Chapter Text
“I'm sorry.” Wilbur whispered as Phil stood in front of him, hand so tightly clasped around the journal which had held so near and dear to his heart that his knuckles were turning white.
He had fucked up. Completely and utterly fucked up.
He thought the journal had been inside his backpack in a pocket that only he should have known about, but here it was, clutched in Philza Minecraft’s hands. Why had he even gotten the book in the first place? He fucking knew this would happen, but his stupid therapist had recommended that he wrote about his day and anything bad that happened if he wasn’t going to continue to see him.
The ‘False Jeopardy’ written on the black leather bindings seemed to be looking back at him mockingly as the silver danced under the gleaming lights. His breath had caught in his throat, and he knew that couldn’t just dismiss this by a quick statement.
This was so much more than just a minor fuck up.
This was worse than slipping up in front of friends.
This was worse than saying you're not hungry and your stomach growling at the mention of food.
Every pound gained and lost, every relapse of his eating disorder, every negative, panic filled thought sat in that notebook that Philza Minecraft held so tightly in his hand.
Wilbur’s empty stomach did a flip.
Wilbur had thought back to his recent relapse where he had lost 20 pounds in a month and had nearly been hospitalized as he passed out on public transport.
Wilbur had thought he could keep all of his disordered thoughts in his head and kept all of his sick body checking to himself.
He had noted how his jewelry stopped fitting onto his slim fingers and how his necklaces sat perfectly, displaying just how far his collarbones protruded from his ghostly white skin. He had documented how he could feel just how brittle his bones were getting.
He noted how he had bruises from a time that Tommy had bumped into his fragile frame and how he felt like he weighed 3,000 pounds after he had eaten less than what Phil could recount as less than a half serving of pasta.
Wilbur noted how he felt like his eating disorder was his full-time job, between counting calories and trying to push his fast to the closest time he could before he would pass out from a lack of nutrition.
Wilbur also had noted how Ranboo had grown suspicious of him and his habits, after the two had spent the day together and neither one of them had said anything about food.
Wilbur had vented about the day that Ranboo had pulled the group together to tell everyone that he needed help and that he had an eating disorder and just how out of body he had felt from that moment on. Wil remembered writing about how scared Tommy had looked and how he could never tell Tommy about his own because he couldn’t live with himself if the boy had lost sleep over him.
He had written about how he didn’t want to tell Phil because he didn’t want the man to worry about him when everything had been going on with Techno and he certainly didn’t want Phil to have to tell Kristian that something so awful was happening with him when the women had just grown to know him.
Wilbur didn’t think this day would ever come.
Wilbur didn’t want this day to ever come.
Phil knew it all and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Wilbur’s mind raced to all of the awful and disordered things that he had been doing in the last couple of hours that he had spent with the older man. Everything seemed to be disordered now.
Phil could see the boy’s head spinning but he didn't have much of an answer to go off and he was not well versed enough in the topic to take things in a specific direction. Phil had been hoping that Wilbur would say that this was an old journal from his day at the start of college, but from his reaction alone, Phil knew that wasn’t true. He knew that this was an ongoing thing.
Phil had noticed that the boy was wanting to have his face came on streams less frequently, and that he had stopped wearing some of the jewelry he had been, but he thought he could trust Wilbur to come to him with anything.
In that moment he knew just how wrong he had been.
Phil hadn’t thought past this being an old journal. He thought Wilbur had looked so happy in recent times.
Yeah, Wilbur was skinny, but he always had been.
At that moment Phil realized how few people knew.
Someone would have told him if something was wrong. Between Niki, Tommy, and Techno, he would have figured it out shortly that something was wrong. Someone would have told him.
None of their friends were stupid. Phil wasn’t stupid and neither was Wilbur. Both of them knew that things wouldn’t be left where they were currently.
Phil couldn’t let it go and Wilbur couldn’t let Phil mess up all of his hard work.
“I’m sorry.” Wilbur choked out again, this time it sounded breathier and more panicked than when he had said it the first time.
“I-I-I-I can explain!”
The words left his mouth before he could have thought it through. Phil just looked at him caught off guard.
“I… Please do.” he said, Phil’s voice wavered through the sentence.
Wilbur had thought it through enough to give himself an out, to give himself time to decide what he actually wanted to do.
No one had ever come this close to finding out his secret.
“It’s not what it looks like.”
It’s exactly what it looks like.
“After I got ill, I wanted to document… some stuff and that’s just the end result…”
I have been ill for so long; I don’t even know what normal feels like.
Phil stood for a second. He had never seen Wilbur this neurotic and calm at the same time. Phil thought that he could hear every thought in Wilbur’s head as his mind raced to find an out of the conversation.
Wilbur knew he had fucked up.
Phil knew and undeniably knew.
“How long?” Phil asked, placing a hand on the back of his neck. He didn’t even know what to do with himself anymore.
“Not long.” Fucking years.
Phil knew that was a lie. Wilbur knew that it was a lie. Wil knew he shouldn’t be lying to Phil. He rarely lied to Phil, unless it was about his eating disorder.
“Wilbur…”
“It wasn’t bad until college.” Whispered the younger man, eyes closed, and head tilted downwards. “During high school it was there, but college got me.” A wet laugh left Wilbur’s mouth. “I…it was something that just happened. I was working late and doing school early in the morning. At some point, I noticed the collarbones, and liked them and then it just got worse.”
Phil wished he could say he understood, but he didn’t. He didn’t understand any of it. He felt like everything was completely wrong and he couldn’t believe that someone he held so near and dear was struggling from something like this.
And he didn’t tell him.
He had to find out on his own.
Wilbur didn’t trust him to reach out for help.
Wilbur didn’t want help.
Wilbur was fine, so he didn’t need help.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I don’t need help. I am completely fine, and I am getting better! You read the book! You saw where my weight is steady!”
Wilbur wasn’t lying. He had been maintaining whether he liked it or not. He hadn’t lost or gained weight and that made him feel sick.
Wilbur wanted to know just how much of its Phil had read. He had detailed how he was stuck at this weird gap in his weight where no matter how hard he tried; he couldn’t break the barrier he was sat at. He couldn’t lose the weight no matter how hard he worked out or how little he ate in a day, his weight seemed to stay consistent.
“I know why that is Wilbur, you’re not okay.”
“I will figure it out on my own.”
“No, you won’t.” Phil said, his voice saying everything that Wilbur needed to know. This wasn’t a suggestion, and it certainly wasn’t up for debate. “I think it would be best if you moved in with me for the time being.”
Wil’s mouth dropped open. Everything that could go wrong seemed to be going wrong. “And before you start overthinking everything, Kristen isn’t there and as far as Tommy has to know, you are just moving closer to work on a big project or we can tell him if you think it would help.”
Wil sat silent, brain moving 120 miles per hour but also said silent at the same time. The only thought echoing through his head was I can’t do this.
“Wilbur, your choice right now is to move in with me or to seek professional help.”
The thought of having to see a professional made Wilbur panic even more.
Wil thought for a second before inhaling deeply, “When are we leaving by?”