The Year We Had (MCYT AU)

51: Regret

It wasn't until Techno was back at school that he really began to feel the weight of his life bearing down on him.

The hospital was an easy routine to fall into. He thought a lot when he was bedridden, but he could tell himself that it was all in his head. Besides, everything going on outside was being relayed to him by Wilbur and Scott. Until he saw proof, it could all be fake. It didn't have to be real because he wasn't living through it.

He got up to go to the bathroom at 1:30 in the morning. Dream's soft snores were unbroken by the creak in the door as he got up and quietly left.

Dream had been good to him. Even before his life shattered around him, he was a loyal friend and a respectful adversary. Maybe Techno would have opened up about how he was feeling, if he'd managed to process it himself. He'd been back for a couple of days now, and he was handling it well. Techno was never one for emotions, after all. They were too complicated.

The mirror was cracked. The fluorescent lights flickered slightly above him, bathing the communal bathrooms in an off-white haze. His feet were cold against the tiles. The water was cold against his hands as he rinsed them.

Techno barely recognised himself in the mirror. It wasn't just because of the crack.

Never in his life had he looked so full of regrets.

Skeppy was gone. He'd died a long time ago, but tonight the pain felt new. It wasn't just him that Techno was mourning. The bright smile of his mother, and the soothing voice she used to read to him. The way his father would ruffle his hair, even now, when he was sixteen years old and stood taller than him. Tommy's annoying laugh, and the way that he'd call out for Techno, even when he never needed him.

God, Techno used to get so annoyed about that. Tommy was a clingy little brother, who rarely respected his want for personal space. He was always calling him over, always disrupting his homework. Always making noise, even when he didn't have to. He always had to have his way.

Techno never knew it was possible to miss someone so badly. He would do anything for five more minutes with Tommy. Five more minutes to say sorry, to promise him that he was loved, to tell him how important he was. Just five more minutes. Why did it have to end so quickly?

The boy who stared back at him in the mirror had tears in his eyes. Stubborn tears that he refused to let fall. Had Tommy once known this boy? The emotion burned in his chest, and this wasn't complicated anymore. This was just hurt. An intense longing for the past. Missing someone who Techno never should have lost.

Losing Skeppy was a shock. A painful, sharp pain, that would never truly go away. But losing his mother wasn't. Even losing his father was an eventuality. Techno had always expected to bury his parents. He'd never even considered losing Tommy. But here he was.

He stared at his reflection and was overtaken with grief. Tommy wasn't coming home.

Techno's breath caught in his throat, tears blurring his vision. He let out a choked gasp as he stumbled away from the counter, his hand coming up to press against the wound in his chest. The wound that should have killed him, for Tommy to live.

Dying would have been easier than this.

---

Wilbur couldn't sit still. He was restless.

It was date night, and he was curled up on the sofa beside Sally. There was a movie playing, but he couldn't tell you anything about it. He kept looking out the window, into the endless black night outside. He couldn't see much beyond the shadowed backyard of her suburban family home, but he knew that the whole world was out there.