Work Text:
things are getting harder.
most days he stays in bed. he stares at the ceiling. he doesn’t eat all too often — not on purpose, but because he genuinely forgot. his days are spent spacing out and dissociating, avoiding tasks he’s supposed to actually do. his friends haven’t heard from him in weeks. he hasn’t responded or streamed for nearly a month. nothing has cone of him. he’s been useless.
he doesn’t try to act this way. he’s not doing this as a way to get back at anyone, or scare them, or to pull a publicity stunt. he’s just... he forgets. this is his norm, you know? it’s been ingrained. he lost the will to do the things he used to do. he doesn’t care to stream, or talk to others, or do his schoolwork — christ, it’s a miracle he hasn’t been suspended — all he wants to do is sit there. he dreads having to move his body.
a few weeks in, he gets up. he stands. he stretches. he looks around, cracks some bones, runs a hand through his hair (when was the last time he’s washed his hair?), looks to his monitor; everything he would do when he still streamed. it was his old routine, missing the part where he’d sit at his desk; join his friends’ voice chat, play a meaningless game, chat mindlessly, read donations, be happy . it was all different.
and he could fix it all right now, if he wanted to. it would be so easy. all he had to do was sit down, load up obs streamlabs, and hit start. he could imagine it, almost: pretending to be okay, playing hypixel for a while, saying he’s been gone because of an internet outage or a vacation. he knows his fans would eat it up, but if he’s being honest with himself, that’s not the problem, is it?
the problem is confronting the friends that he’s been ignoring for weeks. the problem is confronting the people that will be happy to see him. the people that’ll be worried and afraid and ecstatic just to hear from their tommy . the tommy that stopped being himself the day he left that last voice call.
he wasn’t... he was just tired now. tired and exhausted and guilty all the time. it never relented, never giving him a moment’s rest; he had just been struggling. each day he woke up surprised he’s made it this far, and each day he crashes from that high and lays back down. he gets 16 or 17 hours of sleep each night, his alarm on his phone long forgotten in favour of being dead. he made sure not to charge it, just for times like these.
he knows. he knows he should tell someone. he thinks about it every fucking time he stares at his monitor, every god damn time he nearly trips over his ring light cord. he knows he needs to tell someone who cares about him — who would help him. he knows he needs to get a therapist as soon as possible. he knows he needs to stop imagining writing out a letter addressed to everyone important in his life. its horrifying, he tells himself, for the people around him. it’d be selfish to do such a thing.
so he doesn’t. he wakes up each day, does a lesson for his schoolwork, eats a little, drinks a little, stares at the ceiling, and goes back to sleep. it’s his routine now. one that can replace whatever he had before.