#when its not 2am ill make the other post yippee

[bugflies00]

I continue to wonder since you said fostering au wilbur continues to be entirely in denial and Not Realizing for some time after he and quackity re-meet how exactly DOES the Feelings Realization TM go down qcihdtiwdzgd

OOOH well its very gradual and very much a disaster because. well. its him .

i think i said they remeet when theyre around 22-23, and at the time wilbur was in a really bad relationship that he only breaks off two or so years later. his girlfriend was very controlling and always bringing him down and making comments about him, his appearance, his interests, what he ate, etc. so needless to say wilburs already absolute dogshit self esteem is so further down the gutter it’s actually Wow look it pierced a hole into the ground from how far down it is.

this is important context because it’s part of why he takes soooo long to realise his feelings, he’s just so deeply entrenched in trying to make his girlfriend happy and love him and to appease everyone that he doesn’t realise. its what i call his “ghostbur” era - none of this stuff is actually strictly based on the bursonas, but i find he does follow a similar pattern of evolution, and at that point in his life he’s trying to be the biggest people pleaser possible after realising that being the unapproachable loner he was in high school would only leave him alone (also bc his abandonment issues got worse after sally left). his new relationship makes that worse also.

in the beginning him and q are just sort of awkwardly tiptoeing around each other considering they last left each other with a bajillion things unsaid and they are extremely determined on keeping said things unsaid. they start to grow back into friends, albeit more normal friends than the absolute mess of a situationship/frenemies they were in high school. theyre still themselves meaning they can’t go a second without aggravating each other, but its definitely friendlier.

and as time goes by some of their joke flirting gets a tad bit too real sometimes- quackity will make a joke and stare at him a moment too long, or wilbur will stutter out of nowhere, etc.

but wilbur still has a girlfriend!!! so as usual he shoves his head in the sand and he takes melatonin so at night he falls asleep instantly without having the time to yearn or reflect lmao. (for the record i do not condone this if your feelings change communicate that with your partner etc)

time progresses, every stranger they meet think theyre either married, sworn enemies, or fucking each other. meanwhile wilburs relationship grows worse and worse, he’s fallen deep into an eating disorder (while he was already struggling with bad eating habits pretty much his whole life it gets much worse then), hes struggling with self harm a lot, and its just not a great time. his friends keep trying to convince him to break things off, especially tommy who, since he lives with them, has seen a lot of shit and absolutely despises wilbur’s girlfriend’s guts and makes this very well known.

eventually they do break up (its a longer story than that but it would require its own post) and wilbur falls deep into a depressive episode. it makes him doubt for so long if he did the right thing, if he just should’ve sucked it up and taken whatever scraps of love he was given, but in reality the depressive episode had been a LONG time coming its just his brain was in survival mode. he never felt safe enough with her, so subconsciously his brain only allowed falling into depression again once it was safe to do so.

and so my point is that with all these things happening he’s absolutely nowhere near ready to accept his feelings. meanwhile q is pining hard - that man is going through it LMAO trying to support his friend (they still pretend to be frenemies) whilst shoving down his own shit. he’s one of the few people wilbur feels safe with (even though theyve gotten into fistfights and q has sincerely threatened his life on several occasions), mainly because, in a way, q knew him at his worst (high school) and still came back. so he has more trust in him than some of his other friends because hes convinced he’s manipulated them into thinking hes better than he is.

anyway q is planning this trip for an internship he’s doing for his law degree, and he has to leave for a month or two. wilburs 25th birthday rolls around, and he knows q wont be able to be there. he’s already still feeling shitty, not really entirely out of that depressive episode, and he’s ready to just have a lame birthday and go back to rotting in his bed.

and then (this is so cliché LET ME LIVE) theyre about to do the cake whatever and tommy yells announces they have a surprise and he turns around and wham! quackity standing there looking downright exhausted, with his suitcases around him and the airplane neck pillow still around his neck (he came straight from the airport). wilbur runs to hug him and, to me, that moment is the kickstarter that forces him to start actually realising whats happening.

first off because theyre not exactly huggers but that one was so spontaenous and it felt so right!! second because hes already sad and a bit emotionally volatile and the fact that q cared enough to rush and try his best to make it to his birthday moves him a whole lot. and finally because well yeah he’s madly in love with him but the only thing he says is to ask whether the eyebags q got from jetlag are a fashion statement in europe or if hes just reaching for the raccoon look.

theres definitely more moments after that (they take a LOOONG time to get together. and so much pining. its so bad) but i just think that moment is really sweet and also i love how their relationship progresses over time