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There was never a day in Tommy's life where he didn't wish for what used to be, where he could stand in a newly built L'manberg beside Wilbur and feel at home. There was a time where Tommy could look Wilbur directly in the eyes and not feel like a lesser being.
But L'manberg also took that away from him, soon the power went to Wilbur's head and the wars became the only thought. Soon Tommy became second hand compared to him, and there was no way to step back up.
Not when he gives up his discs, not when he gives up his lives or when they're casted out like trash. He can't follow those stairs with Wilbur, because every step the older took the following steps collapsed keeping him solely at the bottom. Forcing him to stay behind, never beside.
He prays to have another day, just a small moment, of that once peaceful feeling he got when he was around the man. Where he didn't have to feel the threads of a burned up flag choking him, or the eye's of a lost man staring at him watching his every mistake.
Tommy prays to any god out there to get his brother back, and in that process of praying he loses Wilbur and the country. He gets a ghost who had been exactly what he prayed for, but he wasn't Wilbur. He stops praying for people to change, and it's another thing added on for him to blame himself over.
It's lonely without the guy, no matter how many times Ghostbur would try and try, Tommy couldn't love him like he loved the true Wilbur and he couldn't find a brother in the eye's of that ghost. All Ghostbur had done was remind him of the man he couldn't help, all Ghostbur did was remind Tommy of what he could've kept if he tried harder.
Soon though he grows to care for the ghost, soon Tommy finds the ghost's presence less threatening and more cheerful. Maybe he started to believe that ghost was his real brother, because Ghostbur was the good of what Wilbur was.
So when Ghostbur dies by his hands, he wonders if it's him. Each time he finds a brother through a soul, is another time he has to watch as that brother leaves him behind because of his mistakes. And as Ghostbur is gone right in front of his eye, he selfishly wishes that every bit of Wilbur had stayed dead.
No one thinks about the fact that Tommy's forced to watch a brother he could've saved die again, they only think to shout and scream. They blame and blame as he is forced to relive everything all over again.
And he wants to rip up the ground when he realizes he was happy that Wilbur was back, He was happy over the unwanted sacrifice. And he's also completely enraged by it, Wilbur deserved to stand on the ground.
But Wilbur also didn't deserve to stand on the ground, and Tommy will never admit that he had a slight thought of killing the man again if it meant he made things right.
He doesn't, and he's back to being behind the man. Yet this time the stairs only crack as he slowly walks up, this time Tommy refuses to be the last man standing and he refuses to let them push him back.
So it's weird when Wilbur and him after so many fights, so many moments that had him backing down, are genuinely having a good time. There were no forced smiles or moments where he felt less, Wilbur wasn't belittling him or making him feel like a piece of trash.
No they were actually having a nice time, and Tommy could finally breathe for once. For that tiny moment he felt like he had his older brother back.
And then Wilbur ruins it all once again.
He had slowly been calming down from a laughing fit over a joke Tommy made, knelt over holding his stomach when he spoke.
"I am so glad you never got caught up in that explosion," He chuckles out, not paying attention to the way Tommy's face slowly started to fall.
"I mean Dream would've probably revived you either way, but that probably would've made the future be different huh?" Wilbur says, and Tommy can feel the way his heart began to sink.
"Why would I be caught up in the explosions?" He asks, stepping slightly away from the older male.
For a second he wonders if he just misread it. For that split second he was ready to apologize and forget this happened.
But when Wilbur freezes, when he looks back at Tommy with so much dread marked across his face, he feels his heart fall.
Wilbur starts to ramble, tries to save the conversation from going down, "Well- It was a pretty big explosion right? I just- well you know that sometimes people die!" Throwing his hands up in the air, he gives a shaky smile.
"Besides, you got off the platform! You giving up that spot saved your life!"
Tommy wants to gag at that, and When Wilbur realizes what he implied he watches the man pale just as he did. Tommy gave up being the president, yes, but he also gave it away to someone else.
Tommy may have saved himself from death that day, but he could've lost Tubbo because of that. Wilbur gave him that spot for the purpose of just blowing him up.
They both stare at each other, the blonde can see the words flying around Wilbur's brain as he tries to figure out once again how to save the situation. The stairs crack, and Tommy wonders if this time it was because he was stepping away.
"Toms-" The man tries to start again with a weak smile, yet Tommy holds his hand up with a shaky glare.
"Wilbur, please please tell me I'm thinking the wrong thing here." Tommy pleads, yet he doesn't know if he's begging to himself or to Wilbur.
Wilbur flinches as if he was struck, and struggles to speak, to fix this situation.
And it's enough to prove Tommy right, and his heart breaks once more.
"You- You intend for me to die that day with you?" He asks horrified, begging that for this whole thing to be a joke. Yet when Wilbur flinches again, when Wilbur looked sickened that he let it slip, Tommy knew he understood what it truly meant.
He takes a step back, the stairs crack under the weight once more. Dread and anger flooding in as he stares down at the man he once called brother, "You tried to kill me that day?"
"No, no I didn't I swear- I worded that wrong just let me-" Wilbur pleads, reaching for Tommy in another desperate attempt to save the conversation.
Yet when Tommy dodges the hand, when Tommy acts like it burns him. Wilbur realizes there's no going back from what he said, because Tommy knew the truth just as well as he did.
Wilbur tried to bring Tommy down the moment he pressed that button, the TNT placed below the platform right under where Tommy was supposed to stand was always meant for Tommy's final death. He was supposed to go down with Wilbur, because Wilbur always intended to die that day with his country.
And Tommy was always meant to die with him as well, there was no doubt there's nothing to deny it. Wilbur knew what he had done, and Tommy did as well.
Tommy knew at that moment, his brother tried to drag him down with him.
Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breatheinbreatheoutbreatheinbreatheout-
The look Tommy gives Wilbur is enough to make the dead man take his own step back. Full of despair and hatred, of betrayal and hurt.
"So destroying my home wasn't enough for you? Making me watch as everything I loved was destroyed in a day wasn't enough to satisfy that little voice?" He spat out, breathing harshly with no attempt to calm himself down.
Wilbur had no chance to answer before Tommy started again.
"No, no you had to try and kill me, just to have that one last 'I'm right' moment." Tommy cries out, tossing his hands up in frustration.
That makes Wilbur frown, "It wasn't a moment to prove me right Tommy." And gods was it painful to watch as the man no longer tried to hide it. Because the moment Tommy attacks Wilbur is the moment Wilbur has to attack him back.
But this time Tommy refused to back down.
"SO WHAT WAS IT?!" He shouts, face turning red at every second, "Tell me Wilbur, what was so important that you planned to kill me with our country? What was so fucking important to you that I had to die?!"
"BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO LIVE WITHOUT ME." Wilbur screams back, words that he can never unsay are out there now. The truth he would have fought to hide is told, and Tommy feels sick by it.
Maybe there was a Tommy out there that would've disgustingly found comfort in it. Maybe there was another him who would've found it safe, not cruel and unjust as he did.
So Tommy drops all his items Wilbur gave him that day, he starts to back off when Wilbur holds a hand over his own mouth. And with an icy gaze, he speaks the final words.
"You're selfish, you've always been selfish." He whispers out, "There wasn't any hope of saving you, and I foolishly believed there was. But you wanted me to die with you, and that is-"
He stutters trying to find the right words, so he turns around and starts to walk away.
"That's incredibly like you." Is the last thing Wilbur hears that day, and Tommy's off like the wind.
Wilbur is left with his regrets, and he is left alone with only the trees and grass that died around him.
It's been three days, three days of Tommy avoiding him and three days of loneliness Wilbur hated. On the first day he expects Tommy to barge into the land, to act like Wilbur hadn't crushed his heart once more.
On the first day he waits in the field until night, and he goes to bed when the moon shines down on him taunting him.
On the second day, he sends a message. 'When are you coming back?' He asks. And he waits and waits, waiting by watching the clouds move and fade. He waits even when Quackity comes by to start another argument, and he waits laying in the field once more.
He never gets an answer back.
On the third day he doesn't sit out in the field, doesn't even walk out the door when Quackity comes back. He stays in bed and he counts the cracks in his wall over and over, one two three- repeat one two three. He constantly checks his communicator, hoping Tommy had messaged him back.
And he lays in his regrets, he imagines his bed as a field that slowly wraps around him. He imagines he's dead again, but this time he imagines the sun is shining on him as he goes.
He falls asleep dreaming of a child laughing, he dreams of what could've been.
The next day he ventures out, he walks all the way to the main land on a mission and he finds himself in front of Tommy's door. He's nervous and scared, but he comes with a bag of apologies.
When Tommy answers the door, he sees a boy who's tired, sick looking, and annoyed. All he does is smile nervously, with a wave that was too fast for his own liking.
And Tommy sighs, opening the door wider allowing him in.
He finds himself sitting at a table, Tommy leaning on the wall staring at him like he was nothing but a bug invading his house. Maybe he was.
So he starts, twisting at his hands, "I'm sorry, about what happened." He says watching for any reaction, when he only gets a slight movement from Tommy he continues, "What I said wasn't right, what I tried to do was selfish and you were right for saying that."
"I mean I'm never wrong." The younger voice of Tommy explodes into his head, and he wishes Tommy would say it again.
"I'm sorry for everything, I haven't really been a pleasant person to be around, I haven't been a nice person to you." The words taste sour on his lips, he knows he's saying the truth and prime does it hurt. And soon he can't look at Tommy anymore, so he looks to the side.
Sighing he runs a hand through greasy unwashed hair, "You know the truth now, and there's nothing I can do to fix this but say I'm sorry. I am, I really am. I was cruel for trying, and I was cruel for thinking it."
Wilbur looks back at the boy, and once in a lifetime that boy would've been jumping at his apologies. Once Tommy would've immediately forgiven him, because that's what Tommy does.
That's what he used to do, so when Wilbur sees a blank face and no jumping boy. He wonders what went wrong, what changed him.
"Ok." Is all he gets, a shrug and Tommy pushing himself off the wall before walking out. And Wilbur sits there in shock, before he rushes up and follows the boy.
He laughs nervously, "I think, I think you forgot to say something after ok Tommy?" He says it, making it seem like he was joking, but he's so very confused.
And Tommy stops before harshly turning around and poking him in his chest, "No Wil, ok was the only thing out of that response."
"You think I'm just gonna forgive you again? That I'm gonna get on the ground and kiss the path you walk? That I'll just fall back and allow you to feel better after everything?" The boy shouts, poking and poking with each word.
"Just because you apologized, doesn't fuckin mean I have to forgive you." And that makes him frown, yet Tommy still wasn't done. "You think so highly of yourself that you never expected someone to not forgive you when you fuck up?"
"That's not true-"
Tommy pushes him away at that, "It is Wilbur, it's so fucking true yet you're the only one who can't see that!"
It's Wilbur's turn to glare, to push and to poke. It's true and he knows it, but he refuses it.
"I'm sorry you can't forgive others when they mess up Tommy, no fucking wonder you haven't healed yet! You don't forgive anyone, not even yourself!" He screams, and he can see the walls build up around Tommy.
They stay silent, glaring at each other with pure hatred and only the sounds of birds flying above can be heard.
"You think that saying sorry fixes everything, right?" He asks, and Wilbur nods. It doesn’t, something screams at him, it doesn't help anything.
"You think saying sorry to everyone you've hurt, saying sorry to the people who gave up lives for something you destroyed will fix it all?" Tommy's voice starts to rise once more. "You think saying sorry after you hurt me, after you made me do all that and made me watch as you died. When you admitted you tried to murder me, that everything can go away with a sorry?"
Screaming matches, pleas and begging echo through his mind. Blue eyes filled with hope, blue eye's dimming each day. His friends and family are screaming, the hurt and pain the air carries.
There's not a day in his life where he doesn't feel the misery he caused, there's not a day in his life where he doesn't wish to rewind it all. He is a fool, and he is a clown.
He is a card in his own game, and Wilbur makes his grave just as he did with everyone else's. He is the jester and Tommy is the knight.
"If I did die, and you lived. Would saying sorry bring me back?" Tommy asks, and Wilbur watches as the words grab at his throat. He imagines it, it hurts and it burns. He imagines living that day, and he imagines a burned up corpse of his little brother.
He can imagine him screaming at the world, because he didn't follow Tommy.
So Wilbur shakes his head, because he knows the truth. "Saying sorry would've never fixed what I could've caused." He admits with shame.
"And saying sorry now still won't, because I am a fool who made unredeemable mistakes. And you are a boy who was caught up in them." Tired eye's look at another, and he understands just what he has done.
He falls to his knees, and raises his hands up to Tommy as if the boy was a god he had prayed to that he had forsaken. Tommy stands there confused, but he stays. It's enough for him to go on.
"I sit in the deep end of the water, and I drown with the mistakes I have created. And I apologize, I apologize for it all and I don't seek forgiveness from you anymore." He says, closing his eyes with a tight smile as tears slip down his face.
It's quiet again, and he is almost ready to stand up and leave. To let Tommy live a life without him because he knew it was what the boy deserved, yet he is shocked when he feels scarred hands curl into his own.
Slowly he cracks his eyes open in shock, and he is met with a boy who is young and old. He is met with his soldier and his brother, he is met with a child who cries at the world who demeaned him.
And Tommy speaks as his own hands tightly close around the boy's, shaking with his body as they both cry to the god's above.
"I don't forgive you," The boy say's, but he does smile, "But one day I can, one day I will. But you have to prove to me you're worth forgiving."
Wilbur nods fast, and soon Tommy collapses in front of him. And he can't help but bring the boy into a tight hug, Tommy grasps at his coat holding it as if he would disappear in a second. Wilbur holds Tommy the exact same way, because he sticks by his beliefs.
He can't exist in a world without Tommy, it's toxic and it's cruel but it's the sad truth. They both know it, they both acknowledge it. But they never let go, and they cry in each other's hold.
The stairs don't fix themselves, and they stay broken. Tommy stares up at where Wilbur stands, and he accepts the hand that pulls him up with the man.
Because while those stairs will forever stay crumbled and gone, the rest of the stairs stay up allowing them to continue to climb up together.
While Tommy doesn't forgive Wilbur, and Wilbur still stands in some of his own beliefs. They try, and it's the best they can do.
It's all they are allowed to do.