Archive of Our Own

The grave was nowhere near L’manburg. Instead, it was located near Tommy’s vacation home - the closest that fWhip could get to L’manburg. When he had suggested the location originally, he had wanted it to be placed on top of where the wall had once stood. He had thought it was a flexible enough location - the wall had wrapped around the entirety of the original L’manburg, after all, there were tons of different locations it could have been - but almost everyone had put up a fuss. Nobody wanted the grave of the man who had destroyed the place to be in that place itself.

Hell, nobody had wanted a grave at all. Even Tommy, who, like fWhip, had stuck by Wilbur’s side til the very end, hadn’t helped place the carefully crafted stones that lined the path leading up to the headstone. But it didn’t matter, fWhip didn’t hold a grudge against the boy. Because at the end of the day, he was a kid. A kid who blamed fWhip for the death of one of the only people he had ever cared about in this cursed place, but still. A kid.

Fwhip stepped up to the grave, a rose in hand, and let himself imagine a world where Wilbur had gotten a proper grave. Where he had never fallen victim to the delusions that haunted him, where fWhip had told the man he had loved him sooner. Maybe that would have fixed everything.

He knew it wouldn’t have. He knew Wilbur’s brain had rotted away from the inside, and that that would have happened regardless of whether or not he had been in a loving relationship or not. Still, though, the knowledge that Wilbur had once loved him back… it haunted fWhip. Haunted him, because of course Wilbur had been a single parent. Fundy’s existence hadn’t meant anything. But fWhip had thought it did, had thought Wilbur must’ve had someone, somewhere.

He remembered when the two of them had met - or, rather, ran into each other again. They met in X-Life. fWhip remembered when he had first come to the server. The invite was a surprise - why would Dream, a known fighter, invite a man who only had the knowledge of how to hold a sword to the server? Apparently, because he had wanted a builder. Because fWhip had the ability to ‘make the server look half decent’.

The first thing he had done was fix up the community house. It wasn’t bad , Jimmy’s builds were worse by a long shot, but it was the first thing that you saw when you spawned in. And it looked…. Okay. Just okay. So he had done some sprucing up, and then he had gone and done what he actually enjoyed, which was landscaping. Shaping the land with his hands, feeling the dirt beneath his skin and the way the soil shifted under him. That was actually where he had run into Wilbur again, the man wildly more attractive than he had looked in his teenage years.

They had barely looked at each other, back in X-Life. They had talked maybe once, and with Jeremyism going on, fWhip had hardly noticed when Wilbur had slipped away into the night. But Wilbur had matured, had changed. It was apparent in the very way he moved. He had a swagger to him, and when fWhip had glanced up at the man who had walked up to him mid-magick, he had been taken aback by his… well, everything.

And then they had started talking . Wilbur’s every word was poetry, weaving into itself in the same way that he shaped the land. fWhip had hung onto his every word. To the point that he had followed Wilbur into a war, fighting alongside children. As much as he loved Wilbur, he had hated that. Had hated how young Tommy and Tubbo and Fundy were. But they had no one on their side, they needed the help. So fWhip had bit his tongue and watched as children held weapons too big for them, walked straight into a trap set by their friend.

And then one of those children had been the reason that they had gained independence. Tommy, with his brash words and pottymouth, had sacrificed something that had apparently meant something to him? fWhip didn’t really get his attachment to the disks. They were pieces of plastic, for prime’s sake. But they had meant something to the loud teen, and he had given them up for the sake of the country.

For a brief period of time, they had been happy. More people had moved in, they had expanded and built (well, fWhip did most of the building, but he didn’t mind. It was better than letting L’manburg look like Tommy’s dirt shack). Well.. they had been relatively happy. There had always been something missing, just a little something more that fWhip had wanted so desperately. But he had served his president with pride as the Secretary of Housing, making each and every building different in its own special way.

Those buildings were all gone now. Each and every one, reduced to rubble. He had walked through those streets after the explosions, seen every single one of his creations rendered ash. If there was anyone who deserved to hold a grudge, it was probably fWhip. And yet… he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel anything but pure and simple sorrow when he thought about the man he had loved. 

Because, of course, nothing good lasted. Wilbur had to have an election, had to tell Quackity about it, had to invite Schlatt as his endorsement. fWhip remembered when he had been rendered speechless by the alcoholic’s decree, followed up by his demands of Tubbo that had almost caused fWhip to end his life right there and then. But instead, he had followed the boy as he tearfully wandered off to kill his friend. And then he’d told Tubbo that he’d chase after the two that had been exiled, not meaning a word. The boy had run off, then, and if fWhip had been a better man he would have followed. Instead, he trekked onwards.

Pogtopia had been hell. He’d helped supply Wilbur with gunpowder, figuring that the man was going to use the resulting explosives in combat. And then Wilbur had turned around, eyes crazed, and revealed to fWhip that he needed the gray substance to blow up everything they had built. He had helped Wilbur in other ways, too. Although Tubbo had come up with the designs for the potato farm, the boy was too busy with spying to actually construct said designs. And so that job had fallen to fWhip. He remembered vividly how Wilbur’s voice had echoed off the walls, talking to himself when he thought he was alone. There were also the long, winded rants about how everyone was against them.

At first ‘them’ had been the five of them - Tubbo, Wilbur, fWhip, Techno, and Tommy. Then Wilbur had stopped trusting all of them, one by one, until he trusted no one but himself. At least Techno fWhip understood. He hadn’t gone to the festival, he had been too busy working on various projects. So he had been there when Tubbo had respawned - the boy’s screams would echo through his head forever, fWhip thought.

So when it had turned out that apparently Techno had been the one to kill the kid, fWhip had immediately felt anger brewing up within him. And then there was the pit. He had been wrapping up Tubbo’s wounds, hands shaking, when the other three had returned. Tommy, angry, screaming. Techno, stoic, reserved. Wilbur, with that look in his eyes that fWhip despised . He’d hated when Wilbur got like that, distant and simultaneously all too there.

Wilbur had wanted Tommy and Techno to fight. The kid had been screaming at Techno, because as fWhip would find out later, Techno had killed his best friend. And Wilbur, crazed and manic, had wanted the lanky teen to fight a bodybuilder twice his size. fWhip had wanted to walk out, there and then. Hell, he’d threatened to. He’d looked Wilbur in the eyes and refused to provide the man with any further supplies or labor.

Tommy had been an excuse, if fWhip was being honest. He had wanted to leave for a while, wanted to get out of the place that was slowly killing the man he loved. He missed Gem, missed his twin sister and her laugh and smile and spunkiness. He wanted to go home to her, to collapse into her arms and cry. Instead, he wrote letters to her, danced around what was happening. He couldn’t worry her with his issues.

He’d never forget what Wilbur had said in response to his threat to leave. He’d dared fWhip to do that, dared him to leave. Told him he couldn’t. And then Wilbur had spoken the words that fWhip had never been able to. Revealed that he knew fWhip’s dirty secret, had known it for months. fWhip had sat back and watched the boy and the pig fight, then. Listened as Wilbur cheered on. 

The rest had been a bit of a blur. He’d mostly just gone through the motions, let his body guide his mind and not the other way around. Wilbur had fallen deeper into his paranoia, deeper into insanity. And fWhip had stayed. He’d stayed, convinced Wilbur to do more than just plan explosions, to actually take care of himself. Reminded the man to eat and drink. Tried to convince him to sleep.

Strangely, it was almost a relief when fWhip had felt the explosions wrack the land. At that point, he didn’t care about anything besides Wilbur anymore. Maybe once he would have mourned his builds. But no matter how much effort he had put into them, hours of planning he had spent plotting and gathering materials and placing those materials - at the end of the day, they were just buildings.

What wasn’t just buildings, though, was Wilbur’s body. fWhip had been trudging through the ruins, looking for… he wasn’t sure what he had been looking for. The last shreds of Wilbur’s sanity, maybe. He had found something far more tragic. A body, surrounded by blood, broken and abandoned. Tossed to the side like trash. Nobody had cared enough to look for him.

fWhip had sunk to his knees, had screamed at the world. Had cursed anyone and everyone he could think of. He’d mourned the loss of a life that nobody else seemed to care about. And the worst part was that fWhip could tell that Wilbur hadn’t died in the explosion. He’d been stabbed, the hole in his chest a testament to that. By who? fWhip had no idea.

He’d lifted the body, then, carried it to its current resting place. The place where fWhip was standing right now, a wither rose in hand. He’d found it growing in the fields, left behind from Techno’s summons. A poetic offering to the man fWhip had loved, he thought, as he gently placed it down on top of the headstone. He ignored the pain that holding it brought him, the fact that doing so without a glove was probably killing him. It wasn’t like he cared anymore.

And then he heard a voice saying his name, asking what had happened. A voice he hadn’t heard in many, many years. One that brought the held-back tears down in full force, coursing down his face as he turned his head to see the source of it. Long, auburn braids cradled her face, and she had managed to sprout - were those antlers - in the time since he had last seen her.

His sister.