Work Text:
The ghost is him, and isn’t him, all at the same time. He’s dead and still getting haunted.
The afterlife is, at least for Wilbur, a quiet, gray place. He’s alone and not hurting. He needs this, time for his angry soul to cool off. He could continue on like this forever: knowing nothing, feeling nothing, growing steadily colder. He could, if it weren’t for the fucking ghost.
The ghost has a body. The ghost has his body, but not quite - its skin is gray, its chest ragged. Wilbur’s jaw was angular, but the ghost’s is softer. The mirrored face that stares at him is always smiling. Wilbur despises the ghost: he’s done. So done. Being dead is more perfect than anything that ever happened to him in his life. He’s hurt enough people, he’s destroyed what he created. It’s over, and he’s not coming back. There is no more need for Wilbur Soot.
The presence of the ghost implies otherwise.
When the ghost first reports to him, it has blue-stained fingers. His voice, distorted through the ghost’s mouth, is high and anxious. “Wilbur? I made a new friend.”
Against his better judgment, he decides to humor the apparition. “Yeah? What’s their name?”
“Friend.”
The ghost is not all there. But it’s there enough to keep him from resting. He wonders where this strange translucent creature came from. He also wonders if the others ever buried his body. He hopes they burned it. He suspects it’s still lying exactly where he left it. That’s peaceful enough. It’s alright.
“Tommy and I are on vacation,” the ghost announces some timeless time later. “We are lads on tour.”
Wilbur does miss Tommy. He does. It’s one of the only things that still hurts him. He could forget even that, if not for the ghost popping by to remind him of what he’s lost.
“Tommy is going to have a party.”
Wilbur stares at the ghost, alarmed. It seems injured. Its clothes are torn. Its hands and back and neck are pocked with the sort of dents a hailstorm leaves on a tin roof. The blue stains are more evident than ever, running down Ghostbur’s face like tear trails, oozing from its open chest wound.
After that, he doesn’t see the ghost for a long time. He hopes it’s moved on. He wants to get back to his business of forgetting.
But it returns, trembling, eyes dull, holding a crushed flower in one hand and a broken leash in the other. “Sorry I was gone so long.”
“It’s alright,” says Wilbur. He wants the ghost to be gone forever. He wants them both to be gone forever.
“When I visit you, I try to find happy news to tell you. But I haven’t been able to think of any.”
For a split second, there’s something reflected in the ghost’s eyes, an abstract sadness and a long spindly tower. Wilbur recognizes it and it makes him sick. “Tell me what’s happened.”
A fierce shiver passes through the ghost from back to front, and when it stands back up, there’s a loopy expression on its face. “What? I don’t know. Why did I come here?”
Wilbur sighs. “I don’t know why you’re here.” He doesn’t know why either of them are still here.
“I played hide and seek with Friend,” the ghost tells him on its next visit. This time the blue on its hands is still wet, running down the creases of the palms like printer toner. “And we rode in a boat. I saw -” the brow furrows in confusion “- I can’t quite remember.”
“That’s alright, Ghostbur.” He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care at all and he doesn’t want to care. None of this matters. He just wants the ghost to leave. He can’t get involved. He can’t bear to think about any of it anymore. It’s already killed him.
***
The melting, bluish thing that grabs him by the wrists is unrecognizable. It’s the ghost, and it’s not. It’s certainly not Wilbur. “It’s over,” says the spirit, its breath ragged. “Everything is different now.” It speaks to him in a rush, the silly, stupid, smile gone. “Friend is dead.”
“Oh.”
The ghost peers at him with real pain in its eyes. “I didn’t want to be you. Because you were bad. You were sad, and angry, because you only remembered the bad things that happened.”
Wilbur nods. In the end, when the walls were closing in on him, it seemed the whole world was made up of tragedy and terrible choices.
“So I was the opposite of you! I was kind, and I loved everyone. I only remembered happy things. I built instead of destroying. I tried to remember what was so good about the country you blew up. I wrote books. I had a library.”
The ghost sobs.
“It’s all gone, Wilbur. They blew it up. They blew up my home and killed my Friend. They burned the library. I didn’t do anything wrong. But I wasn’t strong enough. They need - they don’t need me.”
Wilbur smiles sadly. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you the whole time, Ghostbur.” He takes a cold gray hand in his. “They don’t need us. It’s time to go.”
“No,” says the ghost. “They don’t need me. They need you.”
***
“What? But I’m done. I’m gone!” Wilbur is furious. He squeezes the hand and it melts away like quicksilver in his grasp.
“You know you could come back,” says the ghost. “You have to.”
“I’ll make everything worse.”
“Maybe,” says the ghost. “But you could be wrong. I was wrong. I thought I’d make it better.”
“I can’t,” Wilbur hisses, “I don’t deserve to --”
“They’re asking for you, Wilbur.” The ghost smiles at him, and it’s a real smile this time, not an empty or sad one. “Goodbye. Thank you for knowing me. Please tell them I tried.”