a series of sbi oneshots

broken guitars and jealousy

tommy is angy and he makes it everyone's problem

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Tommy swipes his claws through a careful pile of coins, but Techno isn’t here to growl at him for it. Resentment shoots through him.

Fucking Techno, Fucking Phil, fucking Wilbur, leaving him here alone. Tommy hisses lowly to himself, because there’s nobody here to hiss at.

He’s alone. It pricks against his skin constantly, the knowledge that nobody is here. He’s alone.

Alone, alone, alone. 

They promised. 

They left him even though they’d promised they never would. Tommy screeches and lunges at a chest, tearing the wood to shreds with his talons. The wood only splinters, not even piercing his scales. The wood doesn’t care, it only breaks.

Tommy burrows under the pile of gold that came out of it. It isn’t the same as being pinned beneath his brothers, his father. The coins are cold, they don’t hold him tightly, they just lay on him.

Smoke rises from his nostrils.

He curls into a tight ball and sulks, and plots. 

***

Wilbur comes back first. He strolls into the cave in human form. Tommy bites back a snarl. Wilbur’s been down in the fucking city, hanging out with the humans. Playing music for them, talking to them, spending time with them. 

Them and not Tommy.

Jealousy writhes in his chest, he nurses it carefully, stoking it higher and higher. Wilbur probably likes the humans better than him. Wilbur’s always been obsessed with them, he’s probably got a ton of human friends, he’s probably got a dumb little human brat that he thinks of like a brother.

Tommy growls.

Wilbur pauses, looking around. “Toms?”

He has his guitar on his back. He was out there playing music for the fucking humans. How dare he?! Tommy hisses, his feathers bristling as much as they can under the gold.

Wilbur tracks the sound and strolls over. “Well hello grumpy lizard, what’s the matter?”

Tommy growls at him, not moving from under his pile, a deliberate snub.

Wilbur’s head jerks back, offense clear on his stupid human face, but that’s all he does. “Rude.”

Tommy’s claws scratch over the stone. Fine, fine if Wilbur wants to be like that. 

Tommy yanks his magic and slips into human form too. Its dumb, all gangly and unbalanced and weak. They don’t even have scales, no wings, no claws, why does Wilbur even like them? Why do Techno and Phil even let them live here in their valley? They should destroy the whole city of them.

Tommy crosses his dumb human arms, keeping his tail in existence because he’s not balancing on two legs. Its dumb. Humans are dumb. “Hello Wil- bur.” 

Wilbur just looks bemused. “Hello sunshine. What are you grumpy about?”

He walks away! He unslings his stupid human guitar from over his shoulder and puts it on the dumb human table and sits down at it, opening a dumb human bag.

“Maybe this’ll cheer you up, hm? Wanna see what I got? There’s a really pretty sapphire that I thought you’d like.”

Tommy nearly softens, but no, he’s angry. He stalks towards the table, glaring as fiercely as he can with this stupid dumb human face. He can’t even snarl right, can’t let smoke trickle out of his nose or his chest light up with his inner fire.