Chapter Text
Mornings were harder than they used to be, to say the least. The sound of his alarm going off felt like a punch to the gut, and getting out of bed seemed like the last thing he should be doing.
Knowing that if he stalled any longer he would never get out of bed Tommy begrudgingly swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up, willing his body not to collapse under him.
Every step seemed heavier than the last, like his thoughts were too heavy for his body. He hadn't slept well last night and he could feel it in every step he took. According to his clock he guessed he probably got around 4 or 5 hours of sleep the night prior, which while not great, was better than nothing.
He dragged himself through the normal steps he took to get ready before school, but it felt like his hands and his mind just weren’t in sync. Everything he did felt like it was happening slower then normal, as if his reaction time had been severely lengthened.
He stumbled his way through online classes, just trying to stay awake long enough to get through his day. But no matter how much he tried to pay attention and focus on whatever his teacher was talking about he kept losing his focus and ended up zoning out for most of the lesson.
He was trying though, he really was.
By the time the school day ended Tommy was more than ready to be done, the whole day had just been one mistake after another, from getting called on to answer a question he almost knew the answer too but just couldn't quite remember, to snapping at one of his friends for no reason (and then immediately feeling guilty for it). His friend hadn't even done anything wrong, he was just there at the wrong time and Tommy snapped at him, he apologized immediately after of course mumbling some excuses about 'lack of sleep' and the like, his friend -to his credit- had tried to seem understanding but Tommy suspected he was still somewhat salty about Tommy snapping at him like he had.
But none of that mattered now, the school day was out and he had the rest of the day to do whatever he wanted.
Not that there was much to do these days.
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It was a little past 10 pm and he was on a FaceTime call with Tubbo and they were both chatting away while doing their own things. Tubbo was working on some puzzle type thing for school while Tommy was just playing some game on his phone while they talked.
Tommy usually 'went to bed' at about 10:30 but he was really trying to stall today, the longer he could stay on the phone with Tubbo the later he would have to start trying to sleep.
This plan actually worked for a little while but much to Tommy's dismay Tubbo eventually caught on.
"Oh shoot, hey dude it's like 11 already!"
"Really? Oh damn you're right" Tommy was just gonna pretend he hadn't been constantly checking the clock every few minutes, hoping his friend hadn't notice how late it was getting.
"Aren't you supposed to be going to bed at like 10:30 now? To help you sleep better?" Tubbo asked, even though he already knew the answer.
Tommy sighed, "Yeahhh... but it's not even helping so whats even the point ya know", he mumbled out the last bit, directing it more towards himself than Tubbo.
"Ok well I gotta go to bed, and you really should too. At least try, ok?"
"Yeah yeah ok" Tommy knew his friend meant well but it was a little harder than that.
They said their goodbyes and Tubbo headed off to bed. Tommy, on the other hand, was just staring at his bed across the room, trying to think of any excuse to stay out of it.
His whole body felt exhausted and his head was pounding from lack of sleep the night before, and yet he knew the second he laid down in that bed he would be wide awake.
Chronic Onset Insomnia, that was the technical name for his disorder, but whenever anyone asked he just told them he had some trouble sleeping.
Time is different at night, especially when you're forced to be be conscious through every second of it. Time spent laying in bed trying to sleep will tick on for what seems like hours, but once you're asleep suddenly time is moving all too fast.
Tommy had only been in bed for about an hour since he got off the call with Tubbo, but it felt it had been an eternity ago. He wondered if anyone else was awake, it was a oddly lonely being so utterly alone every night. Something about having nothing to listen to other than your own thoughts really makes one yearn for any kind of escape they can get.
2:00 a.m:
Three hours. Three goddamn hours, of laying in bed and nothing, absolutely nothing, he was no closer to falling asleep then he had been three hours ago.
The feeling of frustration was overwhelming, and it made him wanna cry and scream at the same time. He wanted to curse at the world for not allowing him a basic human necessity such as sleep, but he could barely find the energy to get mad, insomnia seemed to have sucked all the life out of him.
Silent tears quickly replaced the anger, and instead the feeling of helplessness took its place. This wasn't a problem he could yell at until it went away, he was born like this, and there was nothing he could do about it.
By the time he calmed down it was almost three in the morning, which meant even if he fell asleep right then he could only get six hours of sleep. He sighed and buried himself deeper under his blankets, maybe if he nestled into them deep enough he could forget about all of his problems, if only for one night.
4:00 a.m:
Do you know how much time there is too think when you're laying in bed all night? Because the answer is a scarily high amount.
So much time for regret.
4:45 a.m:
Doing nothing but stare at the clock for hours makes you very aware of the passage of time, and how utterly long the darkness lasts when you can't close your eyes too it.
5:00 a.m:
The best part about this, Tommy decided, was that in the morning no one would know. None of friends would notice how tired his voice sounded, or the dark bags under his eyes. No one will even know all the shit he was going through while they were fast asleep.
6:00 am:
For the love of god please just go to sleep
Just as the sunrise started to be visible from his window Tommy's body finally gave in and fell asleep.
9:00 a.m:
He woke up to the sound of his alarm and the first thing he noticed was his raging headache. The second thing he noticed was how the stretch to grab his phone left him much more tired then it should've.
He tried to get out of bed, but he couldn't find the energy. Every part of him screamed to just stay in bed and go back to sleep, he was still just so tired and he had just fallen asleep, it wasn't fair to himself to get up now… was it?
One quick look at his clock told him that he had probably only gotten about 3 hours of sleep last night, which brought him to a grand total of 10 hours of sleep the whole week. After some quick debate he decided that that was good enough of an excuse as any to take a day off school.
Having come to his new decision he set his phone back down and mumbled a quick;
"I don't even need school, I'm gonna become a minecraft youtuber"
And then he was out like a light.
What Tommy had intended to be a quick nap ended up being him sleeping pretty much the whole day, which wouldn't normally be a problem except that he had plans to record with Wilbur and Tubbo that same day. Well, he had plans, that was until he slept through them.
Now, Tommy hardly ever talked about his trouble sleeping, in fact he basically avoided the subject at all costs, because of this most of his friends had little to no understanding about what it was like for him. They figured that since he just didn't talk about it, it must not effect him (although that was hardly the case).
So when Tommy didn't show up to record and all they knew was that Tommy had been up late the night before, Wilbur just assumed that he chose to sleep in and ignore his responsibility.
Suffice to say, he was a little pissed.