Roulette - Chapter 46 - Endergirl (2024)

Chapter Text

L’manburg was generally a very urban city. Most of what Wilbur saw of it, anyway, was all concrete and glass and lights; especially the districts Central, Las Nevadas, and middle/north Kinoko. Southern Kinoko and the Badlands bled into more and more empty space the further south you went. Neighborhoods turned to forest turned to dusty plains. The forests were more on the western side of the Badlands, as were the evergreens in Snowchester, which was a mirror image of emptiness and factories in said south, save for the snowy climate.

Not a lot happened in the empty areas, at least not a lot that Wilbur was aware of. Then again, the agency did hide a lot of criminal activity from the heroes to give the illusion that they were doing a good job. Therefore, he never really went to the forests or plains.

The place Punz was staying was deep in the woods in the southwestern Badlands. Punz was a talented mercenary and assassin who had recently stopped taking jobs and refused to work with Schlatt. Wilbur and Q were meant to go and try to find him to figure out why. Mask had provided a list of directions to their destination, claiming he had been to see Punz before. They would go down the highway closest to Eret’s bar and then take a side road into the woods. They would drive straight for almost an hour until they saw a large pile of discarded tires on the side of the road. The second path on the left after that led to Punz’s.

Wilbur spent every moment that morning at Eret’s, listening to Sam and Eret converse in the least creepy way possible. He could feel Q pacing around on the floor above, all focus and rhythm that showed he was probably listening to music, getting dressed, and poking fun at Minx for something.

Eret asked Sam if anything was new with him. Sam shrugged and smiled nervously. “I dunno. I think I might ask Ponk to come stay with me.”

“Oh, really?”

“Since I have a whole apartment with a guest room, y’know,” Sam clarified, “And he wouldn’t have to share space with the three of you anymore.”

“I’m sure she’d be glad to be rid of us,” Eret sighed. Wilbur couldn’t see Eret, as she was on the floor behind the bar trying to fix a broken cabinet. “And that’s one less felony for me. But is it really just about his safety?” Eret was feeling mischievous. “Does seem a little soon to be asking your partner to move in with you, doesn’t it?”

“I-“ Sam frowned as he leaned on the counter. Embarrassment burst like cracker snaps around his ears. His emotions were often explosion-related. “Look, it is about their safety, okay? And their comfort, and the fact that I’m a little sick of driving a f*cking hour out to the Kinoko suburbs just to see him.”

Try sleeping an hour per night so you can see him in secret, Wilbur thought privately.

“It’s not like I haven’t worried about her thinking it’s weird, though. I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t ask.”

“I think you’re overthinking it.”

“You just accused me of bringing it up too soon!”

“I was just f*cking with you.”

Sam rubbed the frustration from his face and changed the subject. “Can I have some water?”

Something thudded in the cabinet Eret was tinkering with. “You don’t want anything fancier?”

Sam stared at them. “It’s ten in the morning.”

“Time is an illusion, and you seem stressed. But fine, it makes sense. I was gonna charge you extra, anyway.”

Suddenly, Sam startled and took a step back from the bar. Shock and apprehension followed him. “Is there a rat in there?? I could have sworn I just saw a rat.”

“No, that’s…” Eret paused. “That’s Ed. My new pet. I don’t have a rat problem. Don’t tell anyone we have a rat problem.”

Wilbur winced. Eret definitely had a rat problem.

His phone buzzed.

Tommy: are you going to be okay today? I am like . halfway certain that you are going to break down crying somewhere on the road with Q

Wilbur: you are Wrong, I am going to be Fine

Tommy: because you have to be in the car with him alone for an hour

Wilbur: I an going to be fine

Tommy: well two hours if you count the drive back

Wilbur: I’m going to be Fine

Tommy: and you Definitely don’t want to start crying in front of the scary mercenary

Wilbur: he’s not a scary mercenary. he’s just a mercenary, tommy

Tommy: I am Trying to be Helpful and you are Harshing My Vibe

Wilbur: where the hell have you been hearing the phrase Harshing My Vibe? You sound like a stoner, tommy. since when do you drive a skateboard and smoke weed??

Tommy: since when are you a cop??

Wilbur: what

Tommy: What

Tommy: I am serious though, if you’d rather someone take your place it’s fine. And as much as I’d like to pretend it’s about your comfort, it’s also for the sake of efficiency. It might take longer to do this mission if you’re sorting through a mercenary problem while also denying an emotional problem

Wilbur: I’m going to be fine, Tommy, i’m not going to let my gayness get in the way of the job

Tommy: you better not. I will Eat You

Tommy: also I managed to get to Tubbo’s house and away from the agents at home and to be honest I might just sleep here for a while

Tommy: I don’t want to deal with being watched all the time. I just hope tubbo’s dad doesn’t find me lmao

Wilbur: yeah I would too. If I had somewhere to go

Tommy: also the mayor says if we beat Schlatt then vigilantism won’t be illegal anymore

Tommy: also I kind of repaired my relationship with phil a little

Tommy: also we don’t have as much money as before so I didn’t get ice cream or fabric softener. pinterest says I can use vinegar for fabric softener

Tommy: also how did your press conference go

Wilbur: Jesus Christ tommy hold on

Wilbur noticed that Q had moved to the room behind the kitchen. Minx poked her head out of the door.

“Hi Sam!”

“Hi Minx,” Sam greeted.

“Sorry, I’m just beating the sh*t out of Q in competitive Rio Crush Saga on the holo-table thing right now.”

“f*ck!!” Q shouted from the other room.

“We’ll be a minute,” Minx grinned. “I’m trying to cheer him up since he definitely isn’t looking forward to the long drive.”

Wilbur had never learned to drive. It was probably a useful skill to have as a hero, or as a human in general, but in hero work, he had an enderman assistant for that reason. Unfortunately, Ranboo was Tubbo’s for the day. They were working on miscellaneous machines together, apparently. Q could drive, although he had once admitted that he couldn’t drive very well, seeing as he was self-taught and didn’t own a car.

Sam rented a car a few days ago for Tommy and his friends to use to find the mayor, and now it was theirs to use as long as Sam kept paying. Hopefully it would get them to Punz’s lair without looking suspicious.

And no, Wilbur didn’t exactly know how he was going to stand sitting in a car with Q alone for an hour there and an hour back, but it didn’t matter because he had a job to do and he was a responsible hero who understood what he was doing. He definitely wasn’t dreading anything. Not at all.

Wilbur: the press conference was fine. There were more questions about techno than about Q. i didn’t f*ck anything up though

Tommy: Did you feel okay afterwards?

Wilbur: well no

Wilbur: but I never feel okay after stuff like that, and there’s nothing that can be done about it, so

Wilbur: I think I’m coping okay

Tommy: if you need me I’m here

Wilbur knew. But now really wasn’t the time. He was a responsible adult. A very responsible adult.

The press conference was horrible, but it was the kind of event that passed him by completely. He got up in front of some cameras and lied his ass off about things, about Techno and Q and the Pandora break. Attention was called to the fact that he hadn’t fought any crime publicly in a while, but he was used to those questions. He said he was opting for more behind the scenes work nowadays. He managed to steer the conversation towards his birthday, which he had entirely forgotten about, but which would be coming up soon enough to distract people from certain events.

Wilbur: realistically, my problems are the least of our overall problems, yk?

Wilbur: I'll give myself a few days to stop angsting in my brain about it and if i feel Worse I'll let you know

Tommy: okok

Wilbur: also im happy for you and dad!!

Tommy: yeah lets hope he actually follows through with changing this time

Wilbur: jeez okay

Wilbur thought about investigating that situation, but he was sure that if anything were wrong, Tommy would have Tubbo to talk to.

Wilbur: and thank god the mayor understands about vigilantism and all. That’s extremely good news

Tommy: I don’t know if he understood as much as he just. Was willing to go along with whatever we said

Tommy: I can see why the agency made him the mayor. He is the most gullible, unnoticeable, mediocre dude I’ve ever met. He was awesome

“Hey Eret,” Sam asked once Eret had resurfaced from the cabinet. “I haven’t seen Jack around in a bit. Is he okay?”

“Oh, Jack. Yeah.” Eret rubbed the back of their neck. “Well, remember how I said the fridge stopped working?”

“Yeah?”

“So, I’ve employed Jack as The Fridge Guy,” Eret explained. “Because of his ice power. He sits in the closet with all of my food for hours, effectively lowering the closet’s temperature to fridge level. As payment he gets to play on my Nintendo Switch all day.”

“Oh,” Sam said. “Is he… is he allowed to leave?”

“No,” Eret said.

“That seems like… probably an illegal business practice,” Sam winced.

“He’s happy with the arrangement. And he’s also a vigilante, so he’s used to illegal things.”

Sam stared at Eret with half bewilderment and half fear. “Every day I get more and more worried about what goes on in this building.”

“You should be worried,” Eret replied. “Most of these floorboards are not nailed or glued down. Like, at all.”

Both Sam and Wilbur looked at the ground simultaneously.

The door beside the kitchen counter slammed open and Q was basically shoved out into the main area by an evidently victorious Minx. Minx held him with a glove by the back of his shirt. Q was absolutely teeming with fury and regret, the kind of emotion that told Wilbur it was taking everything in him not to deck Minx across her poisonous face.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and bartenders,” Minx began loudly, “I present to you: the loser of the Rio Crush Saga tournament.”

Minx held Q back from attacking people while Sam and Eret erupted into sorrowful “Awwh, it’s okay!”s and “You’ll get it next time, Q.”s.

While giving them both a particularly nasty scowl, Q caught sight of Wilbur sitting in the corner. His cheeks immediately began to burn with shame. Wilbur didn’t know why, because Q had already done much, much worse to him, so a loss in a mobile puzzle game shouldn’t have been all that embarrassing in front of his ex, but then again, Q had always been very competitive.

Minx looked at Q. “C’mon. Say it.”

“No,” he replied in a grumble.

“You have to. You bet and you lost and this is what happens-“

“f*ck you, Minx, I’m not f*cking saying sh*t in front of f*cking-“

Minx kicked his heel lightly. “You promised.”

Q glared at her, passionate hatred seeping out of his every pore. In a monotone voice, he eventually seethed, “I have a flat ass.”

Sam proceeded to choke on his breath and giggle hysterically. Eret managed to laugh a respectful amount. Wilbur raised his eyebrows, smiled, and held his laughter back. It would have been funnier if it weren’t a complete and utter lie- stop that. Stop your brain. Stop it.

Q wrenched himself out of Minx’s grasp and brushed his clothes off. It wasn’t his costume, but Wilbur could tell by the ankles and wrists that he was wearing a black bulletproof jumpsuit under an ordinary-looking navy sweatshirt and trousers. Having not yet acquired a beanie, his hair was back in that extremely short ponytail.

Sam changed the subject. “Are you excited to go fight a mercenary, maybe?”

Q stared. “We’re just going to talk to him, right?”

“Well, yes,” Sam said. “But you have to be prepared for anything. Punz is unpredictable.”

Oh, believe me, Q is prepared for anything and everything, Wilbur thought privately. He never keeps less than seven or so knives on his person, and he always keeps a spare stabby pin thing behind his ear. In fact, he’s so prepared for possibilities that he constantly asks his boyfriends to break up with him at least once a week, and once they do, he reveals he never trusted them anyway! He’s so poised and ready for disappointment that he runs towards it just to confirm anyone cared about him at all, with no regard for how it makes those people feel!

Wilbur had missed the entirety of Q and Sam’s conversation and was now feeling like absolute sh*t. Damnit.

Q accidentally locked eyes with Wilbur. Wilbur knew it was an accident because he felt that little pink zap of quick regret and improvisation that Q always got.

“Hi,” Q greeted, instead of Hey, I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier. Can we talk about it in the car?

“Hi,” Wilbur replied, instead of Hey, I’m sorry too. That sounds good.

The strangers stared at each other. Q’s scarred eye looked a little less irritated. His expression was soft but unreadable. Wilbur broke eye contact so he wouldn’t start crying as Tommy had predicted. Minx sat down on the other side of the bar. Wilbur noticed her glancing at him.

“You guys should head out, then,” Eret said. “Good luck.”

Sam handed Q the keys. There was a little red button on a keychain attached to it. “This button thing is in case of an emergency. Press it if anything goes horribly wrong, and it will send a 911 text to everyone in this room, along with your location.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks, Sam.”

“Of course. Oh, by the way, where’s, um, Ponk?”

“…Still in the shower, I think,” Q shrugged. “He woke up last, so he got the last shower, along with all the cold water. Loser.”

“Flatty patty,” Minx teased Q, reminding him who the real loser was. Q kicked her in the shin and started to walk towards the door. He stopped by the front door to put a mask on. They definitely didn’t want Punz to figure out who they were before they had a chance to explain themselves.

Wilbur took the signal that it was time to go and hurriedly rose from his chair. “Uh, S-Sam, um. Do I also get a panic button? Or is the- Is Q’s just for both of us, or-“

“Oh,” Sam realized. “Sorry, Bl- uh, Wilbur, I forgot to make… two…”

“No, that’s fine, I get it, yeah,” I’ll just die if I’m in trouble, “It’s fine, mhm. Thank you. Sorry. Thanks.” Wilbur practically fell out the front door.

Q followed him, hiding his pitying expression, and trudged through the slushy snow on the sidewalk to the inconspicuous silver car parked in the corner of the tiny parking lot.

The sky was a bright, beautiful gradient from light yellow to baby blue, as it often was in the mornings; somehow without ever being green in the middle. Wilbur followed Q to the car in silence. Cars roared and passed on the road by the parking lot. Streetlights were still lit up and reflecting on icy grey pavement. It reminded him of a painting Wilbur had seen once of Kinoko; all these tangerine streetlamps gave the impression of, well, impressionism. Streetlamps were white in every other sector. It really was beautiful.

“Wilbur,” Q called from beside the car.

Wilbur realized he had stopped walking. “Sorry.” I thought I told you to call me Blue.

Wilbur ducked into the passenger’s seat of the silver car. Part of its smell could be attributed to the expired lavender air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, but other than that, Wilbur could find no evidence for why the smell of chicken should be so clear.

Wilbur: did you guys get chicken??

Tommy: the heathens I rode with did in fact stop for fast food, though I implored them not to stuff themselves with unhealthy garbage as such. They would not listen. I predict they be dead by the morrow

Wilbur: well now im hungry

Tommy: there are yellow sharks at home

Wilbur: there are what

Tommy: yellow sharks

Q ducked into the driver’s seat. Wilbur balanced his phone on his thigh to watch Tommy type as he buckled his seatbelt.

Tommy: I had to choose between goldfish and yellow sharks. A bag of goldfish was 4.49, yellow sharks were 2.99, I did what I had to do

Wilbur: I love goldfish

Tommy: yeah well these are better!! They’ll melt in your mouth, I promise

Wilbur: :[

Tommy: im sorry

Tommy: take it up with the agency, if we had more money I’d be getting a family sized carton of goldfish

Wilbur: I always felt like there was something very poetic about the family sized cartons of goldfish

Wilbur: even though im the only one who eats the goldfish

Wilbur: god im going to miss goldfish

Tommy: I also got some cans of ravioli!

Wilbur: oh nevermind misery forgotten I LOVE ravioli

Tommy: mhmhmhm I had a coupon

The car roared to life. Wilbur watched Q’s hand reach up to adjust the rearview mirror. His hand missed it at first, always having somewhat clumsy depth perception in the early morning, but eventually he swiveled it back just enough to make perfect eye contact with Wilbur. Embarrassment then fogged up the mirror with orange as Q adjusted it a bit more to see clearly out of the slightly frosted back windshield.

Wilbur: im in the car

Tommy: is there silence. or is he weathering you

Wilbur: is he what

Tommy: “nice weather today!”

Wilbur: well no, the weather isn’t even nice today

Wilbur: but yes he’s being silent. And he’s all embarrassed and upset and filled with horrible dread

Tommy: well don’t tell me how he’s Feeling, that’s your curse to know, it’s an invasion of his privacy to tell other people who have no reason to know

Wilbur: gee thanks

Tommy: I’m sorry, that was useless, sorry. do you think you should try talking to him?

Wilbur: No

Tommy: are you just going to keep being silent then??

Wilbur: No

Tommy: well then what’s the game plan???

The car lurched as Q pulled out onto the highway. “Sorry,” Q apologized. Apologized for the reckless driving, not anything else.

Wilbur: I’m afraid if I try to talk to him I’m going to end up either crying or insulting him

Tommy: can you even think of an insult to give him??

Wilbur: oh I can think of a few. I used to barely be able to tease him without it being light and sweet and now I feel like if I really tried I could tear him into little tiny shreds and then blowtorch them

Tommy: ….okay

Tommy: well then maybe you should play some nice calming music

“Hey, maybe we should play some music?” Wilbur offered, and his voice cracked on ‘music,’ it cracked, goddamnit, and now he sounded like a nervous f*cking idiot in a nervous f*cking car with a nervous f*cking dilemma.

“Uh,” Q hesitated. “I’m having more trouble than I thought I would focusing on the road as it is. I’m not sure about-“ he broke too fast at an intersection and the car lurched again. “f*ck. Sorry. These brakes are sensitive. I’m not sure about music.”

“Please?” Wilbur asked with a touch of insanity to it. “There’s got to be something you can manage.”

Q grimaced. “I mean, is this even a- y’know, a mood for music? Like, we could be headed to our death right now.”

“Well, you say that a lot, but we haven’t actually died yet, so.”

“Well, I just mean, we should stay focused. It wouldn’t be responsible, or whatever, to be blasting Pheobe Bridgers while driving to a mercenary’s hideout.”

“I think it would be very responsible.”

“How so?”

“It’s useful.”

Q gritted his teeth. “How so?”

“It would distract me from this,” Wilbur replied blatantly.

“I can’t afford to get distracted from this, Wilbur. I’m driving.”

“Yeah, and you’re kind of sh*t at it, aren’t you?”

Q slammed the brakes at this intersection. It seemed purposeful this time.

“We wouldn’t have to worry about this if it weren’t for you.”

“Me?” Wilbur twisted his neck around to glare at the corners of Q’s eyes as the other tried desperately to focus on the road. “Oh, alright. How is this my fault again? Remind me?”

“I only meant that you’re the one making this uncomfortable,” Q forced. “If you didn’t want to be petty and immature by bringing it up then we could be sitting in comfortable silence right now.”

“You call that silence comfortable?”

Q was beginning to hate Wilbur more every time he opened his mouth, and Wilbur was eating it up.

“Fine. Fine. Okay. Fine.” Q reached for the radio. “What do you want to listen to?”

Wilbur had already won, but god, it was just too easy. “We were together for months, and you don’t even know what kind of music I like?? Damn, maybe this was for the best.”

Q’s entire body goes stabby. There is no other word for what is going on in the vigilante’s joints right now. Everything is very quickly stabbing out in Wilbur’s direction, like he wants to maul Wilbur personally, and is forcing himself to take a gentle left turn instead.

Tommy: did you try music?

Wilbur: tried

Tommy: what happened

Wilbur: subconscious murder

Tommy: ok

--

Eventually (after Q pulled over at a gas station and they fought about getting snacks), Wilbur watched as the lines on the road faded, the pavement cracked and graveled, and the buildings were replaced by trees. The snow slowly dissipated as they came to territory that almost never saw ice, even in the coldest climates. Their vehicle was solidly in Badland’s western forest, and their highway was devoid of other cars. On either side of the road was a thick evergreen tree line with bushes and other foliage visible, though blurring past. Above the trees, Wilbur could see birds, large and small, swooping around the sky. He wondered if Phil was okay at home.

Around that time, Q began to have a faint lavender smoke escape his eyes. It slowly grew thicker.

Though emotions were usually unique to the person, Wilbur had seen lavender smoke before. Phil breathed it every time he looked at a picture of Mum. It made him think it was a form of grief, but that couldn’t be quite right: Tommy also had a little of it coming out of his ears whenever he told a sad story, and it wisped around Puffy and Minx’s interactions. But Wilbur had never seen this much of it in one place; in fact, he was almost scared it would suffocate him. He reminded himself it wasn’t anything that could hurt him, as much as he felt phantom pressure in his lungs.

It continued to fill Wilbur’s vision and turn everything purple. He refused to say anything. He didn’t want to start a third fight, and he had a deep feeling that Q wouldn’t understand what he was talking about- or if he did, he wouldn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t the kind of thing he would be comfortable saying out loud.

My power has been getting stronger. Maybe I can decipher something.

Wilbur’s brow furrowed. It was like fear, except sedated. Soft worry and loneliness. It was the kind of sickly sweet you tase from the fluoride the dentists paste onto your teeth. Wilbur noticed the way the car seats faded to a different color then they were supposed to be. The shapes were changing, too. He didn’t want to pry into Q’s head, but he felt a need to understand, and that wasn’t necessarily any better.

It seemed like Wilbur’s power was getting stronger and more detailed the more he used it, lately. He saw and felt more from people than he had, he could pick someone apart more easily. It felt kind of invasive, but he couldn’t turn it off, even if he closed his eyes and covered his ears- and in that way, his emotional sense was more similar to taste than it was to sight and sound. (It was a completely different sense. But there were no adjectives for emotions that he could use to describe how it felt, so he had to translate it to colors and tastes to make it make sense to other people. He was just a really really f*cked up interpreter.)

Wilbur looked out the window and watched the trees whizz by. Then he looked up ahead and saw something walk out into the road.

He leaned forward suddenly. “Q, look!”

Q glanced at him in confusion. “What?”

“There’s- Q, pull over,” Wilbur demanded quickly, with no time to explain as their vehicle rushed towards something standing still on the road. “Stop, stop, pull over, pull-“

Q hesitated, but pulled over at almost the last second, going over to the side of the road with fear leaking off his arms. “What, what?? What is it?”

Wilbur searched the concrete with his eyes, but there was nothing visible over the front of the car. Did they hit it? He released his seatbelt. “f*ck. f*ck, f*ck f*ck-“

He pushed the car door open and stepped out into the bright sun. He had to use one hand to shield his eyes from the light.

There was nothing on the pavement in front of their vehicle, just bare road stretching on into the distance and twisting out of sight behind some trees. It was a similar story behind them. It was as if nothing had ever been there at all. Did it run out of the way? I could have sworn we hit it…

Q followed him out of the car and shut the door, looking around. “What? What is it, did you see something?”

“I- I just-“ Wilbur glanced around with wide, confused eyes. “I thought I saw, uh…”

He just felt stupid now. Q squinted at him. “What? Was there someone there?”

“I thought I saw a deer,” Wilbur sighed. “Sorry, I guess it- um- I feel a little stupid now. I just could have sworn I saw a deer on the road right here. We were headed straight for it and it was just standing there, it was just…”

Wilbur trailed off and looked at Q, who seemed sick.

“There wasn’t a deer,” Q mumbled flatly. “Did you eat today?”

“…I ate seven Babybell cheeses,” Wilbur replied.

“That’s not-“

“That’s not breakfast, yes, yep, I know,” Wilbur interrupted. “I’ve heard it before. Thanks, that really helps.”

Q’s eyes narrowed and he got back in the car. Wilbur followed. The car smelled like cinnamon and pine. But it didn’t really, it was just a weird feeling. If anyone was going to feel feelings Wilbur had never felt on a person before, it would be Q.

“I could have sworn I saw a deer,” Wilbur breathed. “It was tall and frozen in place.”

There was a long silence while Q took the car out of park and started gaining momentum again, and then he said, “I saw a deer on this road once.”

“What?”

“I mean, you did say your power was getting stronger, right?” Q offered half-heartedly. “I was just thinking about it. Maybe the… feeling of the memory got to you or something.”

“Oh,” Wilbur said. “Do you think? That’s never happened before.”

“Probably. Like, for example, I know I get more agile over the years because my power gets stronger, but it might just be because I practice so much. I guess it isn’t possible to measure how much of my skill is from real practice and how much is from my power slowly getting stronger.”

“Well, however you felt in Pandora is probably a… a good measurement,” Wilbur tried, but quieted because he wasn’t sure whether it would upset Q to mention Pandora.

Q felt uncomfortable (velvet fingers prodding all along Wilbur’s ribs) but he didn’t protest. “I felt like sh*t in Pandora. I could hardly get off the floor,” He laughed, because it was supposed to be funny. Wilbur didn’t laugh, because it wasn’t, and because Q had changed the subject.

Memories. Could that be it? I saw the smoke when Tommy told sad stories, and when Phil looked at pictures of Mum. Eret said to Sam once that Minx and Puffy knew each other when they were younger. But memory isn’t an emotion. Maybe it’s some kind of nostalgia, like I thought before?

Nostalgic grief. If Q hit that deer.

“Did you hit the deer?”

“Oh,” Discomfort grew and sliced a hole of regret into Q’s diaphragm as the subject returned to his past experience on this road. “Um.”

Q’s dilemma grew as the silence grew. He kept opening his mouth and trying to answer, but it seemed impossible for him to reason with the question.

“You don’t have to have an explanation, if you did,” Wilbur told him. “I know accidents happen and all.”

“…Yeah, I hit it.”

Wilbur didn’t ask if it died. Wilbur imagined hitting a deer from the speed they were going now. Either head on or swerving to crash into the side, hitting the deer would have killed it from their current speed, no doubt. By the smoke, Wilbur guessed that Q had been young, too. Maybe too young to drive.

Q had grown up in Las Nevadas. What was he doing driving around down here?

Soon enough, Wilbur noticed a pile of tires on the side of the road, dirty with dried mud and torn rubber. He pointed it out to Q and they turned onto the second dirt path. It was so narrow and rocky that Wilbur had half a mind to ask whether it was a path at all, and not just an unfortunate gap in the tree line. Leaves and branches brushed the windshield. Wilbur watched a centipede fall off a leaf and onto the windshield, skitter around in a circle, and then crawl away out of sight. Q’s eyes followed it with a frown. Wilbur also followed it with his eyes, but mostly because he was trying to discern what color it was through the lavender that was slowly dissipating now that they were off the road.

After only a couple minutes, the car forced itself up a hill and into a clearing. Rocks turned to gravel and a cabin came into view.

It was an old cabin built from interlocking stripped cedar logs. It had a walkway of cracked stepping stones up to the porch, on which were a few potted plants, some tin cans in a pyramid, a hummingbird feeder, and an assortment of pretty windchimes. Nothing could be seen through the windows other than opaque white curtains. A few pinwheels stood still in the yard, accompanying a small, dirty stone statue of an angel that was missing an arm. A shotgun rested against the doorframe.

All the foliage past the front porch was unkempt. There were patches of lemon balm, daisies, and white clovers in the yard that bled into bushes further out, whose branches were growing over the rails of the porch. Though it was still obvious someone lived there- seeing as the potted flowers were healthy, the hummingbird feeder was full of sugar water, and the pinwheels in the yard were all upright- the state of the greenery showed that the occupant didn’t care much about keeping a clean green lawn. Wilbur agreed. It looked prettier and more natural that way.

It didn’t look very villain-lair-ish, which was to be expected since Punz wasn’t a villain, but a mercenary. Still, the sight of it was so peaceful and homely that Wilbur might have thought they had stumbled across a sweet grandmother’s house. The only sign of violence was the shotgun resting against the doorframe, but even that could be excused by the hypothetical grandmother’s grumpy husband who wanted the squirrels to stop messing with the hummingbird feeder.

“Is this really it?” Wilbur asked quietly, as though there was a holy silence here that might be disturbed. “It’s so… pretty.”

Dappled yellow light from between the tree leaves sparkled off the colorful glass windchimes. Wilbur could even see himself enjoying living here. …Well, no, not really. It was too isolated from the rest of the world. But Techno would like it.

Wilbur didn’t want to be so far away from Techno, though, either. Not like he was now.

“This is where Mask said to go,” Q murmured. “He did say the second path after the tires?”

“Yeah, and on the right.”

“Yeah.”

They pulled their respective masks on. Wilbur’s covered his mouth and nose while Q’s was a full face mask.

The two glanced at each other. Q nodded. “Let’s go.”

The moment Wilbur stepped out of the car, he heard the musical clinking of windchimes and the rustle of leaves, making the place seem just that much more real. The air even seemed fresher there.

Not even a moment had passed before, without warning, a man burst out of the house onto the porch, looking irritated. He grabbed the shotgun from where it leaned and immediately pointed it towards them with quick movements and sure aim. Neither Wilbur nor Q had the time or courage to make a sound other than a shocked intake of air. Wilbur put his hands up in surrender. Q’s hand, rather, rested on the throwing knife in his pocket.

There was a beat of unsure silence before Punz hissed, “This is the last f*cking time I let this happen. If you so much as breathe one word about a job to me, I will send your roasted flesh to your boss in a Tupperware.”

He was wearing a white sweatshirt and worn jeans. His attire made it clear that he hadn’t been expecting company, but nonetheless, his demeanor was tough, and his desaturated blue eyes were intimidating. He showed no emotion or weakness other than raw agitation.

“We aren’t here about a job,” Q explained slowly. It was a lie. “We’re vigilantes. We don’t do that.” He was nervous, but only Wilbur would ever be able to tell.

Punz glanced between the two of them. Wilbur panicked about being recognized, for a moment, before remembering he was wearing a cough mask and trench coat. His goggles were missing. It didn’t ease his worries. Would that be enough?

“I still don’t want to clean blood off my porch,” Punz informed him with disinterest. “Get lost.”

A hummingbird came and fed from its respective feeder, completely unaware of the current human tension. Wilbur watched it drink out of the corner of his eye.

“We just want to talk,” Q tried.

“Your dagger is halfway out of its sheath, and you’re wearing bulletproof,” Punz pointed out blatantly. Q made a face under his mask and slid his dagger back into its sheath. All the way, this time.

“He’s telling the truth,” Wilbur told Punz. “We just want to talk to you. We have some questions about something important to us, and then we’ll be on our way.”

It was a lie. They did want him for a job, to be there on the day Schlatt blew things up, but it was hard to tell the truth while being threatened for it. If Punz wouldn’t help them, then he had to at least have some information they could use. Punz just glared.

“...We’re not working for Schlatt, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Wilbur said hesitantly. “We’re working against him.”

“We come in peace. Like ET or some sh*t,” Q added. Wilbur shut his eyes, wishing Q was less like that.

Punz relaxed a little when he heard it, but did not lower his shotgun. “Prove it. Drop your weapons.”

“Why don’t you drop your gun,” Q accused.

BANG.

Wilbur jumped and immediately turned to see if Q was okay. Q was looking back at him, but neither of them had been shot; instead, Punz had shot a hole straight through the front left tire of their car. Oh, god. How are we going to get home?

“Okay, hey, alright,” Q laughed, hysterically throwing his knives down. “Only a joke! I was only joking, hah.”

Q was wearing bulletproof, but there were still places he was vulnerable, such as the hands and feet. Also, Wilbur was not wearing bulletproof. Because he was an idiot.

Wilbur threw down some throwing knives and a handgun strapped to his thigh. Q threw down many, many throwing knives and an assortment of other non-ranged weapons. Everything hit the dirt with a dull thud. An ant stumbled over Q’s pile of knives.

Punz raised his eyebrows and completely lowered his firearm. “Sure seems like you were prepared for a fight.”

Wilbur felt incredulous. “You’re a mercenary. I think it makes sense for us to want to defend ourselves.”

“I doubt anyone would pay for your heads anyway,” Punz scoffed.

“My head’s fine, thanks,” Q joked under his breath.

“Come in,” the mercenary beckoned. He turned his back to them and opened the door. “Don’t bring anything in with you. I’ll know if you do.”

Q and Wilbur exchanged a look of worry and followed him into the log house.

Though Wilbur didn’t stop to get a good look at the potted flowers Punz was cultivating on the front porch, he caught a glimpse of a white vase out of which the mercenary was growing an asphodel.

--

The inside of the cabin was as wooden as the outside. Wilbur stepped directly onto a well-loved, scratchy, old rug with faded red, beige, and purple coloring. The beige may have been yellow at some point, or even white. The furniture was faded and old, as well, and the patterns were all mismatched. The sofa depicted sunflowers while the curtains depicted bluebells, and in the middle of it all was a large orange pillow with pink polka dots. The walls and floor were all cedar wood.

He had a literal analog television.

“Can you get The Kardashians on that?” Q asked.

Punz cracked what seemed to be a rare smile. “I don’t get much of anything. But it sure is an upgrade from the radio, right? Sit down?”

Wilbur pressed on the sofa cushion a little first to make sure it wouldn’t collapse under his weight or something. It seemed to be less vintage and more decrepit. He fidgeted with his hands in his lap as Q sat next to him. The couch dipped.

Punz was definitely calmer now that there were no weapons. He had left his shotgun at the door. He still didn’t like them being there, though. Wilbur remembered being told that Punz had a younger brother, Purpled, who was also a mercenary, and working for Schlatt. Depending on how old he was, he might still live with Punz, and be here now. Wilbur wondered what their parent situation was like.

“Don’t go anywhere, I'll be right back, I’m just going to get myself something to drink,” Punz told them. “There are magazines and books and stuff under the side table, if you feel like it.” He went to leave the room, but then poked his head back in. “Oh, and, um.” He tapped his fingers on the doorframe awkwardly. “I dunno. Do you want a beer or something?”

Q tilted his head. “We’re not, like, normal houseguests, dude.”

“I don’t know what to do in this situation,” Punz shrugged. “Do you want one or not?”

Wilbur side-eyed Q. It would be totally awesome if you could keep a clear head today.

“...Yeah, no,” Q said.

“Yeah, you got me. I’d probably poison it,” Punz remarked. He disappeared from sight.

Punz seemed less intimidating now that they were inside, and instead, a little more weathered and negotiable. Does he really live all alone out here? Or is this a temporary place? Wilbur wondered. It’s so quiet here. No cars, no thumping neighbors on the floor above, no nothing. Loud birds, maybe.

Maybe he’s not completely alone. Mask said he had a teenage brother who was also a mercenary. He probably visits sometimes. Though, how family-oriented can a bunch of murderers be?

Are their parents murderers, too? That’s something out of a horror sitcom. If so, they’d be like me and my family. Out here adding a whole new level to generational trauma.

“Look how peaceful this whole place is,” Wilbur pointed out. “Maybe he is actually retiring.”

“He was just pointing a shotgun at us,” Q reminded Wilbur.

“I didn’t say he wasn’t a killer anymore, just that he doesn’t necessarily seem to need the money anymore.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Q told him. “Mercenaries don’t retire. If they try to, they get killed by other mercenaries.

“But why? What’s the point of that??”

Q closed the magazine he had apparently been trying to read with a huff. “There are plenty of reasons. Mercenaries, bounty hunters, heroes, villains, and vigilantes with a large patrol radius tend to have a bounty on their head. Mercenaries are kept safe for multiple reasons, sometimes because no one wants to start a fight and risk their head, and sometimes because of honor code bullsh*t that keeps them all friendly with each other. They’re not all buddy-buddy like vigilantes, though. If one of them tries to sneak out of the business, the other ones come for their blood. It’s all a matter of money. If Punz is trying to retire, I wouldn’t be surprised if we heard a gunshot from a sniper within the next few minutes.”

“You’re being very blunt about the possible death of a man in the next room.”

“Yes I am, because that won’t happen. Punz isn’t retiring. It would be dumb. He just doesn’t want to work with... with Schlatt.” Q shrugged. “Which I can understand since they’ve worked together before.”

Wilbur startled. “Wait, they have?” Q froze. “Mask never said-”

Punz re-entered with a small glass of something dark and purplish. “Sorry about that. Wait, why am I saying that? I don’t care.” He swiped his hand across the coffee table, as though brushing invisible crumbs away, before setting the glass down and sitting in the recliner opposite the sofa they sat on.

“Is that wine?” Wilbur asked out of politeness.

Punz took a sip before replying. “Grape juice,” he answered. “I hate wine. It tastes like foot fungus. Why do people like wine?”

Q nudged Wilbur subtly with an elbow. Wilbur glanced at him and noticed him fidgeting excessively with the collar of his sweatshirt. Returning his gaze to Punz, Wilbur noticed a gold chain with a small gold pendant around his neck that hadn’t been there before. What’s the point of adding jewelry when talking to strangers? To flaunt wealth? Maybe it’s a good luck charm. What’s his power, again? It was impossible from this distance to make out any details about the pendant besides it being circular.

“So, you wanted to talk about...”

“Schlatt,” Wilbur said, causing irritation to spark across Punz’s shoulders yet again. “We’re trying to foil his plans and all. We just wanted to know why you turned down his offer.”

“Just the two of you?” Punz snorted. “And how do you know about his offer?”

Q scoffed and shook his head. “No, not just the two of us. There are lots of us.” Literally about ten people. “Lots of people. We caught wind of his plans because we’re allied with a villain who he made an offer to, and in addition to that, we have a spy on the inside of Schlatt’s plans.” We accidentally kidnapped someone who was running from Schlatt. “That spy knows about his offer to you. We just want to know what he told you.”

Punz blinked. “Why?”

Q faltered. “Because... honestly, you might know something that’s helpful to us.” Q shrugged. “And we’re not leaving until we figure out what it is.”

“You assume because I wasn’t on Schlatt’s side, I’ll be on yours?” Punz rolled his eyes. “Look, think of me as a neutral party. I don’t want any part of Schlatt’s business, that includes being against him. If I did have information that would be helpful to you, I wouldn’t tell you anyway.”

Wilbur’s brow furrowed. The thing about it was that not doing anything was essentially being on Schlatt’s side. Schlatt was the one with the plan being put into action, and the vigilantes were the ones to stop him. Not helping would just be allowing Schlatt to move forward, which was a choice, not “remaining neutral” like some might suggest.

Even in the trolley problem. Wilbur had encountered people who said they would do nothing about the trolley problem so they wouldn’t be blamed, without realizing it’s not about doing something or not doing something. Whatever you do, you’re making a choice to help one party or the other. If you do nothing to the lever, you’re making a conscious decision to kill five people. If Punz wasn’t going to help them then he was technically still helping Schlatt, which he didn’t seem to want.

“That’s not called being a neutral party, it’s called being a huge dick,” Q informed Punz.

That about summed up Wilbur’s thoughts.

Punz sighed. “I don’t like the way Schlatt is doing things either, okay? He offered me a scary amount of money and a promise of a ‘better life’ if I help him eliminate people who tried to stop him from blowing up half the city. People like you. It was enticing, and I’ll admit I've never said no to a job before, but I did this one.”

“How much money was it?” Wilbur asked. “Did you have a hunch it was fake money, or anything? He seems to have too much of it to be real.”

Punz’s eyes looked far away for a moment. “Oh, it was real. It was some massive amount, but I couldn’t count. He just kind of shoves cash into your hands until you agree, literally. I could have paid for college seventeen times over. It was the kind of money that makes you fall silent.” He shook his head. “But it wasn’t worth terrorism. The city isn’t f*cked enough to get obliterated just yet.”

Q nodded. “If you helped us, it could stop him. Otherwise you’re going to have to face that oblivion. We’re trying to be prepared for the day he tries something. With help, we could fight off the villains from placing the bombs in the first place. If you don’t have information that would be helpful, you could at least help physically.”

“I’m not going to fight in your war,” Punz answered. He took a sip from his glass.

“It’s barely a war,” Q reasoned.

“You’re a group of people, they’re a group of people, the agency is a group of people, you’re all mad at each other, and citizens will die because of your madness. That’s war, and just because there are no armies doesn’t make it less of a war. I’m not going to fight in your war.”

“Since when does death bother you?” Q asked.

Punz glared straight through him.

“Your house is very nice,” Wilbur interrupted quickly. “It’s very peaceful here.”

“It is,” Punz sighed. “We don’t get too many visitors. I generally like it this way.”

Bingo! “We?”

“I have a younger brother.” Punz told him. “He’s also a mercenary. He stays here with me every so often, but I usually don’t find out he’s here until I feel his echolocation. He doesn’t exactly announce his presence. If you feel a chill, that’s his echolocation messing with your senses.” Punz relaxed a bit. “I tell him not to rely on it so much, but I guess it’s a good power to have. He could kick ass blind with that kind of power.”

Purpled. He works for Schlatt right now. Does Punz know about that? Should we tell him?

Q’s sudden withdrawn anxiety told Wilbur that he was thinking the same thing.

“He hasn’t been here for a bit, though,” Punz assured them. “Nothing to worry about.”

“How long have you lived here, if you don’t mind me asking?” Wilbur could feel Punz withdrawing from the question. “Sorry if I’m getting too personal. I just thought it might help to make some non-hostile conversation.” Wilbur took a dig at Q with non-hostile. Q crossed his arms.

“…It’s fine. I’ve been here for decades,” Punz explained. “It used to belong to my grandma. She raised me and my brother in southern Kinoko, but when we were older, she moved us down here. The house has been in the family for a while. Purpled grew out of the house eventually, and, uh… now it’s just me.”

“Oh, is your grandma…? I’m really sorry-“

Realization hit Punz. “No, no, Nana isn’t dead, she’s just in assisted living,” He informed them quickly. “She’s got dementia, possibly Alzheimer’s, you know how it is. She can’t do much for herself anymore. I used to help her around the house, but work got in the way, so I set her up with a big house up north and a hospice nurse, etcetera.”

Despite his careless tone regarding his grandmother, Wilbur could see Punz’s worry and care for her wiggling around under his chest. It had a swishy sort of sound to it, and it was wriggling in a way vaguely like that of a flounder moving across the seafloor. The feeling was surprisingly sweet for a murderous mercenary. Maybe Wilbur shouldn’t judge people based on the amount of blood on their hands?

“I actually stopped taking jobs from people so I could go care for her, because she’s always scared of her nurse,” Punz sighed. “Believe me, I had it all sorted out. Getting off the grid without getting hunted by other mercenaries. I was gonna, you know…” His voice lowered to a whisper, as though the very topic were spooky. “I was gonna retire.”

Q was quiet. Wilbur wanted to say I told you so!! But he didn’t. Instead, he kept his tone gentle and asked, “Why didn’t you end up going to help her?”

Punz’s eyes flitted between Wilbur and Q. He was reluctant to spill some things, but he seemed to be coming around despite his silence. Just when Wilbur thought it may be hopeless, he sighed and relented. “Alright, fine. I’ll tell you something about me, and I’ll tell you something about Schlatt... But you have to do a favor for me.” He stood up and gestured for them to follow him.

Both Wilbur and Q got up to follow him, despite Q being very suspicious (gray little arrows pointed at the back of Punz’s head) of Punz. Almost as if sensing it, Punz turned around and pointed at Q. “Not you. You were rude. You stay. The nice one can come help.”

Q threw his arms up with an incredulous expression. “What!”

Wilbur, instead of being mature, pulled his mask down quickly and stuck his tongue out at Q when Punz wasn’t looking. Q gave him double birds and fell back on the sofa, frustration and unease leaking from his every pore. Wilbur was slightly worried he was being led to his death, but more than he was worried, he was smug as f*ck.

Wilbur followed Punz through the kitchen to the back door. Oh, so he’s going to lead me into the forest and slaughter me in peace. Lovely. On the way, he caught a glimpse of an oval-shaped photo hanging in a wood frame above the oven. An older woman and a small blond boy. Even in the photo, with how young he was, Punz was wearing that gold chain with the pendant. It almost looked too heavy on his small body, but he didn’t seem to mind.

The back door opened (and caught on the rug for a moment) to reveal a screen door. The screen door then opened to reveal a garden.

Wilbur wanted to believe this meant Punz really did want his help with something, but his first thought was still he’s going to use my corpse as fertilizer for his garden. Is a corpse good fertilizer? He’d look it up later.

For the most part, it was a flower garden. But Wilbur also saw green, unripe tomatoes hiding under leaves in one place, and small unidentifiable peppers in another. The soil was bone dry and dappled with sun.

“I don’t understand how you get these to grow here,” Wilbur murmured as he stepped off the back porch, walked up next to the garden, and regarded a pair of orange tulips with interest. “It’s not even spring yet.”

“You’d be surprised the kind of things you can grow in the Badlands,” Punz shrugged. “It snowed for one single day in January and started warming up again real quick. These plants are always in perfect conditions.”

“What about when it gets too hot for gardening?”

“I put a tent up for shade and it all cools down. Or I plant other flowers. Whatever. I have a job for you.”

Wilbur was inspecting a ladybug that seemed to be struggling to make its journey across a tomato leaf. “What is it?”

Out of nowhere, a rusty watering can was placed in Wilbur’s hands.

“Water the flowers.”

Wilbur straightened and turned towards Punz. “Wait, what? Sorry, uh... Why?”

He was much taller than the mercenary, but Punz had his arms crossed and didn’t falter for a single second. He stared straight into Wilbur’s soul. “Because they need water, and you need me. Let’s get to it. Oh, and, you’re going to need the water book.”

“The water book?”

Punz went back to the back porch and retrieved a book that looked like it was made of normal printer paper and bound with cheap plastic binding. He handed it to Wilbur. “It’s a book about plants and how much water they need. I wrote it.”

“I have to measure the water??”

“It’s fine, it’s measured by seconds,” Punz informed him. “Look inside.”

Wilbur set the silvery-brown watering can in the grass and opened the book to the first page. There was a picture of an asphodel, and in small Calibri font beside it, there was a description of its ideal conditions, growth stages, and “Seconds to water: 3 seconds every 8 to 9 days.”

“…Alright. But how far do I tip the watering can? What if-”

“As far as you want. Plants are resilient, don’t overthink it. Everything here needs to be watered today except the tomatoes. I’m going to go get myself a sweet tea,” Punz yawned as he walked away.

Wilbur panicked and went to ask another question, but Punz was already inside the house. He was now alone with the sun and the flowers.

Okay. Alright. I can water flowers. Why can’t I water flowers? Wilbur made a face at the book. Why can’t he water flowers?? What’s his deal?

Doing mundane tasks to gain trust and loyalty is better than getting murdered in the woods, Wilbur thought as he flipped through to look for tulips. But is he just using this as an excuse to not do chores? He’s the one who decided to plant a flower garden in the middle of a forest! Water your own damn flowers!

Muttering frustratedly to himself, Wilbur picked up the watering can. Tulips, according to the book, needed about half an ounce of water, which was half a second or so of tipping the watering can over. He thought that must have been undershooting it, but he did as he was told.

As he watered the plants one by one, he realized that most of them were a little droopy. If Punz wasn’t taking jobs, was he doing something else away from home that prevented him from watering his plants? He doesn’t have a car to get anywhere. Does he walk the highway, or does a bus come through here sometimes? Wilbur got random chills as he was watering some pansies. Maybe if he has a teleporting friend… And the chills came again.

Wilbur stopped watering the pansies.

“I have a younger brother,” Wilbur remembered Punz saying a few minutes ago. “He’s also a mercenary. He stays here with me every so often, but I usually don’t find out he’s here until I feel his echolocation. He doesn’t exactly announce his presence. If you feel a chill, that’s his echolocation messing with your senses.”

Wilbur glanced around the sunny, quiet area. He turned away from the pansies slowly and scanned the tree line. A little line of worry appeared between his brows. “Hello?”

There was no response. The bushes were still and silent. A bird with an orange chest flew away.

Wilbur sighed and reprimanded himself for being worried over some chills. Maybe someone had walked over his future grave. Nothing to get worked up over.

He turned back around and found himself inches away from an angry teenager with purple eyes. He yelped and jumped away. The watering can fell from his hands and crunched the grass.

Purpled didn’t look particularly threatening. He had a young face, but his irritated, searching expression resembled his brother’s. They had the same hair and the same hostile body language. In fact, everything was similar except height and eye color. Purpled’s dark plum eyes certainly didn’t seem natural. Maybe he just really liked colored contacts.

“Who the hell are you,” He demanded.

“I’m-“ I’m a hero you could assassinate right now for an amount of money that would set you up for life. “Your brother told me to water these flowers.”

It came to Wilbur’s attention that Purpled was standing in the pansies. They both looked down. Purpled awkwardly stepped out of the garden. “Oh. It’s gotten bigger since last time.” He raised his head again, shorter still, but suspicious nonetheless. “What’s your name?”

“Uh-“

“Are you trying to recruit Punz for a job?”

“Well, I wouldn’t-“

“Did they tell you to earn their trust with the flower watering?”

“Wait, they-?”

“You’re kind of a loser,” Purpled informed him, completely unprompted.

Wilbur blinked. “Thanks. Did you just spawn out of the forest??”

“I don’t like driving.” Wilbur decided to assume Purpled could not drive. “I have other means.”

Purpled stared him down for a moment more, and it occurred to Wilbur that he didn’t seem to be blinking at all. Then his eyes flashed with purple light, and Wilbur felt a chill go through him.

“You have a friend,” Purpled told Wilbur. “In the house.”

He’s got to be an incredible hunter. “Yeah.”

“He keeps bouncing his leg,” Purpled grumbled. “I don’t like the vibrations.”

“I’m incapable of fixing that problem. Did you call your brother they?”

“They use he/they. They’re not in the closet, they just don’t usually say it unless you ask.”

“Okay. Great. Thanks. …Do you need something??”

“Yeah, a sweet tea,” he sighed, and then started trekking up to the house.

He just shows up whenever he feels like it. Unannounced. Purpled’s ironic disregard for personal time and space reminded Wilbur of Tommy. He’s like a much meaner version of Tommy.

But he did seem nervous. And not the fearing-for-my-safety-because-there-are-strangers-here kind of nervous, more like the something-is-about-to-go-very-wrong kind of nervous. Maybe he was planning to break it to Punz that he was working for Schlatt.

Everyone was nervous recently. Wilbur wished he could just soothe everyone forever, but people tended to hate it when he did that.

Wilbur didn’t sense any overwhelming emotions coming from the house, though, as the back door swung shut. Just the faraway buzz of nervousness and the enjoyment of sweet tea.

He continued to water the plants. There was a peace to it that somewhat remedied the ridiculousness of the situation. The steady rain from the spout of the watering can came in glittering diamonds that rolled off the bright tomato leaves and soaked straight into the soil. How could the environment here be so confusing, yet perfect, so that any plant could grow? Some of these flowers were meant for plains, but the dappled sunlight through the leaves was somehow enough. It said something about resilience. Or maybe it said something about the caretaker.

He was just through with watering the tall cinquefoils when the screen door sprung open and shut again. Punz put his hands on the railing and carefully set his mason jar of sweet tea onto it. Even from the yard, Wilbur heard ice clink against the glass. Condensation stained and darkened the wood railing. “You almost done?”

“Almost. I didn’t crush any of them or anything, as you can see,” Wilbur said with a sweeping gesture towards the garden.

Punz just hummed.

Wilbur looked over the flowers, which didn’t look much different. Maybe a tad shinier and brighter than before. They certainly needed the water; the soil had been bone-dry. The last flower to water would be a sunflower. (Again; this must be magic f*cking soil.)

He checked the book and flipped through to the page on sunflowers. The printed text of the page didn’t say how much to water it, but there was a small handwritten note at the bottom of the page that looked like it had been written by a chicken on shrooms.

He stared at it for a second and then looked up at Punz, who was still watching from the porch. He called to them, “Hey, I can’t tell what this says.”

“Is that the sunflower? I had to write the directions myself, I think, a few years ago. Look at the bottom of the page.”

“I see the note, I just can’t read it. Your handwriting is-“ An abomination. “-uh, unique.”

Wilbur walked to the porch, watering can in hand, and held the book out to Punz. “Can you read this?”

Punz looked down and took the book slowly. “I…” He did not look at the page. Wilbur’s brow furrowed. “Sorry. I can’t read it to you. You have to figure it out yourself.” Punz’s voice was dripping with frustration and nerves.

“Look, I-“ Wilbur didn’t want to be rude. But come on. “This is ridiculous. Okay? I’m sorry. I just… why do I need to water flowers for you to think we have good intentions? Is it just to see how much we’re willing to put up with even just to learn what you know about Schlatt?”

“To be honest, it’s more about free labor,” Punz shrugged. Infuriating. “The plants need watering. You can water them.”

“Why can’t you water them?”

“I could. I don’t want to.”

“Why can’t you read the book?”

“I can’t read the book,” He seethed. “I can’t water the flowers. I can’t take care of my family, and I can’t help you fight off Schlatt’s explosion. I can’t do anything, not even my f*cking job. Being a mercenary can get surprisingly difficult once you go blind.”

“…Oh, sh*t.”

--

Punz’s power, which he acquired when he was seven, was to make people go completely blind for short amounts of time.

His father often used him to pull off less than legal acts, such as robbery or arson. The worst it ever got was when he had Punz blind a young woman at the bar of a restaurant so he could slip something into her drink. Punz didn’t remember a lot about this, though. When he was eight, his maternal grandmother finally got his father arrested. She took Punz and his little brother Purpled in and won custody of them easily. Nana promised them food, shelter, and education.

But the regular things happened: they didn’t do well in school, they got ironic and angry, they started doing things they shouldn’t do. They met Schlatt when they were maybe fourteen, along with Schlatt’s friend, that one kid with the duck plushie that never shut up. When they were 16, Schlatt paid them to carry a package from Las Nevadas to Snowchester. He did it. When he was 17, Purpled accidentally killed a man and wouldn’t tell Punz what had happened. They both hid it. When the brothers had to hide from the cops for a few days and come home in shame, Nana was surprisingly careful with reprimanding them. She said, I want to know how much money you’ve made. Punz lifted a floorboard in the attic to show her. She counted it under her breath and told them they would both need to start paying rent if they kept this up.

So Punz was a mercenary, which meant they’d do anything for money, but not in the sex work kind of way, because like Nana once said, “How do you think your mama got killed??”

At first it was packages and contacts, which got him enough money to live and buy a house and be a person, and then it was murder, which got him filthy f*cking rich. It was killing bad people who pissed off someone important. It was killing good people who had done the same. It was blood for money, and Punz wasn’t as connected to it as he should have been. He barely felt guilt. He was not an empathetic person, and he was not a philosophic person. This gave him and his family good opportunities and a good life. He did not think about death.

It was the same with Purpled. The two never worked together, because they couldn’t let family get in the way of the job. They weren’t ever close. But Punz still taught him what he knew and considered him an ally above all things. Even if Purpled had picked up a nasty habit of leaning on his back leg when he aimed, like he was already looking to run away.

They didn’t know how it felt to be as helpless as they made others feel. As far as they were concerned, it was a perfect living. They were doing what they had to do: it wasn’t like they really had a spectacular education to get a job with. Besides, they had honor. They were good at what they did. People sought them out for jobs specifically.

Everything happened within the same week.

Nana woke up on a cool, sunny Monday and didn’t know where she was. She’d been losing memories a lot recently, but this time, she was convinced that she needed to go home, she just didn’t know where home was. Punz and Purpled were trying their best to calm her down, but she was angry and confused and the sight of the mirror was distressing her. She didn’t know who her grandsons were. Watching her pace and rant to herself, Punz had a moment of complete and entire helplessness. They didn’t want to think about something being wrong with her. They didn’t want to think.

Two days after her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Punz had an appointment with the eye doctor (which he always paid for out of pocket instead of with insurance.) He was asked to read letters off a poster a few feet away from him. He couldn’t get past the second line. After some more tests, they were diagnosed with stage two coat’s disease in both eyes: their right slightly worse than their left. Which soon led to inflammation and retinal detachment, or stage three, which caused them to lose most of their vision. It was caught too late and could not be treated. They tried not to think about it. The f*cking irony of it. How hadn’t they noticed anything before??

At the very end of the week, he had a job. He assured himself he could do it. The owner of some Snowchester woodworking company was angry at his girlfriend for leaving him. Punz was paid thirty thousand dollars to find her, and then to kill her.

Finding her was easy. She updated her Instagram frequently with videos and pictures of clubs, restaurants, and friends. There was a picture of her messed up Doordash order, looking like it had been practically thrown at her doorstep by the delivery person. The picture included her front door. They found ways around the blurriness and floaters in their vision to track her down from there.

Killing her was not easy. They did everything right- they ruined any cameras in the area, turned off her Wi-Fi, broke in, and found her in the kitchen trying to call the cops. They blinded her. She was too preoccupied with begging for her life to grab a kitchen knife.

Punz did something he had never done, in the history of his life. Something that would have Purpled accusing him of being a shapeshifter. Something that would make Schlatt roll his eyes and grab the gun himself.

Punz hesitated.

If there was a god- or, more importantly, if there was an afterlife- the afterlife would be a one way street. Since the death of Reaper, there hadn’t been any necromancers, at least not revealed ones, and there was no chance of this girl he had never met before ever making another Instagram post or eating another slice of pineapple pizza or going to her grandma’s for Yom Kippur ever again. (They were pulling everything they knew about her off Instagram.)

She was dark and blurry in front of him, kneeling in her own kitchen, and her face was covered by newly developed floaters in Punz’s vision, like fuzzy worms sitting on their eyes. They could not see if she was crying, but they knew she was. They had never been entirely afraid for their life like she was now. They only knew a fraction of what it felt like to be helpless, to face your humanity and think, Oh, god. Really?

Punz was as accountable as anyone else. He was not special or different, and he did not have the right to take life.

This was a bad feeling. This was a very bad feeling.

He left.

The angry man who hired him somehow got even angrier when the deal was broken. Punz just gave him his money back and told him to f*ck off. Word didn’t spread about the failed hit, but some of his closer contacts found out, and Purpled was shocked, suspicious, and a little hostile about it. Punz wished he could explain to his own brother exactly what they had been doing, and the things they had been running from. Both of them. But would it matter? Would Purpled listen? If he tried to repair something, or say hey, maybe family isn’t such a bad thing to focus on after all, maybe life is a gift and I’m scared to lose the only two people I’ve ever cared about in my life, would he get anything more than a scoff and a curse in his direction?

Before long, they experienced complete vision loss. They would know the layout of their house blind and deaf, so they didn’t experience too much difficulty getting around, but they could forget cleaning, forget cooking, and forget gardening. They never really told anyone, but Purpled eventually figured out they were struggling when they kept having to ask where specific foods were in the pantry and fridge.

And they could forget doing their own damn job. Sniping one of your customers’ competitors during their big speech from across the road is a whole ordeal when you cant f*cking see.

He stuck to home. He stopped answering calls. He stopped listening to rumors. He stuck to sweet tea and text-to-speech functions. He stuck to gardening until that became almost impossible, and then he started guessing at water levels and getting visitors to water his flowers for him. It felt good to help something grow instead of beating something into the dirt.

Purpled called him soft for it. Maybe he was right. But why had Punz ever considered that a bad thing? This wasn’t bad at all.

When Schlatt showed up again, Punz welcomed him in. They hadn’t spoken since that one blue lab fiasco when they were both seventeen or so. Schlatt had always, since their first meeting, stricken Punz as a weak kid. Physically and emotionally. Quick to anger, quick to bring to tears. Sometimes it was understandable. Bad things happened, and they seemed to happen often to Schlatt. Other times, the littlest things- losing a board game or getting plans cancelled- led to screaming fits. Punz- being a person of little empathy and sensing bad news from miles away- held him at careful arm’s length, which was more than could be said for Schlatt’s other friends, who often got sucked up into a loop of trying to please his insatiable need for complete control. Maybe it was because he was insecure about his bony structure and regular fractures, or maybe his parents influenced it somehow. Punz didn’t care to know. Nowadays, Schlatt was a rich man, which was what mattered.

He came to Punz with a friendly smile and talked for a while about old things. The good days. “Hey, remember that time I took you for a drink after a job and the bartender wouldn’t let us buy just because of your baby face? He was the only guy who ever figured out your ID was a fake, and it was cuz you looked six,” He laughed. “Or maybe he was the only bartender in the city who cared about reserving alcohol for the adults. Who knows.” Punz tried to ask him why he had come. “Oh, do you remember that time you lit a gas station on fire? Oh, man, it just burned and burned and burned- I don’t think that cashier made it out, either. That was the best night. I think about it a lot.” Punz did not think about it a lot. “Oh, wait, f*ck! Remember when we almost convinced your little brother to pickpocket someone when he was like, ten? Your grandma was pissed. I was gonna take the fall for you, but I didn’t quite get a chance, did I? I miss those days. I miss not caring about sh*t. Man, I was f*cked up, though.”

Did that insinuate that Schlatt had changed since? Punz also missed those days, but they didn’t think about Schlatt very often. They didn’t want to think about Schlatt as a friend. They didn’t really want to think about Schlatt at all.

(Could they blame Schlatt for getting Punz into the criminal world? Was it his fault? Schlatt wasn’t the only influence. It was ultimately their own fault. They were never really some impressionable kid, they were genuinely selfish at times, and they could have had something good if they had just stuck with what they knew. Asking whether it was Schlatt’s fault was a stupid question, anyway. The past was something that happened and that was that. Was it Punz’s fault that Purpled was in this with them? Now that was a question.)

“Look, you and I both know that we’re smart,” Schlatt told him. “We know a lot better than a lot of other people. We see what’s going on in this city. Especially with the agency.”

Punz’s mouth twitched. “Yeah.”

“I’ve got a plan. And money to pull it off. And I think your talents are perfect for what I’ve got going on. I’ll pay for everything, I’ll plan everything, and you’ll barely have to lift a finger to help. I know you’re a busy man, but could you spare some time to get some people out of the way for me?”

No way in hell. “Who? And how are they in your way?”

“Just some vigilantes I can’t get ahold of. My plan involves some destruction, some lives taken. But that’s always been the price for a good coup. Right?”

A cue to agree. “Right.” But Punz didn’t agree. He just didn’t want to interrupt. He supposed that was the genius of it.

“Right.” He heard a shift and inferred Schlatt was crossing his legs.

“So, you’re taking down the agency for good?” Punz asked.

“Yes.”

“And you’re going to take innocent lives to do it?”

A pause. A reconstructed argument. “Who’s innocent? We live in the same city, right? Have you met a person who was wholly and entirely good?”

“No one is-“

“Yeah, exactly. Look, everyone’s a bad person! Right? Everyone, always, forever. And everyone is selfish. If no one was selfish, we’d all just kill ourselves, and it’d be the right thing to do.”

A few months ago, Punz would have just laughed and dismissed the horrific levels of 8^th grade pessimistic nihilism dripping off of Schlatt in rivulets. He didn’t know how he was meant to respond to that. It was… disgusting. Did he really believe that? Had Punz really believed that?

“So, it shouldn’t matter, should it? if I take a few lives on the way to a good future. I’m gonna make a good city. A great city. But I need the help of people who are smart, right?”

“…Right.”

“So, you’re gonna help me out.”

“N…no.”

A pause.

“No?” Schlatt echoed.

“No,” Punz told him again. “For one, you’re being really vague. And for two, I don’t feel like it.”

“I thought you never turned down a job?”

“Think of it like a vacation,” Punz sighed. “Who’s gonna water my flowers while I’m gone?”

He kept his gaze on the ground nonchalantly so Schlatt wouldn’t notice that it was difficult for him to maintain eye contact. He already knew what Schlatt’s eyes were like. Sharp and attentive, like he’s tearing your soul up with his teeth, like he knows you already.

“I’m surprised,” Schlatt said. “You seem different.”

You don’t, Punz wanted to say.

That was the last time they saw Schlatt, but it wasn’t the last time they heard of him. From that point forward, Schlatt sent his ‘friends’ every once in a while to come and try to talk some sense into Punz about joining. It was irritating, but after the fourth or so try, they got the message. The last time Punz heard Schlatt’s name was the time they got a letter from him. They had to have Purpled read it to them. The letter enclosed Schlatt’s base address and some sentiments of sorrow about not rekindling their nonexistent friendship.

--

“When I saw you, I thought you were more of his friends. I was hostile. But I don’t want to kill anyone anymore,” Punz explained. “Not for him and not for you. I just want to figure out how to water my flowers and how to help Nana. That’s it.”

“I don’t know how to help you with your flowers,” Wilbur admitted sheepishly, feeling his voice slice like a knife through the storytelling aura that Punz had achieved. “Or with your… Nana. But I understand what it feels like, a little bit, to realize that you’ve been hurting people, and that you want to help instead. I know the guilt. I’m trying to help the people I care about, too.”

Punz sighed and didn’t reply.

“Why didn’t you say something earlier about your sight?”

“It makes me an easy target. I was the best at my job for a long time, but all this came on so suddenly, and even if I did want to continue my work, I couldn’t. I haven’t learned to defend myself under these conditions. I’m vulnerable for the first time in a decade… so Purpled is the only one who knows.”

“Does it feel isolating?” Wilbur inquired without really thinking about it.

“…Sometimes,” Punz said. The loneliness was there. “I’m the only person I know with sight problems beyond needing glasses or being colorblind. I haven’t taken any interest in the blind community before this, and I was so isolated beforehand anyway that this just feels like an extra barrier. I can still communicate like I always do, and I experience a lot of the same things, but it’s… different. It’s hard when the only person who seems to understand me is me, and then sometimes even I don’t understand me, and that can suck.”

“…I understand,” Wilbur tried. “Well, no, I don’t really understand, because I’m not you. I haven’t experienced what you’ve experienced. I just… I can process what you say in a way that makes sense to me, and I’m sorry for all of it.”

“You don’t have to apologize. You aren’t the one who built a world surrounding abled people. And besides, I’m the killer for hire, here,” Punz joked.

They sat there on the porch bench, watching the flowers, trying to think of what to say next. Birds warbled. A chipmunk raced up a tree.

“I think it’s good that you’re turning over a new leaf and all that,” Wilbur commented. “And a good deed would be a way to do it. We don’t need your physical help if you don’t think you’re up for it, but you did say you got a letter from Schlatt enclosing his base address. It would be useful. Schlatt sent the same letter to plenty of people, so there would be no way for him to know if we got his address from you or someone else.”

Punz tilted their head. “Oh, the address. I didn’t even think about that. Yeah, I can give it to you.”

The mercenary got up, stretched for a moment, and then proceeded towards the back door to the cabin. Wilbur got up to follow him, but not before Punz stopped and turned around.

“Hold on, one more thing. Your ‘friend’ in there,” Punz said, gesturing to the cabin and ultimately to Q, “Was he ever anything other than a vigilante?”

“I… what?”

“It’s okay if you don’t know, I just… I recognize his voice. It’s kind a scratching at me. I’ve heard it before.”

“…Well, he is a pretty important vigilante,” Wilbur shrugged. “Maybe you’ve fought him.”

“Dunno. It feels deeper than that. Never mind.”

They entered the kitchen again. The sound of the birds and the bugs disappeared, replaced instead by the silence of the house and Q’s droning nerves.

“I’ll get the address from my office,” Punz told him. “You can go talk to your friend. …And I’d rather you didn’t tell him about my situation.”

“If that’s what you want,” Wilbur conceded. Punz shot him what he assumed was a rare smile and disappeared into the hallway to the left of the refrigerator.

Wilbur left the kitchen. He caught Q cross-legged on the sofa with a magazine and a blue pen he probably found by snooping around. His mask was off. He was extremely focused on a word search for kids printed in large, goofy font. Wilbur couldn’t tell if he was looking for the actual list of words, or if he had moved on from those and was now looking for hidden profanities like he often did. But Wilbur could feel the geometry of it in his chest- the letter after letter after letter searched, the skipping lines, the getting to the bottom of the page and still not having found a word. Q’s eyebrows furrowed together.

There was a moment hidden here of how things were meant to be. The peace in seclusion, Q relaxing with a menial task and not panicking about anything in particular. The furniture and décor that had before seemed so out of place suddenly melded together perfectly in Wilbur’s mind, all aimed towards accentuating and complimenting one centerpiece: Q. And things seemed to make sense for that moment. Here was what he dreamed: the stillness between the breaths.

Until Wilbur realized he was staring at the same moment Q looked up at him, and he had to return to what was real.

“Oh, hey,” Q greeted almost kindly. Spending so much time on the word search probably made him forget that they were supposed to be at odds. “Is everything okay?”

He didn’t really want to know if everything was okay. He just wanted to know that they weren’t in danger.

“Yeah, definitely,” Wilbur responded. “It’s okay, he just had me water the flowers in his back garden in exchange for information.”

“Flowers? In this weather? What kind of flowers?”

“All kinds,” Wilbur said. “Tulips, sunflowers, hydrangeas. He said the soil here was like magic.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that about some places in the Badlands. That almost anything grows if you try hard enough,” Q murmured. “So, he has information?”

“An address,” Wilbur explained.

“Really?”

“Yeah. We’re gonna find out where Schlatt’s home base is.”

Q seemed relieved. At least one thing about his feelings was making sense today. “Good. That’s good. …Did he tell you why he couldn’t go help his grandma, or?”

“That’s a secret between me and him,” Wilbur told Q. “A secret that doesn’t hurt anybody, don’t worry.”

Q nodded and smiled. Smiled. When was the last time he’d done that? God, the very image of it. Lopsided, interrupted by scar tissue and nerve damage, perfect. Things could be okay now.

--

Punz’s office was a bit cold, but he didn’t have the energy to mess with a thermostat. He grumbled as he opened and closed cabinets. He needed one of those braille label maker things to find where he’d put things. Well, first he’d have to learn to read braille.

For now, they had an extremely bright flashlight that, when used on the highest setting, allowed them to read things they brought close to their eyes. They couldn’t see sh*t through shadows, blurriness, and floaters otherwise.

He found the binder where he kept important mail. (Mercenaries were often very organized. That way no one could underpay them or lie about a contract that had already been signed. They turned murder into a nice and neat business.) He found his office chair and pulled it up to his desk so he could start to look for the letter he needed.

They pulled out some letters and started to sort through them. They’d barely even begun to get frustrated with deciphering what the papers said before they heard a click from behind.

For a while, he just kept pulling letters out and putting them aside when they were no help. He expected this. (He expected it sooner, but it was fitting for it to happen now.) Mercenaries are not allowed to retire. Death is always holding their hand, tugging gently.

But the person behind Punz did something he had never done, in the history of his life. Something that would have Punz accusing him of being a shapeshifter. Something that would make Schlatt roll his eyes and grab the gun himself.

Purpled hesitated.

“I’m pretty sure I taught you not to hesitate,” Punz mumbled without turning around.

Purpled didn’t reply. He shifted slightly.

“And,” Punz added, “How many times do I have to tell you not to lean on your back leg when you aim?”

“Shut up.”

“Like what you really want to do is run away.”

“Shut up,” Purpled repeated under his breath, as though he’d expected this to be easy.

Punz spun around in his chair and looked at the shapeless, slightly differently colored shadow who he assumed was his little brother. “Why do you hesitate?”

Purpled didn’t reply.

“Are you really going to shoot me?”

Purpled didn’t reply.

“I’m your brother.”

“Family should never get in the way of work,” Purpled reminded them. “A job is a job.”

“Who hired you?”

“Does it matter? Do you care? Do you know how many people would pay to see you push up daisies?”

“It’s Schlatt,” Punz answered for him quietly. “You took the job he offered me.”

“Maybe.”

“He’s insane, Purpled.”

“He makes more sense than you do, nowadays,” Purpled answered.

“I wish I’d been a better influence on you.”

“I’m nineteen, not nine. You were barely an influence on me, don’t flatter yourself.”

“I wish I’d turned you in when you first killed your friend.”

“I would never have let you. And you’d never have the heart, and it would have made things worse-“

“Then I wish someone had woken us up,” Punz gritted, and Purpled didn’t have an answer. Punz stood from his chair. “I wish someone had helped us.”

“I don’t,” Purpled lied.

BANG.

Q’s whole body jolted and he stopped smiling suddenly. Wilbur looked up.

“You heard that, right?? Wilbur asked quickly. “I didn’t imagine-“

“No, I heard it, come on,” Q rushed, grabbing Wilbur’s arm and pulling him up. As they pulled their respective masks on, Wilbur saw that Q had a knife. He didn’t know where he’d been keeping that.

They both rushed out of the room towards the sound of the gunshot. Wilbur found his breath when he had to figure out where the office was- they burst into the bathroom first, then someone’s bedroom, then a dark room with an extremely bright flashlight casting long shadows with the papers spilled on the desk.

On the floor of that dark room, with only a flashlight to make him obvious, was a wounded mercenary.

Punz had a gunshot wound straight between the eyes.

Q’s first instinct was to take a step back. He stepped right into Wilbur, who grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it without thinking.

There was an eerie, buzzing silence. No emotion from Punz. Not even the slightest fog of slumber. It was as though he were a part of the floor itself.

“What happened?” Wilbur breathed, even though he knew what had happened. A chill went through him. Purpled.

“He tried to retire. That’s what happened,” Q answered sadly and quietly, like there was a holy silence here not to be disturbed.

The expression on Punz’s face was utterly plastic. They didn’t look real. Like maybe if Wilbur reached out and grabbed their hand, their flesh would be hard and cold, and he might find a seam where the two halves of the barbie doll were connected. But they were real. There were no seams. Blood pooled with sinister slowness around their head and stained their hair and stark white hoodie.

“The murderer could still be here,” Wilbur noted. “It- I saw Purpled go into the house when I was in the yard...” I let him into the house. I stood and I watched and I noticed how nervous he was and I let him into the house.

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t seen a dead body before. Their jobs entailed that they see lots of dead bodies, actually- but they hadn’t been expecting any death other than their own today, and this was out of nowhere, just as they thought they were safe.

Q was the first to remind himself of their job here and pull himself together (a skill that many in their position had learned from experience) and walked around the mercenary’s corpse to the desk. “Is the letter in this binder?” He asked. He took his mask down in the process.

“Probably,” Wilbur replied, beginning to gain his bearings. We were just talking about turning over a new leaf. “T-Tubbo’s letter had the address written on the inside of the envelope, not the letter, so it might be similar for Punz.”

Purpled was his brother. His brother who he loved and helped raise. I can’t even imagine the level of anti-intimacy rhetoric you have to consume before you’re capable of something like killing your brother. But do I only think that because of my connection with my own brothers? As fragile as it is, the most I’ve done is cut Techno’s cheek. Well, that’s the most I’ve ever managed to do considering my strength.

If I was the strong one, and I still held as much bitterness against him, would I have done worse? I’d like to believe that I care about him too much for that, but I really used to despise the ground he walked on, and that mixed with strength and corruption could end in a dead brother.

He’s stronger than me, and he didn’t like me much either. Could he have killed me? Did he ever think about it? No, he wouldn’t have. We’re still brothers.

But Purpled shot Punz straight through the head and felt more nervousness than guilt. Oh, God, Punz.

“Oh, f*ck it,” Q grumbled. He gathered the spilled papers he’d been looking through into the binder and picked up the whole thing with an arm. “I’ll look through these back at Eret’s. It has to be in here somewh-“

Something pressed hard against Wilbur’s temple. “Drop it.”

Q looked back and his eyes went wide as moons. His grip on the binder tightened instinctually.

Purpled grabbed Wilbur by the back of his neck and pushed him further into the room, so that he was almost stumbling over the corpse, all the while keeping a handgun steady against his head. “Drop the binder.”

Q did not need to be told what to do. He let go of it, not even looking where it landed. Wilbur watched it hit the floor hard. Some papers spilled out of it. His heart was louder.

The keys, with the emergency keychain, were deep in Q’s pocket. If he tried to reach for them- if he so much as moved his arm- Purpled might not wait long enough to see what he was reaching for.

“I dropped it,” Q pointed out. It was kind of hard to see and hear over the sheer fear, but Q was good at not visibly losing his sh*t. It wasn’t the first time in their lives that they had been threatened with a gun, but it’s not exactly the kind of thing that gets more comfortable with practice.

Purpled’s fingers were ice cold on the back of Wilbur’s neck. He kicked the binder aside. It thudded against the wall. Wilbur could not discern any emotion from him over the white hot shrieking light coming from Q’s chest.

Purpled sighed and relaxed by a single percent. “Go out into the hall and from there I’ll lead you both outside. Walk in front of me and don’t try anything or the tall guy dies. Don’t talk. Got it?”

Q nodded and walked past them into the hall.

From there, Purpled pushed them both through the house and out into the front yard. For some reason, the only coherent thought Wilbur could conjure was that if he had his own emergency button then they would be saved. Purpled was too busy staring holes in the back of Q’s head to watch Wilbur’s movements.

The yard was peaceful. Two hummingbirds fluttered about their respective feeder. Wilbur stumbled over the steps off the front porch and Purpled very nearly strangled him trying to keep him upright.

Is he planning to kill us in the yard? Did he take us out here just so he wouldn’t get blood on the carpet?

They stood still in the yard for a moment. Q turned to face Purpled again. His eyes darted to the weapons on the ground that they had dropped when they first arrived. No one spoke.

Wilbur tried to look in his peripheral vision to see what Purpled was doing. He was simply staring at the grass with an unreadable expression. He was thinking, or debating, or… hesitating?

I have contact with him. Can I use my power? It would be hard since Q is freaking the f*ck out, and I usually speak commands aloud, but there’s no harm in trying mentally, right?

You are feeling very sleepy, Wilbur tried, and hated that he sounded like he was trying to hypnotize the mercenary. He made his thoughts as loud as possible. You are extremely tired! And peaceful! And you don’t want to hurt anyone!

“Get in your car and get out of here,” Purpled barked. “I don’t care where you go, but you can’t be here.”

Woo! Did I do that? Or was that his free will?

He let go of Wilbur’s neck and took the barrel of the gun away from his temple, but it remained surely aimed. Q opened and closed his mouth, not sure if he’s allowed to protest.

“You can talk,” Purpled grumbled.

“We have a flat tire,” Q blurted.

Purpled’s eyes found the tire that Punz had shot a hole through. “Oh. Well, sh*t. I’ll just kill you then.”

“Wait wait wait!” Q insisted. “We have other means!”

“What other means?”

“A- uh- we have-“

“We have an enderman friend!” Wilbur finished for him. “We’ll just call him to pick us up. It’s fine, everything’s fine.”

“…Whatever. Just hurry up.

--

“So let me get this straight,” Sam started.

“Oh, god,” Q mumbled as though nauseous.

“You watered the mercenary’s flower garden for him.”

“To gain his trust,” Wilbur replied unsteadily.

“Sure. And he said he would give you Schlatt’s address. But then he got killed by Purpled halfway through finding it, and then Purpled, a child with a gun, forced you out of the house.”

Q nodded.

“And then,” Sam continued, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You called Ranboo, and left the car and all your weapons behind.

They stared at him.

“I quit,” Sam decided. He stood up from the table, ready to walk out the door of the bar. Q buried his face in his hands, and Wilbur bowed his head in embarrassment. The jukebox played an Elton John song that Wilbur hadn’t heard before.

Eret poked Sam’s shoulder (which was smoking, as the first sign of an oncoming explosion,) and blocked his path. “This isn’t a quittable job, king,” she informed him. “You instilled yourself as the boss, or whatever, so I think you’ve got to decide what to do about this.”

“What is there to do??” Tommy asked. He was sitting next to Wilbur and defending him periodically like a very agitated lawyer. “They did their best. They messed up. It’s un-pog. But they’ll have a chance to redeem themselves when they go with Ponk to find Foolish.”

Sam grimaced, as though the very idea of allowing the two buffoons anywhere near Ponk was traumatizing. “I get it, and I get that it isn’t your fault. I just… I mean… come on, guys. There wasn’t a single thing you could do while Purpled was walking you out?”

“He kept a gun to Wilbur’s head the entire time,” Q reminded Sam. “No, there wasn’t anything I could f*cking do.”

“Alright. Okay, fine. Okay. Well. Good job. I mean, not good job, but… you did… you did what you could. Thank you.”

Tommy poked Wilbur in the side. “Good job. You did a good job. I’m very proud.”

“Thank you, Tommy,” Wilbur huffed incredulously.

“I have to open in, like, half an hour,” Eret told them all. “I need this room vigilante-less by 12:45, got it?”

Everyone nodded their acknowledgement. Eret went into the kitchen.

Before leaving to go upstairs, Sam said, “Bl- uh, Wilbur? I’m going to make you an emergency button thing. I’m sorry I wasn’t thinking before.”

“Thank you. That’s- That’s okay, I didn’t mind.” It would have helped. “Sorry for the trouble.”

Sam smiled weakly and left the room.

Tommy stood up suddenly. “Wait, can I have one?? Hold on, Sam, I have to go get Techno soon! I want an emergency button thingy!” He ran after Sam and disappeared.

Q and Wilbur were left alone in the room. 30 minutes until opening.

Silence ensued. Wilbur sort of felt like they should talk about Punz, but he just didn’t know what to say.

Well, scratch that. He knew what he wanted to say, he was just afraid of starting another fight, or otherwise turning into a blubbering mess.

Punz had just decided to try and be good. And now he was going to rot alone in his house and attract animals.

“Did you… see Purpled at all, before he shot Punz?” Wilbur decided to ask.

“No, I thought you did,” Q answered flatly.

“I did. I saw him in the garden. I just thought… I thought maybe he went… there was a long time in between when I saw him and when Punz got shot. I thought maybe he found you and talked to you too.”

“No, I didn’t see him. I was focused on a magazine.”

“Was the word search fun?”

Q glanced at him, a little bit surprised that he’d noticed the word search. “Yeah… I found the word f*ck printed on accident.”

Wilbur smiled. He was quiet for a little while longer before he murmured, “When I spoke with Purpled, before he went in through the back door, I sensed he was nervous. I knew. I should have asked him why he didn’t just come in through the front door, or why he didn’t-“

“Stop that.”

“What?”

“Stop that,” Q repeated with exhaustion. “That thing you’re doing. You do it so much. Stop.”

“What? What thing??”

“That thing where something happens that you could have prevented if you had known you were supposed to prevent it.” Q emphasized. “Blaming yourself. Stop blaming yourself. This was going to happen even if we hadn’t been there at all. You couldn’t have known, it was out of our hands.”

“A man died,” Wilbur said matter-of-factly. “I’m going to feel a little sad.”

“You never feel sadness without guilt, and one day it’s going to kill you,” Q grumbled, and then got hit with an arrow of surprise as though he hadn’t expected to say it out loud.

Wilbur chose not to reply, though it took restraint. He’s right. He’s always so damn right.

“I’m sorry,” Q whispered.

“It’s fine. I guess I just… I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“They were brothers,” Wilbur pointed out. “Did that mean nothing?"

Q's shoulders rose and fell as he considered that. Wilbur loved him for this. Loved that he always listened so intently, always crafted his responses with care. The slow way someone molds clay on a turntable. Focused. Considerate.

"Everyone has problems in their family," Q said slowly. "That doesn't mean one is more severe or more important than another, but it means they're always different. Growing up, my family was just me and my moms, no siblings or aunts or uncles. My definition of a brother is someone who is close to me, who has been there with me, suffered with me. ...It also means that person hasn't f*cked me, or f*cked me over. Your definition of a brother is someone who shares your blood and your trauma. You were forced apart and pitted against each other and turned into dolls, but your family was all you had in the end, and you had to learn and grow together. Punz and Purpled were only brothers because they shared a mother. They shared a home. They never paid each other any mind, emotionally, and-"

"That can't be true," Wilbur interrupted. "I'm sorry for cutting in. I just... Punz told me things about Purpled. He was proud of him. He cared a lot about his little brother. I swear they did."

Quackity carefully took the new information and pressed it into the clay. "Then maybe Purpled didn't reciprocate that. Or maybe there was something Punz didn't know about. We don't know. We aren't them."

Wilbur grimaced, unsatisfied.

"But the point is, families are different. Drama is different. Maybe the worst thing you'd ever do to Techno is cut his cheek. That says nothing about Purpled. You tend tolook towards your own experiencetounderstand how other people act,which is a step in the right direction, but you won't get anywhere like that."

"They didn't grow up like I did," Wilbur concluded aloud.

"Yeah. You always let your past define your present. I understand that as well as anyone, but it just… it gets you into a lot of trouble.”

A holy silence came and went.

Q stood and started for the door upstairs. Wilbur straightened. “Hey, hold on. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Uh. Saving my life?” Wilbur answered sheepishly. “I know I’m not the most grateful person in the world. I tend to get weird and insecure when I can’t take care of sh*t myself… but you knew that.”

Q did not say, I know a lot about you. He only looked on with a conflicted expression.

“I don’t want to be like that anymore. I just want to say thank you. That’s it,” Wilbur finished.

Q seemed surprised. Confused, surprised, and a little suspicious… but proud, as well. “No problem,” He replied hesitantly. Then he laughed, “What, was I just supposed to see you get shot?” He then left.

The saddest thing is, I wouldn’t have been surprised if you had, Wilbur thought privately. But I was wrong.