Chapter Text
I.The stalactites keep dripping. You cannot sleep. Those two facts are intertwined, despite the fact you cannot admit it.
You swear you can hear the water collecting itself on the rock, twisting and trickling like a creek does, like the way whispers trickle into ears, insidiously and just loud enough for you to hear. Every time the water drops another centimeter, you can feel the way the ceiling is pulled alongside with it.
You know it will fall, that it will bury you eventually. This place has been a crypt since the moment you, a dead man walking, decided to enter. It’s only a matter of when.
The water lands in time with your twitches, and you swear there were more holes in the ground than you had seen last night. Eroded away from the falling water, digging you further into your grave. There must be a reason for your erratic pace, anyhow, and it cannot be yourself.
(Some nights, you cannot even close your eyes from how fast your heart is beating. You lay on your bed, if it could be called that, and wait in anticipation for the ceiling to finally fall, to finally succumb to the sheer weight of the ground above it after the water ate away at its roots. Surely, surely it must have been enough for it to break by now.
Tommy just calls you paranoid, and in the same breath he mocks you for calling them ‘stack-lights, or whatever the fuck you said, Wil, that word should be fucking illegal’ with a strained laugh in his voice.
The concern in his eyes says otherwise.)
(Some nights you think that if you talk enough that you can drown out the rest of the noise. This hypothesis is still to be tested: after a couple of hours, your voice cannot bear the sheer weight of your mind’s defense anymore.)
(Some nights you sleep, and dream that you are sitting in the middle of the ravine, and the water is dripping. Your socks are wet from the holes in your shoes, but more importantly, the puddles forming on the ground. You watch them for a moment with an apathetic interest, noting that they are growing larger, spiraling outwards like a flood does: slowly, and then all at once.
What really interests you is the fact that if you stand here for long enough, the water might just kill you. You don’t know how to feel about that.
It’s never the matter. You’ve always been resourceful enough to get yourself out of these situations. You turn to the staircase, and go to walk up, out of the godforsaken cave, this space inbetween.
(You look back on it, hand coated in gunpowder and resting on a button, that if you had just managed to get out once, maybe none of this would have happened.)
You slip halfway up on a loose stone and tumble the rest of the way down. Your knees ache painfully when you get to your feet, and your trenchcoat, drenched with water, sticks to the back of your legs.
The water is still dripping.
You brush off the beginnings of panic, and more carefully this time, walk up, cursing your past sightlessness on removing the railings, even if Technoblade had made them to mock you. You make it more than halfway, and growing relaxed, miss the next step when you weren’t watching.
The water is still dripping. Your landing is almost cushioned by it in the way that a fist is cushioned by flesh, in a way that a spiral into madness is cushioned by denial.
You sit in the water for a moment, letting it cover your bent knees as you try to calm your shallow breaths. How is it now, in the moment of need, that your body has now failed you. You do not want to wait long enough to see if it will fail you again, will forget how to swim and leave you to rot.
You scramble up the steps on trembling hands and knees, pride left on the floor where you had fallen. But, when you reach the top step, hands scraped to oblivion and chest shaking, your hand grabs a slick vine and you slip back down, the greenery still tucked in your hand.
The water is still dripping. It always is, loud to the point of torrential rain in a monsoon and louder than even your own heartbeat in your ears. The sound eats your words to the point that it was useless to speak in the first place.
The shirt around the base of your neck soaks in such a familiar way that you are surprised that you are still alive.
Unsurprisingly, the water curls around your arms, pressing down with a dark, heavy weight that you feel in the back of your throat when you cannot lift them. You open your mouth to scream, and the water closes over it.
You wake up with bloody fingertips from clawing the walls in your sleep.
You tell Tommy the next morning when he points it out, with your voice shaking only a little, you are biting your nails again. Nothing too serious.)
(One night you make it to the top of the steps. Your hand closes on the rim of the trapdoor, triumphant, but it fades into bitter confusion the trapdoor does not move when you push.
You press harder, and it barely budges.
You pound your hands against the door without restraint, feeling the way the wood tears into your skin. You do not mind, you can hardly think past the drip, drip of the water and the fact that after all this time, and all this effort, the trapdoor is still fucking locked.
You let your words ooze with honey, then drip into salt as you then scream until your voice is hoarse, the trapdoor innocently standing in front of you, painted in dew and blood. When that does not work you beg, but the water takes you anyway. It is more unforgiving than time will be to your story.
(You are sick of drowning. Even when you are awake you feel as though water is filling your lungs, weighing down your limbs and fogging up your thoughts.)
The next day, you wear bandages. Tommy says nothing this time, but when your ghost sees him later on in a beach haunted by open coffins and rotting wounds, you note the way his arms are wrapped like he has scraped the skin off them raw. Your ghost does not know why, but a spark of familiarity fills you. Like you were truly brothers.)
(Some nights you sit, motionless in your dreams, watching the water swirl around you. It mesmerizes you in a way, and at least when you reach out willingly to it, it is more gentle in its destruction. Or more fitting, at least to you. A dead man’s irony.
At the very least you would like to believe it is better this way. To go out on your own terms.
A idea sparks in the back of your head, but it is ignored. For now.)
-
II.The water is dripping, and you cannot sleep.
You blame the noise.
-
III.Your brother can’t look you in the eyes. ( That is not true, but you wish it was. )
Your brother can’t ( can ) look you in the eyes.
You do not see the hope in his eyes when you speak, when you build up a stock of promises in your words, and pledge to bring his home back to him. ( You wonder how much longer you can keep this illusion of success up when you do not believe it yourself. You wonder how he can believe it when they are stuck in a place that is blackened from the inside out, when every torch light seems farther and farther away.
You know you’ve always been a pretty good actor, though. )
You do not see the fear in his eyes when you pace, when you mutter things under your breath faster than you can realize what they are, building up a steady hum of poison as though that may kill you before the water does. You do not see his fear when you place a hand securely on his shoulder, and lean down to his ear, and whisper, ‘ You're scared, TommyInnit. ’
You smile.
( You see it. You see it and it makes you want to run, makes you want to pull out your sword and kill whatever it is hurting him. You see the way his face slackens and his lids raise, breath catching in his throat. The eyes are a window into the soul, and despite his best efforts, you see the way his hands shake, not just the way his pupils darken and dart from side to side. But it is you that is hurting him, and you’re not quite that brave enough to fall on your own sword just yet.
When you smile, grin wide and arms spread, you can feel the bile rising in the back of your throat from disgust. You turn it into the acid dripping from your words. )
When he speaks to you about sending a letter to your father, you do not remember what you do, what you say, but you know that when you are done talking, Tommy does not even look angry anymore, no backlash in the way you expect him to do. No angry storm or words pouring in a clunky fountain that push and push until something gives. Nothing.
At most, he just looks a little frightened.
But he drops it.
( This is true. You do not know why your heart pangs when he finally gives up the effort instead of pressing and pressing like the fire he is, eventually winning like he always does. You do not know how to feel about your father anyhow, and you spend the day musing how you can love someone but not remember their face. Or maybe it’s the other way around. )
-
IV. Tommy stares at you almost in the eyes and announces that your other brother, long posted to memory and wisps of dry humor, is coming to help them. His face is set, and you know that it is far too late to tell Tommy that you do not know whether or not you can be helped anymore.
( You feel like a runaway minecart, stuck on the tracks, plunging into the distance, fog rolling in and sending chills up your arms. There is no direction but down, and there is no way out. )
That night, you stare at the ceiling, coat lain over you in a poor attempt at a blanket. Your lips crack even as you wet them, but you cannot bother to go and get anything to stop it.
The drips echo throughout the cave almost like clockwork, and it hits you with what is going to happen. Technoblade is coming, and now you must fight to take back L’Manberg.
Firstly, you have no plans. You said you would take it back because it made sense at the time. What else was Wilbur Soot, president of L’Manberg, leader of the Revolution, supposed to do? The words were already spoken before you had even processed what they meant, like reading lines of a script.
The world whispers to him to play the role of the hero, the leader, with charming smiles and an impenetrable resolve. To take it back like he was supposed to, and start the cycle all over again.
With every drip, the role of the hero seems to have cast itself further and further away from him. You do not know what this means for you yet. Who are you if not that?
Tommy would say a brother. A singer, maybe, the best one out there. Tubbo might say someone to look up to, maybe. Niki might say a friend. ( Fundy would say a father. )
And you? Well, what is living if not a performance? What is a person if not a collection of masks?
( You do not know what you will find if you pull away all of your mirrors and smoke, and you are too scared to look. If there was anything there to start. )
Secondly, you are tired. Of fighting, of the way a sword now fits more comfortably in your hand rather than a quill. This is your second war and you know what war does to soldiers, what it makes of leaders. What it does to you.
You roll over to your other side, and you wait to meet your brother.
-
V. He is just as tall as you now. That should not be as shocking as it is.
“Hello, Techno. It’s been a while.” When you greet him, your hands clasp awkwardly together like strangers, hands not fit for each other anymore.
“I guess it has, Wilbur.” You can look at him squarely in the eyes when he talks, voice deeper than you remembered.
He’s wearing something reminiscent of a king, of white collared shirts and crowns. It’s richly studded, with diamonds and emeralds the size of your eyes. He is coated in gold, but you suppose that is familiar, in a way. What is unfamiliar is the mask that covers his face, and you have lost even the slight facial expressions that you had known of him.
His cape is longer, a deeper, more vibrant red than the one that you had gifted him for his tenth birthday. It suits his gait, swishing from side to side with an easy grace as he moves forward. He is no longer clumsy, and your own, many falls from the staircase seem like a blight in comparison.
He moves like water does, you note, studying him in the same way he surely must be to you. His feet never leave the ground when he walks, a smooth transfer of weight from one foot to another like a wave cascading over a beach. It is powerful, almost demonstratively done if it wasn’t for the careless tone in his voice. You might think that he was a dancer, but you know him enough to know better than that.
Or at least you know the sword at his side enough.
Tommy buzzes around you two like a bee, flitting from one side to another as he eagerly comments on Techno. His hand is slapped away from the sword more than once, and you catch the runes written on the sword with keen interest. They are inscribed precisely, spirals of enchantment no less than perfect, and you wonder how much time it would have taken, how much dedication to make that single weapon.
A small sense of hope forms in you. ( Maybe you do have a chance, like Icarus when he first began his flight: maybe not all is lost. )
You introduce him to Pogtopia, and you grin with pride as he takes in the ravine with an impressed note. He runs his hands over your chests, and he notes your, admittedly meager, supplies.
He offers to make a potato farm, and dull recognition pulses in you at the words. It was something that Technoblade had done before, scrawled hastily on one of the few letters that you had ever received from the other. Something about a potato war versus Fishkid, or something like that. You do know that he had won it, anyhow, and you accept the offer with an easy tone, trying to let off how your body is buzzing. This is your chance to right your wrongs, and it may work out, to fix what your greed has caused.
Techno sends Tommy off to go collect some starter seeds, and your brother scrambles off so fast to go do it that he almost slips on the ground, bottom of his sneakers tractionless from how worn they are. You remember when he used to do that for you. ( Something almost unrecognizable starts to form in your chest, but you brush it off. )
And then, in the midst of stilted small talk, he mentions it.
“I mean, Wilbur, government always corrupts. It’s a good thing you have me here to take it down.” He spoke easily as you search the chests together for iron, as if he didn't know how much those words shake you to your very core.
You catch yourself before you can let any confusion slip, and you continue without a beat of hesitation. “That’s true, but I’m still not exactly sure why you are here, Techno.” You gesture around with a small, forced laugh. “It’s not the best. What did Tommy say to you in that letter?”
Techno’s hands still for a second in their work, and your eyes flick down to it. By the way the other’s shoulders tense slightly, he noticed.
“I’m an anarchist, Wilbur. Must’ve mentioned it sometime.” He drily says, leaving your stomach to fall out from under you. “Overthrowin’ governments is kinda my thing.”
( Unrelated, a pebble, loosened by the flow of water, falls from the ceiling behind you. You do not notice. )
“Of course.” You barely feel your words, tongue numb.
“Besides,” Techno’s jaw tightens, and he turned his head away from you for a moment. “I think the kid was worried about you for a second there. Had to come make sure you were still in one piece, you know?”
Your bandaged hands clutch the edges of the chest tightly. “Glad you’re concerned.” The silence rings after you let some of the bitterness seep into your tone. Only the bitterness, though: never the despair.
“…Well,” He says after a pause. “Revolution waits for no man!”
You close your eyes, and exhale. Your lips crack as you part them. “It doesn’t.”
-
Vi. It goes like this: your son has disowned you.
Publicly. In front of Niki and Schlatt and you, despite his lack of knowledge that you were there. You were just there to check in on them, to make sure they were okay. A small part of you had even started to relax, guiltily so, when Niki had coldly shut down Schlatt.
So when Fundy goes up to speak, maybe a little of you is hopeful. Or at the very least, you weren’t expecting that.
You watch your champion go up in front of that podium, a mocking version of L’Manberg’s flag hung there, a new suit freshly pressed onto him. With bared teeth, he rips your heart out in front of you, leaving it still oozing blood enough to feed the roaring crowd.
Maybe, though, it goes like this: your son laughs as you are chased out of your country. Its squeaky and underdeveloped and it’s his , and your breaths shudder as you shove an invisibility potion into Tommy’s hands.
It rings in your ears as Punz draws his crossbow and casually aims it at your back, unbeknownst to you. As the click of the trigger is pulled, you do not know anything except for the fear choking your throat and laughter. ( Fear is a survival instinct, made to keep people out of danger, pumping adrenaline to push you out of range of a bullet. But it was common knowledge that Wilbur’s survival instincts never worked right. )
It’s the last sound you hear besides Tommy’s panicked mutters when you freeze, entire body stalled as the arrow pierces your back and comes dripping red through the other side. Your hand drifts upwards, dumbfounded. You find yourself speechless for the second time in your life, and not just from the blood choking past your lips.
Your body sways. Once, twice. The pain hasn’t hit yet- by the way your shirt is drenched so quickly you don’t think it will ever.
Tommy cries out as you crumple like a bag of punctured sand, thoughts leaking out like a steady stream of pebbles and bits of bone. With your last coherent thought, you shove him forwards, ignoring the way he stumbles over his untied shoelaces. (He never tied them- said he was too cool for it, thank you very much. Tommy was always like that- a kid.
It wasn’t until he stopped being one that Wilbur really noticed).
Death is ironic, most of the time. It never comes when you expect it to.
(It goes like this: your son watches you leave the country, and he forces a laugh when the ram watches him too closely. He pretends to not see the bolt penetrate your back or the way your crumple, but even if he closes his eyes, he still knows exactly what it looks like.
It’s for him, he reminds himself as the bitter words drip from his mouth, as he scribbles desperately in his journal. He almost wishes he was the one up there on the stage instead of Tubbo if just for him to be seen once.)
(It goes like this: your kid brother trips over his own feet when he hits L’Manberg’s walls, skins both his knees and shreds his palms. The pounding footsteps behind him waver, for a moment.
He turns around and sees his best friend with a crossbow pointed at his head. His best friend trembles around the trigger, and your brother locks eyes with him. He gives the other a weak smile (because what else can you do when your other half stands there with your life clutched between your hands but reach out and close their palms?). The bolt flies forward. It whizzes past his head and stabs itself through a poster- one of your election posters, tears the picture clean in half.
He scrambles up once he starts breathing again, and his best friend tears himself away, running in the other direction.
Your brother pretends like he doesn’t miss him, later. You are nice enough, at least then, to not comment on his red eyes the next day.)
(It goes like this: your body is unwielding. There is no place for heroes or plans or dramatic action in the void. Death minds your jokes in life, but here they fall away like wet paper just beyond your grasp. There is nothing between your not-hands and nothing in your not-lungs, yet you are more here than last time.
You have one more chance for your role. You’ve tried the hero, the leader. Seems like they both ended up the same. Perhaps it is time for a change of character.)