Archive of Our Own

When Wilbur is revived, he is introduced to a new world than the one he died in. One of the things that has changed is this kid that seems to have made a name for himself on the server. His name is Ranboo, and he's half Enderman, half something else - human, Wilbur thinks, most likely, but he isn't too sure yet. Ranboo is seventeen and very tall, taller than himself, even, standing at almost seven feet of clumsy, anxious teenager. His hair is very long and reaches a quarter of the way down his back, split black and white down the middle to match with his skin, which is patchy in colour. He always wears a dark cloak, the underside of which is purple and shimmers like a galaxy of stars, over collared shirts and blazers and cardigans and ties. He seems to enjoy dressing up. He wears a mask over his nose and mouth that ties around his droopy, dog like ears. He sometimes wears red and green sunglasses that match the colours of his sclera, but sometimes doesn't, and his eyes are always wide as though in a constant state of shock.

He's a centrist. Tubbo's in love with him.

Wilbur doesn't know what the boy sees in him.

"He's weird, Phil," he whispers to his father, pressing his lips together with annoyance at the man's amused smile. "He's like the odd neighbor kid that no one wants to play with and does group projects alone at school. He creeps me out. I don't think he blinks."

"Well," says Phil, ever the wise, as he darts about his kitchen making bread, a blue bowl in hand full of flour and yeast and sesame seeds. "You'll have to get used to him, won't you? He's not going anywhere."

"Still don't like him," Wilbur mutters. He hugs himself subconsciously, thinking.

Phil pauses in his tracks, then turns to face his son, and his smile is sad in a way that makes Wilbur want to scream. "The kid's lonely," he says softly. "And so are you."

Wilbur scowls and kicks his legs from where he's perched on the washing machine, next to the rapidly warming furnace. It's too hot in here already. Being trapped in an empty train station devoid of any sensory input for so many years has deprived him of his ability to feel things normally, and the heat is already making him want to tear his skin off and claw his nerves to shreds.

His eyes latch onto the photo that Phil hangs above his chests. A smiling young man with curly dark hair and chocolate brown eyes, framed by a pair of circular glasses, wearing a yellow jumper over a white shirt. He hates it. He hates the colour yellow.

"Take that picture down," he demands, as he does every time he comes to see his father in the frozen Arctic.

Phil only laughs.

"Hear me out," Wilbur starts, gesturing wildly with his hands. "Las Nevadas holds all the power at the moment, don't they, Ranboo? Do you agree with me on this?"

Ranboo, holding a handful of dirt that he's molding into a ball, nods eagerly. Desperate to please, like a little kid, like the little yes-man he is. Wilbur grins, biting back a laugh.

"Quackity thinks his big buildings and shit makes him so powerful," he says. He continues walking as he talks, knowing Ranboo is bouncing eagerly behind him, knowing someone's here to actually listen to his rambles. "He has - what, he has a casino, he has a strip club - Do you know he has a strip club, Ranboo?"

"Oh yeah," Ranboo nods. "For wood."

Wilbur stops and studies the kid for a second. Ranboo startles and stares at the ground when their eyes meet.

He's not the brightest, Wilbur thinks, before continuing.

"I say we make something to rival what he has," he tells him. "He's got a wimpy little restaurant, does he not? Does he not, Ranboo? Now hear me out." He walks backwards, raises both hands. "Burger van. We sell burgers. What do you think?"

Ranboo blinks - so he does blink, there's a surprise. "Uh," he says. "Why?"

Wilbur sighs dramatically. "Must I explain my every thought? Fine. Las Nevadas is just up this way, by the way, we can stop up here and talk."

And Las Nevadas is beautiful, he has to admit. Far more grand and colourful than any of the stations along the Jubilee Line had to offer. He soaks it in, thinking, then turns back to the bewildered teenager with a new spark in his eyes. "There is a power vacuum in our SMP right now that Quackity is trying to control for himself with his stupid gambling business shite. Now, I admire Quackity. I do! I admire him greatly. He's rich, he's clever, he's made good for himself. But - but but but. Capitalism shouldn't be left unchecked. Quackity shouldn't be left unchecked. And what's a business without a little healthy competition?" 

This is a test. He pauses, coughing into his sleeve as his chest rattles from talking far too quickly. As he does so, Ranboo simply nods slowly, looking slightly lost.

"I thought you and Quackity weren't on good terms?" he questions.

Wilbur hesitates. 

In the back of his mind, he remembers how close he'd gotten to Quackity the last time they'd spoken, how they'd shouted at each other and he'd felt nothing but alive. How Quackity made him feel alive. How different he looked from Pogtopia before Wilbur had died. How his hands were still just as warm as they used to be.

"That's none of your concern," he dismisses quietly. Then he remembers himself, and straightens. "So? What do you think of my idea?"

"Are we going to anger Quackity?" Ranboo asks after a pause, timid. "Because, uh, me and Tubbo kind of did that already with our old cookie outpost that we had out here. He didn't like that at all."

Cookie outpost? Wilbur has to laugh. He tries to imagine little Tubbo, soldier Tubbo, spy Tubbo, fighter Tubbo, resigning to a domestic life of baking and selling like a girl scout. He knows he could never. Tubbo can't sit still, can't stay in one place for too long. He's surprised he hasn't left Ranboo already.

"We'll keep to the land that I own," he says cheerfully. "And nothing more."

"This is the van," Wilbur exclaims. "This is where the magic will happen!"

Ranboo looks unimpressed. "It's pretty small."

Wilbur drops his arms to his side, rolling his eyes. "Just because you're rich doesn't mean everyone else is, Ran-boo."

Ranboo tugs on the door handle before yanking it open and heading inside - the van is indeed small, with a little kitchen area and window with a cracked shutter to lean out of. Ranboo has to duck to fit. "Very nice," he says unenthusiastically. "So what is the point of all this?"

Wilbur stares at the kid and thinks. This time, Ranboo doesn't break the eye contact, which Wilbur finds very interesting. He takes mental notes that he promises to write down later, clicking his tongue. 

"Do you dislike Quackity, Ranboo?" he asks bluntly.

Ranboo somehow manages to look small, even as his head hits the roof. "Well -"

Wilbur leans forwards. "Do you dislike anyone?" he challenges, a fire starting to burn in his chest. There is something thrilling about this, about this conversation, about this action. It has been three months since he was revived and Wilbur has left the house all of four or so times, three of which to go to this very area near Las Nevadas, wanting to catch a glimpse of his old friend. But today he is with another person and they are talking and Wilbur is proving a point. This is a test. He waits for a response, still smiling, unafraid.

Ranboo leans down to try and match Wilbur's height. "I believe that people around here have done terrible things that I just don't agree with. But… I also believe that people are just products of what's happened to them. You know?"

Wilbur stares him down. Rich kid, unscarred, three lives left to his name, thick hair that's probably never gone longer than three days without a wash, healthy figure that's probably never gone a day without a feed. He thinks about Tommy and the haunted look in his eyes on the morning that Wilbur had been taken from the station, during their first meeting since Dream had dragged Tommy away from him all those years, months ago. Products of what's happened to them. He wonders where Ranboo gets his ideas from.

"Follow me," he says. "We're going to kill some cows."

Ranboo owns a cow farm. Of course he does. They open the gate, and Wilbur's nose wrinkles up at the overwhelming stench of animal, hot bile rising in his throat that he forces himself to swallow back. He will not vomit in front of Ranboo. Instead, he clamps his gloved hand over his mouth and nose and wades through the sea of cattle, clutching his axe in one hand. It doesn't fit in his palm right. He wonders what happened to the crossbow he left Tommy, the one his ghostly counterpart instructed Connor to give to him should anything go wrong. Those memories are fuzzy. It makes his head ache.

"How many do we need?" Ranboo asks. He is clutching handfuls of wheat, and the animals are huffing and yowling at the scent, crowding around the younger boy. He laughs, and Wilbur somehow feels sicker. "Calm down, come on, you don't - guys, trust me, you don't wanna be the ones I lead outta here. Wilbur, how many?"

He startles at the sound of his name. "How many do you think we can fit in your freezer?"

Ranboo thinks. "Two. Two should be good to start."

He leads two of the biggest cows out the pen, shutting the gate behind him, and Wilbur relaxes the further they get away from it, the noise and the smell and the heat of so many bodies crammed together fading. Ranboo takes them to a small building just off from the pen, around a steep mountain that's slick with snow, then turns to face Wilbur with an expression that he frustratingly can't decipher. "Do you want to?" he asks, and he stretches out his hand to offer the older man the wheat he's been using to lure the cows here. "You have the axe."

Wilbur glances at the animals, wide eyed, fluffy animals, mooing gently, scraping patterns in the snow with their hooves. And suddenly Ranboo is Tommy, and he is laughing and hugging the animals despite Wilbur's protests of them being dirty, and he is unscarred, three lives left, thick hair and a healthy figure.

"You can kill them," he mutters, and hands Ranboo the axe.

"Paradise," Wilbur murmurs, mostly to himself. He stares up at the van before heading back inside to where Ranboo is, a sense of something like déjà vu tickling his chest. "What do you think, Ranboo? For the name."

"I like it," the kid agrees.

Wilbur turns to look at him. Adjusts his glasses, scrubs a smudge off of them and studies the kid with judgmental eyes. "Why?" This is a test. He waits for Ranboo to fail it.

Ranboo stands beside him and tilts his head curiously. "It sounds like pair-of-dice. Word play that's also gambling based. Pretty clever, I think."

Wilbur blinks. "Oh. Huh. You're right." He hadn't actually thought of that himself. He'd just been imagining sunrises over golden deserts, four wheels and callused hands steering, a goal in his mind, a future being strung not by the Fates but by himself, controller of his own destiny. Paradise. 

Interesting, he thinks, interesting.

"Pass me your sword," he says.

Ranboo hands it over without complaint or question. Tommy would have demanded to know why. Tubbo would have cracked a joke as he gave it to him.

Wilbur admires the netherite blade, smooth and intricately welded, weighing it in his hand. It still doesn't fit the way Chekhov's Gun used to. "Fire aspect. You're good at enchanting?"

Ranboo shrugs modestly. "I guess a little. Tommy and Tubbo are, uh, not the greatest at it, they're more the potions experts. So they have me enchant everything for them."

Wilbur eyes him over the blade of the sword. "You don't need to tell me what they're good with. I taught them everything they know."

"I don't doubt that," Ranboo replies sincerely.

Wilbur turns it over. On the opposite side to the enchantment runes, the name of the sword is etched. He can't help but snort as he sees it. 

""Ranord,"" he reads aloud, and suddenly leaps up onto the countertop, bending halfway over himself so he'll fit. "Clever."

Ranboo looks slightly sheepish, shoulders rising to his ears. "I like to name all my tools puns based off my name, ha."

Wilbur barely manages to avoid rolling his eyes. "You like your puns, you like your word play, Ranboo?"

"A little," Ranboo admits. "I find it fun."

Wilbur cocks his head. This kid is a lot more interesting than he originally believed. "Well. Thank you, friend, for letting me borrow your sword."

Ranboo doesn't flinch at the "friend" like Wilbur thought he would. Instead, he nods as he passes him on the way out the van. "No problem, no problem at all."

Wilbur jumps down and follows him out. He's restless, suddenly, too much energy in his body at once. "We should start clearing the area out. Maybe spawn proof it. No one will come buy food if they have to fight hordes of zombies, will they, Ranboo?"

Ranboo doesn't look as though he's listening. He's starting out across the water at the mountains, where he can see what looks to be a large stone fortress silhouetted against the slowly sinking sun. "You know," he mumbles, squinting. "I'm not all too sure that that was just a cookie outpost."

Wilbur can't hold back a laugh of shock. "That's your cookie outpost?"

Ranboo nods, shrinking into himself. "I thought so." He hesitates. "I don't think Tubbo was telling the truth."

Wilbur chuckles at the mention of Tubbo, and pats Ranboo on the shoulder, something weirdly warm blooming in his chest. "Oh man, Tubbo. I miss that kid. Strong headed, he is, doesn't let people push him around."

"True," Ranboo agrees. He crosses his arms, looking slightly uncertain. He doesn't push Wilbur away, either. So he doesn't let go, leaning against the taller boy and pretending he's just taking a break to rest his legs and not enjoying the contact without another person, not comfortable as the sun dips slowly and the air begins to cool and brush through his hair and rustle his clothes, heavy jacket fluttering.

"You could learn a bit from him," he says, too quietly. His head is suddenly spinning and he doesn't know why. It's similar to the feeling he gets when he's around Quackity, around Phil - he feels lighter. It's been a while since he's spoken to anyone. It's been a while since he's spoken much at all apart from to himself. Wilbur likes the sound of his own voice. It reminds him that he's still alive.

"Maybe," Ranboo says nonchalantly. "Tubbo's taught me a lot already."

Wilbur faces him. "Like?"

Ranboo shrugs, and Wilbur moves his arm from his shoulder, hugging himself tightly and pretending he hadn't been trying to stay close as the day turns to night and the cold bites his skin. "He… taught me to be braver. He taught me how to fight offense as well as defense. He, uh, taught me how to be louder as well - I used to just not talk much at all, ha, and he helped me… find my voice, I guess? I kinda learned how to stand up for myself. Tubbo carries, like, a presence, and he has so much to say." He laughs, rubbing the back of his neck where the marks of his three lives are, etched red into his skin. "It's impossible not to take something away from meeting him."

"Do you love him?" Wilbur blurts without thinking.

Ranboo startles and meets Wilbur's eyes, his own wide and glowing gently, red and green. Wilbur doesn't back down and waits for an answer, eyebrows raised. This is a test. This time, he isn't sure of the response he'll receive.

"Well, I - he's - we sort of -" Ranboo stammers, and for a moment, Wilbur's certain this is going to be it. Then he sags and folds his hands, laughing softly. "Yes. I'd - I'd say so."

Wilbur crosses his arms behind his back, not stepping down. "You'd say so, huh?"

Ranboo nods. "Yes. I love him. A… a lot. I do."

Wilbur is thrown by the sudden confidence in his voice. He suddenly realizes he doesn't think he's told anyone he loves them with so much certainty in years.

He steps back and instead examines the lowering sun. On instinct, he raises his right hand and silhouettes it against the sky, the remaining rays of golden orange slipping underneath the horizon behind the mountains and the cookie outpost, far off across the river.

"What are you doing?" Ranboo asks, confused.

Wilbur waits until the sunset has finished before lowering his hand and staring at the place where it had been, watching the silver stars begin to dot the sky.

"When we were younger," he explains. "Me and Tommy pretended to be gods. We divided the world amongst ourselves, as a game, or we tried to. We were playing imagination and we both wanted to own shit, but we couldn't decide who got what - Tommy wanted all the animals, but I wanted the flowers he wanted and he wanted certain colours and that didn't make any sense, blah blah blah. Typical kid shit. Anyway, in the end we decided that instead of dividing things, we'd divide time. Tommy chose the night, and I chose the day."

Ranboo is paying attention, Wilbur can see. This is a test. It's been a long time since someone has stayed with him for so long, and he's been hanging out with Ranboo for maybe two hours now, working on setting up the van and scoping out the area, and the whole time, Wilbur has been speaking and Ranboo has been listening. He can't help but feel weird, knowing that his words have to carry meaning now, that they won't just be lost in the emptiness of a train station with no trains, just black tunnels with no visible end.

"We realized that there were two times out of the twenty four hours that didn't technically belong to either night nor day," he continues, slightly self conscious now in a way that's unusual for him. "Sunrise and sunset. Dawn and dusk. So they belonged to both of us, technically. And even long after we finished playing that silly game, we - when we were both together at those times, we'd pretend to catch the sun on its way up or down, just for fun."

He coughs into his sleeve again, chest suddenly tight without him knowing why. 

"Don't know why I told you all that," he says breathlessly.

"No, it's ok," Ranboo says, and his eyes are sparkling as if he's smiling under the mask. "That explains a lot, actually."

Wilbur knits his brows. "It does?"

Ranboo glances away and nods, opening his inventory and summoning a brown book with gold lettering emblazoned on the cover, flicking through well-worn pages intently. Wilbur wonders how he reads it in the dark. "Yeah. Tommy does that sometimes. The - the hand thing. I asked him to explain it I think once and he told me to go - well, he was very vulgar about it, actually. I didn't ask again."

Tommy does that sometimes.

Wilbur leans against the van, suddenly weightless, suddenly unable to hold himself up. His legs give out beneath him and he slides to the ground, lightheaded.

"Wilbur?" Ranboo exclaims, voice rising in pitch with worry. He sounds like Tommy. Wilbur has to laugh, and he probably sounds maniacal, giggling to himself and digging his nails into the sandy dirt beneath him. "Uh, are you - what's wrong, are you ok?"

"I'm fine," Wilbur dismisses calmly. "I'm fine, really. Just give me a second, I'll be back up in no time."

Ranboo wrings his hands, anxiety written all over his face. Wilbur laughs again at the sight. For a moment, the kid reminds him of himself.

Then, suddenly, there's a bottle being pressed into his hands.

"What -?" Wilbur starts, cutting off when Ranboo inexplicably sits beside him, shuffling into a cross legged position with wide, concern-filled eyes. "The hell is this?"

"Water," Ranboo says, blinking owlishly. "I thought you fainted or something."

Wilbur uncaps the bottle and squints into it with distrust, watching the clear liquid swirl against the plastic walls binding it.

"It's not, like, poisoned," Ranboo explains rapidly. "I just keep it on me cause most of the people I regularly surround myself with constantly forget to do self care and I'm usually the one who -"

Wilbur downs half the bottle in five or so seconds before clunking his head against the side of the van and shutting his eyes, exhausted after having exerted so much energy for the day.

"Ranboo," he mumbles. "Why did you come help me today?"

There's a silence. "Well, I wanted something to do."

Wilbur chokes out a laugh.

"And I think maybe you're not all that bad."

That's what throws him for a loop. That's what makes him sit up and open his eyes again, trying to detect the held-back laughter in Ranboo's voice, any sign that he's joking on his face. There's nothing.

"Why?" he asks, voice steady.

Ranboo folds his legs to his chests shrugging. "Well, I mean, I don't believe you've always been a bad person, or even that you still are. Because people change. People go through events in their lives that make them different. I mean, if I were to speak to a younger version of you, of Wilbur, I probably wouldn't think you were… I don't know, a good person. Given what I've been told." He hesitates before continuing. "But I've also been told that I'm sort of an optimist. I always see the good in others. Always. I don't think I've ever met a person that I haven't seen even a little good in. And with how long you've been away, I'd like to say I'm hopeful. And that I believe you're a good person, or can be, or want to be."

Wilbur takes a breath, and swallows back a lump in his throat, and tries to speak. His eyes burn.

"Do you get what I'm trying to say?" Ranboo asks, then turns to face Wilbur. His face immediately drops, eyes widening. "Oh, are you ok?"

Wilbur sniffles and stumbles to his feet, scrubbing at his eyes and blinking rapidly. "Yeah, I'm cool! I'm cool, I'm cool, ha! I, um. I needed to hear that. Thank you. For that. Thank you."

And for a moment his head is a swirling mess of he doesn't think I'm a bad person, he doesn't think I'm a bad person, he doesn't think I'm a bad person.

"Oh, you're - you're, uh," Ranboo stammers, and follows Wilbur to his feet, standing awkwardly beside him. "You're cry- uh, I don't have tissues or anything, I'm so sorry -"

"Ranboo," Wilbur interrupts, lowering his hands so the kid can see the shining of his eyes. "Can I be real with you for a second, man?" 

Ranboo nods eagerly. "Of course."

Wilbur's breath catches, and he stands with the stance of a drunken man, swaying on unsteady legs. "I think I scare people."

They go quiet for a moment. Wilbur isn't sure if this is another test or not, or even if he needs one.

"Well," Ranboo hesitates. "Yeah, I get the same thing -"

"It's different," Wilbur cuts off. He's shaking - he usually is shaking - he's never not shaking these days. His cheeks are slightly wet. "People are afraid of me because they know what I can do. They've seen me at my worst, and they've seen the destruction I've caused, the pain and the hurt - and they know I can do it again. That I would do it again."

He takes a shaky breath. Ranboo studies him, and Wilbur feels more exposed than ever, his bones laying on the ground before them with every word he's spoken etched into the tissue. He is bleeding out of his eyes into a puddle on the floor. Wilbur Soot is falling apart. It's that last day all over again, it's November 16th and he is being dissected on the stone floor that he died on.

Ranboo shuffles on the spot.

"Then prove them wrong," he says softly, and Wilbur shatters, just a little, just enough.

"This is our competition," he says, throwing his arms out. "This dump."

Ranboo makes a face. "Yeah. A dump."

It's not really a dump, and Wilbur knows Ranboo doesn't think it is either. It's a fine looking restaurant, red and white with a clean, bright aesthetic, albeit with the vibes of a place long left abandoned. He can't even tell what they sell by looking at it. 

"There's not even a menu," Wilbur scoffs, shaking his head. "What kind of food service place doesn't have a fucking menu?"

He inspects the ground and, after a moment, bends over and picks up a large chunk of stone, turning and pressing it into Ranboo's hands. His gloves are fluffy, despite it being summertime.

"Break the windows," he instructs.

Ranboo looks taken aback. "Why?"

There's something. Another test passed. Wilbur cant help but smile. "Just do it."

And Ranboo does. He slams the stone against the window once, twice, shatters the glass and cries out, stumbling back against the rain of shards that briefly glint in the moonlight as they fall. Wilbur watches with amusement twisting his chest. The kid straightens and turns to face him, and Wilbur catches a glimpse of himself in his eyes. Two sides of the same coin. Not too different after all, the two of them.

"Now what?" asks Ranboo, dropping the stone to the floor.

Wilbur says nothing, just glides swiftly by, jiggling the door and throwing it open to step inside. It's dark. No one's been inside for a long time.

Ranboo sighs. "Why did you ask me to break the window if you were just gonna go through the -"

He stops. Wilbur's hands are heavy with explosives and a silver lighter, outstretched to hand them to the kid before him.

Here is something Wilbur knows. People are afraid of him. His memories are most often fuzzy, broken, coming and going in hot flashes that leave him dizzy and clutching at his head with thoughts of did I really do that? It is difficult for him to know what's real. Ever since he's come back, every day has been a blur of trying to piece himself together - of wide, terrified eyes and disgusted glances and wringing hands and shaking voices. Every day has been fighting back that sick sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing he had succeeded in the one thing he wanted before he died. If I can't be loved, I want to die feared. I want to leave a legacy.

Here is something Wilbur knows. Tommyinnit is afraid of him. The two months they'd spent together in limbo feels so long ago, was so long ago, but he remembers what it had been like - how Tommy had spent so much time in tears, holding himself, hiding away, not playing solitaire with him. It had been fucking frustrating. Here he was, dead and alone, and when his little brother comes to join him, he suddenly doesn't want to speak to him? None of his jokes had landed. Nothing had landed. Wilbur had felt alien, gross, wrong. Like another person was under his skin. Sometimes he still feels like another person is under his skin, every time Tommy inches away from him, hands trembling, voice smaller than it should be. Sometimes he still looks in the mirror and doesn't recognize himself.

Here is something Wilbur knows. Ranboo isn't afraid of him. He should be, Wilbur thinks, then he remembers who Ranboo is - a teenage amnesiac who never knew this old version of him, who never saw enough to fear him, who only heard stories that he may not even remember. Ranboo is a clean slate. Sure, he's married to Tubbo, and he's friends with Tommy, and he lives with Philza and Technoblade, but it's ok because Wilbur is smart and Wilbur knows how to look into a person's head and Wilbur is desperate to cling to this one person that doesn't shrink back when he approaches, this one person who thinks maybe you're not all that bad, who thinks people change, who sees the good in everyone. Wilbur sees himself in Ranboo. Maybe that's why he isn't afraid of him, no matter how many tales of his past he may have heard - maybe Ranboo senses it too. Two sides of one coin.

Here is something Wilbur knows. He has one final test in store.

"Do you trust me?" he asks, and he looks Ranboo in the eye, and the kid doesn't look away.