Bad End Friends

Separation Anxiety

The Unknown was usually quiet. The citizens don't cause too much fuss and any problem was solved rather easily after a few days and in the off chance that it escalates Wirt would take care of it peacefully.

Noise and ruckus was a rare thing in this small space.

Was.

But then Wirt disappeared and never came back.

At first, Finn wasn't worried. Wirt's been known to do that from time to time and he always returned, so he only wandered around and greeted the few villagers that saw him as they went about their business.

He returned to the Mill where they usually stayed and wondered what to do. Immediately his mind began speculating about horrible things, taunting him with the possibility that Wirt wouldn't come back. Which was ridiculous but...

But that didn't stop his mind from thinking, what if?

What if Wirt didn't come back? What if he secretly hated him? What if he moves on like most of the people here and leave him alone forever because he hated him? What if he just disappears just like his own family?

No, he thinks to himself desperately. Wirt would never leave him, he promised he won't.But what if...

In the distance, snow was appearing in an alarming rate. Within seconds a blizzard was ravaging the whole of the Unknown with Finn standing at the middle, lost in paranoid thought.

A few minutes later...

Wirt returned from a brief errand on Earth-46 to buy a gift for Finn, he had been noticing that Finn's psychotic episodes were lessening and he figured that should be worth celebrating but when he stepped into the Unknown he was met with freezing cold.

Everything was frozen over with icicles the size of a giant's head. Creatures made of pure ice wandered around, dangerous and sentient.Fear and worry stabbed deep into his heart. Finn wouldn't resort to such grand feats of magic unless he was in danger or terrified or injured or...

Dying.

Panicked at such a dire possibility Wirt warped at the very eye of the storm where Finn's presence was the strongest. He remembered Greg's plight with horrifying clarity and his entire being screamed that he won't lose another brother again. He can't lose Finn the same way he lost Greg.

Finn was crying his heart out when Wirt appeared. Looking so utterly despondent with his arms wrapped around his knees and trying to look as small as possible. His frozen tears, a pile by his feet.

"Finn?" He didn't hear him. Wirt tried again, moving a little closer. "Finn?"

Finn looked up for a few seconds just staring at him before he unexpectedly threw himself at Wirt babbling words too fast for him to understand. The most he could do was rub his back and try to offer as much comfort as he could to the hysterical child.

"Finn, what happened?"

"Y-you were gone and I thought you were never gonna come back and I panicked."

"... I was gone for fifteen minutes."

This was the moment where it occurred to Wirt that he might have a problem. A problem he ignored in favor of basking in relief that Finn wasn't hurt or dead.

A problem he'll regret ignoring.

It wasn't immediately obvious but he did observe that anytime that he wasn't in immediate eyesight of Finn the temperature would steadily drop to freezing. Wirt figured he was just lonely and had a hard time adjusting on someone that won't leave or die when faced by his immense ice powers so when Bipper (or Dipper, how should he address him now?) came along and stayed with them Wirt thought the separation anxiety would ease up.

He was wrong.

It didn't abate, in fact it became worse. Though it was true that Dipper is no longer controlled by the demon's consciousness, every single action he makes is greatly influenced by him. Wirt could hardly leave those two alone by themselves, the possibility that they would kill each other was too high to risk.

Because Bipper takes extreme joy in making Finn cry and if Finn feels cornered then his next course of action is to kill and if he attempts to take Bipper's life then Bipper is liable to set things on fire and go berserk.

In short, the previous perpetual autumn days of the Unknown was replaced with sudden winters and hellish summers at a drop of a hat.

Often times Wirt would think up a million ways plus one on how to silence these two wards he had stupidly acquired and most of those plans involved a lot of murders of two specific brats. Although he was quick to dismiss these plans out of guilt, that didn't really stop him from pondering what it would be like to return to those old days of solitude and quiet. Days where there were no abrupt changes in temperature or overly attached brothers.

Bipper, Wirt recently discovered, also had separation anxiety.

That was a bad day, Wirt was off doing his duties as the Beast and Guardian with Finn lurking nearby and he was sure Bipper was doing the same when he felt significant damage to his realm. His immediate gut reaction was to warp to the location but doing so would panic Finn and he prefers not to have another out-of-place winter wonderland, he wondered distantly where Bipper had gone but dismissed it in order to focus on Finn.

"Finn, I have to go but I'll be back," he says reassuringly with his hands on Finn's shoulders. "I promise."

He didn't move away even as he felt the damage increasing until Finn nodded and took a step back.

He warped and found himself in a deep charred hole at the very centre of a blazing inferno, face-to-face with a crying Bipper.

"WHERE WERE YOU?!" he cried, tears pouring down his face and though he tried to hide it behind his anger, he looked... hurt. "I LOOKED AND LOOKED AND LOOKED AND YOU WEREN'T THERE! YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T LEAVE ME ALONE AGAIN!"

Wirt swallowed down the words I thought you were following me the whole time, because that would be a ridiculously bad idea and instead tried to calm him down by pulling him into a hug. He put a half-hearted fight before giving in and sobbing into his shoulder.

"You said... "Bipper accused softly. "You promised..."

"I'm sorry I lost track of you," he apologizes gently. "It won't happen again."

Great, another one. Wirt couldn't help but think, at this rate his own territory would end up getting destroyed the moment he gets out of his wards' line of sight. What have I gotten myself into?

Hey RS here and I just want to say I have no plans on writing romance.