Archive of Our Own ^beta

I’ve thought about bodies buried at sea.

It’s not dust to dust, that’s for sure.

It’s water to water.

We are all beings made of water.

Like you said.

Because you’re a wanderer 

who strayed from the straight path, 

the only path to God.

You’re not going to see Paradise.

I.

we are the dust of dust; 

infinity times infinity times infinity

They never buried Wilbur’s body.

It’s all Tommy can think about as he descends the crater of New L’manberg, hopping from ledge to ledge to prod at the still-smoking remains of the country he used to call home. 

He flinches away from the sound of withers hissing from the crevices where they sank down to, hides away from tridents and thunder and bits of TNT that’s only gone off now, wonders what the exact fuck he’s got left to fight for now that L’manberg is well and truly gone. 

Somewhere up above him, Tubbo and Quackity stand by the edge of the crater, assessing the damage as if they’re talking about a creeper-blown hole and not the complete devastation of a country. Their words meld together in a mess of voices that flits through Tommy’s head uselessly. He doesn't register any of what they’re saying.

Tommy kicks loose pieces of rubble as he walks, stubbing his toe every now and then and not really caring about the pain that spikes up his leg. He watches with mild interest as the rocks fall into the gaping pit, hitting bedrock with hollow clatters.

He doesn’t much care about pain anymore — doesn’t care about the parts of his arms that have withered away, doesn’t care about his dwindling health and his stomach growling for food, doesn’t care about the ache deep in his chest where a nation of blacks and yellows once stood.

The thought wouldn’t leave his head. He finds the button room eventually — well, more accurately, what’s left of the button room, because what’s left of the button room is a hole in the ground, just like all of New L’manberg.

New L’manberg’s always smelled vaguely of sulfur. Tommy has no idea if he’s the only one who’s ever noticed it, because no one else seems to mind. No one else seems to care that they built a nation haunted forever by the ghost of its destruction and less metaphorically, its destroyer.

He has no idea if it’s a psychological thing, but that doesn’t change the fact that he dislikes staying in the nation. Too many horrible memories of explosions and fire and brimstone. He loves the country, don’t get him wrong, but the stench alone is just about enough to haunt him.

(In the last few months he’d been alive, Wilbur had smelled like gunpowder. Like the charred remains of a burnt steak, like the rotten tang of the air around a creeper ready to blow, like a piece of metal too corroded to be made useful.

He’d come back to Pogtopia with his coat covered in gunpowder and sand and he’d wear this manic grin when he told Tommy how much TNT he’d gathered. For the longest time, Tommy thought it had been a scare tactic, something to spur the rebellion into action, something to keep Manberg from becoming too cocky. But it wasn’t a scare tactic — it wasn’t even a tactic, it was just the last few notes of a broken song written by a man on his way to hell. 

Wilbur always smelled like gunpowder. It shouldn’t be a surprise that he went out as horrifically and, heh, explosively too.

And before that, Tommy would love to go and wax poetic about all the things Wilbur used to smell like — wood or flowers or old books or something as beautiful and Wilbur-esque, but let’s be real, he doesn’t fucking remember.)

New L’manberg may have smelled like sulfur, but the crater just smells like death. He doesn’t know when he stopped scrunching his nose at the stench and started breathing it in like fresh air.

Tommy remembers seeing the button room for the first time, squeezing through a narrow corridor and sandwiched between Quackity behind him and Wilbur leading the way. The moment he breached the doorway and had his heart plummet into his feet at the sight of TNT bundles scattered carelessly around the room. The way Wilbur’s hand hovered above the button as he spat bitter words out his lips.

He also remembers seeing the button room for the last time, eyes wide as he watched his brother die. Techno’s withers were released moments after and he never had the chance to think about it, caught between fighting for his life and fighting for his friends and dying for his country, but now, as he looks over the remains of the stupid room, the thought strikes him where it hurts the most and squeezes.

Schlatt’s body never turned to dust.

(Tommy’s never seen someone die before. 

He’s seen death, he’s felt death, but he never saw anyone truly die, not until Schlatt keeled over gasping for breath, a hand clutching his shirt over his heart, barely caught from hitting the floor by Quackity. One moment he was wheezing out his last insults with eyes full of his last regrets, and the next he stopped moving entirely. 

Tommy waited with bated breath for the body to turn to dust and fade away, but it never did. 

The server quieted down, cogs of the universe slowing down with the impact of its first true death. The members of the SMP that had gathered in the Camarvan took their helmets off and sheathed their weapons. Quackity bowed his head, shaking from all the sobs he’d been suppressing, reaching a hand down to close Schlatt’s still-open eyes.

A week later, Tommy stood at the funeral, clasping his hands behind his ramrod back, overwhelming silence clogging his ears as Badboyhalo requested a minute of silence.

They hated Schlatt. All of them did. But they could never hate the dead, could never desecrate life like that. This bit of respect was the least they could do for him.

It comes with the first rule of existence within the Dream SMP: once a member, always a member. The SMP won’t let you scrub it out of yourself so easily, not even in death.)

And nowhere between a funeral and an exile and Doomsday did Tommy stop to think about Wilbur’s body.

Now he thinks he should have. No one’s bothered to open up the button room ever since its entrance caved in from Technoblade’s withers.

No body. No burial. No funeral. And now everything’s been blown to shit.

II. 

god knows i am dissonance; 

i’ll go anywhere you want me

Their story starts like this.

Tommy is six and doesn’t have a name. Or, he does, but he hates having to introduce himself as Theseus because it was given to him by parents he doesn’t remember, and besides, it’s not even that good of a name anyway.

Phil finds him trying to pickpocket a pouch of emeralds and brings him home to a ‘close family friend’ and a brother. Technoblade — twelve — is quiet, gruff, and teaches him how not to get caught when he slips his hand into someone’s wallet. Wilbur — ten — is outspoken, ambitious, and gives him his name.

It doesn’t take him long to warm up to them; rather the contrary, he claims a room for himself on the first day and hoards all their food on the second. It takes a week for him to talk to them regularly, two months to pick up a horrible amalgamation of Phil and Wilbur’s accents, half a year to call them ‘family’.

For the first four years that Tommy stayed with them, Phil was a father. 

He goes to work in the fields every day and comes home every evening to cook them food and talk to them. He teaches Tommy to defend himself on the weekends between math lessons and helps Wilbur write his first song. Sometimes Technoblade comes by their house to drop gifts for them and Phil leaves with him for a day or two, never longer than a week at a time. He comes back with the piglin hybrid and makes him stay for dinner, and this is how Technoblade becomes more ‘brother’ than ‘family friend’, though he’d die before admitting it.

And then one day he comes home with another boy in tow, talking nonsense about being on the run and having to go, before he’s gone, Technoblade tailing him as they run off into the night, leaving nothing but two sons and a kid at their doorway.

Their story goes like this.

The new kid looks at Tommy and Wilbur with fear in his eyes. He’s a little taller than Tommy and around the same age, too. He’s got brown hair, striking blue eyes, and he barely makes it to their couch before passing out. Tommy sits with him until he wakes up and Wilbur brings them both blankets and soup to stay warm at night.

The new kid is a little bitch. He’s got no name, but he’s a stubborn cunt so Wilbur calls him ‘Stubborn’ until he tries to say it back and it comes out all weird and they figure out he’s got trouble saying his ‘st’s because he had little reason to speak before knowing them and before they know it, ’Stubborn’ turns into ‘Tubborn’ into ‘Tubbo’.

Tubbo is Tommy’s favourite addition to the family. He’s funny, not in the way Tommy would loudly declare himself alpha male, not in the way Wilbur would quip and snide, but he’s funny when he cracks a deadpan, self-deprecating joke and Tommy is so taken-aback that a laugh gets stuck on his throat and he’s more worried than amused, really. He does the things that Tommy tells him to do, like pull out weeds from their garden, or finish a chore Tommy’s too lazy to start, or sit with him in silence and be the best company Tommy can ever ask for.

He’s Tommy’s best friend, best brother, best member of the family.

And what about Wilbur?

Fuck Wilbur — Tommy hates him, he’s the textbook definition of a complete twat — except when Wilbur brings home a questionably-legally-bought jar of honey for Tubbo, or when he forges Tommy his first iron sword and helps to etch “Knife” into the blade, or when he cooks all their meals and rekindles all the burnt-out torches around their house or teaches them everything they know from fighting to writing to building-

Phil never comes back.

He sends letters sometimes.

Tommy’s always the first one to open it, and then Wilbur snatches it out of his hands and reads it out loud for Tubbo. 

I can’t go home yet, I’m sorry, I’m still looking for a way to return, stay safe, I love you all, Techno says hi, we found another world today, I miss you guys.

Usually they’ll laugh about it. Wilbur will smile and ruffle their hair and tell them that it’ll be any day now, you’ll finally get to know Phil, Tubbo, he’s a wonderful dad, really. And then at night, Tommy will pretend to be asleep and watch from the shadows as Wilbur hunches over a desk with the letter in a death grip, shoulders shaking and expression shifting as he silently disowns their father. 

For four years, Phil was a father, and he was a wonderful one, too. But for the next six, Wilbur’s the one who raised them.

Here’s how their story ends.

Their reputations precede them. They make connections, too many to count, and Tommy calls someone a bitch boy one time too many and Tubbo charms them with his innocent façade and Wilbur comes home with emeralds in his guitar case and one thing leads to another and suddenly there’s a letter on their doorstep.

Tommy opens it. Wilbur snatches it out of his hand to read it, and he falters before he can make a single sound. 

You’ve been invited to the Dream SMP! :)

“Tommy, Tubbo,” Wilbur starts, before his voice breaks all over and a smile cracks his lips open, “we’re going out tonight.”

(What Tommy doesn’t know is that the next week, Phil comes home to an empty house and never stops searching for his sons.)

III.

i thought you were a constellation;

i see you, i see you, i saw you

Tommy is still reeling from the shock of the blast when he makes eye contact with Wilbur.

His head’s still spinning and his sternum might be cracked from the force of fireworks exploding against his netherite chestplate. He’s also got a heart screaming from betrayal but none of that matters, nothing he feels at the moment matters, not anymore, anyway.

Because what matters here, now, is that Tommy looks up and he meets the deranged eyes of his brother.

And at that moment he feels a burning hatred he’s never felt before.

He hates the way Wilbur sweeps his arms out in a conductor’s arc, his smile pulled taut and wide across his face, tears streaming freely down his cheeks. 

He hates the fact that this is how he first sees his father again in over seven years.

He hates the shake of Wilbur’s voice as he screams his victory into the air, the way he looks so pleased with himself when he laughs and laughs and laughs-

He hates the fact that Wilbur looks down from the mouth of the button room and meets his eyes and falters, the moment of hesitation where his expression shutters, the doubt that flashes by his face, the resolve hardening his features immediately after, the nonexistent remorse in the way he still turns to Phil and hands him a sword.

Philza sinks the blade into Wilbur’s chest. 

Time slows to a stop. Lurches once, twice, and then shatters completely. 

Many things happen at once. From his periphery, Dream lets out a strangled noise and jerks forward. Quackity shouts, “No!”, Tubbo’s hand shoots out to grip Tommy’s, Eret drops their weapon, Niki sobs, Fundy screams. The SMP breaks from their second loss that day. 

Tommy stands frozen, eyes still locked onto Wilbur’s dying gaze.

Above all, he hates Wilbur. 

He hates him for betraying them, for dying, for leaving him, for trying to kill him, for hurting him, for going insane, for being his brother, for raising him, for making him care, for giving him a name and then taking it away because Wilbur was the only one he ever shared his true name with and suddenly Techno calls him Theseus and he’ll add that to the list of promises Wilbur broke, for everything.

He hates him for that moment of hesitation. For the fact that Tommy will never know whether he always meant to die, whether his last thought was “they want me dead” or “they’re going to see me die”, whether he even thought of the fact that either way, he’ll be leaving two brothers and a covenant family behind.

He hates him for thinking he has to die. For knowing that nobody in the server would ever dare to take his last life, for loving them back enough not to subject them to the act of killing him, for turning all his hatred to the one person who just arrived, who had no idea, who wouldn’t say no.

You idiot, nobody wants you dead, we could’ve helped you, we could’ve saved you, we could’ve put you before war and politics and nations and everything else, you were loved and you just had to throw it all away, you didn’t have to die, he wants to tell Wilbur, except now there isn’t a Wilbur to tell anymore.

(Later, he looks back, reflects, and he realises he’s not sure when anger stops and hatred starts.

He makes sure no one’s following him and he marches his way to Pogtopia. He thrashes the whole place to the ground. He rips torches and buttons off the walls. He upends chests and throws their contents onto the floor. He finds Wilbur’s old guitar, horribly out of tune from a year of non-use, and he smashes that fucking thing to pieces.

When he leaves the ravine, he barely feels any respite, only the kind of hollowness that stretches far beyond the boundaries of his guts and scoops out all his insides and leaves him feeling all numb and cold.

Not long after that, the ghost appears, and Tommy forces a smile and tries to convince himself that this isn’t the right person to hate.)

IV.

bend the definition of faith;

call it courage to live without a lifeline

He hates the ghost anyway.

He hates his easy smile. 

He hates the way his feet would float inches above the ground. 

He hates the fact that he’s all see-through and that things would pass through him when he’s not focused on staying corporeal. 

He hates his voice, because the veil has torn his voice box to bits and sometimes his mouth would be moving but no sound would come out, the way he’d sing-song the word Tommy and it’d come out empty and echoey. 

He hates the stupid name, fucking Ghostbur, what kind of fucking name is that, holy fuck is Wilbur shit at naming things. 

Most of all, Tommy hates the way that the ghost would sidle up to him all friendly and shit, pretending like they’re still buddy-buddy, and then disappear the second Tommy even tries to bring up their past. 

For a while, he ignores the ghost, focuses on helping Tubbo turn Manberg’s crater into New L’manberg, but then Wilbur asks him why he’s being ghosted (ha-ha) and his heart shatters. 

That’s okay, he’ll talk to the ghost, might-as-fucking-well, right, the ghost never strays far from New L’manberg anyway, but then Wilbur doesn’t remember jack shit and doesn’t want to remember jack shit and his heart shatters. 

So he stops looking for the ghost, stops starting conversations, only answers when the ghost finds him and tries to talk, but then Wilbur whines about not having anyone else to talk to and his heart shatters again and Tommy can’t seem to fucking win and day in and day out he hears the ghost bitch about the fact that I’m bored, Tommy talk to me, c’mon, please, everyone else keeps ignoring me, we’re brothers-

And that’s the last straw for him. 

He pulls his sword from his inventory in a muted flash of white and turns, swinging as he does. 

The blade cuts cleanly through the ghost’s body, phases through him like he doesn’t exist because no shit, he doesn’t really exist, does he. Wilbur’s form twitches out of existence, flickering for a solid few seconds as he shimmers back to dead perfection. His expression doesn’t waver from that easy smile.

Tommy wants to punch that smile right off his stupid mug, wants to punch his stupid mug, wants an excuse to clock Wilbur directly in the face, but he can’t, not anymore. His fist will just pass through air and he’ll feel worse than he already does.

Tommy, Wilbur sighs, sing-songs, says in that airy voice, you know that won’t work.

Tommy watches, half-horrified and half-morbidly curious, as a wound tears open on Wilbur’s chest, staining his sweater with a black liquid that he really doesn’t want to analyse, what the fuck, anyway-

“I know,” he snaps. He puts away his sword in another muted flash of white. He’s panting — no way is he that out of shape — as he falls onto the ground on his bum, keeping his gaze on the grass in front of him and not the ghost hovering right fucking there.

Wilbur kneels down slowly, soundlessly, still hovering a little above the ground. 

“I wish it did,” Tommy continues. Something in his chest hurts. “Because then it’d mean that you’re even alive to begin with.”

Tommy... don’t- don’t say that, Wilbur says, reaching out hesitantly. 

Tommy jerks away from his touch. “Shut up,” he spits. “Shut the fuck up.” He is this fucking close to straight kicking the ghost and sending him flying to the next dimension over. “You don’t get to pull this shit, Wilbur, you-“

It’s Ghostbur, the ghost interrupts, wincing, breaking his even expression for the first time. Don’t call me Wilbur, I’m not- I’m not him-

“Then you aren't my fuckin’ brother either, prick!”

He feels breathless, he’s hurting all over, he’s so fucking tired. 

“There is a reason why you are not my brother,” he says, “and never will be,” echoing the past he knows he can’t escape, won’t escape, doesn’t want to escape.

Getting angry doesn’t get him anywhere, he’s still pulled taut like a bowstring ready to snap. It just takes, and takes, and drains him so empty that sometimes he feels like he’s about to keel over and die from the emptiness in his chest.

“You’re not Wilbur, fucking fine, I guess, but you don’t get to walk up to me and go ‘ooh Tommy I’m bored come talk to me we’re brothers ooh’, because my brother is fuckin’ dead! You don’t get to pick and choose the best of both worlds, no one else fuckin’ does that!”

Wilbur stops. Well he- he fucking stops, Tommy isn’t sure how else to describe it. He doesn’t stop breathing because ghosts don’t breathe in the first place. He doesn’t stop moving because he wasn’t moving. He doesn’t stop talking because he was listening to Tommy’s little bitch rant. 

But he stops. His expression clouds over, his shoulders fall, and that easy smile finally, finally disappears.

But... I just wanted to- I thought- you, but, but we are brothers, I mean that’s how it works, right, it’s just that, I’m just not- I’m not Alivebur, but that doesn’t mean I’m not your brother, Tommy...

Tommy sighs. “Wilbur. Ghostbur. Whatever-the-fuck-, whoever-you-are-bur. Just... Look. I’m sorry, okay?” he says. “But no, this isn’t how it works. You need to. You should. I don’t know- you should do some... muh’fuckin’... introspection, or something. Take a moment to decide what you want. And just, just leave me alone.” 

He pauses. 

Wilbur’s eyes are blank, no sign of the dirty criminal that raised him, no sign of the proud revolutionary that spoke of freedom, no sign of the deranged bastard that blew up his country. All those people are dead. Wilbur is dead. And that’s about it.

“Please,” he adds, for good measure.

Wilbur nods and disappears with a flicker and a pop. Tommy still doesn’t feel any sort of relief.

V.

our bodies, born to heal, prone to die;

we were amateurs at war

They bury Schlatt’s body the day after he dies.

The funeral procession is quiet. Tommy sits in the front row, burying his clenched fists between his legs. Tubbo sits beside him, staring blankly forward. Badboyhalo stands facing all of them, clutching a sheaf of papers and shuffling his feet. Quackity arrives last, wings bent protectively around his shoulders and shivering despite the perfect, sunny weather.

Here’s how the funeral goes.

It rains halfway through. 

Badboyhalo reads from his papers. His voice drones on for minutes too long as he stumbles on words like friend and beloved. 

Someone stands from their chair and leaves in the middle of it. Tommy isn’t sure who.

Tubbo stays frozen.

A minecart transports a dark coffin to the front. There is a picture of Schlatt propped on top of the lid. He’s smiling in the picture. His eyes are more sober than not. 

Badboyhalo asks whether anyone would like to say their piece. Nobody moves. He reminds them they’re gathered here to honour the dead.

Tubbo moves, takes Bad’s place. His speech is short, “I think that everything Schlatt did, he did for Manberg’s best interests. We’ll- we, history will look down kindly on him as-“ he glances at Tommy, “the best president this country’s ever had. I’ll honour his legacy as president of New L’manberg.” 

Tubbo bows his head. Badboyhalo squeezes his shoulder. He steps down, doesn’t return to his seat, leaves the venue altogether.

Badboyhalo asks if anyone else would like to say something. Nobody moves. 

They bury the body. The funeral is over. People start leaving. Tommy and Quackity stay seated. Badboyhalo gives them a sympathetic look before leaving, too.

That’s how it goes. 

The moment Bad is gone, Quackity lets out a heavy sob. Tommy flinches from the sound, feeling a shudder shake his whole body.

“You hated him,” Quackity says. He’s crying. Tommy doesn’t know what to do with this information.

Tommy nods hesitantly. “I did.”

“Everyone did.”

“…Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Quackity lifts the collar of his shirt and wipes down the wetness on his cheeks. “I hate him too.”

Tommy nods again.

“He was my friend,” Quackity says, “did you know that. He was my fucking friend. He, he was an asshole. But he’s, he- he was funny, and he talked to me, and he listened to me when I talked shit, and. And he tried, I think, he- Tubbo was right, y’know, he did everything he did to help Manberg.”

And Tommy… just nods. He’s got no fucking clue what to do or how to feel or whether he should be here to listen to Quackity pour his heart out. He really isn’t the best-equipped person to deal with grief, let alone offer consolation or god forbid, give advice.

(What? No, no way, he’s not grieving. He’s not even sad, like at all. He’s not crying. He’s got no plans to cry in the near future, in the far future, ever. He’s not grieving, who the fuck is he even supposed to grief? Grieving implies that he cares — which he doesn’t, not at all, that’s bullshit, he fucking doesn’t, Wilbur gave up that right when he chose to betray them all.)

“And then people started leaving and he thought the only thing left to do was get drunk.” Quackity laughs, bitterly, brokenly. It comes out more like a sob than a proper laugh. “Literally. This guy. He- he was my friend, y’know? I liked him. And he literally, like, he just threw that away.”

“Yeah,” Tommy supplies. He knows a thing or two about people like that.

“I think- I think he’s… I think at the end, he’s better off dead. I- he shouldn’t have, like, died, but… but I think- I hope that he’s happier, now.” Quackity sniffs. “But I’m going to miss him. You get that, right?”

And Tommy- he doesn’t. 

(Missing people implies that he even loved them in the first place, and he can’t admit this truth right now, not when his hatred is still hell-bent on burning everything in its path.)

He nods anyway. 

“Thanks,” Quackity says, “for, uh, coming here. And being nice about it. I know you didn’t like him but. Thank you. That’s, that’s all.” 

He sighs deeply, closing his eyes. When he opens them again, he’s stopped shivering, and his lips curl up in vague contentment. 

There are some things Tommy will never understand. This is, unfortunately, one of them, and as he leaves Quackity to grieve on his own, he thinks about peace, and death, and peace in death, and comes to no conclusion on his own.

The next day, he finds a new guy in the world’s spawn and burns down George’s house. The fire does nothing to warm his insides.

VI.

make my messes matter, make this chaos count;

shatter

Wilbur is young for a general. He’s only seen twenty years when he decides to start a nation. The change is jarring to see, one moment he’s wearing a casual outfit and joking about selling hot dogs to the Dream SMP and the next, he’s dressed in revolutionary gear and his eyes are hardened with resolve.

He’s still scared. Tommy can tell; it comes across in the way he falters when Dream marches into the Camarvan and hands him a book titled Declaration of War, the way he’d bite his lips so hard that he draws blood and his hands start shaking around the declaration.

But he’s young and he’s fighting for a noble cause and so he fights. He commands the L’manbergians. He’s never been a commander before, but the role fits him like it’s always meant to be.

He dies with his men at the click of a button. It’s not easy, dying isn’t fucking easy, but the war was starting to get out of hand and Dream thought that this was the only way to end it and that it was a necessary evil, it’s fine, they won’t risk another life after this one, right?

Well. 

No, because although Wilbur is young for a general, Tommy is even younger for a soldier. 

Tommy is reckless. He does stupid things. His heart burns with a passion brighter than any attempt to put out the fire. He fucking knows this. He just doesn’t think Dream would actually kill him, is all, or maybe he does, because he says it himself: duel to the death. He sees the way Dream freezes at the words, the way Wilbur’s face pales, the way the others — both SMP and L’manberg — start to protest. 

(In another world, Dream grabs his outstretched hand and shakes it with vigour. In that cruel world, he is nothing but a puppet to Dream, and Dream is nothing but a megalomaniac to him. They fight, and Dream kills him, and Tommy carries the sound of the tyrant’s laughter to death and back to life.

This is not a cruel world. 

In this world, Dream denies him the duel, but he presses on until Dream takes it. In this kinder world, they are friends, and friends put each others’ lives above war, above politics, above nations. But terrible things still happen to good men in better worlds. They fight, and Dream misses his arrow with deadly precision, and Tommy carries the sound of his friend’s screaming to death and back to life.)

When he opens his eyes to his last life, he’s back in L’manberg, and they are free. There is no catch. 

Wilbur is there to greet him as he wakes, pulls him into a hug where he buries his nose in Tommy’s shoulder and cries openly. There are heavy bags under his red eyes and he’s shaking, but he holds Tommy against his chest and pours out his relief in words far too raw to be that of a leader’s.

He tells Tommy he’s an idiot. He tells Tommy he shouldn’t have done that. He tells Tommy, thank you, despite the devastation that comes with watching his little brother die. 

Tommy suspects that outliving the dead hurts more than dying.

(He’s right, but he doesn’t know that yet. 

In a few years, he’ll find the ghost of his brother and he’ll think back to this moment and he’ll wonder if this is why Wilbur wanted to die. He couldn’t outlive his younger brother, and Tommy’s been hanging on by the mercy of the server for far too long.)

Someone enters the room without knocking. In a second, Wilbur yanks himself away from Tommy, leaving empty space around his still-regenerating body. Tommy watches, as his brother changes before his very eyes so seamlessly that it’s hard to tell where Wilbur stops being Wilbur and starts being President Soot.

(In a few months and in a ravine away from society, it’ll be even harder to figure out where Wilbur stops and L’manberg’s traitor starts.)

Most of the time, he’s not entirely either one. He’s not entirely the brother Tommy grew up with, he’s not entirely the distant President of a struggling nation. He’s an amalgamation of the two, writing songs one moment and decrees the next, scamming people left and barking orders right, playing with his thumbs behind a straight back and a stony expression.

Or maybe he’s just Wilbur, burdened with the weight of the world that leaders so love to take. 

Tommy isn’t sure. Many things confuse him, like enchanting languages and distant fathers and governments and the curious case of Wilbur Soot. Especially that last one.

(Something that Tommy is completely sure about is that Wilbur was never a paranoid man. 

At least not until they walked into a blackstone room and Eret pushed a button with a half-apology on his tongue. Wilbur had been the first to die, but his scream rang the loudest out of all of theirs, a visceral screech as he called out Eret for what they are.

‘A traitor!’

Tommy watched his brother die in the Final Control Room. Looking back, that hadn’t even been the worst part of it. 

What’s worse, he thinks now, was watching a dark and ugly fear settle into his dying eyes, clicking into place like it’s always belonged there and festering until it turned into an inherent hatred for everything that moves. 

Despite their best efforts, they couldn’t pull Wilbur out of his descent into embracing that fear. So one thing led to another, dominoes topple over and butterflies beat their wings and terrible things still happened to good people in kinder worlds, and at the end of the day, with the world gone to shit and nations left as nothing but holes drilled down to bedrock, the only thing that Tommy can think of is, ‘Eret, what the fuck have you done?’)

VII.

you explained the infinite;

that the universe was made for you to say it all again

“You were friends, weren’t you?” 

Dream pauses his monologue about lessons in peace and turns his head to look at Tommy. 

“What?”

Tommy breathes in. Looks at the ground. He hates looking at Dream’s mask, at the passive smile that, more often than not, feels like it’s mocking him. 

“You two. You were friends. You were, right?”

“Uh... who are you talking about, exactly?”

“You and Wilbur.”

Exile hasn’t been kind to him. He’d taken the wrong turn somewhere along the way and now he’s been dumped in a seaside plains too far north, too warm to be inhabitable but too cold to be comfortable at any given moment. 

He tore the hem of his shirt on day 2 and hasn’t bothered to fix it. He first realised he misses home on day 7 and hasn’t bothered to find ways to sneak back. He started shivering minutes ago and hasn’t bothered to return to his tent.

Instead, he sits by the beach and stares at the horizon, taking solace in trying to discern between the sea and the sky. The sun set hours ago and Dream refuses to fuck off, thinking that it’d benefit anyone at all to drone on and on about keeping order in the SMP. It’s as if he still thinks that Tommy would scrounge up the energy to listen to him when most days, he can’t even find the energy to get out of his makeshift bed and look for food. 

Dream nods, slowly. “I guess you could say that, yeah,” he says. “We were... pretty friendly before the revolution. He asked me on a date, I think you probably remember that-“ he pauses, chuckling, “and even after that, I respected him as a leader. Not everyone can do what he did as well as him, I think.”

Tommy grimaces. “And then you helped him blow up Manberg.”

“I helped him with his goal. He wouldn’t have backed down even if I tried.”

“You helped him die. You didn’t even try to sway him.” Tommy feels Dream’s eyes on him, tickling the back of his neck like a shitty bug. “You didn’t help him for the sake of helping him, you just wanted Manberg gone.”

Dream elects to ignore the latter half of Tommy’s words. “Was that always his plan?” he asks, voice neutral. Everything about him is neutral. It’s fucking annoying, honestly. “Is that why he wanted to blow up Manberg?”

“Fuck if I know.”

“You... don’t?”

“Do you?”

Dream is silent. 

Tommy fucking hates him.

Or, he doesn’t. 

No, no, he does.

Well...

The thing about it is that he can’t find the energy to light that burning hatred. He can’t find the energy to do anything, feel anything, be anything other than tired, nowadays. 

So no, he doesn’t really hate Dream. He... okay, he’ll stretch his feelings for the man to ‘contempt’ but that’s just about as far as he’ll go. He’s not sure if he can hate Dream, not when he let Tommy build the Nether bridge and allowed visitors and helped him put up photos of home around Logstedshire and is just about the only person who talks to him and keeps him as sane as can be.

(Wilbur’s ghost doesn’t count. He doesn’t understand the weight of the situation. He’s still adamant on not making his choice, still adamant on being the selfish fuck Wilbur never — well, sometimes — was, still adamant on not leaving Tommy the hell alone. 

He gives Tommy useless stones of Blue too saturated to actually work. Tommy wonders why the hell all his Blue is so, well, blue, and then he decides not to dwell on it. He throws away the stones when the ghost isn’t looking.)

“Did you ever care about him?” Tommy asks. 

Somewhere, he took a wrong turn and lost all sense of self-preservation. Nowadays he doesn’t look both ways when crossing the Nether bridge and he doesn’t craft shields anymore and he asks reckless questions to the man who hangs his last life by a string of mercy. 

Mercy. Pity. Same shit, same shit. One just happens to start with a P, which is objectively the worst letter in the alphabet, and hence why Tommy hates it substantially more than the other.

“I do care about him, about all of you,” Dream says, the condescending fuck that he really is, “it’s why I’m doing any of this. You’d know if you even listened to me.”

Tommy scrunches his nose and mocks Dream with a series of ‘meh’s. “Shut the fuck up,” he spits. “That is the cheapest cop-out answer, you are the most tone-deaf motherfucker I’ve ever met, and I literally grew up knowing fucking Technoblade.” 

He rolls his eyes, suppresses the urge to keep going with his insults. 

“Fucking answer me. Did you ever care about him?”

He glares at Dream with the force of a burnt-out star breathing its last few dregs of oxygen.

Dream falters. 

“I... think, I think.” He pauses. “Well. It’s getting late. You shouldn’t... ask questions that you don’t want the answers to.”

Tommy scoffs as Dream steps into the water. He pulls out a trident glowing at the contact with the sea.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Dream says, right before Riptide steals him away.

Tommy falls back on the sand and closes his eyes. 

He’s not sure if he slept at all that night, because later, he wakes up to lungs full of water and salt in his eyes. 

Dream finds him in the Nether, standing precariously at the edge of his obsidian bridge, staring a thousand yards away into a sea of bubbling, bursting lava. Tommy hears him approach and cuts in before he can say a word. 

“Why’d you say no to the beach party?” he asks.

“What? No, look-“

“Why’d you keep coming back?”

“Tommy-“

“Why’re you doing any of this?” Tommy hisses. His eyes are sweating. He’s not crying. “What happens if I die, huh, what’re you gonna fucking do?” 

He leans over the edge. Dream jerks forward, almost imperceptibly. 

“Your biggest problem would be gone. Isn’t that better? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sick fuck, you, you-“

“Tommy!” Dream shouts, taking a step closer to him, his right hand curling around the shape of a weapon. “Stop, look. If you die, what happens is that I lose a friend. I don’t want you dead, you stupid- you, what the hell do you think I am-“

“We are not friends,” Tommy seethes, “we are not-“

(They are, they used to be, they were, first and foremost, past every war, most importantly. All of them. The server was built on the foundation of comradery; friendship over everything, ideology over friendship, and life over ideology.)

They are, beneath everything, despite everything, because friends don’t want friends to die, but Tommy still fucking hates him — it burns bright in him, brighter than it’s been for months, the last burst of light before a star winks out of existence — because friends aren’t supposed to do this, friends don’t push friends to the brink of death, friends don’t cause nothing but pain to each other-

“Tommy,” Dream says. “Oh god.”

Tommy clicks his mouth shut. He’d said that last part out loud. He can’t be bothered to care.

“Fuck you,” he mutters. “You are a self-righteous prick. I despise you.”

“Tommy-“

“I hate you. I hate you so fucking much. I don’t care- I don’t care anymore, I don’t give a shit about your lives, I’m going to fucking kill you dead the first chance I fucking get-“

“Tommy, go home.”

Dream surges forward, grabs him by the shoulder, yanks him away from the edge of the bridge. Tommy stumbles to catch his footing, reaching up instinctively to defend himself. 

“Go home, just, just go,” Dream says, forcing him to turn until he’s facing the direction of the Nether hub. “Go back to New L’manberg, go back to- to your friends. You know how to get back, I know you do, I know about your little Tubbo compass, take it and go the fuck home.”

He releases Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy shudders as he finds his centre of gravity once more.

“What the fuck,” Tommy says, “what the actual- what’re you doing?”

“I’m pardoning you out of exile!”

“Why- why’d you suddenly...”

Dream throws his hands up in the air in frustration. “Because this isn’t working!” he yells.  “I’m letting you go. I’ll tell you why the sudden change of heart, ten days into the new year, I’m going to come to New L’manberg and destroy it to bedrock.” 

He draws himself up to his full height, looks down at Tommy through his unflinching porcelain smile. 

“So go on. Tie up your loose ends. Say goodbye to your country while you still can,” he says. “Just... go.”

Tommy grits his teeth, clenches his fists by his side. “This changes nothing between us.”

“I know,” Dream says. His shoulders sag just the slightest bit. 

Tommy’s not the only one out of energy, out of options, out of time. 

Then, “Go home, Tommy, you still have things you don’t want to lose.”

And Tommy... he does. He turns around, walks away, makes his way back to the Nether hub. When he glances back a minute later, Dream is gone like he never came in the first place.

VIII.

i’m only honest when it rains;

brokenness is a form of art

Wilbur’s ghost is waiting for him when Tommy finally climbs out of New L’manberg’s crater. 

It’s raining. 

Tommy hates the rain — he does, why the fuck does it always rain when things go to shit? It rained the day of Schlatt’s funeral, it rained the day he was exiled, and it’s raining the day they raze New L’manberg to bedrock. It’s like the god of this world is trying to fuck with him, surprise surprise — or not really, no, he wouldn’t be surprised at-fucking-all if some higher power hates him in particular and is hell-bent on making his entire life hell.

Looking up, he realises that the ghost melts in the rain. It’d be funny if it isn’t so tragic- no, actually, it is a little funny. 

Or a lot. A lot funny. 

In literally any other situation he’d bust down laughing at the sight of Wilbur’s face sizzling and his fingertips drip-dripping down onto the ground. 

Like hell, imagine not being able to touch water, what a fucking loser. One day the ghost is gonna sidle up to him and whine about the woes of being dead and he’s going to chase him away with a bucket full of water and that- that’ll teach him. It doesn’t hurt the ghost, Tommy knows it doesn’t because ghosts don’t fucking feel pain, but it does shut him up for a good few minutes.  

Which, by the way, Tommy wonders if after all the explosions and shit, whether he’s still got a bucket of water in his inventory because Wilbur’s ghost opens his mouth and-

Tommy, I want a funeral.

-and nevermind. His mood is shot down to shit immediately. Not like it was even good in the first place.

“Uhh... come again?” he asks, as if he didn’t hear it the first time. He did, but his brain hasn’t caught up to him — look, it’s not every day that your country gets decimated by your ‘close family friend’, your father, and the guy who’s got a self-righteous stick so far up his ass that he’s gotta taste wood every time he-

I want a funeral.

Tommy nods. Add that to the list of weird things that happened today. Things like having your country- you get the fucking idea.

“Okay,” he says.

So imagine this, right, he’s caught off-guard by a demand he can’t ever turn down in a situation much too serious for his liking, and imagine him standing stock-still with awkward background music, maybe some Animal Crossing, cue fucking Able Sisters-

Okay. That- okay.

That last one isn’t funny, he’s overrun the joke one too many times and he’s... he’s- look. He’s not covering up potential trauma by making jokes, he’s just being funny. 

That’s all there is to it. 

He’s not angry, because there really isn’t a point in being angry anymore and besides, he’s got no one to direct his anger to. He’s not shaken from today’s events, he’s just a little cold from the rain and it’s not like TNT is still going off and making him flinch with every explosion. He’s not on the verge of tears, because he doesn’t cry unlike some people, which, oh fuck.

Wilbur’s ghost is crying.

His tears sizzle down his cheeks, which is an objectively hilarious thing, but... but. 

Tommy isn’t angry, isn’t shaken, isn’t about to cry, but maybe he feels a little bad for the ghost, okay? Maybe despite everything, he’s still not going to turn away the last shadow of his brother. 

Kindness breeds kindness. Tommy lowers his walls, takes the ghost by the hand, and leads him further away from the crater where there’s shelter from the rain. 

Tommy, Wilbur’s ghost starts, they didn’t bury my body. 

His eyes are empty, blank gaze fixed onto a horizon blown to bedrock and faded with dust coating the air. 

I’ve been around New L’manberg- around the whole server, and there was never a funeral, and, and there’s no headstone, no burial ground, nothing.

Tommy nods. As far as he can remember, the subject never came up in conversation. Wilbur’s name is taboo everywhere, a ghost in deeper ways than just physical, spoken like he’s one of the bad memories that his shadow actively tries to forget. Wilbur exists as a bad memory for too many of them.

Schlatt had a funeral, you were there, I remember you had to go and attend it, the ghost says. 

Tommy doesn’t blame any of them for wanting to forget. 

He will, however, blame himself, though he’s never had to berate himself for forgetting because his brain’s always plagued with the same bittersweet memories of his brother.

The ghost’s face flickers, a cacophony of emotions twisting his expression as he struggles to hold onto a single one. But something keeps him rooted in place where he stands. Something heavy chains him onto the earth, like responsibility, like family, like grief.

Like the knowledge that he’ll never break free from his past. 

I want a funeral, he says, I need to- I need to know that it’s over.

“Ghostbur, I...” Tommy says, sounding perfectly fine despite the salt clogging his throat, “there’s no body to bury anymore.” He pauses. Swallows something thick and salty down his throat. “You... you said it yourself, we never buried the body, and... and no one’s opened the button room since the. The, uh. Since.”

I know, Ghostbur sobs, I know, but Tommy, please, I need this, I need- 

He grabs at his hair, yanking his locks violently, grey knuckles turning sheet white with how hard he’s gripping.

I need to. I. Please, let me, let me have this, I want him to be laid to rest, I want, I want all of this to be laid to rest. It’s only going to keep haunting us, me, I need to- I have to-

“Okay,” Tommy cuts in, wincing despite himself, “okay, let’s. Let’s go. Let’s do that, right now, I- I’ll go look for something of yours, or Wilbur’s, I don’t know- in my enderchest.” 

He stumbles away, head spinning from Ghostbur’s rambling. Something about it crashes into him like a freight train ramming into its destination months late. Passion and vengeance all curling around his gut, squeezing his insides so tightly that he chokes on it- on all the tears he never bothered to shed.

He finds an enderchest eventually. Ghostbur hovers behind him, looking over his shoulder and sniffling occasionally as Tommy clicks the chest open to his most prized possessions.

And buried deep under valuable materials and How to sex and discs and Your Tubbo and a chunk of bedrock and Twit Longer Bow and- and everything, are the broken pieces of his first iron sword. 

‘Knife’ stares back at him. 

The word is carved onto the blade, the letters neat but uneven. Clearly the work of an amateur blacksmith. The ‘f’ curls pretentiously at the bottom, just like the ‘f’ of ‘freedom’ in the Declaration of Independence. 

His stomach curls at the sight of it. 

Suddenly, he’s eight years younger and Wilbur’s giving him a suspiciously sword-shaped birthday gift in messy wrapping paper and he’s tearing it open like a ravenous beast and chasing Tubbo around the house and swinging the sword carelessly with Wilbur closely tailing him, terrified for their lives. 

Suddenly he’s closer to ten than he is to twenty, and his brother leans over an anvil and asks him what he’d like to name the sword and laughs when he declares ‘Knife’ because it’d be funny.

Suddenly, he’s back in a time he lost far too soon, and his brother is still alive. His hands aren’t marred with scars and his eyes are still bright, still full, still alive.

He looks up at Wilbur’s shadow and knows he can’t part with this piece of himself. Wars come and go and people die because they want to, but underneath all of this, he’d still like to think that he gets to keep some shred of innocence to himself.

The lie slips easily out his tongue, “I don’t have anything of his,” but his heart sinks when Ghostbur’s expression shatters, so he says, “I’m sorry,” and pretends that it’ll fix anything at all.

Okay, Ghostbur whispers. It’s fine. I… Let’s- let’s go, I know where to bury him.

Tommy follows him, tethered to the ghost like the ghost is tethered to the Earth. When he was six, he took one look at Wilbur and decided he’d never stop following him. This fact still rings true, almost twelve years later, as he follows Wilbur up the cliff above the very first thing Wilbur built in the server.

Tommy can almost feel the flooded ball sway underneath his feet, grasping at rusted chains and memories of music. It’s been two years since anyone last stepped into it.

Ghostbur stops when they’re right above the ball. 

Here, he says. Do you… do you have a shovel…?

“Uh…” Tommy reaches into his inventory, finds nothing but debris lining the walls of his pockets. “No, sorry.”

Oh. A pause. Okay. It’s fine.

Ghostbur kneels and digs his hands into the dirt, scooping out handfuls of soil one at a time. 

His hands shake. 

After the third handful of soil, he shudders and it falls straight through his palms. 

He tries again. His hands phase through the ground.

I need help, he says.

“Oh,” Tommy says, snapping out of his daze, “oh, right, yeah, sorry.”

Tommy drops to his knees beside Ghostbur and picks up where the ghost left off. Ghostbur holds out a hand. White light forms into the shape of a flower, flaccid petals falling from a weak stem. Tommy can’t be arsed to put a name to the flower, but he’s seen it dotting the grassy cliffs surrounding New L’manberg, now craters studded in rock and smoke.

Ghostbur places the flower in the hole and nods at him. He scoops dirt over the flower and smooths out the ground as best as he can.

Do you have a sign? Ghostbur asks, his voice small and wet. Or, or slabs, anything. I need a headstone.

Tommy pulls a stone slab out of his inventory and sticks it vertically into the ground. The ghost reaches out with a hand stained in Blue, shaking as he writes with his index finger. The letters are sloppy. The blue dye drips down the smooth stone. But the words are clear, and so is the bitterness behind them:

‘Here lies Wilbur Soot.

Father. Brother. Traitor.

Rest forever in peace.’

Ghostbur gives the whole grave a once-over and sits with his knees pulled up to his chest, as satisfied as the situation allows it. It’s nothing special — a small headstone overlooking the crater of New L’manberg, fitting — but the ghost regards it like it’s his greatest, most tragic creation.

He flickers in and out of existence as a neutral expression falls over his face. When he’s solid again, he’s not. Every faux breath he exhales sends a shiver down Tommy’s spine, he’s blurring at the edges, and looking at him feels like catching constant movement at your periphery.

Tommy stands up behind Ghostbur, straightening his back and moving to clasp his hands behind them. A soldier’s respect, because this is one of the few things he can’t claw out of his identity. 

‘You idiot,’ Tommy thinks, ‘you were loved and you had to throw that away.’

He’s been here before, months ago. When New L’manberg was still known as ‘Manberg’s crater’ and people still found it in their hearts to organise a funeral to respect the first of their dead. He’s been here before, standing behind a person bent over a gravestone, barely restraining himself from snapping up to a salute. He’s been here before, and so much has changed and yet, nothing at all.

Back in Schlatt’s funeral, he’d watched with general discomfort and a bit of sympathy as Quackity grieved for his ex-friend. Now he watches as Ghostbur mourns for himself, wondering why the hell he can’t seem to feel anything but emptiness. 

Isn’t this what funerals are for? A chance for the living to grieve? What the hell do people even do when they grieve? What use is there for him to stick around and entertain these burials when he-

You don’t have to stay with me if you don’t want to, you know, Ghostbur says, as if he can read Tommy’s straying, traitorous thoughts. 

Tommy bristles, pressing his lips together. “Are you sure? I mean, I’ve got nowhere else to go, if you’d like me to stay I’ll- I’ll do it, right-“

Tommy, Wilbur’s ghost interjects, turning his head around to look at him.

His eyes are bright, clear, his voice distorting and echoing as he speaks. The lines of his face fade together the more Tommy tries to focus on his expression.

It’s fine.

He smiles. Sadly, painfully, humanely.

Let the dead bury the dead, okay?

Tommy releases his death grip around his own fingers. Something in him settles, falls deep into his gut and starts spreading a bitter taste along the walls of his insides. His feet grow cold inside his shoes, pins and needles running up his legs and down his arms and numbing the tips of his fingers. He doesn’t know where any of this is coming from. 

He nods, turning on his heel and booking it the hell out of there. 

All out of nowhere, he finds that he can’t fucking breathe. His lungs burn as he trips over his own feet, heart screaming with a feeling he hasn’t felt in far too long, a feeling that slams into him with all the fury of being left buried alive. 

He doesn’t look back at Ghostbur — he doesn’t need to turn around to know that the ghost has found the kind of peace he’ll forever be chasing after — as he hops down the cliff, onto the Prime Path, and back to New L’manberg’s crater.

He finds Tubbo and Quackity on relatively untouched grass and falls between them like a sack of boulders. Quackity squawks out in surprise, wings flaring out as he flails to catch Tommy. 

“Tommy?” Tubbo yelps, digging a hand into Tommy’s shirt, struggling to hold him upright. “What’s- what’s going on? Is something the matter-“

“Tubbo, Alex,” Tommy starts, “I think. I- I...” 

His hands snap up to curl around their wrists, gripping them like he’s going to fade away the moment he dares to let go. 

“I’m sorry,” he chokes, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Pain snakes around his ankles like a chain too thick to break. Grief weighs him down, a ball dragging behind him as he tries to move, and fails, and falls. 

(In a crueler universe, he stays on the ground, given up under the weight of everything, curled in on himself and resigned to his fate as the hero of this tragedy.)

He cries for the first time since he was an infant. He lowers his walls, tears them to shreds, breaks the dam in half and lets everything flood over him and fill his lungs and squeeze him dry of respite. Everything, everything, he feels it all at once, because he lost his brother, his family, his home, but he hasn’t yet lost himself and though he isn’t sure whether it’ll last, he thinks that right now, it has to be enough.

He gives himself this moment. Lets himself grieve, finally, for all that he lost and all that the world takes and takes and takes and takes. It shatters in him, hurts him like he’s never felt hurt before. Wave after wave of emotion, all swirling around his head, his heart, filling the cavity in his own personal hearth at fucking last.

(In this kinder world, his lifelines keep him afloat.)

It’s painful, but it doesn’t last forever. Everything subsides, eventually, and pain is no different. Grief is no different; the next time he thinks about his loss, it’ll hurt a little bit less, and the next, and the next, and the next, until one day he’ll wake up to a day where painful turns to bitter turns to tender turns to hope.

Tommy opens his eyes. 

He hurts. He cries. He breathes.

IX.

i woke up from the same dream;

when i break pattern, i break ground

This is how New L’manberg falls.

Dream builds an obsidian grid above the nation and lights stacks upon stacks of TNT.

Philza calls lightning down using his trident as a conduit, soaring through his wreckage like Death spreading her wings.

Technoblade raises a dozen withers from the depths of the Nether and unloads his rockets into the nation’s defender.

Everything breaks all around. 

The ground erupts, wounds tearing open in the Earth and bleeding stone into the air. Wooden platforms and stilts shred into sawdust, raining splinters as they mangle under the force of hundreds of explosions. The heavens screech, breaking apart to make way for death and destruction and the collapse of an era, rain and wind pelting the fighters down below violently.

Tommy lost all the equipment he’d gathered long ago. Still, he scrambles to keep fighting for whatever bits of New L’manberg he can still save, all armour forgotten and brandishing an iron axe as a weapon to fend off the withers. 

Wilbur’s ghost wails in despair somewhere among the ongoing destruction. His voice echoes all around them, carrying the distinct timbre of utter devastation, a special tone reserved only for agony.

Tubbo stands in the middle of it all, watching impassively as his legacy is destroyed for the first time, as his home is ripped from him for the third time, as his work dissolves back into the Earth for the thousandth time and still counting higher.

They knew they lost the moment the fight started. 

No amount of preparation could possibly have saved New L’manberg from the cumulative power of the three strongest men in the server. No one could have anticipated the extent of how far three masters of ruin could utterly level a whole nation. 

But no amount of loss could deter them from picking their weapons up and fighting despite everything, and this philosophy rings true in Tommy, if only for him alone, as he leaps back into the line of danger between his unsuspecting best friend and Technoblade’s loaded crossbow.

Time slows to a stop for him. His eyes are dead fixed on the crossbow. 

He’s shaking, but he’s also not; he’s not scared for his life, but he’s scared for Tubbo’s; he’s accepted that he’ll die decades younger than he’s meant to and he knows for a fact that Tubbo has, too, but this still doesn’t stop him from trying to sacrifice himself.

Techno’s finger freezes hovering above the trigger. 

“Tommy,” Technoblade growls, eyes hidden by his hair whipping across his face, looking like he belongs right in the midst of the howling wind and the bits of debris flying past them. Anarchy in all its purest forms. “Step out of the way.”

Tubbo turns, eyes widening as he realises how close he was to death. 

“No!” Tommy screams back, because he screams when he’s all out of options and nowadays his throat always feels raw and torn, “you won! You fuckin’ won! Stop- stop it, just leave us alone! You don’t have to kill him!”

Technoblade cocks his crossbow higher, grip steady around the rocket stuffed into the arrow track. “He’s part of the government! No, he’s not just part of it, he’s the head! He’s the root of everything that went wrong!” Techno yells, splaying one arm around him in a grand gesture. “Don’t you see? He’s corrupt, he used people, and he’s going to rebuild this cycle of government if I don’t end it, right here, right now-“

“He’s my fuckin’ friend, you idiotic sonovabitch- you-“ Tommy steps backwards, spreads his arms on either side, tries to cover as much of Tubbo as possible, “he’s my friend before he’s the president! We put people over government, and you just betrayed that! We trusted you-“

“I’m a person too!” Techno screams. 

Chaos; the world rages with him, thunder breaks as he opens his mouth and strikes the land around them to fuel his wrath. The Blood God screams at him with the force of war and the spirit of bloodshed, wailing like a fucking child that he didn’t get treated fairly.

For all that he’s powerful, Technoblade is a bitch.

“You used me for my gear, you used me because I can fight, you used me as a weapon and threw aside the fact that I have autonomy! You disregard my ideals, and then call me a traitor when all I’ve done is stand for what I’ve always stood for-“

“We’re people too!” Tommy screams back, because he’s just about reckless enough to engage Techno-fucking-blade in a screaming match. “You can’t just- just kill off one of us, do you realise that this is it- this is why nobody fuckin’ likes you- you killed so many people, and you never even stopped to consider the fact that this isn’t how it works here- you violent bastard- you betrayed all of us-!”

“Tommy.”

Tommy flinches with his whole body as a hand touches his shoulder gently. He twists, quenching down his fight-or-flight instincts as he registers the fact that Tubbo isn’t a threat.

“Look, it’s fine,” Tubbo says. He’s got a weird look in his eyes. Like he’s about to do something he knows Tommy won’t like one bit, something like-

Like-

Stepping around Tommy to plant himself back in front of Techno’s crossbow. 

“You don’t have to defend me- he’s right, isn’t he?” He shrugs. “We did sort-of betray him.”

“Tubbo- no, he- he’s the one who betrayed us, we’re not traitors, he shot you dead at the festival-“

Tubbo shakes his head, almost fondly. “Tommy! It’s okay!” he says. “The festival doesn’t matter anymore. We didn’t try to execute him because of that, you know? That’s between me and him, and I forgave him months ago.”

Tommy almost misses the way Technoblade’s hybrid ears twitch, the way he falters. 

“I’ve done enough, I think,” Tubbo says. “We’ve had our fun, all good things must come to an end, right? And uh-” he laughs both awkwardly and easily in a manner only he can manage, “when I became president, I swore to do everything in my power to ensure L’manberg lives on. And L’manberg was never the place — it’s the people. I’m not going to let you guys get hurt anymore, okay?”

And Tommy can only stare dumbfounded, horrified, as his brother, his best friend, his other half, turns back to face Technoblade and step closer to the tip of the crossbow. 

“It’s fine, you can kill me,” he says. “You’re trying to do the right thing in your eyes, I get that! I can respect that, Techno, if that means I have to die-“ he walks forward, “then I’ll do it.”

Technoblade shifts a foot back, shoulders hunching. “I don’t like the way you’re challengin’ me.”

“I’m not challenging you, though, is the thing.” He stops advancing. “I’m just trying to help however I can.”

Tubbo bows his head, ram horns sticking out of his wet hair, lowering his fluffy ears as he gives Techno an easy headshot. Despite everything, he still respects the man, and it’s so much more than Tommy can say for himself that he has no idea how the fuck Tubbo can manage such a feat.

(And this is the kid he grew up with, the person who stuck with him for the better part of a decade, the man whose amity far transcends ‘brother’ and ‘best friend’ and ‘other half’.

Tubbo, who he took in as family from the streets, who they used to call ‘Stubborn’, who he chased around the house with Knife, who followed them into the Dream SMP without question, who built and fought for a country with him, who stayed unwaveringly loyal until he was forced away, who came back, who always comes back, who will never hesitate when it comes to people.

‘You lost a brother too,’ Tommy thinks, ‘how the hell do you do it?’

And maybe it’s because Tubbo doesn’t want to lose another brother, another friend, another part of himself. Maybe it doesn’t matter who he loses because he can’t bear to lose even the most inconsequential things. Maybe he’s just that — an irrevocably good person.

Because he puts people, first and foremost, above everything, despite everything.)

Technoblade lowers his weapon after a minute that stretched far too slowly, far too painfully. His eyes are wide. 

“I don’t understand,” he says, softly. “Why would you...”

His expression twists in anger. 

Tommy’s heart leaps into his throat. 

Between the two of them, only one is dressed in full enchanted netherite and stocked with weapons and supplies to last him years. Only one of them wears his heart on his sleeve and gives that sleeve to the enemy. 

Only one of them is brave.

Technoblade’s crossbow disappears into his inventory and he spins on his heel.  A trident replaces it in his hand, glowing with the power of the rain, and he’s gone, snatched away by Riptide. Tommy elects to ignore how familiar this situation feels.

(Tubbo’s biggest strength, Tommy thinks, is his kindness. He is kind exactly how Tommy is brave; recklessly, unflinchingly, unconditionally — where the only time he ever stumbled was when he let something get in the way of his selflessness. He’s not nice, not by a long shot, no, but he’s among the best of them, a good person beneath everything weighing him down.

It’s honestly baffling. 

His refusal to bend to violence. 

His willingness to die if someone asked him nicely enough. 

His ability to stand bleeding and broken against a world ready to smite him down, face down the weapons resting blade-first on his head to offer an olive branch and say, ‘your move’.)

“Fuck,” Tubbo curses, his knees failing him as he falls backwards, barely held up by Tommy who catches him in the nick of time. “I was so fucking scared. Thank god, thank god-“

It takes one to know one, and Tommy recognises pure courage in the way Tubbo trembles in the aftermath, shakes and shakes and shakes and yet won’t hesitate to do it a second time.

“Please don’t do that ever again,” he finds himself blurting out, because fuck, he’s shaking too, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he lost not one, but two of the most important people in his life.

(Tommy might just understand Technoblade’s aversion to Tubbo. 

First, because he represents everything Techno hates. 

Second, because he is everything that Techno isn’t.

Lastly, because for all his power and might, Technoblade is first and foremost a coward, afraid of the things he doesn’t understand. 

Things like forgiveness without expecting favours back, things like being selfless for the sake of giving, things like kindness with no strings attached.

And that, Tommy thinks, is Technoblade’s biggest weakness.)

Tubbo nods weakly, and their hands find their way around each other. 

They watch the rest of New L’manberg die, together.

X.

give us bread, give us wine;

give us the right to call it home

There’s a lot to be said about people who grow to love you. 

(Like forgiving your worst enemy and learning to coexist with them. Looking back months away from where you started and realising how far you’ve come past resentment, past remorse, past redemption. Knowing that all of this started because you were willing to give each other as many chances as it takes as long as the results speak their truth.)

There’s more to be said about people who grow to hate you.

(Tommy is no stranger to this feeling. He’s been on both sides of this sort of relationship, he hates and he’s hated and this isn’t- shouldn’t be rocket science to anyone, you’re not going to be liked by everyone you meet, it’s just a fact of life. He’s learnt to accept this long ago, far, far too long ago, much too young to be as self-aware as he was.)

People like Phil, and Techno, and Wilbur. Ironically, the people he calls his family.

Especially that last one.

God knows he should hate Wilbur right back. He treated him like shit, used his trust to slink under surveillance, destroyed his home and gave Tubbo presidency to drive them apart, made him a soldier too young to fight and too young to die, whispered in his ears all these ideals that he believed and ‘till this day still believes. 

Tommy remembers ‘I think I wanted to blow up Tommy’s L’manberg’ and his heart twists around and constricts inward infinitely, because what the fuck has he ever done to Wilbur but try and save him? 

He sees the ghost shying away from atonement and wonders if that’s just the case — some people don’t want to be saved, don’t want to be forgiven, choose to hurt and hurt and hurt until they’re too far gone from any chance at redemption. 

He wants to go back to a time when Wilbur wasn’t as... immoral, wasn’t as prone to destruction, wasn’t as hateful and bitter. 

He tries to remember whether such a time ever truly existed.

He comes up blank.

Who are you? he wants to ask, but there’s no one left to ask. The question burns in him, carves itself onto his brain and makes his head spin as he tries and fails over and over again to make sense of it all, to make sense of Wilbur Soot.

He thinks about Wilbur, young and left with two kids under his care. Throwing away his childhood to raise his two brothers, never once voicing his frustrations out loud. Destroying every letter Phil sent them and spitting his name like a foul thing.

He thinks about Wilbur, older now, a proud revolutionary of speeches and songs. Entering a war with an unstained blue coat and coming out of it with blood on his hands and resentment burning in his eyes. Speaking of independence one moment and seizing power ruthlessly the next.

He thinks about Wilbur, swathed in a bloody trenchcoat and wasting away in a ravine. Laughing hysterically as he carves out the Pit, taunting them with promises of mutual destruction, grinning easily at the son that disowned him as he hisses, “I despise you.”

Who are you? he wants to scream, but there’s no one to scream at either, so his own voice rings back at him in the echo chamber he’s learnt to live in. Was this always the Wilbur he knew — a possessive, evil bastard who knew no remorse for violence? Were they all just so deeply manipulated by buzzwords and charming smiles that they never thought to consider otherwise? Had he been looking up to a fraud this entire time?

No. 

No it’s not, no they weren’t, no he hadn’t, because it can’t be true. 

Because Wilbur is so much more than that, because he’s a pacifist and he’s loyal and he’s selfless and he’s protective and he raised Tommy and Tommy promised to follow in his footsteps, because it’s not true and it can’t be true. 

Because there’s a reason people still tried to stop his death, however late they might’ve been; there’s a reason so many of his friends looked up to him; there’s a reason that his family’s grieving him. 

That reason shows itself in all the good that still shines through his spiral. The way he stood up for Niki after the Manberg Festival. His refusal to press the fucking button when Quackity was in the room. His determination to protect Fundy’s honour when Schlatt cursed him out in the van. His faith in Tubbo, enough to entrust him with his most prized possession, however backhanded that the gift may have been.

He remembers all of this and- and Wilbur never wanted to kill Tommy, either, did he? He hurt him, he destroyed their relationship, he tried to kill him when he blew up the nation, but he never wanted him dead. 

It’s a sick perversion of true brotherly love, but this twisted idea — that Wilbur, in his last few weeks of being alive, deep in his spiral and no longer trying to crawl out of it, still at least cared for Tommy — comforts him, however tainted that comfort is. 

He still cared. He did. He did.

Just enough not to want him dead.

He thinks of Ghostbur, spinning senselessly through his half-existence, unable to comprehend the idea of contempt and calamity. Perfectly pleasant and perfectly fake, embodying nothing but innocence and music and amusement, so exactly like Wilbur if half of him was scraped out and the rest mangled to fill out the void he left behind. Not really a person, not really a father, not really his brother. 

Who are you? he needs to know, but there really isn’t anything left to know, is there? 

He thinks about Wilbur Soot, thief, president, traitor, but first and foremost family.

He thinks about good people who do bad things and bad people who do good things and everything in between, the belief that anyone is redeemable if only they’re willing to try hard enough, to put in the effort and reach out to those who still care.

He thinks about Ghostbur, and the distinction from ‘Alivebur’ that he’s so adamant on making, neither more real than the other and neither the definitive version of who Tommy thinks of when asked who is Wilbur Soot?

He thinks about all of this, and he feels all frustrated because he can’t put a word to it; words alone cannot describe a man made of music and sea salt and leatherbound books; all of it swirls around in his head in the blurry shape of a person and he realises:

Oh.

Oh.

So that’s how it is.

XI.

some truths take our lives;

some truths can save us

“Dream. Stop right fucking there.”

Dream freezes in place. He turns, slowly, tense all over as he takes in the sight before him. 

Punz draws his sword out in an offensive position, the particles of the portal dancing on his skin and dissipating as he steps forward. 

“Oh… my god.”

Tommy punches his fist through the air, a ragged ‘yes!’ escaping his throat before he can stop himself. 

Beside him, Tubbo lets out a shuddered sigh as more and more people step out of the portal, stepping through the violent, violet swirl spitting out particles into the air. His grip around Tommy’s hand grows lax. His eyes widen, hope dripping back into his expression until his lips break into a smile, and it’s one of the most beautiful things Tommy has ever seen.

“Punz!” Tommy roars, a fire lighting in his chest, so full of light and noise that it all blooms past the barriers of his fear. “You came- you actually came!”

The mercenary nods at him, his eyes never once leaving Dream’s face. “You should’ve paid me more, Dream,” he says, “now step the hell away from these two.”

In a moment of decision, Tubbo pushes him towards the growing crowd. Tommy stumbles, their hands still joined together, and he yanks Tubbo along with him. Dream sees this, reaches out to make a grab for Tubbo, but he’s stopped by an axe drawn and blade pointed towards his throat.

“He said step away,” Sapnap growls, fury marring every line creasing his face. 

Tommy slinks behind him, stepping further and further away from Dream. He feels a hand grasp his shoulder and he looks up to see George nodding at him, eyes hidden behind his goggles and lips set in a grim line. He’s holding a bow in his other hand, shaking around the grip.

God, everyone’s here. He looks around himself — Quackity, Ranboo, Sam, Bad, Eret, Niki, Jack, Ponk, Puffy, Ant, Hbomb, Callahan — and his heart swells with pride. He did it, he fucking did it, and this pride overshadows his sideways hurt that there’s a distinct lack of Phil and Techno. 

But it doesn’t fucking matter, they don’t matter anymore, they aren’t part of this little group of people he’s carved out a place for himself in. 

(Tubbo and Wilbur are first and foremost his brothers, but this stupid fucking server is his family. They’ve fought each other, they’ve killed each other, but they showed up. They came for him, above all, and that’s what family’s supposed to do for you.)

Dream backs off. He’s afraid, for once, and this fact shouldn’t be as surprising as it is, because holy shit, Dream — the Dream, Mr. Manhunt himself, bitch boy extraordinaire — is terrified. He’s looking at Sapnap’s axe, fingers twitching beside him, but thankfully smart enough to realise that he’s lost, desperately and embarrassingly so.

“Holy shit,” Tommy says, “holy shit.” 

He butts through the server members, stepping forward in a daze of courage and zero self-preservation. He plants himself at the head of the confrontation, feeling a rabid smile begin to grow on his lips as he stares Dream down. 

“You did this to yourself, bitch boy,” he says, breathlessly, “you… you fucked up. You thought you could just… exile me and destroy our home and drive my brother to insanity and cause nothing but pain to all of us and- and for what?” He twists his face in disgust. “So you can pat yourself in the back for a job well done when everyone’s miserable?”

Dream shakes his head, taking a step back when Tommy moves forward. 

“No, you- you don’t understand, I’m doing this for the good of the server,” he says. “Tommy, you’re why I’m doing this, all this chaos and destruction and pain, it all comes back to you! You got yourself exiled, Wilbur died to teach you a lesson, L’manberg’s destruction, everything- it’s all because you decided to go and cause all this conflict-“

“So fucking kill me!” Tommy snaps. He shoves at Dream, makes him stumble a step back. The Thorns enchantment on his netherite armour sends a cutting pain spiking up his arm, but he can’t fucking care less. “If it all comes back to me, then just fucking kill me! You don’t get to come and torment me and threaten my friends jus- just so you can get to me and then congratulate yourself for being on the highest fucking moral ground for- for not wanting me dead, that’s not how it works, holy shit-“

“Tommy!” Dream interjects, desperation leaking into his voice. “I’m not going to kill you. I won’t- I won’t, you’re my friend-“

“You are not,” Tommy snarls, “have never been, and never will be my fucking friend.”

Tommy grits his teeth, setting his lips in a thin line. He glares at Dream, at the annoying porcelain mask he never takes off, at his overpowered weapons and maxed-out armour, at the fact that this guy, this fucking guy, thinks that he fucking owns them or something. He hates the man so fucking much that it burns him from the inside out. There, he said it, he fucking said it.

“You’re not going to kill me, fine-“ Tommy lifts his chin, “then take off your armour.”

Dream stills. The server freezes in time. Behind him, he can hear Tubbo’s breath hitching with a small noise of distress.

But Dream obliges. Slowly, his armour disappears into his inventory in four flashes of white.

“Toss it to the side,” he says. “Everything you have. Your armour, your weapons, your food, everything.”

Dream does. 

From the growing pile of items scattered on the ground, Tommy pulls out a familiar weapon that slides easily into his grip. The Axe of Peace. Grimly, he thinks that Technoblade would be proud of him, for once.

“I said, everything. Take off your mask, Dream. Look me in the eyes like a real fuckin’ man.”

“Tommy…”

“Just fuckin’ do it,” he snaps. 

His grip tightens around the Axe of Peace, and Dream seems to have noticed, because he obeys. With a single, fluid motion, the mask is off, and suddenly Tommy’s staring into a pair of deep green eyes and a nervous expression.

Fugly bitch. 

Tommy hates his stupid mug.

There’s something to be said about looking your worst enemy in the eyes as you’re about to kill them and realising that they’re a person, too, but that something slips through Tommy’s mind when all he can really think of at the moment is pure, unadulterated hatred. 

“I hate you.”

Dream nods woodenly.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he mutters.

“Sorry doesn’t fucking cut it.”

“I…” He glances between Tommy’s face and the Axe. He falls to the ground, dispirited. “Are… are you going to kill me?”

There’s something to be said about humanising a tyrant, but it slips through his mind when he hones in on the fear in Dream’s voice. The quiver he tries hard to suppress in his upward inflection, a raw tone unprotected by the mask’s muffling. Fear is the most human emotion, but so is anger, and all of this comes down to a fight between two people who think that they’re above the other in the question of morality.

It would be so easy. It would be so fucking easy. He could raise the Axe, bring it down in one graceful arc, find Dream wherever the fuck he respawns, and do it twice over. He could, he really could, and it’d solve… so many of his fucking problems.

But… but it wouldn’t turn back time. L’manberg would stay destroyed. Wilbur would stay dead. And he’d never be able to completely scrub out all the images of lava and TNT from his dreams.

Killing Dream wouldn’t fix anything. It’d just add to the server’s death count.

He glances around. Looks at the horde of people gathered behind him. At the eyes of his friends, staring down the lengths of their nose at Dream. At Punz, at George, at Sapnap, all unreadable expressions and eyeing the Axe in his hand.

He finds Tubbo among the crowd. 

Tubbo cradles an arm close to his chest, blood leaking from between his fingers. He meets Tommy’s eyes, startling blue to startling blue, and smiles softly back at him. The left half of his face will forever be disfigured by his firework scars, a reminder to him of everything wrong with the world.

He turns his head slightly to the other side. He gives Tommy his right cheek, his untouched, unprotected, unsullied side, and Tommy understands.

If Technoblade was wrong about anything, it’s this. 

This isn’t a cycle of governments and nations and authority, this is a cycle of vengeance. 

Past a certain point in existence, these nations no longer matter, falling despite the texts written for their emancipation, dissolution foretold by their very conception. Past this certain point in time, men fall back to the rule of beasts; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Past this point, all that’s left to lead the blind is the blind, a dark world slowly snuffing itself out.

To Dream, he’s the epicentre of all this death; a boy who wears war behind his heels and chaos at his fingertips. 

But that’s not who he really is. Who he really is — friend, brother, soldier, exile, person — is someone that’s not going to perpetuate the stupid fucking cycle.

Vengeance leads nowhere but down. 

Tommy’s seen things — seen people — spiral into the abyss, and he’s not going to let that chain continue. 

If he’s got all eyes on him, if he can’t help but be the root of everything that stems into the server, then he’s not going to bear the fruits of violence.

“No,” he tells Dream, “I’m not going to kill you.”

He drops the Axe of Peace — fuck you, Technoblade, you’re wrong — and kicks it to the side. It clatters uselessly against blackstone. No more of this shit, he’s fucking tired of it; he won’t start another fight for as long as he lives. He’ll fight, because there are things that need to be fought — like conflict, paradoxically — but he’s not going to sink to the level that vengeance tries to drag him down to.

“I don’t forgive you,” he decides, “you’ve done too much wrong to me. You’ve caused me- all of us, too much pain, in your... your pursuit, of...” He grimaces. “Of your fucked up definition of peace.”

He sinks to his knees. Looks at Dream in his green eyes, levels his gaze as an equal, finally. 

“But I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, lowering his voice so only the two of them can hear it. “You have people who still care about you-“ he gestures behind him, “like George, and Sapnap, and… and despite everything, no one wants to see you hurt, or- or dead.”

Forgiveness is an uphill battle, and Tommy doesn’t want to climb the fucking hill. 

But sparing someone? 

That, he can do, not out of pity, not out of mercy, not because he expects the server to turn around and shower him with praises, but out of something far more honest than that.

(This is a kinder world, born out of people who only want the best for each other. Born out of camaraderie, born out of solidarity, born out of flawed people who can lose their way and make mistakes but are never, ever irredeemable.

Bad things happen to good people in kinder worlds, but at the end of the day, that doesn’t stop them from trying to make it better.)

“I don’t want to see you die, either.” 

A weight disappears from his chest, months of accumulated resentment finally put to rest. 

“You idiot,” he says. 

To Dream, to Schlatt, to Wilbur. 

“You’re loved. I’m not gonna let you fuckin’ throw that away.”

XII.

i want to remember how to feel like i did; 

the king i once was, the king i could become

There really isn’t a lot of build-up to the revelation. 

Tommy’s sorting through his chests when he hears a knock. The front door — which has been burnt to bits — doesn’t exist anymore, and Tommy remembers that he doesn’t have any other doors to his house, so whoever it is that knocked is toying with him and he pretends not to hear them until there’s footsteps coming closer towards him and he closes his hand around the grip of his sword and prepares to swing around and skewer them through so he stands and turns in one swift motion-

And for a second, he’s confused. What the hell is Ghostbur doing here, after a dramatic fucking goodbye scene and weeks of complete radio silence, how is he solid, how is he breathing, why is he wearing Wilbur’s old clothes-

“You shouldn’t be alone at night like this, y’know,” Wilbur says. He’s grinning at Tommy, obnoxiously. “Or at least craft some fuckin’, uh, some fuckin’ doors, man, you’re just letting people sneak up on you.”

“You didn’t sneak up on shit,” Tommy says, before his brain can catch up to his mouth. 

It’s hard to breathe. 

This really isn’t how he imagined their second first meeting to go. For once, he’d prefer it a hella lot more if there’s someone else between them, either to keep him from clawing Wilbur’s face off or to keep them from devolving into a fight. 

Preferably Tubbo. Where’s Tubbo when he needs him the most?

He drinks in the sight of Wilbur. Pale face, tousled hair streaked through with white locks, a thinner frame than what Tommy remembers him having. His clothes don’t fit him right either — yellow sweater, furred jacket, trousers torn at the bottom — hanging from his shoulders awkwardly. He looks tired, probably from the energy it takes to come back to life, but his lips are twitching and his eyes are bright as he smiles at Tommy.

He’s alive. Tommy can’t move, stricken by the thought that his brother is alive. 

He’d known that Dream had offered to revive Wilbur, but… but when confronted by the reality, he didn’t know how not ready he really is.

“Where’s Ghostbur?” he asks.

“It’s a long story,” Wilbur replies, which is the kinder way of saying ‘piss off’ and the coward’s way of saying ‘none of your business’. 

There’s nothing between Tommy and the reality of this tragedy anymore. He’s alone in a room with his newly-resurrected dead brother, standing as the clock ticks further out beyond the end of the song, where the last notes were forever left unfinished but the melody keeps playing anyway. There’s something so intimate about having to confront this uncertainty head-on, walking into the unknown with hands held out alone in the dark.

“Is he dead?” 

“It’s not like that.”

“Well, like no shit, ghosts can’t fuckin’ die, where is he?”

“He’s... gone. But he’s alright, yeah? Can you… uh, put the sword down?” Wilbur nods at the blade still pointed at his chest. 

Tommy lets the sword fall by his side, but doesn’t put it away just yet. “I didn’t know you came back.”

“I did,” Wilbur says. He’s not coming any closer. “Uh, a week ago.” 

“But you know where I live.”

“Yeah.” 

Tommy looks his brother up and down. At the easy expression on his face, at the hands he’s shoved deep into his pockets, at his sunken cheeks and the grey bags under his eyes. His hair moves along with the cold air blowing in from outside. 

He realises a few things. 

Mainly, that they’re alone. For the first time since… fuck, their banishment from Manberg, maybe. There’s nowhere he can run or slink off to; Wilbur’s effectively cornering him in his own fucking house. 

And with this realisation comes a second, worse one: the realisation that he might actually be afraid of Wilbur. For all the time he spent thinking and introspecting and reminiscing, he did not once stop to think about the question of what Wilbur would come back as. Tommy has no fucking clue what he’s thinking, what he remembers, what he’s about to do, and maybe he might not actually, really, definitively know who Wilbur is.

“Why’d you come here?” he asks. 

“Am I not allowed to see my brother?” Wilbur asks, shrugging. His eyes fall onto Tommy’s hand, shaking around his sword. 

No. “I guess.” Not like this.

“If it helps,” Wilbur says, “I didn’t know if you’d still be mad at me.” He’s always been terrifyingly good at reading Tommy’s thoughts, or maybe it’s all the minute movements of his face that betrays him. Either way, it’s scary as fuck.

Tommy nods. “I am,” he admits. “I haven’t completely forgiven you for… like, everything.”

“I figured.” Wilbur looks around at his house. “Nice renovation you’ve done here. After, after the whole netherrack thing. Uh. I like the… the dirt walls.”

“You… remember that?”

“Yeah.”

“What else do you remember?”

“Like, a lot.”

“L’manberg?”

“How can I forget.” He says it spitefully, in a way that makes Tommy think he might regret it, too.

“Being Ghostbur?”

Wilbur nods. “And everything I… he forgot.” 

He steps forward, and then freezes, and rocks on his heels like he’s forgotten how to move, how to be corporeal, how to act around his own brother. Tommy almost misses when he wasn’t dead in the first place, that way he’d at least be familiar with his own fucking body. He almost wants to push him over, just a little bit, a little nudge, or a dropkick, or a clobber over the head, just to see if he’d topple over like a tree, because it’d be funny and because he’s also very slightly curious about it.

“What’ve you been doing, uh, this past week?”

“You know, I…” He uses a hand to gesture. His eyebrows crease, he bristles as he answers. “Went and looked at L’manberg, or, uh, what’s left of it. Which is nothing, that is, anyway. Saw Fundy and… and Tubbo.” He hesitates. “Went to find Techno and Phil. Visited Dream. I’ve… I’ve been around. You know me.”

“No. I don’t,” Tommy deadpans.

The look that crosses over Wilbur’s face is almost enough to make Tommy feel bad. And maybe he does, just a smidge, and he’d love to say that his anger eclipses this guilt but he’s not angry, he’s not guilty, he’s tired of feeling both. He just wants to hear Wilbur out.

“If it helps, too,” Wilbur continues, “I’m sorry.”

Tommy grimaces. “Don’t say that. Saying sorry doesn’t-“

“Doesn’t cut it, I know.” He pauses. “But I’d still like to try anyway. I want to atone for what I did.” 

Wilbur smiles again, softer, more hesitant. More honest, more open, which is so much more than Tommy really expected from him. 

This man, his brother, made of shadows and dishonesty and doublespeak, born from pride, born from loyalty, born from a sort of love that flared too bright too quickly and devoured him whole. 

Tommy thinks there might never be a question in the first place.

“Are you going to stay?” Tommy asks. He doesn’t want to try and prod at the wound where it hurts the most. He doesn’t know if he’s ready to. If he ever will be.

“I don’t think so,” Wilbur says.

“No?” He’s not sure if it hurts or relieves him.

“I can tell that you’re scared of me,” Wilbur says, looking at the floor.

Tommy is quiet for a long moment. “Why’d you wait a week?”

He hears a soft laugh. Contained. Nervous. “I was nervous to see you.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t know if you were still mad at me,” Wilbur repeats, and Tommy… gets it. 

“You were… nervous about whether I’d turn you away?” he asks incredulously, eyebrows lifting.

Wilbur inhales deeply. “I wasn’t sure if I know you enough not to be.”

Ah. 

Tommy’s not the only one who’s talking to a stranger here. 

“Okay,” he decides. 

His insides unwound like a spool of string too tired to keep itself tense all the time.

He stares directly into Wilbur’s eyes; “I’m still mad at you-“ daring him to pussy out; “I’m hurt you didn’t see me immediately-“ daring him to start making excuses; “I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you-“ daring him to give up all over again; “I’m not sure if I know who you are-“ daring him to try his tricks on him; “And I’m scared of you,” daring him to lie.

He holds eye contact with Wilbur until it’s uncomfortable, and then he keeps going. 

“But I want you to stay,” Tommy finishes, daring him to leave, hoping to god he does none.

“I think,” Wilbur says, after a long, painful pause, “that’s good enough for me.”

Tommy almost cracks, but he keeps staring, keeps challenging. “So we move on? Start over?”

“Yeah.” Wilbur nods. “We start over. I’m… I’m here now.”

Tommy releases the longest sigh he’s ever held in. His shoulders sag. His sword disappears into his inventory.

“Wilbur, oh my god, Wil-“ and he’s clutching an armful of Wilbur desperately, two brothers colliding against each other and finally holding on.

“Tommy- I’m- I’m so sorry-“

Wilbur smells like gunpowder. Like burnt steaks and corroded metals and sulphurous air. He smells like explosions and he smells like home and he smells like ravines and like death and books and music and the sea, faithful to the shore, never once missing a chance to return to land. 

“You bastard,” Tommy hisses, his arms squeezing tighter by the second, so caught up in the horror and subsequent euphoria of being able to hold Wilbur again, “you fucking prick. I hate you, I hate you so fucking much-“

“I know, I know-“

“This isn’t fuckin’ fair, none of this is fair. You were supposed to- you’re supposed to be there. I turned eighteen and- and you were dead, you prick-“ 

He bites down on his bottom lip, choking on air and words and simmering relief. He feels flooded with emotion, his chest so full of a continuous ache that it feels like it might burst out of him and spill out into the world. There isn’t anything quite like the feeling of brutal honesty lodged in his throat, cutting into his oesophagus painfully as he struggles to get the barbed words out.

Tommy buries his face in the shoulder of Wilbur’s jacket. “You’re not allowed to leave me like that ever again, or I’ll fucking find you, I’ll kill you dead.” 

He’s crying. He doesn’t try to stop it from coming out. It’s the first time Wilbur’s ever seen him cry — so much for a twelve-year streak. 

“You made me bury you, you stupid motherfucker, you disappeared on me when I was exiled- I thought you were gone, and then you just disappeared out of fuckin’ nowhere, you, you can’t- you can’t just do that-“

“Tommy,” Wilbur says. A hand cards through his hair, long and bony and cold but familiar in all the ways it runs through his locks. “You. Fucking child,” he laughs, wet and choked and so, so honestly, “you’ve come so far, you’ve gone through so much and done so much and-“

“Am not a child anymore,” Tommy mutters.

“Child,” Wilbur presses. A smile forms around his voice, and he sighs, “I’m proud of you.”

XIII.

it’s a matter of time ’til our compass stands still;

we’ll be just fine

Tommy thinks about everyone that Wilbur is, that he had been, that he can’t ever let go of. 

Leader. Villain. Phantom.

(Father. Brother. Friend.)

He thinks about everything that Wilbur is, that he used to be, that he’ll never stop being. 

Protective. Destructive. Avoidant.

(Someone who changes, because people change, and he’s just a person at the end of the day.)

All of it melds into one, because it’s Wilbur, it’s always been Wilbur. He’s always been a confusing mess of a human being, and it took too long for Tommy to realise and accept this fact.

But to him, this is enough, at least for the moment. Everything else will fall into place, eventually, and if he gets to let go of that particular branch of his worries, then he’ll take what he can get. 

He thinks that none of it matters, not really, not anymore.

What matters is what Wilbur is, now, which is to say, here.