Archive of Our Own ^beta

A letter to Tommy
From Wilbur,

Tommy, you are the last of an endangered species, a star glowing amongst flowers and a dandelion growing amongst galaxies. People will say weeds are ugly but watching you grow between the cracks of every surface that tries desperately to shut you out is something I have been watching for what feels like eons. No garden could contain you. Invasive and attached, you stick to people like moss. Growing up from the forest floor and soaking it in a rich green. But I’m sorry Tommy this forest is on fire, it's on fire and no one is here to put it out.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Tommy, you are this golden promise crafted at the bottom of the sea, or maybe even Eden if that suits you better. Some volcanic ash settled in the deepest depths just the right way to create you. Some angel in Eden saw you sleeping and let you fall to earth.

Either way, you were here at the start of the universe and you will be here long past its end. you’d call me a dramatic bastard for saying this, but the very colors of our world were crafted for you and I don't know why it took me dying and coming back just to understand that. (Red, in particular, was made for you, or maybe blue.
Not just any blue though, blue like the sky,
Blue like the lakes and the fish. Blue like ice but also blue like the heart of fire.)

I don’t know if I discovered it in limbo or if it’s something I’ve always known
but Tommyinnit you are hope, you are light, you are misfortune, you are tragic, and everything in between.
Somewhere in this universe, there is an empty space waiting for you, out of my reach, out of death’s reach, and beyond life too. This is because you are the universe,
you are its love and its care, its anger and its flaws.
You are the sun at the center of it and we are all planets dancing around you, hoping to breathe in just a bit of your warmth. This warmth you hold could keep a nation alive. Below rubble and below damage, your light could keep us warm.
I would not be surprised if one day science proved that you were in fact; the center of it all. that all things colorful and beautiful were simply you. Maybe all things gray and forgotten too. When this world spins off its axis and we learn that it really was– just you that held it in place, I will smile knowing I was right.

The world around you is pulling you in all directions, stretching you to its limit. This is different from the rest of us of course, We are all centered by gravity, pushing on us in all directions… but Tommy you stretch. every part of this universe is pulling on you,
the sky, the trees, the birds, the ground, the stars, the planets, all would grab you and call you their own if they could.
Not only this but you feed, you nurture, you push and you pull back on it.

I always wondered how such an angry little creature could compare himself to nothing more than a butterfly. I remember you saying “I’m a butterfly in most circumstances,” a funny little phrase… and I never thought much of it but now it makes sense.
Delicate and fragile, a butterfly…. Yes, Tommy, you are a butterfly, in all its vibrant glory. In all its young and short-lived glory. And I hope one day this world will be big enough for you to stretch your wings.

These wings of yours are damaged, I know, and I am afraid part of the blame belongs to me. I apologize, I apologize a million times over. Simply because you have never not been in my life. There is no world in which you could no longer be present, at least not in my world. You were here at the start and you were here beyond my demise. When I no longer ate and no longer slept; you fed me. you and your cut hands and your bruised legs would run to feed my decaying body.

One time I heard you slip, I think you fell down the stairs. I waited in silence but nothing came. I feared the worst, I feared that by getting up I would have to face your small broken body at the bottom of the steps. That the wretched cavern in which we lived was your final stop, your unfair resting place. that out of all the forces pulling on you, the ground was the final victor. Not 5 minutes later did you come around the corner, a bandage tightly wrapped around your hand. If you had cried at all I couldn't tell, I felt like a fool.

You have stitched me together time after time. You are this single constant.
It was not until after I came back that I realized this; although I never had to live in a world without you, you have had to live in a world without me.

when I was revived, when all things changed, while everything else shifted a little more out of reach, you were still there.
Still warm. Still tragic. Still life. Still anger. Still Tommy.

No part of your body feels like it belongs to you after death, I finally knew what it felt like to be you. To have the ground reaching for you. The earth and the plants desperately attempting to reclaim you. And if they didn’t reach then the sky did, and the trees, and the birds, and the ground, and the stars, and the planets.

Something else changed though, I couldn't see it right away. But something about how the world reached for you changed. It became more desperate, more hungry. like it had tasted you before and let you go. I wish I knew. I wish I had asked.

I'm so sorry Tommy. I’m so sorry.

How could I ask for anything more of you? Your dandelion continued to grow long after my corpse rotted into the earth, and even upon my return, I could see your hope fading and your planets drifting away. My brother was wilting and I didn’t question why.

Any life I might have had before this one is lost to me. You are a turning point on my timeline, wherein bright red marker two points are labeled; “Before Tommy” and “after Tommy.” Unfortunately, anything before Tommy has seemingly slipped my mind. I can’t believe I didn't see it. That I could know you for so long and still not notice.

It’s a funny little thing, isn’t it?

How could someone not notice the sun was dying?

How could someone not notice the garden had stopped growing?

How could someone not notice that the blue in your eye was no longer your blue?