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Tommy blinked. There was nothing below his feet, the inky abyss surrounding him. There was no pain. Only silence.
Where..
Where was he?
And then he looked up, and he saw an familiar face. Held with memories. The beanie, the guitar. It fell like puzzle pieces into Tommy’s memories.
He spoke. It wasn’t difficult to speak, but words failed him. “..Wilbur.”
The man turned around, and the shock was evident in his face. “Tommy? Tommy!” He walked up to Tommy, eyes scanning him, “I wasn’t expecting you this early, there wasn’t any premonition-”
He paused there, because something in Tommy’s eyes tells him he wasn’t expecting it either.
“Tommy, tell me what happened. How are you here? Who did this to you?”
Tommy, who was staring at his palms, now looked up, disbelief and helplessness in his eyes. “I don’t-wilbur, I don’t-I was just fighting and he-I-Wilbur, am I really..?”
Wilbur grazed his palm over the faded scar on his chest. He can’t exactly tell Tommy he can relate to his shock as well. Because Wilbur tasted death, he yearned for the sweet release of it as far as he could remember. He welcomed it. So when he felt his toes dip into the cold waters of the afterlife, there was nothing but peace.
But Tommy is not like Wilbur.
When Wilbur doesn’t respond, Tommy’s voice devolves into raw panic, hands shaking, “Wilbur, this wasn’t supposed to happen-Wilbur, I still have so much I need to do-!”
And Wilbur would always admire Tommy, and his will to fight, his optimism, and god he knew there was just an endless checklist in Tommy’s mind that never ended, so much he still had to finish.
But he had been through this far too long. He had been fighting far past his body could carry him. The bags under his eyes. The bruises-oh god, the bruises. He had so many, splotched across his face, his arms, his ribcage. Even if they were new, they never really faded away.
A beating to the death. What a pitiful death. A irresolute, unceremonious, absolutely pathetic death.
How ironic was it? For the hero-the very boy that brought the lands and dreams from underground with his own hands, the one that stood as the shining steeple for those to follow, fell like an weed to the ground-no gracefulness, no finalization. Just gone.
God, why did he always have to be a hero?
Because, as they said, a hero’s story is never over. And he could see it in his eyes-his always transparent eyes-that he felt unfinalized. He was so momentous-he never wanted to stop moving. Never could stay in one place for too long.
But he never caught his breath. He was running without air at this point, always was. Even despite being a kid, he was thrown headfirst into the whirling tornado of war and bloodshed. Perhaps that explained his irrational possessiveness over his disc? Like how a small child refused to share it’s toys. Maybe that was Tommy’s way of retaining his childhood.
But here. Here there was no discs. Here was no bloodshed. He needed the peace. He needed the solace that only this place could give him.
Wilbur would finish his story with him. Let him close the book. Pry the quill out of his hands.
He crouched down. He felt the parallels between L’manberg and the present colliding as he stared at the boy before him. He wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close. His right hand man. His younger brother. Always will be.
“Rest, Tommy.”