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Wilbur stands and smokes. The little bridge between his father's house and Techno's is the worst place to smoke if he doesn't want to get caught, but he's never claimed to make good choices. Besides, something in him wants the confirmation that Phil cares, confirmation that will come in a disappointed look and a lecture about his lungs. He knows, he knows his father cares about him, knows it like he knows the sun will rise, like he knows the ocean tides. But some days, his chest aches from the strike of a sword, and he asked for it, but a part of him hadn't thought Phil would do it.
(That's a lie, he knew Phil would, knew how his father caves under his requests, knew what he was doing by pushing without stopping to let him think.)
Still, here he stands, watching the sunrise as smoke spirals up into the cold air. It's silly, to be so enamored with the colors painted across the morning sky, but Limbo was so grey, colorless other than where his blood spilled when he beat the walls, and even that faded after a time. There had been nothing, and now there is so much . He wants to claim it all, wants to pull the colors from the sky and hold them in his hand to prove they exist.
He blows smoke out slowly.
It burns his throat, and that's something else he loves. The feeling of it hurting, the idea that it actually matters. It's exciting, like arguing with Quackity, like apologizing to the people he once knew, even if regret is something he's never been good at. He can fake it well enough, at least. Same as he can lie to everyone, including himself, about what he's planning.
(The truth? Even he doesn't know, not really. Plans and storylines spin through his head, and he doesn't know which one he's following.)
"Phil's gonna have a fit when he catches you, you know," Techno's rumbling voice is sharper in the morning air, and he brings the enchanting smell of coffee with him.
"What the old man doesn't know won't hurt him," Wilbur says, grin in place as he turns to face Techno. The sunrise is almost over anyways, the colors fading as the sun stretches greedy rays over the bright snow. Techno grunts, steaming cup in hand.
"Right. He's not old enough to be blind yet," he says, motioning at the ground under the bridge, and oh . Yeah, a few cigarette butts are scattered across the snow. He didn't think he'd been out here that long, but time has always been an elusive beast, even more so now.
(A secret: he actually has no idea how long he was in Limbo. How could he? There is no way to tell time, to keep track of days. Only train tracks and grey walls. Thirteen and a half years just seems appropriately dramatic.)
"Right, well, this has been a-"
"I heard you were giving out apologies," Techno cuts him off, and Wilbur stares for a moment, mind whirring. Techno looks as implacable as ever, eyes fixed on the horizon as he takes a sip of coffee.
"Do you want an apology, Technoblade?" Wilbur asks, unable to help the laugh that escapes. "I'd be happy to give one, although I'm not entirely sure what for. I don't remember doing anything to you ."
(Another lie, there was a pit, and so many lies he can't keep them straight, although he didn't think Technoblade would care much.)
"Nah," Techno says, shrugging one casual shoulder. "I didn't expect much from you, honestly. I'm used to getting lied to. I was wondering if you were planning on apologizing to Phil."
"What for? Phil is fantastic. He's letting me stay here, you know," Wilbur says, mouth on auto-pilot as his brain churns. He doesn't particularly want to think of his death. The explosion just before is fine, that was glorious. But the actual death had been a bit less so. Just pain and his father's tears.
He shoves the memories down.
"I do know," Techno says in that slow way of his. It's surprisingly comforting, forces his mind to slow so he can listen. "Wilbur, you know I don't like getting involved in your family drama," (true, Techno has ever been one to stand back and watch them work it out. Strange that he is breaking that now.) "But you made your father the weapon in your messed up suicide. You don't think that's worth an apology?"
Wilbur is hollow. The sun has risen, is beating down on them with cold rays, and he drags out the last bit of his cigarette before grinding it beneath his boot.
"I think. I think it's none of your fucking business what I say to my father, Technoblade. Unless you've finally admitted to that little crush?" It's a low blow, but he can't help but smile at the way Techno's eyes narrow. "Don't worry, I won't tell. It's much funnier to watch you scurry after him like an obedient pup. Now excuse me, I have things to do." He sweeps past him with a snap of his coat. Tommy, he'll go find Tommy. At least the kid won't argue with him, or ask him questions.
His hands are shaking.
He reaches for another cigarette.
It's a sunny day when Wilbur loads his arms with boxes of supplies he's filched from Phil, a set of blueprints he snagged from his father's desk sticking out the top. Phil won't even notice by the time Wilbur has them back, and he wants this new place to look good. He's all right at building, never mastered it the way his father did, but he can follow a blueprint just fine. He staggers towards the portal with his load, cursing the fact that Techno's paranoia had him building the damn thing so far away, and his own stubbornness in wanting to get the entire thing done in one load instead of walking back and forth forever. He wants to get it done without Tommy seeing, wants to prove that he can still make something good without anyone's help.
He curses louder when one of Techno's dogs darts in front of his legs, tangling him up until he lands in the snow, boxes scattered around him, and he's not a proponent of animal abuse (Friend's death was an accident , thank you very much) but if he was going to kick a dog, now would be the moment.
"Oh, jeez," the familiar voice breaks in on his thoughts of dogicide, and isn't this just perfect. "Here, uh, do you need some help?" Ranboo pauses with a hand on one of the boxes, and Wilbur scowls, but relents easier than he should. He's meant to be doing this himself, but also he has been meaning to talk to Ranboo anyways. And apologies come easier when his hands can busy themselves with something else.
"If you don't mind," he says, hauling himself to his feet and starting to stack some of the boxes. Ranboo mirrors him, and Wilbur sees when he pauses with his hand on the blueprints.
"These are Phil's," he says, like Wilbur isn't well aware of that. Phil's handwriting is distinctive after all, a careless scrawl across the pages, barely readable if you didn't grow up deciphering it.
"That would make sense, considering I got them from his desk," he says, a bite to his words despite himself. Ranboo just rubs him in all the wrong ways, and Wilbur is man enough to admit that some of it might be the way Phil talks about him, smiles at him, treats him like family, and Wilbur isn't * jealous*, but he also doesn't like it. He doesn't like Ranboo sliding in and taking his family, doesn't like the way Phil smiles at him, the way Techno includes him in plans, the way that where there was once a space just for Wilbur, it's been made smaller by the arrival of Ranboo.
Ranboo frowns, but he picks up the blueprints, adds them to his pile, and Wilbur is regretting letting him help, just a little, but at least now he can see over the stack.
They make it to his new build site, Las Nevadas looming over them across the river, and Wilbur sets the supplies down with a suppressed sigh.
"You know, I have a kid," Ranboo says, apropos of nothing. Wilbur stares at him, wondering what he should say to that. Congratulations?
"He's little right now, but when he gets older? I don't know what I would do if he asked me to kill him." There is a rushing in Wilbur's head, and he cannot think.
"Phil was right to kill me," he says, numb. He has to believe that. He has to, or he will break. He was terrible, and he is better now. It was good for him. It was a good ending.
"Maybe," Ranboo says, shrugging. "I wasn't here, but from what I heard, uh, you weren't the best person? I don't know. Maybe you did need to die," he pauses, eyes roaming over Wilbur, then away. "But I don't know that it was right for * Phil * to kill you. That's not-I can't remember my parents, but I don't think I'd do well with my father killing me, and I'm sorry you had to go through it," he finishes decisively, and Wilbur's ears are ringing, he can smell gunpowder and the smoke of the fires. There is blood in the back of his throat, and he can't think.
He has apologized to nearly everyone. No one has apologized to him.
It's fair, because he was terrible, he was, he hurt people and he knows it, but also.
"I think I'd like to be alone now," he says, feeling as though it's someone else speaking through him, and Ranboo nods, hums in a way that's reminiscent of an Enderman at rest.
"All right. I, uh, I'll see you around, I guess?" He says, and Wilbur maybe nods, or he doesn't, he isn't sure.
It takes three cigarettes for his hands to stop shaking, another one for him to be able to start sorting through supplies.
He isn't going to think about it. But maybe Ranboo isn't so bad.
Narratively, the sunset is opposite the sunrise. An ending rather than a beginning, the close of a story. Wilbur wishes he wasn't quite so cliché as to love one and not the other, but he can't quite love the sunset as much as the sunrise. They are the same colors, the same sun, but inverted, and that makes it horrible. His story has already ended once, and he may have asked for it, but he has no desire to repeat the experience just yet.
(Sometimes, when he's shaken awake from a nightmare, he flinches from Phil's face, the bite of a blade following him from his sleep, and he is grateful that his father has started sleeping elsewhere.)
Sunset means the end of another day, means sleeping in a bed that doesn't quite fit him just yet, staring at a ceiling that he hasn't memorized all the cracks of. Sunset means night is coming, and he has ever been a creature of the light. He watches with all the attention of a reluctant worshipper as the sun sinks below the horizon, colors clawing at the sky as it struggles for those last few moments of light.
With the onset of the night come the members of the Syndicate Wilbur isn't meant to know about, from a meeting he wasn't told about, but knew of anyways. Ranboo first, slipping through the shadows and to his house with a wave that Wilbur doesn't return. Phil and Techno next, and Wilbur steps further into the shadows. He's not hiding, but he knows they will invite him in if they see him, and he cannot sit and drink tea with them right now.
Last comes a shock of pink hair that he would think was Techno if he hadn't just watched the older man walk into the house. He's more used to blonde when he looks at Nikki, more used to a softer set to her shoulders, to a hand without a weapon. This Nikki is one he hurt and pushed to become someone else, someone stronger, maybe, but he can't help but mourn the gentleness that was there before.
She hesitates at the edge of the fence, and he doesn't think before he steps out of the shadows, into sight. The old Nikki would have smiled at the sight of him. This one doesn't frown, but she certainly doesn't smile even as she moves closer, and this is probably a terrible decision.
"Wilbur," she says, and the way she says his name is different, even. It used to be a smile, the edge of a laugh. Not this mixture of caution and anger.
"Nikki," he returns, doing his best to keep his voice even. He thinks it works, but something in her expression shifts. He can't identify it, and it's frustrating, when he used to know everything about her.
Silence reigns, broken only by the faint sound of mobs in the distance, and he remembers sitting in silence with her before. It was comfortable. This is not.
"I need to apologize," he finally summons the courage to say. She raises an eyebrow, waits. "I hurt you, before I died. It was wrong of me, I was wrong. I'm sorry." There. It's sincere, even. More sincere than some apologies he's given, because he genuinely does feel sorry. This one isn't a lie, a desperate hope to keep someone close enough to speak to him. Nikki has other people now, and that's good, he's happy for her. (Mostly. He's jealous, a little, that Phil and Techno and Ranboo have earned her trust.)
"Did you know," she says, words slow. "Did you know I burned the L'Mantree?" And he hadn't been expecting that, but some part of him is proud of her, cheers for dear, sweet Nikki taking a stand.
"Phil and Techno missed it with all the, you know, withers and tnt. And I was tired of everyone talking over me. You, Tommy, Tubbo, * Quackity* . So I burned it," she raises her chin, a goddess in the twilight. "I'm not sorry."
"Good for you," he says, smile twisting his lips. "Make 'em listen to you." Her stare is confused now, and he laughs, can't help it.
"Nikki, I blew that place sky high. I don't care if you burned down a tree. L'Manberg was a mistake, in the end. It was all one colossal mess, so good riddance. If it makes you feel better, I'll support you burning down a hundred trees." Sincerity tastes strange on his tongue, but she deserves it. A strangled sort of laugh bursts from her lips, and he can't help but grin at it.
"I'm an anarchist now," she says, and he laughs again.
"I heard. Part of the Syndicate I definitely don't know anything about, right? Good for you, stick with what you believe. I'm glad you've got people with you now." He doesn't, he hates it, wants his best friend back by his side, but this lie is for her benefit, so it can be excused. She doesn't look like she quite believes it anyways, glancing at the door to Techno's house, then back at him.
"You should talk to Phil, you know. I don't think he's as okay as he pretends to be," she says, and he scowls.
"Why does everyone keep telling me to talk to Phil?" He complains, whine coming into his voice. "Phil is * fine* . And he's my father, I should know if he's okay or not." He stubbornly does not acknowledge the way that the landscape is not peppered with giant builds and temples, a sure sign that Phil is maybe not fine. His father is ever creating, after all. Nikki smiles though, hand coming up to push at his shoulder.
"Same old Will. Come see me sometime, I'll make you something sweet," she promises, and he smiles back, hand coming up to cover hers.
"Thank you, Nikki."
It comes to a head eventually, of course. Wilbur is a master of manipulation and avoiding problems, but even he can't avoid difficult conversations forever. Maybe he wants to have this one too, deep down in the part of him that longs for his father to wrap him in a hug, that remembers when he was a child, remembers being cuddled after a nightmare, remembers being protected until it was stifling. Phil was a good father, when he was a kid. Wilbur grew up climbing over monoliths in construction, being taken on adventures every other week. He always knew he was safe, though, because Phil was there, and nothing could get past Phil.
Now, though, now he looks at Phil and remembers the flash of a sword, the two strikes burning like fire through him. He remembers begging to die even as he hated the thought of it. He remembers the void, remembers the train station.
(A secret: he regrets leaving Ghostbur there sometimes. They were two halves of the same coin, after all, but he wasn't going to stay, not when there was a way out.)
Still, though, with all the history between them, it's a given that it will all come bubbling over at some point, the pain and anger boiling over. It just so happens that it comes the first time Phil finds him at the new headquarters. His expression is tired as he takes it in, and Wilbur freezes with supplies still in hand, feeling a bit like a rebellious teenager all over again.
"So you're doing this again," Phil says, his tone resigned, and Wilbur straightens, wishing for just a moment that he did believe in armor, it might give him some kind of shield. He doesn't press a hand to the scar on his chest, on his stomach, doesn't draw attention to it.
"Here to kill me over it?" He asks, grimly satisfied over the way Phil reels back, the horror that's painted across his face.
" No . No, of course-I wouldn't-" he breaks off, takes a step back. "You're my son," he says, voice soft, and just a bit broken, and Wilbur doesn't know if he loves or hates that he can bring that tone out. "I love you, Will, I have never wanted to hurt you."
"Then why'd you do it?" The words rip out of him, and he can't stop. "Why'd you kill me, Phil? Why ? I wasn't-I'm not-" he breaks off, burying his hands in his hair. I'm not okay . He doesn't say, because he is. He is okay. He's fine, he's better now, he doesn't want to die, he doesn't.
"I'm sorry," Phil's voice is quiet, soft enough that Wilbur barely hears it through the rushing in his ears. "I'm sorry, Will, I'm so sorry. I've-I hate myself for the choices I made that day. I wasn't right, I don't know why I did it." Phil's voice raises as he speaks, and he takes another step back, hands fluttering in a pleading motion in front of him.
"I'm sorry," he says again, voice choking on something like a sob, and Wilbur hates it. He hates that his father, once strong and proud and the rock he could always return to has been reduced to something broken, and it's his fault. He did this. He broke his father, he broke L'Manberg, he drove so many people to be the worst versions of themselves.
"I made you do it," he says, and his voice breaks halfway through. "I always knew how to make you do things, and I wanted-I wanted to die, I wanted to erase everything I'd done, I needed you to do it." He did, there was...there was symmetry in it. Phil brought him into the world, and he escorted him out, it was the sunset mirroring the sunrise, and he sucks in an unsteady breath. "I'm sorry. I-I shouldn't have-should have made you stay away, should've kept writing-" kept lying he doesn't say, but it's what he means. He should have kept Phil away from this thrice-damned place, should have dealt with his shit himself, and he tugs at his hair. "I'm sorry," he says again, when there is only silence from his father's direction.
"Wilbur," Phil says, and his eyes flick upwards, just long enough to see the tear tracks on his father's face. Sentimental old man. "I hate, I hate myself for what I did. I wish I'd done anything else. I don't think I'm ever going to forgive myself. But it's not your fault, Will. It's not. I was the one holding the sword, not you."
"Techno said I made you a weapon," Wilbur says, because it's stuck in his head, and it's not wrong. Phil's face twists with something he doesn't recognize.
"Techno's projecting his own shit on me," he says, which doesn't sound much like Techno, but Wilbur will let it slide this once. There's something in his chest that's breaking apart, that's pulling him forward in small steps, until he's in front of Phil, and he hesitates for a moment, but then his father's arms are dragging him close, and he's too tall, really, for the feeling of being protected, for his father to feel so much larger.
"I love you," Phil whispers, and the words sink to warm Wilbur's chest, and he clings , refuses to admit to the tears on his own face. "I love you so much, holy shit, kid. I'm not-you're not gonna get hurt again, okay? Not while I'm here." It's an impossible promise, but Wilbur nestles it somewhere near memories of childhood, buries his face in Phil's chest and just...breathes.
(Later, he lights a cigarette with hands that shake and Phil makes a face.
"Those'll kill you," he says, and Wilbur laughs.
"Death can't hold me, it's fine," he says, ignores how Phil frowns at him, but relents.
"Show me what you're doing here," he says, and something about having him help design Wilbur's new project has something clicking into place in Wilbur's chest, and it's good. It will be good, eventually.)