#WOOHOOoo!!!!! eight months later ^_^

[brick-a-doodle-do]

i know myself so well DVFEWJRS

HERE IT IS!! LAST CHAPTER IN MAIN SERIES! i started this doc on halloween and finished it around fourth of july! good god!

also i forgot to add bht thank you to xyz for help with this chapter !! part of the last scene was completely their idea :D

the egg scene will forever haunt me. i was stuck on that for at least three months.

not quite ready (iii; final)

(i, ii)

words: 4515 (😱😱😱)

cw: vore mention, dehumanization, mentions of depression, descriptions of questioning reality ? idk the word for that :I

—–—

The following morning, Wilbur sits with himself in silence. The apartment was quiet, broken only by the quiet whooshes of cars rushing in the busy streets down below and the occasional hum from the air conditioner. 

By the time the bedroom door that had sat undisturbed for hours creaked open with practiced silence, he didn't know how much time had passed. 

That feeling was familiar. 

He hates to circle back to the very thing he’s so luckily escaped from, but every little thing he did would remind him of it. Wilbur doesn’t know Tommy very well yet, and he can’t say he’s drawn to doing so, but it’s nice to be able to gaze at the chocolate bag without looking at the walls he only saw as one great big endless void.

He can hear Tommy’s weight shift onto the floorboards softly as he makes his way through the apartment. Wilbur tossed to his side, eyes staring at the cloth of the couch. Familiarity washes over him and drowns him. He had spent too long staring at a dark, blank slate. Why does his freedom entail the very same thing?

Wilbur frowns, shifting back up to the ceiling, where Tommy just barely looms over the edge of the couch. A shiver runs through his body at the startle, but ultimately it’s nice to see him, because it was grounding to see another living and breathing something. 

“Oh, fuck, sorry—” Tommy murmurs, his hands resting on the back of the couch and pushing the cushion down just slightly to see the tiny better. Wilbur shrugs, looking deeply into the eyes that blink without a rhythm. Tommy is alive. 

Wilbur is too. 

Tommy’s chest rises and falls and his hair shifts as his head moves just barely so their eye-contact could disperse. Wilbur’s chest rises and falls too, and he can hear his heartbeat that thumps softly against his ears as they sit in utter silence.

“Well, um, I’m gonna go, yeah? You alright here?”

He considered it, and he should’ve said he was. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he’d apparently lost control of his response and blurted out an extremely abrupt: “No, please stay with me. I–I can’t sleep and I really can’t have it be quiet any longer.” 

“Oh,” Tommy murmurs, “okay. Yeah, I can do that for sure. Do you want me to sit down?” he asks, already making his way over to the tiny. 

The borrower nods, trying not to listen to the voice in his head. Tommy obliges and walks around the edge of the couch, a certain slowness to his movements, and sits down just inches away from the pillow he was on. 

Wilbur sits up, sinking slightly in the middle of the feathers, but his next-to-nothing weight, for the most part, keeps him still. Tommy keeps his hands in his lap, nails picking softly at his skin. It’s quiet for a moment, but Tommy speaks up with the inevitable question, “Did you sleep last night?”

Wilbur shakes his head, “No, I couldn’t. Did you?”

“A little bit,” Tommy replies, and Wilbur notices how the hem of the human’s shirt has been caught between his fingers. “Hey, um, Wilbur?” Tommy asks. Wilbur looks up. “Are you feeling alright after that whole, uh…thing?”

Wilbur shrugs, the phantom feeling of being in the bag already fading from his memory, but in the same way never uprooting. He swallows. “I can't say I feel the best, but I'm getting better. Thank you for what you've done, I don't know where I'd be right now.”

“Oh, nah man, you didn't deserve to be there in the first place! Just helpin’ a guy out, y’know?” Tommy flashes him a fond smile, and the human’s humor wafts into his face, the sweet scent of underlying pity burning his throat. He laughs dryly, unsure of where to lead the conversation so that the suffering sound of nothing can’t bother him any longer, because so many of his days had been spent with little but the occasional muffled chime from the store’s door or the hushed chatter from city-goers as they pass in and out. 

Tommy looks like he wants to say something, his lips parting with every passing second Wilbur sits with the reminisce of the past. He considers pointing the fact out, but instead he lets them sit in the shared silence before the teenager’s inevitable saving grace would show. 

Half a minute has passed and they haven't broken eye-contact. 

The gesture might’ve scared past-Wilbur, though post-incident-Wilbur has never felt more thrilled at the contact of another being. And when his eyes drift down to the fingers that still fidget with the cloth anxiously, he can't help but imagine how grounding it would feel for fingers to close over him. 

He shudders at the thought, however, because it’s an entirely other scenario to be trapped by a human. It’s a conflicting battle that leaves him absentmindedly shifting closer.

Tommy is quiet.

Wilbur is quiet.

A car honks down on the streets below, startling Wilbur.

Tommy, awkwardly, clears his throat. “I’m going back to London in a few weeks, can’t be long now, uhm, do you want to come with me? I don’t want to force you, but you don’t seem like the typa’ fella to just pick life back up, respectfully ‘n all.” Wilbur considers it, and the silence draws taut. 

“That’s a bit last-minute, don’t you agree?” he asks.

“Right, like I said you’re not, like, fuckin’ obligated to or whatever. Just thought it might be nice, givin’ you a heads up ‘n all,” Tommy reassures him. It’s not exactly convincing; Wilbur finds himself wondering how much of Tommy is really okay with him staying here.

Wilbur swallows, running his fingers through the flap of his hair. “I don’t know, and don’t expect an answer. Not anytime soon.” 

“Right, yeah, don’t decide right now,” Tommy chirps, leaning against the couch and sighing. “Are you hungry? I could fuckin’ eat right now,” he adds.

Wilbur stares right at him. 

Tommy sits, oblivious with his leg bouncing as he awaits Wilbur’s response. Eventually, his eyes shifted in realization when the silence had drawn on too long. “Oh, oh fuck—I didn’t mean it like that, I don’t want anything like that—” Tommy rushes, the words coming out a warp. Wilbur shakes his head, the beginning of laughter escaping him, though drying up at the edge of his throat. 

“You’re fine, king, you’re all good. Just a bit jumpy after everything, you get it,” he replies simply.

“I actually don’t really get it,” Tommy argues. There’s another beat of silence, Wilbur staring at Tommy’s hands. “Well, uh, seriously then, do you want food?”

Wilbur nods eagerly. 

Food, real food sounded extravagant; his teeth had rotten away over all the times he’d filled up on chocolate. 

The taste of something savory over the weeks had often been his imagination while he bit into the bud of candy, pretending easily that it was something different, like, a rather pleasant portion of fruit he’d scored while a human was away or something he managed to buy in his short time of freedom. 

Tommy nods, shuffling up off of the couch and leaving him in the lonely living room again, back to sitting with his own thoughts, only this time with a newfound light after the human had flicked it on.

Suddenly, Tommy comes back into view as he gently leans over the back of the couch. So close. Like how he had been when he’d peered into the candy bag— 

“Wilbur,” Tommy urges. When Wilbur seems to have blinked out of his memory, the human continues. “What do you want? You allergic to anything?”

He blinks. Alurgic? 

“Uh….I don’t think I know what that means,” Wilbur admits.

“Oh, uh, I’ll take that as a no. I don’t have it in me to explain,” Tommy says, smiling at him like Wilbur is supposed to know what that means. 

When Tommy takes his expression that grows even more confused by the following silence as a response, he tries to shake it off with a swift: “Can I take you over to the kitchen, then? Or do you think you still could fall asleep?”

“I can’t fall asleep,” Wilbur responds quickly.

Tommy nods. “I’m gonna put my hand down on the pillow,” the human announces. He does—though irritatingly slow. He was unsure about humans, and it seemed both of them recognized that, but Wilbur wasn’t glass. 

When Tommy had stopped moving and instead kept his eyes glued to the borrower, he moved with his shoulders slicked back to hide the anxiety of being watched so intensely. 

Tommy’s skin was rough under his own as he got situated on his palm. 

Memories of being held by other (more resentful) humans fought their way through his archives, but he felt oddly soothed for how loud his head was.

Almost immediately after he had settled in the center of Tommy’s hand, gravity shifted and he watched as the world grew further from him. He wasn’t startled (Prime knows he’s been through worse) as his world shifted with each of Tommy’s movements, in fact he was still as at ease as he could be.

The rest of the apartment wasn’t anything special.

 Ahead of them was a kitchen, to the right was the front door, and to the left there were two other closed doors. He couldn’t take the house for anything personalized, so he probably hadn’t been here for longer than a few months. Still, it wasn’t the cleanest thing ever, but he couldn’t expect anything different from a kid Tommy’s age. 

(He’s seen it first-hand from the walls)

(*)

Tommy’s muscle memory kept him from wandering into the kitchen counter as his eyes kept a strong stare onto Wilbur. 

It wasn't anything particularly different than the other times he had talked or even seen a tiny, but even despite how little they've known each other it still felt more personal. Wilbur had been through a lot and Tommy was getting to help him. 

And he’s already cracked the ice, he noted as Wilbur barely reacts when he gently tilts him off of his hand and onto the kitchen island. 

He turns his back to him to search the fridge. 

There was barely anything there, just a cool-lighted wasteland with a few leftovers that he can't remember packaging in the first place.

An egg carton was nestled between two takeout boxes (had he tried organizing?) and it caught his gaze the second look around the fridge. 

“Uhh, we have eggs,” Tommy suggests. 

There's silence for a moment, then, barely distinguished from behind him, “That sounds fine.”

Wilbur sounded distracted, if somehow that was possible.

“Great, because I don’t actually think I can make anything except that,” Tommy deadpans, chuckling to himself at his own joke. He watches Wilbur crack a smile and a quiet laugh on his way to the stove with the egg carton in hand.

He flicks on the dial against the back of the stove, turning it to a medium heat before opening a cabinet to pull out a bowl. 

Tommy follows the routine of whisking the eggs then pouring them in and waiting. For a minute, Tommy’s attention lingers on what’s stood behind him, but he doesn’t voice his curiosity, nor his concern or sociable desires.

He just stands over the stove, watching the eggs, prodding at them with a spatula as they form into something edible. When they’re decidedly done, he sprinkles salt over them and calls it quits. He figures Wilbur won’t be particular about his culinary abilities when his past appetite consisted of chocolate.

The idea makes his head hurt, thinking about how someone so human, even despite their sharp, obvious difference, could be locked away like how Wilbur had been.

Tommy could only imagine how dark it could’ve been—completely isolated from any kind of outside contact and intended to be thrown away, eaten like a piece of candy.

Must have been difficult.

“Pardon?” a small voice from behind him asks, and Tommy tenses. Had he said that out loud? 

Tommy blinks, and suddenly his hand is moving on its own and folding the eggs into themselves to finish the dish.

Prime, he was tired as shit.

He moves to turn the stove off and sets the pan aside on another burner, then opens a cabinet and pulls a plate off of the lower shelf, the ceramic noises like nails on a chalkboard to him. The plate clinks as it’s set down, then Tommy retrieves the pan of eggs and stares at them, long and hard. Not his best work.

Discouragement aside, he pulls a fork out of a drawer and spoons on the helping of eggs onto the plate. Good enough for government work, huh? Wilbur won’t care, anyway.

He takes a fork from a nearby drawer, then spins around, (blinking away the throb in his eyes when the lights hit his face), and sets the plate down on the kitchen island, just a few respectable inches from Wilbur, who stood with his hand on his arm, standing noticeably awkward.

(*)

Food. Actual, real food. Albeit made in no time at all and served by a teenager in a New York apartment, but still something that was an honest, feasible replacement from his past diet.

He stares at it. Tommy’s attention turns away from him, and he still stares at the plate of eggs. 

As Tommy was still distracted pulling up a chair from the other side of the counter, Wilbur steps forward cautiously and crouches down, peeling a small portion off of the eggs and stuffing it in his mouth. He swears to Prime that if Tommy were not nearly staring directly at him, Wilbur very well might have considered melting.

The eggs were not seasoned and they were not slow-cooked, but they were heaven. Were he a functioning member of society, (And assuming he was still very much mentally troubled after certain events), and Tommy was his waiter, he would give it a five out of five. 

Carefully, Wilbur takes another piece off of the egg and gnaws at it, savoring the unadorned flavor with every aspect of his senses. The feeling of rubber, (Almost), which clashes with his usual expectation of soft-then-syrupy, the bland flavor that was absolutely new to him, and the bright yellow color that contrasted with the black that he always just imagined as color. His void always had been a playground for imagination.

“Thank you,” Wilbur says through a mouthful, to which Tommy smiles weakly and sits down—after much delay, as if Tommy could’ve felt as awkward as Wilbur did right now.

Tommy grabs a fork and grabs a tentative bite, then through a mouthful, mumbles: “No problem, mate.” Through the corner of his eye, Wilbur watches Tommy and tries not to snicker at the forced face the blond makes to push through his disapproval of the meal.

“I’m gonna be honest with you, this shit takes like heaven,” he says, smally but still loud enough for Tommy to hear. 

“I think I’ll throw up if I have one more bite of this, It’s completely yours, then,” Tommy says, pushing the plate a little closer to Wilbur for emphasis. Wilbur shifts back on instinct, looking up anxiously at Tommy before calming down. Sorry,” Tommy adds quickly. Wilbur waves him off and takes a smaller piece of egg to chew on absentmindedly.

“The fucking chocolate has been making my teeth rot,” Wilbur says, huffing a bit like it’s a joke. Like one of those things to look back on and laugh at.

Tommy doesn’t seem amused, though. “That sounds awful, man,” he adds. 

“It’s not anymore, ‘cause now someone’s gone and saved me,” Wilbur reassures, gesturing mildly to Tommy.

“You’re welcome!” Tommy says, smiling like a child who’s helped with a chore unprompted. His mood changes are unmatched, Wilbur notes duly.

After that, time passed slowly, and for once, there wasn’t dread that followed. Tommy had cleaned breakfast up, and Wilbur kept the silence away while talking about this and that, until Tommy announced he needed to get groceries for his last couple of weeks in New York. Tommy’s plan was to have Wilbur stay back, but he declined, and instead asked to tag along.

For that reason, he rested carefully on Tommy’s shoulder, back resting against Tommy’s neck, completely vulnerable.The thought of that concerned him; to think about how any one of these people could work for that god-awful facility he was sent to, or any one of them could be holding a borrower captive, or how any of these people could absolutely hate his kind, and here he was, out in the open for any of those people to see. It was worrisome, and that had him tightening the grip of the hem of his sweater. 

Tommy was pleasingly quiet, though, and it was just the two of them listening to music. (Or as much music as he could hear from sitting under the human’s earbud.) 

He would’ve thought it to be harder to stay on someone’s shoulder, but even from the start he was persistent on that spot, only because it would’ve been incredibly difficult for Tommy to reach him without Wilbur noticing first—although he had gotten a little bit on edge when Tommy reached up to fix his hair or adjust his earbud. Sure, the human made him food and had gotten him out of that wretched bag, and had seemed pretty genuine about not eating him, he still wasn’t ready to be hand-held or in his pocket where he couldn't see everything.

Also, it was warmer here. Tommy and his need to linger around chilled foods.

Wilbur looks around, through Tommy’s curls, staring at the variety of foods. They were too far for him to recognize, (Not that he would know any of them by heart, considering he grew up on things he could score on the counter), but it was still so refreshing to see something real.

Suddenly, as his eyes graze over something on a high shelf, someone walks past and locks eyes with him. Wilbur tenses. The lady tenses, stopping abruptly. Unfortunately for him, Tommy also stops to look at something.

The lady gives a curious, almost disgusted look, and Wilbur, not knowing what to do, proceeds to flip her off.

It was not until that motion Wilbur realized he was just caught doing something to absolutely draw attention to himself until he was much too late.

“You!” the lady says, rather loudly—definitely enough for Tommy to turn his attention to her. “Control that thing,” she finishes, a certain type of offensive dripping from her tongue that makes even Tommy tense. Wilbur flinches at her voice, somehow moving closer to Tommy despite being right up against his neck. He crosses his arms, some kind of half-frustrated-half-ready-to-cry feeling washing over him which leaves him stone-faced and unmoving.

Thing. A single word and suddenly he’s back at the factory, being manhandled and thrown into a container with other borrowers, some panicked, some angry, and some oddly accepting. Wilbur was angry, pissed. He had been granted freedom from being cooped up in the walls with nothing to do except get food whenever he ran out. And he finally got a chance to see the world, to walk on pavement made for people his size and be social. And he had, for a week, and then he had made a lucky call when trusting someone and gotten thrown into a bag not a day later, sealed in darkness.

When Tommy had found him, however-long later, he couldn’t say he saw someone with the intent to capture him again. He saw a savior, and maybe that’s why he was so relaxed. Reality felt there again. He felt like he existed, and he didn’t pinch himself every five minutes to check he was really there. His limbs weren’t numb, and he could hum to himself without it feeling like the only thing to do.

Back at the supermarket, blinking his way out of memories, he realizes Tommy hasn’t said anything back, he just scoffs and mutter’s a whispered ‘fucking bitch’, and walks off, right past the woman who murmurs something incoherent to Wilbur. (He still knows it was about him.)

At the very least, Wilbur has walked away from that situation now knowing words can’t hurt anymore in comparison to his situation just barely a few days ago.

“People are awful,” Tommy whispers under his breath.

Wilbur just pats Tommy’s shoulder.

“Aren’t you fucking revenge-seeking or some shit?”

“No. I’m not a child,” Wilbur explains, and Tommy hides his laughter at a low snicker.

“You’re a bitch,” Tommy whispers, turning away immediately at the look he got from a stranger in the aisle. Wilbur laughs whole-heartedly, the sound escaping despite how hard he tried not.

(*)

His head hurts, with thoughts going a mile a fucking minute. The scent of chocolate undoubtedly drifting from Wilbur on his shoulder was making a repetitive thought resurface no matter how much he wanted to shut it up. 

Wilbur smelled appetizing. He knew he would taste even better. 

But he knows he can’t act on his urges because even if swallowing a borrower was safe, he couldn’t. Not for Wilbur, because he just got off a near-death experience, and he can’t fuck up freedom even more for Wilbur by giving him essentially the exact same experience, no matter how reassuring he thought he could be. 

So, instead, he chose comedy over a very real and threatening problem.

(*)

“You reek of chocolate,” Tommy murmurs, opening the door to the apartment and letting it shut loudly behind him. Wilbur flinches, but calms down just as quickly.

“I don’t remember seeing a mini-flat in the, uh, bag,” Wilbur retaliates.

Tommy, playfully, scoffs. “Well, like I think I could fill up a sink or something and you could get the grime off of you,” the blond offers.

Wilbur pauses for a moment. “I guess ..?” he says, slow and uncertain.The idea was more than pleasing, but at the same time, it felt like an awful offer to take up. He would be vulnerable in water, arguably something that he rarely had experience with outside of an unfortunately occasional shower whenever he could score it.

At his approval, Tommy guided the two of them to a bathroom, and carefully drew his hand up to where Wilbur was, not grabbing at him, but letting Wilbur carefully pad is way off of Tommy’s shoulder and onto his laid-out hand, where Wilbur got himself comfortable—while at the same time leaving time to sprint off if he needed to—and waited for Tommy to set him down onto the bathroom counter. 

Shifting over to be in front of the sink, Tommy then pushes something inside the sink down, then pulls both handles to the sink forward, and leaves the flowing water gushing for a few seconds before shutting it off and stepping aside. 

“That water will either be fucking freezing or room-temperature but I can’t exactly change that, so, uhm, just sit through it, I guess,” Tommy says. Wilbur can’t exactly tell if he was apologizing or not, but he appreciated the warning.

“Don’t have much of a choice,” Wilbur shrugs. 

“That’s the spirit!” Tommy laughs, then grabs something off of a shelf, folding it over the counter but letting a corner of it fall into the sink, which Wilbur considers relieving; the sink seemed too deep for his liking.

But, even with the advantage of the towel, he still wasn’t convinced this was something he was looking forward to. From afar, he can feel Tommy’s stare on him. He turns his head that way, and catches Tommy’s strong gaze. Snapping out of some kind of pseudo-trance, Tommy moves closer to him and sets something in the sink.

“I can’t really portion out soap yet, but here’s a spare bar I haven’t opened yet. Should help; you smell so sweet I swear to fuck if you don’t take a bath I’m going swallow you on accident,” Tommy says, yawning. He fucking yawns, meanwhile Wilbur’s whole world halts. He stares up at Tommy, who he had just an hour ago been raving about his trust with.

He had heard Tommy right, no doubt.

“What?” Wilbur asks through his shock. 

Tommy wrinkles his brows, then unwrinkles them as they raise high and his face goes more shocked than Wilbur’s. 

“Oh—nononononono, Wilbur, fuck. Wil, I’m so tired, I fucking—I didn’t mean to say that,” Tommy backtracks immediately. Wilbur can’t say he buys it. “I didn’t fucking— I wasn’t thinking, fuck, I swear to Prime I don’t want to do that, I’d never—” Tommy makes a choked noise and cuts himself off.

Wilbur swallows, unsure of how to respond. Clearly, he has some kind of high-ground here despite being…well, him.

“I–uh,” Wilbur’s voice runs almost dry. “There’s no reason to lie,” Wilbur says. 

Tommy’s face falls. “I’m not lying, I—I didn’t think about what I was saying, I’m a fucking idiot, I am not a..a thinker or whatever the fuck it’s called,” Tommy tries. Still. Persistent motherfucker.

“You’re thinking about that,though,  aren’t you?”

“Uhh….well,” Tommy pauses. “As a joke..obv—obviously, you actually think I’d…want to hurt you like that?”

“Swallowing me isn’t going to hurt me.”

Tommy seemed a little taken-aback by that. “Mentally. It will mentally.” Wilbur shrugs at that, staring into the pool of water that’s gotten a little foamy the longer the soap bar floats around in it. “I, uh, think I’ll go. Put away groceries and shit.”

Wilbur watches intently Tommy pick his pace up and walk past him, (Where Wilbur’s attention was nowhere but Tommy’s hands, which remained eerily still), then out of the bathroom with a solemn click of the door.

And now, Wilbur has been left alone, after a particularly jarring comment that leaves him wondering just how much longer Tommy will go playing the good guy. He did have to be thinking about swallowing him to have said it, accidentally or not. It was an intentional thought. He wasn’t that stupid.

Trying to drive his attention away from his inevitable fate, he turns his attention to the sink. The water’s temperature has probably dropped already, so with slight hesitation, he undresses and finds a way into the sink, (Which in the end was trying-to-inch-his-way-down-then-falling-in), then rests with the feeling of water against him. It was an alien feeling he hadn’t felt in a long time. He waved his hand around the soapy water and heard it whoosh around him. That was real. The sink bowl that towered above him was real, and as he touched it, it felt cold and slippery against his touch. 

Wilbur looks up, and the light fixture above him burns into his eyes. That was real. 

He pinches himself. That was real, and he was still alive, through the world of darkness for only a lonely period of his life that’s over now.

—–—