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Oh, Wilbur was just so damn proud of this van. That used to be a bitter thought, before he really knew him. He’d drawl on for hours about the thing. Built it from the ground up, he’d exclaim! Look at my blueprints! And, well, that’s how Fwhip knew he’d be busy for the next two hours, tracing his fingers over the etched doodles and designs. It was all over when Fwhip let slip that he was an engineer in his free-time.
But, well, he’s always been weak when it comes to Wilbur. Winning him over with that clever man, oil smudged across his cheek and grinning like a fool, was effortless. Eventually what used to be dreaded discussions became what Fwhip looked forward to most. Even this late at night, when the moon and stars are the brightest light for miles, he’s never looked more radiant than when he was impassioned with a goal. Whether it was his revolution brewing on the side, or the silly car they spent hours mulling over.
Wilbur leans out from under the hood of the van, stretching and cracking his back, a dirty towel in hand as Fwhip approaches, “Evening, neighbor.” Fwhip says, tossing him a water bottle, “Is it almost done?”
“Almost.” Wilbur says, catching the bottle and taking a quick swig, “Maybe. It’s not a sure thing, but I have to be nearing the end.” Slipped between the bottle and his fingers is a cig, one that he draws a full breath from before letting his exhale ghost out into the evening light. He waves Fwhip over with an excited glint in his eye, tipping his cigarette the opposite direction to keep the smoke out of his face, “C’mere! You need to see this.”
Fwhip does, his cheeks growing warm and fond as Wilbur slings his arm over his shoulders, tucking him into his side. Wilbur gestures with an open palm, lit cigarette between his fingers, to the redstone and machinery below him, the engine now fully assembled (though rough along the edges).
“What do you think?” He asks Fwhip, “Genuinely, is it good? I don’t want any mishaps in this, you know. I don’t think drugs and engine failure work well together.”
He rolls his eyes in response, before taking a more critical eye to the open hood on the front of the camarvan. It wasn’t perfect by any means, and it certainly wasn’t how Fwhip would’ve done it. But, while Wilbur had insisted upon being taught how to make the van move and some minor redstone gadgetry, he’d also stressed the importance of doing it himself. Adding his own flair to it. So maybe it wasn’t… the most efficient use of the space, it was still entirely Wilbur. Messy, complicated, but it was Wilbur’s.
“You know what? I think it’s as close to perfect as you’re gonna get.” He teases, gently jutting Wilbur in the side with his elbow.
Wil yelps and tugs him closer, Fwhip’s spine flush with his chest, “No! C’mon, be serious! I want this to be perfect for when I start my new country.” He takes a drag while Fwhip sighs, slightly irked by the mentioning of his reason for departing once more. Talk about a mood-killer. Even the warmth emanating off of Wilbur isn’t enough to distract from the cold rush that reality slaps him with. He’s leaving. For good, he’s leaving the server for some place he’s never even heard of. At least he can depart with some good thoughts of him;
“I’m serious! I think it’s good.” Wil had a style to his machinery. A bit less industrial, he prioritized function over organization. Cheap materials over good ones. That didn’t mean it was bad, however, “Could fix up maybe some of… well, whatever this is–” He points along the line of redstone that’s unnecessarily complicated, “--Maybe shorten it up, work smarter not harder n’ all that, but I think it’s functionable. The van will drive, Wil, isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Yeah, but I want your approval!” Wilbur whines, moving behind Fwhip to rest his chin on his head, draping both arms over Fwhip’s shoulders, “You’ve been avoiding me, I’m owed some attention.” He pouts.
Fwhip leans back into the touch, “I’m not avoiding you.” He says. It’s a white lie, technically. He’s not avoiding Wilbur on purpose. It just so happens that whenever he sees him, Fwhip’s heart starts working overtime. Which, yeah, sure, was perhaps veering Fwhip out of his path. And maybe he was doing it on purpose.
Alright, maybe it was a lie.
Wil doesn’t seem to hear him, or simply doesn’t care, because he holds Fwhip closer, pressing his cheek to his scalp. Perfectly content to wait until he hears what he wants to hear. Cheeky fuck. The cigarette smoke is going to leak and soak into his jacket, which is going to be difficult to explain to Gem. He’d vigorously wash it clean, but it would only dampen the smell. Besides, he thinks, turning to lean his temple against Wilbur’s collarbone, he doesn’t hate it that much.
He sighs despite this, knowing that Wil seemingly always beat him in stunts of stubbornness, “It’s great, genuinely. Considering you haven’t touched the stuff before, I think you did a decent job.” Fwhip purses his lips, and quickly tweaks something just slightly off center, “Alright. Now it’s perfect.” He doesn’t have to answer what Wilbur doesn’t ask of him, so he’s going to play hooky with the ‘avoidance’ confrontation till he has nowhere else to turn. The irony is obvious.
“What I wouldn’t do to have a mind like yours.” Wilbur detaches himself from Fwhip and circles the van to the front seat. He hops in and leans out the door, “Let me know if it starts sputtering smoke!”
“What, more than you do?” Fwhip snorts, leaning over the engine, “You’ll have more exhaust than the car.” Wilbur gawks in response, narrowing his gaze at him before clicking his tongue and subtly putting out his cigarette on the dashboard with a faux-sour expression.
He waves around the air to disperse the smoke, giving Fwhip a teasing smirk, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Fwhip , I know I’m distracting, darling, but focus on the car.”
Oh, that cheeky fucker. Fwhip flips him off, but redirects his gaze to the engine.
The redstone ignites, rumbles, and after a few teasing twists from Wilbur’s key– the engine purrs to life with a sputter. Fuel begins to burn and Fwhip lets the hood slam down, meeting Wilbur’s bright grin through the windshield. “I think you’ve got yourself a working van, bud.”
“I’ve got a working van…” Wilbur says once, quiet and reverent. He looks in awe of himself, of the van, running his hands over the wheel. He sparks up like a firework, shouting gleefully, “I made a fucking van !”
As if on cue, the van dies out with a wheeze.
They both balk, staring awkwardly as the redstone fizzles like acid. Right. There wasn’t any fuel.
“I can fix that!” Wilbur cries out again, still brimming with excitement, “I still made a van!” He hops out of the van, wheeling himself around the van’s front and clambers Fwhip into his arms, lifting and spinning him.
“You made a van!” Fwhip laughs.
When his feet touch the ground again, Fwhip is dizzy with more than just adrenaline and vertigo. I want to see him be this happy again , Fwhip decides, I want him to smile like this for every day, and then all the times after that.
He’s released far too soon, Wilbur untangling himself and pulling Fwhip with him towards the camarvan’s palleted side, “Sit on the roof with me?” He asks, one hand already curled around the rung of a ladder that sat loosely from the roof’s rails.
He could never say no to Wilbur. Fwhip follows him up the ladder, being tugged the rest of the way upwards by Wilbur’s solid hold on his forearm.
Fwhip’s always been appalled by the sights of X-Life. He was used to more industrial lands, cluttered with light pollution and damp with humidity. X-Life was solidly clear of this, however. It was a constant summer, bleached sunlight staining every blade of grass and leaf with a golden glow. And the nights? They were almost more beautiful than the days.
He’d spent hours listening to Wilbur rattle on about the stars and the various mythos that came from Greek legend. All from his brother, he’d say, and trace a fingertip across the spread open sky of stars. Even now, he can see the light trails he made between them, like Wilbur had spent the time to make them himself, making their stories to be told on top of old handmade caravans to a boy in love. Spreading enough light that he can see every inch of skin that holds the other as they steady, sit back, and laugh at the absurdity.
When the grins die down to simmering smiles, Wilbur roughs his shoulder to Fwhip’s and speaks quietly, “You didn’t explain earlier. Are you really avoiding me?” It’s spoken with such subtle contempt that it sends him reeling.
“No!” He balks, face pinching in concern, “Not really. I promise. I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately. Gem is talking about where we’ll go next and…” I can’t leave her, but I also can’t leave you. But I will. And maybe I’m distancing myself to make it easier when I do.
Strikingly, Wilbur sits up in alarm and his hand is suddenly covering Fwhip’s, tucked around his knuckles, “You’re leaving?”
Fwhip nearly laughs, “Aren’t you? To start L’manburg , wasn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but…” He pauses, caught on his words as he studies their interlocked palms, “I didn’t think… I didn’t consider that you would be going somewhere I couldn’t find you.”
“X-Life can’t last forever,” Fwhip says with a shrug, “Things get boring and we’re all natural travelers, it was unlikely that we’d be here for much longer anyway.” At Wilbur’s detrimental silence, he pushes onward, “I wouldn’t go far. We can always send letters. Messages. Visit, whenever possible.”
“I don’t know if I’d like that.” Wilbur admits.
Fwhip’s gut drops, “Do… you want us to not talk at all when we leave?”
“Gods, that sounds even worse.”
“I don’t think you can have both.” He laughs.
Wilbur’s brow creases and his hand tightens, tugging Fwhip closer, “Then stay. Stay with me.”
A chilly breeze catches an updraft through the hills and streets, flicking strands of auburn hair over his eyes. Fwhip balks with a laugh, caught up in a joke, before he notices the stony unchanging expression on Wilbur’s face. He trails off, lips twitching into a frown.
“You’re serious?”
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.” Wilbur says.
“I can’t– I can’t just stay here. Neither can you!”
“What I mean,” He clarifies, “Is come with me. Come live in L’manburg. Be my Lieutenant, come work with me and Tommy, meet the crew I’ve accumulated over there.” With every word he speaks, his face lightens like there was never any option but this, “You’ll love it. And they’ll love you.”
Fwhip’s already shaking his head, “No, Wil–” He can’t. He really can’t leave. Gem is moving on to bigger and brighter things, he has to be there to see them. To support her. She can do it all by herself, no doubt, but they’ve always been together. As siblings, as twins, as friends. He couldn’t just abandon her, “Gem. I really can’t leave Gem.”
“She’s an adult! She’ll be fine.” Wilbur insists, “She can send letters and visit whenever she wants. Hell, when my country takes off the ground, we’ll build a whole mansion for your sister if you’d like. I can get her past the whitelist eventually, but…” He tsks, leaning forward and knocking his forehead to Fwhip’s, eyes shutting, “I don’t want to lose you. Not yet. Maybe I’m being selfish that way, but…”
Moonlight does funny things to your sight, painting everything in shades of white and gray, silver and perleascent. Soft, dream-like. Everything was possible between them when it was nighttime. Wilbur could make constellations, Fwhip could hold back his convictions, and they both could hope and pray for a better future. Impossible, improbable, things became malleable and real in his palms. Wilbur’s dream for a free country was admirable, and that’s all Wil would think about it. Admirable and wild and untamed. And maybe he wanted Fwhip near him because he thought he shared that same mindset. Devotion to country, to freedom.
Fwhip could give less of a damn about the country. What he cared about was him.
And gods, if devotion to country would get Wilbur devoted to him, than Fwhip would play the part of a soldier. It was a simple war. A silly one. He’d been in them before and what server didn’t lose interest in battles after awhile?
“I don’t know…” Fwhip mumbles, resolve cracking.
“I’m clever, Fwhip, I know I can do this without you. You know it too. My father started revolutions for fun, I don’t think there’s any way I could lose with that kind of track record,” He chuckles mindlessly, “But, even if I can– Even if it’s boring to do so– I don’t want to do this if I can’t have you too.”
He swallows hard, throat bobbing.
“Stay with me.” Wilbur says, hushed, “ Promise you’ll stay with me, by my side, and this country will be ours. Together. Start a revolution with me.” His head is bowed, body curled and Fwhip could almost imagine he’d be on his knees asking for Fwhip to stay, pressed close enough to smell the smoke and pine tree sap and redstone.
He never wants to let him go. Never break the spell that’s woven sweetly between them, tight and secure. Fwhip is bound, happily and willingly, when he’s raptured by his words. Wilbur speaks and the stars glow. Wilbur speaks and the constellations come to live with stories of Andromeda and Perseus. Wilbur speaks and asks, and begs him to promise to stay.
He could never say no to Wilbur.