Chapter Text
Wilbur doesn’t sleep that night, eyes blinking eerily at nothing and everything. he sits in a wooden room, all alone, breath unsteady and hands shivering.
he stays awake until morning comes, and the light of the sun shines harshly through the window. it’s offensive, it’s a miserable experience.
everything blurs together, he’s running on autopilot right now. even when he rises to his feet to leave his room, he’s not quite the one in control.
he hears a crow calling from outside his window, and he takes a moment to lock eyes with the thing. he blinks, before raising his hand to wave at the crow. it quickly leaves though, like everyone else does.
something in him muses over the idea that it’s gonna come back later, he shakes his head. it’s a goddamn crow, it won’t come back. not even people come back.
everyone around him leaves. it’s sad, he thinks. sad, it’s kind of his default state of being at this point. he’s always sad, even when he thinks he’s happy.
he doesn’t deserve to be happy, so he’s always sad. he can’t be anything else but sad, that’s clear to him. to everyone else.
he pretends like that doesn’t bother him.
the family of three are all huddled together on a bed when it happens, all sleeping, all peaceful, as it should be.
Phil is the only one awake, eyes watching his sons with a careful stare and love that just can't be measured. he hums. hands on both their backs as he listens to them breathing. Tommy's blonde hair is messy and wild like everyday, Techno's pink hair spread around them.
Phil sighs, content with this. content with his family.
still, he finds himself thinking of their fourth and the urge to find them and hold them grows with every passing second.
then he hears a crow cawing, and there's a little swirl of hope that bubbles up in him. unconsciously, he sends it through The Inbetween. fourth, fourth, safe? found? please.
Tommy's eyes snap awake at the message, glancing up at his father. whereas Techno's eyes blink open slowly. Tommy's always had more energy than Techno, Phil still has no clue how Tommy keeps this much energy in him.
Tommy's eyes sparkle with something like hope, and something in Phil's heart twists at the possibility that he just gave his son false hope.
Phil stands from the bed, Techno grumbling in protest.
Techno isn't the most physically affectionate, he's not that affectionate in general. although, in his half sleep-drunk state, this is the most affectionate you will ever find him being. Tommy takes Phil's place on the bed, placing his hand on the back of Techno's hair and harshly pulls at it. the elder scowls at him.
Phil chuckles at his two sons, to anyone else, it'd look like they didn't get along. (oh, but they did. they did get along so well.)
he goes to the window, and opens it, the crow resting itself on the window sill. then, he freezes up.
Tommy and Techno perk up from their place on the bed, they're looking at Phil with expressions that say 'what's wrong? what's going on?'. Phil isn't talking, he's frozen in place. they need to know what's happening, is it something with their fourth? what's going on, what's going on, what's going on.
then, pure, unbridled euphoria fills The Inbetween.
Phil would've cried to be honest, actually, he might be crying right now. he can't really tell. they've found their fourth, and Phil's reaction to whatever the crow has told him is enough to let his two sons catch onto it.
their last piece is found, and so unbelievably close, he's found. Phil can't believe it. yet he does, he believes it. whole-heartedly. their fourth, right there. right in reach, so close. they can finally hold them.
(and if the family of three– now four, weep tears of happiness, that's their right. their fourth has finally been found, they're allowed to cry.)
Wilbur's not sure when he regains control over his body, when nothing becomes something and where haze becomes clouds in an endless sky and–
when he comes to it, he's lying on the floor. his body going numb and weak. "ah," he manages to voice out. hoarse and quiet.
did he collapse? he probably did. yet, he didn't know he was going to collapse, hardly was able to tell. he knows what passing out feels like, knows how the haze fills your head and makes everything go heavy and suddenly you feel like you've taken your last breath and everything leaves you.
but, this wasn't that.
he felt… oddly aware actually, and he's wide awake too. definitely not passed out.
he doesn't feel sick either, he's always felt sick after he passed out but… he feels… calm. like nothing's ever happened to him. it's a weird feeling, because when he brushes his fingers over the walls in his house it feels like needles poke his skin.
it sends shivers down his body, makes him flinch back, and his breathing becomes easy. he hears wood creaking and his ears ring from the noise, okay, so he went from feeling nothing to everything. okay. he covers his ears, pretending like the feeling of touching his own skin doesn't burn him.
Wilbur shuts his eyes closed. breathe, breathe, you've gotta breathe. Wilbur thinks, hands grasping at his arms. a poor attempt to ground himself.
he thinks he hears wings beating outside, but he ignores it, he's hallucinating, everything's blending together, that could've been anything-
he lets out a shaky breath. why does it feel like he hasn't breathed in five years? he just did?
there are people talking outside, but Wilbur doesn't really register them as voices. only haze, noisy specks in what he can feel. ah, fuck, his hands tighten the grip on his hair, eyes snapping shut. everything feels like shit, the fabric of his shirt feels like sandpaper on his skin and his wings doing anything sends electricity up his spine and to his brain.
actually, doing anything makes him feel like shit right now. so what does he do?
he freezes up on the ground, hands tangled up in his hair and everything blurring together like a failed painting. he can't tell where he starts, and where everything else ends. he feels like he can feel everything, and everything is so so painful.
he hears the door creaking open, and he lets out something like a scream. at least, he thinks he is. his throat starts to hurt so he's pretty sure he is screaming. noise, too loud, not ready, stop it!
then, there's a glimpse of blonde and someone's grabbing him and pulling him in and–
they hug him.
Wilbur needs to backtrack, eyes blinking hazily at nothing. he looks at the figure, voice low, quiet and hushed.
"Tommy?" then everything feels like nothing all over again.