A Guide For The Outsiders

Chapter 14: bootup complete

TW: PTSD, implied death, destruction, canon typical
Please let me know if I missed any

Tommy stood on the rooftop, staring out into the city. And at the hero complex. There had been new rules implemented by the government. One of which was tightening the restrictions, doing more thorough background checks, and cracking down on the vigilantes and villans.

Tommy doesn't know how to feel about it. He feels good about it, but something just doesn't feel right. Like his mind is being swayed, and his body can't help follow.

His head tells him he is comforted, more security, more regulations. Cracking down on the people who have otherwise been pretty unbothered. But his mind says he should be more wary and suspicious of the very in the shadows government.

"How are you doing Tommy?" Wilbur asked, standing beside him, looking over the city. Something about it felt familiar, in the way that deja-vu did. Eerie, with a little comfort.

"I don't know Wilbur. I don't know what to think anymore." Tommy said. "Sometimes it feels like my mind isn't my own, it feels like so long ago when Ranboo, Tubbo, and I used to play in the park. Or when I sparred with ERROR." He sat down, letting his legs dangle off the edge of the building. The world has never felt do big.

"This feels familiar." Wilbur said, with a faraway voice. Sitting beside Tommy.

Tommy twisted around to see the corner of Wilbur's lip quirk up in a melancholy smile. His eyes held the ghosts of emotions. Passion, fear, anger, sadness.

"It's like I'm rewatching my own life, with the same events happening in different ways. Parts of another world woven into this one, corruption woven into every thread, like the most macabre of tapestries." Wilbur looked at him, full, real emotions breaking through the glass that was what made Wilbur, Wilbur. "Only this time, there will be no reprieve, and no way out. We can only sit and watch the tapestry be woven in resignation."

Wilbur always had the gift of vision, allowing others to see what he means, and Tommy could only stare in fear as a tapestry of destruction is woven in his mind's eye.

"We have to do something! Have to fix it, solve it, PREVENT IT."

"Tommy." Wilbur said with infinite patience. "We can't."

In that moment, the young hero was the oldest he's ever been. Yet he's never felt so small.

"No. No! There has to be a way. We can't just sit back and watch it happen."

"Why not?" Wil asked, almost tiredly, he turned back to look at the city. "We sit back and watch everything happen around us, only jumping into the fray when it seems fit."

"I- I can't lose this, I can't lose everyone, Wilbur. I'm not you."

It was silent for a while, the only sound being the traffic below them, accompanied by the noxious smell of exhaust.

"I didn't want to lose everything." Wil said simply. "Hell, I didn't want to lose anything." He looked at Tommy again. "But I was so afraid of losing things, I broke them instead. Held them sp close to my chest that they snapped, shattered into thousands of pieces. Pieces I couldn't put back together even if I had a thousand years." He tipped his head back and stared at the sky, too much light pollution to actually see stars. "I did care. But it was futile in the end."

"Then I will make the most of the time left." Tommy said, and the air carried his words away, like a bittersweet melody, drifting out into space.

__________________________

Wilbur coming in with the philosophical fourth wall break.

Have a great day/night my friends!
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