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Wilbur had always held a mild resentment towards his brother. It had started small, around when they were nine or ten. Tommy was just a toddler, he remembered that. Phil had unwisely decided that Wil and Techno were old enough to stay home and take care of Tommy by themselves for a few hours. This is where things went south between the twins.
An hour into their short time alone together, Tommy had started crying.
“Wilbur,” Techno spoke up, “can you see what he wants? I have homework I need to finish.”
Wilbur had scoffed. “It’s not as if I don’t have homework either, why can’t you see what he wants?”
“You aren’t even doing your homework, you’re just sitting there fooling with that stupid guitar.”
At this, Wilbur had bristled. Not a day went by in their household where their mother wasn’t missed, and to call the guitar she had left him ‘stupid’ struck a nerve.
“Fuck you Techno. Fuck you.”
Gently setting down the guitar, he stormed off to Tommy’s room, muttering curses towards Techno along the way. His anger for Techno quickly vanished at the sight of his baby brother, bawling his eyes out, crystal blue eyes full of tears. The events from earlier vanished from his mind as he spent the rest of the day with Tommy.
When Phil had returned that night, so did Wilbur's anger.
Wil had walked into the living room with Tommy on his hip, on the way to get them both some dinner when he saw Phil staring at him from the couch, a disapproving look in his eyes.
“Wil,” Phil had declared, “mind explaining why Techno has all his homework done while yours isn’t?”
Wilbur grimaced.
“I was busy taking care of Tommy and-”
“That’s not an excuse. I take care of all three of you and get my work done. You’re just being lazy,” Phill snapped, “hand me Tommy and go to your room. Don’t leave until you have all your work done.”
That night Wilbur had stayed up until 3 am doing his work, and his rift with Techno only got worse over the years.
Yelling over Wil’s guitar being too loud, Techno getting praised while Wilbur was left in the shadows, Phil leaving for a hardcore server when Techno had left for Hypixel, leaving Wilbur to raise Tommy on his own, it all got to be too much. Only years after being practically abandoned by Phil and his twin, he had packed up Tommy and left for a new server.
Of course, his upbringing didn’t leave him without any lasting effects. He was a perfectionist, striving to prove himself to his father. But he was a perfectionist to a fault. He couldn’t accept help from anyone, lest he seem weak. Occasional all-nighters to study turned into daily occurrences getting paperwork for his new country in order.
But then his pride and joy was born. Fundy, his little sunbeam, brought exactly that into his life. Sun. He found himself drifting away from his habits from the past, instead living in the moment.
Days spent inside a stuffy RV doing paperwork were spent outside, teaching his son to walk in the soft grass of L’Manburg while his people cheered on, spent recruiting people to the cause, spent taking in the wonder of the safe space he had created. All were equal, no one favored over the other.
Then it was ruined. No big deal, Wilbur could rebuild. Could he? How could he when the people around him were getting hurt, Tommy losing one of his lives to Dream, Fundy drifting away, one of his closest friends turning out to be a traitor. No, he had to rebuild.
So he did. He rebuilt even when Techno joined the very server he had run to get away from him. He rebuilt even when he was voted out of office, and forced to live in a ravine. But then, he started crumbling.
In later years, people speculated what had caused his downfall. It was the dampness of the caves, say women in low tones at the market, the dripping got to him. Some men, those who have been to war disagree. They say it was knowing how helpless it all was. Children, desperate to scare those younger than them, makeup stories.
Stories of his past coming for him, of a large being, not unlike a piglin brute, lurking in the shadows. Children lean forward at this, hugging those close to them, terrified but intrigued. The general and the beast fought, they spin, for days they fought, equal in strength, but wearing them both down bit by bit.
When Wilbur hears these stories, hood over his head to hide the white of being revived, he cringes. How all the stories were right, yet wrong at once.
The dripping had annoyed him at first sure, but he became used to it, them almost becoming a comfort in a twisted way. The helplessness sped it along, he assumed, knowing it was never meant to be. He didn’t want to talk about the children's stories.
But he must. He and Techno had fought yes, but not in the way children pictured. There was no brute force, no physical battles. Words were exchanged instead, words of hate, of venom.
The worst of their fights, he supposed, was the day of the explosion. Things between him and Techno had reached their boiling point, with them screaming at each other while the other people of Pogtopia went along with their day and tried to ignore it.
“Be honest with yourself Technoblade, you were always Phil’s favorite. We both know this, just leave me alone!” Wilbur had spit out, hatred snaking through his veins like the redstone snaking underneath L’manburg, leading to the TNT no one knew he planned to detonate that day.
Techno had scoffed at that, remarking “Be honest with myself Wilbur? You were his favorite, always around to take care of Tommy, keeping the house going while he was away, the one who looked most like Mom.”
“Me? I’ve spent my entire life, trying so hard to be perfect, to be like you, trying to be a better fighter, a better musician, something to get him to say, just once, that he was proud of me! But I never got to hear it, those words were reserved for you!” Wilbur raised his voice with every passing word, ending them off with a shout.
The shout turned to a laugh, a shuddering, wet laugh. Techno was left speechless in front of him, looking at him with what seemed to be pity in his eyes.
Wilbur didn’t need pity. Narrowing his eyes at Techno, he hissed at Techno.
“The only reason I was taking care of Tommy and the house was because Phil left as soon as you did. He didn’t need to stay when his favorite wasn’t around.”
With that, Wilbur had left the ravine, heading off to the button room where he sulked until he mustered up the courage to press the button. But you know what happened after, don’t you? The history books are full of it. Philza burst into the room, trying to console his son, gone mad in the ravine, who pushed the button and begged, begged his father for death. His father gave it to him.
What you do not know, is that Techno heard his begging as well. He heard his begging as he stepped to the edge of the crater, just in front of the exposed button room. He made jokes with those around him about the death of their country, but heard as his twin begged for death. He left the ruins of the country changed, not quite for the better.
Some nights in his cabin, tucked away from the SMP by forests and snow, he wakes up with the sound of those begs in his ears. And he cries.