a series of sbi oneshots

Bird brain

tommys lonely and his bird brain gets the best of him

or

lonely tommy and Phil Comforts him

This is stupid. He’s stupid. He is the worst kind of idiot and yet! He’s still looking at Phil, sitting on the other side of the nest. 

He pushes too far, he always does, greedy and needy, a drain, a waste, Dream had taught him that. He was always pestering Dream for stuff, attention, food. Dream had worked so hard to teach him to be better, and now here he is, falling into old habits again. 

But he--

Its stupid. 

He curls his arms around himself but  its just not the same. A chirp hovers at the tip of his tongue but he holds it back. Muffles down the cough as much as he can. Phil still looks up, his brow furrowed. “You alright mate?” 

“Fuck off,” Tommy snarls, mantling his wings and turning sharply away. 

Phil is silent for a moment and Tommy waits, breathless with idiotic hope that he will come over, that he’ll do some stupid birdy noise that will make it okay for Tommy to bury himself into his chest. 

He flicks a glance at Phil. He’s still watching. 

Tommy’s lip curls into a scowl without his permission and he jerks his eyes away again. “What the fuck do you want?”  

“Did you need something Tommy?” Phil asks, his voice soft and open and--stupid. He’s stupid. All of this is fucking stupid. 

“Fuck off,” Tommy snarls. 

“Okay,” Phil says gently. 

Tommy looks and he’s turned away again. The little baby bird in the back of his head wails. It wants attention, it wants love. 

( Tommy wants attention, wants love, wants Phil’s wings wrapped around him, sheltered, safe, warm.) 

He shoves the thoughts down. Its stupid. Phil fucking kidnapped him, he’s just keeping him in this stupid fucking nest and he’s treating Tommy like a goddamn baby. 

He’s a Big Man. Big enough to be on his own, he was doing fucking great in exile, learning how to be independent and shit. Dream was teaching him. It was fine, it was great, actually. 

He wasn’t lonely. He’s just used to having Wilbur to cling to. 

Tommy glances at Phil again. 

So fucking stupid.  

He chokes down another chirp, managing to keep it as a forceful exhale rather than a cough. Phil is still just sorting through the blankets, reordering them. 

Tommy realizes that his hands are tangled together, knuckles going white from how hard he’s squeezing. He could--well. He just wants to make sure that Phil isn’t fucking the nest up. He sleeps here too. 

He scoots a little closer. Phil doesn’t seem to notice. 

Tommy goes closer. Still nothing from Phil. 

The little bird in the back of his brain is throwing a fucking tantrum at being ignored. Tommy has to hold his fucking breath to keep from vomiting out a tidal wave of chirps. 

Phil is leaned forward, on hand braced on the ground for balance. Tommy bites his lip, almost hard enough to draw blood. He just--

He’s just a little lonely. Because Phil’s been paying so much attention to him and he’s greedy and clingy and terrible and all of Dream’s lessons have gone to waste.