Archive of Our Own

Ⅰ

Contrary to belief, Tommy did not eat the air-drying clay left on the counter during his period three art lesson. It may have seemed that way, with the camera footage and several eyewitness testimonies, but it didn’t enter his stomach. His mouth—maybe, yet he didn’t ingest it. Though, ingesting a material that looked similar to mud was more interesting than creating a sculpture of red peppers. The same fucking pepper that had been sitting on the viewing shelf, rotting and fermenting the entire art block, as his teacher forced everyone to make different workpieces of it for the past month.

As punishment, Tommy now had detention for causing a ‘scene’ and ‘disturbing everyone’s education’.

His detention teacher wasn’t so amused by the situation.

Mr Blade, who Tommy just called Techno because he had no respect for authoritative figures—especially ones that wouldn’t let him watch them play Minecraft during his own detentions—sat at his desk.

“First of all, I wasn’t given water to active whatever-the-fuck makes clay clay so I had to improvise.”

“And you thought licking it would suffice?” Techno drawled out, his voice higher than the usual deep monotone. It seemed chewing on modelling material disgusted Techno deeply.

“Well, it did—”

Techno sighed into his hands.

“I thought you learnt from last week that you shouldn’t eat anything in that art room.”

His face flushed red. “That’s not fair. I genuinely mixed up the paint water and my drink.”

“Tommy,” Techno said, looking more disappointed as the conversation continued, “your drink was in a bottle and the paint water was in a mug. How did you even mix them up?”

“Intuition.”

“A severe lack of it, yes.”

“Bitch—”

“Theseus,” Techno interrupted, suddenly serious. Tommy shrunk further into himself. “If you carry on with this and not do the work either, they’re going to assign you to drama instead.”

He sat up straighter in his chair. “Not drama. Anything but drama. Please, I’m not a theatre kid.”

“I know, you’re an art kid and I’m not sure if that’s any better,” Techno muttered. “But I’ve stuck my neck out for you too many times, my vouch doesn’t matter anymore. They’ll just drop you from the course.”

Tommy swallowed roughly, hiding his hands in his blazer pockets.

As much as he complained about his art teachers and lessons, he loved the subject itself. Not the hundreds of shitty assignments, the lessons of shading where the teacher just did an example for you and expected you to understand and replicate it, not the coursework or restriction of allowed art styles. Not that. But instead the freedom of art. He loved that. The liberation with every stroke, the worlds and images in his head he could just project with enough pencils and paint by his side. The fact that random scribbles or smudges of inked string could reflect small drawings inside, like a wooden hut edged into a hill or a bench behind a falling sunset. Semi-realistic portraits of fictional Presidential figures with horns scratched over their heads, blown up animated towns, shadings of caves and fireworks with paint splatter.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t exhausting and downright irritating half the time though. The trial and error of getting the textured layers of an exploded town correct or failing to fix why the President’s nose looked a bit too wide and it was too late to redo the entire face. It was unfulfilling, a pest. Even with his art teacher leaning over his shoulder, you would never catch him following their advice of going straight into drawing and not breaking it down into simpler shapes first.

But that was the beauty with it all. It required something inside of him to perfect it. It took time, a certain angle of a brush, a specific colour scheme and shaping. Things he decided on. And with that, he could reflect whatever was in his head onto a sheet of paper, forever visualised to reality. It was his work. His imaginary worlds of kingdoms, drug vans, his fantasies of having brothers-in-arms, battles across lakes, sacrifices and attachment envisioned in front of him for all to see.

That spark of pure adoration for creation was what kept him sane during those art lessons.

“At least Mrs Hare was fired yesterday so your two-hour lessons on Fridays won’t be that bad for now,” Techno added as he started up another SkyWars game on his computer.

Tommy gaped at him. “She got fired?”

“Yep,” Techno said. “She had to sub in for a food technology lesson and threw a table at a year seven.”

“America moment.”

“That doesn’t even make sense. I’m the only American teacher in this school.” Tommy shrugged and Techno sighed again. “Just get out of my classroom and don’t come back unless it’s history related. Detentions over.”

The next day Tommy expected his art lesson to be cancelled. After all, his teacher got fired for decking a year seven with classroom equipment. But apparently, the art department found a supply teacher that would keep the class entertained for two hours every Friday until they got a new one.

Ranboo, one of Tommy’s best friends (not that he would admit it), lined up next to him outside of the class. Despite how everyone knew they had a new teacher, they had to wait for the fucker to let them in. It was currently thirteen minutes into their period five Friday lesson and still no show.

“If Jared says we can go at fifteen past one more time, I’m going to punt him into the sun,” Ranboo grumbled under his breath. But due to how the boy was taller than any other person, everyone heard him. “What? I’m right!”

“Maybe don’t publicly threaten the guy with a jawline, shoulders and muscles like that,” Tommy replied, gesturing to Jared as subtly as he could—which was not subtle at all.

“I’m just saying we might as well go into the room. It beats waiting out here,” Ranboo said.

“You actively want to go in there?” Tubbo, Tommy’s other best friend, asked with incredulity. Similar to Tommy, Tubbo hated art in school despite how he loved drawing, he only drew South Park fanart though. At any given opportunity, Tubbo made references to Tweek in his work.

Tommy huffed and pulled them both in the classroom, ignoring the groans from the other students who did not want this art lesson to happen.

The scent of fermented peppers hit them as soon as they stepped inside. Even though the peppers were no longer on the viewing shelves, the stains still polluted the air. There was a new vegetable on the table. A pumpkin, which probably was a fruit but Tommy denied this for his own mental health. But the fact that were was another food object they’d need to study… this was his final straw. If the windows in his classroom weren’t so high up, he would have jumped out immediately. He swore to God, if this new supply teacher forced them to paint pumpkins for the entire two hours, he would do it. No hesitation.

Tommy sat by his normal table. The one furthest away from the viewing table and shelves but closest to the teacher’s front desk. The sub-in teacher’s stuff was placed by the desk, but the actual guy wasn’t here. It was weird.

The desk chair had a brown corduroy jacket and beanie draped over its back. A flask, those metal ones that people used to secretly conceal whisky, rested next to the computer mouse. If someone wanted to hide their intentions of getting absolutely wasted during their day job then a coffee cup would’ve been more subtle. Yet, an actual coffee cup was next to the flask, so this guy could be a caffeine-alcohol drinker. Also known as: dead in ten years.

“Did he just unpack his shit and dip then?” Tubbo asked, gesturing to the front desk.

“I mean, they’re not getting paid that much for this,” Ranboo said as he unpacked his things. “Did you know that the average salary for a secondary teaching assistant is—”

“I don’t care what you learnt from Tech- from Mr Blade’s anarchic rant today about the corruption of the Department of Education,” Tommy complained.

He was very close to banging his head against the table but he promised his dad he wouldn’t be sent to the counsellor’s office this week. Phil hated receiving calls from the counsellor—partly because Phil had a crush on her, Miss Kristin, and it embarrassed him. And because he cared about his son’s health and was an ex-English teacher here so that was also embarrassing. But it was mostly the crush.

“The British government is flawed, Tommy, flawed,” Ranboo said, shaking his head at him.

“At least we have free healthcare,” Tubbo defended sharply.

“We have Thanksgiving,” Ranboo protested.

“That’s not something to be proud of, king.”

Tommy tuned the two out as they resumed with their recycled arguments over the faults of America. He usually would have joined in because shitting on that country was a beloved past-time of his, but this whole ordeal weirded him out. He just wanted this lesson to end. For the teacher to show up and send Tommy out with a yellow card because he refused to draw a pumpkin.

A harsh bump against wood followed by a crashing of metal and a high-pitched yelp came from the storage closet. More crashes echoed and a paint can rolled out from the now-open closet door.

Shortly after, a man, too tall for his own good, staggered out of the storage room. He had straws in his scruffy brown hair and glitter matted on his goose sweatshirt. It wasn’t the most formal attire to be wearing as a teacher, but it was better than the shitty outfits his art teachers dared to show up in.

The man stumbled over his own feet and almost decked himself by tripping over the rolling paint can.

“If anyone laughs, I’m jumping out that window and you’ll be traumatised for life,” the man threatened, scowling at the faces of students gaping at him.

“What if I chuckle?” Tommy called out. “Giggle, even?”

“Then I’ll take you down with me.”

Tommy stifled his laughter as the glittered guy made his way over to the front desk. So this was his substitute teacher for Fridays… this mess of a man who probably got locked in the storage closet like Tommy had in year eight and battled against art supplies just to get out.

“I’m Mr Soot, but call me Wilbur in this classroom. After that shit-show, I don’t deserve the title,” the now-named Wilbur said, his face red with embarrassment. “And ignore the pumpkins on the table. I don’t know why they’re there. Maybe it’s Halloween related.”

“It’s November though,” Tubbo said, confused.

“Okay, and?”

Ranboo thinned his lips. “Didn’t you get told what we’re supposed to do?”

“Oh, is that what that sheet of paper was?” Wilbur asked as he eyed the rubbish bin. “Well, recycling came during lunch so we’re not doing that then.”

Tommy frowned. This man—Wilbur of all names—had disrupted everything he knew about teachers. He was young and not fossilising with every breath, he encouraged informality and everything in between, swore to a similar degree of Tommy, and wasn’t a massive prick. Well, Techno was a cool teacher as well but he taught history so he wasn’t valid. 

From just the first impression, of this guy making a fool out of himself in front of fifteen-year-olds and not immediately crying from humiliation, Tommy liked him.

“Anyway, I’m the TA for theatre production and the plays for the school so don’t expect me to help you during these art lessons. I will just ruin it,” Wilbur explained. He paused and gazed over at the faces of boredom just staring at him. “You can do whatever you want in these lessons. I don’t care if you draw shitty comics, trace the Mona Lisa or create the Mona Lisa. It’s up to you what you do, what you use, how you do it, I don’t care. But create something by the end of today.”

Time could’ve stopped and Tommy wouldn’t have noticed. Those words, though said with such detachment and apathy, meant everything to him. The permission of letting it all go. The narratives that bled into the night as he stared up at the ceiling when sleep refused to succumb to him, projecting the colours that just tug at his heart on a pallet and spreading it on a blank canvas so he was worth something to the world. With Wilbur’s words, his allowance and grant of creativity, Tommy could do that.

There wouldn’t be any limits masked in advice and critique from a teacher, no permanent marker written over his work or unneeded criticisms.

He could do what he wanted.

Whilst everyone else rushed to the storage room, grabbing and snatching paintbrushes they were never permitted to use and oil paints that were too expensive for the grimy hands of year tens, Tommy stayed in his seat. Sure, he was being dramatic, as he was literally stunned, frozen in his seat as the words kept littering across his mind. But this was what he needed.

He needed this. An art lesson that wasn’t completely corrupted with constricting means of others.

“Uh, Tommy, you good?” a hand brushed past his arm. Tubbo shook his friend’s shoulder. “Tom?”

He heaved out of his daze and faced him. Tubbo had returned with black paper and chalk.

Without another word, Tommy jumped out of his seat. He pushed past others and immediately darted for the modelling clay. Ranboo, who was in the middle of sorting through the different coloured tissue paper, pried the clay out of Tommy’s hands. Tommy may have attempted to bite him in the process of getting it back but it was futile. Ranboo managed to place it on the highest shelf (a shelf too high).

“You fucking bitch, I hope you choke and die and then die again and—”

“I’m doing you a favour here,” Ranboo interrupted as he pushed the clay further back on the shelf. “And you’re giving me death threats.”

“I’m not giving you death threats, I’m promising them,” Tommy snapped, still clawing at Ranboo’s arms.

“That’s against my boundaries,” Ranboo said and shoved something into his chest. “Here, take these and stop scratching me.”

Tommy, as an intelligent gentleman, knew when he faced a losing battle, as he followed Sun Tzu’s Art of War advice of ‘Do not attack your enemies when there are security cameras directly in sight.’ So the park across the school at ten pm GMT should work to sort out Ranboo.

He huffed and accepted the acrylic paints, scraping knife and canvas Ranboo gave him. Still grumbling under his breath over how much of a bitch Ranboo was, he returned to his table.

At least with this, he can finally paint the annoying dream he had been having for the past week. It had bothered him for too long. The ravine. Coldness of stark greys and twisted charcoal, dim torchlights flickering at unstable intervals. Winds swept through the rubble and chipped cobblestone. The wooden staircases wabbled and creaked. A carved out section with dusted ceilings and splintered floors housed a potato farm rowed inside. Blue blocks, almost similar to diamonds, riddled the walls.

It was a home of a dying revolution. A dulling flame that once burnt forests with independence, brotherhood and companionship, but now heaved ashes across lands they no longer owned.

Someone leaned over Tommy’s shoulder. His paintbrush almost ruined the chest area on the ravine floor. He looked over, a breath caught in his throat, and Wilbur stared down at his canvas.

The man looked older up close with unshaven shadows on his chin and bruises under his eyes from a lack of sleep. Yet, there was a light in his brown eyes, a tawny brightness that the sun itself couldn’t help but condemn.

“What’s this?” Wilbur asked, pointing at the canvas. He said it with such vacuity as if he didn’t understand nor even try to. To him, it was probably just a cave, something that looked a bit too much like Minecraft or Terraria. But to Tommy, it was everything.

“Well, Mr Wilbur Soot, this is Pogtopia,” Tommy said, cheeks flushed at the sudden attention. There was a certain vulnerability of your dreams and imagined worlds being on display, exposed to possible ridicule and shame.

Wilbur leaned closer, eyebrows furrowed. “Like as in Thomas More’s book ‘Utopia’? The socio-political satire take on the impossibility and impracticality of achieving an idealised place of—”

“I don’t know what just came out of your mouth but no,” Tommy asserted shortly. “This is roleplay.”

“Roleplay?” Wilbur echoed, perked in interest.

“Oh God, not this shit again,” Tubbo sighed. He was already used to Tommy’s rants of the realms he had inside his head. The countries, politics, conflicts and wailsome bloodshed. All of it went to Tubbo at any hour in the day.

“Yep!” Tommy exclaimed, grinning. “I was going to sculpt my country L’manberg but someone wouldn’t let me have access to the clay,” he shoved Ranboo, who stopped glueing tissue paper on top of a drawn portrait.

“Why not?” Wilbur interjected, turning to face Ranboo with a light-hearted scowl. “Do you want to restrict your friend’s innovation? What do you have against individuality and expression?”

Despite how the man was being sarcastic, Tommy couldn’t help but agree with every word.

Ranboo squirmed but fixed a glare in his direction. “I don’t have anything against artistic expression. It’s because Tommy will take a chunk of the clay and then die of asphyxiation.”

“Shut up, Ranboo, you can’t even swim.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“What are your names?” Wilbur suddenly asked, his elbows digging into the table.

“I’m Tommy, this is Ranboob and Tubbo,” he answered, gesturing to everyone as he spoke.

“That’s not my name—” both of them ignored Ranboo’s proclaim.

“Next week Tommy, I’ll let you sculpt with the clay,” Wilbur said, beaming at the pure fear on Ranboo’s face.

“You’re going to be charged with manslaughter,” Tubbo stated. Though, he didn’t sound concerned.

“I don’t fear federal prison.”

And with that, Wilbur moved on to the next table.

Unlike usual, Tommy couldn’t return to his work. Normally whenever someone disturbed his headspace, it quickly recurred after the person had left. But he couldn’t.

His hands shook, but not with nerves or anxiety. It was a tremor of excitement.

He stared down at the figure he had begun to paint in the back ends of the ravine. The person that stood next to him, a blonde figure with a glowing sword and dampened spirit—yes, he self-inserted himself into this political roleplay. His paintbrush hovered over the other figure, the one without a hair colour or any known attributes. He should give them a skin colour, a hairstyle, an assigned outfit that never changed. But he placed the paintbrush down.

He couldn’t continue this without knowing what was missing. Or who it was missing.

Regardless, the rest of the two hours went fast when there wasn’t a universally hated, prominent force defiling your intended creation. One that wrecked the name of Ms Rodcliffe. As he finished the final layer of detail to the ravine walls, the second bell rang, indicating their period six lesson had ended. Tommy still hadn’t added features onto the shadowed figure next to himself deep in the cave, but that was another day’s problem.

“Alright, everyone put your shit away because I’m not cleaning up after you,” Wilbur called from the table he was working with. He was in the middle of discussing the irrelevancy of West Ham in the Premier League to the popular boys.

Whilst Tommy cleaned the surfaces he had ruined with acrylic paints, he felt someone crowd over his shoulder.

“So how did Pogtopia go, Tommy?” it was Wilbur.

To be honest, he thought the man would’ve forgotten about their conversation and his name by now. But Wilbur hadn’t. And he had even remembered the name of the art piece.

He bit on his inner cheek and peered over his shoulder. “I haven’t finished it yet,” he answered. “I’m still working on one of the characters so I can’t paint them yet.”

“This one?” Wilbur pointed at the cloaked figure, devoid of any distinguishing qualities. Tommy nodded. “Hm, they’re tall.”

“The bastard is too tall,” he replied.

He wasn’t sure if he should tell Wilbur more about the possible ideas he had of who it should be. It would be embarrassing. Telling Wilbur, a teacher he only met today, about the fantasies he had over wanting an older sibling, someone to look over him and protect him even if he constantly tried to fight for himself. Just someone to put a hand on his shoulder and make it all okay, a leader full of reassurance and pointed direction.

“Well, you’re in luck Tommy because I said create something for today and technically, even if it’s unfinished, you’ve created art,” Wilbur said, his eye still set on the ravine painting.

There was a difference in his face from earlier when he looked down at the faulty sketch two hours prior. Now, as the ravine had an array of grey, brown and black, glints of blue and carefully placed white, Wilbur’s mouth had upturned creases. A smile. Maybe one that saw the potential for greatness, or just a polite way of showing disinterest.

“It’s nice,” Wilbur continued, unprompted. “I like the loneliness of it, it looks almost abandoned despite the people nestled inside,” he paused and narrowed his gaze. “Pogtopia, a fortification of dying hope.”

No one had ever understood his art this quickly before. As Ranboo helped him pick the placing of the painted cracks in the ravine walls, he never commented on what he thought each crack represented. Ranboo didn’t see how the cracks resembled the instability of the unnamed figure, their declining mental health and seeping paranoia. Tubbo didn’t offer his own analysis as Tommy painted the torchlights, never picked up how the dimming light reflected Tommy’s own futile fight against the pressurising nihilism from the older figure he so desperately looked to for guidance. Not even Phil commented his opinions on Tommy’s art when he hung it on the corridor walls with beautiful frames. All Phil did was compliment it, he made sure his son knew he was proud of him and his talent.

It wasn’t that Tommy was annoyed by this lack of discussion. He preferred it this way, to keep the details to himself. But there was something about Wilbur saying these things that made it special.

“Are the characters giving up?” Wilbur questioned.  

“Maybe they are.” Tommy pointed at the unfinished figure. “They’re slowly losing sight of the revolution, of reaching a happy ending as they no longer think they deserve it. Not me though.”

“A revolution?” Wilbur repeated, his head tilted.

“I’ll explain next week,” Tommy dismissed as he wiped the table clean. He stilled and looked over at Wilbur, his cheeks red again. “Only if you want to hear it! That is. Uh, yeah you don’t have to, it’s just—”

“No, no, I want to hear it. You’ve intrigued me with this little roleplay thing.” Wilbur’s smile twitched.

“Next week then,” Tommy confirmed, smiling back at him.

For once, when his dad asked later at dinner how school went, he didn’t need to lie to Phil this time.

Tommy may have gotten detention again but he didn’t mean to. Well, he fully intended for that paint to land in Tubbo’s mouth, yet he didn’t mean to get caught.

Tubbo didn’t even mind! Okay, yeah he did choke after and almost threw up, but that didn’t matter. And now because Tubbo couldn’t handle having paint being flicked into his mouth, Tommy had to spend his Friday lunch with Techno.

“Tommy, what did I say last week?” Techno asked as the man braided his hair to the side like he usually did. Just as Tommy treated detentions as excuses to talk to one of his favourite teachers, Techno turned these into sessions of Minecraft or time to sort out his hair.

“You said many things last week, Techno,” Tommy said, tauntingly. “When we were learning about the French Revolution, you went on about insurrectionary anarchism and anarcho-monarchism. You also said you stanned this man called Bakunin—”

“I don’t stan that man, he just has a lot of interesting ideas,” Techno interjected, yet he sounded impressed that Tommy even remembered half the terms he used. “Stop distracting me. I told you last week to not get any more detentions or you’re in risk of being put into drama.”

“I don’t recall you ever saying that to me.”

“I will put Fs all over your report card,” Techno threatened. Yet, when the man currently had his fists braiding dyed pink hair—which had clips in that Tommy had gifted him for his birthday last year—it wasn’t really intimidating.

“Shiver me timbers.”

Techno huffed out a laugh and Tommy grinned, proud.

“But seriously,” Techno began, disregarding the pointed look Tommy gave him, “if you cause shit in your art lesson after this lunch, I don’t know what will happen.”

“I won’t!”

“Forgive me for not believing that,” Techno deadpanned.

“No, really, I won’t! Mr Wilbur Soot covers today's lesson and if he asked me to jump off a cliff, I would gladly do so. Only if he filmed it and monetised my death though. And if Tubbo joined me.”

“Will’s your substitute?” Techno asked as he tied off the braid.

Tommy frowned. Not that he was jealous or anything, but Techno said that with too much interest. And Techno never gave anyone nicknames. Despite how he called Tommy ‘Theseus’ sometimes. “You know him?”

“I do have friends, Tommy.”

“That’s a hot take.”

Techno just stared at him blankly as he expected this response. He had known Tommy for years and his father for even longer (after all, Phil used to teach Techno English in sixth form) so it didn’t surprise him.

It was safe to say that when the bell rang, signalling the end of lunch, Tommy practically ran out of that classroom. He feared for his safety whenever Techno didn’t respond to his jabs. It always meant the man was thinking of a better insult. The last time this happened Techno kept harassing him with broken Spanish. Something that was very threatening.

Because of this, he got to his art lesson’s classroom quicker than anyone else. Wilbur wasn’t trapped in the storage closet this time.

“Ah, Tommy, you’re here fast. Were you just dying for two hours of pure hell?” Wilbur asked as he skidded into the room.

Wilbur wore a different eccentric sweater for this lesson, not a goose advertising murder today, but instead one with Van Gogh’s work embroidered into it.

“I’ll have you know I look forward to these two hours,” Tommy said.

Wilbur grinned to himself as Tommy unpacked his sketchbook. “And what a sad mentality that is to have.”

“Do you not like art?” Wilbur immediately nodded to his question. “Why not?”

“It’s not my preferred choice of expressing myself. I prefer music, storytelling, acting,” he answered, wistful all of a sudden. There wasn’t an overdone cheeriness to his voice. “I also hold a massive grudge over the subject but that’s irrelevant.”

He opened his mouth to ask more but students walked into the classroom and Wilbur moved to welcome them in.

When Tubbo sat down, he refused to face Tommy.

“Are you still mad over the paint?” Tommy asked, causing Ranboo to avert his eyes from the two of them. “Because I didn’t mean for it to land in your mouth. You know I have shit aim! I just aimed for…” he trailed off and shook his head. “Nevermind. But yeah, I didn’t mean to—”

“I’m going to need a neck brace for the amount of whiplash you just gave me,” Tubbo stated. Ranboo made a noise of shock. “But you did get me out of doing double English so we’re even.”

Both boys shook hands, the friendship handshake they created when they were eleven years old, and just like that, it was resolved.

As Tubbo and Ranboo moved to get their chosen materials out from the storage closet, Tommy stayed still. He flicked through his sketchbook, the designs of the country he could never shake from his head. The black and yellow borders, greenery and forests, black stone castle walls, manmade rivers and caravans in the midst of it all. At least that was what it looked like before Dream and his little bitches blew up it. (Yes, he called the villain of this roleplay that sprung from dreams Dream, he liked irony).

He had ideas of what L’manberg would look like after they regained independence yet lost it after democracy failed them.

“I promised you something last week,” Wilbur said, beaming down at him.

A grin made its way to Tommy’s mouth.

“Clay time?”

Wilbur nodded and said, “Clay time,” as he dropped the biggest clump of it Tommy had ever seen onto the table.

Holy fuck. It was more than enough. He could make the entirety of the Essempe with this—not that he would, those fuckers didn’t deserve the attention.

“Isn’t that above the school’s budget?” Tubbo asked as he eyed the amount. All he had in front of him was a small pile of fabrics and a glue gun.

“I don’t know, I don’t work here,” Wilbur dismissed with a wave of his hand.

“Yes you do—” the clanging of sculpting knives hitting the table surface cut Tubbo off.

Tommy filled up plastic mugs with water whilst Wilbur grabbed two rolling pins. They returned to the head of the table, the palms of their hands laid flat on the surface.

“So, what does this country look like?” Wilbur asked as he unwrapped the clay from the cling film.

“L’manberg has a lot of wooden paths. A caravan, uh, some houses and bridges over a lake. There’s also a podium for Presidential speeches and seats below.”

As he finished with his explanation, going into further detail about the decorations, scenery and builds, Wilbur began rolling damp clumps of clay into balls. It was weirdly peaceful, just the two of them quietly working on the basis of the sculpture. Tubbo distracted them every once and a while by burning himself on his glue gun, but besides that, nothing could disturb them.

“You’re good at this,” Tommy commented as Wilbur moulded a house. “And you said you didn’t do art in school?”

“No, I despised it.”

“Why?”

Wilbur rolled his eyes. “Apparently I was too creative.” He dipped the tips of his fingers into the water. “When I was ten, I was thrown out of my art and design class for adding poppies onto the landscape we were supposed to paint.”

Tommy frowned. “What?”

“I was dangerously imaginative, used too much colour,” Wilbur said with a mocking tone. “It was a piss-take.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Have you figured out yet who the taller figure is in your Pogtopia painting?” Wilbur suddenly asked, eyes still trained on the house he was working on. “Or is it still an unfinished symphony?”

Tommy paused in sculpting details into the wooden panelling of the Prime Path. The figure was still a mystery to him.

He didn’t have that many older people in his life who he trusted, besides Phil and Techno. He could make the figure Techno but that wouldn’t be right. The character started a government and country, which went against the very concept of anarchism Techno supported. And this figure wasn’t like a father to Tommy, so Phil wasn’t suited either.

He watched Wilbur mould clay into the tree trunks around his house as he waited for Tommy’s response.

The man was taller and older than him; he had a weird fashion sense that he could easily adapt into a brown trench coat. Wilbur offered something to him. He wasn’t just a random TA in a run-down secondary school subbing in for art lessons every Friday. He was more than that. He represented independence, the death of the forces that made Tommy hate art in school. Sure, he was being dramatic but he meant every word. Wilbur was the kindling flame, the authoritative liberty he’d follow and actually listen to.

Tommy had found the missing piece.

“Mr Wilbur Soot, would you care to be the President of this nation?”

“The President of L’manberg, you say?” Wilbur said, smiling teasingly. Though, there was good intent behind the quipped expression. “Well, I will only accept this gracious position if the one Tommy Innit became my second-in-command and assistant.”

Warmth settled in Tommy’s chest, heating with every silent breath.

“Then it’s settled,” he decided. The corners of his mouth ached from how wide he smiled.

He hadn’t felt this happy in a while.

Someone actually cared about the imaginary people and scenarios he had festering every time his own reality dulled for even a second. It was different to Tubbo letting him talk for hours about the details of every character or Ranboo indulging him in the worldbuilding of it all. Because they never seemed that interested. He bet if the two didn’t care about him, they’d just nod at his words, not really listening to any of it. It’s not like he didn’t appreciate them both because he knew it got annoying at times. Yet with Wilbur, who accepted a role in the world that had bothered him since Phil adopted him all those years ago, it was… comforting. Fulfilling, even. He filled the vacant gap that had been there since the beginning.

By the end of the two-hour lesson, a small town had been created. One that reflected the wisps of unconsciousness that sang Tommy to sleep and woke him into a new reality.

As Wilbur painted the finishing touches to his beloved forests and hills, Tommy couldn’t have hoped for anything better.

Ⅱ

Tommy’s day didn’t start off well.

First, he tried to make breakfast for Phil and managed to burn the bacon and toast. He just wanted to do something nice for his dad. Something to show that he knew it was stressful for him around Christmas time because of his job, so he wanted to make it easier for him. But he couldn’t even do that.

Then, when actual breakfast rolled around, with burnt toast and shitty cereal, his dad was too exhausted to keep a conversation up. It didn’t help that the kitchen looked miserable either. It was the beginning of December and no decorations brightened any room. Each year, Tommy refused to put them up if Phil wasn’t there helping him, so it could be a shared experience. And the man was too busy this year, too tired to help. So he left the decorations in the boxes. Collecting dust and disheartened festive spirits.

“How was school yesterday?” Phil eventually asked with a final sip of his coffee. Even his voice sounded worn out, shattered in every sense. Tommy hid his wince. “I wasn’t able to ask last night.”

It was because Phil got home late. Later than usual. The bowl of pasta Tommy had left for him was inedible by the time he came home. He couldn’t blame Phil though and he never did. Phil tried his best, supplying Tommy with everything he could. Like the room he emptied out just so his son could paint in a safe space, the numerous frames he gifted Tommy with every piece of work he brought home, the hugs and pats on the back he gave whenever he could. For what Tommy really wanted, it wasn’t enough. But he didn’t take this out on Phil, or anyone for that matter. Only himself.

“It went okay,” Tommy answered, idly scraping his spoon against the cereal bowl.

Phil stared at him, doubt written all over his face. A timid smile came to Tommy’s lips.

“Fine, fine, it was shit. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“I mean, I did hear it. Kristin called again. Something about Tubbo being put into medical because of you,” Phil said, sharing an amused look with Tommy.

“It’s not my fault Ms Rodcliffe made us do realistic portraits that day. If I wanted a realistic picture of a model, I’d just take a picture. Why do I need to replicate exactly how it looks? Why can’t I invert the colours? Change the features just a little bit?” he complained, exaggerating his sulk just so Phil laughed at his misery. And he succeeded.

Phil chuckled into his clasped hands. “Mate, they’re just trying to get you into different genres of art.”

“Well, they’re failing. All she’s doing is increasing my chances of becoming a war criminal,” he grumbled and Phil choked on his toast. “Anyway, when have you got time to do the Christmas decorations with me?”

The placing of his question was a bit awkward but Tommy knew that if he didn’t bring it up now, then December twenty-fifth would roll around with a bland living room, empty space where a tree was supposed to go and no glittering lights hanging on the window frame.

Phil put down his toast and picked up his phone. He scrolled through it, probably on the calendar app, but with every scroll, another minute passed and the crestfallen expression on Phil’s face darkened.

Not even the nervous tapping of his foot under the table could fill up the silence Tommy hated. Was it that hard to find twenty minutes—no, not even twenty, just ten minutes—so the two of them could hang the angels on the tree and wrap it with too much tinsel? Tommy could even set up the tree himself, maybe with Ranboo’s help, just to save Phil time.

Another minute fuelled the unease riddling through him.

“Dad?” he mumbled, voice quieter than before, more hesitant.

Phil scrolled once more and gazed up, a face too downhearted to have good news.

“Sorry Toms, I just got an email and—” Phil continued with his talk of work but the buzzing in Tommy’s head drowned it all out.

He knew what came next, the sincere apologies, promises of reschedules that slowly turned into ‘maybes’. He bit on his lip to stop it from trembling and hugged his arms around himself. Tight enough so he couldn’t feel the shaking.

“Ask me next week, I might have a gap somewhere,” Phil said, eyes wallowing with guilt.

Tommy sniffed and rubbed his nose with his sleeve. He nodded, avoiding Phil’s stare. The light-heartedness from their conversation before had died. The humming from the radiators mocked the silence.

“Do you want me to drop you off still before I go to work or—?”

“No,” Tommy cut off, he tried too hard to keep the bitterness out of his tone. “Tubbo’s dad can take me, I don’t want you to be late.”

After a kiss to his forehead and a ruffle to his hair, Phil quickly left. The door slammed shut and Tommy hugged himself tighter.

He sighed, the adjacent isolation echoing the even emptier room. He got up from his seat and cleaned up the kitchen before walking to school.

But it wasn’t the remorseful rejection from a stressed father that broke Tommy. It wasn’t the lonely morning that tore the last shreds of patience and stability he had in him. Instead, it was third-period art class.

Ms Rodcliffe’s assignment for today’s lesson was landscape art. Tommy always preferred sunsets to sunrises. There was something more peaceful with the pale orange bleeding into twilight. With star constellations brightening the sky with their mythological stories and invisible lines connecting it all, it was beautiful.

But according to his teacher, a sunset wasn’t enough. He needed more scenery, more trees to trap the beauty of cascading clouds and the freezing night. So he included all these suggestions. He painted forests in the background, a river reflecting the descending sun, and a wooded dock for boats.

He eventually added a bench to this wooden dock. Yet it wasn’t just a bench. It was the bench. The one he and Tubbo’s characters sat on with a jukebox beside them. Their bench, where dwindling tunes silenced the battles wrecking in their bodies from hours before.  

It wouldn’t hurt to add in figures sitting on the bench, small shadows of two soldiers. Another student had added in a fisherman in their painting and Miss allowed that, so it should be fine.

Just as the little black outlines of soldiers dried, Ms Rodcliffe walked over to his table. His shoulders tensed. Her eyes slit at him, too analytical for a year ten art piece.

“What was the assignment, Tommy?” she asked, voice scornful.

“Landscape,” he muttered, not understanding why she asked him that.

“And what is this?” she pointed to the bench, to the miniature outlines sitting upon it. Her finger edged too close to the wet paint for his shoulders to stand at ease. “This is figurative art.”

He scowled at her, eyebrows scrunched up and irritated. “What?”

“You’ll need to re-do it all for this to go into your folder,” she said dismissively as she peeled a post-it note off the pack. Scribbling mocked his ears as she wrote on the note.

She waited until now, the final ten minutes of the lesson, to tell him this. She had seen him sketch in the two soldiers earlier and hadn’t said a word, but now, now it was a problem. He bit on his inner cheek to stop the words from coming out of his mouth, the frustration and complaints that chipped away at his tolerance for her.

Ms Rodcliffe reached over and stated, “You’ll need to get rid of it,” as she hovered the post-it note over the bench. Over the wet paint.

“No, no, stop—!” he exclaimed. Yet the distress in his voice didn’t stop her from pressing the note roughly into the painting. The black paint smudged into the river reflecting the lowering sun and dark oranges in the sky.

It shouldn’t have meant that much. It shouldn’t have pissed him off that much so that he stormed out of the class. It was just a painting, it was just… it was him. She had purposely ruined him. She could’ve waited until it dried, she could’ve photocopied his painting and then written over it. But no. She ruined it.

Tears pricked his eyes as he rushed through the vacant canteen to get to the bathrooms. He didn’t want to cry over this but his body said otherwise. He just couldn’t handle it today, or any day. He couldn’t do this anymore.

“Woah, Tommy, you alright?” a voice, sounding far away yet so close, asked and a hand tugged on his blazer sleeve.

Wilbur stood next to him with a coffee cup in his other hand.

From just seeing the concern practically dripping from Wilbur’s face, the tears in his eyes swelled. He crumbled deeper into himself.

“Follow me,” Wilbur said as he pulled Tommy across the school. His legs shook and his arms struggled to comfort himself.

The aching in his legs stopped when they reached the drama department. The room was dedicated to theatre production, Wilbur’s office and workspace.

Wilbur guided him to sit on the sofa. Minutes passed, so much so that it was probably period four now but neither cared. Wilbur didn’t say a word, all he did was type quietly on his computer and occasionally glance at Tommy. He liked it this way.

“It’s not the same when you’re not there,” Tommy finally mumbled, his voice wavered as he spoke.

The typing stopped. “How so?”

“I can’t…” he trailed off and scoffed, “I can’t do anything I want.”

“They won’t let you abuse the clay then?” Wilbur said jokingly, though the tone died as Tommy glared at him.

“No!” he shouted. Wilbur recoiled. “Sorry but, it’s- it’s not like that, this isn’t a fucking joke. Wilbur- sorry, it’s just—”

He was close to tears over this. It was pathetic. He was pathetic.

All the built-up frustration over having his one escape taken from him. It broke everything in him, shattered the barriers concealing the other desires he kept sealed inside. The yearns that crept up this morning. The want to have a complete family rather than a father trying his best to substitute himself in places he couldn’t fulfil. A mother, a brother, cousins, fucking anyone. He wanted someone else to sit at the table with them, for his future Christmas morning to not be so lonely despite all the affection and presents Phil would give. He felt selfish but betrayed all in the same sense. And all of this came from Ms Rodcliffe damaging a single painting. The two soldiers.

“You let me paint what I see every time I close my eyes, the worlds that are so much more than this shit-hole place. They won’t let me. And if I am allowed, it’s wrong. The colour scheme is off, the shadowing is too dark, I used the incorrect method or I’m going against the assignment,” he took a harsh breath and tears dampened his face. “It’s suddenly figurative art instead of landscape which doesn’t even make sense since my coursework isn’t even on landscape art!”

He collapsed into the sofa pillow, held it close to his chest. His tears wet the pillow but he couldn’t stop them. He couldn’t stop anything.

Wilbur moved from his desk chair and knelt down next to him. His head tilted and fingers kept itching closer to Tommy’s hand but he stopped himself. Tommy knew what the man wanted to do. It was how Tommy acted whenever he hesitated to show someone affection in any way. Yet, Wilbur was his teacher, not a personal friend or father. It would be inappropriate for him to even pat Tommy on the shoulder.

“Just know I would if I could,” Wilbur whispered softly. “Because you deserve it, okay?” brown eyes gazed up at him, blinking with fondness and promise. “If I was a sixth former, I’d hug the shit out of you right now, alright? I wouldn’t let you go until you knew that you deserve more than what your teachers are doing to you.”

“I know,” he whispered back, smiling sadly as tears rolled down his cheeks. “I know.”

And he did. He did know. No other teacher would go this far to comfort one of their students, to make sure they understood that being treated his way was wrong and hurtful. But Wilbur did.

“Good,” Wilbur said, relieved. “Now, this Friday, bring in that painting because we’re going to fix it. And I won’t say a word, I won’t give you any advice or critique. I will let you paint whatever the fuck you want and sit quietly, just watching as you show me your skill, just like you always do.”

Tommy sniffed and grabbed Wilbur’s arm. He squeezed it gently, the minimum he could do without crossing any lines. “Thank you.”

Wilbur looked down at the hold Tommy had on his arm. The wrinkles around his eyes creased as his smile twitched.

As Wilbur draped a blanket over Tommy’s shoulders, he looked around the office and theatre production room. He hadn’t been here before.

Those Greek theatre masks were nailed to the wall. Thalia and Melpomene. The muses of comedy and tragedy. Vinyls of different indie rock bands hung from the ceiling with string. One had a ring of purple and white stripes around the middle and another had neon green. A guitar leaned against the desk and colourful tapestries took up much of the wall space.

“Do you want to spend your lunch in here?” Wilbur asked, snapping Tommy out of his daze. “It’s period four, so you can stay in here as well to calm down. I’ll mark you in for attendance and email your teacher.”

It was this that just made Tommy feel warm. A usual teacher would offer a tissue box and leave it there, send him into his next lesson despite the redness in his eyes and strain in his stomach. Yet, Wilbur was different.

“You can bring your friends in here as well when it’s lunch,” Wilbur carried on.

Tommy nodded. The brightness of his smile couldn’t reflect the gratefulness he felt. He needed this. He needed this today.

Despite the hatred Tommy had for Ms Rodcliffe, he couldn’t skip her lessons all the time. It was the day after he stormed after his class and with Ranboo subtly nudging him into the classroom, he entered it.

“It’s a coursework lesson today, Tommy, so it’ll be fine,” Ranboo consoled, noticing the anxiety propelling off his friend as he sat down at his computer.

“Yeah and if she tries to ruin your work again, the fire alarm is right next to me,” Tubbo said, grinning wildly.

He huffed out a dry chuckle. “Thanks, guys.”

Normally, Tommy hated coursework lessons. It was just an excuse for his art teachers to not teach them anything. Coursework was English analysis so they refused to help. They chose an artist for him, someone dead and probably overrated, and he had to describe what made their art good. Paragraphs of how a technique aided their work and then comparing the artist to your own work, which didn’t make any sense since Tommy was only fifteen whilst these fuckers were fifteen feet in the ground.

He was supposed to write things like, ‘They used this technique to get this result, which makes the piece successful because—’. But instead, his coursework looked like, ‘The methods the artist chose were multiple, undiagnosed mental illnesses, illegal substances and also water paints.’ Personally, Tommy thought his was more accurate.

Regardless, he preferred coursework lessons today because he’d rather die than have another hour of Ms Rodcliffe ruining his art.

As the rest of the class settled on their computers, Ms Rodcliffe asked for the homework before they could open up their coursework documents. He rolled his eyes and grabbed the drawing out of his bag. He sketched a cow in a field, Henry to be precise. The brown cow had yellow daisies on its nose and a golden ring around one of its ears. It looked nice there. The fields of L’manberg.

Someone tapped his shoulder. He looked over at the girl.

“That looks like something my cat would eat,” she said as she scowled down at his drawing of Henry.

He wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

So he did what he thought was the correct way to respond, which was to spend the next ten minutes drawing her white cat squashed by an anvil. It was safe to say that the cat wasn’t alright. He had to hide it in his bag after she tried to show the teacher. Apparently depicting a person’s pet dead was a threat. It was deserved though.

Tommy had forgotten about the drawing hidden in his sketchbook until his next art lesson on Friday with Wilbur.

During the two hours, he had painted a flag that looked suspiciously like the French flag but horizontal and with a losing match of noughts-and-crosses across the white middle section. L’manberg needed a flag, after all.

After Wilbur had sorted out another table with the materials they needed, he walked over to Tommy. “What flag is that?” he asked. “I don’t recognise it.”

“It’s the freedom flag,” Tommy said and Tubbo scoffed at his answer.

“And it’s freeing you from what?”

“The oppressive, tyrannical and authoritarian regime of GCSE art,” he replied, being utterly serious.

“What buzz-words are they teaching you in English?”

“I learnt what a hyper bowl was last week,” Tommy said as he dipped his paintbrush into the yellow. “My dad was impressed.”

Wilbur thinned his lips. “Do you mean hyperbole?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I’m going to quit,” Wilbur whined under his breath. “And so should your father.”

Both Ranboo and Tubbo laughed—though with agreement or amusement, Tommy did not know.

The bell rang, beckoning the end of school, and Tommy rushed pack up. As he packed up the sketches he had made in the past two hours, one he misplaced fell onto the floor.

Wilbur bent down to pick it up and gasped at what he saw. “Oh my God, I want this,” he said, still gaping at the random sketch.

Tommy frowned and perked up to see what one had fallen. It was the white cat, dead, underneath the anvil.

“Why?” he asked, unsure of why Wilbur liked that drawing.

“Now Tommy, I told you ages ago that my preferred choice of expression was music. That cat being absolutely decimated by an anvil so happens to be my newfound muse.”

This man was insane, completely insane. But Tommy understood. Music wasn’t that different to art. Well, sure the methodology of it all was different since it was a completely separate medium. Yet, the expression side to it, putting your heart and soul into inanimate objects and materials just to display the emotions and ideas inside of you, was similar.

The strings of a guitar were no different to the hairs of a paintbrush. Neither was a blank canvas to music score sheets.

“Can you play me a song?” Tommy hesitated to ask. His eyes flickered over Wilbur’s face, hoping to not see any offence or disdain. 

Wilbur’s eyebrows furrowed and he turned to look at the storage closet. Without another word, he retrieved something from here. He came back with a guitar.

There was a certain vulnerability in his body as he walked back over. A nervous skip in his step, a tension in his shoulders and tremors in his hands.

“This is Simone,” Wilbur said as he brushed along the body of the guitar. He touched the guitar as if it were a living, breathing thing. A person. But Tommy couldn’t judge. His painting easel back at home was called Clementine. “And she’d love to show you a song right now.”

From just the way he said that something fluttered in his chest. It was as if King Midas touched his spirit and turned everything to gold.

The sudden strumming of an ‘A’ chord echoed the empty classroom. Followed by other chord progressions until Wilbur opened his lips to sing. As he sang about drunk texting, cat ears and soft boys, Tommy felt enticed by it all.

The way Wilbur’s eyes lightly shut as his wrist flicked up and down; how with each higher note, his eyes closed a bit tighter and the wrinkles above his eyelids creased. The pauses where the lyrics prevailed, the shaking of his head at the bridge and chorus. Random cracks and strains his voice that just made it all sound so much more alive.

As he ended on a soft note, a clinging desperation to be someone’s, Wilbur reluctantly opened his eyes. It was almost like he was scared to see again, to gaze upon Tommy’s reaction to the beauty he had just performed. Why would he be nervous? Anxious even? It was good. It was better than good, it was consoling, addicting, everything in between solace and the sun.

Talent. That was what it was. Utter talent.

“Holy shit,” Tommy whispered, mouth agape.

Wilbur hugged Simone closer to him. “Is that a good holy shit or a bad holy shit?”

He rolled his eyes. “A good ‘holy shit’, idiot.”

The tension in Wilbur’s arms eased and his chest exhaled with relief. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

“But I have one question,” Tommy began. “What’s an ahegao hoodie?”

Wilbur’s face reddened. “I’m legally not allowed to answer that.”

“So if I ask my dad to Google it with me when I get home—”

“Don’t you dare do that.”

Tommy burst out laughing and slowly, Wilbur joined in. It was a nice sound, chaotically calming just like his singing.

Phil didn’t complain when Tommy took fifteen minutes to get out of school. The smile on his son’s face was enough to not question it. Though, the smile on Tommy’s face widened even further when he mentioned he had a day-off, time free to finally put up the Christmas decorations.

Ⅲ

Tommy didn’t have to have detention to bother Techno. Sometimes he just turned up to his classroom and refused to move from the front row seat. It wasn’t his fault he was bored—Tubbo and Ranboo had a school trip today, something to do with a trip to a museum dedicated to geography and Tommy would rather die than attend.

So pissing off Techno during lunch was the next best thing.

“Tommy, for the last time, I won’t let you use my projector to play ‘Fireboy and Watergirl’,” Techno remarked dryly.

“Why not?” he whined. “You can even be Fireboy! We can play it together.”

“Drop it,” Techno said with a warning tone.

“Fine,” he resigned. “You still haven’t answered my first question though.”

“I’m not telling you what an ahegao hoodie is and I don’t even how you found out that is a thing—”

“No! No, not that question,” Tommy interrupted with a laugh. “It was if you wanted to come round for Christmas dinner. Phil misses you.”

He wasn’t lying, per se, Phil really did miss Techno. After all, Phil used to teach him English and kept in touch with him after sixth form in case Techno needed help in university. His personal email eventually turned into a phone number over time. The phone number was first used when Techno needed to know how to use a laundry machine at two in the morning during his first year at uni. And last used the week prior when the two debated what type of skimmed milk was the best—semi-skimmed won. (This was obviously incorrect since why would milk need to be skimmed in the first place?).

“Tommy,” Techno started and he immediately knew the answer wasn’t going to be one he favoured. “It would be weird if I came round, especially since I’m your history teacher.”

“Well, in ‘Matilda’, her teacher adopts her,” Tommy argued with his arms crossed.

“Do you want me to adopt you then?” Techno mocked light-heartedly.

“No, you’ll probably force me to eat potatoes every dinner and never shut up about World War Two,” Tommy remarked. “Plus, I’m already adopted, so fuck you.”

“That was the worst decision Phil has ever made.”

Tommy flipped him off and Techno chuckled lightly.

“I’ll think about it, Tommy,” Techno said.

“Good.”

The door to the classroom opened and out of everyone in this school, Wilbur Soot paraded into the room. “Tech, it’s time to burn this place to the ground. The sixth form vending machine doesn’t sell Walkers crisps anymore—” he cut himself off as he noticed another person in the room. “Oh, hey Tommy.”

He glared at the two of them. “Tech?” he repeated.

Techno pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shut up, Theseus.”

Wilbur tilted his head. “Theseus?” he echoed, equally as mocking.

Tommy flipped him off too—which he shouldn’t really do because they’re teachers but he simply didn’t care. The hierarchy was irrelevant here.

“How do you two know each other anyway? I refuse to believe it’s just because you guys are teachers here,” Tommy asked.

“We went to the same secondary school,” Techno answered.

Wilbur nodded curtly. “We were called twins throughout the entirety of it because we looked so similar. Techno dyed his hair out of spite.”

Techno combed through his hair, proud of it. It was a Techno thing to do, after all.

“But why pink?”

“Why not?” Techno rebutted.

Tommy shrugged. “Fair enough.”

As the lunch continued, Wilbur rolled around the classroom in the spare desk chair and offered Tommy crisps every once in a while. It was less awkward with Wilbur here. He filled the pauses in conversation whenever Techno decided the book in front of him was more entertaining than Tommy.

“Mr Wilbur Soot,” Tommy called out as a sudden idea came to his head. Well, it wasn’t a sudden idea since he thought of it ages ago, before Wilbur covered their Friday art lessons. But since Wilbur was here now, it could actually happen.

“Mr Tommy Innit,” Wilbur said back, despite that not being Tommy’s last name.

“I have a proposal,” he stated and Techno put down his book, knowing that it was going to be something outlandish or probably illegal. “Because next week is the last week before Christmas break, can we do something fun?”

“Fun? Like what?”

“Can we throw paint onto the canvases?” Tommy asked. “Like full-on pelt buckets of paint at it in the field.”

Wilbur twisted in his chair. “I’ll think about it.”

Tommy scoffed, “That’s exactly what Techno says whenever the answer is no but he’s too much of a pussy to say it.”

Techno grabbed another handful of crisps, not denying it.

A mighty sigh came from Wilbur’s mouth. “Fine, I’ll rearrange something special for the last Friday. That’s all your getting from me.”

Tommy jumped up and spun Wilbur’s chair until the man almost stacked it onto the ground. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“That is a weird way to show thanks,” Wilbur grumbled.

“It’s what you get for letting the kid get what he wants,” Techno said.

Tommy narrowed his eyes at him. “I’m not a kid.”

“He’s a dirty little crime boy, that’s what he is,” Wilbur said as he tried to regain his balance on the chair. “Anyway, speaking of art, what’s your final piece for this term going to be?”

Ah, he had forgotten about that. Well, he didn’t forget but instead procrastinated thinking about it. Whenever he even attempted to come up with a design, he could hear Ms Rodcliffe’s patronising voice giving him unwanted criticism and shaming his ideas.

Every term, the art department demanded a final piece from each student. It had to do with the theme of their coursework and be in a similar style to their chosen artist. Easily enough, Tommy’s theme was expression but his artist was a complete wrong’un. Jackson Pollock. An abusive, misogynistic alcoholic who beat his wife and made shit paintings. He used the drip technique, so it just looked like a complete mess. Quite fitting.

He was sure Ms Rodcliffe gave him that painter because she hated him. Yet, he did like the abstract side to Pollock’s work. Nothing else though.

Tommy had one idea. An idea that always provoked Ms Rodcliffe's voice. It involved aspects of Wilbur’s office—which he would never admit aloud. The Greek theatre masks, tragedy and comedy, and the vinyl discs that hung from the ceiling. Expression through performance and music.

He grabbed one of the sketches from his book. The latest one where Thalia and Melpomene laid in the middle with hanging music discs coming from above. And as he expected, Wilbur shot up in his seat.

“Aww, am I a part of the inspiration?” Wilbur teased.

“No,” he quickly denied, embarrassed.

“Then why the theatre masks? Oh and why do these suspiciously look like the vinyls I have in my—”

“Shut up, shut up,” he said, whacking Wilbur with the sketchbook with every word.

Techno laughed as he watched the two. “There is a similarity, Tommy.”

“Not you too,” he complained. He huffed and faced Wilbur, who looked too smug to not be whacked again with the sketchbook. “Fine, dickhead, you were part of the reason I came up with this idea.”

Wilbur, instead of gloating as Tommy expected, shared a look with Techno. A look that was earnest and sombre; their eyebrows furrowed as if they both reached a realisation that Tommy had not.

After a long pause, Wilbur looked back. There was a softness in his voice, a vulnerability that wasn’t visible before. “I’m glad I could help.”

“You didn’t do shit to help, dickhead,” Tommy joked.

“No, I mean,” Wilbur backtracked and shared another glance with Techno. “I’m happy that I could provide you with something, support or whatever. It’s what teachers are supposed to do.”

“I know, Will,” Tommy said, smiling. “I was only teasing.”

“Will?” Techno repeated with the same mocking tone from earlier.

“Shut the fuck up,” both Tommy and Wilbur said.

Phil had gone overboard with the decorations. It may have been because he felt guilty for doing them so late in December. But now even the room Tommy used to paint in had tinsel taped to the walls and a little snowman figure on one of the shelves.

It was Monday morning, two hours before school started. Two hours until he started his final art project. By the end of the week, he’d need to give in the first draft and whatever he produced over Christmas break would be the final piece. Although he loved drawing, it was sketching that he hated. He always spent too much time on it despite it being the baseline. The perfectionist in him loathed it.

A knock hit on the door.

“You can come in,” Tommy called, eyes still fixed on his sketchbook. For some reason, drawing the shape of the theatre masks was the devil reincarnated. He couldn’t make them look the same, one was either skinner or wider than the other.

Phil opened the door dressed up in the suit he always wore to work. “Tommy, what are you doing up so early?”

Tommy looked up, eyes irritated with the lack of sleep. “I needed to finish off this sketch before school starts.”

“Wouldn’t you perform better with an hour extra of sleep?” Phil suggested.

“I’ll perform fine.”

Phil walked further into the room. “You always do, you little shit,” he ruffled Tommy’s hair and gently clasped a hand on his shoulder. “What’s this?”

“Blame the one and only Wilbur Soot for influencing my design. I hate drawing masks so much,” he explained as he glanced down at his unfinished sketch.

Phil stilled his movement. “Wilbur Soot?”

“Yeah? What about him?”

Something glimmered over Phil’s face, something unreadable, especially in his eyes. He seemed startled. “Nothing,” he shook his head and averted his gaze. “Nothing. I just haven’t heard that name from you before. I didn’t know he was your art teacher.”

“He’s the sub-in until they find a new one. I thought I told you this.”

Phil shook his head again, more adamant. “You didn’t tell me his name.”

“His name is Mr Wilbur Soot and he’s a massive bitch,” Tommy said, confused at why his dad was acting like this. It took a lot to shock Phil, like those baby zombies in Minecraft or VR headsets.

"Anyway, I best be off to work. Good luck for today." Phil gently shut the door and Tommy sighed. He had a lot to do before Tubbo's dad arrived to drop him off at school. 

Tommy wasn’t surprised that not everyone in his art lesson took the final project seriously. After all, Tubbo had dedicated his piece to Tweek fanart. Ranboo tried his best to convince the school to let him do digital art on MS Paint (he still wasn’t allowed though). But as soon as the timer started, he didn’t care what Russian nightmares Tubbo had the night before, the painting was all he cared about.

He thought his design was okay. The precise use of white space, the inverted colours with the music discs, and the focal point with the Greek theatre masks. But as soon as Ms Rodcliffe strolled over with a sharpie in her hand, he just wanted to die.

“What’s the theme?” she asked and he scowled. She should know this. “What’s the masks and discs got in common?”

“Expression,” he stated. “Y’know, like plays and music.”

“So what if you add in a paintbrush?” she proposed.

“But I’ve already added in the art part of expression.”

“How?”

He looked at her as if she were dumb. “Because I’m painting the thing?”

She made a noise at the back of her throat, one that sounded not too pleased with his responses. But he wasn’t too pleased about her shit suggestions and he wasn’t making weird sounds.

“You still have a lot of white space. You need to fill it.”

Tommy glanced down at the white space he had. As much as he loathed to admit it, she was right. After all, he had Jackson Pollock as the chosen artist so there was too much white space. Just as he went to pick up his paintbrush to add in drips similar to Pollock’s style, Ms Rodcliffe outstretched her arm and wrote on the canvas.

Fill this in, mocked him. Permanent marker over the space he was about to fucking paint over.

“You fucking prick,” he spat out as he threw his paintbrush on the table. Parts of the paint splattered over her dress but he didn’t give a shit. He didn’t give a shit about any of this. The paint, the final piece, her.

Voices called out for him as he ran out of the class. He ignored them all. This had happened twice now, twice she had purposely done something to fuck him over and wreck the work he had been proud of. It wasn’t even just him she fucked over this time, it wasn’t him he ruined. It was his image of everything. Of Wilbur, the song he played for him after class, the rough chords and soft singing, even the plays Wilbur had shown him during the lunches in his office that he had written. The renditions of Macbeth with a modern take, A Christmas Carol but about Halloween, silly little twists on things that the two laughed about for hours. Their laughter bled into after school hours but neither minded.

It was the treasured moments between him and someone who actually cared about his wellbeing in this school that was ruined. All because of the black marker on his painting.

As tears brimmed in his eyes, he rushed into the theatre production room. He disregarded the sixth formers in the room and shut the office door behind him. Before Wilbur could even get a word out, he pulled down the office window blinds and crashed onto the sofa.

And he cried. He cried until his lungs hurt from the hitched breaths after every sob, until his nose burned from how harshly he rubbed it, until a blurred vision of a broken heart was all he saw.

It hurt more than before. He had spent hours on that design, hours of just contemplating whether Wilbur would find him weird for adding him into this painting, hours awake at night scared of his reaction. Now, Wilbur would never see it finished.

“Tommy, it’s okay, just breathe, it’s okay—”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t do any of that. It wasn’t okay, none of this fucking was. He just wanted to paint, he just wanted to get away from everything and he couldn’t anymore. The one escape he had was gone. Corrupted by scornful critique and sabotage.

A hand brushed along his shoulder briefly and he leaned into the touch. He yearned for the contact, the comfort. Yet, it left as quick as it came.

“Please, Wilbur, I can’t do this anymore—” he broke off with another sob, another break in his voice. He could barely speak.

His head pounded, ached and throbbed. He thought that this art class would burn him out, kill his passion. But instead, it just killed him.

With every piece he created, he stood at the edge of a cliff as he painted. Vulnerable to the waking breeze and beaming sun. Exposed to anyone who dared to push him off.

Maybe Techno was right to call him Theseus.

He didn’t want to paint it all again. He didn’t have enough passion in him to get into that space again. Where he pondered all the times with Wilbur, the sessions he was free to do as he pleased. He couldn’t do that for a second time.

“Breathe with me, okay?” Wilbur said softly. The hand was back on his shoulder. “In and out, follow my lead, Tommy.”

It took a while for him to calm down, but Wilbur stayed with him the entire time. Slowly, he got to a point where it no longer hurt to breathe. 

As he regained his breath and the burden in his chest slowly soothed, Wilbur got up and sat next to him on the sofa.

There was a silence where neither knew what to say. 

“My English teacher hugged me once,” Wilbur announced, out of nowhere, voice unguarded. “We were reading this poetry anthology ‘Feminine Gospels’ by Carol Ann Duffy. Of all people to make me cry, it was that bitch who screwed me over in GCSE English—” he cut himself off with a cold scoff. “I’m getting off track.” He sighed and lowered his gaze. “She wrote a poem called ‘The Map-Woman’, something about how this person couldn’t escape her past; her identity, one she no longer claimed. It marked her so she could never forget.”

Tommy shuffled closer, not knowing where this was going.

“Her skin was her own small ghost, a shroud to be dead in, a newspaper for old news to be read in, gift-wrapping, litter, a- a suicide letter,” he recalled, faltering over the last line. “And for some fucking reason, it hit me. I would never be able to leave this town, to hide what I’d done to myself, the self-destruction, the- the—”

Tommy wasn’t sure what to do. His tears dampened his cheeks as Wilbur dried his own.

“After that lesson, he hugged me. He said it wasn’t allowed but he knew I needed it. That I needed someone to care about me for a single second, to show me I wasn’t just a lonely voice sitting at the back table every single day. That I was more than this town, more than what my past defined me as.”

Wilbur’s face gleamed with casks of sorrow and insight.

“Do you need that, Tommy?”

He froze.

“You are so much more than what this school says,” Wilbur said. “You may cause shit in classrooms, disrupt whenever silence is preferred, but you bring life to what this school destroys. Your art doesn’t change when they try to take away your style, when they try to take away the world you see as that pencil hits the paper.” Tommy gazed into his eyes and saw a man who understood. “You have so much talent, Tommy, and an even bigger heart.”

Wilbur was more than just the missing figure in his ravine paintings, more than the support he so desperately yearned for. He was his own person, full of fire that never burned him. A person with humour that matched his, someone who knew what to say to make Tommy laugh until tears pricked in his eyes. The one that sensed when Tommy needed a joke to bounce off so the doubts in his head didn’t win, knew when words of encouragement were all he needed to hear.

“I think I need that hug, Wilbur,” he whispered.

Arms at the perfect force gripped him tight. Wilbur pulled him to his chest and let Tommy slot his head into his shoulder. It felt as safe as his art room at home. Protected, warm and loved.

“Do I have to let go?” Tommy muttered into his shoulder.

Wilbur tilted his head so his chin didn’t dig into Tommy’s neck. “You let go when you want to.”

Tommy stayed in that position, snuggly tucked into a heated chest and pacing heartbeat, until his arms grew tired of clinging around Wilbur’s back. But even when he let go, the two stayed side by side, shoulders slightly brushed together, on the sofa. It was silent, but a peaceful quiet. Filled with equal breaths and shared warmth.

Neither said a word because nothing was needed to say. The hug voiced it all.

Thankfully, Tommy didn’t need to come to school for the rest of the week until after the Christmas term. Miss Kristin, his favourite school counsellor, wrote him off due to mental health reasons. She said he needed a break and since he had already finished his winter exams in other classes weeks prior, there was no reason for him to come in. Well, besides for Ms Rodcliffe’s classes but she was the reason he cried himself to sleep after he got home on Monday so fuck that.

Kristin had also made it so Tommy was an exception. He didn’t have to finish his first draft and only needed to give in a final draft art piece when school started again in January. He very much understood why his dad had a crush on her—Miss Kristin was iconic, a girlboss even.

Despite that, Tommy still turned up to school after lunch on Friday. He couldn’t miss Wilbur’s last lesson before Christmas.

He stood outside of the classroom with Tubbo and Ranboo next to him. It had been five minutes into the lesson and yet Wilbur wasn’t here.

“In ten more minutes, if Mr Soot doesn’t show up, we can go home—”

“Jared shut the hell up,” Ranboo snapped. “You always do this.”

Tommy chuckled and shook his head. Ranboo had been cussing out Jared since year seven—his friend never knew how to let go of grudges. Ranboo once mentioned that he wanted to go to Disney Land for his birthday and Jared wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how his family went every year.

“Just let the man proudly show his IQ score, Ranboo, it’s all he has,” Tubbo added on.

“All he has is a below-average score, Tubs,” Tommy said, confused.

“That’s the point,” both Tubbo and Ranboo said.

Tommy laughed again and an out-of-breath Wilbur Soot appeared from around the corner of the corridor.

“Children! Get in the classroom, quickly,” he shouted as everyone filed into the room. “Now, thanks to someone’s suggestion,” Wilbur paused to give Tommy a pointed look, “I have something special planned. Spend the first hour drawing something on the canvas in front of your seat. No colour, just black and white. And I’ll tell you after what’s next.”

Tommy didn’t know what to draw. He was hesitant to draw anything, to be honest, after the shit-fest with Ms Rodcliffe. But in Wilbur’s class, it would be fine. It was safe here. 

“Ranboo, what are you drawing?” Tubbo asked.

The sketch looked ugly and deformed.

“Michael.”

Oh.

Tommy sighed. “For fuck’s sake Ranboo, don't draw your zombie piglin son you have in my roleplay."

“Our zombie piglin son,” Tubbo interjected and Tommy wanted to jump out the window again.

“And you’re not married either,” Tommy argued yet neither of them listened.

He ignored them both and focused on his own drawing. He'd had enough of the L’manberg world, for now at least. He remembered another world he had in his head, one of a cold kingdom, blue uniforms and invasions. The Antarctic Empire. A blonde man with black wings and a piglin hybrid with a cape that matched the red in his eyes. Two princes, one with brown hair and the other matching his father’s golden locks. A family. Even though the piglin hybrid preferred the term ‘associates’, he was a softy at heart.

When he finished his drawing of a portrait with the four of them posed as unprofessionally as possible, Wilbur ordered for everyone to follow him. He led the class outside to the field, where white sheets laid on the grass and covered buckets were placed by each sheet.

“Put your canvases on a sheet and look inside the buckets,” Wilbur said.

Tommy ran and placed his canvas on a random sheet. He pulled the cover off the bucket and water balloons were inside. He picked one up, confused.

“It’s full of paint, dumbass,” Wilbur said quietly to him before he walked towards other students.

He gaped at him as he moved away. Wilbur actually did it, he would let them pelt paint at canvases. The water balloon side was a nice touch. A giddiness infested his chest, a comfortable tightness. His last lesson before Christmas would actually be fun, enjoyable. Well, Wilbur’s lessons were always fun but this was even better.

As much as he was tempted to just throw the paint balloons at Ranboo instead, Tommy threw the pink balloon onto the piglin person in his drawing. Technoblade, he decided.

It looked like Jackson Pollock’s artwork but even nicer. There was no precision to each throw, to each dribble and splat of paint that twisted its way on the canvas, yet it landed perfectly. Technoblade’s cape had equal splatters of red and gold, with his skin pink. The wings of Philza were unevenly black. Yellow splinters of paint filled Wilbur’s jumper and crystal blue landed in his own self’s eyes—yes, the princes were Wilbur and himself, you can’t take this away from him.

It was messy, uncoordinated and irrational. But that was the beauty of it.

“Are you enjoying yourself there?” Wilbur asked as the two peered down at the clustered canvas.

If he closed his eyes and squeezed the weight of the paint balloon in his hand, Tommy could almost imagine his final piece with splattered paint over it. The theatre masks would peak under the layers of irregular paint splashes, the music discs covered in the chaos of it all.

He twisted to face Wilbur. “Have a go at it,” he said, pushing the balloon into Wilbur’s hands. “Finish it off for me.”

Wilbur readjusted his grip on the paint balloon. “What if I do it wrong?” his voice sounded nervous.

Tommy beamed at him. “That’s the fun of it. It’ll land somewhere and it’s up to you to decide whether it works or not.”

Still nervous, Wilbur tossed the golden paint balloon onto the canvas. It exploded on top of Technoblade’s head.

“Well, what is it?” Tommy asked. “What do you see?”

Wilbur bit his lip and narrowed his eyes at the gold. “A crown. The pig has a crown.”

“I’m telling Techno you called him a pig,” Tommy said, smiling at the annoyance that flashed across Wilbur’s face.

“You’re the one that drew him that way.”

“Touché,” he muttered and Wilbur laughed loudly.

Beside him, Tubbo had bullied the duck he had sketched, named Benson, with white and blue paint, and Ranboo somehow made Michael look even uglier. It was the perfect way to finish off school. All thanks to the theatre TA who drank White Monster out of a metal flask and wore sweaters he bought off Instagram ads.

Ⅳ

Now, Wilbur Soot didn’t expect to get this emotionally attached to a gremlin child because he took up the principal’s offer to substitute for art lessons. If anything, he thought it would be horrible. He hated art, he hated children (especially if they were younger than year eleven) and he hated staying overtime.

But somehow, a student with golden hair and an even brighter soul, made the pain of stepping into that art block worth it.

And again, Wilbur preferred having his office to himself. Sometimes he needed silence and the therapeutic tapping of his keyboard to write down the scripts and song lyrics the school forced out of him. Yet, that fucking child, who never shut up about music discs or how much of a bitch Ms Rodcliffe was, wormed his way into Wilbur’s heart. Now, his office was rarely quiet. There was always a year ten in there; whether it was Tommy wanting to talk to him, Ranboo hiding from his PE lessons or Tubbo begging to use his computer to change his English grades. He welcomed them all but always had a soft spot for Tommy.

There was just something about him. The passion he had for art of all things and storytelling in the forms of unchronological paintings.

All of that got him to the situation he currently was in. Instead of spending his Christmas morning nursing a cup of hot chocolate in his own home, he had Techno in the front seat as he drove to a house he had never been to before.

He didn’t know Tommy’s father but Techno had sorted it out with the man so the two could come over for Christmas dinner. It was something Tommy wanted, according to Techno. Either that or Techno just wanted free food.

Eventually, they reached their destination. The house the directions stopped at looked nice. Maybe a bit too Tory for a lower-middle-class neighbourhood but Wilbur blamed the weird curtains on the bottom floor and flower baskets hanging from the front door. What overdid it though was the massive inflatable Santa next to the door. He bet it was Tommy’s idea to buy that.

“Now, Wilbur, before we go in I have to warn you of something,” Techno said as the two exited the car.

Wilbur frowned. “What? Please don’t tell me we’re going into a house uninvited.”

“No. Do you think I have the social skills and confidence to pull that off?” Techno rolled his eyes and continued. “It’s about Tommy’s father.”

Just as Wilbur went to knock on the door, he paused. “Is he a dickhead or something?”

“Of course not,” Techno refuted. “But just… don’t be too surprised by who answers the door.”

Ignoring his vagueness, Wilbur knocked on the door. With every second that passed, the nerves of it all caught up to him. He was just a TA. Why the fuck would Tommy want him—of all people—to be there on Christmas day? He just did the bare minimum. Maybe he did treat Tommy differently because of a huge amount of bias and favouritism but that didn’t matter.

The door opened and Wilbur’s face paled. Instead of Tommy standing in front of them, it was him.

It was the person who changed everything for Wilbur. The teacher who tried his best to supply him with everything his homelife failed to give. With talks after class, speeches of advice, heartful smiles and hugs, Mr Craft made Wilbur the man he was today. His old English teacher in sixth form. Phil. 

As Wilbur gaped at him, Techno tugged him inside the house.

“It’s you,” he spluttered out. He could drop dead on the spot and yet this would be more of a shock to him. “You’re Tommy’s dad?”

“I didn’t know you were back in town,” Phil admitted, staring at Wilbur with the same wistful expression. One lost in time but anchored in this present moment.

Wilbur remembered at his sixth form graduation that Phil once told him that he wanted kids one day just because of him and Techno. That before becoming a teacher, he never wanted to raise a child of his own. Yet, the mistreatment Wilbur had as soon as school had ended in the day changed it all for him. But Wilbur didn’t think he’d actually go through with it.

“Techno convinced me to come back,” he answered, voice wavering. “Do I need to cry over a shitty poem again to get a hug out of you?”

Phil snorted out a laugh and opened out his arms. Wilbur didn’t hesitate to throw himself forward. He felt like a teenager again, a boy entering adolescence with nothing to his name and even less at home. Despite being taller than Phil now, it didn’t change anything. He still tilted his head into Phil’s shoulder, still teared up at how gently Phil wrapped his arms around his upper back. It was the hug from a father that Wilbur never had—not until Phil entered that English class all those years ago and immediately slandered pre-1900 poetry.

“I missed you,” he whispered, voice cracking as he craved for this to remain forever. “Every single time I thought of this shit-hole town, I thought of you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t stay,” Phil whispered back. “You needed to get out for a while.”

He could’ve cried on the spot because that was what he always yearned to hear. The professors at Brighton university couldn’t replace the kindness of Mr Craft, the serenity he offered with a simple cackle. No other teacher laughed as hard at his shitty jokes, no other older figure in his life met the standards that Phil set.

“Uh, not to interrupt, but I’m interrupting,” a voice said, followed by louder footsteps coming down the staircase. Wilbur separated from Phil’s arms, immediately mourning the warmth and nostalgia. Tommy scowled at the two of them and stood next to Techno, who awkwardly leaned against the dining table. “Dad, what’s going on?”

Phil cleared his throat and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “Uh, Toms, I invited Techno and Wilbur over for dinner.”

“That’s pretty self-explanatory but why the…” Tommy gestured to Wilbur, whose eyes were glassy with unshed tears.

“You know how I told you about that English teacher, Tommy?” Wilbur said and he nodded. “Well, this is him.”

Tommy’s frown deepened. His eyes flickered between him and Phil. “Oh.”

“Merry Christmas,” Techno said, still watching from the sidelines as awkwardly as possible.

“Wait does that mean they come round even more without it being ‘inappropriate’?” Tommy gasped at the revelation. “If they’re here for you Phil, that is.”

Wilbur broke out with a smile. “We’ll make it a weekly thing.”

“We’ll?” Techno repeated. Wilbur glared at him until Techno huffed. “Fine.”

Tommy grinned at them and the sheer radiance of it caused aches in the corners of Wilbur’s mouth. The elation exhibited by him was intoxicating.

“Why don’t you show Wilbur what you were working on yesterday, Tommy, whilst Tech helps me in the kitchen?” Phil suggested, prompting Tommy to rush forward.

Tommy grabbed Wilbur’s wrist and pulled him through the corridor. They passed many framed paintings and he could recognise Tommy’s style from anywhere. Leave it to Phil to parade his son’s talent over every surface in his home. Tommy opened up a room that had an easel inside. This was his painting room, it seemed.

Wilbur waited by the door as Tommy grabbed a canvas that hid behind a bedsheet.

“What is it?” he asked, eyebrows furrowed at the canvas Tommy inched closer to him.

“Take off the sheet, big man.”

With a steady hand, he took off the cover. Underneath was a painting, as expected. But the design delicately etched into the canvas brought tears back to his eyes.

It was Tommy’s final piece. Yet, instead of the white space that complemented the theatre masks and music discs, an array of splattered paint coated the drawings. There were purposeful scrapes from a carving knife where white space was needed. Inside the comedy mask, brown eyes stared back at him.

“Why are the eyes brown?” Wilbur asked quietly, still taken aback by the painting.

“Look in the mirror, idiot,” Tommy said, looking up at him with such fondness.

And those five words, the tears streamed down Wilbur’s face once more. He engulfed Tommy in a hug, enclosed his arms around his shoulders and cried into his Christmas jumper. This fucking kid made him soft. The barriers he created after leaving this town years ago, the walls he built as others tried to get close and replace the memories of Phil and Techno, all crumbled down. All because of Tommy.

“I mean it, I really mean it. I’m glad I’m a teacher you can go to, that you trust and influence to create… this,” he said, voice strained. It filled him with so much happiness that he could be to Tommy what Mr Craft was to him.

“I know, Will. Really, I know,” Tommy replied, his response muffled by Wilbur’s chest.

“I’m proud of you,” he muttered lowly.

Feminine laughter came from the living room and the two reluctantly loosened their firm grip on each other.

“Who’s that?” Tommy asked and Wilbur shrugged. He didn’t know.

He led Tommy back to the living room and as soon as they saw who was there, they both understood.

A way too smug Techno welcoming inside Kristin, followed by a flustered Phil, greeted them. This was part of Techno’s plan too, Wilbur assumed.

“At least the Christmas dinner will be edible now. Phil can’t cook for shit,” Tommy commented as he rushed forward to say hi to Kristin.

Wilbur chuckled and shared a look with Techno. Whilst Kristin helped save the food Phil had put into the oven hours prior, Wilbur set the table.

Eventually, the five of them sat at the dinner table with Christmas music from a YouTube playlist playing in the background. As Wilbur dug into the potatoes Kristin somehow revived, Techno decided now was the best time to bring up Tommy’s next detention.

“I didn’t even do anything bad,” Tommy grumbled as he placed another Yorkshire pudding onto his plate.

“You threw paint at a teacher,” Techno began.

“And then called her a prick,” Wilbur finished.

“But I’m a dirty crime boy, Will, you said it yourself.”

“How do you deal with him?” Techno asked Phil, ignoring the glare Tommy threw his way.

Kristin whacked Techno’s arm. “Don’t be mean. It’s Christmas.”

“So I can bully him after today?”

“Yes.”

“What the fuck.”

The afternoon descended into the evening with laughter, shitty board games and even shitter Prosecco wine that Kristin swore wasn’t as bad as Wilbur was making it out to be. As Wilbur sat on the sofa with Tommy cackling at how badly his dad and Kristin danced to the music, he couldn’t believe he thought this day would’ve been awkward.

Before he entered his car this morning, he thought he’d be the odd one there. That he wouldn’t be welcome. But rather than that, it felt like home. Something he had never properly experienced, only in wisps in those talks with Phil back in sixth forms and lunches with Techno during their free periods. With Tommy here too, it was complete. He never wanted this night to end.

“You alright, Wilbur?” a familiar voice beside him asked. He blinked and faced Tommy, who was no longer watching Phil trip over Kristin’s feet.

“The school found a new art teacher,” he blurted out. It had been at the tip of his tongue this entire day.

Tommy’s face soured. “Oh.”

“She’ll start after Christmas,” he added.

Tommy squirmed in his seat and tried to fight against the trembling in his bottom lip.

Wilbur put his hands on each of Tommy’s shoulders. “Don’t worry though,” he mumbled, smiling brightly. “I made sure you got a good teacher. Miss Nihachu is a friend of mine.”

Tommy perked up. “Really?”

“Yep,” he confirmed. “You’ll like her, trust me.”

“Okay,” Tommy said, the downcast motion in his face upturned. “I trust you.”

Just hearing how he spoke those words so easily tugged at Wilbur’s heart.

“My office is still open for you, Tubbo and Ranboo,” he stated. “Even if I’m not your substitute anymore, it will always be open for you.”

Tommy beamed at him. “Good, you didn’t have a choice anyway.”

As the night faded into Tommy and him singing classic Christmas songs, Techno throwing popcorn at them when they failed to hit the high notes, and Phil holding Kristin’s hand secretly in between sofa pillows, this day quickly became Wilbur’s favourite.

And when those bright, blue eyes gazed up at him, he could feel his heart promising that he’d be there for every artistic accomplishment Tommy would have. At his GCSE results day, college viewing days, and eventual first selling of his paintings, Wilbur promised that he’d be there for it all.

Anything for a brother.