Dahlia - The Flower Of Betrayal. || SBI Hero AU

-CHAPTER THIRTY-

Yes, I'm allergic to happiness. Enjoy!
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Wilbur always expected the worst. That was something he was taught from a young age — never expect anything but the worst, and then you can’t be let down when your expectations aren’t met. That had helped him through his early life, being raised by a psychopath who probably enjoyed when things weren’t turning out well for him. It helped him when he ran away, fending for himself in every way that meant. So when he expected Phil to bring an ‘old friend’ over, he expected the worst.

He was not prepared for who showed up at the door.

"Am I going blind?" Techno asks him, walking into their room after a double-take at what was happening just at the dinner table, their very own dinner table. Wilbur had come straight to here the moment that man walked through the door, and Tommy had reluctantly joined him, sitting on the floor by the bed. "The last I knew, they were about to bite each other’s heads off. And now their buddies?"

Wilbur just shrugs. "Phil must have talked to him this morning."

"And invited him over for tea on a random Tuesday afternoon," Techno finishes for him. He sighs, then tries to change the subject, as if avoiding the huge elephant in the room. "You feeling better?" Wilbur just shrugs. "You look better. You look like you’re not unintentionally reading our minds anymore."

"Thank god," Wilbur mumbles, letting out a small laugh. "I thought about spying on them, but there’s some people that I just don’t want to know what they think."

"Like Schlatt?"

"Like Schlatt."

Techno nods, sitting on his bed, across from the other two. He lets out a heavy sigh. Everything that had been happening from the past few days had just ended with a long, painful migraine for him. For both of them, he assumed. Sure, maybe Wilbur’s was more actual pain related to the lack of a working power and some traumatic childhood reliving, but the stress is what was killing Techno. He was used to not having high expectations set for him. From his ‘parents’, from even Phil. No one expected him to do anything. Yet, here he was, trying to be strong, when he was always encouraged not to be. He had to act like the older child even though he wasn’t, take some kind of responsible role instead of acting like the kid he never got to be. It was killing him.

"Any guesses on what he’s here for?" Techno asks, trying desperately to lighten up the mood, or at least get some kind of conversation flowing. Once again, he hated the silence that he normally adored. It was like they were stuck in a hazy fog, all tired, mentally and physically. The addition of the one person they were allowed to complain about in this house didn’t help at all.

Tommy raises his hand. "I’m betting he's gonna fire you both." The two others shoot him a glare, but he just shrugs.

"I’m gonna have to agree, but don’t say that. You’re gonna, like, wish it into existence," Wilbur says, shaking his head a little.

"What, with his non-existent powers?" Techno chimes in, earned with a stifled laugh from Wilbur and a scoff from Tommy.

"You know, that reminds me," Wilbur starts, leaning over his bed to look at the kid on the floor. Tommy looks up, fairly disinterested. He was used to the excitement that came with life in the recent weeks, as well as what Dream used to bring him before that. This was boring, just sitting around, waiting, doing nothing. "You seem like a completely different person, Tom. I knew from the moment you stepped in here that you were a liar but I didn’t think you could fake being a pussy, too."

The sarcasm was not lost on Tommy. Especially when Wilbur had that grin, the same one he did when they had first formally spoken. And just like back then, he sunk naturally into the smallest position he could fit in, and tried to ignore the man.