sing me to sleep [wilbur soot]

20. ITS AN ALBUM, GEMMA.

┏━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━┓
chapter twenty:
third-person POV
The Watson's House
Brighton, England
┗━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━┛

      Gemma had basically sobbed herself to sleep the night before. Kristen had offered plenty of cake, snacks, and water, while Philza spent a good time in his office before coming back downstairs. When they'd sent her to bed like concerned parents, she'd curled into bed and nuzzled under her blankets and toyed with the bracelet on her wrist until she fell asleep. Sleep wasn't easy either, she'd left her medication at the house, meaning so had to melatonin with her to aid her to a good sleep. Nightmares ran rampant through her mind.

The next morning, after she'd eaten her breakfast and had been given a water by Kristen before the woman headed out to the stores, she'd curled up on the couch. Apparently, according to a frantic discord call from Tubbo and Tommy that disrupted her short trauma nap, Wilbur hadn't streamed last night (even though they apparently also had some planned lore) and that he hadn't even told them why. He'd ghosted them. Tommy claimed he did this whenever he was feeling down and Gemma, without thinking, said she didn't care before hanging up. Philza had briefly woken her up at noon and ushered her off to the bathroom to shower, and she did so, even if it took forever just to muster the energy to step into the water. Standing under it felt better, like she was cleaning away her troubles. She almost felt worse when she stepped out.

She'd changed into comfy clothes and gone back to bed, unable to bring herself to do much else. Phil had said he wasn't streaming that day, so he'd be in the living room, and she could shout if she needed anything. Gemma had thanked him, promising to pay him back for the hospitality, but he'd assured her it was fine.

Hours passed in near silence and Gemma couldn't think about Wilbur without feeling sick, but yet she missed him so much. So, she found herself plugging in her earbuds and pulling up Jubilee Line on Spotify. She'd only heard him sing it live, hell she'd never listened to any of his actual songs on Spotify before. She'd listened to the E-Girl Trilogy multiple times on YouTube, but never Your City Gave me Asthma. The audio recording of the train announcement had shocked her at the beginning of the song, but soon she settled in to the familiar guitar. She'd leaned back against the pillows and sighed, letting his voice drift through her headphones.

But then the next song loaded on shuffle. As the words played on, Gemma's throat dried and she sat up, hastily clicking on google and typing in:

'your sister was right Wilbur lyrics'

And there, clear as day, was exactly what Fiore had told her about Wilbur.

"P-Phil?" Gemma got up from bed, her heart pounding in her ears as she made her way down the stairs. He leaned his head back over the back of the couch and Gemma ripped her headphones out of her ears.

"When did Wilbur write Your City Gave me Asthma?" Her hands shook in anger, "do you know?"

"Uhm... like early last year was when he released it, I think?" Philza turned so he was facing her, "why?"

"Everything my sister said about him is in the song, but Wilbur and I didn't meet until what? November? September? I forget but we met after this song was published!" Gemma started to hyperventilate, "so-so then! S-she—"

"— she took the lyrics from the song and used them against you." Phil stands and brings Gemma over to the couch, sitting her down.

"Yes. Yes! Yes, she did!" Gemma sighed, relief bubbling over her, "but that still doesn't explain the picture."