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“…You've always stayed the same." The cold and distant bitterness between them was only solidified by the solidarity in their statements. Yet Wayne's voice also carried the quality of lacking proper venom in his words, instead only saddened by the truth of the matter.
"Gibby." Wayne spoke up again, as if waiting for a the opportunity to get the words in among the calm waves.
"When we fought you at the top of the moon palace, what you said in your dying breaths..." His eyebrows furrowed for a moment in frustration
Wayne... I'm sorry for everything...
Only for it to be followed up with the information the moon was rigged to explode upon Gibby's death
“Did you mean any of it?”
For a moment he was taken aback by the question, though his expression could only move a small amount in specific ways, seeing him look down was practically an admission of guilt.
“Of course I did…I” Although the act of taking a breath is redundant when lacking lungs, he needed a reason to pause as he hesitated.
“…I still do.”
Wayne hated that answer. He loathed and despised that answer. It only made everything he'd gone through with Gibby all the worse. his faux leather gloves squeak ever so quietly when he tensed his fists.
"Then why did you hate me? And Why did you ever try to convince me that it was love?" Wayne kept his voice almost eerily collected and unwavering in the slightest.
In Gibby's eyes, every single thing Wayne had ever done was wrong, the way he spoke, the way he dressed, the way he actually saw anyone other than himself as their own being doing their own thing instead of how they were usable as an asset or could be a replaceable prop.
“I never hated you then, Wayne. You have to understand that I was only trying to look out for you, trying to better you in the long run…I was only trying to perfect you…”
"Pft, perfect?" Wayne scowled with a slight grin curving his lips, as if laughing at a twisted joke. "Yeah, I'm sure you would have actually loved somebody who followed your every whim, agreed with every fucked up plan you'd make, someone who would stroke your ego until you'd black out!"
He didn't know why, but it hurt to speak those words aloud. Maybe it was just the embarrassment that he'd ever tried to be such thing?
Despite the icy trickle of guilt settling in the tyrant’s stomach, the heat of his frustration over Wayne’s dismissal of his intensions cracked his ego back into a defensive stance.
“Yes! Someone who wouldn’t be constantly questioning me on every decision that needed to be made! Someone who actually listens when I tell them that they’re polluting their own viscera with their poor health habits! Someone who has an ounce of tact in difficult situations rather than spewing curse words, giving up, and running away from their problems—!” Gibby would have bit his tongue if it still existed as he found himself projecting his unfiltered thoughts directly at the other man, losing his sympathy by the second.
Wayne gave a deep exhale from his nose before beginning to stand up and starting to walk away from the shore of the afterlife, the tide crashing over the sandcastles that Wayne had constructed there and washing them back into the sea. "I dunno what I expected."
He doesn't look back as he starts to climb up the stairs to leave the sacred temple like structure.
knew he needed to act now if he didn’t want the other man to condemn him back to such suffocating isolation for what could very well be eternity.
“Where do you think you’re going!?” Gibby called out as he pushed himself up next to pursue the faux-leather clad moon being. “Running away from me all over again like a coward!?”
“Yeeeep, It’s just like I said, you don’t change.” Wayne replied apathetically, any vulnerability he had provided being entirely resealed and hard to break into.
“Do you really expect me to just let you walk away after the insulting claims you’ve pressed onto me you stubborn mule!?! What about your desperation to get the last word in any argument before bailing entirely from the interaction! Hypocrite that you are!!!”
The crescent moon still did not look back, refusing to spare the acknowledgment that the tyrant was still demanding of him. This was pointless. It was always pointless.
“Goodbye, Gibby.” Wayne said plainly as he closed his eyes leaned forward to drop into the pool of Hylem that led back to the living world.
Only to be suddenly stopped by the feeling of a hand closing around one of his wrists, a flare of anger swept over the once apathetic crescent as he finally turned back to face the metallic faced monstrosity of reanimated flesh. “What the fuck is your problem man!?!”
The king of space debris had a choice in that moment, what words he would lean into and brace for whatever impact they may cause. He had to make something count or potentially lose Wayne forever.
“Wayne! please I—! …I can’t be alone here anymore…” Gibby responded with resounding desperation, his pride shattering under the pressure of his admittance to weakness. But Wayne’s ability to care had run out.
“That sucks, turns out being a fucking asshole makes people view the ending of your reign with celebration instead of pity!” He yanked his hand from the tyrant’s cold, dead grasp.
“Name One person who gives a shit about you after everything that you’ve fucked around and found out about!?”
“YOU, WAYNE!”
A great pause was triggered by the interjection, a numbing anxiety feeling like it was unraveling Gibby tendon by tendon. Wayne too had any and all thought in his mind wiped clean from the slate as he stared at Gibby’s pathetic and limited expression, expecting of crocodile tears if he was still capable of producing them.
Then Gibby fell to his knees, bowing his head at the crescent’s feet while his exposed muscles twitched and spasmed individually, like the confession was causing him physical pain. “Don’t leave…please, don’t leave me alone here…”
He was…pleading…? The arrogance and self-superiority nowhere to be found in the noise that Wayne had been presented with.
He should smack him in his stupid plate face with his glove, he should snap him into minced meat again, he should do countless things instead of just standing there and staring at his groveling
But he can't.
There were thousands- No, Millions— No! Trillions of things that he could say right now and be done with this, but instead only one question came to mind. "Why are you doing this?"
Gibby barely had the strength needed to lift his gaze from the pitiful display of submission.
“I’ve realized you’re the only good thing I have left to lose…and I am late…I am so disgustingly late to realize that…This confession is long overdue…I am sorry…I am...” Gibby’s voice gave way from beneath him before he could go any further with his thoughts.
"God...damn it..." Wayne mumbles, his gaze turning to the floor, as if wondering if he should even dare to stoop to this level. He knows he shouldn't fall for this again... But Gibby actually looks and sounds remorseful, as if he’d gaged the monotony of futility as Wayne understood it too.
"I gotta go sooner or later, Gibby…” Wayne’s chest too felt like it was collapsing into itself as he quite literally stood on the precipice between life and death.
“…l'll probably be back sooner or later too.”
The king of the moon’s gaze shot back up to Wayne as the smallest flicker of hope dulled the pain welled up within him.
“Do you swear to it…? To return…?”
“…Yeah...I’ll come back…”