#clearly nobody sees my vision for these fuckin. side characters

[emilyjunk]

Getting the urge to write triplehope fic in the year of our Lord 2024 simply because there are zero works on AO3 and that saddens me

[smp-live]

Man in the (Shattered) Mirror Ch. 2

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Chapter TWs: Suicidal ideation/attempted suicide and descriptions of blood and injury (nothing too graphic, but someone was just stabbed, y'all)

When Ghostbur came running up to Tommy amongst the still-smoldering ruins of their nation, begging to be resurrected, he wasn’t quite sure what to think.

His immediate reaction was of elation at the thought of seeing his brother again. At the thought of hair ruffles and gentle singing and the way his face would light up when he spouted off some random fact or another. At the way he’d stumble into the kitchen bleary-eyed the morning after a late night, asking for a coffee, and Fundy would hop up and beg him for a piggyback ride.

He missed Wilbur, missed him so much it ached.

But then, that meant Ghostbur would be gone. And while Ghostbur wasn’t his brother, could never be Wilbur - who was so full of life and passion it bled into the world around him - he was nice in his own way. Trying so, so hard to right wrongs, to make everyone happy. Tommy’s only beacon of light in the hellhole that was exile.

And there was no telling if the man came back would be Wilbur. His Wilbur, not the man who’d smiled too wide and laughed too loud, smelling so strongly of gunpowder and cigarette smoke it sent Tommy into coughing fits until his brother finally left to work on whatever dastardly plan he’d concocted. Not the one who’s voice had cracked at all the wrong places as he sung.

But Ghostbur had sounded so desperate as he explained all the reasons why he should be resurrected, and so Tommy had agreed. Ghostbur deserved so much better than this world, and Tommy hoped he’d find peace in death. Maybe in a little field, full of blue flowers, with Friend at his side. Tommy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Yeah, that’d be nice.

“You alright?” Ranboo murmured, nudging his side, and Tommy opened his eyes.

“Yeah,” he sighed out, watching Ghostbur and Phil stumble their way onto the shrine. Fundy stalked to their side, ears pressed flat, tail lashing, whiskers twitching. He worried at his hat in his hands. They were stained in blue.

“Think it’ll work?” he asked quietly. Nobody answered.

The small group huddled together as they watched the scuffed reenactment play out, a tragic parody of what had transpired. It was worse than Tommy could have ever thought, watching the weak pantomimes of ghost and father.

It was worse, because he could clearly picture Wilbur doing all this. Wilbur, muttering into his hand, gaze transfixed on the button. Wilbur, screaming his emotions out, voice cracking and tears pouring down his face. Wilbur, mimicking Eret’s word in a terrible, terrible callback he would’ve called poetic.

He met the traitor’s eyes across the shrine - just for a moment - and saw his own horror reflected in them.

But then Ghostbur was screeching for Phil to kill him, raw terror in his voice, and it was all Tommy could do to stop himself from rushing forward and putting an end to this terrible idea.

Phil ran him through with a sword, and it was too late.

The ghost fell to his knees with a terrible, anguished sob, totem clutched in his shaking hands, and Phil knelt next to him. Blue blood drip, drip, dripped from the sword onto the flooring, melding into the lapis until one was indistinguishable from the other. Glinting the same way in the midday sunlight.

Ranboo made a choked sound next to Tommy, a hand clasped over his mouth, horrified tears in his eyes. Fundy stood stock still, steely-gazed as he watched the ghost of his father die.

And then, Ghostbur took his last breath.

In the same instant, or perhaps an eternity later, an explosion of pure energy - pure life - burst out from the figurine he held in his hands with an ear-splitting shattering. (Were totems supposed to sound like that?) Lime green and white and yellow swirled around in a maelstrom of magic, blocking Tommy’s vision until the final residual wisps found their way into the body on the floor and it cleared.

Tommy might have caught a glimpse of the same tangle of colours from the corner of his eye, but before he processed it the man on the ground coughed.

"Did it work?" Tommy asked antsily, hope blooming in his chest despite the way the figure was too de-saturated and too transparent. "Wil?"

He groaned and wiped his face on his sleeve with a cough. "No," he said, "'m Ghostbur."

"Oh." A pit of disappointment opened in Tommy’s stomach as chilling relief coursed through his bones. It had failed, then. Ghostbur was here to stay. He wouldn’t be getting his brother back.

From Ghostbur’s side, a hand resting on the shade’s shoulder to stabilize him, Phil made to say something. Before he could speak, however, his eyes focused on something behind Tommy and his mouth gaped in shock.

"What the fuck?" a familiar voice, one Tommy hadn’t heard in months beyond a weak, pale imitation, said. One that sent his heart racing with twin feelings of both family and danger, and he whipped around.

There, in all his trenchcoat-clad, bloody-shirted glory, was Wilbur. Alive Wilbur, looking exactly the same he had the day he died, down to the messy, unkempt hair and the anger livid on his face.

“Why am I not dead?” he asked, accusing in that wrong, un-Wilbur-like way that had taken over his speech the last few months of his life. He looked directly at Phil. “I should be dead. You killed me.”

“Wil,” his father said softly as he got to his feet, drinking the sight in like a parched man in the desert. Ghostbur shied away, still seated. “We brought you back.”

Wilbur’s breath hitched in his throat. “No, no no no! You can’t have brought me back! You have to,” he looked around frantically, eyes landing on the sword discarded to the side. The sword that had killed him the first time, still dripping with sapphire blood. He all-but-pounced on it, coat billowing out behind him. “You have to kill me again,” Wilbur begged, meeting his father’s eyes steadily.

“What? Wil, we’re not doing that.” Phil flared his wings.

“You have to.” His voice cracked, offering the sword with trembling hands. “Please, Phil.”

“No.”

Wilbur whirled around, looking desperately around the clearing. “Tommy, you- no, no, can’t- Fundy? Eret,” he finally seemed to settle, thrusting the sword hilt-first at the traitor. “C’mon, you’ve done it once before. Just do it again, it’ll be easy, look, I’ll make it even easier on you!” He spread his arms wide with an even wider smile on his face, exposing the tear in his shirt to Eret. A perfect target. “Just stab me.”

Eret looked at the sword. Looked up to Wilbur, back to the sword. Then, she threw it to the side. “Sorry, Wilbur,” she said, real pain in her voice, “I’m trying to be better, and part of that includes not killing people who don’t deserve it.”

Wilbur recoiled, making a wounded noise. He looked so... broken. Desperate, like a trapped animal, breathing heavily as he fell apart before their eyes. Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he changed.

Shoulders taut as a bowstring straightened, hands balled into fists at his sides. Heavy breaths no longer panicked, but a threat. Lips pulled back into a snarl. Complete and utter devastation morphed into a mask of anger, slotted perfectly over his face, like an actor finding their character.

Only his eyes remained the same, snapping around at every sound or shift of movement. Fingers twitching and feet shifting to subtly distance himself from whatever had created the disturbance.

“Fine then,” Wilbur snapped, and Tommy could have sworn he could still smell a mix of stale mustiness and gunpowder, “if you don’t kill me now, I’ll show you all why I deserve it.” He glanced around, wild eyes flitting from one person to another.

“I’ll destroy it all,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll destroy it all, I’ll kill everyone who stands in my path, I’ll hurt so many people! So fucking kill me!”

Everybody stood stock still, frozen at the threats. “Alright!” he laughed. “You brought this upon yourselves!” And Tommy finally found his words.

“Wait, Wil, you don’t have to-” he tried, reaching out towards his brother.

“Oh, I do, Tommy Innit,” Wilbur snarled, looking him straight in the eyes, and Tommy froze again. “I do.”

He couldn’t breathe, pinned under the weight of Wilbur’s gaze that brought him back to hours spent underground listening to him pace and mutter angrily to himself and scream when it got too much. Listening to him rant and rave about traitors and trust and how they were truly alone, just them two, and how Tommy was all he had-

Tommy’s spiral was cut off by a strong pressure on his wrist, and he looked over to find Ranboo holding on tightly. The Enderman nodded at him, looking somewhere above his head, and Tommy swallowed. Right.

Wilbur had turned to his ghost, who looked upon the scene with pure horror on his face. “And you,” he said, “who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I- I’m Ghostbur.”

“Ghostbur, huh?” He scoffed. “Stupid fuckin’ name. Let me give you some advice, fake-me.” He dropped his voice, but didn’t move any closer. “All this? Friends, a home, life? You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve any of this. Neither of us do.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Tommy snarled, wrenching his wrist out of Ranboo’s grip and ignoring his startled little vrwoop as he charged towards his brother. “Leave Ghostbur the fuck alone.” He positioned himself between Wilbur and Ghostbur, acting as a barrier between them. At least he knew Wilbur wouldn’t hurt him - not physically, at least.

Wilbur took a step backwards, something akin to fear flashing across his face as he raised an arm defensively, keeping the same distance between them despite Tommy not having come near. He narrowed his eyes and they darted around, looking for an escape.

“Alright, Tommy,” he finally relented with a sigh, visibly forcing the tension out of his shoulders, though his feet stayed positioned to run. “Alright. I’ll leave. But don’t expect me to not hold my promises.”

And with that, he whirled around, trenchcoat billowing out as he exited stage left (dramatic bastard.) Stalked off over the hill, away from L’manberg and into the woods.

The group stood in tense silence for a few moments, watching him go, until Fundy cackled; a twisted, hysterical thing. “We fucked up.”

Tommy burst into sputtering laughter at that, the others looking grimly at him. “Fuck,” he said, wiping a tear away with a shaky hand, “fuck, we really did.”

Ranboo vrwooped, fiddling with a grass block in the hand that wasn’t gripping Tommy’s wrist. “What do we do now?” he asked.

Everybody turned to Phil; the man who always seemed to know what to do, who always had a plan. But he didn’t react, staring blankly at the redwoods where his son had vanished.

Eret stepped up when he didn’t, saying, “I suppose we simply deal with whatever problem presents itself. We can’t take back what we’ve done.” They sighed. “As much as we want to.”

Ghostbur finally moved, then, stumbling as he pushed himself to his feet. Eret steadied him beside themselves. The ghost looked terrible, swaying as if he would collapse at the slightest breeze, face gently steaming with tears. He clutched at the still-sluggishly bleeding wound on his chest, hands stained in blue blood.

“Ghostbur?” Tommy asked, reaching out, “you g-”

A shift of movement in Tommy’s peripheral caught his eye. A pebble clattered away from the shadows of the cliffside. And, from a small alcove in the stone, a tiny figure detached itself, calling out shakily,

“Dad?”