#it's a good showcase of what their dynamic officially becomes from limbo onwards

[carefree-raen]

Another Hypocritical Day

One of many (many, many, many) mindless chats Star and Wilbur have in the train station

16.5k words - Completely platonic dynamic!!

“I’m such a hypocrite.”

It was desolate in the train station. Empty and hollow. Cold and uncomfortable. There were few things to do to entertain yourself. Lately the cycle seemed to be: stare into space, play card games, wander down the tracks, at least one person has a mental breakdown, they have a conversation, and then they resume silence, thinking about whatever they could.

Thinking was the best thing to occupy time. It was all Star had.

It was horrible.

“What do you mean by that?” Wilbur asked, voice equally vacant as they stared at the tracks together. Six years now, Star had been watching those tracks. She was twenty-one, which was such an odd thought to have. If she were back in her own world, she could legally drink.

How much more enjoyable limbo must be when drunk, she pondered, thinking of one disgusting ram that passed through every now and again, always as equally drunk and high as he could possibly be.

She hummed, looking up to see if anything new had appeared on the dot matrix display. Nothing, as it had been for a while. Last she remembered, there was some conversation going on between Ranboo and Phil, but that was forever ago. “It’s just…” she started, unsure what her point had really been.

“I broke a promise,” Star decided, and as she turned to look at her partner of hell, he seemed almost amused.

“We’ve all broken promises. Hell, we’re all hypocrites. I don’t see why it really matters,” he said, but Star knew he wasn’t making fun of her. He just had a point.

A good point. They were never getting out of limbo, even if Tommy had made it out around two years ago. Things like promises and good morals hardly mattered in a place like this.

There was never any necessity to their talks. Nothing they said or did mattered.

It was just to fill up time.

“I promised my brother I wouldn’t leave him. And my mom. And my friends, my dogs even. Promised a lot of people I wouldn’t go. And here I am, rotting away with you.” Despite the grimness of her sentence, she ended it with a joke, smiling cheekily at the Brit beside her.

He grinned back. “And what lovely company I am.”

“You are,” she agreed, breaking the bit with her sincerity. They quieted for a moment, having one of their silences that was sweet and caring rather than full of dread. Star liked those pauses a lot more. It reminded her how lucky she was; that she could’ve been stuck alone, without Wilbur. Both of them knew how much worse it would be alone.

“I’m honestly surprised you ever went through with it,” he said tentatively, interrupting the quiet once more. Star gave him a thoughtful look, so he continued. “Didn’t you mention you had a fear of death?”

“Ah, well, that’s complicated.” A lot of things were complicated. The statement, just like the entire conversation, was meaningless. But she went on nonetheless. “I have a fear of other people dying. Lived my life day by day, constantly expecting to wake up and have everyone I ever cared for dead.”

It was a bad summary of the fear, to be sure. But she knew Wilbur got the gist. He always did.

From the moment Star had lost her grandpa, she traveled with a new kind of fear. Before she was afraid of the monsters of the dark, losing her life to the shadows of the night. But after that day everyone else became more important. What does it matter if she lives, anyone she loves could be gone in the blink of an eye, and that was terrifying.

The moment Tommy had initially shown up had turned sour fast. As soon as it actually hit Star that Tommy, a kid so full of life and confidence (someone who reminder her so painfully much of her baby brother) had been murdered, she’d crumbled. For a good week she’d spoken to no one, only sat and listened on the rare occasion someone else (usually Wilbur) spoke.

Wilbur hummed in response, fiddling with a spare card in his hand. It was the ace of spades. Star wondered if it held any meaning, if it was possibly poetic that he happened to be holding that card and whatever it may represent. Not like she’d know.

“I was never afraid of dying,” he said, looking back out at the tracks. “Sure, I was afraid of a lot of things, but never that.” 

He didn’t need to say what, for Star had feared them too in her final months of life. The fear of being abandoned, of being a failure. Of being a monster that could do nothing but hurt. “I broke a promise to Tommy. Several promises, but the biggest was on that day." There was no need to specify. Star instantly knew what day he was referring to.

"I'd told him we wouldn't do it. And for some stupid reason he trusted me. He-” he cut himself off with a single dry laugh, “He believed I wouldn't give up.”

Another silence came over the two, and Star imagined a breeze whistling through the freezing station that was their prison. Still nothing on the display, though the clock above it read 4:27 pm.

Maybe, in another life, Star would be an adult right now. She’d be getting her degree in something, seeing the world and hopefully doing what she loved. Maybe she had friends. Maybe she had a lover. Maybe, somewhere else, it all went right, and this world stayed a story and nothing more.

A part of her wanted to sob just thinking about it, but she was so tired of crying.

“Why…” Wilbur suddenly started again, though he seemed to shrink in on himself as he started. Which was a surprise, seeing as they’d basically given up on any formalities a good couple of years ago. They were stuck with each other either way, why bother sparing any feelings?

“What?” she prodded gently, and when they made eye contact, Wilbur looked almost afraid.

“Why did you do it?”

“...The button?”

“No. The sword. ...Why did you ask Phil to kill you? I know you said that was part of the story in your world, but… Why did you die?”

“Wilbur…” Her words weren’t bitter. They weren’t vile with resentment. Simply sad and open as she said, “You know why.”

He looked away, frowning in a way that revealed he did in fact know, but hadn’t wanted to admit it.

“I guess… I never really wanted to die. Just wanted to disappear,” Star whispered, feeling that if she spoke any louder everything would shatter.

“What’s the difference?” Wilbur croaked, eyes gleaming with memories they both wanted to forget.

“Wanting to die is wanting to die. You want to stop living because you don't think you deserve it anymore. I wasn't thinking about what I deserved at all."

A pause. Star’s chest felt heavy as lead as she struggled to let out a breath. Not that she needed it.

She was dead, after all.

“I wanted to disappear. To cease existing. I thought th- that, if I went away, everything would be better. If the villain isn’t there to progress the story, then the story ceases to exist, right?”

Wilbur said nothing, so she continued on.

“Which is stupid, because I knew there were other villains. I knew it would go on if I died. I don’t know, maybe I thought you’d be put back in charge and I’d be gone, so I couldn’t meddle anymore. I- maybe I hoped that I was different enough from you they’d all stop. That maybe I was worth enough for anyone to actually care about me being gone.”

“I cared.”

Her first response was to scoff. She believed he was just saying it out of pity. But then her brain remembered another promise.

“Can we please be honest with each other?”

“Why… why would you trust me?”

“You’re all I have left, Star. Please.”

“Okay. I promise.”

“I was so selfish, but when you snapped at the festival I was so happy,” he said, giving his own bitter laugh. “I thought that finally someone understood it. You understood why it was all meaningless, why it all had to go. I thought that I- I wasn’t alone anymore. And I was selfish, and I was going to cling onto that as much as I could.”

Wilbur was near crying, Star realized as her own vision blurred. They made eye contact, and he gave her a shaky smile. “But when I showed up here, you weren’t with me. And I was alone again. So, really, Star, I cared. I cared so much that you were gone.”

Her heart warmed past any chill the station made her feel.

With a laugh, Star replied, “I remember how excited you were when I showed up. It… I guess it makes sense now. God, I was such a dick to you-”

“You were a total asshole to me, yes,” Wilbur cut off, laughing through the tears that dripped down his face. Star joined him, and they both awkwardly laughed and cried together, leaning against each other for support.

That’s what they were: each other’s support. Wilbur held Star up, helped her not feel alone and insane, and she did the same for him. They’d be lost without one another.

“Y’know, it’s really not healthy for you to be so dependent on me, Wil,” she muttered, shifting to lay in his lap as everything quieted down once again. He laughed, and it was almost full enough to be real, but Star doubted either of them were capable of really laughing. No one could be truly happy in this place.

But, at that moment, she felt really close to it.

“Gods, you’re such a hypocrite.”