Work Text:
Wilbur stared down at the black sea he had just thrown his oldest friend into. The waves crashed against the craggy rocks below, and Wilbur-
He let the boy go.
He let the boy go.
He let the boy go.
And he felt hopeless. And then-
And then and then and then-
The boy emerged from the water. Thrashing and flailing in a way that couldn't be called swimming but wasn't quite drowning.
Tommy swore, but Wilbur couldn't hear it.
Couldn't hear anything that wasn't the sound of waves and water and struggling.
Schlatt wasn't dead yet.
The boy was alive.
The boy was in the water.
The boy couldn't swim.
The boy was going to drown.
And Wilbur watched in horror as Schlatt's head went back under.
Tommy loosened his hold on Wilbur, trying to get a look at the abyss below. And Wilbur did the only thing he could think of. He jumped.
Tommy shouted, but Wilbur was already off the cliff's edge, gravity pulling him closer and closer to the sea. He hit the water where the boy went under and reached, reaching and swimming and searching til his hands found something solid. Something warm.
Schlatt.
And Wilbur grabbed hold and pulled and tried not to think about how cold it the water was, how the current pulled at them, how limp Schlatt's body felt.
Wilbur yanked off his Respiration III helmet, doing his best to cram it on over Schlatt's horns. Heavy horns working to pull them both under. But it didn't matter. Wilbur had always been a good swimmer.
They breached the surface. A wave pushed them back under. The current tried to rip Schlatt from Wilbur's grasp. He wouldn't let it. He kicked harder and held the ram tighter. Gulped in breaths when he could, held his mouth shut when he couldn't.
The problem with cliffs, Tommy thought, was that there was no easy way to get down.
He was standing at the top of one, flames consuming Manberg at his back, sheer cliff leading to unforgiving water at his front. Staring in mute horror at his brother struggling in the water below, staring at the leader of the revolution as he struggled to save the dictator they were fighting against.
Tommy had no fucking clue what Wilbur was doing, much less why. All he knew was that Wilbur had let Schlatt fall, and tried to follow in after.
"He can’t swim!" Wilbur had said, sounding like he had just realized it himself. "Fuck - he can’t swim."
He had sounded frantic, and Tommy had pulled him back from the edge. Clearly, he should have held on. Because the second Schlatt had resurfaced, struggling in the water desperately, Wilbur was over the edge.
Now Tommy could only watch helplessly as his older brother fought against the current with a voluntary weight tied around his neck.
Wilbur held onto the sharp rocks, ram pulled close to his side, and searched for land.
The problem with cliffs, Wilbur thought, is there's nowhere to go but down.
The only shelter he could see was a shallow cave in the otherwise sheer cliff. It was big enough to fit maybe three people, if you squeezed.
Luckily, Wilbur only needed it to fit two.
Ender Pearls weren't the easiest to get, but they were incredibly useful. Thus, worth the effort. Wilbur had never been more grateful that Technoblade was as insistent on being prepared as he was. Thanking everything he could think of that he still had his pack with him, Wilbur reached into it. He counted two pearls. It would have to be enough.
With feeling he didn't have in his fingers, he pulled the first out, clutching it as tight as he could. Wilbur did the same with the ram, making sure the (dead, please don't be dead) weight was as close as him as possible.
Please, to anything left out there, please let this work.
He threw his pearl. As it soared through the air, another brutal wave knocked Wilbur and Schlatt back under, almost ripping them apart. Wilbur felt something sharp strike his head, and he could feel his eyes sting under the water. He opened his mouth to cry out in pain, water racing to fil his lungs and-
And suddenly, he was somewhere dry. Wilbur opened his eyes, crying out in relief. The pearl had landed. We made it.
We, he remembered, snapping his head around, finding the boy unconscious by his side.
Wilbur almost breathed a sigh of relief but- But the boy wasn't breathing. Wilbur threw himself over the boy's body, checking for a breath, for a heartbeat, for anything. He paled when he could only find a weak pulse.
Ripping his pack open, he poured out its contents entirely, searching for the potions Tommy had given him.
Red, orange, pink, where's pink? Wilbur needed that pink potion. Scanning the ground, he noticed something rolling toward the mouth of the cave. A pink potion. Shit.
Wilbur scrambled after it, grabbing the neck of the bottle just as it rolled off the edge. He didn't spare anytime to feel relieved, rushing over to Schlatt. Tearing off the cork, he poured as much as much of it down Schlatt's throat as he could.
Please please please,
He waited as the potion took it effects. Waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited until-
The boy coughed.
Wilbur's eyes widened. The boy coughed again, water hitting stone. Wilbur wanted to reach out a touch him, to rub his back and hold him close and warm him.
But he stat and watched as the boy emptied more water from his lungs. Watched as the boy finally finished emptying the sea from his chest and laid on his back. They sat for a minute.
Then another.
And another.
And another.
And an-
"You let me go." The boy Wilbur knew said.
"...I did." The boy Schlatt knew answered.
"You saved me." The boy Wilbur knew said, confusion and betrayal mixing messily.
"...I did." The boy Schlatt knew responded. There was silence. It went on for-
One,
Two,
Three,
"You should really learn to swim." A boy who once wore a yellow sweater said.
The cave echoed with a strained laugh.
"Yeah, tell me about it." A boy who used to wear a blue sweater replied.
"Swimming's a life skill, after all."