Work Text:
1
He’s not quite sure exactly who he is, only that he’s not Wilbur Soot.
He remembers....
He remembers being happy.
He remembers some final moments, sharp pain through the chest, a deep final breath of relief. Relief and apology.
And happiness.
He was Wilbur, once, but no longer. Wilbur is dead.
He’ll call himself Ghostbur, he thinks.
2
Ghostbur isn’t Wilbur. This stays true no matter how much people insist it isn’t.
He finds some blue dye in one of someone’s chests. He doesn’t remember whose. Ghostbur rubs it between his fingers and thinks of happy things.
(He pretends it’s the blue that makes him happy, not just his inability to think about sad things. Maybe one day he’ll believe it.)
He sits on the edge of the crater his living self made, and he thinks about the only moments he can still think about.
3
Phil is his father. Phil killed him. This makes Phil a hero, right? Nobody really liked Alivebur all that much.
Ghostbur doesn’t remember much of Alivebur. He assumes he was just sad a lot.
His favorite color is blue, he’s decided. Not the yellow of his sweater, but the blue that stains his hands as he rubs it between his fingers.
Maybe it started out clear at one point, but he’s only ever seen it as blue. Maybe it absorbs his sadness and that’s why he never remembers the sad things.
Yes, of course. That’s how it works.
4
Ghostbur really starts noticing how sad everyone around him is.
Tubbo wears a too-large suit and takes a position he never should have needed to fill. Ghostbur remembers vague moments on a stage, waving Tubbo up to the microphone, pride tinged with regret and something even deeper, something he can’t quite.... remember.
Blue doesn’t work for him, Tubbo says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It never seems to be clear when it’s in his hands, almost seeming to drip off the tips of his fingers like water against wax.
Oh, well. Ghostbur will just have to cheer Tubbo up on his own instead.
5
Tommy needed blue before his exile. Everyone did. He needs it more after, though.
Tommy demands Ghostbur call it an “exile” instead of a vacation, insisting he can never go back even though Ghostbur knows L’manberg is just a portal away.
He’s not happy much anymore. Ghostbur’s running low on blue.
It’s fine, though. The smile on Tommy’s face when Ghostbur gives him a new piece is worth it, even if his eyes don’t match the grin.
Lads on tour, they are! Logstedshire is safe and warm, even if Tommy insists on sleeping in his tent. They could be happy, here, the two of them and Dream and whoever else decides to visit.
6
It’s cold, out in the snow. Dream had sent him on a nice walk in the rain after taking Tommy’s invitations, and eventually that had ended up in some wandering on Ghostbur’s part.
The snow is nice! He likes the snow. Even if it burns. It burns less than the rain, though. The rain sizzles where it touches his skin and leaves holes. The snow’s easy. He can dodge the snow.
He rubs some blue between his fingers, just to make sure he can still feel them.
There are lights in the distance! Ghostbur likes lights. They typically mean someone’s there, and he has a lot of friends.
Maybe it’s Technoblade! He hadn’t seen Technoblade in a while, and Tommy had said he was near!
He heads toward the light, noticing the baahing of a sheep as he goes.
(I’ll name you Friend!)
7
Friend is gone. Friend has infinite canon lives, Phil says, but Phil said Friend would always respawn in L’manberg, didn’t he?
And L’manberg is gone too.
I sowed the seeds for peace, and yet I am the one who pays for war, Ghostbur thinks. He doesn’t quite remember where it came from.
What’s the sense in staying dead when everything he died for is gone?
He doesn’t have much blue left, but he rubs it between his fingers regardless.
Maybe he should go talk to Phil! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? And Phil might even know how to bring him back!
8
He stands in the place where he died, his own father holding a sword behind him, poised to strike.
Ghostbur shouldn’t be afraid. After all, he’d asked for this. He wanted to be alive, he’d said, and Phil thought the only way to do that was to kill him again.
He stands on the blue of the structure they’d built specifically for this and tries to think of it as an act. Everyone’s playing a part, yeah, his just.... hurts a bit more than everyone else’s.
(He wishes he had some blue.)
Ghostbur shouldn’t be afraid, but something about Philza holding a sword over him strikes fear into his very bones.
It hurts, dying, hurts like he’d never believe, but he’s gone and back and gone and back and there’s a void on the other side and-
He doesn’t want to be brought back anymore.
Maybe it’s time for him to just..... leave for a while.
9
Standing on the edge of an obsidian cell, Ghostbur wishes he was more like a normal ghost. A normal ghost would be able to float across the lava pit between him and Tommy. A normal ghost wouldn’t be able to die. A normal ghost wouldn’t get stuck with Dream.
A normal ghost wouldn’t be watching the man about to revive him, utterly terrified. Ghostbur is not a normal ghost.
Not for the first time while inside the prison, he wishes he was allowed to bring some blue. But Sam’s rules were strict, and he wasn’t allowed a single item.
He can hear Tommy yelling, Sam yelling back, Dream making demands, but he can’t process a single word of them. There’s just a strange ringing in his ears.
The lava is falling again, and he’s panicking, and suddenly he feels something sharp and-
The world is gone.
In its place is a train, pulling up to the station.
Ghostbur has never met Alivebur. Of course he hasn’t, they’re the same person. But the man stepping onto the train.... looks eerily like him.
“This is your stop,” murmurs Dream. He hadn’t even noticed the man.
Ghostbur takes a step forward, and the doors immediately close behind him.
He’s afraid, he realizes. Terrified. There are tears dripping down his face and they burn and steam where they touch.
The train is gone, and Ghostbur is alone.
The blue drains out of the walls.
With nowhere else to go, Ghostbur curls up on the train platform.
Maybe being a ghost was better.