Proud - DreamSMP

Chapter 8 - Curiosity Killed The Cat

Wilbur stepped out into the night air, his yellow jumper almost coiling around him as the cold air gently gnawed at his skin.

He sighed, frowning when he remembered he wasn't really breathing... The usual puff of what looked like cigarette smoke, what usually happened to his breath in the cold, wasn't there.

His grey eyes skimmed over the freezing water, ice forming around the dock, a sign of the changing seasons. Wilbur wished he could feel winter cold again. Sure, he felt cold... But this was a different type of cold. The type of chilling cold you feel when you walk into a damp, old room with a busted in window that let a horrid draft in. It wasn't pleasant.

He shook that thought off. He had a mission, and he'd be damned if he didn't let himself learn what he needed to know. He loved learning, and that look of understanding Schlatt gave him... Schlatt had to know something Wilbur didn't, right?

He walked down the walkway, his trainers making a soft thumping sound against the varnished wood. He remembered walking over wood when he was alive... He wore heeled boots then. The harsh snap of the heels against the "hot dog" van's floor was so, so familiar to him. He loved those boots... Somebody very special gave them to him.

Ghostbur stopped in his tracks. This is where he needed to go.

He went to open the door. "Wait- no..." he muttered to himself, simply phasing through the iron door with a little giggle to himself. He can't believe he forgot.

"Well, well, well, look what the damn cat dragged in!" Schlatt chuckled from behind his bars, his head poking through the iron as he leaned forward. "What do you want, eh?"
Wilbur swallowed thickly, a horrible lump in his throat. "S-Schlatt I..." he paused, waiting for an interruption. But Schlatt waited patiently.

"I just... You seem to know me, a-and you look like you know a lot of stuff I don't..." The ghost spoke cautiously. "I like to learn things a-and I was just wondering if you'd be willing, maybe, to tell me how you know me..."

Schlatt went silent. "I-If not I can leave-" "No! No, of course not Wil! I'm happy to tell you anything you wanna know!"
The goat hybrid grinned, his sunset eyes almost glowing in the harsh darkness of the smooth stone room.

"Really!?" Ghostbur's face lit up. "Yeah, of course! Sit down!" Schlatt chuckled warmly, a harsh contrast to the shrill cackling he let out at Phil's house.

"Then tell me how you know me then! The history books said we met but-" "You lost some of your memories, I know."

"Look Wil, me and you go way back. Way before this whole L'Manburg thing!" He spat out the nation's name like it was a bad word, his face screwing up in discomfort.
Wilbur nodded for him to continue.

"We used to play together, as kids I mean... I was the weird kid you found in your treehouse goin' through your snacks and shit. When Niki was on that trip? You used to have to hide me..." He said it like a question, unsure if Wil actually remembered that or not...

Wil took this as his cue to start thinking. He dug down into what he could remember, his eyebrows furrowing the longer he sat there in concentrated silence.

"I'm sorry, I-" "No no!Don't be sorry!" Schlatt chuckled and sat himself down on the floor. "You ain't got nothin' to be sorry for Wil." Schlatt's tone was soft and genuine, his eyes looking into Wilbur's with a comforting warm gaze.

Wil smiled a little, but it quickly fell to a frown. "I don't know why I don't remember you..."

Schlatt leaned forward slightly, his tail and his ears twitching ever so slightly. "You really wanna know?"

"Please!" His grey eyes sparkled under the little beam of moonlight coming from Schlatt's cell bar window. He had to know. What did Schlatt do that didn't make him happy in life? Surely he'd remember the good bits, right?

"You really wanna know? Curiosity killed the cat, Wil." Schlatt chuckled at the cheesiness of his own words, nodding when Wilbur didn't seem to back down.

"Alright, alright... Look, Wil, you remember the election right?"
"Yeah!" Wil nodded. "We won that!"

Schlatt shook his head. "No, uh... No you didn't Wil. I won. Me and Alex-" he physically recoiled at that name "-put our votes together..."

Wilbur went dead silent for a minute. "No- No we won! We won with like, fourty five percent of the votes!" He looked distressed, the tips of his fingers numbing as the cold crept in through the windows.
His eyes dropped to the floor, confusion wracking his brain while frostbite gnawed away at his nerves and tissue on his skull, blood vessels freezing over.

"Wil, hey, calm down!" Schlatt reached through the bars and gently placed his hand on Wilbur's knee. Wil snapped back into reality. "Is that why I was in that ravine?"

Schlatt sighed, his ears twitching. "Yeah... Look Wil, I'm gonna be honest with you, because apparantly nobody else will."

"Wilbur when I was elected, my first order was... Well, I exiled you and Tommy." he said it so bluntly. So non-chalant, like he didn't even realise the gravity of what he'd just said.

Wilbur was just dead silent, frozen with total shock. Like he'd been dunked in freezing cold water. What little of a timeline he'd managed to shamble together was falling apart at the seams. He could've sworn...

"But hey, don't worry bud! It's all in the past now, yeah? No hard feelings!" Wilbur looked up at Schlatt. He nodded.
"Sure, yeah. No hard feelings."

"Great, that's great! Hey, come on Wil, what else do you wanna know? Think of me like... Like an exposition dump!"
"Okay uh... Tell me about uhm..." Wilbur squeezed his eyes shut in thought, trying to find one specific thing in the messy ball of thoughts he had. "Tell me about... Fundy. He's all grown up now... What did I miss?"