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Wilbur was scarred. His body was full of scars from all the battles he took part in. Every fight he won and every one he lost, they all left those small pieces of themselves on him so he would remember them for the rest of his life. Remember that he was bad, not the guy you could trust, but one that killed and was killed. A reminder of what he did, haunting him for the rest of his life not only in nightmares, but in real life too. A reminder that made everyone take a few steps away when they saw him, not because they were scared. They were disgusted.
How could he stomp on the same pathway as them? How dared he breathe the same air?
His soul was scarred, far more than his body. It was as if every cartridge ever fired in his direction stayed stuck inside him. Hurting and hurting and bleeding through everything he could think of using to stop it. But it never did, he was bleeding and bleeding, but not dying. His soul was rotten and the rot spread.
He wondered if he could be saved, if the maggots inside him would ever leave or would they eat his insides until there was nothing left.
He didn’t want to be saved.
Nobody wanted him to be saved.
Why would he want to get rid of the bugs when nobody seemed to care if he did? When nobody seemed to care if he changed? The only thing they ever wanted from him, not making any difference anymore.
Why should he care when nobody seemed to do so when he succeeded in not picking a fight when he was provoked? They always said he was too violent, that it was something he should change to get redemption, to get cleaned from his past sins.
"It’s normal, nothing to be proud of."
"You’re still bad, you know that, right?"
"You didn’t change at all."
"Shut up. Shut up, I hope you all fucking die, just like I did." He said angrily and took out his pack of cigarettes. He lightened up one and took a hit. It calmed him down and he wished it killed him faster than the world would.
Was it something like an indirect suicide? Smoking this much, wishing for it to give him lung cancer and kill him. It would make him happy, he wouldn’t have to do it himself and he wouldn’t have to live in this shitty world that was just as rotten as he was.
There was a hole where his heart should be and he hoped it would never be filled. He didn’t deserve to love and feel the nice things that life supposedly had to offer. It was so long since he smelled something, since he tasted something, since he touched something and felt its texture. He was numb, and he wanted to stay numb.
„Hello, Wilbur.” He heard Tommy say as he shuffled beside him, not really knowing what to do with himself. That was the last person Wilbur wanted to see right now, swimming in sadness and agony, hearing the screaming of his mind. He just wanted to drown in all this.
Or maybe he already did? He felt that it had swallowed him whole, leaving just a shell, his body, so nobody would notice. So he would have to walk on this earth without anything inside, empty and wounded.
After his revival, he noticed that his healing slowed down and sometimes wouldn’t even happen. He would just bleed and bleed, but he couldn’t bleed out due to all this revival magic. He hated it, he would be dead again if not for this shit and he really wanted to be dead again. He was on his last life anyway, Dream wasn’t favoured by the gods anymore so he wouldn’t be revived again. Not that anyone would have wanted that.
„Hi, Toms.” He said, just like in the old times, the good old times, before he started rotting. The times so beautiful he dared not remind himself of them. He destroyed everything pretty that there was, he did burn those memories and he didn’t deserve to remember. He only deserved the pain of the fire he started.
Tommy shuffled again, uncomfortably, not expecting to hear this nickname from Wilbur. They stopped calling themselves brothers while still in Pogtopia, it wouldn’t change now, but the nickname was apparently never forgotten by the other. It made Tommy sick to the stomach. How could he call him that? Those nicknames belonged to the past and he didn’t want them to come back now, as if it was all okay, as if nothing happened.
„Hey, Wilbur? Why have you done the things you did?” Wilbur took a hit of his cigarette and looked at the night sky. He slowly let out the smoke from his lungs and thought about the question. There was no real answer, not one that would matter now anyway. Everything changed but him, and nobody understood his motives back then anymore. It was all in the past, the answers were in the past too.
„I guess I just couldn’t change.” He settled on this. „Everyone reminded me how bad I was even when I tried to change so I just stopped trying. Maybe I was just too weak.”
„That’s not an answer nor an excuse.” Tommy quickly bit back as if Wilbur was trying to get out of this looking like a good person. Funny how he stopped trying to look like one a long time ago, when he realized that it didn’t matter anyway, because everyone had their mind made up about him.
He took another hit and let the nicotine cloud his thoughts enough for him not to spiral. He would only fuck things up more if he got angry.
He didn’t like getting angry anymore, but it was the only thing left in him but agony. It was the only other feeling he could get high on.
„I didn’t mean it to be. I own all the bad in me, I wear it on the sleeve. I am not trying to pretend to be someone I am not.” He said and he really wanted to hit the wall at how passive-aggressive it came out. Tommy clenched his fist and if he didn’t know better he would think he was about to get hit, but the other wouldn’t do that. He despised the way Wilbur was and he swore on his life he wouldn’t be the same. And Wilbur was aggressive, he was disgusting.
It used to hurt, it didn’t anymore.
„Well, to be fair, you are a bad person. You said you were trying to change, yes, but you always stayed the same as before. Even now.”
He dropped the ashtray he held and it broke into some smaller and bigger pieces close to their feet. He sat down on them, the glass cut his thighs, but he didn’t care. He only whispered something about cheap things breaking easily and took another hit from his cigarette.
Tommy looked at all this with a mix of feelings. It was so visible how the older wasn’t in his right mind anymore, how he did things that didn’t make sense. He was surprised at how Wilbur didn’t even flinch from the pain. Did he do things like this often?
He shouldn’t care. He almost didn’t.
„As I said, I stopped trying, it doesn’t matter if I do.” Wilbur suddenly spoke up, continuing the conversation like nothing happened, because for him- nothing happened. The sharp pain from the cuts helped him stay calm and made him hate himself a little less for a second and that was enough for him to keep himself sane.
„You know it was all your fault, right? Others did bad things because they had to, but you did it all because you’re just bad and it runs in your veins.”
„You’re just like the glass, Tommy. Just like the glass I’m sitting on.” Tommy’s words cut deep and left wounds that wouldn’t heal even slowly. The other didn’t understand shit, he didn’t understand that he had his motives too, and that he was a fucking person too. Nobody saw that anymore, he was a monster to all of them, not worth redemption. Worse than Dream- that guy was at least useful to them, but Wilbur? He had nothing to offer and they treated him like shit, because they had nothing to lose.
It’s not like losing him would be a bad thing. The opposite actually.
„You’re not good, Will. That’s why I don’t need to smoke- you kill me slowly just like a cigarette would.” Fuck, he wished he would be hit instead of having to hear this. He knew he lost Tommy a long time ago, he knew the other fucking hated him deep down, but was too caught up in the beautiful past they had to let go.
Maybe he had to help him let go.
He shuffled trying to change position so more glass would stick to his skin, so he would get cut more and bleed more. He deserved the pain for how he fucked everything up. He deserved it, because he couldn’t change.
„Maybe we’re not good for each other then.” Wilbur said after taking one last hit of cigarette and putting it out on the skin of his arm. Another reminder of a battle he lost, a battle with himself, a battle for himself. He wanted Tommy to hate him fully, no good feelings left. He wanted to be despised by the other.
„You don’t deserve me.” He didn’t, he really didn’t and he knew that. Tommy was an angel that he tried to put down with himself, an angel that had his innocence and youth destroyed by him. They shouldn’t ever be friends, they shouldn’t have been so close to call themselves brothers. He should be alone and Tommy should be safe from him. He was a monster after all.
„Why are you sticking with me, then?” He didn’t want to say that, he wished he didn’t say it, but those were his true colours, weren’t they? A fucking bastard who doesn’t care about anyone. Such a shitty lie, because he cared about Tommy more than about anything else in this world. But maybe he had to do this, maybe this was the only good thing he would do in his life- keep the other away.
Like a fucking hero, he laughed to himself.
He knew he would never be one.
„I came to say goodbye. I am moving on and I should leave you in the past too. I just wanted to know the answer, but I should know better than to talk to you. You didn’t change at all.”
And with that, Tommy was gone, just like everybody else. And Wilbur sat there, all alone again, and maybe that’s how it was supposed to be. His pain was his own and his flaws seemed to be his own too. He couldn’t change and he was constantly reminded of it.
„Goodbye, brother.” He whispered even when the other was long gone and couldn’t hear him anymore. It hurt, it was supposed to hurt, but he didn’t deserve to feel the pain of losing Tommy, he didn’t deserve to call him brother anymore too. He didn’t deserve anything, but to bleed.
Not even to die, it was too merciful. He ought to walk on this earth hated by everyone including himself.
He just wished they would stab him, hit him, do something other than cut deep only with words. It hurt the wrong way.
He put his hands on the ground beside where he sat, glass cutting him deeply. His blood was his own too, he would lose a lot today and his wounds wouldn’t close fast enough for him to recover right now. He knew he wasn’t going to die, probably just pass out here and wake up after his body regained some energy. Maybe someone would notice him, maybe not- nobody ever noticed if he had more and more scars when they saw him, nobody ever noticed when they saw him passed out in a pool of blood. Or maybe they did notice, maybe they thought he deserved that.
He did.