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Ghostbur sees other people, sometimes. Usually, they’re almost transparent, and they don’t respond when he calls them, but other times they almost look just like he does. Some of them remind him of his friends, bearing the same features, but they never seem to notice him, instead staying in one place, running through the same actions like a tape skipping.
It isn’t until Alivebur pushes him to find a hole in the ground leading to a tiny blackstone room that he realizes exactly what he’s seeing. As he stands there in the middle of the small space, he watches the spectral figures of his friends fight off invisible enemies, before they all eventually succumb to wounds that appear out of nowhere. Then, like someone pressed rewind, they return to their original positions, doomed to relive the fight, the dying, over and over and over again.
Ghostbur cries for the first time in a long time, that day. He’s near catatonic when Tommy finds him, trying to shove blue into the hands of people that the young boy can’t see, cold radiating off of him so heavily that Tommy’s breath is a fog in front of his face. It takes 20 minutes before he exits his trembling, weeping state enough to recognize Tommy’s concerned face hovering in front of his, asking what he’s looking at.
Don’t you see them, Tommy? It’s us.
Tommy keeps a closer eye on him, after that. Ghostbur pretends not to notice, pretends that he doesn’t mind the fact that he’s basically being chaperoned around L’manburg like an invalid, like he can’t take care of himself. He dutifully ignores the fact that they might be right, that he might not be able to take care of himself. He tells himself it’s just Alivebur whispering to him, planting seeds of doubt in the back of his brain. Maybe if he keeps telling himself that, it’ll become true.
He starts visiting places where he can’t remember anything. He knows the bad memories can hurt him, but he’s sick and fucking tired of the gaps in his brain, places he knows that thoughts and memories should be, of the blaring nothingness, taunting him. Faintly, he can hear Alivebur reminiscing, prompting him to go further, push yourself more, you can remember, Ghostbur. I know you can.
He finds himself spending a lot of time sitting in the ruins where the Camarvan used to stand. (The Camarvan! Ghostbur remembers bits and pieces of when he built it, and the time spent there! They’re some of the clearest memories he has, standing stark against the fuzz of everything else). In the back of his head, Alivebur comments dryly that it’s where everything started to go downhill. Ghostbur wants so, so badly to hate Alivebur, to despise the other man for all his sarcastic commentary and hateful words directed towards the people Ghostbur desperately wants to forgive.
Still, the bitter, sad tone in his voice strikes a chord in the ghost, and as he stands in the middle of the ruins, all that remains of the thing that caused everything around him, he starts to find a soft of kinship in the broken man that remains bound to him, despite everything. It’s not much, because Alivebur is still all sharp angles and angry, pointed dismissals, but he does his best.
Schlatt doesn’t come until later. The hybrid suddenly finds himself taking up a spot in the little headspace that’s been reserved just for Alivebur and Ghostbur for so long, neither of them really know what to do with the new intrusion. Schlatt seems like he wants to go back to wherever he was, though, and Ghostbur wants him to go back too. He doesn’t remember very much about the other man, but he knows that they must have some sort of bad history, from the way that Alivebur skirts around him, all awkward, stilted conversations and careful references to things Ghostbur can’t even begin to recall.
His friends are worried about him, and Ghostbur does his best to assure them that he’s fine, but it doesn’t stop him from staring at himself in the mirror every night, inspecting the semi-transparent horns curling from his skull as Schlatt quietly rages against the tight, careful leash he keeps on everything. His hands shake harder and harder with each passing day, until he’s perpetually trembling with restraint, trying to keep his grip on this form, because god damn it, this is the only thing he has left! Why does everyone take everything from him? First his memories, then Friend, and now he can’t even have his own fucking body?
Ghostbur’s nose starts bleeding near-constantly, a bright blue mockery of blood dripping down his face, smearing on his sweater sleeve as he shakes himself to sleep in his little home, not letting anyone in as he wages a silent war in his head. There’s nothing in his mind but Schlatt shouting at him, calling him every name in the book, anything to get his attention to slip.
Then, one day, it stops. Schlatt is gone, and it’s just him and Alivebur again. The other man wraps his consciousness around Ghostbur’s, the closest thing they can share to a hug, and murmurs assurances to him. Schlatt’s gone, he says gently. I told him off, said I’d be back for him when I was done here. You can rest, Ghostbur.
Ghostbur wants to rest, that’s the thing! He wants so badly to leave this world behind, to move on like he was supposed to, but he’s tied to L’Manburg, to his friends, so he can’t, and he fucking hates it. They’re sweet, and kind, and they constantly check up on him when he wants nothing more than to be alone. Alivebur grows softer, hard angles shifting into something protective, and they learn to live together, even if it took an absurd amount of time.
(I can help you, Eret tells him, and Ghostbur’s jaw goes slack, staring at the demigod. I can show you how to let go, Ghostbur. How to move on. Do you want to? All he can do is nod frantically, and when he lunges forward and hugs Eret, her laugh reverberating in her chest as she hugs him back, he thinks that maybe forgiveness isn’t the worst thing in the world.)
Eret sits with him every day, telling him things he only half understands as he carefully projects memories into Alivebur’s consciousness, doing his best to keep the other man clueless as to what he’s doing. He’s not sure why, but he thinks that he might try and stop Ghostbur, and that’s not what he wants.
Slowly, Ghostbur starts to fade. The first time he looks in the mirror and realizes he can see the wall behind him, his form having faded to the point of transparency, he cheers so loud that Phil hears, and comes to check on him. After a long time, something changes. It’s such a subtle shift, he doesn’t realize it immediately as he sits on the bench, waiting patiently for everyone to come back from wherever they’d gone to recuse Tommy and Tubbo.
Alivebur, I’m doing it! It’s happening! His cheer echoes through their headspace, and he feels Wilbur perk up in curiosity.
What’s happening, Casper?
I’m- I’m giving myself to you! You said I could rest, but I couldn’t, because I was still stuck here. I thought I wanted to move on, but I think deep down, I was afraid. I didn’t want to leave my friends, an- and the people who helped me, but I finally realized that it’s… it’s time for me to go, Wilbur.
Casper, shit, I… You can’t do this. You’re as much of a person as I am, and you deserve to be here more than I ever did. Wilbur sounds torn, voice cracking as Ghostbur feels the other man grow stronger, even as his own being fades away.
“That’s the thing, Wil.” He speaks aloud this time, though his voice is faded and raspy. “I was here because you had unfinished business. An unfinished symphony. And this whole time you thought it was L’manburg, but really? It was Tommy. And now he’s safe, and everyone went to help him, so Dream’s locked away, and he’s got the disks back, a-and that was my unfinished business here, Will. You’ve told me yourself how much you miss Tommy and Tubbo, and now you have them back! Go be happy, Wilbur, bring Schlatt back with you if you want, I’m pretty sure it’s possible.”
Ghostbur takes a deep breath, and knows in the back of his head it’s the last he’ll ever take. He’s okay with that, really. He’s served his purpose, and now there’s no use for him.
“And, Wilbur?” The man makes a questioning hum, and Ghostbur is pleasantly surprised to realize that he’s the one in their shared headspace now, Wilbur’s on the outside this time. “Eret says they miss you.”
Ghostbur disappears for the last time, doing his best to flood Wilbur with reassurance and love, right up to the last second. Faintly, he hears Wilbur make a broken sound at his words, and he smiles to himself. Yeah, he’s alright with this. It’s the best end he could’ve asked for.
He just hopes Wilbur finds the chest full of blue he left behind in his home. It’d be a shame for it to go to waste, and he knows the other man will probably need it.