"Technoblade," Wilbur announces, dangling himself in the doorway in as conspicuous a manner as possible.
Techno looks up from his book, unimpressed; he knows Wilbur only pulls out the full name when he wants something. "What do you want," he says.
He looks cosy, Wilbur thinks, all rugged up in bed with his book and his blanket and his wings; Wilbur gets the whole nesting season urge,too, but Techno's always felt it the strongest out of the three of them who've manifested. "Is that tea," Wilbur crows, "could you get anymore stereotypical?"
"Hot chocolate, actually," Techno says, unfazed, and lowers his head. "Do you want something, or."
"Right." Wilbur ducks his head and tucks his wings to enter the room without hitting anything on the doorway - he needs to be able to fling himself on his brother top of his twin brother if he has to make a point. "Where's my fucking hoodie?"
Techno raises an eyebrow. since he's looking at his book - probably some Greek shit - rather than Wilbur, it's like he's giving Theseus or Icarus or whoever a bit of attitude. "Not with me," he says, sounding mildly interested now, "Try the laundry, Idiot."
"I'm the smartest member of this family," Wilbur says, He doesn't trust Technos words,so he takes stock of the makeshift nest Technos constructed on his bed, all blankets and there are a few clothing items but none of them are yellow, so the hoodies definitely not there."Fine, you're of the hook this time,peony boy. Enjoy your hot chocolate."
"Fuck off," Techno says, clearly unimpressed by the nickname - it's a holdover from when they were kids and Techno manifested with wings all shades of pink, and Tommy, who'd been fucking teeny at the time, had immediately declared someone had replaced his brother with a flower. Wilbur knows Techno isn't mad, though. There's too much fondness in his tone for that, try as he might to fight it away and make it bleed.
It's all very sweet, really.
Wilbur sighs theatrically, places a hand on his heart, and fucks off - as requested - to continue the search for his hoodie.
He knows that both Techno and his dad get the nesting instinct when it's cold, just the same as Wilbur does. Tommy, not having manifested, is the only one who wouldn't have stolen the hoodie for use in a pile of soft warm things ("objects that make bird brain go brr", as Wilbur likes to put it), so the logical conclusions are as follows: one, and most likely, Phil has taken the hoodie, or two, Wilbur's just fucking put it down and can't remember where.
He heads to his dad's room next.
Wilbur was kind of hoping Phil would be in some other room so that he could just have a quick search for his hoodie and then vanish again, but he has no such luck - his dad is reclining in his own bed in much the same manner as Techno was, complete with hot chocolate and pile of blankets. Phil's nest is genuinely structured in a neat oval, which makes Wilbur want to chuckle, but he's been raised better than that and bites it back. "Dad," he says - okay, whines - flaring his own wings in a sigh that he knows ripples through the red-russet feathers just so, draws the eye to the tawny golden tips. He's got the biggest wings in the family, just barely, and never tires of milking it. "Did you take my hoodie."
Phil looks up and says, sounding a little guilty, "Depends which hoodie you mean."
"Oh come off it," Wilbur protests, affronted - now that he's paying closer attention he can see some of his other hoodies scattered through Phil's nest, tucked in with various clothing items from Techno and even some stolen from Tommy. It's a family thing. Having each others' shit makes them feel safe and warm, or whatever. The yellow hoodie still isn't there though. "You took like all my hoodies except the one I'm looking for?"
"Sorry not to be much help, mate," his dad says, which is funny enough that Wilbur has to bite back a smile in order to feign his next exasperated huff.
"You're all menaces," he says. "I hate living in this house."
"You're stuck with us," Phil says, shifting slightly; he has his wings splayed across the room, the primaries just grazing the walls, and even the minute motion makes the dark of his feathers dance. They've always been iridescent, catching the light and spinning it into candy-floss pink and warm tawny yellow. Today, for some reason, there's white and gold in the mix.
Wilbur rolls his eyes to hide his smile, says something again about his hoodie, and storms out of the room as dramatically as he can muster. Which isn't much.
He's rummaging through the hamper in the laundry when Tommy shuffles into the room and mumbles, subdued, "Hi, Wilbur."
Wilbur jumps, he knows he jumps, and manages to keep from flaring his wings too wide in the narrow room - instead they just stiffen, alulae straining outwards, and it's a conscious effort to draw them closer to his body so that he can turn around. "You scared the shit out of me, Toms," he scolds, and then, when he catches sight of his little brother, "Oh, Tommy."
It's been a long, slow day in their household - none of them have much energy when it's cold out, preferring to retreat to their rooms and rug up, and anyway, Tommy has a habit of shutting himself away in his own and snapping at anyone who dares to enter. Suffice it to say: Wilbur hasn't actually seen his brother today, not yet. And since time stretches strangely on these days where it's snowy and dark out and the house is filled with warmth from both the central heating and the fireplaces which is still not enough, Wilbur has no idea whether it's one in the afternoon or five - which isn't important right now. What matters is that, at some point last night or during the day, Tommy manifested and no one was even there.
Wings sprawl about him, clumsy and uncoordinated and dragging on the floor; they're mostly white, but there's a pale gold lining the windward edges of his primaries and mottled like shadow across his coverlets. He has gold in the same places as Wilbur does, though it's a different shade. Something about that makes Wilbur very soft.
There's bags under Tommy's eyes, and his hair's sticking up at odd angles, and Wilbur's chest tightens to see it - he remembers manifesting himself, and it didn't hurt but his skin was hyper-sensitive and everything was too loud and too bright and he'd hidden himself away into a pile of weighted blankets until he emerged with two new limbs. His dad had been there to stroke his hair and help him settle the new feathers into place; Tommy has emerged alone from his room. Guilt settles like a stone in Wilbur's stomach. "Hey," he says, soft like he's holding a hand out to a cornered animal, and takes a couple steps closer. His wings are held carefully away from the ground.
Then he stops, looks over Tommy properly, and says, accusatory, "You've got my fucking hoodie on."
"I was cold, bitch," Tommy snaps, bristling - and his feathers fluff up like he hasn't worked out how to stop them doing it yet, which is just so cute that it immediately negates any mild annoyance Wilbur might have possibly been feeling. "And none of my own hoodies had room for - you know."
"You could've asked me for it," Wilbur points out softly, and he's not really just talking about the hoodie. He is also talking about the hoodie, though. It's his favourite hoodie. It's very soft. He used a fucking sewing machine to hem the wing holes, for fuck's sake. "I would have said yes. Probably. Okay, I would've said no, but you know it would've been in the way that meant yes anway!"
"What the fuck," Tommy says, making a valiant attempt at his normal exuberant obnoxiousness, but Wilbur can see how sleepy he is - he's swaying on his goddamn feet - and it really takes the bite out of it. "You're so stupid, Will. That makes no sense."
"Aww," Wilbur says, half teasing and half genuinely overcome by how cute this entire moment is, and he moves a little closer, gesturing to the hallway with his head. "Let me out of the laundry room and then we'll talk, huh?"
"I don't wanna talk to you," Tommy grumbles, but he shuffles obediently out of the way. His wings are still dragging on the ground, and Wilbur gives them an accusatory flick with the tip of his own, the way Techno does whenever Wilbur gets tired enough to drag his in the dust; he forgot to account for post-manifesting sensitivity, though, and Tommy's entire body flinches away from the point of contact - except his gathered wings, which have gotten very droopy and relaxed all of a sudden, a fact that seems to annoy Tommy immensely.
"What the fuck," he says again, sullen. His right wing twitches half-heartedly, as though Tommy has told it to wake up and gotten pins and needles.
"You need a family cuddle," Wilbur decides. "I'm making an executive decision. We're gathering the boys."
"Oh no," Tommy says despairingly.
"You're adorable when you're all sleepy," Wilbur tells him, trying to make it into a joke, despite the part of his brain that is genuinely giving ecstatic happy little trills and chirps at the sight of his little brother shadowed by white wings that look too big for him. He calls out into the house, "Dad? Techno? Get in here, fuckers, it's important."
"I'm leaving," Tommy snaps. "I'm going back to my room."
"Not in my hoodie you're not," Wilbur says. "You're wearing my clothes so you have to do what I say." He has half a mind to reach out and catch Tommy by the hood; luckily, Tommy hasn't gathered enough coordination to actually turn himself around enough in the hallway that he can head back to his room, because his wings are suddenly very excited and beating all over the place, overcompensating every time Tommy loses his balance and flinching away every time they come in contact with the walls or ceiling, and Wilbur tries very hard not to laugh for precisely ten seconds before engaging Responsible Elder Brother Mode. The hallway is a whirlwind of white.
"Tommy," he says. "Tommy, you gotta just go limp, okay? Then you can start again from there."
"I don't take orders from you, bitch," Tommy says, going immediately limp. He slides to the floor, like a noodle, with his wings - Wilbur thinks, despairingly, that they are probably bigger than his - arrayed about him, all a mess.
This is how Phil and Techno walk in on them - Tommy lying on his front in the middle of the hallway, with wings that he did not have a day ago, and Wilbur vibing in a corner with his own wings tucked tightly close to him, valiantly fighting away his laughter.
"Oh," says Techno, deadpan, which sets Wilbur off - he giggles for a brief moment before Phil gives him a stern look. Then, immediately, Wilbur shuts up.
"I can hear you laughing at me," Tommy accuses. His words are muffled.
"Hey there," Phil says, all quiet and diplomatic; it's difficult for any of them to maneuvre in the hallway, with Tommy's wings splayed on the ground and each of them having their own set to contend with, but Phil manages to squeeze past Wilbur enough to lay a gentle hand on Tommy's shoulder. Very paternal. Wilbur approves.
"Hi dad," Tommy mutters, sullen. He sounds like he's perking up already.
Eventually they manage to get everyone into the one bedroom - Phil's, which is the biggest - and huddled on the bed. It's not just the sheer size of Tommy's new wings that makes navigating difficult, though that's definitely a factor, but the fact that he isn't very good at manipulating them yet; it takes nearly twenty minutes just to cross the house, and then Techno offers to go and fetch Tommy's blankets from his room, for the comforting familiarity of it all, and by the time they've all managed to fit onto the same bed Wilbur is feeling quite fed up with the entire situation.
"And you're still wearing my fucking hoodie," he grouses.
"None of mine have the fuckin - the hole thingies," Tommy snaps back, "for the wings," but he sounds virtually on the edge of nodding off.
Phil gives both Wilbur and Techno a look that says be nice or I will commit a war crime (hyperbole, of course) and says, "You can go to sleep if you want, Toms. D'you mind if we sort out your wings for you? Gotta get the feathers in order."
"Ugh," Tommy says. He's got his face buried in a blanket, with one of Phil's big coats tugged across the top of it like he's hiding. The whole situation is so fucking soft. Wilbur feels the urge to bully him relentlessly, but chooses to suppress it just this once. "Fine," Tommy mumbles, "if you want, I don't give a shit."
Techno says, sounding very apathetic for a guy who's got one of his wings cast over both Tommy's and Wilbur's shoulders, somewhere between comforting and protective, "It's, like, bad if you don't preen them."
"Descriptive," Wilbur says.
"I try."
"Boys," Phil says, and both of them shut up.
Tommy does end up nodding off, which is both cute as fuck and the funniest thing Wilbur's seen in a long time. He was tired after his own manifesting, sure - having your body churn through all its energy, both magical and physical, in order to generate hypothetical appendages and then believe in them so forcefully that they switch planes into this one tends to do that to you. But not tired enough to just go out like a light like that. Phil takes charge of Tommy's left wing, starting with organising the coverlets before moving on to making sure the larger feathers are all laying flat, and Techno commandeers the right; Wilbur ends up on hair-stroking duty, which he can't say he hates all that much.
"They're pretty great wings, Toms," he finds himself saying, and then bites his tongue immediately. It's too late, though - Techno is looking up from his task with an unholy delight glittering in his eyes.
"You're soft," Techno crows. "You think he's adorable." It's amazing how much glee can be conveyed through such monotone.
"I refuse to answer," Wilbur shoots back, "on the grounds that I may incriminate myself."
Phil chuckles. "That wasn't the win you think it was, Will," he says, and only smiles in the face of the glare Wilbur gives him in return.
It's nice here - warm in the heap of blankets and assorted clothing articles that is Phil's nest, with his family all around them and Tommy's great big fucking wings sprawling across the bed. There's feathers everywhere, in all their colours - Phil's iridescent black, Techno's soft shimmering pink, Wilbur's proud warm red and russet, and most of all the white and gold Tommy's wings are scattering across the bed like a shedding cat as they're preened for the first time. Tommy cracks open one eyelid and mutters something darkly about you bastard; Wilbur pats his head indulgently and tells him to go back to sleep. The house is still too cold, and yeah, Tommy's still got Wilbur's nice yellow hoodie on, but - Wilbur thinks he might be able to live with that.
"This is very wholesome," he says, trying to make it a joke.
Techno looks him dead in the eyes. "Stop using humorous lampshading as a device to detract from your genuine feelings," he says, which makes Wilbur choke on his tongue.
"Both of you shut up," Tommy grumbles, startlingly coherent; he makes a small happy noise then, like a little chirp, that goes straight to the part of Wilbur's brain reserved for kittens and tiny birds and gangly, newly-manifested, sleepy younger brothers.
"You can have the hoodie," he finds himself saying. His fingers are very gentle in Tommy's hair.
"Pogchamp," Tommy mumbles into the mattress, which makes Wilbur laugh so hard he nearly falls off the bed.