound, Phil glanced up at Wilbur's face. His eyes gazed down. At the blood.
“Phil—” he fumbled out, scared.
“You saved my son,” Phil interrupted. He stilled, trembling. “I know what you are, don’t worry, it’s okay. I figured it out after I caught Techno going through my hospital’s blood supply.”
“Guilty,” Techno shrugged.
“I put him in danger,” Wilbur pressed, shaking his head. Because he should be hated. He should be hated by others as much, or even more, as he hated himself. He should be despised by Phil, outcasted and exiled from his house, banned from Tommy, to never speak or go near him again. Because he was a monster. A complete monster.
But instead, Phil smiled. He was grateful.
“You got him out of danger too,” Phil said. A hand settled on Wilbur’s shoulder, and that ache, the want he felt as a fledgling for it to clutch at the back of his neck and beckon him closer into a hug, raged. It was so much stronger. “I’m proud of you.”
He whined. He couldn’t keep the noise out of his throat, instincts jumping out of him. The sense that this was his family leapt with these new senses. Too strong to even deny with the best self-deception.
Tears struck once more. Phil moved his hand to the back of his neck, tugging him forward into a hug. “And Tommy will be proud of you too.”
He fell limp into Phil’s arms. Calm as he let it all go. The built-up panic, the fear still roaming him because of the pure distress. After seeing Tommy being bitten, at the will of the oldest and first vampire.
“I don’t get it,” he sobbed. “I’m not supposed to feel anything but...” but he did.
Wilbur felt longing as Phil rubbed patterns into his back to calm him down, the ease throbbing through the bond he had with Techno. He felt loved.
“He said I was like him, alone and nothing.”
“You have a family, Wilbur,” Phil assured.
He thought of the empty house he slept in. “No, I don’t.”
Phil then loosened his arms to stare at him. “You have one here.”
Gasping. Tommy woke up. It took a moment for it all to settle in his face, remembering tonight’s events, the gauze on his arm, what was under that gauze, then his head snapped in Wilbur’s direction. And finally to the blood staining his chin and mouth.
Tommy buried himself into Wilbur's chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry."
Wilbur frowned. Tears dampened his shirt. He clutched his arms around Tommy.
“For what?”
“I took the choice away from you,” Tommy whimpered, breaking down. “I’m the reason you’re a vampire now.”
Wilbur sighed and strengthened his hug, rocking him. “It’s okay,” he whispered and for once, he wasn't lying. “Do you want to know a secret?” Tommy stared up at him. “I didn’t really want to die, not at the end of it.”
Tommy shook his head, blue eyes, no longer grey, swimming with tears.
Blue eyes.
“But you said you’d hate yourself—”
Wilbur found himself smiling. He carded a hand through Tommy’s hair, brushing the strands stuck to his forehead from the sweat.
“I might,” he muttered, still smiling. “But I have more time with you, don’t I?”
Tommy reached forward for another hug.
But then he suddenly ripped from him. Wilbur swallowed down a complaint as he did so. Tommy grabbed his notebook off the coffee table and shoved it into Wilbur's lap.
"I was going to... I made you this."
His eyes squinted down at it. He opened it, the pages were loose. They were drawings. Drawings of the sun. The sunset. Cascading colours blenched into each other, the yellow hues, orange lights and blue fading into its dark receptor.
His smile widened.
“You did this for me?”
Tommy nodded. “My next plan is to buy a sandpit and a paddling pool. We can make a beach in the shaded part of my garden—”
He engulfed him in another hug. He breathed in his scent, loving how it had changed with his heightened smell. The light was still there, the smell of sunshine. His sunshine.
Grabbed him for another hug. Breathed in his scent and how it had changed with his heightened smell. The light was still there, the smell of sunshine. His sunshine.
“I love you,” he whispered into his hair.
“You- you do?” Tommy stuttered out.
"Forever.” And he meant it.
“Love you too,” Tommy whispered back.
It overwhelmed him. The added hand to his shoulder, Phil’s hand, as he hugged his son. The pulsing feeling from the bond with Techno. He tried to pump out the same comfort, a comfort but obviously failed at how Techno laughed. But this random laughter was shared, Tommy joining him despite not knowing its cause.
Brightness filled the room.
And Wilbur felt more alive than he ever did.