SBI Fanfics of the Week (week 71)
my bed becomes a casket by plantform
With a gentle hand, Wilbur cradles his face, tipping his head up to meet his gaze. “We can go home right now, darling, just say the word.”
Home; the morgue where Tommy lives; his ice-cold freezer of a bed, where he lies and waits in the dark, where time doesn’t exist and reality is fabrication.
“It’d be useless,” he finally answers. “I’d rather be around you guys, than in bed waiting for the sun to come up so I can pretend I’m alive.”
“You are alive,” Wilbur says, broken and weak, and Tommy’s so very sorry he’s made him sound like that.
He smiles, and he knows it’s as broken and weak as Wilbur is. “For now I’m just existing. I’ll be alive again soon.”
“I don’t like when you say things like that.”
“I don’t like when I feel like that- like this.”
“And I can’t help?” Wilbur asks, and Tommy has no answer.
Or: Tommy and his struggle with insomnia.
I'm saving all my love for you by plantform
“Oh, Wil,” Tommy’s tone drops from loud and obnoxious to soft and genuine. “I listened to that album you sent me earlier- it’s really good, man, I love your music taste.”
Wilbur doesn’t look at chat—something about Tommy, in the middle of a bit, stopping to compliment him on something as personal as his favorite music takes his breath away. He’s overly conscious of how his words come out; wants them to be as nice and easy as Tommy’s, “I’m really glad. I can send you more, if you want me to.”
“Please!” Tommy, Wilbur can so easily picture, is smiling that soft smile that transforms his whole face.
Wilbur has to take several deep breaths; something about Tommy asking please for music that Wilbur likes squeezes at his heart. “After the stream, then.”
“Cool!” And then, Tommy’s back to his on-camera mask, “Well, now that I’ve gotten you on my side, can I please steal from Techno?”
Or: the easy way Tommy compliments Wilbur.
If I Lie (Maybe I'll Believe It) by weepingvirtue
At sixteen years old, Tommy knew so many things.
He knew that people were predictable and selfish. He knew not to trust, not to take, and not to get comfortable for too long. He knew that the concept of family was as fake as the highlights in his foster mother's hair.
Tommy had known for years that life was painful and had no extra love for some ratty foster kid like him. He knew that it was him and his copy of The Odyssey against the whole world. He knew that he only had to survive long enough to make it to his eighteenth birthday before he could escape.
But when Tommy ends up fostered in the Watson household completely by chance, he finds that maybe he never knew anything in the first place.
or, the one in which Tommy Innit has never really experienced love, family, or belonging, and is suddenly surrounded by it all at once.
When it's strange to take a walk downstairs by justsummr
Phil couldn’t turn away, not when the chances of both of the boys being sent to a bad home was so high. He couldn’t look at this eleven year old boy, the one with the fiery blue eyes, and take him from his brother. How could he look at Wilbur who was sixteen and he did best in history and music and turn him down? He couldn’t send either of them away, let alone separate them.
They weren’t just two kids in the system anymore. They weren’t just names in the pile of thousands. Phil had seen them. He’d seen their faces, the homes they'd been too, the people they were. He’d seen them and he knew so much about them. It wasn't just an idea anymore, these boys were real.
or: phil adopts two brothers, wilbur and tommy. and maybe he bit off more than he could chew
title from Helena Beat by Foster the People
No, YOU'RE Getting Mugged by SilverWing15
Wilbur tries some Roadside Banditry in the post-apocalypse, Techno and Phil pull an Uno Reverse
carry you out by Drhair76
"I stay here. I don't fight. I learn. I'm- I'm not a good listener, so I need to be taught."
"By who?" He asks, even though he knows. "Who is teaching you, kid?"
Tommy inhales. Exhales. "My owner." Techno feels the Earth drop from under him.
or, Techno finds out about exile. He is not pleased.
The crowd that had gathered to see two Brutes fight is already dissipating, going back to trading now that their entertainment is gone. One of them snorts, “you accepted the Forfeit. That Runt is yours now.”
“What?!” the Brute demands.
“You should not have caught it if you did not want it,” another piglin says, a grizzled Elder, one ear torn in half, leaving a twisted, scarred stump. There is still an earring pierced through what remains of it shining with gold and gems.
“She threw a baby,” the Brute holding the Runt says. “I was just supposed to what--let it hit the ground?”
The one-eared Elder shrugs.