Wirt has messed up. Badly.

No matter how many times he thinks things can't get worse, they do.

If he wasn't feeling so panicked right now he might have laughed- because once again, he's ruined everything.

He sits on the dusty floor of the driver's carriage, back against the door. He can't risk being seen. Greg… Greg can't see him, not like this. He doesn't deserve that. He should be happy, he should be safe, he should be home. He shouldn't have to see his brother-turned-beast, shouldn't have to see the very image of the one who tried to kill him. Wirt knows that he's already caused enough pain, back when he was still fully human. And on top of that he's already most likely traumatised his brother just now, with the edelwood, and the Train. Of course he hadn't meant anything to happen, he didn't expect anything to happen, but yet… it did. It seems like everything he touches is cursed. Like he himself is cursed. Perhaps it's some beyond-the-grave vengeance from killing the Beast, or perhaps it's simply been his fate all along to mess things up. It's only got worse, the consequences more dire, since running away. He feels more powerless than ever.

So he sits, in silence, back against the door. Oil slowly dripping down his cheeks. Trying to stop his thoughts from spiralling off track, trying to forget and ignore and deny his reality. He sits, and he listens. Perhaps his hearing has gotten better, or perhaps it's just the echoes in the Train, but he can hear crying.

—

A few carriages down from Wirt, a boy lies huddled under the seats, cold and alone and frightened. Wide eyes stare out at the edelwood lining the Train carriage's walls, watching, waiting. The branches do not move. They haven't since they brought him here, screaming. But still he watches. He doesn't know what else to do.

Greg doesn't like being alone. Too often had he been pushed away or ignored by his older brother, left to sit with his books and toys and no-one to share them with. Sure, he had his parents, but they had important adult things to do, and in terms of peers he was alone. He'd tried his best to get Wirt's approval- making jokes, singing songs while Wirt practised his clarinet, trying to give Sara the tape Wirt made her- but it was all met with disapproval. His jokes were bad apparently, his songs were an interruption, and taking Sara's tape is what had led them to the Unknown. His biggest mistake. Although it hadn't all been bad.

After returning from the Unknown, he wasn't so alone anymore. Wirt spent much more time with him, and when Wirt was at school he had Jason Funderburker to keep him company.

So then, when Wirt left, he'd been desperate to get him back. Of course he had. He couldn't lose him, not again. He refused to be alone again.

And now he'd lost Jason Funderburker too.

—

It's a long time before either of the brothers move. Greg, of course, is the first to brave the unknown. Crawling out from his hiding spot, he stands up on shaky legs. He surveys the Train. He thinks of Beatrice. Would she look for him, as she had for Wirt? Would she know how to find him? But then, she had said something about a train, hadn't she? She'd said something about a train… about the Train. The Train that might have taken Wirt. Greg looks towards the carriage door and through its grimy window, where he can see many more edelwood-filled carriages. He makes his decision.

—

Collapsed against the door, Wirt stares vacantly at the blur of orange and red leaves outside the Train. How had it come to this? Since leaving home, time had gone by in such a rush, from running away to leading the Train, and everything seemed to have gone out of control so fast. All his plans to fix things in some way, derailed so quick. It had all been very surreal, all seemed so confusing and fast that he'd just gone along with it, as though it was all just a dream. As though no of it truly mattered, as though none of it had real consequences.

But now, with Greg here, the reality crashes down upon him like a like a tree being felled, and it's suddenly all too much. The thought that the only life he'd ever known was gone, his home and family and school were all unreachable, hidden behind an impassable wall that he'd created. He was alone, stranded, lost, running away into the unknown. Cast aside by the unforgiving hand of fate, and left to rot. A sad, pathetic child sat crying on a train to nowhere.

The sound of hesitant footsteps breaks his spiralling. He freezes like a deer in headlights, listening. Wirt can hear the sound of shuffling feet, the quiet, shaky breathing of one who has been recently crying. He can hear the song the child is humming, almost inaudibly, as he approaches. Slowly, carefully, Wirt rises and peers through the small window into the next carriage. And there he is, there's Greg, there's the consequences of his actions laid out before him. His only brother, alone and scared and lost. And all he can do is stand and stare as the boy reaches a hand out to the door that separates them.

—

Greg opens the door.

Behind it is darkness. True darkness, deep and endless, broken only by two moon-bright eyes that are all too familiar. He stumbles back a few steps before pausing, eyes fixed on the beast before him. The creature is still, silent. It does not beckon him, or reach to take him. It does not speak deception and lies. It does not sing.

It just… stares.

Greg stares back. It's all he can do, in the moment. It feels like any sound, any movement, might break the spell and bring his end.

So he stares out into the void, and the void stares back.

—

After several minutes of paralysis, Wirt drifts back to reality and realises that the Train carriage is cast into shadow. With the shock of seeing Greg, and his apparent night vision, he hadn't even noticed. Once more he hadn't intended to do anything, hadn't even had time to think, but yet there was no other clear explanation for the thick darkness that had descended upon the carriage. Just him, and his panic, and the uncomfortable memory of a similar situation that he did not wish to replicate.

Wirt takes a breath, and forces the shadows to melt away. He falls to the floor, defeated, and awaits the consequences that he has brought upon himself.

—

The shadows fade into nothing, and Greg sees.

His mind doesn't quite process it at first, can't quite process it at first, and even when it does he's still not sure if what he's seeing is real. He's had plenty of weird dreams since the Unknown, dreams close enough to reality to make distinguishing them hard.

The boy before him does not move. He sits, head bowed, eyes closed tight. A hollow, empty shell of his brother, silent and still. The branches growing from his skull are unmistakable. The resemblance is uncanny.

Greg takes a step back.

Breathes.

Then slowly, carefully, he steps forward once more and wraps his arms around the figure before him. Wirt tenses, his eyes flying open in shock. He remembers to breathe.

And they cry.

Well it sure has been a long time since the last chapter. I'm sorry. Just know that this fic is not abandoned unless I say so, however long updates take. I'm still very interested in writing this, I'm just not good at pushing myself to actually write. And also things have been busy.

Anyway! They're back together! Now it's time for awkward conversations and Wirt facing consequences. Fun times!

— Pottsfield CM