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Wilbur knew this path like the back of his hand. He visited this cave often. Probably even too often. These walls were closing in on him, wooden signs stared, judging and recalling all those times when he was too scared to press the button.
Today everything was different. Today he was ready. Even though he truly wanted to believe in his friend, but Tubbo would be no better than Schlatt. And no better than Wilbur himself. This is the thing about power.
Wilbur was sure that nothing and nobody would interrupt him. He managed to slip away during the festival and no one could even imagine who actually was the traitor mentioned by Dream. They were convinced that it could be anyone but not Wilbur. Not the Wilbur who vowed to defend L’manburg to the last breath, to the last drop of blood. Not the Wilbur who was ready to oppose Dream himself to win independence for his country. Not the Wilbur who didn’t give up even after the exile and decided to free his creation no matter what.
There was only one single step between him and freedom.
“Wilbur?! What the heck are you doing here?”
His heart skipped a beat when he saw a painfully familiar figure in the doorway. Quackity looked both shocked and petrified while he was looking around. Holding a glance of wide-open eyes at Wilbur, he asked once again.
“Wil, what does all this mean?” Quackity tried his best to stop his voice from trembling. He noticed an insane, even wild and unfamiliar look in Wilbur’s eyes.
“Quackity I have to do this. I have to free my city, have to free myself and my conscience. Let me do it quickly, right here and right now,”Wilbur’s voice sounded too calm for the one of a just unmasked traitor.
“Free from what, goddamn it?!” he cried. Quackity didn’t understand anything. His friend, his comrade, his Wilbur was standing right in front of him, on a brink of destroying everything that they created all together. He didn’t recognize him.
“From government, from power, from presidents! Techno told me everything Quackity. All of you are blind. Think about it. If there was no government, Eret wouldn’t betray us, me and Tommy wouldn’t be sent in exile. Schlatt wouldn’t execute Tubbo, we wouldn’t have to shed blood, me and you would be friends from the beginning. If the government didn’t exist, we would have more time, Q.”
“Shut up! The world needs order, anarchy brings chaos and death. Wilbur, I can’t believe that you were brainwashed,” to be honest, Quackity couldn’t believe in anything that was going on.
It seemed like Wilbur didn’t hear that. Thin pale fingers reached out to the button, not for the first time but definitely for the last.
“You know, there was a saying by a traitor, once part of L’manburg: it was never meant to be,” tears in the eyes, hand near his forehead and a desperate smile. “Goodbye, my L’manberg, goodbye, my unfinished symphony.”
“No!” a roaring sound of the explosion mercilessly drew out Quackity’s heart-rending cry.
Eyes are watering from dust, throat is sore from smoke and heart wrecks from the sight of L’manberg soaring into the sky. Wilbur hastily turned around, leaned forward and wrapped his shaking hands around Quackity’s face, pulling him closer.
“Forgive me, Q.”
The kiss turned out to be quick, too quick yet so reckless, passionate and painfully sweet. Goodbye kisses are always like that.
Wilbur stepped back, pulled out a blade and puts it to the neck. Everything happened in a second. Now he is also free.
Quackity has seen a lot of deaths, but never has a dying man been so happy. Quackity has never felt so broken before. He has never fallen to his knees with tears bursting out of his eyes. He has never shaken a lifeless body tearing his throat with senseless cries.
Quackity has never wanted to follow the deceased.