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Wilbur Soot was officially Concerned.
Now that isn’t anything special, Wilbur gets concerned over a lot of things, like gas prices, and why no one’s talking about the Bermuda Triangle, and the possibilities of him ever coming across quicksand.
But today's concern isn’t about the many ways Wilbur can die. Today’s - and the past week’s - concern is about his little brother. Specifically, his little brother’s physical and mental well-being.
Tommy’s mental health has been the Craft family’s concern for nearly a year now, and Wilbur had grown accustomed to constantly stressing about whether or not the raccoon hybrid was eating enough, whether he was sleeping enough, whether or not he had someone to watch his back.
But then Schlatt happened.
Then Tommy moved in, started therapy, and Wilbur didn’t have to worry anymore, because when concerns overwhelmed him in the depths of the night, all he had to do was walk down twelve stairs, walk ten steps down the hall, and open a door to soothe his nerves. And things were great! Tommy was having less night terrors, and Ranboo had Tubbo when he started enderwalking.
But recently Wilbur has been having a strong gut feeling that something is wrong. Again, this isn’t exactly out of the norm, because Wilbur has dumb things like anxiety, and he was quite ready to just brush it off, but then his fears were… proven. Cemented.
All because Wilbur wanted some cuddles.
See Wilbur has a process.
He wakes up in a cold sweat with a sinking feeling in his gut, he walks down the stairs (twelve stairs, ten steps) and gets in bed with his brother. Said brother usually grumbles upon Wilbur’s entry, but will wrap the coyote hybrid in a hug so tight it’s hard for Wilbur to breathe. He won’t trade it for anything.
But one night, after Wilbur’s process, he wakes up again.
He rolls over, prepared to hug his brother and let the low purr that rumbles in his throat shoo Wilbur’s worries away.
But that doesn’t happen.
Tommy is cold.
His body is stiff. Not in the way that a body becomes after being unconscious for a certain amount of time, but in the way that a body grows after the last breath has left somebody's lungs, after their heart has given its final beat.
Wilbur can’t breathe.
Tommy’s breath is shallow. Slow. Too slow.
He shakes his brother, begging him to wake up wake up wake up.
But Tommy does not stir.
He doesn’t even move.
It is far too close to how Tommy was. That day.
The scenes are juxtaposed in Wilbur’s eyes.
Tommy lying on the cold concrete; Tommy lying in bed.
Wilbur shakes his head. He needs to think.
Techno. Techno with his random knowledge on every subject. He’ll know what to do. He’ll know what’s wrong.
Wilbur rushes to his brother's room, knocking quietly on the door. He doesn’t want to wake his father. Not yet.
Techno yanks the door open, greeting Wilbur with one of the most unenthusiastic faces Wilbur would be shocked to see on anybody but his brother.
“This better be good.”
“Tommy won’t wake up.”
Techno is out the door in an instant, dragging Wilbur by the wrist to the room their little brother is breathing too slow in.
“Do you know how long he’s been like this?”
Wilbur sniffs, rubbing his eyes harshly. “I don’t know. I woke up because things felt… wrong, and he was like that.”
Techno feels Tommy’s forehead with the back of his hand before making a face. “I don’t want this to be what I think it is, but this is concerning.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I’m not telling you.”
Wilbur frowns. “Why not?”
“Because you’ll work yourself up into a panic over what could be nothing. Until I know for sure, you don’t need to know. Just keep him warm at night for now.”
Yeah, he can do that. Just hold his brother close and act like everything Techno just said wasn’t concerning as fuck. Sure. Easy-peasey.
“Don’t give me that look, Wilbur.”
“I’ll give you whatever look I want-”
The mood calms down after that, and Techno goes back to his room and Wilbur goes back to cuddling his baby brother.
But he doesn’t sleep.
He stares at the ceiling, at the star-chart poster and all the other random things Tommy stuck on his ceiling. A diagram of a flower. A mushroom sticker. An attendance award from school that says somebody else’s name on it. Old gum. That one is significantly grosser than the rest but also very Tommy.
Wilbur stares at the ceiling.
He sleeps much more fitfully than he has since Tommy came home.
____
Wilbur watched Tommy like a hawk the next day.
He probably looks creepy, just staring at him all day, but Wilbur has gone from concerned to fearful.
But Tommy’s fine. As Wilbur has sneakily checked from impromptu hugs and cuddle sessions, Tommy’s temperature is fine, and he breathes okay. Probably a bit more laboured than the average human, but Wilbur chalks that one up to Tommy’s compromised immune system.
Wilbur goes to sleep happily disproven.
Until he wakes up in a sweat again.
He drags himself down the stairs for a second night in a row, already treading the ten steps it will take him to reach Tommy’s room. He’s half convinced that he really is wrong and Tommy’s fine, and that he’s just going crazy and should probably stop drinking so much caffeine, fuck you Quackity, he’s fine, and he has a process to complete.
Ten steps.
The door opens with a slight creak.
Tommy is asleep.
(Tommy is lying on the concrete, dying.)
Tommy is breathing.
(Tommy’s lungs stutter once, twice.)
Tommy doesn’t stir.
(Tommy doesn’t stir.)
Wilbur is by his side before he can blink.
Just as he did the night before, he tries to shake Tommy awake. And just like the other night, Tommy is cold to the touch, and his body is stiff once more.
Where did his liveliness go? Where did the energy he had earlier; the Tommy that chased Tubbo around the garden with a centipede in his hand go?
Wilbur doesn’t get Techno this time. He doesn’t wake a single person in the house.
All he does is climb into bed and drape his baby brother’s (he’s a child, Tommy is a child) arms over him and pretends that they are not stiff, and they are not colder than they should be.
It’s unhealthy. It’s dangerous.
But doing anything more than hoping everything is okay would mean that Wilbur would have to come to terms with the fact that he can smell death wafting off Tommy’s body, and that means telling his father, and that means that Tommy will be taken to doctors and people that will tell Wilbur what is becoming glaringly obvious.
Wilbur doesn’t want to hear that. Wilbur doesn’t want to watch Tommy die again. Wilbur can’t watch Tommy die again.
He knows that this secret won’t last. It shouldn’t. Not if Wilbur isn’t selfish and naive enough to think this is the sort of thing that will pass.
But for now it is Wilbur, the twenty-three steps it took to get to Tommy’s room, and the star posters that glare at him.
______
Purple Emperors are a type of butterfly. They are how everyone finds out, three days later.
Purple Emperors have been dubbed many names. Nicknames and scientific names that don’t come close to the havoc they brought to Wilbur’s life – his routine.
Purple Emperors, or Apatura iris, are a Palearctic butterfly of the Nymphalidae family, which means that they prefer well-flooded environments and are in the most common butterfly family.
Wilbur has dubbed them Vita Perditorem, or Life-Ruiner . Is it dramatic of him? Of course it is. He’s a theatre kid.
He could say ‘it all started when Tommy went outside’, but that really isn’t the truth. The truth is that there isn’t really a beginning moment, just a moment where Wilbur became aware of it, and a moment where he decided to keep it to himself.
Those moments are a beginning of something, but not the beginning of the specific sequence of events that occurs after Techno looks out the kitchen window, after Tommy went outside to look for more centipedes, after Tubbo confessed his hatred of centipedes to the raccoon hybrid.
(After Tommy told him he didn’t ask to be cared for; after Tommy told him he didn’t want to be alone; after Tommy laid on the concrete and didn’t wake up for a long, long time.)
It happens like so:
Wilbur wakes early in the morning after a night of highly unsuccessful sleep and slinks back to his room, wrapping himself in his most comfortable clothing and preparing to spend the entire day in bed, fueled by an anxiety-induced depressive episode sans the depression.
But before he retires to his room, he goes downstairs to eat some substantial food – provided by Phil, of course – when Tommy runs down the stairs, nearly tripping on the sixth one, and announces loudly that he is going to find the biggest centipede and shove it down Tubbo’s shirt.
Wilbur nods, and Phil hums and tells him to not scare Tubbo too bad.
Phil is still cooking by the time Techno makes his way downstairs, the piglin hybrid giving Wilbur a knowing look at their matching eye-bags.
Well, Techno has eye bags. At this point, Wilbur has eye luggage.
Techno looks out the kitchen window and snorts. “Gremlin’s only been outside fifteen minutes and he’s already napping.”
Wilbur gets up to see, taking out his communicator to take a picture of the raccoon hybrid napping on a sun-warmed rock when the first butterfly flutters near. It is a vibrant violet color white whited splashed symmetrically along its black-rimmed wings, matching the nearby alliums beautifully.
Phil coos at how photogenic it is and Wilbur is inclined to agree, but there is something wrong with the flash of fear in Techno’s eyes, in the way his hand goes white knuckled on his mug.
The second butterfly flies over next, identical to the first.
Then a second, and then a third.
By the fourth, Techno drops his mug, and the porcelain shatters on the ground with a deafening crack, and that is when Wilbur grows nauseous because something is so, so wrong.
Technos hands shake. Phil asks what’s wrong.
Techno tells him to call their doctor. He says that they need an emergency appointment. He says they should go to the ER if they cannot give them an appointment within the hour.
Wilbur knows how doctors work. He knows he will be in the nauseating waiting room with his brother in his arms and he won’t know what to do.
Phil asks why.
Neither Techno nor Wilbur answer.
Techno tells Wilbur to go try and wake Tommy up.
Wilbur follows the command robotically, dreading it as he walks outside and to where his brother had chosen to sleep.
(Ten steps, why was it always ten steps-)
Wilbur shakes Tommy. He begs him, salty tears slipping down his cheeks to wake up.
Tommy doesn’t wake up. He is cold.
The butterflies flutter around.
Purple Emperors.
Vita Perditorem.
______
The drive is tense.
Tubbo and Ranboo opt not to go, mostly because Tubbo can’t leave the house in general and Ranboo wants to keep him company, so the car is just Phil, Techno, Wilbur, and their not-dead-dead brother.
“I just don’t understand why neither of you told me. This is shit I need to know, Wil.”
Phil hadn’t taken the news lightly. Wilbur didn’t expect him to, but he also didn’t expect the consequences of his actions to bite him in the ass so soon after said action was committed.
“I know, Dad.”
Phil’s hands clench the steering wheel tighter. “No, I don’t think you do. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have kept the fact that Tommy is dying again from me. When were you gonna tell me? When Tommy was dead? When it was too late?”
“I don’t know,” Wilbur says, because he doesn’t. He has to process what happened on the sidewalk all those months ago to begin processing this. “I know it was shitty, and dangerous but I-” He chokes back a sob. “I didn’t- it was just like then.”
Phil is silent. “I think you should go back to therapy, Wil.”
Wilbur just nods and continues combing his fingers through Tommy’s hair.
______
Shockingly, the doctors don’t bring them good news. It’s not really bad news either. It’s gray news. Is it just news then?
The doctor first asks them if Tommy’s ever died before. His face remains neutral when they say he has.
The doctor walks into a room. A new doctor comes out.
He tells them that Tommy has Mortis Memoria, a rare condition for any alive person to have only because it involves death and most people don’t, you know, keep living after that. The doctor tells them that it won’t kill Tommy, and it won’t shorten his lifespan either. He tells them that Tommy’s body is just a little confused.
Wilbur thinks he’s sugar coating the situation, but listens anyway.
“Dying, obviously, has a negative effect on the body. Dying multiple times, even only twice, has side effects. The one that’s most apparent is the white streak in his hair, but there are others that are slightly less visible. Number one and the only one Thomas-”
“He goes by Tommy,” Wilbur interrupts.
The doctor gives him a look. “What Tommy exhibits, for now, is what we call corpse memory. You know that saying, ‘sleep is the cousin of death,’” The man makes air quotes with his fingers. “Well, this rings true in patients like Tommy. Because he’s died before, his body thinks that sleep is death too, and attempts to start the process. The brain, aware that sleep isn’t actually death, stops Tommy from actually dying, and that’s why you see the stiff limbs, the coldness, and the slow breathing.”
“But it won’t kill him? He won’t die again?” Phil asks, concern lacing his tone.
“No. Unless he’s badly injured, in which case you’re going to need to keep him awake. If he falls asleep with, say, a broken arm, his brain might actually be convinced he’s dying, and let the process continue.”
Wilbur feels sick. But he also feels relieved, because that means Tommy isn’t slowly dying again. Wilbur just needs to keep him from injuring himself too badly.
“What if we need to wake him up?” Techno speaks up. “We haven’t been able to when we tried.”
“This sounds extreme, but CPR is the recommended method. Just a few quick pumps to the chest should get his heart kicking properly again.”
Wilbur doesn’t know if he can do that. If he can perform CPR everytime he needs Tommy to wake up.
(It’s too much like then. Only Wilbur didn’t try CPR, because he knew with a sinking finality that it wouldn’t work.)
CPR. Wilbur must perform chest compressions when he wakes Tommy, because his little brother’s body thinks that it’s dying everytime Tommy goes to sleep.
Wilbur wants to cry. Or scream, or do something to let out what is going to be tears if he doesn’t do something physical.
“Excuse me,” is what he says instead, rushing out of Tommy’s hospital room, down the hall, and to the bathrooms.
He doesn’t have a main character moment and splash water on his face, staring at himself in the mirror.
It’s not about Wilbur.
So he cries.
Wilbur Soot, number six hero, is sobbing in a hospital bathroom at noon on a Saturday.
He’s really living the life, isn’t he?
Someone knocks on the door as he’s wiping the snot off his face.
“Occupied.”
“Can I come in, Wilbur?”
Ah fuck. It’s Phil. Leave it to him to always be mindful even when Wilbur is very much in an unlocked public bathroom.
Wilbur clears his throat and says “Come in,” and he just kind of sits on the floor as his dad opens the door and steps into the room.
“Quite lavish here. Is that three ply toilet paper?”
That manages a chuckle out of Wilbur, and Phil gets another one when he complains about his old bones as he’s lowering himself to the ground next to Wilbur.
It’s not really awkward per se, it’s just that Wilbur knows Phil is in here to yell at him about the whole thing so he’s just kind of waiting for him to get to it.
“I’m sorry.”
What?
Wilbur blinks at him, dumbstruck. “What are you sorry for?” Because the way Wilbur sees it, he’s the one who knowingly kept a concerning medical thing away from his dad. That doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that deserves an apology.
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you. You’re going through your own mess,” Phil waved his hand vaguely. “And I shouldn’t have added onto it.”
“I mean yeah, but I shouldn’t have kept this from you.”
Phil stares at the ceiling. “No, you shouldn’t have. But you’re hurting, and you were scared. You were scared that if you brought it up things would change and you would lose your little brother again.”
Curse Phil for being able to read him so well.
The avian takes Wilbur’s hand, linking their fingers. “I’m sorry I made things worse.”
Wilbur is trying really hard to hold back tears now.
“I just… I didn’t know if I was going to lose him again. I didn’t know if I was going to have to watch. I couldn’t- can’t-” Wilbur takes in a shuddering breath. “I can’t do that again.”
When Phil wraps Wilbur in a hug, wings blocking out the harsh light of the bathroom, the graffiti on the walls, everything. Phil makes it just him and Wilbur, and that’s why Wilbur breaks.
He sobs against his father, crying about, well, everything.
“I had to watch him die, Dad.”
Wilbur doesn’t know if he’ll ever get past that. Wilbur doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop.
(Twelve stairs, ten steps.)
But at least for now, with his father whispering reassurances and Tommy in a hospital bed down the hall, no one else is dying, and no one else is leaving.
And if he thinks that someone is, if he thinks that things are wrong-
Wilbur will walk down twelve stairs, and ten steps down the hall.