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“Ghostbur, please.”
Tommy is reaching his limit.
They’ve been at this for nearly an hour now. It should be so simple - he’ll fetch the ghost from his respawn point, lead him back to the sewer, give him the recount, and his brother will remember everything he needs to know. So why is it that, every time Tommy doesn’t sidestep a topic with the ginger grace of a fuckin’ ballerina, Ghostbur bluescreens and disappears back to spawn again?
“I’m sorry, Tommy, I really am, it’s just so hard.”
“I know you’re trying, just… try harder.”
“How many times have we done this again?”
“Fourteen, Ghostbur.”
“And I forgot them all?”
“Yeah. It happens when you remember something bad.”
“So… why are we trying to make me remember bad things?”
“To get you back, Wilbur!” The ghost jumps. Of course he does. Ghostbur doesn’t like to be reminded of fucking anything, but especially not the fact that he had been a living man with connections to Tommy that he just doesn’t remember so recently.
“Sorry, Tommy.”
“I know.”
They start anew.
“My name is Wilbur Soot. I’m twenty four years old. I was born in the Antarctic Empire to…” he flickers, just a little, and Tommy reaches out a reassuring hand - “to Emperor Philza. My brother is Vice President Tommy Innit.”
“And?” he coaxes, as gently as possible.
“And my other brother is Technoblade.”
“Good, great work, Ghostbur, you’ve got so far.” They’d only managed to get past Techno without a bluescreen on about the tenth try. Withers are a really bad one, he can agree with Ghostbur on that front at least.
“It’s not enough,” the ghost complains, head hanging low.
“It’s going to take a while. Keep going.”
“I…” he frowns. Black eyes under grey eyelids glint, flicking to different spots in the sewer room as if trying desperately to spot something that will recall the right memories. They should really decorate this place a bit more tomorrow. “I moved to the Greater Dream SMP when I was twenty-one and I brought Tommy. We started L’Manberg.” Another flicker. “We met our friends.” Back to solid. “Niki bakes bread and President Tubbo likes to build and Eret…” A harsher flicker - Tommy gestures meaninglessly with his hand, trying to convey breathe, whatever that means to a ghost. “Eret has a castle.”
“That’s good enough.”
“Eret did something terrible. Really terrible, Tommy.”
“I know. I’m the one who remembers it.”
“Should I try to?”
“Not unless you want to lose all your progress this round. You’ve missed a big one.”
“Hit me.”
“Fundy.”
Ghostbur pauses. Black eyes under grey eyelids crystallise, cold. His fists clench, pulling at the sleeves of his jumper, as he flickers and fades, desperate for control. “Fundy was my baby. Sally and I spent a wonderful few weeks together, and then she was gone and Fundy was here and he grew up inside the walls that we built. And I don’t remember seeing him since we won the election.”
“That’s okay, Ghostbur, you’ve done great to remember all that. Can you do another one?”
“Maybe.”
“What about Big Q?”
“Quackity’s the Secretary of State. The Sexytary of State. He isn’t there in my memory.”
“Alright. I suppose that makes sense. He used to be the Vice President.”
“You were my Vice President, Tommy -”
“The other one.”
Sobered by the reminder of the huge chunk in his memory, Ghostbur’s shoulders tense and he squares himself, facing Tommy off. “Tell me.”
“No. This is the one you never get past, Ghostbur, this would be the… sixth time it took you out.”
“I can take it.”
“Ghostbur, it’s not going to work. We’ve tried so hard, let’s just move on -”
“Tommy,” Wilbur growls, and Tommy is fifteen in a ravine again, “give me the name.”
He resists the urge to fall back into yes, sir and meets black eyes under grey eyelids. “The Schlatt Administration.”
And Ghostbur tries, he really does, he tries so hard to keep it going, Tommy can tell, he fades so fast and solidifies equally quickly with visible concentrated effort to stay grounded. They don’t touch, because he’d fall through the ghost and break it the second he tries, but god if he doesn’t want to reach out and put a hand on his brother’s knee and just tell him that everything will be alright, he doesn’t have to remember Schlatt, he can take a step back right now and nobody will be upset. A low, persistent groaning noise begins to escape the ghost, evidently beyond his perception, until, a painful four minutes later, he’s solidified enough to speak it through.
“Jschlatt was my friend. Jschlatt was the second President. And - oh, Tommy - and he -”
Pop.
Gone.
Tommy sighs, pushes on his knees to lever himself up, and begins the climb back to the crater. He knows there’ll be a fresh incarnation of his brother waiting there, wanting to remember it all again.
But one of these times, he reckons to himself (although part of him deep down knows he's lying), he’ll reach his limit.