Archive of Our Own

On the fifth day of the apocalypse, Wilbur picks up a fever and a child, in that order.

Whatever the fuck happened to this server, it isn’t his fault, and there’s a strange sort of vindication in that. That he hasn’t done anything yet to earn the fear he sees in their eyes. The watching, the waiting, the eagerness for the fall. He hasn’t snapped; something or someone else has, and whatever went down, it’s left the server strewn with red vines and the iron tang of blood lingering in the too-hot air, and not a person in sight. It’s been five days, and he hasn’t run into a single living soul.

Fitting, perhaps. But he doesn’t particularly enjoy isolation.

The burger van is the first place he checks, after the ground starts to shake and the code itself seems to distort and scream. He finds the van abandoned, and Las Nevadas burning. For an uncomfortable moment, he wonders if this was on him, if the TNT he had Ranboo place went off somehow, and that isn’t a pleasant thought, because he didn’t want anything to explode accidentally, without purpose, without his explicit say so. But he knows TNT intimately, and he knows that he didn’t give Ranboo nearly enough to cause that much destruction.

The next place he checks is Tommy’s house. Tommy isn’t there. The hill stands deserted, and red vines tunnel through the earth. And there is no one at the crater of L’Manberg. Perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised, but it doesn’t sit right. None of this does.

He keeps looking. Those vines keep spreading. He has a bad feeling about letting them catch him, so he doesn’t, and for the first few days, he does well enough, and he lets himself believe that he’ll run into someone in no time, because this server isn’t that big. It even crosses his mind to stop by the prison, to see about Dream, but Dream is a wild card, no matter the debt he owes to his hero, and he won’t be so foolish as to introduce wild elements to a situation that’s already so confusing.

Then on the third day, he realizes that there’s something wrong with the mobs. He realizes this by way of getting shot by a skeleton with red eyes. Not precisely normal, that. There seems to be a bit of a theme running. Red. The red is bad, evidently. A pity; he used to associate the color with better things.

He’s pretty good at hiding. The months in Pogtopia taught him how to sneak and how to skulk and how to stick to the shadows and be a thing that light would reject. He steers clear of mobs after it’s imparted to him how dangerous they are.

But the wound the skeleton dealt him, a puncture wound right in his side, goes untreated. The placement shouldn’t be lethal, wouldn’t be under normal circumstances, but he can’t stop to let it heal, doesn’t have any potions and doesn’t dare linger in the more civilized areas, can’t go rifling through other people’s things for what he needs like he normally would. And it keeps leaking blood, keeps pulsing with a bright, hot pain, and on the fifth day, he wakes from an uneasy rest and finds that he’s shaking rather badly, sweat dripping from his forehead even though he feels freezing, and though his thoughts are clouded, muddy, he knows what that means.

And it means he’s in trouble.

He limps through the woods. He’s not actually sure where he is. These woods look like a lot of other woods on this server. But if he picks a direction and sticks to it, his thought is that he’ll either find somebody, or he’ll eventually hit a village. And there, maybe he’ll be able to rest up, if those red vines haven’t reached it first.

That’s a big if. He’s reaching. He’s perhaps a little bit desperate. But he doesn’t have any other options.

And then, something rustles in the undergrowth in front of him. His hand goes for a sword that he doesn’t have.

It’s light out. But the foliage is thick enough that there might still be mobs. Another hit and he’s done for, he thinks, and while the concept of living is one that he’s developed mixed feelings toward, since that first, euphoric day, he doesn’t want to die. He can’t die. He can’t go back there. He held onto some semblance of sanity through sheer force of will the first time around, and he thinks that if he were put back there again, he’d shatter like porcelain in the first hour. He’s been broken and remade himself too many times to believe that the remaking is strong enough to hold.

So he stumbles back, clumsy and uncoordinated, and is halfway through turning to run when the thing stumbles out.

He stops. Blinks, trying to clear his fuzzy vision, which doesn’t quite work, but it’s not so fuzzy that he can’t see what’s in front of him.

It’s a zombie piglin. A zombie piglin child. A zombie piglin child wearing a striped sweater and overalls, and while the clothes are ripped and torn, that’s not nether-make. Definitely overworld clothing. Which means that this child lives with someone who gave them those. This child belongs to somebody. This child is cared for.

The child blinks up at him. They only have one eye. The other is just open skull. It doesn’t seem to be bothering them all that much, so hopefully that means their caretakers managed to stop the rot before it progressed fatally far.

“Uh,” he says, voice a hoarse croak. It occurs to him that he hasn’t spoken aloud for quite some time, after the initial screaming when he found Las Navadas burning. Ranboo didn’t answer him, and neither did Quackity, and he hasn’t called for anyone since he found Tommy’s house empty too. “Hello.”

The piglin huffs, and then says a few words in Piglin that he thinks roughly equate to, “Who are you?”

It was a very long time ago, that Technoblade taught him how to speak Piglin. He hasn’t used the knowledge in almost fourteen years, and his throat was never quite able to wrap around the phonemes anyway. So he slowly puts a hand on his chest, and hopes that the kid will understand him.

“I’m Wilbur,” he says. “I’m sorry, I don’t—I can understand you better than I can speak. Um.” He’ll try. He’ll give it a try. So, in Piglin: “Who are you?” He immediately winces; the words don’t sit in the right place, and he’s certain they aren’t comprehensible. But the kid’s ear perks up.

“Michael!” the kid says, enunciating very carefully in one of the more common Player dialects. “I am Michael!”

“Michael,” he repeats. An overworld name, not even a translation of a nether one, like Techno’s is. “Okay. Hello, Michael, it’s nice to meet you.” He repeats the same in Piglin, just in case, or tries to, but the kid seems to get it well enough. He creeps closer, hesitant, but losing some of that initial wariness. “Um. Do you know where you are? Or where your parents are?”

That seems to be the key question. Michael’s eye wells up with tears, and the whole story comes spilling out in a mixture of Player and Piglin, all with a small child’s vocabulary, and Wilbur’s pretty sure that he understands maybe half of what the kid is saying. But apparently, he lives in a house, in a snowy place, and then people wanted to hurt him so someone came to take him somewhere else, and then vines started growing in the place he was so he ran away but can’t find anyone.

He thinks that’s the gist. Asking who his parents are gets him nowhere—which he supposes is to be expected. He claims they’re called ‘Boo’ and ‘Bo,’ obviously nicknames of some kind. No small child knows what their parents’ names are, and asking how old Michael is reveals that he’s not quite three yet, so basically an infant.

And something becomes increasingly clear. The kid’s coming with him. Because he’s a villain and a liar and a terrible person, but he’s not leaving a toddler to fend for himself in the middle of an apocalypse. He is a monster and a harbinger of destruction and a man who has ruined everything he has ever touched, but—he will not be that kind of monster. He will not abandon this child. He will find who this child belongs to, and keep him safe in the meantime.

He kneels in front of Michael, and for a second, all the blood rushes to his head. His ears ring. His side throbs. If he looked, the edges of the wound would be angry and inflamed. He knows it’s infected.

“Do you want to come with me?” he asks, before trying to repeat the same in Piglin. “I’ll try to keep you safe, and we can try to find your—your parents.”

Michael regards him for a very long moment. There is something in his eye that does not quite belong there. Wilbur thinks that perhaps this is a child that knows something of the world, and how it works.

And then, Michael makes a huffing, snorting noise, and flings himself forward. Wilbur catches him, startled, and sucks in a breath at the way his injury is jostled—he will not scream in front of this child—and gently places his hands on Michael’s back. So gingerly, so tenderly, because he is so good at breaking things and it has been so, so very long since he was presented with a child this small, and he will not hurt this child. But Michael buries his face in his coat, even though it can’t smell particularly pleasant at this point, and he has held a child before. He has comforted a child before. There was a child that once was his, that was once this small, that once came to him like this, looking for comfort.

He’s a monster and a villain, but some part of him still remembers this, no matter the decades that have passed.

“I’ll protect you,” he says. “Promise.”

He breaks promises as easily as plucking flowers by the stem. But he’ll keep this one.

Michael points out the direction he came from. So he decides to take the opposite way. No point in retracing steps, if Michael hasn’t encountered anyone either.

The kid becomes a familiar weight in his arms. It’s not long before his muscles begin to burn, but he experiments with different ways to hold him. Michael seems to like being carried against his chest the best, but he doesn’t mind sitting on his shoulder, and piggybacking also works, though the kid is slightly too small for it to be effective. The joke is also not lost on him. Piggybacking. Heh.

The fever’s getting worse. He’s made the executive decision to ignore that as best he can. It’s not like there’s anything to be done about it. He can still move, can still be on his guard enough to protect Michael. That’s the priority. And it’s not like it’s a conflict. Michael needs to find people. He needs to find people. If he finds Michael his people, he can hopefully get treatment and not die. He’s hardly being sacrificial. That’s not in his nature.

He’s not sure he’s walking in a straight line.

Michael talks to him a lot. He tells him about his parents. Evidently, one is very tall and the other is short, and they both have markings on their faces, and they both hug him and play with him and take him for walks and read him bedtime stories. Michael also mentions meeting someone with wings, once, and that can only be one person. It’s reassuring, in a way, that Wilbur recognizes at least one person who knows this child, who might be able to look after him.

He listens to Michael babble. Nods and makes encouraging sounds and appropriate exclamations. This is familiar.

He spends the rest of the fifth day walking, and then, by the end, staggering, his breaths coming out in harsh pants. He climbs the tallest tree he can locate, and stays awake the whole night, listening to the mobs clatter and groan beneath him. It’ll be luck that determines whether a spider chooses this tree to scurry up, or whether another stray shot finds him. So he curls himself around Michael, holds him close and hopes that his breathing will soothe him to sleep.

Eventually, it does. And they get lucky. The morning comes, and brings with it a pounding headache and fingers that refuse to stop trembling and legs that want to fold like cards underneath him. The wound feels like ants are crawling beneath his skin, biting him; a quick check before Michael wakes shows that it is swollen, leaking pus, and the veins all around it are red, weblike.

He exhales through his teeth. He doesn’t even have bandages. He’s been pressing his sweater against it, trying to stop the bleeding. It’s only sort of worked. And on top of that, he feels disgusting, dirty; he hasn’t gone this long without a shower in months, and he’s not enjoying the experience.

He does have food though, mostly stale hamburger buns, but it’s better than nothing, and Michael seems to agree by the way he chows down. They spend the morning of the sixth day heading in what he hopes is the same direction. Michael insists on walking for a little while, and he lets him; he’s loath to admit that he’s too drained to carry a toddler, but his strength is flagging. He knows that much. He’s dizzy, and sometimes he lurches and tilts like he’s drunk, only far less fun. Far less fun. And the wound sends stabbing pains across his abdomen with every step. His head is foggy.

And then, Michael tugs on his arm.

“Wibbur,” he says, voice small. “Bad red.” And then, in Piglin, “Danger, it’s danger.”

He stops.

“Shit,” he whispers, and then, “Don’t repeat that.”

“Shit,” Michael says solemnly.

There are red vines in the forest ahead of them. They hang in the air, waving and swaying in a nonexistent wind, and they curl from the ground like grasping question marks. They wrap around the trees, choking them, and all of the grass is brown, dead. They continue on for as far as he can see. He inhales, and his lungs fill with tepid air, metallic and bitter.

“Okay,” he says. “Michael, I’m gonna pick you up. And we’re gonna go far around. We’re gonna go far around.” In Piglin, he adds, “We’ll avoid. Go around.”

He hoists Michael into his arms, gritting his teeth against the strain. He backtracks until the vines are a distant splotch of red through the trees, and then he tries to do as he’s said he would, and go around. Far around. The scent sticks with him, and Michael can smell it too, he knows, and probably far better. Before too long, Michael is trying to bury his nose in his shoulder, chuffing softly.

“It’s alright,” he says. “It’s alright.”

His foot hits a tree root. He almost goes down, but turns it into a mere teeter, stays upright. His head throbs.

Michael whimpers.

“It’s gonna be alright,” he says. He doesn’t dare speak any louder than a whisper, a murmur, the barest suggestion of voice. His chest feels tight, his mouth dry. He keeps stepping on dry leaves. It’s autumn, now. He remembers another autumn, long ago. He didn’t see the following winter. He might not see this one.

It takes the rest of the day to get far enough away from the cluster of vines that the scent fades, and by that time, it’s a struggle to put one foot in front of the other. He’s panting and shivering, and the trees in front of him seem to sway back and forth, and the sky above is darkening, which means time to stop for the night. He hasn’t covered as much ground as he wanted. He doesn’t know how fast the vines grow, whether they can reach this far. He doesn’t know what will happen to them if they get caught. Nothing good. He’s sure of that.

“Wibbur,” Michael whispers. “You okay?”

“I’m okay,” he manages. Maybe if he stands still for long enough, the world will right itself. He doesn’t have long enough. The light is going. Mobs will be spawning. Stars above, but his side hurts. “We’re gonna climb another tree, okay?”

“Okay,” Michael says, and his grip on him tightens. He has such small fingers. Small hands. He remembers when Fund—

He climbs a tree. Pulls the foliage around him as best he can. Lets Michael rest against his chest and listens to the first moans from below, the shuffling and shambling. There is no god that he believes in, no god that he will pray to, no god that deserves his respect, but he sends a wish out into the uncaring universe anyway. If not for his sake, then for the kid’s.

Michael huddles closer to him. Grips at his sweater, and pulls it in such a way that it tugs against the fabric that’s plastered against the hole in his side. He bites back a groan. Holds Michael just a little bit closer.

His voice is crackling, when he begins to hum. He thinks that maybe his voice doesn’t remember how to carry a tune, and certainly not this one, certainly not something so gentle, so sweet. There is no room for any of that in him, and has not been for a very long time. But there is a song that his father sang to him when he was young, and that he sang to Fundy when he was young, young enough for things like songs and being sung to sleep, and it is a song about stars and rocking waves and something that calls from far away, from behind the moon and past the world’s open horizon. He didn’t think he knew the tune anymore, didn’t think of it at all, really. He’s surprised that limbo didn’t take this from him, too.

He hums the tune, and he doesn’t think it’s a very nice sound, and he shouldn’t be humming at all. Shouldn’t risk drawing anything near. But his common sense hasn’t caught up to the rest of him, maybe, or perhaps he’s just starting to get delirious.

And Michael falls asleep.

Sometime before morning, he does too.

He wakes on the seventh day, mouth full of cotton and side aflame. He wakes on the seventh day, and for a minute, he can’t move. Every inch of him aches and his lungs feel constricted and nausea rolls in his stomach and dark spots flicker in his vision, and he can barely think—

But Michael is shaking him, snout scrunched, eye large and round.

He sits up. Closes his eyes against the tilt and the whirl. Swings his legs over the side of the bit of trunk he’s leveraged himself against, misjudges, and falls to the ground.

He thinks he blacks out for a moment.

When he pries his eyes back open, Michael is hovering over him, one eye teary and the other a black socket. He must have climbed down himself. Good kid. Resourceful kid. He’s proud of him.

He tries to pat Michael on the head. He misses. That’s probably not good.

“I’m okay,” he says, and his words are definitely slurring. His tongue feels thick, his mouth clumsy. His stomach flips over, and then flips over again, and oh, he knows what’s about to happen, and it’s enough motivation to sit up, to twist around, so that the bile doesn’t get on the kid. There’s not much for his stomach to empty out, so it doesn’t take very long, and he winces at the taste in his mouth, wiping away strings of saliva with the back of his hand.

“You threw up,” Michael informs him.

He tries to smile. “I did,” he says. “Silly of me, isn’t it?”

“Means you’re sick,” Michael says. And then he says something in Piglin that he doesn’t quite catch, but he thinks has something to do with a sounder, and being taken care of. His heart wrenches.

“I don’t, ah,” he says. “I don’t exactly have a sounder.” Which is the wrong thing to say. He’d have known that if he were thinking more clearly. Michael makes a sound of pure distress, lunging forward and holding onto his arm for dear life. “No, no, ‘s okay! I don’t, um—don’t need one, me, and I’ve still got—’ve got a dad, and I’ve got a friend, so that’s all I—‘s okay, ’m okay.”

Michael just clings harder. He sighs.

“Here, let’s just—we’ll keep on, and we’ll, we’ll find your sounder, and you c’n—you c’n introduce me,” he says, and that, at least, gets Michael to draw back a little, nodding firmly. It’s cute. It’s—

It’s time for him to stand up.

So he does. He can’t prevent the gasp from slipping through his teeth, but he does hold steady against the second bout of nausea, and he manages to remain upright despite the way that everything spins. He’s drenched in sweat. But he’s cold, shivering. Almost numb. He doesn’t like being numb. It happens, sometimes, even now that he’s alive again, when all the sights and all the sounds press in around him and become far too much, when his mind goes far away or retreats deep inside of himself and he can’t do anything but curl up and slap his hands over his ears and hope for it to stop. His body goes numb, sometimes, and then, he’s glad of it. But not most of the time. Because when he’s numb, it’s easy to forget that he’s alive.

He shudders. It’s almost a convulsion. A hand slips into his, and he looks down to see Michael staring up at him.

This toddler is worried about him. Obviously, he’s in dire straits.

He resists the urge to laugh. If he started, he thinks he wouldn’t stop. But the laugh is still there, a hysterical surge beneath his collarbone.

They need to—they need to keep moving.

He starts walking. Michael does too.

Time passes. He barely marks it. Before too long, he has to direct all his attention toward putting one foot in front of the other. Michael insists on walking himself, too, rebuffs his attempts to carry him. For the best, probably. The irony is not lost on him, that the small child is handling this walking better than he is. He ought to be better. Ought to push through. The wound only flares up at intervals, now, and the rest of the time, he barely feels his body at all.

He’s hot, though. Or maybe cold. He’s walking through fire. He’s made of ice.

He blinks, and Tommy’s in front of him. Frowning disapprovingly. Staring fearfully. The reflection of every mistake he’s ever made. He blinks, and Tommy is gone. He’s stopped walking. When did he stop walking? Michael is tugging on his sleeve.

He starts walking.

He has to stop to vomit again. Nothing comes up but stomach acid, and then it devolves into dry heaving. He braces himself against a tree. The tree is covered in red vines. The tree is nothing but brown bark. The tree isn’t there at all, and he’s walking, stumbling, and there’s no one there to steady him and hasn’t been in a long, long time.

“Wibbur,” Michael says.

“It’ll be alright,” he says. Or thinks. Or whispers, or shouts. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he speaks, or if he’s just dreaming.

His foot catches. He can’t rebalance himself in time, and he goes sprawling, autumn leaves crackling beneath him. The jolt seems to remind the wound that it exists, and agony spikes through him, and he thinks he makes a noise, something high-pitched and keening. He’s so hot. He’s so cold. He feels sticky, dirty, unclean. It’s difficult to breathe. He’s got a mouthful of dirt.

Something is pulling on him. Little paws, familiar paws. Paws that fit neatly in the palm of his hand, precious, protected, the whole world twice over, right here.

“Dad, c’mon,” Fundy says, voice high and piping. “You said we’d go walking, you promised!”

“I did,” he says. “Gimme a—gimme a second. I’ll get up.”

“No, we have to go now,” Fundy says. He’s so small. So young. Baby fat clings to his cheeks. His lips are pursed in a pout. His hair is messy. There’s a twig in it. Several leaves. He needs a bath. It’s always so difficult, wrestling Fundy into a bath, and even worse trying to catch him to dry him off afterward. He’s not looking forward to it. Fundy’s eyes are crimson.

“Okay,” he says. He pushes himself up to his hands and knees, then to just his knees. The trees swirl and spin; Fundy wavers in and out of focus. Sometimes, Fundy is only a shadow, a shadow in the wrong shape. Sometimes Fundy only has one eye. He hurts. He doesn’t remember why. He’d like it to stop. He’s hot. He’s cold. “I’m coming. Lead the way.”

He stands. It’s difficult. His heartbeat roars in his ears, and it sounds like a threat.

Fundy holds his hand. It’s such a tiny paw. It’s not a paw. It doesn’t feel right. Fundy leads the way. He follows Fundy. Follows his son. He’d give anything for his son. His child, more precious to him than anything else, any riches or any musics or any stars. His child. He’s lost his child. He has his child.

He’s lost. He stumbles. Falls again. There are shadows all around. The shadows have teeth and horns. One has wings and a sword, and bears down on him, and he hears recriminations in Tommy’s voice. He has killed Tommy.

Fundy isn’t holding his hand. He doesn’t know where Fundy has gone. He thinks he will never have Fundy again. He thinks it is his fault.

He is on the ground. There are stars exploding in him. Stardust is shrapnel, deadly as fireworks. Fireworks burst. He couldn’t save him. He wouldn’t have been able to. Tubbo stares at him accusingly. It’s his fault. Fireworks. Stardust. They’re all made of stars, but the stars didn’t want him back. He wishes that they did. He can’t close his eyes without seeing the trains. He would rather have been with the stars.

He’s in pain.

When awareness returns, or returns enough, at least, he’s on the ground, curled on his side, the side that’s not bleeding. His mouth is full of blood; further investigation imparts the fact that he’s bitten the side of his cheek. He used to do that, when he was president. His mouth was full of self-inflicted sores. A bad habit. One of many. He was always so stressed. He feels so stressed.

No. He’s awake. He has to stay awake.

There is a small body curled up against him, uncomfortably warm. Piglins run so hot. He used to like to snuggle up to Techno as a kid. Techno grumbled, but he let him. Techno used to love him. He used to love Techno.

Piglin. Right. Michael. Michael’s still here.

“Michael?” he says, voice barely even a rasp, and Michael raises his head. His eye is bloodshot. He’s been crying. That must be his fault, too. He made the baby cry. That sounds about par the course.

“You fell,” Michael whispers. “You didn’t geddup.” And then, something in Piglin, something jumbled, scrambled, like Michael’s attempting something a little too complex for a young child to actually manage. Something about gold, and bones, and lava, he thinks.

“I’m awake now,” he says. Slurs. It’s all the same thing, now. It’s still daylight, but dimmer. Late afternoon, maybe. Or maybe his vision is going. He’s in trouble. Real trouble. They need to find someone soon. “‘M sorry. Did—you see where Fundy went?”

Michael just stares at him. Uncomprehending.

“He was here,” he says. “My li’l—my li’l champ. Champion. My—my son.”

But Fundy is grown. Fundy cast him aside. Fundy burnt the flag. Fundy doesn’t want him, and after everything he did, who could blame him? Fundy is grown now, and so he could not have been here, with his little paws that slot so neatly into his hands.

He feels like crying.

“Wibbur, please,” Michael says. It sounds more like pwease. Adorable. Fundy used to—no. “Be okay?”

“Be okay,” he agrees. It’s time to get up again. If he doesn’t, he’ll die here. That’s motivation enough. He may wish for the stars to keep him, but he knows better, now. There are no stars where he will go, and there is no peace and no absolution. So he cannot die. He cannot die, and he cannot let Michael die, and that means he has to get up.

So he does.

He can’t climb a tree. That’s beyond him, now. So he finds a hill, digs them a hollow at the base, and packs the dirt back in place, leaving the smallest of windows to see the sky, to get fresh air. The mobs know they’re here. They cluster around, making their death noises. But they cannot get in. They haven’t the minds for that. Michael trembles against him, and they are both silent. Quiet like mice, like ghosts.

He wishes ghosts were quiet.

He sleeps fitfully. There are shadows in his dreams, his nightmares. Philza kills him, even though he tries to tell him he doesn’t want to go this time. Trains sweep by, past him and over him, and he cannot get on. His fingers are bones. His bones crumble to dust, but he’s forced to keep existing. He’s freezing. He’s numb. His side throbs. There’s something growing in it, in his flesh. Squirming.

Dawn comes. He doesn’t remember what day it is. He digs them back out of the hill.

They walk. And then Michael screams, and he falls, and when he raises his head, there’s a zombie there, flesh a horrid, putrid brown, patches of red dotting its carapace, its eyes the color of blood and its nails sharp. The tree cover. It’s too dense. It’s not burning. He needs to get back up.

Michael is standing between him and the zombie. Michael has a little golden sword. Where the fuck did he get that.

Zombies ignore zombie piglins. But Michael is attacking, swinging his blade wildly. He needs to get back up, because the zombie is looking at Michael, reaching for Michael and its eyes are burning, burning unholy hellfire, dripping blood, and he has to get up, because he cannot let this happen, he cannot—

Strength fills him, from some unknown reserve. He lurches to his feet. Throws himself at the zombie. Michael shrieks. There’s a sharp pain in his shoulder. They hit the ground, the zombie below, him on top. He doesn’t have a weapon. He has his fists. He uses them. He’s lucky, because the zombie’s at too awkward a position to fight back. Eventually, it stops moving, dissolves back into the code like all mobs do.

The forest is alive with clattering, groaning, skittering. It’s too dark here.

He stands. Sways, then plants his feet. Michael’s mouth is agape, but he doesn’t look afraid. Not of him. That’s good.

He scoops Michael into his arms. And he runs. Crashes through undergrowth, regardless of sound. Swerves, makes his path jagged, zigzags because he has no other choice, because there are patches of vines everywhere, entire chunks of them lying in wait, clearings where nothing lives except for the invasion, and there were not so many a few days ago, so it has spread. Is spreading. Faster than they’ve been walking. But they’re running now. He’s running, and he barely feels the ache in his side, the bite in his shoulder, the various other cuts and scrapes he’s accumulated. Michael clings to him with one hand, the other still holding the golden sword. Seriously, where the fuck was he keeping that?

There are mobs. Spiders lunge, skeletons shoot. An arrow traces a line of fire across his thigh. He stumbles. Keeps going.

Keeps running, until he can’t anymore, until he falls. All he can do is tuck Michael close, turn it into a roll, and try not to land on him.

He succeeds in that, at least.

When his vision clears, Michael is hovering over him again. This is becoming a familiar pattern. And above Michael, there is bright blue sky. They’ve cleared the forest.

“Are you hurt?” he tries to ask, except it comes out as, “‘urt?”

“You hurt,” Michael says. “Make not hurt?”

“Not your job,” he manages. They’ve made it to a different biome. His vision is blurring too much to make out details. He doesn’t see any swathes of red, at least. So they keep going. They have to keep going.

He needs a minute.

When he wakes, Michael is humming. The same song he hummed to him. Barely recognizable, half the notes wrong, but it’s almost enough to drag a sob from him. Children are like that. Children are trusting. He is a monster and a villain, and it has been a very long time since anyone sang to him, but Michael wouldn’t know any of that. Michael only knows that he’s hurt, and that he doesn’t know how to fix it. But he wants to fix it, because he is a kind child, so he’s humming instead. Doing what Wilbur tried to do to comfort him.

“You’re a good—good kid,” he whispers.

And he gets up.

It’s one foot in front of the other.

One foot in front of the other.

He’s cold. He’s hot. Something is following him. When he turns back, there is nothing. Sometimes he looks to the distance and sees a fox, sitting, watching, stare hard and pitiless. The fox never moves, and never gets any closer. The sun moves. They’re losing daylight. Losing time.

He doesn’t know how much.

He loses time. He closes his eyes, and opens them somewhere different, still staggering along. He closes his eyes and opens them on the ground and doesn’t remember falling. His limbs are clunky, weighty. Gravity is heavy. His blood is running thick and slow. He hasn’t the heart to check the wound. Either of them. Any of them. He thinks he might be rotting away. Sometimes his chest burns with phantom pain. Sometimes he thinks he feels his blood spilling out, his ribs opening up. He could offer up his heart and it would never be enough.

His body is on fire. Shrapnel and stardust.

There is something growing in his side, and it’s going to eat him alive.

One foot in front of the other.

Michael talks to him, childish babble, much of it unintelligible. Sometimes it’s not Michael. Sometimes it’s Tommy. Tubbo. Phil. Even Technoblade. He hears words, once, that he recognizes. An invitation. Hearth and home. Words that every piglin grows up knowing. Michael invites him into his sounder. Michael doesn’t know all the phrases, probably couldn’t say them even if he did, but he tries, and it is Techno’s voice that overlays his, Techno’s voice as he spoke to him so long ago, Techno’s voice as he said the rites and made the offer and brought him into his family. He thinks he replies. He is drowning in a river of dust. The river is bearing him away from home. But the home is no longer his. The home is glad to see him go. The home would have preferred it if he never came back.

One foot in front of the other.

One foot. And then the next.

The train will be coming soon. He can hear it.

One foot. Foot on grass, then foot in sand.

He looks up.

The light is fading. Afternoon darkens to dusk. There is a desert stretched out before them, and in the desert, there are lights.

Michael says something in Piglin. He doesn’t understand.

Lights mean people. They’ve found someone. Someone in the desert. Who lives in the desert? Only fools. And only fools make them. Though sometimes fools are pretty, and clever. Clever fools, all of them.

Michael doesn’t have any shoes. All this way, and he’s only just now noticing that Michael doesn’t have any shoes. He has hooves, of course. Will hot sand burn his hooves? It might. He can’t risk it. Wilbur is already burning. He can’t let Michael burn, too.

He picks Michael up. Michael squirms a bit, but settles quickly.

Sand is difficult to walk through. He falls to his knees. Again, and again. He gets back up. He keeps going. He falls.

The lights. Closer. Taking up all his vision. Streaks of light like comet trails. Or fireworks. Or the passing train. The engine rumbles loudly, insistently. A monster. Eating all in its path. Eating the grass and the sky and even the stars. He does not want to get on. He keeps walking. Michael is in his arms.

“Hello? Is someone there?”

The voice is known. The voice is hated. The voice must be real, because he would not imagine that voice calling out to him. Not like this, not these words. Not wary, questioning. In his arms, Michael suddenly squirms.

“Ret,” he says. “It’s Ret. Wibbur, it’s Ret.”

There is a shadow. The shadow is large, but most of that shadow is a cloak. Rich red. He doesn’t like the color. Who wears a cloak in a desert? Only idiots. Only traitors. He walks forward, because there is nowhere else to walk, even if he would rather not. He is marching into the lion’s den. Perhaps he ought to be running. Can he be sure that Michael will not be harmed? Once, he thought the shadow would never harm him, thought the voice welcoming, comforting, friendly, but he was wrong about that. Wrong about that, and so many other things.

“State your business before you get any closer, if you please,” the voice calls out. They are still only a shadow, backlit by light.

“Ret!” Michael calls back. “It’s me!” Cheerful, bright, fearless. Michael knows the voice, too, and Michael trusts it. But Michael is a child. Michael doesn’t know any better. Michael has the excuse of youth, where he did not, where he had no excuse at all. He should have seen the snake coiled in wait, should have seen the traitor’s heart. Something is glowing white in the darkness. There is bile rising in the back of his throat.

Wilbur stops walking.

For a moment, the voice does not reply. And then, the voice calls out, “Michael?” And the voice is disbelieving, shocked, relieved, and the shadow gets closer, and sand crunches and Wilbur is having a bit of difficulty breathing.

The shadow solidifies. The face is Eret’s.

“Oh gods, you found—Wilbur?”

Eret has stopped up short. He doesn’t know why. And then Eret does take a step closer, and he flinches, because Eret is going to kill him, except he realizes a moment later that there is no weapon in Eret’s hand, and Eret has stopped again, mouth slack.

“You’re alive,” Eret whispers. “Fuck, you’re alive. And you found—”

“Did everyone know this child except for me?” he tries to ask, but knows as soon as the words leave his mouth that maybe a third of them actually come out like he intended. Eret’s brows draw together, and then he blinks, and Eret is right there, is far, far too close to him, and he jerks away, and the world becomes a kaleidoscope, and when reality returns he’s still standing, but Eret has their hand on one of his shoulders. The one that’s not bleeding. He doesn’t like it. The touch makes his skin crawl. He can’t seem to move.

He still has Michael. Michael is quiet.

“We thought you were dead,” Eret says. “Or at least, we feared the worst. But you’re hurt, aren’t you?”

Do they think he’s a fool? He’s not going to admit to that.

“Alright,” Eret says. “Alright, we’ll—come on, let me get you inside. We’ve still got some medical supplies left, we can—someone can get that treated. It’s—it is good to see you, Wilbur. Can you walk?”

He’s been walking all this way. He can get his legs working again, in a moment.

“I can take Michael,” Eret says. Their voice has gone very soft. “You probably shouldn’t be putting strain on that shoulder. We were so scared that he was—”

He’s not listening. Eret is trying to take Michael from him. Suddenly, he can move again. He wrenches himself away. Backs up, nearly trips, doesn’t. Eret jolts, startled, but he doesn’t care, because he is not going to let Eret take this child. He’s come so far.

“Don’t touch him,” he hisses, and the message there should be clear.

Eret slowly raises their hands. “I’m not going to harm him,” they say. “I give you my word.” They grimace. “For as much as it’s worth. I understand that it wouldn’t mean a lot, to you. But, listen, Wilbur, let’s just get further in. Everyone’s here, and Tub—”

“‘M not giving him to you,” he says. “‘M not, I’ve come so far, an’ I promised him, I promised, I promised I’d find his parents, I’m not, I can’t, I won’t give him to you, I won’t—”

“I won’t take him,” Eret says. They sound—scared, but that cannot be right. “I swear to you, I won’t take him. You can keep holding him, but please, just let me help you. Both of you.” They pause, and then add, carefully, “His parents are here, Wilbur. You did it. You can take him to them. But come into the temple?”

Oh. Oh. Michael’s parents are here?

“Wibbur?” Michael says. “With Ret? We go?” He sounds confused.

Wilbur feels confused. His head is pounding. His head is miles away from his feet, from his hands, from all of him. The body doesn’t belong to him. The body fits wrong. The body is younger than it should be. The body feels numb. The pain is almost completely gone. There is something growing.

He nods. Eret sighs. It sounds like relief.

“Great,” they say. “Come on, I’ll just—”

Wilbur doesn’t want them to touch him. But the first step he takes sends him pitching forward, has Michael letting out a startled squeal, and Eret catches him, stops him from falling, and he has to admit that maybe, if he’s going to keep walking, having someone there to steady him might not be a bad idea. Even if it’s this someone. But Eret doesn’t try to take Michael from him again, and Eret takes more and more of his weight as they go further into this base, until they are basically holding him up by the elbows and his breaths are labored, wheezing. Michael makes a sound, curls further into him. He tries to tighten his grip. He can’t really feel his arms.

“It’s alright,” Eret says. “It’s alright, we’re nearly there. I’m sorry. Everyone’s inside, it’s protected in there.”

This base—a temple, did Eret say? He doesn’t want to pray, and he’ll say so, if they make him—is very large. He can’t make out details. There’s a lot of gold. Mosaics. Pillars. Sandstone. Torches driving the night away.

And then he is inside. There are people, blurry impressions in a room that’s too large and too bright. They are talking, a hum and a jumble and a babble, and he stands there, gasping for breath, Eret at his elbow and Michael tucked into his chest.

“I need potions and bandages,” Eret says, and their voice cuts across the noise like a knife against the throat. It took him thirty seconds to die when Punz slashed his. “Right now.”

There is silence. There is silence. Silence is all there is. Are there people in here? He thinks there are. He sees shapes that might be people, that must be people.

And then—

“Michael?” someone says. “Holy fuck.” And that is followed by someone else saying, “Wilbur?” and someone else saying, “Wil?” and someone else saying, “Oh my god, Michael,” and too many people are saying things and too many people are moving toward him and he doesn’t know where Michael is supposed to go and he doesn’t even know where he is, but suddenly, Michael is squirming in his arms and saying, “Boo! Boo, Bo!”

So he lets Michael down. Focuses his gaze on him, so he sees where he runs to, sees that he doesn’t head straight into danger, sees that he totters across the floor and into someone’s arms, someone who is kneeling, hands outstretched, and that someone is—

Tubbo.

And next to Tubbo, Ranboo.

He—has no idea what to make of that. And also, the world is swaying.

“Wilbur, what the fuck?” Tommy says. He has appeared very suddenly, right next to him. “What the fuck, man, where have you been? You weren’t—you weren’t fucking anywhere, man, we thought that the Egg got you or some shit. What the hell? And where’d you find—fuck, man. I thought you were dead.”

He sounds frazzled. But fine. Wilbur wonders if he’s real.

“I would’ve thought you’d like that,” he says. “Y’might get Ghostbur back, that way.”

Tommy stares at him. His face contorts. He opens his mouth.

Wilbur leans over and throws up.

“Oh, fuck,” Tommy says, “fuck, ew, that is disgusting, that is the grossest shit I have seen in my life, what the hell, Wilbur, I can’t believe you would come in here, and, and on my shoes! I don’t have any spare shoes!”

His legs can’t hold him up. His shoulder burns. His side burns. Flares, twists. Hot. Cold. His bones are trying to break out of his body. He can’t blame them. Get out while the going is good. Bones. Goodbye, bones.

There are hands on him. He’s being lowered. Now he’s on the floor, tile against his back.

“Where the fuck are those pots?” someone is saying.

“He’s hurt? Fuck, wait, no, how bad is it—”

“His shoulder, I think—no. Wait.”

Someone tries to peel his skin off. He screams. Tries to thrash. It’s an ambush, maybe. Dream and his people have found them in the dead of night. He should have known better than to allow his guard to drop. But this wasn’t supposed to be what it was. This was supposed to be a land of freedom and peace. None of this was supposed to happen. And now look what he’s led his people into.

Someone swears.

“Oh, that’s not—that is not good, someone get Ponk—”

“Fuck, fuck fuck fuck, fucking stop it, let me see, let me, let me do something, you can’t just—”

“Is he—is he okay? Is he alright?”

“—and holy water, however much we have left—”

“Wil? Let me fucking through, that’s my—Wil!”

There are shadows above him. Shadows below. The train is roaring in his ears, tearing up the countryside, a monster approaching, implacable, with burning red eyes. He wonders, sometimes, if his own eyes show it. He looks in the mirror every now and again and sees the same brown that they have always been, but still he wonders. He wonders, and sometimes does not recognize himself. He ought not to look the way that he does. The face is too young. The train is coming.

He can’t do this again.

There is a little hand in his. But he must be imagining it. Fundy is not so small. Fundy has not been so small for a very long time, and he would not hold him. He would not. And Wilbur cannot feel his hand anyway.

He turns his head to the side. He cannot see.

“Fundy?” he asks. Or perhaps he doesn’t.

In shrapnel and stardust and the engine’s roaring and the vines’ slow sprouting, the world falls away.

There are voices. The voices call him, sometimes, where he drifts. Like in water, like in the clouds. The train is above him, or below him, or to the side, but he is not on it, and there is no firm ground beneath his feet. As long as he does not stop drifting, he’ll be alright.

The voices speak words that he does not understand. That he does not care to understand. They are only words, after all, and what are words to one who is drifting?

He hurts, sometimes. He stops drifting, sometimes, but only because the drifting is replaced with fire and ice, in his shoulder, in his side, and he is pulled back to a body, solid and aching and aflame, and he does not like it, so he struggles when he can and lays still when he cannot, and sometimes there are people that he cannot see holding his limbs down. And sometimes they are stabbing his side again, or sometimes burning it with acid, or sometimes he thinks that they are reaching in and pulling something out, pulling his muscles and veins and organs, but whenever he feels that, it’s easy to drift again. To remove himself from it all. And there’s no pain when he’s drifting.

He likes drifting.

Sometimes, he does know what’s said. Someone whispers in his ear, says, “You better not die, you bastard,” and the voice is familiar, and he doesn’t understand, not really, but he’ll do his best.

Sometimes, someone says, “Thank you for saving him.” Over and over, repeated like a mantra. That voice is familiar too. He does not know what he is being thanked for.

He drifts. Sometimes he feels. Mostly, he does not. He likes it better when he does not, so long as the pain stays away.

Drifting is like floating, a bit. He remembers the first time he flew, cradled in his father’s arms as his father showed him the open sky. He wasn’t scared. He knew that his father would not let him fall. And that even if he did, he would catch him again. He liked it up there, among the stars, liked to pretend that he had wings himself. He does not have wings.

Now, he is drifting, and he doesn’t need to be caught, but it might be nice. Nice to have a place to land, at long last.

He drifts, and sometimes he dreams. He dreams of an open field, covered in dandelions and poppies, and there is a woman there, who regards him with lips upturned and brow arched, a gleam in her eyes. She speaks to him, and he retains none of the words, but he thinks she’s making fun of him. But gently. He likes her. She listens to his music, and when the train gets too close, she doesn’t scold him for stopping, for trembling, for shaking himself apart. And she does not leave. She knows he does not want to be alone. She tells him she is glad that he knows that, now. She says she is sorry she couldn’t help him before. She also calls him names. But fondly.

She says she doesn’t think it’s his time again. Not yet.

He drifts. The dream fades. He forgets.

He dreams of a van, and of fire. The van is on fire, like it always is. There is fire on the ground, too, and in the forest. A campfire. He’s singing again. His fingers twist around the guitar strings, and his fingers are suited for it once more. His fingers remember this instead of the crossbow’s weight, instead of the shape of the button and the bitten-off nails and the fabric of Phil’s shirt as he gasped his last. He remembers the guitar, and music, and the time of possibility. Tommy is here. Tubbo is here. Fundy is here. They are smiling. They are happy. It is a very nice dream.

He dreams of red. Slashing, creeping, crawling through everything. Filling his vision, even where he drifts. Calling him, beckoning him closer. The vines are poised, waiting. They want to eat him whole. They have already begun. There are roots in his heart. He can hear—

“Do something,” someone says. “I’m trying, damn it, give me space!” someone else says. “Don’t you fucking die,” someone else says.

They are tearing him apart. They are holding him down. He is at the mercy of wolves. And shrapnel, and stardust.

And then, it goes away again, and he drifts.

He dreams of a little boy, with hands small enough to fit in his. Orange fur, dark eyes wide with delight, as he and the boy’s mother go to sit on the pier. They watch the fish swimming, circling below, close enough to touch, and Fundy tries, pouting when they dart out of his grasp. Sally laughs at him, voice low and rough and melodious. She smiles at Fundy, and at him, and he brushes some of her hair behind her ear. Puts a flower there that he picked just for this purpose. Fundy kicks his feet back and forth, growing bored. It is calm. It is peaceful. They are home, and this is right.

The water laps below them. The sea sings its song, and he tries to sing back, the words of the lullaby that Phil sang to him and that he will now sing to Fundy and that maybe someday Fundy will sing to another. It is peaceful. They are home. And this is right.

“Dad, please,” he hears someone say. Just once. Just once, but is is almost enough to bring him out of his drifting. Almost, almost. Anything to see his boy. But his boy does not want to see him. He must remember that.

He drifts. He dreams.

There are shadows, and the shadows do not touch him. He drifts, and he rests, and is floating, and the stars whisper, and the universe watches.

He wakes.

His eyelids feel heavy, thick, glued shut. He wrenches them open, slowly, every millimeter a struggle. Awareness of his body filters through gradually; he is lying on something soft, a hard surface beneath, and his side and shoulder ache, but there is no feverish haze, no ice and no fire. Only the thick mud of waking from deep sleep. He is content to let that remain. He feels very tired.

There are people near.

He turns his head to the side. Anything more seems impossible. He is in a large space, on the ground, though there are blankets beneath him and over him, a pillow tucked under his head. It is dark, dimly lit by flickering torchlight. The walls are sandstone and gold, the ceiling high. He does not recognize this place.

There are people near him. They seem to be sleeping too, a several huddles of blankets and pillows. There’s Tommy, brow creased. There’s Ranboo, and Tubbo right next to him. There are people further off that he can’t see. He thinks he hears whispering. There are black feathers dotting the ground. Only a few, but enough to know who else has been here, at the very least.

They are safe. He was wondering where they were, and they are here, wherever that is. They are safe. He didn’t know he remembered how to feel relief this strongly.

Something shifts. Something squirms out from between where Tubbo and Ranboo are resting, and then someone hovers over his face.

“Wibbur up,” Michael says, in a whisper that’s not really a whisper. “Feel better?”

He blinks. Swallows, or tries too; his mouth is dry.

“Yes,” he says. He can’t manage more than a rasp. Perhaps that’s for the best; he doesn’t want to wake anyone. “Feel better. Are you okay?”

“Found Boo,” Michael says. “And Bo. It’s good!”

Michael’s hands pat his cheeks. He blinks again.

“That’s—those are your parents, right?” he says. He has to be sure. Has to be sure that he’s gotten Michael to safety.

“Boo and Bo,” Michael repeats, and points directly at where Ranboo and Tubbo are sleeping, almost curled around each other but not quite. And—oh. Oh, alright. He’s not sure that that makes any kind of sense at all, because he has no idea when Tubbo or Ranboo would have taken in a child, much less with each other, and he figured they knew each other but not that they were close enough for something like that, and actually, it does sort of hurt, a little bit, that no one would have bothered to tell him, or perhaps didn’t trust him enough to tell him, but—

He’s tired. He’s tired and Michael is safe. He’s tired, and Michael is safe, and he’s not in too much pain, and he thinks he’s going to live, and Tommy and Tubbo and Ranboo are all right there, for some reason, but he’ll take it.

Maybe he’ll have a bigger reaction to this revelation later. When thinking clearly isn’t such a chore.

“They were sad,” Michael says. “You hurt. But now better!” Michael pats his cheek again.

“Oh,” he says. “Well. Yes. I’m better now.” He feels unconsciousness tugging at him. He’s so exhausted.

“Michael?” someone says, and Ranboo lifts his head up. He has a truly remarkable case of bed head. His eyes are bleary, though Wilbur tries not to look directly into them for too long. “Michael, where—oh!” Beside him, Tubbo stirs, and as if that’s a trigger for something, Tommy grumbles under his breath, shifting, and then jerking awake. Which was not his intention. Better for them to sleep. He’s not going to be able to talk to them, won’t be able to answer the questions they must have. He can feel himself slipping, can see darkness on the edges of his vision.

But no trains.

“Wilbur,” Tommy says. Just that. Nothing else.

“Hi,” he says. “Think I’m—‘m gonna go back to sleep.”

“Pussy,” Tommy says, voice thick. Only because he’s sleepy too, no doubt, just woke up, and for no good reason, too. That always makes Tommy grouchy. “Fine, go back to sleep then. Dunno why you’re trying to be awake in the first place.”

They’re all looking at him, the three of them. He feels the urge to explain himself. To make sure they know what happened, and that he looked after Michael as best he could. He’s a monster in their eyes—except for Ranboo’s, he supposes, because Ranboo is very nice to him and Ranboo believes he’s capable of change—but not that kind of monster. He’s never wanted to be. He’d just like to be a person again.

“He’s safe,” he says. “I kept him safe.” That’s all he can manage. It comes out desperate. Begging for understanding.

Ranboo frowns. “Of course,” he says. “Of course you did. Are you okay, Wilbur?”

He sounds worried about him. He doesn’t know if he can answer properly, at the moment, but it means a good bit that Ranboo is asking. And then, Tubbo scoots a little closer.

“We know, boss man,” Tubbo says. It’s been a good while since Tubbo called him that. “We know. We didn’t think you did anything less. Thank you so much”—His voice cracks, a little—“for bringing him back to us. Thank you, Wilbur.”

They believe him. He’s done it, and they believe him. So that’s alright, for now. Michael is still patting his cheeks. He doesn’t mind. It’s cute. It’ll probably be annoying later, but for now, it’s cute.

“You should get some more sleep,” Ranboo says softly, so he lets his eyes slip closed.

He drifts again. Another shadow falls on the back of his eyelids.

“Was he awake?” someone says.

“Just for a second.” A pause. “You’re a fucking coward, y’know. Just as bad as he is.”

“Shut up, I’m not—I’ll talk to him later.”

The voice is familiar. The voice is known to him. For now, it’s enough that the voice is there at all. If he’s not imagining it. But this time, he doesn’t think he is. It is a dangerous thing, to hope, but he is weary of being hopeless.

So Wilbur lets himself sleep, and knows that he’ll wake up in the morning, and that for the moment, everything is okay.