SBI - His Curse of Binding

22

Tommy didn't sleep last night. He had stayed awake all night, working on Ranboo's plastic folder of Greek myths, trying to get through all of them. His hope for finding one that just fit, that made sense, wilted every time he drew a red cross over another myth related to Zeus' escapades with various women. He didn't realise the full capacity and variety of myths and tragedies until now.

He focused solely on those fact files because he knew that the second his mind wondered, it would be about Wilbur. He didn't want to cry again or be reminded of the man who both gave him a childhood and took away his youth.

It was complicated. It was even complicated before when he found out that Wilbur was reincarnated but didn't remember. But now with those memories returning, there was a chance his brother would come back.

No matter the drunken promises Wilbur whispered to him, that he'd never hurt Tommy like he did... it scared him. More than he wanted to admit.

As the light shined in his room, alerting Tommy that it was the morning, he packed up the plastic folder. He threw the sheets he deemed as irrelevant to him into his bedside draws. Maybe it was for the best that he didn't sleep. Dream couldn't visit him this way.

When he sat at the breakfast table, the fog in his head—the cloudiness that sheltered him from the parts of him that flinched and begged for Wilbur to stop reaching over the table, having his hands near him—grew. He liked it this way, not being coherent and fully there. It separated him from having to deal with these thoughts, the memories that the mere presence of Wilbur brought along, that were wrapped in barbed wire and smothering him.

He was fine. Completely in control and fine.

Tommy walked to school as Wilbur felt too hung-over to attend today, which he was thankful for.

The day ended fast. He didn't realise it was the second-to-last day before Easter Break until Ranboo told him when the two of them were in the library after school hours. Tommy continued his rummaging through the myth fact files with his notebook, separating the myths that didn't apply to him. So far, he had crossed of Circe, Cassandra, Pandora and Sisyphus.

He blinked down at the next sheet of paper he picked up, his heart beat faster.

The myth of Medusa laid in his hands. As he read it, flashes of that dreaded Dream visit flickered. Estella's cries rattled his ears, the library walls looked too similar to that apartment. His brother screamed out Medusa's name in that darkroom as he stabbed himself in the heart, knowing the myth was incorrect.

Those were memories Wilbur was going to remember. He took two-hundred and seventy lives that day. Wilbur had transparent blood on his hands that would seep red when the memories came back.

Would Wilbur still be Wilbur when he remembered? Or just like the ship of Theseus, would he be rewritten, replaced by the same man that kept Tommy up at night? He didn't want to know.

Someone touched his shoulder, too close to his neck. The pressure similar to that time Tommy was pinned to a ravine wall. Rough hands clasped around his neck, strangling him to the point where his begging died on his blue lips. His feet dangled helplessly, kicking at the man, his brother, who held him in place.

"Tommy, Tommy, it's me," a voice said.

He recognised it, but the squeaking of bats in that cave, the creaking of the stone walls, and his brother's cackling and ramblings drowned it out.

"Calm down, it's just me."

His eyes fluttered open, his eyelashes stuck together. The light of the room stung. He crumbled over, coughing, a breath lodged in his throat pierced his chest. He tried to ease his breathing as the weight around his neck released.