Wilbur rolled his eyes, "Well I have, and you wouldn't guess where they are!” Jared stared, predicting what the other’s next line would be, “Up—” “Up your fucking arse.”
“Well, there's one thing my ass and your mouth have in common—” Jared put his hand on Wilbur's shoulder, both mimicking and mocking a comforting gesture,“—they both spout shit.”
How he had said such foul words in such a calming manner was completely baffling, Wilbur needed better friends.
“Where have you been?” murmurs Jared, the playful tone of before gone like–
“Pardon?” Wilbur swallows the lump forming in the back of his throat, he already knows what Jared means.
“Where have you been in the last, I dunno, ten years?” Jared leans back, legs swinging back and forth in the water.
Wilbur is struck dumb, words forming but never leaving his tongue.
‘I had to fight multiple wars.’
‘I got thrown out of my own country.’
’I destroyed my own creation.’
‘I grieved the loss of being able to raise my son.’
‘I spent 13 years in limbo with nothing other than a mutilated cat.’
“I was busy,” is all Wilbur says, nothing better to explain the past decade of events.
“I was starting to believe you died.”
And Wilbur has the urge to laugh and cry at the same time.
‘I did,’ he wants to say, but knowing Jared, the other might not believe him despite the odd things they’ve experienced together as children, he wonders if Jared would've mourned his death, how he would’ve reacted seeing a once dead man alive again.
“You fuck,” he’d probably say, looking frustrated while shoving Wilbur, “Send me a letter before you raise out of the fucking grave again next time, dear fuck, you scared the shit out of me.”
Wilbur thinks he would've preferred Jared already knowing he died, but here he is, stuck with the fact the last time they properly spoke to each other was when the idea of L'manburg only existed in his shitty little van.
“You probably hoped I did,” he grins, false bravado one of his only skills that remains with him beyond his years in limbo.
“Well fuck you too, if I really hoped you died I wouldn't have written you an entire novel about what happened in my life while you were gone, would I?” Jared rolls his eyes, resting his head on his palm.
Wilbur needed more friends like Jared.
He did, but he ruined their friendship one way or another.
“I suppose you wouldn't have,” the confidence in him wavered.
It's quiet for a long, long time before Jared stands up, standing knee-deep in the flowing river while he pulls out perfectly flat round rocks from his inventory.
“Do you just keep that stuff in your pockets?” Wilbur laughs, making an attempt to bring back the calm playful atmosphere from before.
Jared doesn't answer. Instead, he pulls his arms back, posing himself as a baseball pitcher and throws the rock.
It sinks.
“Nice shot, dumbass.” Wilbur repositions, sitting cross-legged, absentmindedly flipping through the pages of the ridiculous but horribly sentimental book.
“How’s your little flower?” Jared attempts to skip another rock, it sinks.
“My little flower.” Wilbur echoes, a long-forgotten memory back from his subconscious.
“Yeah, your kid?” Jared gives Wilbur an incredulous look before throwing another rock.
It skips once.
Wilbur picks at his nails, his old and never-healed wounds ache, “Well, I suppose he’s–”
“He?” Jared stops midway through his next throw, “You had another kid?” Jared looks confused and worried.
The trees rustle, an unspoken question held in the wind.
“No,” says Wilbur, “Fundy– my kid– decided he’d rather not be my little flower anymore.”
Jared nodded, perceptions and ideas changing in his head, “Fundy, huh?” He stares at one of the rocks in his hand, “Suites him.”
“It does,” Wilbur watches the next rock skip once.
“What do you–” the rock skips twice, “think made Fundy realise that?”
If Jared had asked him a few years before limbo, Wilbur wouldn't have had an answer, but with 13 years wasted away, churning and thinking about the past as he feeds the white and orange cat the pieces of his skin that refused to rot, each day that he scraped another number down while his bone and muscle become more exposed as time went by, he came up with many answers to his unspoken questions.
“Tommy,” he says.
Jared thinks the reply over as he stares into the water, “I’d understand why, they’re pretty similar in age, aren't they?”
No matter how long he thinks that fact over, it never feels right to admit, “I just don't remember them interacting much.”
“Tommy was always around you, wasn't he?” The rock skips thrice, and a small grin forms on Jared’s face, finally getting into the swing, “And you–”
“–I always around Fundy.” only in his youth.
The rock skips four times, “Yeah, fuck, it took me four years to even convince you to get you to sit on your front porch without him on your hip.”
“Yeah,” Wilbur whispers, sorrow forming in his voice, “I became a really shitty father after those years.”
Jared’s arms fall to his sides and he titles his head to the side, “Don’t say that,” he turns, putting his hand on his hip while making wild gestures, “It's not like you has a good example to go off of.”
Wilbur laughs and shakes his head, “Phil is a good dad, don't insult him like that.”
“Don't lie,” Jared flicks the rock up and down, catching it and repeating, “I’ve been your friend since we were twelve, and I hadn’t seen him once and that’s after considering the fact Y/N permanently kept a mattress in the living room floor for how much I came over.”
Wilbur knows very well what Jared means, “You weren't always there.”
Jared crosses his arms, “I was there often enough to know that he didn't even once meet Fundy for at least an entire six years.”
Wilbur wished it was a lie, “Nine,” he uncrosses his legs, wounds still burning, “It was more than nine years.”
Jared frowns, his point being proven, “And how–”
“We’ve gotten quite off track haven't we?” Wilbur panics, knowing where the rest of the conversation might go.
Jared unmistakenly frowns and rubs his neck, “We have, haven't we?”
“We have,” Wilbur confirms, standing up and brushing off his coat, “Want to go to shipwreck looting?”
“You’re implying that I haven't looted them all already,” The bastard grins.
Wilbur, the bigger bastard, grabs a shovel out of his inventory to lean on, “And that implies you’re any good at it.”
“Blowing them up doesn't make you any good either.”
Wilbur rolls his eyes, “At least I don't get caught thieving sweets.”
Jared flips Wilbur off, “At least I wasn't such a sad prick that the old ladies never called me out about stealing.”
Wilbur chucks an empty bucket at Jared’s head.
------
“It's strange, isn't it?” Captain Puffy gestures to the flower she had brought them a few hours after Phil left, sitting on her chair in the far corner while adjusting the safety goggles Y/N forced her to wear, “Most plants above ground don't glow like that naturally.”
Y/N frowns, staring at the cracked glass as they search for a larger glass container to put the flower in, “Or grow that rapidly,” Y/N adds.
Puffy crosses her legs, “Can you think of any reason why this one might?”
Y/N grabs a rectangular glass box, and as carefully as possible, puts the first container containing the flower into the next one, “I’m no botanist or a biologist, that's more Niki’s field, but–” Y/N flinches and steps back as the first vile shatters.
“But I have made my own guess,” Y/N stares at the flower as the roots and new forming buds grow and stretch particularly into them and Puffy's direction.
“Well, let's hear it,” Puffy readjusts her pirate hat, uncrossing her legs and using her elbows to prop herself forward.
“Have you ever heard something about plants cross-breeding from plants when they grow too close to each other from Niki before?” Y/N bites their inner cheek, they might need a to get a bigger container or get rid of the thing.
“I think she's mentioned something like that before,” Puffy tilts her head, skimming her inventory while she waits for Y/N to drop the rest of their theory.
“Well– I’m not completely sure if it happens with completely different species of plant cross-breeding, but–” They should really dispose of the flower somehow, considering that the stem is proding curiously towards the glass.
“But I think this is a cross-breeding accident from maybe glow-berries, roses and–” the stem boxes the glass, “–some kind of living plant I can't really remember the name of.”
The egg, considers a part of Y/N 's mind, it could be a result of some sort of cross-breed between the egg and some other things.
Y/N shakes the idea off, because for one, the egg is not a plant and two,
It just doesn't feel like something of the egg.
“Well, what do you think we should do with it?” Puffy stands up, stretching her fingers.
“Personally? I'd like to burn it,” Y/N grabs their flint and steel from their inventory, “Professionally, I should ask Niki about her opinion about it.”
Puffy steps up to the table, gesturing towards the rose, “I presume you're not going to be professional about this?”
Y/N lifts the container, hanging it up with a chain they've placed moments ago, “You said there was more, right? Plus, I’m curious about what may happen.”
Puffy hums but doesn't move to stop them, “Curiosity killed the cat.”
“But satisfaction brought it back, ” They ignite a newly placed torch underneath.
What follows is a god-awful screech.
-----
Within a different universe, a comedic scene unfolds, Tommy Big Man Kraken Innit, the big uncaring man he claims to be, fusses over his pseudo-nephew from upside down while being disoriented and dizzy as fuck.
Ranboo on the other hand, is on the verge of a panic attack, his very much platonic husband is very much having a seizure (or Ranboo thinks he is– Oh lord! He can't tell! he isn’t a doctor– what does do– SOMEONE HELP–)
Tubbo is wondering what the bee-name, is Tommy hanging upside down, why Michael is giggling way up in the air, upright in Tommy's arms and why on Minecraft is Ranboo popping from his left side to his right to his– Ranboo's teleporting too fast for him to tell really.
Everything is very much going wrong.
Welcome to the Disastrous Life of Saiki K–
In seven million different universes away, a psychic by the name of Saiki Kusuo sends a message to this fic.
(Wrong Fandom)
Ah yes wait–
Welcome to the average life of the chaos trio and their special addition; Michael.
“Tommy!” screech one furious mamma bee and one panicked amnesiac for two completely different reasons.
----
“Bakugou!” yells one attentive class president, moments after knocking on the door for the seventeenth time.
Moments pass and whatever lies on the other side of the door remains quiet and the longer Iida waits, the more he is unsettled.
Iida knows that Bakugou is in there and that he needs to speak to the other but he also knows that after knocking seventeen times without answer is a clear sign that there never will be, for tonight at least.
It's nine in the night and Iida knows that Bakugou obsessively goes to bed around that time exactly but he also knows that he probably won't have time to discuss the issue with Bakugou the following day.
But he also can't just invade the other's privacy!
After a long moral dilemma, Iida finally caves and leaves.
There's always another day.
<I'M BACK>
<Did you miss me?>
<2k words, almost on the dot>
<I went away for almost two years and I finally caved into my craving of forcing trauma onto Wilbur characters and remembering I had the perfect set-up for that in this fic>
<Also, what could the issue possibly be? Did Bakugou blow up the coffee maker or something???>
<Also, I've got like, this one other fic in the depths in my notes, completely finished, where Wilbur's (non-existent) sanity is threatened, some paranormal bullshit keeps happening, and everyone is keeping very important secrets from Wilbur 'I don't report finding dead bodies of my co-workers or ten-year-old children because I want my degree in Investigative journalism quicker, fuck you' Soot>
<Yeah, tell me if Ya want me to post that one>