When You Cut the Puppet Strings
Robbie turns into a sniveling, slobbery mess. Rex is a completely different person, instead of an extension of himself. He cries and mourns, and keeps Rex in a glass box. Someone teases him, asks, If Rex is so real, why isn't he buried like other people? Robbie says, with a completely straight face, that Rex is too vain to be buried. Apparently, the glass box was his dying wish.
This person can't tell if Robbie's even serious.
Because since Rex died, Robbie's been unpredictable. The harsh opinions and brutal honesty that he had the satisfaction of voicing through Rex are now off limits. But sometimes they slip out, and when they do, the look on Robbie's face isn't horror, but amusement. He thinks he's hilarious.
And it is him, he's starting to realize.
Not Rex.
It never was.
Without Rex, who was his mini-me, Robbie leaves behind cardigans, glasses, and stuttering. His sense of style mimics Rex's eerily now, and his contacts make it easier to see that cocky glint in his eye since he realized that that suave, saucy mouth of Rex's? Yeah, it's actually his.
He's learning how to do accents and throw his voice. He puts words in people's mouths that they'd never say themselves. In one week, Robbie's talented mouth is the cause of three hook-ups, six break ups, and ten fights.
He enjoys this newfound power.
Way too much.
And that's why his friends get someone to build a new, indestructible version of Rex. And then they "resurrect" him.
For a moment, New Robbie is torn between the impulsive, honest, powerful him he didn't know he could be. He knows exactly what his friends are doing, and he doesn't appreciate it. But New Robbie hasn't been separated from Old Robbie that long. One look into his friend's faces is enough to bring back that longing to be accepted. To have best friends, no matter that they were only there if he accepted certain conditions.
New Robbie was the kind of guy that didn't have best friends, he had admirers. But you couldn't call admirers in the middle of the night.
Not that he could call his friends in the middle of the night. He wouldn't want to impose.
So he meekly put away New Robbie, the bad and the good, and pulled Old Robbie back out, mostly the bad. He slipped back on the glasses and the cardigans, hunched his shoulders, and only said what he really thought with his hand up a puppet's wooden butt.
And whether he would have been better off another way, if he would have eventually stopped abusing his power and settled into a cool guy, will never be known.
Because this new puppet's strings wouldn't cut if you pulled a chainsaw on them.
A/N: Yes, I am aware that Rex doesn't have strings. Think about it.
So antyways, Robbie is awesome and it's quite obvious this story is for him. :D I can't imagine that he would be entirely sane with Rex co-existing in his mind without the distinction of a puppet.
Thanks for reviews!