Bad End...Friends?¿

Heroes

"Isn't it funny how we can go from villains to heroes so ridiculously fast?" Wirt said as a chilly breeze swept through the forest, picking up green and gold leaves and sending them swirling. He wondered what the point of wind was, in a fake world at least.

Finn shrugged.
"Were we ever villains? More importantly: are we heroes?"

Wirt scoffed
"Of course we're heroes! Just look at you, saving not just yourself but also me from Mabel!"

Finn dragged his tired feet along, as the morning sun shone down through the forest floor, he yawned.
"Everything we do is to protect us. We don't help others."

"We help each other." Wirt retorted, almost too quiet for Finn to hear.

"Accomplices to each other's crime." Finn said.

"When did you get so hypocritical?" Wirt mumbled.

Finn rubbed his blue eyes with the back of his hand.
"When did you stop being hypocritical?"

Wirt growled, letting his hair fall across his eyes.
"Who said I'm not hypocritical?! You're just stealing my job on the team!"

"Team?!"

Wirt frowned at Finn. They had agreed to sleep in shifts last night but Finn hadn't slept a single minute.

Wirt rolled his eyes at the angsty, angry boy.
"There's no denying we're a trio, even if we're missing a member. Smile for a change."

Finn seemed to choke on air
"Smile?! Who are you?!"

Wirt ran his tongue across his teeth inside his mouth. They were sharp, he could smile just to prove a point or he could be sensible.

Wirt was a rational boy so he continued without showing off his fangs unnecessarily
"Did you know that positivity can save your life? I've seen many a problem solved by my little brother's smile."

Finn looked up at Wirt.
"You have a brother?"

Wirt cursed himself internally and looked down at his dress shoes.
"Once I did. I could talk to him and see him and I was awful to him. Then I couldn't talk to him, and I became a killer. Now...he's not here at all, I left the lantern so that I wouldn't kill him accidentally. The Beast told me that was the safest option."

Finn kicked a rock in his path and it tumbled down a small divot.
"That's vague." He paused and ticked his finger against his chin.
"Hey, but didn't you say you were the Beast?"

"Y-yes...But lately...I don't feel like the Beast all the time."

Finn nodded, thinking he could understand, his bad mood was fleeting as curiosity took hold.
"So you feel bad when you do something bad?"

"Yes." Wirt answered simply. He knew what Finn was talking about, but he wasn't going to be the one to say it.

"I think Bipper is dead because we didn't save him." Finn claimed.
"That's why we're not heroes."

Wirt thought the same thing. But...he combatted those thoughts like his life depended on it, because it very well did. So he snapped at Finn as if snapping at his mind's more fragile ideals.
"Even if he isn't dead why would we go back to save him? It's saving both of our lives or a slight chance at saving his, what has he ever done for us?!"

Finn looked down at his metal arm.
"You're right, I guess. But...I still feel like it's my fault."

Talking about Greg poisoned Wirt's patience.
"Ugh, You're so new to this guilt, huh!? Well it is your fault but just shut up about it because that guilt isn't helping!" Wirt snapped.

The boys walked silently through the forest, now both scowling and avoiding eye contact.

Finn just had to ruin Wirt's first good morning in years.
Make him feel all guilty and frustrated.

You know the Widower's game! Kill him!
Wirt thought as he clenched his fists.

He stopped in his tracks. It wasn't the Beast that said that.
It was his own conscious mind.

Wirt always blamed the Beast for dark thoughts but...what if some of them were his own?

"Finn, wait up-" he ran a few steps to catch up with the shorter blonde.

Finn didn't look up at him until Wirt snapped his fingers and called out
"Finn! Look!" He pointed ahead of them and Finn stumbled back as he looked up.

"W-what on Earth?!" He shrieked.

In front of them, the world itself seemed to fade to nothingness. A white sea of emptiness.

Wirt reached out a hand and turned it over in the white abyss.

"She didn't finish designing the world before she was killed." Said a voice, both boys jumped.

Finn unbuttoned his jacket and pulled something out of it's inner pocket.

Wirt growled.
"You brought the mirror?!"

Finn seemed to shrink on the spot.
"Well, well- first you said to bring it...you only changed your mind because Bill-"

"But I changed my mind!" Wirt snapped.
"I'm the only one around here with half a brain cell!"

Lapis interjected.
"If you go into the emptiness you can wormhole to anywhere else in this small world." She claimed.

Finn smiled down at the mirror.
"Woah!! No way!" He cheered as he stepped forward.

Wirt grabbed the boy's sleeve.
"Where do you think you're going?"

Finn took a deep breath and tore away from Wirt's grip.
"I think you know."