finch @titaniumteeth - Tumblr Blog

if you need to be mean

revivebur/utahbur x reader

this i wrote a long time ago and did not really proof read. i am just throwing it out here so it doesn't die alone. i likely will never write more of it.

He had said he was never going to come back to this place, never back to Utah, or back to you (though that had not been explicitly stated). You hadn’t allowed his absence to be the end of everything- even when it was so sudden.

You worked a dead-end job waitressing for a local restaurant out of high school. You and Wilbur had tried community college together, but you failed at every attempt.

It was a long argument the day you dropped out, the day you had to stop digging your hole of debt deeper. In the end, he said it was okay, and he graduated by himself, one year early.

Even now, you still go to the same gas station expecting him to be behind the counter. You keep moving forward even if the movement of time stopped feeling like progress so long ago. It was only occasionally that you allowed yourself to think about him, about Wilbur. You imagined the grand sites of the world, imagined him framed in the middle, his proud smile and an eager look behind his eyes.

It was comforting to imagine him better off, it made the ache of everything the both of you used to be almost bearable. You never took off your friendship bracelet even after all these years, it was a solemn reminder that graced you occasionally when your eyes would glue themselves to the wound-together strings. It had taken hours then to teach him how to make it, the colors now faded and dull. The meaning had shifted so many times, friends to lovers to strangers…

You weren’t doing well, not by any sense of the word, but by grace you were still doing it. Day by Day. Even if it felt constant- time’s tendency to be lost, collapsing into itself. In a breath you were certain you would never be alone and the next you are in a nearly empty one bedroom apartment, alone.

Routine becomes angry customers' words as a culmination of sickness in your gut, and the long drive home to the cheapest place you can afford. You made enough, enough to scrape by, to keep going. Time not on the clock is spent thinking about wishing you had the money for a therapist or enough to cook a genuinely good meal more than once a week. The downward spiral wasn’t stopping but never got quite bad enough to be noticed. You could drink yourself to sleep and the only people to know would be you.

Today was a day like any other, waking with a crook in your neck and a groan. It was another shift, another measly amount of money, more people to ask you wordlessly to force a smile to your face.

The gas pumps at the place you still returned to like clockwork never quite liked to read your card. It was always easier to go inside, get a drink or something and pay for the pump.

Today you went in searching for a much needed energy drink. Heat permeates the air as you hop out of your old car. You rush to the door, sighing as the bell rings with your entrance. You are met with the fluorescent buzzing of overhead lights and the familiar but far-too-narrow isles. You hum to yourself as you retreat to the fridges, grabbing a red bull. It’s easier to look at the ground, to run your eyes over the endless brands of gum in front of the register than to look at the gas station attendant that sees you far too often.

“And also can I get twenty dollars on pump three, please,” you mumble, placing the can down carefully on the linoleum counter.

“Y/n?” Your name was not a usual part of this dance?

You look up and can't help but freeze like a deer in headlights.

It’s Wilbur, like a walking ghost in front of you, it’s Wilbur.

You pause and allow yourself to take him in. He is disheveled, with slightly grown-out hair and stubble. His brown eyes meet yours somehow duller, recognition that sparks something that fades too quickly.

He’s back in his uniform, an orange polo that never quite helped his skin tone but washes him out somehow more now with the smattering of pink angry scars across his skin and the haunting white streak that cuts through his frazzled hair.

“Wilbur?” you say and a small upturn of his lips surprises you “W-what are you doing back here?” you ask and the upturn of his lips quickly falls.

“Guess things didn’t quite turn out the way I imagined them to,” he offers, a phrase equally useless as it is cryptic. You pause for a moment with the words, your mouth open then closed.

“So you're back to this?” you ask and he nods.

“For now,” he responds and you bite at your lip, chewing fruitlessly for what to say next. A tension ebbs and flows between you two for a moment as you struggle to find words. Wilbur moves to check you out instead. It leaves you to fumble to fish your card out of your wallet. “22.76 is your total,” he says.

“Hasn’t turned out so great for me either, if I’m being honest.” You force a smile as you pay, continuing to chew at your lip. Wilbur doesn’t say anything, merely shuffles in place then slowly pushes your red bull across the counter.

“My number is the same,” you say, grabbing the cold can. “I guess- uhm, if you still even have me in your phone-”

“You would want to talk to me again?” He asks.

“It’s not like there is much else in this town,” you say with a shrug. Wilbur nods and you force yourself to smile at him. “So maybe I'll see you around?”

“I’ll text you,” he says with a sideways smile and the crinkling of his eyes. You resist the old butterflies it brings you.

He texts you like things never changed, pictures of the graffiti in the gas station bathroom and his random thoughts. You answer quickly, always, find yourself absorbed into every word. He’s the same, mostly, if not just slightly different. He’s more cynical, sharper than he’s ever been, and you chalk it all up to time.

Limbo.

That’s what this was. The great choosing of paths in life, a diverging road. You want to hold on to him and he wants to leave. He is a bird who's wings the world hasn’t quite learned to clip. This town, this place, it's a home that has only ever scorned you, and yet a part of you is telling you fleeing will be impossible. Even if Wilbur is something good-

He kisses you now, pushes you back on that shitty motel couch, room paid for with spare change. It smells like weed still even with the window open, smoke blown carefully out of the suicide-proof crack.

Everyone always called Wilbur a dreamer, flights of fancy he would share with you in private or broadcast to people who would rather do anything but listen. His teeth click against yours, his tongue warm in your mouth, his hands burning as they slip under the hem of your shirt. He’s hot, burning hot, like a star is begging to collapse in his chest.

“Wil,” you start and he blinks, catching his breath. His eyes are slightly red, the glass bong discarded to the middle of the table with the bowl killed and left with black and white ash.

“Hm?” he hums, a familiar sound, the upturn of a question. You didn’t want to speak, not really.=, but ignorance was only bliss for so long.

You had heard people talking, coworkers at the gas station who were never quite so good at keeping secrets.

‘Can you believe Wilbur thinks he’s gonna make it across seas?’

‘He’ll come crawling back,’

‘Probably,’

“Are you really leaving?” and it aches to ask, aches to watch as his eyes dart from your face to the wall, to anywhere else but you. He sits up and away to where he leaves you with a sliver of his face and the nape of his neck. You can feel the high, the gentle tilting of your consciousness, in and out, in and out.

“Next week,” he says and he still looks like yours despite it.

Next week….

There is a fading hickey just under his ear, his curls unwound by your hands, and he smells of your body wash, vanilla that lingers in a room.

“And telling me was where on your list of priorities?” anger doesn’t escape the words, angry doesn’t even begin to describe the sea of emotions begging to consume you. You feel sick as you create distance, shuffling until you can move your knees to your chest, closing your body around yourself.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he explains, a quiet plea of his supposed innocence.

“Then what did you think would happen when you just disappeared?” you say. You try not to cry but you can hear the way the words leave your mouth with cracks and bruises. You can feel the warmth of the tears pooling in the corners of your eyes. Awfully so, you can’t stop looking at him, at the expression on his face that wavers from guilty to lax to worry to anger.

You stand and he catches your hand, he pulls you to him until the both of you are once again a mess of limbs on the couch. He kisses you, this time for desperate reasons, more keening, his lips pressing back against yours with the tact of an apology coming far too late. It’s not words and you wouldn’t even consider it starting somewhere.

This was about a dying fire and gasoline that is still not enough kindling to breathe a new flame.

A week isn’t a long time, but he promises to write to you.

You never receive a single letter.

He jumps when the automatic door slides open. You know he is working the night shift again, so when you come in at 6 am you know that his shift ends in an hour. Forcing a smile on your face is easy when a similar expression graces his own as soon as your eyes meet for the first-time again. It’s a tired uptilt of his lips, a lazy excuse for a warm greeting but warm all the same.

You two had been texting for a week nonstop.

“Good morning,” he greets you as you walk up to the counter.

“Good night to you, you’re getting off soon right?” you ask and he nods. There are dark circles under his eyes, the kind that make his face look sunken in, bringing out the hollow state of his cheeks. “Christ, Wil, are you taking care of yourself?” you don’t realize the nickname slips out until it’s already there, in the space that lies between you both.

“As best as I can,” he responds. You chew at your bottom lip, tracing your eyes over his face. It’s the same if not more gaunt now then you remembered it. There were days when you were both still in school and Wilbur had his night job that you would have to force him to eat something or bring something to eat to the gas station. You were out of a job and he was fumbling to keep the two of you afloat. He looked similar then.

You don’t know if you’ll get used to the white streak or the multitude of silvery scars that never cut through his skin before. You think you find a new one every time your eyes focus on him.

“Shit, one second,” you retreat to get an energy drink before returning to the counter and placing it in front of him. He moves slowly before simply pushing it back to you without scanning it.

“On the house,” he says.

“You can’t get fired this quickly, do your job,” you scold playfully. “How long have you been working here again anyway?”

“It’s just one red bull,” he says, then looks away from you “A month or so since I’ve been back.”

“I’m surprised I didn’t see you sooner, and , mister, you are gonna have to ring me out anyway, I need twenty dollars on pump two and I will be paying,” You fumble with your wallet, fishing out a twenty dollar bill and sliding it over to him with a smile.

“You just want to make my life harder, hm?” he asks and you nod with a small smile gracing your lips. You can’t help but notice the way his gaze lingers before he’s moving again, cash in drawer, ding. “Still not gonna make you pay for the red bull though, love,”

You roll your eyes.

“Fine, but can I return the favor? I’ll make you dinner tonight if you come over? You were never good at cooking and I, thankfully, remain to be adequate at it.” It's a step closer than just his number, just texting, a step horribly closer. He pauses for a moment in surprise, a silence falls between you two. “Sorry, I mean-”

He’s almost in disbelief.

“After I sleep, yeah,” he smiles, something that shows the cracks in his dry lips, a smile that still doesn’t quite reach his eyes the longer you look at him.

“I’ll text you my address,” you say and he nods. “Bye, Wilbur,”

“Bye.” he says.

It's hard to walk back out into the heat from the freezing inside. You process more of what you have done as you walk out.

You have no idea what to make Wilbur, no idea if he hates foods now that he once loved. You should probably just text him and ask but all of it feels like maybe you are making a bad decision. You take the pump, opening the gas cap. The exterior of the car burns you as you keep your touch as brief as possible.

Your own tendency to get attached was the problem; a problem where Wilbur was still so freshly center stage, an encore in a way.

He lived an entire life away from here and now he was back, and he was different without explanation.

You crawl back into your car, and drive off without looking back, to starve yourself from your newly redeveloped bad habit if only partially. It was decided on the drive to your shift that you would make him something that you used to make: Vodka sauce pasta and chicken.

Today you had a short shift, the only highlight being the text from Wilbur you received at the beginning.

Wilbur: Wish me sweet dreams, I’ll see you tonight?

Y/n: Right, here’s my address

Y/n: Come around 8?

Y/n: Sweet dreams, Wilbur

Your stomach swims with anxiety the rest of the day , something you can’t cull no matter how many deep breaths you take. You hurry through your grocery shopping, pasta, sauce, chicken. It all becomes a balancing act of trying to remain calm and go through with the motions. You didn’t need to be anxious? This was Wilbur, right?

“How does your food always come out good?” Wilbur asks. You can tell he’s high when he comes out into the shared dining and living room of your shared apartment. You ignore his blood shot eyes and the smell. You made pasta, something you could probably cook with your eyes closed. He’s thankful all the same, practically moaning as he devours his first meal of the day.

“Years of practice? I’m glad it’s good, Wil.” He smiles and you smile back.

“I love you.” He says and he’s being genuine even if he’s dreaming while saying it.

“I love you too-”

“How was your day at the restaurant?” he asks and you sit with your own plate of food, his hand brushing across your waist as you pass him. You silently wish he wouldn’t ask.

“Same as it always is, stressful but fine,” you think he asks because he wants you to go back to school. “Did you learn anything cool?”

“Just history, love.” His eyes sparkle all the same, forever learning and moving.

“You never want to share,”

“I don’t wanna bore you.” he says.

“Do you work tonight?” You ask.

“I do, I’m probably gonna go back to bed after I’m done eating.”

“Can I lay with you?” you ask. “Please.”

You can’t help but jump when a knock comes from your door. The water must be strained from the pasta within the minute, heat radiating from the stove leading to sweat down your brow. Chicken sizzles in another pan with the sauce.

“Come in!” the door clicks open with the words. “Wilbur,” you say as you turn on your heel. You are silently praying you don’t look too much like the mess you feel like.

He looks nice, much nicer than you expected him to. The white streak is nicely curled in his hair, and he is wearing a black button up shirt and slacks. You can’t help the way your eyes widen at the sight of him.

The alarm beeps on the microwave.

“Uhm, just sit down somewhere, it’s almost done.” you say. “Sorry,”

“No rush,” he says. You can’t help but hover a moment in his gaze while the alarm blares on. A smile comes to his lips as he pulls out a chair at the table.

You move back into action, draining out the pasta in the sink, and then combining the sauce, chicken, and penne noodles. It’s not impressive to look at but you are hopeful it will at least taste good. You take a deep breath before turning back to look at the ghost of your past cursed back into your life, Wilbur Soot, back from nowhere and everywhere.

“Did you sleep well?” you ask and then to sputter on. “I- I didn’t really know what to make so I just threw something together I thought you liked from before.”

“Don’t stress,” he’s standing then, his hands so lightly brushing your hips. He moves you wordlessly to a seat, touch that respectfully finds your shoulders. “I slept and you’ve been working? I’ll serve up the food and then maybe we can catch up properly?” You stare up at him in a state of shock.

“Y-yeah.” you say, and you don’t know how to explain how you're endlessly thankful to not have to think or move anymore.

You watch him as he manages to put food in front of both of you. It’s almost painful to see the way he moves around the room, an ache awoken in your chest by the mere sight of him so close to you all over again, living in the same space, breathing in the same air. It feels like domestic bliss, just the way it used to. When finally he is sitting again, the nostalgia born of proximity between you two is almost dizzying. You both eat in silence for a moment before you are squirming in the lack of language.

“So, what made you come back, I mean, actually?” you ask and you almost regret it after you see the pain that twists in his expression. He scoffs then chuckles.

“Life was exciting for a while over there, never-ending excitement. Then it got worse, then it got awful, and I’d never felt more alone in my entire life.” He scoffs. “I guess I didn’t know where else to go.”

Your heart falls to your stomach.

“Oh,” you say.

“I, well, I thought I had reached the end of my story, and my best shot was returning back to the beginning.” he says.

“I thought about you all the time.” you say, and the confession makes you flush and your heart race.

“I thought about you too, and eventually you became this idea of a life I could crawl back to, a reason to keep going…,” he laughs then, a sound that makes you jump from your place across your small dining table. “I don’t have the right words, I’m sorry,”

“That's okay,” you say.

“I- I made a mess of everything there, and when I came back I assumed I had made a mess of us as well. I couldn’t help my own trepidation, not after all of this time, after the huge fucking mistake my life has become. I thought better than to seek you out like I wanted to.”

Wilbur had always been a dreamer. He had these vast ideas that you couldn’t practically comprehend- they were impossibilities and stars he was convinced he would be able to wrangle into submission. In part when he left, it felt like you were free from a hand grenade that had long ago lost its pin, but now he was back, and you weren’t sure if whatever had been inside of him had already exploded or if you were still meant to be waiting with bated breath.

“You said you were going to write.” you say.

“I wrote but I never sent them,” he says.

“I never moved on, no matter how hard I tried.” you say and you feel sick with the words, with the admission you aren’t sure you are ready to share but that you speak into the open air despite this.

“Would you let me back in your life?” he asks, your eyes locking with his own.

“What would you want with me?” you ask back.

“Whatever you’ll let me have,” and you freeze at the sentence, the intensity of the words only amplified by the way he can’t take his eyes off of you. You cough, almost choke.

“Was the food good?” you ask, trying to starve away attention from yourself.

“It always is, love.” he purrs and butterflies become birds in your gut: Insides become a slurry of viscera.

“Were you always going to come back here?”

“No.” he says truthfully. “I used to think I was going to come here and get you, once everything was said and done. I was building a country, and I was going to be some type of hero and leader. I was going to take you there. I was going to be this magnificent thing like I always said. It’s funny how fast things change.”

“What happened?” you ask and he laughs again, can’t help himself.

“I blew up the entire thing.” His hand unbuttons part of his shirt before he fidgets with the collar. You sit there, dumb-struck, as more details build the image of something awful that happened without you. “I died.” Then he bursts into laughter again but this time so loud you wince.

“Sweetheart, no need to look so scared?” he says and you nod. Maybe that bomb inside him really has gone off?

“You said you died?” You say quietly, eyes glued to the table, then his hands, cuffs, buttons, curly hair, glasses, and his steadily moving chest.

“There was an awful man that knew how to cheat death there, but I was an experiment, of sorts. I didn’t quite come back right.”

He watches you tilt your head like a confused dog.

“I was in hell, the afterlife, a train station. I was there for 13 years completely alone. I briefly had visitors, the other dead. I didn’t come back all put together, something was twisted or missing, fuck if I know, but- but- I’m better now.” he says and you want to believe him.

“Wow, fuck, Wilbur,” You stand then, shaking your head and your shoulders. You lean over, picking up your plate and his empty one. You can feel his eyes on you and then he is beside you at the sink.

“Let me?” he asks and you can’t speak before he’s beginning the dishes, shuffling you to the side.

The water runs as you box up leftovers for the fridge then wipe down every surface of the kitchen. The two of you get done at the same time, the perfect pair. It used to always be like this, and now so suddenly a door that ceased to exist was open again. Wilbur wanted back into your life, and you couldn’t decide if you would allow it. You couldn’t decide if you wanted him all over again.

He turns to look at you and his presence alone is like poking at a bruise, raw and sore.

“I’m sorry.” he says and you nod. “I’m not a good guy.”

You don’t know what to say.

“I’m glad you still go to the same gas station,” he whispers and you step forward, wrap your arms around him so tight you are sure it must hurt. He smells like smoke and you can’t help but press your face into his chest. The proximity is finally familiar. Your body relaxes as his hand runs up and down your back. “You smell good,” he says.

You step back and take in a cool breath of air.

“If you leave again you have to take me with you on day 1.” you say and then you both find a way to laugh about it.

“I promise.” he says and you don’t know if he means it- are sure that you may never know. You can see now that he’s still a disaster waiting to happen, and you hate that you are so ready to devote yourself to impending doom.

“Do you still think you maybe aren’t all back?” you ask.

“Not in any way that matters, but now maybe more in the diagnosable mental illness way,” he says.

“So maybe we can get you to a professional?” You see the skittish look he gives at the suggestion.

“I think there may be better ways…” he says.

“Like what?”

He releases a breath from his chest, and then he shuffles in his place in front of you. He struggles to speak, and you watch as his mind swims with what to say next that doesn't reveal his urge to avoid a shrink.

“Are you high?” you ask and he grins “Your shift starts in an hour, Wil?"

“I’ll be sober then-”

“Wil, you can’t keep doing this. It’s not good for you.” you say.

“It’s fine, love, come here,” and his hands are pulling you closer by your hips, and it’s Wilbur, your Wilbur. “Kiss me better?”

And you kiss him all the same.

“Let’s relax?” and it’s a joint that he pulls out of his pocket, and you can’t say anything. You’ve smoked so little in this place, smoked so much less since he left.

“Fine, but, outside,” he follows you out onto the porch of your apartment. It was a small cement overhang with metal railings. You only ever bothered to get one chair. He sits then motions for you to follow onto his lap. You stare for too long at where he pats on his thigh before surrendering yourself to bad habits. You watch intently as he lights the joint then inhales. A pause follows and then an exhale of smoke. You wait your turn even if you aren’t sure if you want to partake, you will anyway. It comes in a way you aren’t ready for. His lips on yours and the slow exchange of breath. Then you can’t help the way you sputter and cough.

He laughs.

“Look at you.” he practically purrs and your face burns.

“Should we be doing this?” you ask.

“What part?” he asks.

“All of this, maybe, maybe it’s too fast?”

“It’s nothing new? You know me inside and out still?” Wilbur looks at you with those dark awful eyes and you swear it was never like this before- never like staring into the eyes of an animal. He was softer before, even if he bent to the same vices as he was now.

He leans back, accentuating the Adam's apple on his throat. He takes another drag of that joint and exhales. Then he passes it to you and your now inexperienced fingers and the smoke finds your lungs without the scorching crucible of his lips. Your body gets lighter and lighter.

“Were we made to be together?” you ask as you pass the joint back to him.

“If I say yes will you let me keep you?” and his gaze is as intense as his words. He inhales again then exhales.

“I don’t think the question is one you can dictate with want…” you say. “or desire.”

His lips find you again, more smoke, more blissful numbness that comes over your body as weightlessness. He kisses you longer, gives in to that all-too-familiar feeling he’s been desperately trying to take in with moderation. You pull back, take a deep breath in, and keep him away with your forehead pressed against his own.

“I think you should go now,” you whisper.

“But do you want me to?” he asks

and you wish your breath didn’t get caught in your throat, wish you didn’t acquiesce to your urge to look at him all over again, drink in every curve and hair out of place.

“No,” comes out quiet and scared. He leans in close, until he’s breathing on your ear and down your neck.

“I used to hallucinate you coming off the train most, when I let my mind wander, it would always be you stepping down from a train on to the platform,”

Wilbur doesn’t believe in god but part of him thinks that you are the closest thing that he can get his hands on after everything he’s done, so his grip is tight and it confirms your presence and your distance. He’s here to stay.

“I’m not gonna leave you again.”

“Wilbur,” you say but he kisses you and you want that to be enough, so you let it be. His hands travel under your shirt, find bare skin to devour with only his touch. You moan into open mouth kisses and desperation that finds no end. Your body is playing a part you know all too well, and Wilbur is a scene partner all too eager to follow.

“I love you,” he says in between stolen breaths. You can’t help the way it makes you nauseous.

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