Six Feet Under Chapter 15: The Closet Confession, a don't starve fanfic

Chapter 15, everybody! In which Wilson and Willow have a heart-to-heart and run into a very familiar ghost….We also reference the original Casper movie, and the TV show Dharma and Greg—it happens. :)

They were still running down the Dalí halls, Willow dragging Wilson along as they heard angry exclamations behind them.

"Quick!" Willow yelled, spotting a fork up ahead—and a literal fork, weirdly enough. "Which way!"

"I don't know!" Wilson yelped. "Uh, right! Go right!"

She did so, glancing back to see how close they were, put on the speed—

And slammed into someone who smelled like mold and several other unpleasant things, knocking her back and into Wilson. Her quickly-formed apology died upon spotting the guy's unhealthy pallor and taste for monochromatic stripes.

"Hey, watch where you're going!" the guy snapped.

"Sorry—people chasing us—" Willow began.

"Woah—say no more." The guy opened a door and shoved them in. "Quick—hide in here."

He shut the door, plunging them into darkness. Through the thick wood, she could hear him say, nonchalantly, "Hey, how ya doin'?"

"You!" someone squawked. "What are you doing here? Get him!"

Willow waited until she couldn't hear rapid footsteps before feeling around for a doorknob or a light switch. Upon kicking something metallic and hollow, it finally occurred to her to feel up in search of a light string. She found one and tugged.

Her eyebrows furrowed upon their location's illumination. "We're in a closet," she said finally and flatly. "A broom closet." She looked down to see what she had kicked—a bucket. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

She instead opted for looking at Wilson, who was very studiously looking at the top of his shoes and not at her. He looked like all the energy had been sucked out of him, and was just waiting for the killing blow.

"What happened?" Willow asked. When he didn't answer, she continued. "Back at the house. What happened? Why did Mrs. Wickerbottom want you gone? Wilson? Wilson, are you in there? Hey!" she slapped him in the chest. "I'm talking to you! Answer me already!"

Wilson flinched under her hit but didn't say anything.

"Don't do this to me," Willow ordered, eyes burning and the small of her back itching. "You're not allowed to just shut down like this on me. We're in this together, right? You can't just bail on me now!"

He was doing what she liked to call finger isometrics now: grabbing each individual finger and rolling it around in a circle. It was one reason why his hands were so limber, and under normal circumstances, it would have made her smirk. As it was, she slapped his hand irritably.

"Look at me already!" she yelled.

He did so finally, revealing a hunted and horrified and upset expression—

What made her stomach flip-flop, however, was the fact that his sclera were black and his irises were white. That wasn't normal.

"Start talking to me," she ordered. "What happened, and why did it happen?"

He was staring at a corner next to him, wringing his hands and shrugging his shoulders, mouth open but no sound coming out.

"Start talking, or I start force-feeding you that mop," Willow said.

And so he did.

She listened as he went through the whole thing from the moment it started going south, to that odd itch and the revelation and Mrs. Maitland and Maxwell….

By the time he had finished, he had slid down the side of the closet and was a crumpled heap on the floor, knees pulled up and hands cradling his head.

Willow, meanwhile, felt like someone had scooped her innards out.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.

Wilson said something unintelligible due to the muted volume.

"What?" she asked.

"I didn't want to lose you," he mumbled, still not looking up.

She still felt hollow inside as she slid down her own wall and sat opposite to him.

"Then why didn't you tell me?" she asked again, as evenly as she could muster.

"I thought," Wilson began, swallowed, continued. "I thought—I—I don't know anymore."

She was almost certain she could see some more of what made Wilson Wilson seep out, and she was fairly certain the shadows on his side looked weird. "You thought I'd hate you," she said.

"Yes," he said, barely audible.

"You're right. I do hate you."

His expression when he looked up was one of pained alarm—

Which switched to just pained when she bopped him on the forehead.

"I hate you for not thinking and I hate you for not telling me!" she exclaimed. "You should have told me from the beginning! What, did you think I couldn't handle this sort of thing? I can't when you let it build up and then dump it all on me! What's wrong with you?"

He was scrunched up in a corner again, and it occurred to her that she had done just what he had feared.

Which, she supposed, was why he had kept it to himself.

She took a few calming breaths, closed her eyes for a moment.

And then, ignoring the flinch when she touched his shoulder, pulled him into a hug.

"I hate what you did," she decided to clarify. "I don't hate you. You're my best friend—I love you."

"What?" Wilson asked, flat surprised.

Oh wow, did she really just say that? "You know, in the friend way," she said quickly.

She could actually feel the tension leave his body, and eventually he snaked his arms around her and returned the hug.

"I'm sorry," he said thickly into her shoulder. "I'm an idiot—I'm such an idiot."

"You are," she agreed, ignoring the mental image of the seersucker guy from earlier sticking his head in and telling them to get a room. Which made her think….

"Hey," she asked jokingly, sure that this was the way to get a laugh out of him. "You ever do it in a closet before?"

"Do what?" he asked sincerely.

"Never mind," she sighed, finally pulling away and watching him as he rubbed his face—his eyes were back to normal, she noted. "You think those goons chasing us are gone?"

"One can only hope," he said, running his fingers through his hair and heaving a sigh—well, at least he was starting to sound like his old self again.

She nodded and stood. "Come on then—let's go home."