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Wilbur sat idly, tapping his fingers on the mantle of a portentously post-humous replica of his own making. He'd been doing a lot of that in his recently in his unwanted isolation. Idling, that is.
The Wilburger Ranvan fooled no one under the guise of its unassuming name and questionably valuable burgers, but in all honesty, Wilbur didn't ever intend for it to do so. The message it held was received by Quackity perfectly well and that was all that really mattered. Ranboo's role in his food-truck scheme was something he couldn't have predicted, but after the two of them came to a teary understanding early on in their partnership, (admittedly, Wilbur had been the only teary one of the two) he found that he didn't mind the kid all that much.
He'd mind Ranboo less if he actually showed up, though.
It'd been weeks at this point, and there had been no sign of the two-toned hybrid. Sure, there hadn't been a single day that Ranboo hadn't arrived late to their meetings, but he always showed up eventually. As of late, there had been no sign of the kid. No sign of anyone, really. Tommy hadn't visited him for just about as long as Ranboo had been missing, and even when he did visit, he kept their meetings brief and Wilbur at arm's length. Quackity had been cooped up in his county for nearly a month now, and all that Wilbur saw of him was glances of his silhouette through skyscraper windows and in the nest of the needle now and then. The slime guy used to visit, too, but Wilbur hadn't seen him lately either. Quackity had probably caught wind of the slime-man-thing's visits to Wilbur and stopped them, or something. No one else really came by in passing, either. Hence why Wilbur now sat alone in the permeating frost of the everglades surrounding Las Nevadas, shivering, irritated, and, dare he admit it, a tad lonely.
Alright, maybe a lot lonely.
In his defense, it wasn't like he expected the van to get a whole lot of business! Again, that wasn't his true focus when creating the van and its marketing, something that was clear in the lack of customers. And he didn't blame anyone for not deciding to trudge through the snow and ice in the middle of December in the taiga and cold just for a uniform, low-quality, capitalist scheme burger. The only reason he was out here himself is because he was practically trapped where he was. His only other place to stay was in the middle of the arctic, and if he was shivering horribly even while wrapped up in multitudes of blankets and coats, he honestly didn't think he could survive the blizzards that were sure to be going on at Phil's. He could go to the mainland of the SMP, he supposed. But it wasn't much warmer there, and there wasn't really anywhere to stay. Or at the very least, there wasn't anywhere that he wouldn't feel like some sort of stow-away vermin or feel pitied. If he was going to freeze to death horrifically lonely, he'd do it on his own terms, thank you very much.
Just because he understood why people wouldn't visit and wasn't willing to go out and find them himself didn't mean that he wasn't a little hurt. Maybe hurt wasn't the right way to put it. He felt dead in just the same way he had in that damned train station. No one was there to see him, and it had been so long since he had felt witnessed that a part of him wondered if he was dead. Would he even know? Maybe he had died during the night and this was his new limbo, forever waiting and expecting and hoping.
Maybe he had thought that Ranboo might stick around at least a little longer than he had ended up staying. Chances were the kid just finally got bored or fed up with Wilbur's antics. Maybe he finally grew a spine, and if so, good for him. He had always seemed a little too smart to stick around for long. That was something Wilbur realized on their first night spent working together, something he had realized through the first tears since his revival and a clogged throat. And it was something that left a little bit of a sting. How easily had Wilbur had been forgotten, either literally or in a grander sense?
And so, as Wilbur shivered violently in a bundle of down blankets, moth-eaten clothes he'd found in Phil's basement (he got cold worryingly easily after his revival, and could hardly generate his own heat anymore), he watched daytime snowflakes flutter to the ground and basked in the unwanted loneliness of his possible existence. He glanced up at the calendar that hung adjacent to the storage room door for the umpteenth time today, the chasmic dread in the center of his ribcage growing greater against all odds.
There was less than a week until Christmas Eve, he noted dully.
The days were ticking by impossibly slow. At least when he was in limbo, there was no sort of time measurement that could be checked. That meant that he hadn't driven himself (more) insane constantly checking a clock and waiting for it to tell him when enough eons had passed, but it also meant that time flowed in accordance to his mental state rather than any sort of metric. That was scarcely better.
He shivered, the metal floor of the van seeping cold deep into his bones. The thought occurred to him that several real-world years ago on this exact day, he'd probably been present-shopping or spending time cozied up with friends and family. The realization was surreal and unfathomable as he stewed in his doldrums, and at the same time, it made more sense than anything else did in that moment. Not that there was a lot of clarity in his other thoughts, to be fair. He had been a completely different person then. The time felt so long ago even if he wasn't counting the additional years he racked up in limbo, and yet it was so recently the memories were still vivid and full of emotion. Now he sat alone, his breath visible and mocking of the plumes of smoke from his cigarettes, and he could not, in any context, think of that version of Wilbur and see himself. He could not think of that Wilbur and understand him or know him. His chest constricted and his lungs refused to operate.
"Fuck," he breathed.
Wilbur was alone.
It was probably the first time Wilbur had seen Quackity in weeks and had actually been close enough to the man to interact. In fact, as Wilbur prowled the ever vacant and eerie streets framing his rival's prestige, he could feel the warmth coming off of the younger as Quackity brushed past. Wilbur had not left the van often mostly out of blatant fear that he truly would freeze to death, but it had been sunny (though still cold) for the first time in weeks, and Wilbur desperately needed to move. Being trapped and isolated for any extended period of time in a grim, dimly lit box-shaped room wasn't exactly Wilbur's ideal place to be. Subsequently, he had leapt at the opportunity to escape, even if fleetingly. He didn't end up working up the gall to visit the greater SMP, but if anyone really wanted to see him, they knew where to find him.
And now, it was near pitch black out. He hadn't forgotten how quickly it got dark in winter; there was no lighting in the Ranvan save for any temporary lanterns or candles he lit. No, the reason he found himself rushing through Las Nevadas as a shortcut was due to his reluctance to accept the fate of returning to his new limbo. Of course, the first time he had trespassed in months, he ran into the newly elusive Quackity.
However, to his slight chagrin, the man didn't acknowledge him despite their close distance and the quiet gasp Wilbur gave. He marched determinedly forward, past the mounds of collecting snow and ice and towards the Space Needle. Wilbur noted his disheveled appearance. Quackity usually seemed to take pride in his looks and his clothing, and to see him in such a state gave Wilbur pause. His button up, which was usually so well ironed that Wilbur wouldn't be surprised if the man had shirts with iron-shaped burn marks on their material, was wrinkled and stained horribly. His hair was askew and unkempt at the back. He could only assume the hair that framed Quackity's face was the same. The low light of the streetlamps were probably hiding even more evidence of the disarray the man had let himself fall into.
"Quackity! It's always great to see you!" he quipped as he bounded to catch up to the man, trench coat flailing behind him and snow crunching underfoot. Quackity kept his eyes trained dead ahead of him, paying Wilbur no mind even as they became neck and neck.
"Ah, are you busy?" he offered once more, throwing the line for their usual exchange of false niceties spoken in tongues. "I mean, I know you've got to be busy with Las Nevadas and that, but surely you've got time for me, man?" Quackity, freakishly unreadable, continued on wordlessly. He was acting as if Wilbur weren't there at all. Like he was some sort of ghost.
"I'm a busy man too, as I'm sure you know," Wilbur tried once more, matching his strides all the while. He only faltered slightly before another attempt. "Business is booming with mine and Ranboo's burgers right now. I'm sure you and Tubbo are doing really well too, though I can't really know for sure since I'm not allowed in here." He sighed exaggeratedly.
"I promise I was just passing through. Haven't even been looking around, really. I just needed to get to the Ranvan so-"
"Shut the fuck up, Wilbur," Quackity spat, stopping abruptly and finally turning to face him. He was visibly seething in a way Wilbur had never seen before, cold eyes cutting straight through him, and Wilbur's chest fluttered with true excitement for the first time in weeks. A smile twitched at the edges of Wilbur's mouth.
"Ooh, not in the mood to see me then, I presume? I mean, if another time is better, I can-"
"No, shut the fuck up. Right now," he hissed once more, taking a step towards Wilbur and glowering dangerously up towards the man. "I don't have the time for your shit right now, you psychopathic asshole. Get the fuck out of my country before I make you."
"Okay, okay-fine, god," Wilbur said good-naturedly. "Fine, I'm leaving!" he exclaimed louder in an unbothered tone, throwing his hands up.
Quackity only advanced further, though, holding scathing eye contact with Wilbur all the while. The man somehow leaned closer, despite the height difference tipped in his disfavor. "If I so much as smell gunpowder, I won't hesitate to do everything in my power to make your life more hellish than your fucking limbo. Your fucking burger business will be the worst memories you have with a van, I promise." Wilbur's expression dropped.
Before Wilbur could even process, Quackity swiveled on his heel and was back down the road, rushing through the light snow flurries. Wilbur's heart shriveled in his chest, and his legs felt numb. The door of the needle slammed shut moments later.
He had never described his limbo to Quackity.
"Fuck," he huffed.
He stomped angrily to the van, frustration seeping through in his every stride. His fists were balled at his side, and his glasses were fogged up with fury.
The truth was that Wilbur knew what he was like. He knew the way others perceived him, could pick out each and every observation they made and every opinion they believed through their gaze alone. And he felt the thrill of excitement, of the returns in his committal to the character that was Wilbur Soot, revived ex-president and dangerously unpredictable within the realms of villainy. For each and every time that even the tiniest glimmer of hatred or contempt was shown towards him, Wilbur felt whole again. He felt known.
And despite that, he wasn't really known in the slightest, was he?
With a huff, Wilbur yanked the van's door open and, without closing it, marched up to the cabinets under the counter. He ripped the door of one cabinet open to find his stash of assorted alcohols he had been saving under there. He had never really been much of a drinker, not before and not now, but with even his own biology giving up on keeping him warm, alcohol did the trick on the coldest of days. He clutched the neck of the first opened bottle he could reach. Without stopping, he uncorked it, and took a hearty swig.
Not a single soul knew the Wilbur that had cried himself to sleep each night during the oppressive stress of his presidency. The duty he had held not to just his people, but his closest friends, to his family, had crushed him with the weight of everyone and everything he ever loved. Wilbur Soot was a loving man. Not one person knew the shell of a man who existed in the impossible plane of his personal hell, alone for 13 fucking years save for the hibernating drunkard in the corner and a mocking, alternate version of a once-enemy now-'hero'. Wilbur Soot was also a prisoner of his own mind. And nobody would ever know those Wilburs, not even Wilbur himself, no matter how hard and tirelessly he had tried to figure it out in Limbo.
He looked to the quickly emptying bottle in his hand and cursed gruffly before snatching another one, unopened, and striding out of the van's door. It slammed behind him as he plopped himself down on the footboard.
The lights of Las Nevadas shone ever brightly, neon signs and rich pigment-paints mirrored in the river that divided him and his rival. It was taunting, almost, to see that even in what had to be the lowest point Wilbur had seen Quackity in, his country was thriving. It felt like a targeted attack. It felt like home.
When L'Manberg had been won by Schlatt and Quackity, and, as its original concept, had died, so had Wilbur's greatest creation yet. It had died before he had finished its story, his story, and with the most poorly written of endings. And in Pogtopia, as he had come to this realization, there was no other option but to rewrite the ending himself, through whatever means necessary. If that meant donning the role of a villain, then so be it. At that point, everyone was already against him anyways, so becoming the very thing they thought him to be was best, was it not? If everyone else already thought of him as evil and wrong and different, then surely thinking of himself the same way was the only step forward in his plan. To be able to predict their reactions and plan around them in order to orchestrate the true death of his greatest symphony was nothing short of necessary for any measure of success. He had done it, too! His symphony had concluded in just the way he wanted; inconclusive. It died with him, and he died with it, just as it should be.
Death, however, hadn't been death in the merit he had planned for, though. Death wasn't truly real, not in the terms of the non-existence that he had thought it would be. Even in death, on far too many levels, Wilbur Soot lived. L'Manberg lived, too, in the hearts of the New L'Manberg citizens, then in the hearts of the original citizens, and finally and eternally, in the mind of one Wilbur Soot. There was no escape and no end to L'Manberg, and there was no true measure of control Wilbur had over it. Even when he held power over no one, he felt had L'Manberg. But, as he learned, no matter what he did or what he had strived for, L'Manberg had never obeyed his command. How do you kill the un-killable? How do you kill what immortally lives in the hearts of others?
The answer is that you can't, not in a world where non-existence is a lie, and by extension, existence is too.
Wilbur's train of thought paused for a moment, and all at once, he found his limbs burning harshly in the way that extreme cold sometimes did. Vaguely, he clocked that he was no longer near the Ranvan, and was instead in the thick of the forest. He had no idea where he was relative to the van or even Las Nevadas, and he wasn't even sure if he could see a path that had lead him here. Had he stumbled off the trail and through the underbrush to this outcropping, so far gone in his own penitentiary of a mind that he hadn't even noticed in the slightest? Had his body somehow thought to match his physical state to his mental state, leading him to somewhere completely off the grid and with no chance of anyone finding him? Since his revival, his theory had been that he had been revived with a single life instead of a full restoration of his original lives. If that theory was true, then would this be his final death? Would Dream even bother reviving him again, really? There was no chance of him getting back to the van while drunk off his ass and frozen half to death, let alone while also in the middle of nowhere in the dead of a winter night. His death wouldn't even send a ping to anyone's comms seeing as he'd be dying completely on his own instead of due to another person in any other merit. Would it count as a death to Wilbur Soot by Wilbur Soot?
He couldn't even feel the cold anymore, nor could he feel hot tears racing down his cheeks as his body refused to let him cry. He couldn't feel the uncomfortableness of the half-empty twin bottles (he dumbly realized that he hadn't even bothered finishing one before opening the other, and he doubted he finished that one either) pressed against him, and he couldn't feel the way his limbs surely ached from his fall into the icy snow. He could feel, however, tendrils of dread and fear shooting through his body and constricting his heart in a way he hadn't felt in who knows how long. He could feel the dry sobs that wracked his body and the way his breaths came out shakily and unsteadily.
A motion in the corner of his peripheral caused his heart to somehow beat faster, and his gaze darted to the all but glowing form embellished against the treeline. It was a butterfly, (or maybe a leaf or literally anything else, because at this point, he wouldn't have been surprised to mistake literally anything for a butterfly in his drunkenness) and its wings fluttered lazily as it lay atop the fresh snow. It was slowing down, by the looks of it, probably dying from the cold. Butterflies didn't hibernate, did they? Was it dying before it landed in the snow, or did it walk blindly into an unwanted fate, and was now desperately flapping its wings as hard as it could, the cold taking ahold and reclaiming its body? Instead, did it walk wholeheartedly into the awaiting embrace of Death herself, knowing and accepting? And was Wilbur comparing himself and his fate to the questionably-existent butterfly?
With a final weak flap, the butterfly's wings clicked into their last increment, and it stayed unmoving.
Wilbur waited a moment, a minute, an hour, and the fear soaked into his bones and swallowed him whole. Running on pure adrenaline and alcohol, he rolled over off of his back and desperately scrabbled to command his arms to push under him.
For an instant, there was a glimmer of hope as Wilbur's arms shakily pushed the rest of him up, and his knees shifted underneath him, too.
In just as quick an instant, his elbows stopped responding altogether and his arms bent underneath him. He returned to the snow with a whimper and a rush of powder snow.
The anxiety returned tenfold, and before he could even mumble out a curse, he could feel himself slipping. The world turned to black.
Reality very slowly came into focus with a buzzing in his ears and an immediate pain registered in about every inch of his body.
"Ow," he said stupidly. The world settled before him, and he quickly registered was staring up at the damned ceiling of the Ranvan once more. The sound of quick, unsteady footfalls echoed towards him.
"What the actual fuck, Wil?"
He whipped his head over to the source of the ever familiar nasally voice, and instantly regretted it, hissing through his teeth and scrunching his eyes up before he could get a good look at Tommy.
"What?" he offered weakly. His vocal chords were half-heartedly responded to his requests, he noted, and it felt as though someone had taken a steel brush to the entirety of his throat. He pried his eyes open to see the younger knelt beside him on the makeshift blanket futon Wilbur had been using for the past month or so.
"Don't fucking what me, Wilbur," Tommy bristled coldly. "I found your sorry ass passed out drunk and hypothermic. What the fuck?" Tommy was glaring with him with a vehemence Wilbur hadn't seen in what felt like years. He rocked forward onto his knees, holding eye contact all the while.
Wilbur moved to get up, commanding his limbs as best he could to unwrap himself from the blanket cocoon he was now in. He wasn't cold whatsoever, but he wasn't really warm, either. He also didn't remember even having this many blankets.
Tommy instantly leapt up and pushed him back down, Wilbur resisting only for a second before surrendering with a wince. "Did you not hear me, dickhead? You were fucking hypothermic, and probably still are." Wilbur settled back into the blankets and Tommy slowly recoiled, not quite relaxing, but settling down in preparation to start up again. Great.
"I come out here to see you because you decided to disappear off the fucking grid, and the first sight of you I see in weeks is facedown in the snow in the dead middle of winter," Tommy shouted and his voice cracked on every other syllable as he grew louder and louder. "With-fucking- wine bottles, just sitting there half empty next to you, and you're cold to the touch."
Wilbur shrank back slightly and gradually, inching away from the wrath of his psuedo-brother. He was struggling to process much of anything going on around him through the unfamiliar numbness and lack of temperature rippling through him and the violent hangover migraine, and the sudden volume wasn't exactly helping. He opened his mouth to mention this, but Tommy beat him to the chase.
"What the hell would you have done if I hadn't decided to come today, Wil? If I hadn't set out to find you at the perfect time, if I hadn't checked the snow for boot prints to follow when I didn't find you in the van? What then, huh?" he howled. "Because you and I both know damn well no one else would have. I'm the only one you've still got wrapped around your little fucking finger, Wilbur, and if it weren't for me, you'd be fucking dead with your body not found until the spring thaw, if then."
"I'm sorry," he offered scratchily. "To be fair, I was spacing out and drunk. I didn't mean to wander off. I don't really know quite how I ended up there."
"I thought you were dead, Wil!"
Wilbur looked up, properly this time, to Tommy. There were tears brimming in the younger's eyes, the glint of the blinding daylight snow outside so bright and reflective that he could tell Tommy was tearing up even without his glasses.
"I'm sorry," he offered again tonelessly.
This only seemed to enrage him further, though. Tommy shoved at Wilbur's shoulder with both hands, jostling him and sending pricks of soreness through his entire arm.
Wilbur bit his tongue to keep the cry from slipping out. "Fuck's sake, m-"
"No, you're not sorry! You're clearly not! If you were sorry, if you cared at fucking all, you wouldn't have been out there in the first place," he shrieked. He was full on crying now, fat tears rolling down his cheeks and his voice horribly uneven. With the combined rage and teenager-like voice cracks, Wilbur could almost see a younger version of Tommy before him. He found himself at a loss for words and his jaw opened and closed dumbly.
"You're awful, Wil! You're fuckin' horrid, and I hate you so bad, but I can't pry myself off of you because you're like- like some sort of reverse leech shit! And you and I both know that! We both know that no matter what horrible shit you do to me or put me through next, all it takes is a sorry, if even that, and I'll be right back at your fucking heel! You make me awful, Wil!"
And it was completely true, was it not? The two of them were fully aware of the unspoken game they were playing, of the rules they had made, and of the rule of playing along even while fully aware. Tommy was smart, and Wilbur was sure that Tommy knew what Wilbur knew. They were both caught up in a complicated web of simultaneously fragile yet unbreakable strings, and were both waiting for the other to break one. And in moments like these, the fleeting interactions where it felt like the entanglement of sportsmanship lay discarded, powerless all around the two of them, Wilbur was inexplicably vulnerable.
"I'm sorry."
Tommy's body shook with sobs that he refused to make audible, his seething glare gone and replaced with a broken grimace towards the floor. He had once again returned to the shell of the boy who once burned bright, so brightly that he had burned himself all out in a matter of years and was now left empty with only enough fuel to operate with that same unbridled fury again in short bursts.
"I hate you."
"I know."
"I.." Tommy trailed off. "It's like I don't know you anymore, either. I don't know you at all, really. But you wear my brother's face and so I can't fuckin' hate you all the way." He balled his hands into fists at his side and rocked back, circling his arms around his knees and pressing his face into them. A half-stifled sob escaped him.
"I hate you, Wil."
And it was then and there that for only the second time since his revival, the world blurred before him. Wilbur's lip trembled and his breath hitched, and all at once he was a fearless revolutionary and a confident leader, he was a big brother scared absolutely shitless for his newly acquired family's sakes and he was breaking down in the foreboding silence of his office.
"I love you," he pleaded. "I'm sorry."
Wilbur reached out, fruitlessly straining to get up before Tommy all but threw himself onto Wilbur's frail frame. They sobbed in concordant disharmony, Tommy scrabbling ahold of Wilbur with a fierce, cloying grip and Wilbur feebly clutched him back as much as his poorly responding limbs would allow.
"I'm sorry," he sung between the keens, as if it would mean anything at all. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"I didn't mean it, I didn't mean to, I didn't even know if I was- I was so alone I- I'm sorry," he choked. Tommy said nothing, only sobbing all the more sagely.
"And I did the same to you, too." Wilbur was spewing volatile lifeblood in the form of nonsensical, out of context half-sentences and apologies. "I'm sorry," he said, for all the times he should have meant it more, should have made it clear, should have done better, should have been better. For all the broken promises he made, for the one he was making and sure to break.
"I know," was Tommy's reply. "I know."
And with only the two of them together rocking back and forth on the floor of a mock-up, disrespectful memorial erected by its very dedicatee, the warmth and feeling and pain pain pain seeping back into his body, Wilbur took a step forward. It wasn't a big step, and it wasn't a step that was guaranteed to be followed up with another anytime soon, or to be followed up linearly. Or, really, to be followed up at all. But he was here now, and wasn't that what was most important?
He was alive.
He was alive to take another step, alive to even have the chance to consider taking another step, and he was here, holding the fragments of his child soldier brother in his arms.
The energy left him just the same as it did his brother, exhaustion weighing heavy on the both of them as the blinding snowfall continued outdoors and rattled the tinny cage of the burger van. Tommy slumped against him softly, and Wilbur's swollen eyes drifted closed slowly this time. He could feel the rhythm of Tommy's heartbeat against his chest as he drifted, and for a moment, he could pretend he was hearing his own.
He was alive.