Work Text:
If you looked close enough at Wilbur’s life you’d realize that its a show. Not a TV branded weird gen loss show.
It’s like a fanfiction. It’s dramatic, comforting, compelling in certain spots and harsh in others. But in the end…
It’s fake.
Not the experience itself, or the things happening.
But the way he acts is fake.
Not like pretending to be happy or sad, he’s done that but it’s not as entertaining.
He acts like he’s playing a game, where he’s given multiple choice options for what to do.
But he’s played it many times, and he knows what to expect no matter what. So he picks the option that appeals to him in the moment.
Sometimes he’s crying with a knife to his arm in a room he knows he’ll get caught in. Just for an ounce of comfort.
Other times he’s screaming in people face, not because he’s really mad, but because he needs them to think he is, so they don’t ‘inconvenience’ him again.
And sometimes he offers to go swimming knowing there’s a bruise on his leg that they’ll see, and they’ll ask, and he’ll just say it was a rough day. When he knows that bruise was made by him, so that someone would be concerned about him.
So yes when you look at Wilbur’s life, it’s a stage… a stage of manipulation formed by unsolved traumas and a lifetimes worth of neglect.
When he warns you that, through his quick wits, his sweet words and his songs of love…. He is a liar… and a master manipulator… he’s not lying, just making sure he can say “I told you so” once your lifes in shambles because of him.
When he warns you that he wouldn’t make it to 18…
Don’t say I didn’t warn you
Jack