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There is a card in the dirt.
Its corner is bent.
It is stained with blue.
Tommy’s breath catches in his throat. For a moment, he is choking on his tongue, but then he moves, not entirely on his own will.
He bends down and gently picks it up. The filthy vinyl corner prods beneath his nail, leaving a sharp discomfort.
The joker smirks back up from the plastic.
He knew it. He knew it.
Tommy swears his heart stops as the footsteps approach.
A saccharine voice comes from behind, but it’s too sweet. Too laced with sugary artifice. “Oh dear, it seems I’ve dropped that! Silly me!”
Tommy doesn’t even turn around to look. He rubs a finger along the card’s edges, enjoying how sharp they are as they pry into his skin. His own voice comes out hollow. “That’s a shame.”
“Give it back? Pretty please?”
Tommy has to clench his free fist to keep from shouting. He squeezes his eyes shut and sees angry, searing stars paint the darkness. He laughs, but it is empty. “Give it back? No. No, I won’t until you give it up, first.”
“Give what up?” Fake innocence. Fake fake fake.
Tommy whirls and opens his lids to glare at the monster before him.
A real ghost would scare him less.
“Oh, you know. Don’t even pretend you don’t. Just don’t. I’m not stupid, no matter how many times you’ve told me I am,” he snarls. The words are like the crackling lava that he’s stared into more times than he can count.
Ghostbur-but-not’s brows furrow. “Excuse me?”
“Stop. Just stop. You’re lying. I know and I know you know. Just drop the act already, Wilbur.”
The smile that spreads across the man’s face is too taut. It stretches like elastic about to snap. “Come again? I’m Ghostbur, not Wilbur, silly.”
“No, you’re not.”
Wilbur freezes up.
Shifts, from one foot to another.
“I- I don’t know what you mean.”
Tommy scoffs. Crosses his arms. “Sure, sure, definitely. The sugar. Pogtopia. The bloody fucking card.” He waves the evidence in his hand. “All coincidences, all of them. Not like I was there with you in the afterlife for almost two fucking months, Wil. ‘S not like I know you when I hear you beneath that bloody disguise of yours. Speaking of, the paint’s staining the inside of your collar, by the way.”
Wilbur’s eyes almost flicker down to check but stop just short.
“You can’t lie to me anymore. Lie to everyone else, yeah. But not me. Not me. I know you like I know death, Wilbur Soot, and that’s saying something.”
Wilbur breathes in and out sharply. On instincts driven deep into him by exile, Tommy glances at the man’s stance. He’s not in a striking position. He’s not crouching or clenching his palms or getting ready to slap, but still, there is fear that swells in the boy’s heart.
The syrupy sweetness is completely dissolved. “Of course now you suddenly become clever. I do have to ask, though- did you miss me?” Wilbur’s smile goes dark.
The nerve he has. Tommy wants to sock him across the face, to send him straight back to that gods-damned void of infinite agony.
“No. Never. You’re just as bad as Dream.”
The older man’s expression crumbles. “That’s not true.”
“Oh, but it is,” Tommy hisses. “Dream may have beaten me to death physically, Wilbur, and hurt me a million times before that, but you’re the reason I was breakable in the first place. You’re one of the people I never wanted to be.”
“That’s not true, either.” Wilbur stretches his back, the spine pop-pop-popping with no effort at all. To himself, he mutters, “Getting too old for this.” And then, to Tommy- “You looked up to me in L’Manberg. When we were in the first war, fighting for independence.”
“Yeah, well, L’Manberg’s fuckin’ gone, Wil.” The tears rise to his eyes before he can blink them away, but he does not let them spill over. “It died in the Final Control Room. Was reborn. Then died with you. Got resurrected. And then Techno and Dream went and blew it to bedrock. It’s gone. Forever. The person I wanted to be was kind and compassionate and the best president to ever walk this stupid SMP, but that you is long gone, too.”
His breath is all shaky and he hates it. Hates that he can feel the panic attack crawling up his throat, wriggling and ready to destroy him from the inside out.
Wilbur is silent for a moment, watching the child he once called his right hand man huff and try to steady his breath (unsuccessfully).
He gives no warning, no preparation at all. Just says it like it’s an offhanded, everyday conversation topic: “Then let’s leave, Tommy.”
Tommy doesn’t even know what to say. Just stumbles over his words, feeling completely numb and utterly lost. “What- where- somewhere out of the main city? To Snowchester? Logstedshire?” Please not Logsted- anywhere but there- please.
“No. Let’s leave the server.” Wilbur shrugs his shoulders. How is he so casual? How does he say it like it’s not such an enormous thing?
“What?” Tommy exhales.
“It’s killing the both of us, being here. And yeah, you hate me, but we can split off after we leave if it bothers you that much. Like I told you in death- this server’s not good for us. We’re not good for it, either.”
“I can’t- we can’t just leave. There’s- there’s Tubbo. And… Sam. And- and Ranboo. And what about Dream? The Egg? Whatever the fuck Jack’s up to?”
“We have our comms. We’d always be able to talk to them. Plus, the conflict isn’t gonna stop with you of all people here, Tommy.”
That stings. A new scorching brand to add to the plethora Tommy’s already collected, but… but it’s true, isn’t it?
They’re better off leaving.
Tommy’s bled for nations, died for them, gave up everything just to be banished. He’s been battered and bruised and beaten until his blood coated suffocating crying obsidian.
He’s tired.
And Wilbur, the real Wilbur, not the ghost or the fake or anyone else, is extending a hand. And an invitation.
Tommy hands over the card gently to complete the deck. 54 vinyl rectangles, each a reminder of what it is to die.
Tommy, at last, wants to live.
He does not take the hand, but he takes the invitation.
Two broken ex-revolutionaries with no dreams walk along the Prime Path and into the woods.
The sun is setting.
It’ll be the first night in a long time that Tommy can sleep without shaking.