Chapter Text
Tommy rejoined the group after his little spat with Tubbo, he knew his friend didn’t deserve to be treated like that when all he was trying to do was check in on Tommy but something about the pity in Tubbo’s voice made it easier to justify it to himself.
Tommy didn’t need pity, pity wasn’t going to do him any good. He didn’t want everyone to sit around and feel sorry for him, whispering empty promises about how everything was gonna be alright. If anything that’d just make him feel worse. No, what he wanted was for his friends to understand, to notice he was suffering and make a point to help him not because they pitied him, but because that's what friends do.
Was that too much to ask for?
Among us was good, he decided. Since so much of the game was spent on mute he didn’t have to keep up his energetic facade, he could keep to himself until he had to speak every once in a while just to keep the suspicion off him.
However he quickly found that it was hard to keep his tired brain focused on such mundane tasks, he started spacing out during downloads or would find himself struggling with the Simon-Says reactor.
Another emergency meeting? Great…
“Me and Wilbur found it in storage, but there was no one around” Fundy was the first to un-mute seeing as he was the one to have found the body.
“Not to be that person buuuut I did see Dream heading towards there when I left electrical” Sapnap accused, causing an uproar from the man in question.
Everyone started pointing fingers about who was where and when, frankly Tommy couldn’t find it in himself to care. He was tired, he was cold, and he felt awful. And everybody screaming over his headset was definitely not doing him any favors…
“Whoever is yawning can you mute yourself holy shit, you’re gonna put me to sleep” Tommy wasn’t quite sure who had actually said that, but he could tell by their tone they were joking.
He laughed a little to himself that someone else on the call might just be as tired as he was. That was until he caught himself mid-yawn.
Shit
Had he been the one yawning? For how long? Was he being annoying? Had anyone noticed it was him?
Whatever, from the looks of it the group had moved on and were back to the game anyway.
Tommy had planned to just keep quiet most of the meeting and only speak up if it was necessary to defend himself, just like he had been for the last few games. His plan had been going great until about 10 seconds before voting time ended someone spoke up.
“I think it was Tommy” Wilbur stated, out of literally no where.
“What?”
“Wait why?”
Yeah… why??
“I mean think about it, hasn’t he been awfully quiet this game?” Wilbur wasn’t wrong, per-say, but still. Tommy felt his heart drop a little, even if it hadn’t been intended to hurt his feelings it still felt like a low blow.
“I’m trying…” Tommy mumbled, he wasn’t even sure if it was loud enough for his mic to pick up, but it’s all he had to say to defend himself. Ok yes, maybe he had been a little quiet the whole game, and yes he hadn’t really given any reasons why he wasn’t the imposter but still. This felt like a little bit of a reach. There was no evidence to convict him, no one had saw him doing anything suspicious at any point, everyone seemed to be just going along with it because Wilbur had said so.
“Wait so who are voting again?” George asked the group.
“Tommy I guess.”
Wait actually?
Voting time ended and pretty much every single person had voted him off.
Wow.
“Bye bye Tommy! That’s what you get!” Wilbur said in a sing-song voice. He sounded incredibly smug, like he knew he had just gotten away with something.
That’s what you get? What does that even mean? What could he have possibly done to piss Wilbur off so much that he was still on about it?
Oh… he’d missed the… oh…. right.
Was he really still upset about that? Tommy had only missed one recording session and it hadn’t even been on purpose or anything like that. Why was Wilbur being so childish about this?
Just thinking about it made Tommy mad. He hadn’t even been enjoying the game all that much, it’s not like he was all that upset to have been voted out, but what if he had been? What if he had been having a really good time and Wilbur had decided to be a petty bastard and get him voted out? Then what huh? Wilbur had absolutely no way of knowing whether Tommy was having a good time or not and just decided to vote him out anyway. Why!?
And now Tommy was pissed.
See, what you have to understand is that it’s a lot easier to be pissed over something like this when you haven’t slept in god knows how long and no one’s even noticed. Because once you reach a certain point your mind stops listening to reason and starts getting irritated with every, little, thing that happens.
In a brilliant moment of rage Tommy decided the best thing he could do is leave the call, and then the game. Ignoring the voice in his head telling him that he was being immature, he didn’t care. He was exhausted and every part of him hurt, and no one was listening to him, he was just trying to get through his day so he could go to bed that night and he just could not handle this right now.
Everything was too loud.
Everything was just so bright.
And everything hurt too bad.
He wanted out.
He needed out.
So he got out. And he stayed out. And he ignored any messages that asked him where he had gone, they wouldn’t understand anyway. They weren’t trapped like he was.
And suddenly it was almost five in the evening. Most of the day had been a blur, he didn’t feel like doing anything so he spent most of the day scrolling through his phone, barely registering any of it.
His head felt numb, like there was some sort of vibrating behind his eyes that was set on low. It didn’t necessarily hurt exactly, but it certainly wasn’t comfortable.
By the time his clock hit 9 o’clock his head was already hitting his pillow. He had never been so excited to get to sleep, by this point his whole body ached and he was more than ready to slip into a deep slumber.
Tommy had barley been laying down for two minutes when he felt himself start to drift off to sleep (the sheer excitement of the moment was almost enough to wake him back up again). He was gonna fall asleep in record time, and the timing couldn’t have been better.
And then he was falling. Right before he hit the ground he jumped straight up in bed, immediately loosing any progress he had on falling asleep.
Ya know those dreams where you’re falling and then you wake up just before you’re about to hit the ground? Yeah. Imagine that.
What? Wait, no no no no no, I was- I was almost there! I was asleep, I was good!! WHY TONIGHT?
“But- but that’s not fair! I was so close…” Tommy yelled at the walls of his dark room, as if they were somehow to blame for this. The walls didn’t respond.
He flopped backwards onto his bed, trying to calm back down enough to go back to sleep, his heart still pounding from the adrenaline of falling.
He tried it all, all the things that usually helped him lull himself back to sleep. Everything from counting, focused breathing, reading, daydreaming, anything that could get him back to the state of relaxation he had been before.
It took him about an hour before he finally felt his eyelids starting to grow heavy and his breathing start to slow down, that was always a good sign. He let his tired eyes fall closed and was content to pass out for the night. It was about one a.m by this point and he was more than ready to be asleep.
Everything felt calm, his body finally felt at peace and comfortable as he lay under his many blankets, curled up around his pillow. Everything was perfect. That was until- against his will- his left hand started twitching. The involuntary movement startling him enough to, once again, fully wake up.
At this point Tommy felt like he was gonna cry. It was like even his own body didn’t think he deserved sleep…
What did he do to deserve this??
And it just kept on like that. Right before he was about to fall asleep boom something twitches or someone falls, or once there was even a loud bang. But every time there was something.
By three a.m Tommy decided sleeping was futile, he may as well just pull another all-nighter. What’s another 24 hours anyway….
So he sat on the edge of his bed, and he waited. He sat and stared at his wall, even though it was too dark to make most of it out. No one else would be awake right now, and even if they were they probably wouldn’t even wanna talk to him. He didn’t feel like playing games and he felt way too tired to read anything. So he would sit here, and he would wait.
He was getting through this.
By five a.m he couldn’t even tell whether he was awake or asleep. He was still sitting up with his back to his headboard, and his knees pulled up to his chest. He didn’t know where or when he was, and he couldn’t be bothered to find out. He could already tell his back was gonna be sore the following day but he couldn’t bring himself to care. This was his life, this was his reality, whether his friends knew it or not.
The more he thought about it he almost found it in him to laugh, he could only imagine how absolutely pathetic he looked right now.
Seven a.m, by now the sun was rising, whether or not Tommy wanted it to. A whole ‘nother night. What was it, almost three in a row now? Well however many it had been Tommy felt like absolute shit. He was not enjoying this.
The sunrise from outside started to seep through his partially open blinds casting an early morning shadow across his bedroom floor.
Well guess the day’s starting whether I like it or not.
And that’s one of the weird things about insomnia. The world keeps going, the day-night cycle doesn’t stop just because you’re falling behind. The world doesn’t care if you sleep all night or never at all, the sun will still rise the next morning, and you’ll have to deal with whatever comes your way after that, sleep or no.
And Tommy was really starting to discover that first hand.
The early sunlight that was slowly illuminating his room made it clear that daytime was upon him. So he (begrudgingly) started to slowly pry himself off his bed. His back and neck felt incredibly sore as he tried to stand up, and he doubted that would be going away anytime soon, but instead of losing sleep over it (haha get it, because he- ya know- yeah), he decided to just add it too his ongoing list of problems to be dealt with later.
Time felt wrong. Morning had just started and he was already ready for bed. What was he even gonna do today? What even was today… thursday? Friday?
According to the calendar app on his phone it was a Saturday, and it was also a day where he had made plans to record with Wilbur and Tubbo (it was meant to be somewhat of a part two video from their session earlier in the week… but we all know how that went).
Uhggg
That was gonna be so annoying to film, he wasn’t even sure he could stay awake long enough to make it to noon to film with them. And even if he did there was absolutely no way he was gonna have the energy to provide any good content. Not to mention Wilbur was still pissy at him for god knows why.
Eh, he was sure it’d be fine… right?
At around 9am-ish he decided that the best way to keep himself awake and distracted was by going for a walk. He’d read somewhere that excerise could help wake up your body and make you feel more alive, so he assumed that was applicable in this situation. Right?
He threw some clothes on and quickly ran a brush through his hair, not really worrying about how he looked. That was his mindset at least until he passed the mirror in the hallway outside his room.
For a second… he almost didn’t recognize himself. His normally fluffy blonde hair was greasy and untamed, and maybe it was just the dim lighting in the hallway but it seemed to be bordering on a darker color of blonde than usual.
The normally faint black-ish bags under his eyes were now a deep purple color stretching all the way up towards his eyelids, almost giving the impression that he was recovering from a black eye. Besides the deep bags under them his eyes themselves looked dull and distant, like he was zoning out even when he was focusing on something.
His expression was fixed in a scowl, much to his dismay. His whole face screamed Talk To Me And You Die >:(.
What happened to him?
Was a few nights without sleep really enough to do all that?
Huh.
Tommy headed out for his walk, the morning air still had a chill and it was almost enough to convince him to turn home to grab another layer, but he figured he’d warm up the more he walked, so he trudged on.
He put his headphones in and turned the music up higher than he normally would, hoping the loud music would help wake him up.
"So bite your tongue and choke yourself to sleep", well the music seemed quite fitting for the occasion huh.
By the time he returned home from his walk and had a little bit to eat it was almost time to film with Wilbur and Tubbo. He grimaced at the thought.
He decided he had enough time to take a minute before the video to pull himself together, he made a cup of tea to try and help his voice, he opened the blinds and window in his room to try and get some fresh air in, just a bunch of little things that he thought may help.
Eventually the time came to actually record, and he was a little more nervous than he'd like to admit.
He joined the voice-channel, he was the first one here, which gave him plenty of time to freak out about it.
What if they find out?
What if he wasn't as funny when he was tired?
What if they thought he was weird or even weak for not sleeping? Would they even still wanna be friends with him after this?
What if he ruins the video?
What if-
His nervous ramblings were interrupted by the sound of someone else joining the call.
"Tubbo!"
"Hey Tommy" Tubbo very much did not match his enthusiam (it had been fake anyways but still).
There was barley a moment of silence before Tubbo suddenly decided to bring up the one topic Tommy didn't want to talk about.
"So Tommy can we talk about your sleep now because you said-"
WilburSoot has joined your channel
Saved by the bell....
"Hello Tubbo! Ah Tommy, I see you decided to join us this time, how nice of you" Wilbur greeted.
Hahah I'm sorry what
"And what's that supposed to mean?" His voice was rough and scratchy sounding, and it hurt his throat to talk. But he wasn't about to sit here and be indirectly insulted, he may be exhausted but he still had dignity.
"Well what do you think it means? You slept through our last session so I wasn't sure if I could expect you to see you here this time." Wilbur's voice was happy and upbeat, like he was having a pleasant conversation and not being a total asshole.
"Dude I said I was sorry already like a hundred times, and it's not like I did it on purpose anyways..."
"Yeah well you still did it, you stayed up late screwing around and then missed your responsibility the next day because of it. You were being reckless, you have no one to blame for that but yourself. Can we move on now? There's a video to be filmed..." Wilbur spoke as though this is was some kind of huge inconvenience to him, and that made Tommy's blood boil.
You picked the wrong day and the wrong person to fuck with Mr. Wilbur Soot let me tell you-
"No no no no, we can not just 'move on' from this."
"Uhgggg" Wilbur heavy sighed, "of course we have to make an even bigger deal out of this".
And suddenly, Tommy was wide awake.
"Ok for starters dipshit I wasn't up late 'screwing around' as you so wonderfully put it, I was up late because I couldn't sleep-"
"Dude we've all been telling you to fix your sleep schedule for who knows how long now man, this is why."
There was a moment of silence as Tommy was just sitting there in shock. Did he really just... did Wilbur really think it was Tommy's fault that he couldn't sleep?? Did he think he was doing this on purpose or something??
"Ok Wilbur I think maybe your being a little-" Tubbo, who had been mostly sitting quietly watching the other two bicker, tried to step in.
"Don't you think I've tried that Wilbur?" It was barley a whisper, but Tommy's mike picked it up just fine.
"Well I mean... clearly not." Wilbur sounded royally unbothered by Tubbo's worry and Tommy's sudden change of tone.
"Hey ya know what? Fuck you Wilbur Soot." Tommy spat.
"What?" Wilbur finally seemed to realize that Tommy wasn't just screwing around.
"Fuck. You. Do you have any fucking idea how goddamn hard I work every single night to try and get even the smallest amount of sleep? Do you?"
"I-"
"Because if you did you wouldn't be sitting here blaming me for how much sleep I get. If you knew what night's were like for me you wouldn't be sitting there saying that I brought this upon myself. Do you know what a chronic illness is Wilbur? Because it doesn't seem like you do." Tommy was done, he didn't care if he hurt someones feelings, or if they didn't want to be friends with him after this, he needed to say it, and they needed to hear it.
"Tommy what- is it-” Wilbur was stumbling over words, like he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to say, “why didn't you say how bad it was?" When he did speak Wilbur's voice was softer than normal, which was a huge contrast from the mocking tone he had been sporting mere minutes ago.
"Because nobody ever asked. Because nobody fucking cares? Do you know how many times I've showed up to a stream or to a video after going days without sleep, feeling like death, wanting nothing more than for someone to notice something was wrong? And do you know how many times anyone’s noticed? How many times a single person has asked if somethings up? Because the answer is so much lower than it should be. Have you ever noticed? Ever once? Because you certainly seemed to notice when it effected you, I sleep for the first time in days and suddenly I'm the bad guy for screwing with your schedule?? Yeah okay, makes sense."
"Tommy I- I had no idea. I am so so sorry I-"
"Ya know, I haven't slept in 56 hours. Did you know that?"
"Tommy..." This time it was Tubbo, who sounded like he was close to tears.
"Jesus Christ, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT'S LIKE? DO YOU?" Tommy took a moment to calm himself down, the screaming was really hurting his voice.
"I spend hours on hours alone at night with my thoughts and it's actual hell for me... theres no escape, I’m just trapped in this endless fucking cycle of being awake all night every night and theres nothing I can do about it and,” he had to stop for a minute to take a breath, “and I just really don't want to be alone anymore-" His voice cracked at the end, he hadn't even realized he was crying. But that was it. That was the bitter truth, he just wanted people to understand and to care. He truly was just tired of being alone.
It took everyone a minute to calm down after that. And by this point, any plans of recording anything were long gone.
"Tommy... oh my god I really fucked this one up didn't I? I had no idea, I mean I knew you've mentioned something about having trouble sleeping before but this?? Dude I am so sorry that sounds like shit."
Tommy hummed in agreement, not trusting his voice yet.
"Look Tommy, I am so sorry I ever tried to blame any of this on you, that was a really shitty thing for me to do. I was incredibly ignorant and selfish and jumped to conclusions without first hearing your side. And I don't even care about the stupid video, what matters is that you're ok and taking care of youself, ok?"
"Yeah speaking of which..." It was now Tubbo's turn to interject himself back into the conversation.
"Oh here we go I'm about to get a mom lecture from Tubbo..." Tommy's tone was playful but it didn't quite sound like he was all there.
"Tommy how long has this been happening? Like how long have you been having this much trouble sleeping and you didn't tell us?
Silence from Tommy.
They didn't need to know, he didn't want them to feel guilty for how long they'd been oblivious to his struggle.
"Tommy?" This time from Wilbur, speaking like he was trying to coax out a hurt animal from hiding.
"If I told you... I think... I think you may regret asking" There was a bitterness to his voice, a bitterness that made it painfully clear that Tommy was right. And also made it obvious just how blind they must've been to ever think that insomnia never effected Tommy.
"Tommy I can't... this is.... UHG," Wilbur let out a frustrated grunt, "I just- I just never thought I'd be the one too hurt you...."
"Wilbur it's really not that big of a deal, seriously man I'm ok-" Tommy tried to console the older, only to be abrubtly cut off.
"Jesus fucking Christ Tommy! Stop telling me you're okay when you are so obviously not!!"
Tommy was definitely not expecting that reaction from Wilbur, in fact if anything he was expecting Wilbur to mock him and complain about how annoying and childish it was for him to struggle so much with something so easy.
But he didn't. No, instead of belittling him Wilbur was apologizing, and trying to help him... huh, didn't see that one coming.
"Tommy please," This time it was Tubbo who spoke up "you don't have to deal with this alone, let us help you!"
"I don't need help... I'm not some helpless, pathetic, child. I can deal with this myself...." Just having to say that felt demeaning but he wasn't about to give everyone another reason to think less of him.
"Tommy..." Tubbo sounded hurt.
"Tommy you've never been pathetic to me ever. I swear." Wilbur's tone left no room for argument, Tommy didn't even feel brave enough to argue with him.
There was a moment of silence as Wilbur waited for someone to dare to disagree with him.
"Alright well now that we’ve gotten that out of the way... what can we do to help."
~
It was a Monday night and it was almost time for Tommy to head to bed. It was a little past 10 and he was on a call with Tubbo, and they were getting ready for bed together. Ever since Tommy had confided in his friends they had gone out of their way to help as much as possible.
Tommy had agreed to open up and tell a few other of their friends- and they were all nothing short of supportive- and ever since he's had people almost every night trying to help him out.
He and Tubbo still called almost every night, but nowadays Tubbo would get ready for bed with Tommy over the phone, they'd both make a cup of tea (or any other warm drink) to help wind down before bed, and then they'd brush their teeth and whatnot before heading off their separate ways.
Tommy now got in bed every night at 10:30 pm sharp (against his arguments that he was ‘a big, strong, mature, man who didn't need no bed time thank you very much'). But his friends were convinced that if he got a good routine going it could really benefit him, and so he did it, begrudgingly.
Usually around 10:30 someone would call him, never two people in one night though, Tommy almost wondered if they had some sort of schedule (which they totally did by the way). Someone would call him practically every night and stay on the line with him until he fell asleep.
Some nights Dream would call him, and he would quietly practice speed-runs on the other end, making quiet commentary throughout until Tommy fell asleep. Sometimes Schlatt would call, he would talk about finance and economics until Tommy fell asleep out of boredom (but no absolutely Schlatt did not do that if anyone asks, he totally doesn't even like the kid anyway...). There were also nights were Technoblade himself would call him, and those were the quietest nights were Tommy and him just sat in comfortable silence until they both fell asleep on the call (Techno understood better than anyone else what it was like to be up so late) and they both enjoyed just having each others presence. There were others too of course, but those three were the ones who really stepped up to the plate when they realized how much Tommy needed someone.
So some nights before Tommy went to bed his screen would light up with “Incoming call from Techno!” or from Schlatt, or Dream. And Tommy was always happy to see their names.
But most nights... most nights Wilbur would call him. Most nights Wilbur would call him and he would sing to him and strum out half written songs on his guitar, the gentle cords lulling his tired mind to sleep. Most nights Wilbur would tell long story’s in low voices, story’s just interesting enough to keep his mind focused on them until he eventually drifted off to sleep. Most nights it was Wilbur, it was Wilbur who was there for him on the hard nights, and it was Wilbur who talked him through them.
Most nights it was him and Wilbur,
And Tommy was so tired.
And his eyes were so heavy...
Most nights it was him and Wilbur,
And those nights he was happy.
It's a hard thing, being aware of the silence.
But he thinks he'll make it.