Work Text:
Fundy is wet.
He doesn’t think he likes being wet, doesn’t think he particularly wants to be out here in the rain, but he’s not really sure of anything right now.
He wrinkles his nose, swishes his tail.
Find things that you are sure of, a familiar voice echoes in his head. What do you know?
It’s a phrasing and cadence from simpler times, when Fundy was small enough to tuck himself into his father’s side and practically disappear; before declarations and wars and grand dreams and one too many betrayals and a button that never should have been pressed. When his greatest fear was what supposedly lurked in his closet, and a familiar presence would sit by his bed and play gentle guitar melodies until Fundy was calm enough to drift back off to sleep.
Times when Wilbur helped instead of hindered. When he was a golden light in Fundy’s life, instead of a shadow eternally dogging his steps.
What do you know? his father’s voice repeats in his head again, more insistent this time, and Fundy takes a shuddering breath, blinking hard.
He knows he’s wet, hair dripping icy runoff down his neck, clothes clinging damply to his frame in all the uncomfortable places, ears flattened tightly against his skull to keep the water out.
He knows he’s cold, with limbs numbed in the icicle toothed grip of the chill. It’s winter, after all. Didn’t they just spend the week readying the holiday decorations? He doesn't want to think. It’s hazy, and he’s tired, and so, so cold.
Fundy blinks, curls his hands into fists and feels the clawed, numb tips of his fingers prick through his gloves at his palms. It hurts, but it grounds him. It’s something to distract him from the pain of the icy wind rattling tree branches and his bones alike, frigid against his wet clothes and hair and fur. He shivers.
He can list off a dozen things he can touch and taste and see and feel—glistening wet twigs catching at his hair, his damp jacket cuffs chafing at his wrists, the steady patter and plink of water on dead, soggy leaves all around him, mildew and mushrooms and rot—but none of it is doing him any good, because a list of facts is useless to Fundy if it doesn’t have the reason for what he’s doing.
It is cold and wet, and thunder rumbles ominously overhead, and Fundy is in the middle of the forest half a day’s trek from L’Manberg with no idea why he’s here.
He knows who his feet are taking him to see, of course. It hadn’t been the plan, when he’d left earlier that afternoon, angry and hurt and tired—tired of no one listening to him, tired of no one taking him seriously, tired of only ever being tied to Wilbur’s legacy. (Tired of no one seeming to care now that Wilbur is gone.) He’s been snapped at one too many times today, heard the sing-song chant of a comparison to his father—or worse, to Schlatt—enough to chafe.
It’s like a shackle he can’t rid himself of.
Fundy is never more than someone else’s shadow. Passed over twice for president, three times if you counted the election. Unexpected and all but unwelcomed as a spy. Bypassed as a soldier—Tommy was louder, more brash and bombast; Tubbo was steadier, always reliable and prepared; even Eret, traitor that they were, was clever and helpful.
And Fundy?
Fundy had a crayon-colored uniform and a tattered dream handed to him by his father.
His father, who even passed him over as a son, forever concerned with Tommy and his exploits, his discs, his wars.
Wilbur was more of a father to Tommy than he ever was to Fundy.
And isn’t that sad to think?
It’s reasonable, at first (or at least it seems to be), the way everyone points out the reflections of L’Manberg’s former presidents in each other’s actions. It’s out of genuine concern, everyone knows. It's because they care.
No one wants to be like Schlatt, tyrannical and uncaring. No one wants to be like Wilbur, unhinged and destructive.
They’re just looking out for each other, of course they are.
Until they aren’t.
There’s a line Fundy has heard oft repeated, a line about history and repetition and rhyme.
(It was his father who first told him, across a campfire as their tiny band of misfits and revolutionaries huddled close beneath star-strewn skies, hands stained yellow from dandelion dye and nails clogged with blackstone dust. When they had hope in their hearts and the universe at their fingertips, but all Wilbur needed was the six strings of his guitar and his family at his side.
The thing about history, he had said, plucking a thoughtless melody, eyes contemplative in the firelight. The thing about history is that it likes repetition. It’s like a poem. Each stanza is different and unique, and they push the story forwards. But they all thread together, and you can see the echo of the past in the rhyme of the present. It builds on itself.
Sounds pretty fuckin’ stupid to me, Tommy had scoffed, distracted with poking sticks and leaves into the flames, watching with delighted eyes as they ignited.
Wilbur had grinned, ruffling his younger brother’s hair. Stupid or not, we’re a part of that poem, Toms. And we’re gonna take the best parts of the past to write our own stanza, leave our mark.
And in that moment, it didn’t matter that there were only five of them and a cobbled together dream against the world. Wilbur Soot had a vision, and it swept the rest of them up just as fully, until they couldn’t see the parallel lines of the tragedy they were treading.
Fortune favors the bold, the people crooned, and oh, Wilbur was bold. He was daring and clever and inspiring, and for a time it seemed that luck was on their side.
They forgot, of course, that Fortune wears a blindfold for a reason.)
Maybe history is a poem, then, a creature of echoes and patterns arranged to the heartbeat pulse of passing years. Maybe they simply chose the wrong stanza to mirror in their own actions.
Fundy doesn’t much like poems anymore.
The cabin comes into view before long, windows warmly lit against the gloom of the wintry twilight. Fundy stops at the edge of the clearing and stares for a moment, or maybe a decade, just watching the rain drip off the eaves and the smoke curl from the chimney. Against the glow from the windows, he watches the shadow moving within, silhouetted in warmth and light.
Wilbur is so close, but Fundy has never felt so far away.
He doesn’t remember crossing the clearing, leaves and mud squelching underfoot, icy rain pounding even harder, stripping him of any remaining warmth. He taps a numb fist against the smooth wood of the door, and almost doesn’t register when Wilbur pulls it open in surprise, then shock as he catches sight of Fundy looking like a bedraggled alley cat on his doorstep.
“Fundy?” he asks, clearly concerned. One hand is halfway outstretched, like he wants to touch Fundy but isn’t sure if he’s allowed. (Funny. Fundy’s not sure of that himself.) “Are you all right? What are you doing here?”
Fundy opens his mouth, and his mind stalls.
What are you doing here?
Why did you walk miles through the winter rain without any supplies to see the father you aren’t even sure you want?
Are you okay?
“I don’t know,” he replies, numb and distant and honest, unable to so much as look at Wilbur’s face. If he did, he’d see nothing but concern in eyes so like his own.
(What do you know?
Maybe I don’t know anything.)
There’s another saying, this one about a log and a speck and being sure to watch yourself before you turn on others.
Fundy wonders if anyone else in L’Manberg thinks of it before they open their mouths to spew comparisons that feel more like accusations. The slightest misstep brings the harshest criticism, and the cabinet of the still-recovering nation dances on a knife’s edge.
The first time Fundy is compared to Schlatt, he forgets how to breathe. Schlatt, with his too-tight grip on Fundy’s shoulder, squared pupils glinting unsettlingly whenever Fundy dared to offer a differing opinion. Schlatt with his goddamned I’m something you’re not. Schlatt with his I’m a man.
(Sometimes, Quackity will swat at the back of Fundy’s neck playfully, and Fundy will forget how to move, thinking of a grip on his scruff too rough to be fatherly or caring or innocent. Sometimes, Tommy will shout at him, the way Tommy shouts at everyone, and Fundy will have to hide a flinch and pretend he isn’t thinking of arguments and the sound of crashing furniture hardly muffled by the White House walls.)
He is used to being compared to Wilbur, of course. Fundy has always been an extension of his father, forever standing in the shadow of his brilliance. No matter how different he tried to make himself, he has always been known as Wilbur’s son.
Wilbur plays guitar; Fundy spends hours learning piano. Wilbur talks of words and wars and glory; Fundy helps Niki in her bakery and dreams of bringing joy and prosperity.
Wilbur is exiled and all Fundy thinks about is how to bring him back.
(Wilbur presses a button and Fundy is left with the ashes of his home and family slipping through his fingers like sand from a shattered hourglass.)
You’re acting just like Wilbur, they tell him. Like father, like son. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Fundy thinks of Wilbur and his I have no son. Wilbur and his I have no home.
He doesn’t want to be like Wilbur. He doesn’t want to be like Schlatt, either.
Fundy is no one’s mirror, and everyone’s shadow.
(If history were a song, Fundy thinks it would be a funeral dirge.)
Things go a bit fuzzy. Blame it on the lack of food or the chill or the way he’s walked miles in the freezing winter rain, but somehow Fundy blinks and finds himself swept inside, wet clothes replaced with dry ones just the slightest bit too long in the limbs, sitting by the fire wrapped in more blankets than he realized Wilbur even had.
He blinks again, and Wilbur is pressing a mug of hot tea into his hands, asking him something that might be why are you here, or maybe did something happen, or even are you all right?
There’s a furrow between his father’s brows, a trench worn by concern and worry, evident in all the lines of his face and figure.
Fundy hates that being cared about feels so foreign.
Wilbur is still waiting on a response, and the only words Fundy can muster are a quiet mutter of, “I shouldn’t have come.”
“Fundy—”
Fundy tries to stand, nearly spills his tea. He shakes his head. “No, I’m—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I don’t even know why I’m here.”
He tries to ignore the way his voice hitches just shy of breaking on the last word. Wilbur sets a hand on his shoulder, so gentle it’s almost not there. (Fundy tries not to think of the icy breeze of ghostly touches and a blank black stare.)
“It’s still storming,” Wilbur says softly. “Please, Funds. Stay until the storm lets up.”
(The thunder’s loud and I’m scared. Will you sit with me until the storm is over?)
The roll of thunder and the twang of guitar strings, a gentle hand ruffling his hair, rubbing at his ears the way he loves. Safety in the scent of lavender soap and cedar wood.
(What do you know?)
Fundy knows that he’s cold and tired and he doesn’t want to be wet right now. He tightens his burning fingers around the warm ceramic of his mug and nods, just slightly.
“Until the storm is over.”
People want a lot of things in life. Money, power, happiness.
Fundy?
Fundy just wanted someone to stay. It’s been a long time since anyone bothered.
“You can take the bed,” Wilbur tells him from across the room. He’s drying Fundy’s tea mug with a rag, and there’s something about an act so normal and domestic and far-distanced from the wars of their past that Fundy can’t look away for a moment.
It’s been a long time since Fundy saw Wilbur Soot do anything unrelated to wars and politics.
Fundy blinks. “It’s fine, actually, I can take the floor.”
He thinks of the words they exchanged the last time Fundy was here. I don’t know if I’m going to forgive you, he had said, and Fundy can still taste the way the words felt in his mouth. But if I do, I don’t want your guilt. I don’t want you to act like the victim, or like you deserve to suffer to atone for your fucking sins or something, I don’t know. If I forgive you, we move on. Torturing yourself isn’t going to get you anywhere. I don’t want you to be a martyr. I want you to be better.
Maybe Wilbur is thinking of it too, because he sets the mug down with a clink and raises an eyebrow.
“This isn’t me trying to make up for being a shit dad, Funds,” he says, and the faint note of amusement in his tone is somehow relieving. “You said you don’t want that, and I respect your wishes.”
“So why—” Fundy begins, and Wilbur’s eyebrow quirks a little higher.
“It’s a common courtesy to offer your bed to guests,” Wilbur says. “Phil never lets me be polite. Please, for the love of all the gods, just take the bed.”
Fundy can’t help but snort at that. “Well, when you put it that way.”
He takes the bed.
The storm continues into the next day, as storms are often bound to do, if significance can be wrought of their presence. Rain pounds on the roof, wind whistles in the chimney, and Fundy sits hunched by the fire with nothing to do.
Even as Wilbur strums halfheartedly at his guitar and scribbles in a notebook, the boredom worms its way beneath Fundy’s skin and itches.
Maybe Wilbur can sense it, or maybe he can tell from the way Fundy’s foot taps out an irregular rhythm against the warm stone of the hearth, a beat offset by the rain striking the windowpanes. Either way, he sets aside his guitar and leans forward from his spot cross-legged on the bed, hands in his lap.
“Bored?” His tone is knowing, which should annoy Fundy—he’s tired of people thinking they know him, thinking they can figure him out just by looking at him and knowing a little bit of his past—but Fundy just finds himself nodding.
Wilbur takes in a breath, firelight reflected in his glasses. “What would you like to do, then?”
Fundy’s eyes wander the room, searching for something, anything to focus on. All he sees is the chessboard, sitting atop the bookshelf with pieces scattered beside it.
“We could play chess?” he ventures. Wilbur always loved the game.
Wilbur looks at him in a curious way, like he knows, and Fundy suddenly finds himself wondering if he ever told his father how much he hates chess. He didn’t always hate it. In fact, he used to enjoy playing it with Wilbur, or against Tubbo. It had been fun, and challenging, and it made him feel warm inside to participate in something his father loved. It felt like belonging.
And then somewhere along the way, the feeling of being included faded and frayed into toleration and stagnation. Victories were few and far between. Loss after loss after loss, the same tired game played tenfold, chased away any love Fundy held for the checkered board and its many sculpted pieces.
Ironically, it feels a lot like a metaphor.
“Do you want to?” asks Wilbur, calmly.
“We used to play, sometimes,” Fundy replies agitatedly.
“But do you want to?”
Fundy doesn’t quite understand why he’s being so insistent. He never got much of a say in anything, before. It never mattered what he liked, because it was never important. Why should it matter now?
(He ignores the twist in his chest, the whisper of do you even know what you want? Did you ever?)
Wilbur waits expectantly for an answer, and Fundy swears he’s been taking lessons from Phil, because his silence is more powerful than any words he could have said. He knows he can’t lie. Even the potential of an appearance of Phil’s patented disappointed dad (or in Fundy's case, disappointed grandpa) face is more than Fundy bargained for. He breathes out a sigh.
“…No.” He really, really doesn’t. And it's...nice. To be able to say so.
Wilbur relaxes his shoulders, leans back with a hint of a smile, like he’s proud of Fundy, for whatever reason. “Good. Then we won’t play. What do you want to do? What do you enjoy?”
Fundy blinks, and replies without thinking. “Fishing.”
Wilbur’s gaze wanders to the corner of the room, and Fundy, with a jolt, realizes the fishing rods he and Phil brought with them last time are still there, leaning neatly against the wall rack that holds carefully cleaned garden tools and a walking stick.
“Wait,” Fundy says. “You can’t be serious.”
Wilbur shrugs one shoulder, mouth quirking up into a grin. “Phil once told me fish bite best in the rain.”
They go fishing in the rain.
(It feels a little like healing.)
The thing about poems is that they don’t always rhyme. Poetry is not bound by societal expectations, not always, not this time. It is a wild thing, a creature of heart and soul bundled into words and strung through with struggles, with love, with terror. With everything that cannot be said in any other way.
History is a poem that often repeats, but it is also a poem written by many. Each author makes the choice to follow the patterns and pentameter of the past.
In this stanza, the authors choose differently.
This time, a new path is forged.
This time, history is a poem written in free verse.
They haven’t talked much since reaching the little dock that extends into the pond made where the nearby river curls and stills for a moment before rushing on to rocks and rapids. Wilbur hums the occasional tune, halting and backtracking to rewrite it a dozen times over. The rain taps on the tarp draped across a shoddy frame of sticks overhead.
It’s quiet, but for the rain and the rushing of the water, and that’s nice.
And then there’s a tug on Fundy’s line, and he perks up in excitement, wrestling his line in to reveal, of all things, a salmon dangling and twisting at the end of it.
Fundy stares, open-mouthed, unsure of what to say.
The rain falls harder on the canvas above.
He looks up and meets his father’s gaze. Wilbur’s eyes flick down to the unfortunate fish, and then back up to Fundy. Slowly, he raises an eyebrow, clearly fighting back a shit-eating grin.
“Shut up,” Fundy tells him immediately.
Wilbur bites back a laugh. “I didn’t say anything.”
Fundy sputters. “Your face says enough!”
He practically doubles over laughing at that, and Fundy, without even thinking, unhooks the poor salmon and chucks it directly at Wilbur’s face. It smacks him right in his stupid smile and falls to the dock, but Fundy misses what happens to it next because Wilbur, still wheezing with laughter and surprise, topples backwards off the dock and into the water.
“Wil?!” Fundy shoots to his feet, half shocked, half terrified. “Dad?”
There’s one single moment where the water begins to still and there is no sound but for the rain and the river and Fundy is filled with terror and then—
And then Wilbur bursts up out of the shallows, shaking his hair like a dog and spattering Fundy with a wave of icy water. Fundy squeaks and tries to jump away, but Wilbur’s grin is even more mischievous now.
“I’m sorry,” Fundy yelps. “I didn’t mean to!”
“You threw a bloody fish at me!” Wilbur answers, words nearly consumed with laughter, and he bats another splash of water towards the dock. It doesn’t quite catch Fundy, but it washes out the base of their rickety stick structure, which collapses in on him, and gives Wilbur the perfect opportunity to grab his son by the ankle and drag him into the freezing water alongside him.
“Wilbur!” Fundy wails, but he’s laughing too.
“Retribution! I am avenged!” Wilbur crows, and ducks as Fundy swings out an arm, splashing him directly in the face.
Fundy thinks he doesn’t quite mind being wet, if it makes Wilbur laugh like that.
It sounds a lot like home.
(“Why did you choose me?” Fundy will ask, on one of the bad days. His hands will shake, and so will Wilbur’s, and they will not be okay.
(They might never be okay.)
“Why did you find me, take me in, adopt me?” Fundy will whisper, hollow-eyed and haunted. “Why did you choose me if you didn’t want me?”
And Wilbur?
Wilbur will bite back a sob. Wilbur will reach out to his son, a member of this family he has chosen, because he is allowed this. He will take Fundy’s hands in his own and whisper,
“Oh, Fundy. Oh, my son. I’ve always wanted you.”)
That afternoon, they sit in the cottage, nursing hot drinks sitting on the floor by the hearth like they’re both somehow children again—perhaps, on some level, they are. Were they ever allowed to be children when they were young?
Fundy leans his head against Wilbur’s shoulder, ears relaxed and comfortable as he listens to the quiet plucking of guitar strings. Wilbur’s playing an old melody, one from before wars and revolutions and anthems echoing through dark and musty ravines.
He’ll go back to L’Manberg soon, face the trials of helping to govern a nation all over again. He’ll be compared to people he is not, and it will hurt. It will be hard. But for now, Fundy breathes in woodsmoke and fragrant steam, feels the blanket over his legs and the warm mug in his hands, and does not hear the tapping of the rain any longer.
Wilbur’s lazy strumming stops for a moment, and he gently elbows Fundy.
“The storm is over,” he murmurs, reaching to smooth back a lock of Fundy’s shaggy hair. “You can go home now, if you’d like.”
Fundy hums, somehow not fine and yet quietly content in spite of it.
“I think I’ll stay a little while longer.”