Chapter 4 of 5

Two Worlds

Wilson's POV

Just as the stench of the wasteland burned in my throat for the rest of the day, the weight of Winona's words burned in my mind. Since I had returned back to our camp that day, she had barely spoken a single word to me. Winona was far from the most talkative of the group, but the deliberate coldness from her made it feel all the more threatening.

I had known for some time that something was wrong with me. The ice that pricked at my heart waxed and waned like the phases of the moon, melting enough for glimmers of affection to shine through then freezing so thick that my heart stuttered under the pressure.

Right before we went through the Door, I had started hearing the voice in my head, a third party, speaking to me. After going through the Door, that voice had melted into something else. Something more personal. Really, closer to my own thoughts than the words of some other entity. The random appearance and subsequent disappearance of Nightmare's voice had thrown me off guard for some time, but now I was beginning to believe that Nightmare had only stopped directly communicating with me because it had gotten exactly what it had wanted. It had gotten in, and now it was poisoning my body inch by inch.

And, if Wilbur's words had any truth, it was only able to do that because I was missing something. Missing something vital.

I knew this was something I was going to have to ask the others about. On my own, I had made no progress. Some days, I felt like things had gotten worse than before, even when I was trying to be my old self.

As I settled for sleep, I turned my thoughts over in my head slowly. I wanted to hear others' thoughts on the topic. Every person had a slightly different definition of the word love, and I was beginning to believe that the only way to find my own definition was by learning what the word meant to other people.

I didn't hear the word much growing up. I had no siblings and my parents had always been distant with me.

Perhaps I had never quite understood what love meant at all.

I managed to catch Wilbur alone early in the morning. Winona was still asleep and while Webber had already woken up, he immediately drifted away to examine each of the new fruits he had never seen before. Wilbur had been dozing slightly, humming something under his breath as he relaxed by the fire, but he perked up the second he noticed my attempt at his attention.

"Wait wait, before you say anything," the prime ape said lightly. "Lemme guess. Winona absolutely roasted you and now you feel bad. Coming for advice from the elderly, ay?" He gave a sort of cheeky grin, although it wasn't full. It never was full when he was talking to me, I realized.

"I- she didn't-" I immediately jumped to protest, but the words died on my tongue. Instead, I released it with a sigh. "I just want to get your opinion on something."

"Mm." He leaned forward, eyes glittering. "Shoot then, Science Man."

"By your definition," I started slowly. I had to pick my words carefully so as to not embarrass myself more than this conversation was already embarrassing me. "What, exactly, is love?"

There was a moment of silence, followed by a low chuckle on Wilbur's end. "Oh-ho-ho, she roasted you. Really hit where it hurts. Alright, I'll bite." Again, he was quiet, although I could see the way he was picking his own words. This conversation was bound to be an unfairly long one if both parties were spending several seconds between each response just to gather their words. Still, I found myself waiting with bated breath, endlessly curious as to what his answer would be. "Love is an umbrella term," he settled on. "It means a million different things, and it really just… depends on who you're talking to. What it means to me won't be exactly what it means to you."

"What does it mean to you, then?" I pressed. His non-answer made a spark of annoyance flutter in my chest, but it died quickly. Smothered entirely by the curiosity of his vague statement.

"To me, it's panic," Wilbur said simply. I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, but he raised a hand before I could get any words out. "Not in a bad sort of way. It's hard to just describe with words. It's a kind of panic that you feel all the time in the background, but all of that panic is aimed at the well-being of the one you love. Are they eating enough? Are they sad? Do they need me? Will they be okay? A constant stream of questions with answers that constantly change. And yet, every single one of those questions is worth it when you see how you help them. How they act in your presence. When you're simply with them. Obviously, there's different kinds and they all feel different. Romantic love feels different from parental love, and that feels different from familial love. On top of that, the way you feel about each individual person also changes." A soft sort of smile appeared on his face as if he was starting to drift in memories. "Even though I was always worrying about her well-being, I knew very well that Roselyn would be okay. I wasn't as worried about her because I knew that she could take care of herself. She knew how my mind worked and she was always careful to take care of herself in order to keep me from panicking too hard.

"Elizabeth, I was panicking almost every moment she wasn't in my line of sight. She clearly took after her mother, but she was also so little. I believe she inherited my unfortunate stature until she was almost an adult at least. But no matter what, all I ever saw when I thought of her… heh, even now, all I ever think of is the first time I ever saw her. She was so fragile. So tiny. I was scared that she wouldn't grow up to find a good mate. What if something happened while I was asleep and she got hurt? What if she wandered off?"

"That sounds awful," I huffed. I crossed my arms and gave the monkey an appraising look. It sounded like love had done nothing but hurt Wilbur, and yet, he still had this ridiculous dreamy expression on his face. "Why would you want that?"

"You want me to say it's addictive," Wilbur said smoothly, shaking off his daze. "That it's like a drug. But once again, you're wrong." I frowned at his accurate assessment of my thought process, and at the idea that that conclusion was somehow incorrect. Wilbur sighed. "Look, I can't properly do this without either a little bit of metaphor, or a whole lot of poetic drabble, okay?"

I motioned for him to continue. He was starting to spin his words in a circle at this rate.

"So remember the last world we went through? And like, how it absolutely sucked going through it and how it was the most unbearably cold time of any of our lives?"

I quirked an eyebrow. "If I didn't, that would be concerning, considering that was literally just a few days ago."

"Well," Wilbur continued, entirely ignoring the sarcastic bite of my response. "Imagine you're stuck in that again. You're freezing cold and you're nonstop thinking of getting back to camp. All you can think about is how nice it'll be when you get to sit by the fire again and warm up. Maybe get some nice hot soup to help warm you up."

I hummed.

"Imagine all of that, but instead of a campfire and hot soup, it's a person. You're out on an adventure, and all you can think about is getting to return to someone. You feel uncomfortable without them, and when you're with them, you're able to feel safe and comfortable. Like how a campfire would make you feel on a cold day."

I considered his words, trying to place them with a feeling. It sounded like Wilbur was speaking more about romantic love than anything else. Although, considering what he was saying a few minutes ago, it was likely he treated parental love the same way. I could imagine the distinct difference between the two, but it was clear he was trying to define it as a general feeling.

Did he really feel that way about more than just his late mate? Did he struggle to feel comfortable or happy without his daughter?

But he had said before that he loved Webber, too. Surely he didn't harbor such strong emotions for him, right?

Besides, Wilbur was comparing love to the human necessity of warmth. Humans couldn't live without warmth, but they certainly could live without love.

"That doesn't make sense," I said aloud. "I mean, that's how I've heard people describe romantic love, but as an umbrella term? That doesn't make any sense at all."

"Well, you know as well as I do there are some different aspects to romantic love," Wilbur said with a wink. "Which don't apply to other kinds of love. But we're trying to keep this child friendly, so sticking to general feelings." He wagged one hand in the air. "I'd like to remind you, though, that I've never held any love for my blood family. I love Roselyn and my kids, but the kind of love you feel with siblings or parents is lost on me. You'd have to ask the others about that, but I imagine there's less of a constant panicky stress factor in those cases."

"If it's so stressful though, why bother with it in the first place?"

Wilbur tipped his head up and laughed hysterically. "Oh-ho-ho, my sweet summer child," he breathed between great bouts of laughter. "Bold of you to assume you choose to love someone. It's wonderful and stressful and awful and amazing and every other contradiction you can think of, but you can't simply choose to do it." After a good few moments, he finally seemed to get himself under control. "It simply smashes into you like a charging water beefalo and then crushes you against your will, but who's complaining?" He turned his head back to the fire, still chuckling slightly under his breath. "I can't really explain it to someone who doesn't understand, but it is so, so worth it.

"Besides," he continued. "What better way to keep our buddy Nightmare out of your head? Pick your poison, Wilson. At least in one of the cases, you have a support system to fall back on. I don't think Nightmare is great at comforting people, and you might get killed for trying. What do I know, though? After all, I'm just a silly little guy. If I were you, I'd do some more of your own investigation into what it means to you. Like I said, everyone experiences love differently." Wilbur paused, then added: "Ask Winona about the other kinds of love; you're S-O-L on that with me." I gave him a sort of noncommittal grunt in response, and he gave me a strange sort of smile. "Good luck on your journey of self-discovery. I hope you get exactly zero of the answers you want and all of the answers you need."

Which meant my questioning wasn't done.

Given, Wilbur's description and explanation had given me a sort of starting point, but I simply couldn't fathom what was so positive about love if it seemed like it brought the monkey nothing but stress. Wilbur had also confirmed my idea that he spoke exclusively about his found family. His lack of knowledge in this was palpable but understandable. After all, were he and I not in the same boat in that case? Two people that had never managed to discover the real concept of love in our own families?

I debated dropping the idea entirely. He was right in saying that Winona would be my best bet, considering her loyalty and love for her sister, but the thought of asking her any personal question like that was enough to deter me. I could already imagine the smug and/or angry look on her face, depending on whether she was taking my questioning as a win on her part or a simple return to form on mine.

Hadn't she said she believed I only cared when I felt guilty?

But what was love if it was not trying when you believed it warranted trying?

I did have another option, but it was equally undesirable. Webber was still very young, young enough to remember the soft moments with his parents without the wider scope of how their failures of parenting caused issues that would extend into adulthood. I certainly remembered some of the warmer times with my own parents- being taken care of when sick, or their support in my studies- but anything positive was overshadowed by the negatives of how they raised me and how that shaped the negative parts of my personality. Webber wouldn't have that yet.

He also had a sister, one that he had once supposedly been as close to as Winona to Charlie. There was something deeply troubling about his relationship with her, though, some sort of deep pain and guilt that shadowed his face whenever he mentioned her. I doubted he would be open to talking about her.

Oh, and not to mention the fact that I simply really really really did not want to talk to a nine-year-old who hated me about something that was decidedly a more mature topic. Or maybe I just didn't want to talk specifically to Webber. Both were quite possible to be honest.

So, Winona it was.

I had to swallow my pride first, and that took longer than I wanted to admit. The curiosity nagged incessantly at me, but the risk of being immediately brushed off or worse, laughed at, kept me from saying anything for a while.

I couldn't dodge it forever, though. Of the group, Winona was the most likely for me to be left alone with, so it wasn't very long before I found myself alone with her.

She was still cold to me, speaking very little and only really interacting when she couldn't get away without it. It had been a few days at this point, and I was honestly starting to get a little annoyed with her cold shoulder. I hadn't even done anything wrong, we had simply had an argument. It seemed like a ridiculous thing to hold a grudge about.

Wilbur had practically pushed me out of the camp, though, giving me a conspiratorial wink just in case I didn't already realize that he was trying to set this conversation up. Once more: annoying, but at least in this case, it was somewhat helpful for the circumstance.

I had to jog to catch up with Winona and I wasn't trying to be sneaky, so she was well aware that I was behind her. She paused to let me catch up, her face kept carefully blank and her mouth pressed into a thin line. "What?"

"Where are you going?" I asked, trying to pretend as if I wasn't winded. I was pretty sure my charade didn't work, but she didn't acknowledge it.

Her neutral expression drifted into a frown, and she let out a sigh. I took a slight step back, but it appeared her scowl was not aimed at me this time. "I'm going to check out that spot we found the other day. I don't know exactly what it is, but I was hoping now that I know what I'm getting into, have a better idea of what I'm looking for."

"...Ah." Frankly, I should've expected that she still had the wasteland on her mind. I had been preoccupied with my own miniature investigation, but she didn't have those distractions. "Mind if I join?"

"Mm." Winona shrugged, although she still didn't look happy about it. "Getting too stuffy around camp? Or trying to suck up?" There was a surprisingly teasing note in her voice, which caught me off guard with the way she had been acting around me lately.

"Um. Stuffy," I said lamely. "There's only so long I can drown in food and comfort before I need some terrifying eldritch wasteland to liven up my days."

She bobbed her head as if in agreement, then turned again to continue walking. I trailed a few steps behind her, struggling to gather the words for what I was going to ask.

"I… have been thinking a lot about what you said the other day," I started after several uncomfortable moments of silence. Immediately, I could see Winona's interest pique in the slight rise of her shoulders and the smallest of stutter-steps as her attention focused elsewhere.

"I figured you would," she said. "I probably should apologize for it, shouldn't I? I was pretty harsh." She didn't sound very apologetic, but that wasn't my point anyway. I shook my head even though she wasn't looking towards me.

"No, sometimes you have to be harsh to get someone to listen." I picked at my fingernails, a distant voice scolding me for making my fingers bleed as I dug a little too deep. "It… kind of made me realize that I don't think I've ever really… experienced love."

Winona physically balked at that. She threw a look over her shoulder, incredulity painted across her face. "Like, romantic love or any kind of love? Cause not everyone falls in-"

"Any kind," I interrupted before she could even finish her sentence. I was already struggling with the most common forms of love, apparently, and I had no intention of getting into the ins and outs of the difference between familial/platonic love and romantic love. Even just the thought of the latter kind of made me sick to my stomach.

"...oh." I could hear the sour note in her voice. "You… must not have had a very good relationship with your family."

I scoffed. "We've always been distant. Not… much in common between them and me." A sigh blew past my lips. "I didn't have a bad relationship with them, per say. Just… not a close one." Little drops of blood caught under my thumbnail. I frowned unhappily at it. "I… talked with Wilbur, but he also didn't really have any sort of relationship with his parents or siblings. I wanted to talk to someone who… did know what that was like."

"That's… I mean… that's just really sad, Wilson."

"I didn't think there was anything wrong with it," I responded softly. "I lived just fine without it. Dare say, I was even perfectly happy on my own. A nice little house tucked away from society, far from expectations or judgement. It was everything I wanted."

"But it wasn't, was it?"

I finally lowered my hands, wincing at the sting of my abused fingertips as I turned my gaze towards the sky. "I suppose it wasn't."

"When did things start getting… I don't know. Getting bad, I guess? When you realized that it wasn't normal?"

"More recently than I'd like to admit," I said with a humorless chuckle. "Sounds bad, I know, but…" My next inhale brought in a whiff of the sour stench from before. I found myself wincing against it as my sinuses burned. I had to clear my throat to speak again. "I don't know when, exactly. I guess I started thinking something was strange after Wilbur joined us. He was so… protective over Webber. When he actually started to talk to us, Wilbur kept saying that he loved the kid. I just didn't understand it." I folded my hands together, further smearing little bits of blood from my still-bleeding thumb across my skin. "I never said that. I never… felt like that."

Winona was quiet for a moment, and I could tell she was gathering her words. When talking to Wilbur, the prime ape had seemed more than happy to contradict himself every other sentence about what the concept meant to him. I appreciated the difference between my two companions, and the way Winona really seemed to be trying to find the best words for what she wanted to say. "If you don't mind me asking… what was your relationship with Tyler like? Before…" she waved her hands as if trying to catch some vague statement. "Before I came here?" She finished lamely. I could almost hear the other words she almost used.

I wondered, just for a moment, if she wanted to say 'before you died'. But Winona hadn't been there for that. She hadn't known any of us until months after the fight against the Dragonfly. She had never known me before Nightmare's meddling.

Suddenly, a memory flared in my mind, one I knew for sure was not brought on by the wasteland but brought on entirely by the conversation at hand.

"We were close," I said dazedly. "But I didn't think we were that close. He and WX- they fought all the time, you know that, but that meant the role of responsible adult kind of fell to me. He always got injured. Always has, and I'm pretty sure he always will." A sort of sardonic chuckle rose in my chest. "If I had a dollar for every time that kid got himself in trouble and had to have someone else save his sorry butt, I'd be rich enough to buy Maxwell's stupid suit off of his body. So I tried to look out for him because… I mean, he's still small, but he was tiny when I first met him. He barely reached my waist.

"Then… we fought the Dragonfly." I could feel my voice starting to sputter slightly, and I had to swallow back saliva to prevent spitting everywhere. "And she killed me." It was so simple to say, but it was never so simple to think. I had died. I had died. "They both fell apart, Winona. WX would never admit it, but they grieved for me." My heart stuttered in my chest at the thought. "They grieved for me," I said again, my voice small. "And Webber… he was devastated. He was pretty injured himself in the fight, so he was out of it for a couple of days, but when he finally fully woke up, he…"

I hadn't noticed until now that we had stopped walking entirely. I covered my face with my hands to hide the wetness I could feel pricking at the corners.

"He called himself my son," I choked out. "I never thought of him that way. I never thought that… why did he see me as a father? Why would he? I don't understand. I just… I don't."

"But you came back," Winona reminded me softly. A quick glance from between my fingers showed a downright tragic expression on her face. Sadness and grief, and pain knowing what was coming. My fall from grace. My fall from being someone who could be loved. "What happened then?"

I didn't want to say it. Even with my eyes covered, I still squeezed them shut, desperate to shield myself from the torrent of emotions that were bound to come from the continuation.

"When I came back… he was so happy. I think that was the first time I ever heard him purr, and he was purring so loud he could barely speak. He… he asked me if he could call me 'pa'."

"Wilson…"

"I should've said no, Winona. I should've! I don't know why I didn't! I strung him along into thinking I loved him in the way he loved me and I just… I shouldn't have. I know it was wrong, and I think I knew it was wrong at the time, but how do you tell a child that the person they look up to- the person they see as their father- doesn't love them?"

"You don't…-"

"You wanna know the worst part, though?" I rushed forward. The words were pouring out of me now, swirling like a rancid pool in my stomach and tasting like acid as they came out. Thoughts and feelings and emotions that had been dulled by Nightmare's haze suddenly razor sharp and in full focus. Guilt and grief and terror and guilt- "I remember trying to kill him, Winona. I remember every single second of it. Of stabbing a knife through his hand and pinning him down. Of the… the effort it took to cut out his eye. I remember-" a choked inhale that was held, held, held. I didn't know what would come out if I let it out. "I remember, even when he was so scared and he- I could see it in his eyes, he knew what was going to happen- and still, still…" I was only able to take my hand away from my face by instead turning my grip to my hair, inevitably dotting half-dried flecks of blood over my scalp. "He still called me papa. He knew what I was going to do, and he still clung to me like a father."

A gentle, hesitant hand touched my shoulder as if the handywoman was unsure of what else to do. I shuddered under the touch.

"Isn't that just awful, Winona?" I whispered. "Aren't I just a godawful person?"
"It wasn't you who did those things though, Wilson," Winona said gently. "I know this, you know this, and I know that Tyler knows this. What happened- that was Nightmare, not you."

"And if I had only been able to love him the way he loved me, it never would've happened at all."

Winona had no response to that.

If I wasn't so screwed up, if I wasn't so incapable of loving, Nightmare never would have been able to keep me in its grasp. Those nights never would have happened. Webber would have never been crippled.

We never would have been forced through Maxwell's Door.

"Have… have you ever told him these things, Wilson?"

I laughed wryly at the thought. "I never even said I was sorry, Winona."

And again, silence. After everything that had happened, after everything I had done… I wasn't even able to give him the smallest speck of courtesy by simply apologizing for what had happened.

"Why… why wouldn't you say you were sorry?" She cautioned after a long, uncomfortably tense moment. "After all of that… you didn't…?"

"Too little, too late," I said grimly. "'Sorry' wasn't going to magically heal him. 'Sorry' wasn't going to go back in time and stop it from happening."

"Do you think he holds it against you?"

A sigh.

"Not sure," I muttered. "I know he's still scared of me, at least a bit. But I wouldn't expect anything else."

"I know that… your feelings about Tyler are complicated," Winona said quietly. I sneered at the ground. What an understatement. "But… what about the others? Wilbur and WX-78?"

Even though I wanted to answer, my mouth was frozen around the words. Wilbur, WX, Winona… I cared about them, and about Webber to an extent. I had once held the same regard for the boy, but hatred had long since been leached into my bloodstream. I was no longer even sure where my thoughts on him ended and where Nightmare's began.

But I knew that wasn't the answer she was looking for. Webber and Wilbur had both embraced the thought of their group being considered a family. Webber, especially, had referred to us as that more than once. It was a different kind of love. One that, as we were now aware, I was left out of. I ghosted a hand over my chest; I could almost imagine soft branches of ice reaching from my heart and curling around my fingers.

"You're my friends," I settled on. "I trust you, and I'm confident in our strength together." I turned a half-hearted smirk towards the mechanic. "But I have a feeling that that isn't what you were hoping to hear."

Winona gave me a searching glance. I wasn't sure what she was trying to find, or if she found it, but after a moment, she gave a solemn nod and beckoned towards the ground. Before I could ask her to elaborate, she sat herself down in the grass with crossed legs. I sighed and followed her lead, allowing my hands to splay out against the ground beneath me. The grass was soft, but I could feel faint vestiges of the wasteland's clinging poison even here, a good mile or so away from the start of it. The edges were sharper than the grass closer to our camp, and the texture had a slight roughness that wasn't present elsewhere.

"Wilbur told me to ask you about familial bonds," I said quickly. I wanted to skip all of the implications of the rest of our conversations. I wasn't here to vent; I was here to ask a question. "Parents, siblings, stuff like that. I…" I shook my head. "I don't know what it's like to have that kind of family, but your dedication to Charlie…"

"You've kind of hit the nail on the head there, though," Winona said with a soft smile. "If you ask me, dedication is a form of love. Everyone experiences it differently. Everyone has a different language they speak to those they love. Some people show love through words, others through actions. Some people like to spend money on those they love, or make things for them. For me, love and trust are almost synonymous with each other. The people I love the most are the ones I would trust with anything. All of my secrets, all of my misdeeds, but most importantly, I trust them with my life."

She shrugged one shoulder as if letting something roll off. "I was close with my parents, but everyone knew that all of my loyalty was towards Charlie. From the time she was born, we did everything together. We learned from each other. We loved to sneak into each other's rooms when Mom and Dad were asleep to tell each other stories and make jokes or just have each other's company. I think they caught on eventually, 'cause Mom eventually just stuck us into one room and converted my old room into a study.

"Sometimes, when people talk about loving people, they think it's some grand, fiery thing. That you spend every moment thinking about them and that your only purpose is to be by that person's side. And, well, yeah, that's true for some people, but honestly, I believe love is more obvious in the little things. Anyone with deep pockets can take you out to a fancy restaurant, but only someone who loves you remembers that you always ask for your gravy on the side. Or that you're allergic to eggs and you should probably stay away from that dish. It's like…" Winona spread her fingers and clasped them together multiple times as if grasping for a word. "It's like love is a fireplace. Some people stand right in the embers and feel love as a burning thing that consumes all other thoughts, and others stay towards the edges of the room, just close enough to feel the warmth of the flames and know that they're there, but not close enough that it's all you can think about."

"I think Wilbur is actively climbing the chimney in this analogy," I said, earning a chuckle from the mechanic.

"Well, yeah, some people are One With the Flames and are probably actually the one who lit the fire and might be trying to burn down the house with it. You know."

"Wilbur would."

"He absolutely would."

Another soft chuckle shared between us. The ice crackled in displeasure. "So… what you're saying is that I'm standing outside of this hypothetical room and can't feel it at all. So, what, I need to… open a door? Does our hypothetical room have a door?"

Winona raised one finger as if to make a very important point. "The door to your heart," she chirped. I glared at her for just a second before groaning loudly. "No, I'm not saying that you're outside the room. Just that you're… further away from the fire than the others. Maybe try getting a bit closer, appreciating the warmth a little bit more."

"And how do you suggest that?" I felt my face twist into a scowl, but I couldn't quite get it to drop. It was stubborn.

"You're going to hate me for this."

"I highly doubt that."

Winona's shoulders dropped a little bit, and she took on a slight pitying expression. "Apologize to him."

I immediately jumped to my feet as the ice gripped my chest even harder than before. A scathing retort was on my tongue before I even had the opportunity to consider it, and it took all of my effort to not spit it out. "There is more to it than just one person, Winona!"

She chewed at the inside of her cheek. "Well, yeah, obviously. But… don't you think it's a good start to try with the first person who ever loved you?"

And just like that, the ice was settling back into its typical dormant state. I shakily dropped back to my knees with a chest-deep sigh. "Harsh," I muttered.

"If it's not true, then it's what you believe to be true, right?" Winona pressed. I looked away, even as she continued. "Tyler wanted so badly to give you a piece of his heart, and you have denied it for so long. Maybe it would help the both of you more than you realize if you just… accept it." When I didn't respond for longer than a few seconds, she started to pull herself back up. "But that's just what I think. Obviously, I can't force you to do anything." She started to brush the dirt off of her knees, and I caught the faintest look of distaste she shot at the new grass stains littering her calves. "It wouldn't hurt to try though, right? And besides… I think an apology is much overdue."

And so, that left one more person in our group to have an intense conversation with.

Talking to Wilbur, while always a bit frustrating, was easy. The prime ape held few grudges and was often more than happy to ramble about his thoughts. He tended to say whatever he was thinking, leaving not much left unsaid in any conversation. It could often be a point of annoyance, since his thoughts weren't always linear and he had a habit of jumping to violent conclusions, but it had been perfect for what I had wanted to talk to him about.

I often had the least trouble speaking to Winona. I wasn't sure if it was out of a silent bond we shared, being the only humans in a group of decidedly non-humans, or if she was simply more outgoing than Webber and less frustrating than Wilbur. She tended to think her words through and took time to articulate her thoughts, something I appreciated. She had treated our conversation with a gentle seriousness, carefully addressing the point without throwing out aimless accusations and snide comments. Sure, I had been the target of her anger more than once, but even the words she threw out in anger were often more true than not.

I… was fairly certain that Webber had more of an interest in killing me than having any sort of insightful conversation. Back in the first world after Maxwell's Door, before the ice had grown thick and impenetrable in my chest, we had been able to have a single meaningful talk, and even that had been abruptly snatched away when we had found the Wooden Thing and he had broken down in a panic at the sight of it. That, unfortunately, meant it had been quite some time since I had actually tried to talk to him about anything.

Really, the last impactful interaction we had was him stabbing me through the abdomen with his sword. Not exactly the best starting point.

There were other factors to make it hard to talk to him, though. First, while Wilbur and Winona had no issue with me being alone with them, that didn't mean they were happy to leave me alone with Webber. They both knew of our history, Winona often treating it with hesitance and avoidance and Wilbur with blind hatred. I was fairly certain he thought of the incident every single time he looked at Webber.

Which… was fair. A major point of his appearance these days was the scar across his missing eye.

So, if I procrastinated in my attempts to apologize to Webber, it wasn't exactly my own fault. For the most part.

Okay, yeah, I was procrastinating hard. Even with the boundaries in the way, I just just wasn't sure how to even approach the subject. Webber had openly told me more than once that he was scared of me, but I wasn't sure we had ever actively addressed what had happened. It was a thin wall constantly between us, and neither of us took the initiative to break it down.

It was a full two weeks later before I was able to have any private conversation with the boy. We weren't alone- not really- but Winona and Wilbur had tired themselves out during the day and crashed almost the moment they had settled down to rest. Even though Webber and I had also been present for that day's escapades, my mind was spinning too fast to sleep, and Webber was staying stubbornly awake for reasons I wasn't sure of.

It didn't matter, though, because we were alone, and the wall was begging to be torn down.

"Webber," I said quietly. While he didn't seem to react much, I noticed the way his limbs stiffened slightly, and he suddenly went still in his movements.

"Tyler," he corrected in a clipped voice.

Right. What a way to start a conversation like this, Wilson. I had to put too much focus on my hands to prevent myself from picking at them again. My fingernails were already chewed down enough that I was hyper-aware of them when I stretched my fingers out. Not to mention, he had been the one to point out that habit in the past. He would definitely notice it again now.

"Tyler," I amended, watching as just the use of his name caused him to relax. His shoulders softened a bit, and he turned to look at me.

"What do you want?" Webber- Tyler- asked. He didn't sound angry or upset. He just sounded… tired. Exhausted, honestly. His voice was breathy and soft, as though I had woken him from the depths of slumber instead of distracting him from cutting a pear into tiny cubes.

"I…" Words immediately died on my tongue. What on Earth was I supposed to say? How do you even breach a conversation like this? To him, this would be entirely out of left field. He had no idea how much I had been running through my words in my head. Not for the first time, I felt my hands itch with the urge to have something to write on. If only I had been able to write out my words on index cards, or a piece of paper. Maybe then they wouldn't have fled me the second I tried to use them.

Tyler said nothing, though. He simply waited, a weary look growing ever stronger in his eyes. Eye. I swallowed hard at the unintentional reminder.

It sounded like a crack, a much harsher sound than I was expecting. I was vaguely reminded of the sound of someone crushing an unripe grape-

"I'm sorry," I said in an emotionless rush. "I- grr, I just- I'm sorry. Okay?"

Instead of being a mind reader or whatever I was expecting from the lack of context, Tyler just seemed confused by this. He turned his gaze back down to the pear he was cutting, brow furrowed slightly. "No, no, I'm pretty sure Wilbur and I took the last of the pears, not you-"

Oh my god. "No- what? No, that's not what I'm talking about." This was already off to a terrible start. I groaned softly and scraped my hands across my face.

"So then you're talking about…?"

"Your eye. That's- I'm sorry about your eye."

At first, he continued to look confused, one hand drifting towards his good eye as if he thought I was talking about that. I saw the moment when it clicked, his scarred left hand hanging uncomfortably in the air as the words finally seemed to register. "Oh." He blinked a few times, then looked fully at me again. "...oh."

I wasn't sure why I thought the topic was obvious from the beginning. It had been some time now since that had happened, and as previously stated, we had never really talked about it. It was a discomfort to acknowledge it. If I ever mentioned his disabilities, it was to throw them back in his face, not to address them in any meaningful way.

A flicker of guilt, harsh and sharp, stabbed through the ice in my chest. Why had I said things like that to a child that I had crippled?

"I'm… I manage," Tyler sputtered. "I'm used to it." He brushed his claws against the scar across his face, tearing across not just his primary eye but also two of the spider's eyes, sealed shut with scar tissue. It really was the first thing you would notice when you look at him. Despite everything else, everything he was- the fur, the whiskers, the fangs- I was sure the first thing anyone would see was that scar tearing across half of his face.

Or maybe that was just me.

I remembered what that scar looked like as a fresh wound. I had run away for the first few days after I had attacked him- like a coward, a bitter part of me hissed- in order to drag my mind back together. While I had made a lot of decisions I regretted around that time, I couldn't entirely say that was one of them. If I had gone straight back… I was sure WX would have killed me. It didn't matter what the boy said, how much he argued for me, the robot would have killed me no matter what I did. And even then, it wasn't as if Tyler had been in any condition to argue against his best friend.

WX hadn't said much about that time. In fact, they had kept staunchly silent about the few days I was gone. The closest they had ever really gotten to explaining it was done in clipped, targeted remarks.

"WE COULD NOT SAVE HIS EYE."

"HE WILL NEVER FIGHT AGAIN. I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY."

"HE ALMOST DIED BECAUSE OF YOU."

Even after I had returned, it was obvious Tyler was still in a bad way. He was feverish and terrified, flinching away at every minute movement and baring his fangs at me every single time I even looked his way.

I had never really thought about what they had actually done to try to fix the damage I had caused. I knew that they had worked tirelessly to spare his lame hand, but I couldn't even imagine what they had to do with what remained of his eye.

Well, I could, but I didn't need more images like that in my head.

"Does…" I started slowly. Tyler's whiskers twitched in my direction. He had gone from tired and calm to stressed and stiff in only a few seconds. "Does it… hurt?"

Again, there was a pause. I couldn't tell if he was trying to think or just hesitated to answer the question.

"I get headaches more than I used to," Tyler finally mumbled. "But that… could be a few different things." He pressed his right thumb into his left palm, wincing a bit as he put pressure against the old wounds. "I think my hand hurts, though."

"You think?" I echoed.

"I… think I block it out most of the time."

I was expecting to see something angry or accusatory in his eyes. He just looked sad.

"Are you-"

"I know Winona and Wilbur put you up to this," Tyler interrupted before I could finish. Which was probably a good thing. I had no idea how I was going to finish that question. Are you… 'Okay'? 'Mad at me'? 'Still blaming me for mutilating you a year ago'?

Those would only make it worse.

"I'd… really rather not hear it," the boy continued. He ducked his head away, hiding the scar from my eyesight. "I don't really want to think about it."

"They didn't put me up to anything," I said, knowing full well that it was partially a lie. Winona had suggested this, yes, but she hadn't forced me to do anything. Besides, I didn't want him to think I was only saying something out of fear of our companions' rage. "I want to apologize. For all of it."

His expression was grim and disbelieving, but he didn't stop me.

"I… I never treated you as I should have. Even before… anything happened. I… I mean, I cared about you, but not… not like I should've." Ah well, my fingertips were going to get further abused tonight. I should've expected I wouldn't be able to get through this conversation without it. "And then after everything, I just avoided it. Like I was the one who had been hurt. Like I was the victim."

"We both avoided it," Tyler said lowly. "What were we supposed to say about it? It happened."

"You didn't need to say anything." I sighed and shook my head. "But I should have. I should have apologized at the very least. And I never did." Tyler's gaze darted to where I was picking at my hands, but he didn't say anything about it. Suddenly self-conscious, I splayed out my fingers across my knees instead, hoping the sting from the too-short nails would substitute well enough. "You deserved that at least."

To my surprise, his frown creased into the very last expression I was expecting from him. A wry, almost amused smirk. "We both know it wasn't you who did that."

"It doesn't matter whose mind it was at the time. What matters is that-"

"If I can't be blamed for mauling Wilbur," Tyler said shortly. "Then I can't blame you for what Nightmare did."

"That's different-"

"Different how?" He laughed a rough, unhappy laugh. "Different how, Wilson? Is it not the exact same? Attacking someone when you're not in the right state of mind?" His fur was bristling now. "If I can't be blamed for what I did when I wasn't in my right mind, then I shouldn't blame you for the same thing. If Webber suddenly used his influence to kill all of you, then whose fault is it?" He spread his arms, his eyes wild. "Would you claim that it was my fault?"

"If you don't blame me, then why are you scared of me?" Wrong thing to say. Wrong thing. I knew it immediately, as soon as his face twisted even further.

"Why am I scared of you?" He repeated. "Why am I scared of you?" Tyler laughed again. The sound was mean. "Would you believe me if I told you it's because I'm a hypocrite? Because, despite knowing that what I did to Wilbur wasn't my fault, I still blame myself." Both of his fangs were visible in full now, in his fake, too-wide grin. "And despite knowing that what you did to me wasn't your fault, I still blame you. And isn't that just hilarious?"

This conversation had gone entirely awry. I didn't immediately respond to his words. Instead, I took a moment to consider how to continue as I sucked in air from between my teeth.

"I understand," I murmured. "But you… what happened between you and Wilbur, that wasn't-" Wilbur recovered from his injuries. Tyler had attacked him in a panicked fervor after the prime ape accidentally hit his blind-

My mouth suddenly went dry.

"What did you see when Wilbur accidentally hit you?"

The mania faded a bit into confusion once more. His fur started to lay flat as he stared blankly at me. "What?"

"When you…" Call it what it was, Wilson. Don't shy away from it. "When you had your panic attack. What… who did you think was there?"

A twitch of his whiskers. The drifting of his gaze elsewhere. His breath stuttered, but only for a moment.

"You saw me, didn't you?"

The boy had barely fought back. I knew now that if he had wanted to hurt me, if he had really been willing to fight back to get away from what was happening, he could have. He could have easily overpowered me. He had fangs and claws and speed, and when I had carved his eye out, I had had a flint knife and a broken arm.

Yet, something had changed in the year since that had happened. He was no longer willing to take the abuse. The second his mind flashed him back to that spot, back to that time, he had fought back viciously. If Wilbur's crown hadn't been ancient magic that healed his wounds, the Prime Ape would likely still be limping from the attack.

He had tried to push me away, kicked out, but he hadn't really fought back. He hadn't wanted to hurt me.

He had trusted me back then. Even when all of that had happened, even as it was happening, his trust and love for me were more than his desire to break free from the torture.

All of that was gone. Dust in the wind.

"I tortured you." The words were plain and simple, but the full truth. It was the only way to properly describe what had happened that night.

"Yeah," Tyler whispered, and his voice had grown so choked it was a surprise that he even managed it. "Yeah, you did."

'You did'. Not 'Nightmare did'. 'You did'.

"And when Wilbur hit you during your spar, you saw-"

"You," he said simply. "I saw you."

"And you fought back."

"Yeah."

The silence was stifling. Threads of tension had spun so tight around us that I struggled to even draw in a breath without feeling every other muscle in my body tighten in response.

In lieu of a proper response, I reached one hand out. Tyler looked at it wearily before gently placing his injured hand, palm up, on my own.

I had grabbed his hands multiple times in the past, but this was the first time I had really given any thought to the way the mangled appendage felt in my own hand. Most of the fur refused to grow back, exposing large swathes of skin that showcased his dozens of scars. Many of them weren't from me. They were thin and faded with time, some barely noticeable. Others, however, had come from me. The most notable of these was the ugly scar that started at the base of his fingers and tapered off at the ball of his hand. Even after a year of slowly healing, the tissue over it was still tinged with red and purple and uncomfortably raw. In general, his skin felt rough and dry, built up so thick that you could see the callouses without even looking. Beneath the skin, though, I knew there was only worse damage invisible to the naked eye. Tendons and ligaments torn and healed with thick, inelastic bands of tissue that rendered them mostly useless. Bones that hadn't been able to heal quite right, even with the care the spiders and WX had put into saving them. Muscles so weak and atrophied that they could barely convince what was left of the connective tissue to move when prompted.

"I'm proud of you for fighting back," I murmured, gently tracing the large scar across his palm with one finger. His hand was dwarfed in my own, each tapered claw unnaturally sharp with lack of use. I felt the faintest of twitches run through his arm, but he didn't pull away.

"A bit too little, a bit too late," Tyler sighed.

"I know you were scared, but I'm so proud of you for finally realizing that you were worth fighting back for."

"I didn't want to hurt you," he whispered. "I just wanted you to get better."

I could hear the crack of my heart breaking. Or perhaps it was the crack of ice, exposed to warmth so fast that cracks spread across its frozen surface.

"You should've, though. What happened to you… you didn't deserve that, Tyler. If you had hurt me, it would've been okay."

"I loved you." The words were so simple, said with so little emotion, but hearing them was one of the worst things I had ever heard. He blinked up at me, and I saw tears rising in his eye. "I loved you."

"And I couldn't understand that. I couldn't understand how… to love back. That was never your fault, Tyler. It wasn't your fault that I couldn't feel that."

"You never loved me." His voice crackled, and he suddenly drew his hand back, pressing it closely to his chest. "Why did you let me believe that you did?"

Because I didn't understand what that even was. Because nobody had ever loved me before, and I didn't know what it was supposed to feel like. Because everyone who is supposed to teach you what love was had failed me, and because of that, I had failed.

"I didn't know what love was supposed to feel like," I breathed. "I didn't know. It wasn't you. It was never you. It was always me. It was always me." But I had an idea now. "I'm sorry, Tyler. I'm so, so sorry for everything. You deserve so much better. You deserve what the others give you." I reached out again, and once more, he let me. He closed his eye as I rested my hand against his cheek, letting my thumb brush against the base of the scar that had taken out his eye. "I'm sorry that I was never able to give you the same."

Tyler covered my hand with his own, holding it in place. A gentle smile had spread across his features. "Okay."

I balked. All of that, and his response was 'okay'? "Okay?" I echoed.

"Okay," he repeated, bobbing his head slightly in a nod. When he opened his eye again, bright with unshed tears and burgeoning hope, it was glowing in a now familiar, soft light. It wasn't a harsh color, not as bright and garish as the gold, orange, or green. Instead, the glow that bathed his face was a gentle purple, just on the cooler side of pink. When he spoke again, it was words that I hadn't expected to hear from him for a long, long time.

"I forgive you."