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It might be rude - offensive, even, maybe - but Wilbur has always considered himself the normal one.
Forget the way that everybody else in their life has always talked about Techno and his manifold (hah) issues, the calculated looking away, the questions followed by stunned and judging silences, the fucked up things his classmates have said that he'll never report back. Wilbur's not talking about Techno - or, at least, not wholly. The way their dad will spend days or weeks or years quietly chipping away at the same obsession only to blame it on a creative's mindset, the way their brother's vocal disgust for certain smells and tastes and textures makes him need to leave the room and everybody just sort of quietly accepts that Tommy's a bit odd like that. Wilbur has escaped the pitfalls of his family history to date, and as a result pretty much the only idiosyncrasy they share is the beautiful succession of them all having quietly transed their genders one after the other by the time Wilbur was old enough to jot himself down as the most normal member of the family.
And at school. Staunchly adhering himself to Techno's side since he got here at the age of about eleven has meant the twins have shared pretty much every friend they've ever made. Strength in numbers, and all that. If they ever did go metaphorically wandering, it was never long before new friends who'd met one were to meet the other.
And that's… a lot. Like, it's axiomatic - he'd never dream of having it any other way - but it's a lot.
Because like attracts like, you know? And Techno's like are an interesting assembly. He's obviously heard of being the token straight and stuff, but…
Well, "the normal one" became less a fun title and more a very easily internalisable label as time went on.
He's definitely internalised it, Wilbur decides, staring into his own eyes in the mirror and reminding himself that what he's hearing isn't real. Like - it's - it's real, it's happening, but it's not - what's the word? Fuck, he should have retained more of his music lessons at school. He should have taken it for GCSE. He loves music. Why didn't he pick music? That was a stupid decision, 14 year old Wilbur, that was fucking -
Damn it. Focus. Not the relevant crisis to be having.
The relevant crisis is that, despite the fact that he's been calling himself, and being called, normal for the past forever many years, he's currently experiencing what can pretty much no better be described than a rapidly developing case of voices in his head.
And that's not -
That's not Wilbur's thing, is what he hates about it, although he hates a lot of things about this. Wilbur's thing has always been his pickiness, neuroticism, easily-onset paranoia. All things that could easily be written off as his own brand of normal, just a little quirky or unique or whatever buzzword you wanted to assign it on any particular day - anything they could have half-jokingly accused him of, and have, over the past year at least, is nothing like this. Nobody was holding out for this. Bets were on for autism, for anxiety, things he'd actually lain awake at night and questioned before. Not Techno's voices.
God. Just like them, innit? Never one without the other. Frequently bought together, do not separate. They'd had to dye their hair before people could tell them apart on sight.
Something prickles up his hair, then, the short-cropped span of the back of his head, something spiking and uncomfortable like a bead of sweat, if those could go up. Maybe it is sweat - he's panicking enough for it. Wilbur lifts a hand from the rim of the sink and immediately finds his fingernails digging deep; they'll draw blood if he's not careful, he needs to, to, to fucking -
At some point he drifts - drops - falls to the floor, although he's not quite aware of it, and that same hand's clutching at his scalp, doing its best to pull back his hairline even further as the other finds a place somewhere on his thigh, still clutching. Something moves in the corner of his vision and he doesn't even have the strength to look up to find out what it is, which sets on a fresh wave of paranoia, which leads to him screwing his eyes painfully shut and doing something that looks a little bit like rocking back and forth (and he would be, wouldn't he, the madman -) on the bathroom tile. Through the oncoming haze of panic he wonders if it might have just been, like, a black spot. The kind that happens when you get adequately fucking terrified.
A frighteningly insubstantial mutter underscores his breakdown. Something he can't get hold of, something that won't step down. It's stupid; he's not told anyone a thing, but he feels like he's the last person to know that this is going on. More accurately he's just finally letting the last denial shields fall.
God. This is happening to him.
When Techno narrowed down his own condition in the first place (had to be, what, a few months ago now) he'd gone straight to Wilbur about it. And - well, Wilbur had known that Niki wanted to get a job in helping people with their brain problems, and he'd sort of ferried back and forth information between both parties without explaining who exactly he was ferrying these reassurances for until Techno was comfortable with the idea of explaining it to the rest of Wilbur's friends. Nobody had taken it badly, everybody had piled on support, and Techno had reported back that it was helpful to be able to talk to people who had experience with the whole thing, who knew what the hell they were talking about. Everything was dandy - Wilbur retained his status as token normal person.
Now he thinks this series of events over another hundred times and wonders why, back then, he'd been so sure it could never happen to him. Maybe if he'd had more mental space put aside to prepare he wouldn't have been so blindsided.
A voice rises above the current and reminds him that he’s not blind, he’s just stupid. Wilbur’s sure that Techno would be able to tell it off, push it back into the sea, carry on unphased, but he flinches at the personal attack - ad hominem, his brain rattles off, because apparently he’s still dedicated to being a language enthusiast even in the middle of a breakdown like this - and has to shake it off, physically, like a dog with fleas. (Unsuccessfully. Stupid, proud, self-aggrandizing idiot, thinking himself above this sort of thing, like he’s some perfect specimen, like he’s not just as fallible as Techno.)
Techno’s home. Nobody else is. Well - Tommy might be, but if Tommy’s ever seen without his headphones in at home, it’s a cold day in hell. Their dad is at work, is the key thing, and he’s been sleeping a lot more recently anyway, so it’s been pretty hard for any of the teenagers to catch him unless they’re all being unexpectedly called for a fully cooked meal for four that nobody saw Phil preparing or if they’re getting texts halfway through the day about things he’s seen on his commute that he thought they would appreciate the oddity of. So Techno is pretty much the only option on the table.
Fine. Good, probably, actually. Techno’s the one who knows what this shit is and how to deal with it.
Mission one, get in contact with Techno, then.
What Wilbur discovers when he tries option one - texting - is equal parts unexpected, entirely logical, and irrelevantly gross; his hands are too sweaty to register with the phone screen at the minute. He attempts his unlock pattern for a couple of desperate flicks, rubs his palms on his jeans (and of course he’s having his breakdown in jeans, he couldn’t be a bit more comfortable on the bathroom floor, could he), tries again and with muscles clenching in frustration realises it’s not happening. So - option one out the window. Option two would be to stand up and physically go and find Techno, and when he tests his body to see if his legs are up for standing, they respond with a resounding we don’t actually contain any blood at the minute and you will fall over, mate. That’s not brilliant either. He shifts - plants his arse more firmly on the ground to avoid getting dead legs - and begins to enact option 3.
“Technoooo?”
It’s plaintive - wailing like a fucking baby, he thinks, and it’s actually some self-loathing part of himself rather than a new intrusive speaker - it’s pathetic. Still, he gives it another few goes, lets his voice crack when it crumples under the pressure of unexpected tears that don’t quite break the dam, lachrymal fluid welling up but not actually turning into anything substantial like they’re supposed to, failing at their job, just like Wilbur’s failed to be normal - no - NO - he almost moves to hit himself for his brain’s unnecessary meanness, but stops his hand, because self-harm is not a great coping mechanism, as he’s well aware.
Wilbur’s been clean for so long. He can’t break that.
He’s about to hit the house with another “Technooo” and, failing that, give up and lay down to die altogether, when he hears the all-important footsteps in the hall. They know each other’s gait as well as they know Happy Birthday, easily picked out in a crowd, usually entwined with their own - he’s still in his school shoes. (On the upstairs landing - Dad would give him shit for that, but Dad’s not home, so Wilbur’s not exactly going to fault him for it, especially right now.) He hears Techno take exactly two steps down the stairs before he actually processes what Wilbur’s doing - calling for him - and then and then he turns straight back around, tries the door, pushes his way into the bathroom, and Wilbur’s not on his own any more.
“Hey,” Techno starts, careful, not touching yet, as Wilbur’s head drops and the tears make another strong try for their escape, “hey.”
“Techno,” he lets out - it’s choked, unvoiced. His grip around his phone tightens - it might smash, it might - he’s got to - “ah,” he vocalises, and it means everything his mouth can’t find its way around, the shape of his discontent.
“Hey,” says Techno again, and then - and he’s really not built for de-escalation, never has been, but when it’s Wilbur - “lemme - c’mon, your - hold on to my sleeve or somethin’, you’re gonna rip your shirt.”
He does. He’s not quite sure when he started grabbing his shirt. It’s just a school shirt, but it’s one of his favourites; he’d be sad to fuck it up. Techno is in his blazer, because somehow they lucked out on his sensory issues and he actually liked the mandatory-in-all-but-name fabric that everyone else they know has always been so keen to lose whenever possible. Techno’s blazer is half-destroyed because he chewed holes in the sleeves before he was old enough to think better of it. Tommy did that too, the moment he got to their school, but he shot up at such a rate that he was allowed to get a new blazer, one he didn’t fuck up quite as badly.
It’s not really the time to be thinking about blazers, is it, his newly unwanted internal monologue raises, and it’s right, but he hates it anyway. He hates a lot of things about this.
“Okay - uh -” Techno flounders “- you’re not - like - in pain, right?”
Wilbur shakes his head. Oh - a headache asserts itself in the sudden movement. He initiates eye contact and makes a face of kind of.
“Pog,” says Techno, and they’ll both forever rue the day that Tommy picked up that new gem of language, because they’ve both got very amusing and idiotic histories with it. “Okay, you’re just - what’s up, you’re freaking out about something?”
Wilbur nods.
“Does it have to happen on the bathroom floor?”
Wilbur shakes again. “I -”, he starts, and croaks on it, and he can’t speak. He taps a little roughly at his legs to try to get the point across.
“Can’t walk?”
Wilbur nods.
“Like, physically your legs broke, or you’re just -”
Wilbur holds up two fingers and makes another face. Impeccable bedside manner, he’s thinking, and although they’ve tried and tested twin telepathy enough times across their life to know it’s not really real, Techno picks the insult up just fine.
“Alright, jerk,” says Techno, in the ever annoying way where he won’t just swear. Wilbur would try to shout cunt back in his face, just to remind him what he’s missing out on (and it’s an old joke, and he’d say something nostalgic, and maybe everything would be okay again -) but his voice is still definitely failing him. “Lemme - what else do you need, like, water? Glass of water? I don’t - I should really have made a checklist for this by now.”
Wilbur nods. Water’s fine. He’ll probably be able to force some down, and maybe that will dislodge the boulder in his throat that’s blocking up his ability to just explain himself. Getting like this has never been fun for him; Wilbur’s weapon is his words, and when they desert him in times of crisis, it only serves to make him feel more weak and vulnerable and shit.
So Techno stands up, and gets him water with the plastic glass they use to hold the toothbrushes, and Wilbur flexes his hands very hard, splayed on his thighs, until it’s time to hold the cup and take a measured sip. It hurts. But it’s calming. Probably.
Techno’s probably more calming.
“Yeah? S’that better?”
“Mmm,” he says, around a fourth or fifth gulp of water. His hands have stopped wanting to strangle something, which is a good sign (and his hair probably looks like shit from where he was clutching at it earlier, so he ruffles it, and -)
“Of course you care about your hair at a time like this,” quips Techno.
“Oi.”
“What?”
Wilbur takes a deep breath, and all the tension leaves him in a whoosh with the exhale. He feels cold - like he’s running on fumes, and a little lightheaded, too. But at least it seems as if his legs are going to carry him from now on. “Uh -”
He reaches out a hand, bracing his feet, and Techno grabs him by the wrist, reading him instantly. “Okay, one, two, three -” yank and he’s standing.
They make eye contact again. The tears breach.
“Hey - hey, what the hell, come on, c’mere, let’s, uh - let’s do my room?”
They head into Techno’s room; it’s closer, anyway.
Once Wilbur’s been sitting on Techno’s bed for a few more minutes, sipping at his water and rubbing at his eyes when they get uncomfortably teary, it becomes a lot more bearable of an idea to try and force some words out. “Sorry.”
“What?”
“For -” he gestures weakly with his free hand. “Like, you were probably busy.”
“Oh - no! No, what are you -? You kiddin’?”
“I don’t know, were you busy?”
“Nah, I was just gonna get a snack. What’s your deal?”
Ah. This is the important part. “A lot, actually.”
“See? So your thing was more important than my thing, so shut up about wastin’ my time, because I know you’re gonna say it.”
“Fine.”
“So?”
A pause. This would normally - and, fuck, he’d normally expect an uncomfortable, encompassing silence to settle after that, but the void is distressingly full, populated with buzzing thoughts and pops and opinions, all a little too out of auditory focus to attend to. “I - I don’t know what the fuck is going on, man.”
“Me neither, like, ever,” Techno grimaces. “See, I’d normally get this freaked out if I developed a new and incredibly un-fun symptom of mental illness. And I’m not sayin’ that’s what you’re havin’, but…”
He clears his throat. “No. No, uh, you - you’ve hit the nail on the head, there.”
“Ah! Welcome to the club! Officially, I mean. You were obviously already in the club before this.”
“Huh?”
“What, huh?”
“I’m - I mean, I’ve been the normal one till now. I’m not -”
“Are you seriously kidding?”
“No?”
“Wilbur -” Techno pulls his hair back, ties it in a low ponytail “- how has nobody ever told you how neurodivergent you are?”
Wilbur blinks.
“Like, I thought you - we all thought you knew, bro.”
“I’m not -”
“All of us.”
“I didn’t -”
“Everybody.”
Wilbur squints. “Everybody in our friend group thought I was - was ND and nobody thought to tell me.”
“We thought you knew!” he says again.
“Fine. Whatever. Problem for another time. Look - you’ve - Chat, right?”
Techno’s eyes flash recognition of the eternal chorus in his head, affectionately deemed his livestream chat. Then his expression darkens, as he processes exactly what Wilbur is trying to imply.
“You seriously - you’re thinkin’ -?”
“I don’t know, maybe,” he gestures widely, helplessly, the back of his hand smacking into the wall, because Techno’s bed is still backed into the corner as it has been since they got separate rooms at age, what, ten? “There’s definitely something happening that wasn’t here before.”
“If we both developed the same very niche mental illness completely apropos of genetics I’m gonna actually go crazy,” Techno smirks, and then, “no, that’s - is that insensitive? Can I reclaim crazy? Do you -”
“I certainly don’t fucking care, man.”
"Alright. Uh." He shuffles his desk chair forward on its wheels a few times, pulls his legs up, calls upon his natural aroace inability to sit properly. "Tell me what's - what did you experience?"
So Wilbur does. The more he goes into detail about the whole affair, the more he starts to see it less as a spontaneous development of the last day or so and more as the gradual onset of a much longer development period - like a radio tuning to the right frequency, white noise resolving into crystal clarity. He sketches the symptoms and then fills out the timeline across them, bold strokes, sure of its uncertainty, parts of the confessional little more than rambled spittings-out of raw emotion that have been marinating under his skin for days, less than whole positions and barely strings of words. Techno gets it anyway. Techno sits and Techno listens and when Wilbur flops down sideways to explain from a more comfortable position Techno doesn't even raise an eyebrow, just lets his brother use the bed like his own personal fainting couch, 'cause Techno knows that he's dramatic.
And when Wilbur runs dry, when everything he's been this week has flown freely from the wound his mouth has rended and the quiet starts to clot and scab over his hoarse voice, Techno smiles.
"Yeah. Pretty much what happened to me."
Well, nobody ever said he was a great orator.
"It's - fuck, man, it's been - boiling over, all day, few days, I'd just been trying to ignore it and get on with school, but - I guess I couldn't really put it on the don't think about it list forever," he chuckles.
"Yeah. The harder you try to repress it, the worse the breakdown's gonna be."
"As I've quite clearly fucking proven." His eyes wander across Techno's wall, and he wonders if his twin has taken any posters down since they were thirteen. MCR and BVB still watch him while he sleeps, apparently.
"It's gonna be fine, though. You got through the brutal part. And hey - at least you're not tryin' to handle this alone."
"Yeah -"
"Which would be stupid."
"Yep."
"Because I am right here."
"Yes, Techno."
"Good. We're understood. Now do you want a hug or something?"
"If you can spare one."
They'll tell Phil later. Tommy, too, when Will can bear the thought of when the child has double avenues for Chat jokes (he'll no doubt be Twitch assigned, since Techno's cornered all the YouTube Gaming memes for several months). Now, though, brothers hug, and Wilbur dares to think he's proud he isn't normal, because it only served to split him further up from those he cared about before, and he'd rather struggle by their side than push ahead to claim a friendless title.
He'd rather be with Techno than anything, really. They're brothers. That's worth infinitely more than normal ever could be.
Still weird how they managed to pick up exactly the same niche mental condition in such quick succession, though.