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tommyinnit knows something's wrong with him. he knows, alright? it wasn’t a problem when he was a child—he hadn’t even noticed as a child, acting exactly how one would expect him to, squirming at the idea of kissing a girl—but he's going to be 17 soon, almost an adult. his parents have started bugging him about dating and asking after crushes that didn’t exist, and normal 17-year-olds—
it starts with skephalo—as little things do, as more should. it starts with puffy, and when she makes a joke about how skeppy and bad are going through some relationship problems and can’t get their shit together. even though they’re not dating—not queer at all, as far as tommy knows—neither of them care, except bad to shriek “language!”
it starts there.
because everyone, from their closest friends to people who barely know who they are, ships skephalo. nobody skips skephalo day. tommy doesn't understand how it doesn't bother them. even the thought of someone thinking of him and tubbo in a romantic context makes him feel irritated and uncomfortable, makes him want to curl into a ball on his bed and block out the whole world.
tubbo doesn't feel the same, he knows that. tubbo couldn't care less what people do, as long as it isn't weird, as long as he doesn't have to see it.
that's where it starts. a little, sick feeling in his stomach that tells him he's not quite the same as everyone else.
it continues with dreamnotfound, which isn’t a new one, to be sure—but this time, it's less the shippers and more the 'd' and the 'nf' of dnf.
to put it simply, dream and georgenotfound won't stop fucking flirting. with every passing pick-up line—each somehow worse than the last—tommy yearns more for the moment tubbo finishes his homework and can play with him.
“fuck you,” dream says, to which george responds with “dinner first.” tommy is left feeling slightly—oddly—uncomfortable at such an overused line, and very much like a third wheel.
“ooh, are you about to kiss right now?” he cackles anyway, because he's never been one to let his feelings get in the way of making a joke. the unease isn't overwhelming, but a tickle in the back of his mind telling him that this is wrong, all wrong, nothing like it's supposed to go. he's not sure what it means, but it sounds quite homophobic.
tommy isn't homophobic, is he?
“yeah, maybe we are,” dream replies, and tommy is jolted back into a world where he's live, for over a hundred fifty thousand people to see. a sudden, paranoid thought that his viewers would know what he was thinking pops into his head, and he glances at the camera for a moment before shaking it off. dream presses his minecraft character into george's, making a kissing sound. turning to tommy, he says, “what are you gonna do about it?”
george cracks up in the background. tommy doesn't see how it's funny at all, the tickle in his head growing to a dull ache. it's still easily ignorable, so tommy just shrugs. “i don't know, man, whatever floats your boat.”
and they don't stop. maybe it isn't much, for other people, but every loaded pause and cackling laugh grates on his ears, making his head throb painfully. by the time he's able to end stream, he wants to scream. a little later, and he does, hands pressed over his ears and face buried in his pillow.
his head hurts.
it climaxes with wilbur, and maybe that hurts more, somehow.
“i hope you don’t treat your girlfriend like this,” wilbur says.
and that’s the extent of it, and tommy doesn’t even care to remember the context. he knows he’s sick of hearing about his supposed future girlfriends, and he knows that the idea of wilbur pressuring him about the same thing makes him feel worse.
it’s a joke in the end, what wilbur said. it was nothing but a joke.
“i’m not gonna have a girlfriend!”
but the words comes out sharper than intended, something feral and hurt crawling up his throat. it’s not the right thing—the normal thing—to say, tommy knows it the moment it leaves his mouth—before wilbur has time to respond with a surprised, “oh. you’re not?”
he’s never wanted a girlfriend. there hasn’t been time; he’s been busy doing other things. in 4th grade, doing “other things” was trading pokemon cards, in 7th grade it was hanging out with his friends. now, it was streaming (and hanging out with his friends). there’s always something else—something more pressing, more interesting. he’s not sure when he’ll find the time, but he’s fine with waiting until it comes.
“why won’t you have a girlfriend, tommy?” wilbur asks. his voice is soft—too soft. it’s worried and gentle, like he’s trying to pad the ground for tommy to land on. he’s not falling. he doesn’t need the padding.
“who needs women, really?” he says, all loud and obnoxious, like he always is. maybe if he’s loud enough he can drown everything else out. “all they know how to do is eat hot chip and lie.”
wilbur snorts. it's a rather empty laugh, one that speaks of the fact that he knows something is wrong but is choosing to ignore it, anyway. for tommy’s sake.
“you forgot the part where they’re bisexual,” he says, but his tone is still impossibly soft, impossibly caring.
tommy’s going to have to cut this out of the recording.
“am i supposed to know what the fuck you mean by that?”
and the conversation ends there, but tommy’s thoughts don’t. his parents, when they talk about dating, are just being annoying, unnecessary. but wilbur—
well, wilbur ain’t no philza, but tommy looks up to him, trusts him. if wilbur thinks he should have a girlfriend, then—
—normal 17-year-olds get crushes, don’t they?
google thinks so. he searches “why don’t i have a crush,” and gets things like “you’re only 13, wait until high school,” and “i used to feel like that, too, and now i’m 30 and married to the love of my life” and “you just don't feel good enough for anyone” back. there’s even a few “maybe you’re asexual”s peppered in between, and it makes tommy laugh, because he knows what asexual means, and not experiencing sexual attraction has nothing to do with his problem.
chat had thought he could be asexual, too, once. when he had said he didn’t date anyone. they’re all dumbasses.
he goes to bed trying to ignore the heaviness in his gut, the hopeless feeling that there’s nothing out there for him to be other than broken.
it ends with his parents—as many things do, as fewer should. it ends over dinner, served with home-made hamburgers and the questions about crushes he’s gotten so sick of.
it ends with a “melissa? you’ve been hanging out with her more lately, haven’t you?”
it's obvious what they’re getting at, with their little laughs and exchanged smiles. and what they’re getting at pisses him off to no end.
he doesn't like melissa. he's told them this. he's told them this several times, because he can't so much as mention her without them giving him a kind of look, one that says we know, we know.
they don’t know shit. why don't they believe him? it hurts, it makes him so, so angry—and his parents may not think so, but he feels completely justified in standing up, glaring at them, and saying, “i'm not fucking dating melissa!”“
it comes out a little loud, sure, and his chair might topple over at the force he pushes it back, but he's so tired of their fucking bullshit.
his dad isn't happy about this, and opens his mouth to say so, but his mom gives him a look before turning to tommy.
“we believe you, tommy, but—”
but nothing, but they’re too fucking dumb to see that. why are they so interested in his love life—why do they care? he doesn’t want to be anyone's boyfriend, doesn’t want to go on dates or kiss or get married, and he sure as fuck doesn’t have a crush on melissa.
he's shaking. he's not sure if it's the anger or the burning hurt built up inside him, but he’s drawn tight, tense, head aching.
“—we'll support you no matter what. if there's anything you need to tell us, don't feel like you have to hide it.”
he hates them. he hates them so much. he’s going to leave, go to brighton, live with wilbur—because wilbur might think he should have a girlfriend, too, but at least he won’t—at least he’s not—
“i'm not fucking gay just because i don't have a crush on melissa! i don’t have a crush on anyone! why is that so goddamn hard to believe? she’s just my friend, the same way i’m friends with everyone else! why do you have to—”
he cuts himself off there, breathing hard. hot tears smear his vision, streaking down his face, and he wipes at them angrily.
his parents are silent. he hopes it stays that way, long past caring what they think. all he can focus on is the pounding of his heart, and trying to calm his breathing.
it's then his phone, resting in his pocket, lights up, ringing. he recognizes the ringtone. tubbo’s never had such impeccable timing.
“i’m going to my room, tubbo’s calling me.”
he’s in the middle of walking up the stairs when his dad, always needing the last word, says, “you go have fun with your boyfriend.”
and he laughs.
it’s not funny. why does he think it’s funny? it’s just cruel, and, quite frankly, homophobic, the way it comes out—like he’s sneering, like he thinks he’s getting back at tommy in any way by saying it.
his headache is suddenly unbearable, and tommy spits out, “fuck off!” over his shoulder, the words scorching his throat as they leave.
he’s burning even as he slams his door shut, collapsing on his bed. this kind of fire is the result of weeks of poking and prodding, and it spreads through his whole body until he can barely think past the tears scrabbling down his cheeks, past the ringing of his phone.
right. tubbo.
he doesn't want to pick up, not like this, not when he's falling apart at the seams. he doesn't want tubbo to have to deal with him like this, but he also really, really doesn't want to be alone.
he picks up.
“wow, you really took a long time to answer. um, anyway, i kinda wanted to—”
a sob breaks out of tommy before he can stop it. a hand is in his hair, pulling at it like the pain could stop his harsh breaths, could stop how much his head hurts.
all he wants is someone to hug him and tell him that it's going to be alright, that he's right to be upset, that he's not overreacting.
it feels like he's dying.
“oh my god, are you alright? do you need me to call 999, or get an adult, or—are you alright? what happened?”
“my parents are so stupid, tubbo,” he chokes out. a scream is edging up his throat, and he stuffs his blanket in his mouth. it's so much effort just to keep breathing.
tubbo pauses, and tommy can hear the way he worries his lip, considering his words before saying, carefully, “did they hurt you?”
“no.”
it doesn't feel quite correct to say, because he’s hurting a lot right now, because even when he curls tight up into a ball he's still falling apart. but tubbo means physically, and tommy doesn’t think his parents would ever fall that far, so he just says, “no,” another sob spilling out of his lips.
“fuck, tubbo, i’m so… i want to break something, they’re so—fuck, shit—”
“do you have any paper in your room?”
that breaks tommy out of his spiral for a moment, mostly because he's too busy thinking what the fuck? to focus on anything else. “i—huh?” looking around, he spies a spiral notebook resting on his desk. “yeah?”
“you think you could grab it?”
doing his best to ignore how shaky he is, he does, mumbling “what the fuck, tubbo?” under his breath. once he has the notebook in hand, he glances down at it, and after a moment's consideration, chucks it against the wall as hard as he can.
it slaps the wall and flops uselessly on the ground, face down and papers splayed at every odd angle.
he can't decide if it's satisfying to do, or not enough.
“what was that? do you have the paper?”
he moves to grab the notebook, then sits back down on his bed. his head doesn’t pound as much anymore, breaths calming in the distraction. “yeah, yeah, got it. what the fuck am i—am i supposed to do with paper, tubbo?”
“well, if you’re mad, it’s really helpful to—rip it up. gets the anger out.”
huffing, tommy scrubs the tears off his cheeks. “who told you that? your therapist?”
“just do it. it helps, i promise.”
tommy stares dubiously down at the notebook in his lap, then tugs a piece of paper out to tear it in half.
he can’t decide if it’s satisfying to do, or not enough.
he stabs a finger through another one.
it’s something, at least.
“do you want to talk about it?” tubbo asks, after a moment.
scowling, tommy rips the half-piece of paper in half again, and again and again, until it’s in tatters, too small to tear any further. “no, thanks. what did you call me for?”
tubbo hesitates. “nothing.”
“okay? then just talk about whatever for a few minutes; i’ll be calmed down by then.”
he’s doing tubbo a favor; that’s what he tells himself, listening to him ramble on about what he and ranboo had gotten up to on stream while he shreds his paper. tubbo had clearly chickened out of telling him whatever he was planning to, so it was only natural to let him talk about something else.
that’s why, and not at all because he doesn’t want to be alone in the heavy quiet of his house. that’s why, and not at all because tubbo’s voice is soothing, familiar, not at all because there’s no way he could have a panic attack while listening to tubbo coo about a baby zombie piglin like it’s his real adoptive son.
it’s for tubbo’s sake. like wilbur during the recording session, letting tommy switch topics without comment. a wilbur-type beat.
yeah. that’s it.
“i dunno, i just think that doritos are a little too sharp… you know? if you don’t chew it enough, it’ll—just”—tubbo makes some kind of choking noise—“wedge itself there. in your throat. it’s a very uncomfortable experience.”
tommy yawns. it’s 3 am, now, and they've been on call for hours. “yes, but that goes for any other kind of chip out there as well. cheetos are just trying to be quirky—do they even count as chips? they’re—light?—light, and weird-shaped; eating them is just… an unsatisfying experience.”
originally, they had stayed on call because tubbo was clingy, and worried about him, but now they’ve been debating about chips for what feels like—and probably is—hours. exhaustion has been tugging on tommy’s eyelids for a while, but fuck if he was gonna lose to tubbo.
tubbo yawns, too. it’s actually 4 am, tommy notices, now that he glances at the clock. somehow, that knowledge only serves to make him more tired.
he doesn't want to go to sleep. sleeping means waking up, and morning brings consequences and talks he isn't ready to have.
“hey, have you seen that ad?” he asks tubbo. “and it’s like ‘we don’t even need to show our logo, we can just give you two triangles and you know what we’re talking about.’ what’s cheetos’ logo, huh? cheetah on a skateboard? you take away that, and nobody knows what the fuck you’re saying.”
“no, hey, that isn’t”—a yawn—“that isn’t fair. besides, i think if you showed them an orange and red color theme, they’d get it.”
“no—doesn’t that also apply to fritos?”
“do you think fritos are more well-known than—nah, i think they’re different? at least a little.”
“prove it, bitch.”
“i will.”
neither of them make a move to do anything. in the silence, tommy begins to drop off a little.
he really, really doesn't want to go to sleep.
“hey, tommy?”
tubbo sounds as tired as tommy feels, voice heavy like he’s constantly on the edge of a yawn. underneath his tone is something soft, scared. it’s the kind of tone you’d expect at 4 am, whispering shameful secrets in the dawn light.
”yeah, tubbo?”
“do you, uh—earlier. earlier, there was… i called you for a reason. i, uh—i—wanted to—”
he chokes on his words. tommy is electrified awake, scrambling for something, anything to say.
“tubbo, hey, tubbo—it’s alright, it’s fine. just…” what does tommy do what would wilbur do. “just… you don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”
“i do want to. it’s just… i dunno, scary.”
tommy feels a sharp pang of something at that. his chest goes tight and he’d do anything, absolutely anything, for tubbo to stop feeling like this.
“hey, if you tell me your secret, i’ll tell you mine,” he says, grinning. “whatever yours is, it can’t be worse than mine. unless yours involves a dead body, then i’m probably calling the police on you, sorry, sorry.”
he tries to play it off as a joke—means it as one, a little—and tubbo does laugh, but still says, voice trembling, “okay.”
it’s quiet, then, for a minute. tommy closes his eyes, but he’s not going to sleep. he’s just…
waiting.
“you know how there are more than 2 genders?”
tommy isn’t dumb. he knows, at least a little, where this is going to go. listening to his friend’s short, stuttery breaths, he picks his words very carefully. the last thing he wants to do is fuck this up.
“sort of… there’s male, female, and non-binary, right?—maybe others, i don’t know.” he is not going to fuck this up. “and non-binary is… it’s not a 3rd gender or… lack of gender; it just means their gender doesn’t completely fit into the, uh… 2 binary genders.”
“yeah.” a pause. “i, uh… might be that?”
“non-binary?”
“yeah.”
“oh. that’s, uh… pretty poggers.”
laughing, tubbo sniffles. “yeah?”
“yeah.”
it goes quiet again.
“what—do you want—different pronouns? other than he/him.”
there’s a rustle on the other end as tubbo shifts. “i—i dunno. i barely know what a pronoun is; i haven’t really thought that far. i only really realized i wasn’t… completely a boy… a few weeks ago, i just wanted to—tell you?”
tubbo wanted tommy to know. because they're best friends, and he—he?—trusts him, and wanted him to know an… an important part of—
it makes tommy feel all kinds of warm, mushy feelings inside.
“there’s, um… they/them pronouns? if you’re non-binary, maybe you’d like more gender neutral pronouns? do he/him… do you still like he/him?”
“i’m—tommy, i don’t—i think so? they’re not—it’s okay, but sometimes it’s like—i’m not a boy, not all the way, and if you only ever call me like that it feels—you’re just leaving out a part of me? i’m not sure nobody has ever used they/them pronouns so i don’t—”
he—they, he?—cuts off there, trying to find air and coming up with nothing. tommy waits, quietly, until his—his? his his theirs tubbo’s—breathing has steadied.
“it’d be like…” tommy starts, slowly—like a sort of padding, like wilbur. he gives tubbo a parachute, enough time to navigate out of the conversation. “‘this is tubbo. they’re my best friend. i can be mean to them, but i’m—”
yeah, he’s feeling all sorts of gooey feelings he’d rather not feel. they catch in his throat and spill out in a way he’d like to say he can’t control—but he can, and he’s choosing his words ever so carefully. he’s not going to fuck anything up.
“i’m really glad they’re my friend.’”
tubbo’s breath hitches, and within that moment they—he—is sobbing his—their—eyes out.
“i’m sorry, did i do something?—i didn’t—holy shit, are you okay?”
“no no, no, tommy, you’re—i love you, a lot. thank you, i love you.”
half of tommy asks what the fuck, is this allowed?, but the other half melts at the words, knowing tubbo is feeling the same kind of mushy feelings as him. “oh,” he just says. “love you, too. so it was okay, then?”
“yeah—yeah. i, uh… liked it? god this is so awkward how do i phrase this—fuck i need to stop crying, hold on.” he sniffs, laughing at himself. there’s shifting on their end, like they’re wiping their nose.
“god, go get a tissue—you disgust me.”
a beat.
“oh, shit, that came out real bad, didn’t it. tubbo, i promise i support you you’re a lovely person, but please go get a tissue.”
tubbo lets out another stifled sob. “you—okay, okay, i’m going.”
a thumping sound comes from the receiver as tubbo presumably hops out of bed. tommy sits on the other end and listens to their quiet footsteps and shuddering breaths as they make their way to the bathroom.
“why are you still crying?” he asks, almost teasing, and laughs before remembering it’s 3 am—4 am—oh shit, nearly 5 am, now—and quieting down. “you’re making me worried that i fucked something up.”
“you didn’t fuck anything up. i’m just—you said person, a ‘lovely person’—it’s kinda dumb, but i dunno…”
“well, what were you expecting me to say? yes, tubbo, you’re a very lovely young ma—no, you know what, that was entirely purposeful, i am so progressive. as tommyinnit, i give you rights.
“but, uh—”
tommy is interrupted as something—the phone, if the whooshing sound is anything to go by—slips and falls onto the hard bathroom tile. a quiet “fuck” that very obviously wants to be a shout can be heard as tubbo picks the phone back up. he brushes it off, his side going static for a moment, then sets it down on the counter.
“wow, tubbo, you nearly broke your phone there.”
“yeah, sorry.” their voice echoes more now, sounding farther away. “slipped—i was trying to hold it between my shoulder and my ear, y’know? you, uh, were saying?”
“right. uh—how do you feel about gendered terms? also just pronouns in general; i don’t think you really covered that before you started bawling like a fucking baby—not that i’m making fun of you, though i totally am. i’m sure it was a very… emotionally taxing experience. or something. god, i just have this way with words, don’t i?”
there’s a short pause as tubbo thinks, turning the sink on for a moment.
“no, yeah, gendered terms—like dude, guy, boy, right?—are okay, i think? maybe some of them bother me, but for the most part it’s fine. feel free to use the… non-gendered ones, though. as for pronouns, both are fine, but… honestly? i’d prefer if you mostly used they/them for now. just because i don’t know if anyone else will use them. like with eret—even we are pretty bad at using their other pronouns.”
“oh. okay.” he listens as the sink turns back on, longer this time. it sounds different, like they’re filling a cup. “i forget he has other pronouns, honestly,” he says as tubbo leaves the bathroom. “which is pretty shit of me, i think, but i guess i’ll have to make more of an effort now—…that totally just makes me sound shittier, doesn’t it?"
tubbo snorts. “it kinda does.”
humming, tommy shifts to be in a more comfortable position. “all jokes aside—”
he's cut off by tubbo clambering into their bed, the audio going fuzzy. he sighs.
“okay, i’ll wait until you’re done getting into bed; it’d be helpful if you could hear me, you know?”
moving their blankets louder just to be a spiteful bitch, tubbo says, “piss off.”
they take their sweet time getting comfortable—“comfortable” meaning getting under their blanket, setting the water cup down, finding a good place for the phone—it’s really just a long, arduous process.
“you were saying?”
“you know what—fuck you, bitch, i don’t have to sit here and take this, i’m a child millionaire—no, no, i’m not a child i’m a man, a manly ma—all i fucking wanted to say was, all jokes aside, i’m happy you told me, and being non-binary is, uh… very valid and… cool.”
“if you want to say poggers again, just do it.”
“no, fuck you—fuck you, i know more words than just poggers, i am a man of litera—no i’m not i’m lying, pog is the only word i know.”
tubbo laughs, and then everything goes quiet. it's not awkward, nor it is silent (he thinks maybe tubbo is drinking the water they brought from the bathroom, though they're obviously trying to be subtle about it). tommy lays there, in his dimly-lit room at 5 am, and feels as if he's waiting for something again. he's not sure what; perhaps a satisfying conclusion, an end to the night (or would it count as morning at this point?).
“well,” tubbo starts suddenly, setting their cup back down, “thank you, i guess? i was kinda nervous—you could tell—but you responded in a very tommy way. you know what i mean? any other way and it'd've felt weird. you're my best friend—i didn't want it to be so serious, even if i was, like, crying.”
“right. note to self: when someone comes out, just tell them that that's pretty poggers of them. tubbo, when i come out you have to say that's poggers, okay?”
“when?”
“huh?”
“when you come out?”
fuck. shit.
what was tommy thinking? he knows he’s not queer. he’s not even straight, if he thinks about it. he’s just… broken. it doesn’t feel wrong—he doesn’t feel wrong—but it must be, he has to be, because everyone else is so…
“ah. well. we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. but—hey, didn’t you promise to tell me your secret or something? what was that about, anyway?”
goddammit. out of the fucking fire and right into the frying pan. tommy had hoped tubbo would forget about that, had half forgotten about it himself. his breath hitches, and he's left coughing, trying to cover up his panic.
does he have any other secret to tell? anything to get him out of this shit he’s gotten himself into? surely tubbo would let him get away with not saying anything.
of course they would. this is tubbo, his best friend. his best friend, who would never judge or make fun of him, who had trusted him enough to come out to him.
tommy trusts tubbo like they trust him—ever so much—but he still has to force the “there’s something wrong with me” past his lips. his words twist and tumble over each other until they're barely recognizable, and he trusts tubbo—he does, he does, so why do his lungs feel tight, why can't he just breathe?
“it's like—fuck, shit, fuck, i can't breathe this is so stupid. fuck, tubbo, i dunno how to explain it; it’s like…” he laughs, then chokes on that laugh because the air in his lungs seems frozen. “there’s a hole where my heart should be. i’m fucking broken, tubbo.”
“what? you’re not broken, you’re tommy. take a deep breath, alright? what—what do you mean?”
“everyone wants to date people, but i don’t—i don’t—” pausing for a moment, he struggles through a few breaths. his fists curl into his blanket as a way of grounding himself. “i’ve never wanted that.”
tubbo starts to speak but tommy cuts them off. there’s a sick feeling in his stomach telling him that they won’t believe him, that they’ll be like his parents. everyone gets crushes, after all. why shouldn’t he?
“and it’s—it’s not just that i’ve never wanted to date someone. there’s people with low self-esteem and—and anxiety who don’t want to date people because they don’t think they’re good enough or some shit—i learned that from google, fun fact, right? but it’s not like that—i’m not like that. i just don’t feel… i don’t feel what everyone else does.”
he's never said it aloud before. it's nice. it's scary. he feels relieved, to have it out in the open; he feels vomit climb up his throat, burning.
he's not sure how to feel.
“so you’re aromatic, then.”
that snaps tommy out of his panic—if just because it’s so nonsensical and dumb and something only tubbo would say.
“what? what the fuck is that supposed to mean? this is a very round-about way of telling me you think i smell, tubbo.”
“is that—goddammit is that the wrong word? i could’ve sworn—hold on let me google it.”
“what? what?” he’s like a broken record, like a phone clogged with water. it’s like he’s drowning, and it’s all he can do to keep breathing in the scarce air. “what? google what, tubbo?”
“the word for people who don't get crushes and stuff like that,” tubbo says, and they say it like tommy's entire view of himself and the world doesn't shatter, scatter across the ground.
“there's a—a word for that?”
it comes out small and weak and pitiful.
“yeah, of course,” tubbo says. “oh! see—here it is: ‘aromantic (often shortened to aro) means someone who gen—generally does not… experience romantic attraction.’ it’s like, uhh… asexual but for romance.”
oh.
where to go? where is he to go from here? he’s gone weeks (weeks, days?) knowing, knowing he was broken, because there was nothing else out there for him to be. but he’s not, he’s aromantic, and—
“…i’m not… broken?” and his voice wavers and cracks and—
“tommy… ’course not. being aromantic is very poggers.”
—and tommy laughs, clamping a hand over his mouth as a sob spills out. it's hard to tell if he's laughing or crying, then, as he curls into himself. the hurt and hate and fear has been tight and balled in the back of his head for so, so long (days, weeks, what was the difference?) and tubbo's unraveled it all in a matter of seconds. it's so, so overwhelming… just to know…
he doesn't quite believe it.
he wants to.
he just cries harder.
“aw, tommy, that was really stressing you out, huh? it’s okay, coming out—well, you didn’t really come out but i think it counts—can be scary. if you can, count with me. breathe in. 1, 2, 3, 4, hold. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…”
they continue on like that for a while, just counting out a pattern of 4, 7, 8 until tommy is able to calm down.
inhale for 4 beats.
hold, count to 7.
exhale until 8, then do it all over again
“you alright?” tubbo asks, tone quiet and warm and sleepy, and by the time they ask it, it’s already half past 5.
tommy’s tired, numb from all the crying; vision hazy because holy fuck it's late, and his eyes can't be bothered to focus. and though he’ll never admit it, tubbo’s voice is comforting, a pleasant hum against the quiet of the night.
“yeah, 'm alright,” he says, and ignores the way his teeth snag on a few syllables, the words too lazy to leave.
“okay. um—i’m so tired, aren’t you? we should go to bed soon, but—you’re aromantic, then?”
“oh. uh.”
he pauses. it was hard enough to admit it the first time; then, it was something that meant he was broken—but now, saying it meant he identified with that broken part of him, that maybe that broken part wasn’t so broken after all.
he’s not ready for that.
“maybe, i guess?” he says, then squeezes his eyes shut, gritting his teeth. “no, yes, definitely—probably. tubbo—i think so? i mean, i didn’t know that was a thing, i just thought i was… y’know.”
“yeah. there’s nothing wrong with you, though; there’s lots of other people who’re aromantic… and lots of kinds of aromantic people. i’m on this lgbta wiki, and there’s a whole spectrum. like—did you know there’s people who only feel romantic attraction after knowing the person for a long time? they’re demiromantic. and there’s this other one—i dunno how to pronounce it, but it’s spelled q-u-o-i-romantic, which—oh my god, it’s also called wtfromantic, that’s hilarious.”
and though they’re both exhausted, they stay up through the night, tommy listening to tubbo comb through this wiki. they find terms like frayromantic, aroflux, grayromantic, and though tommy doesn’t know if he identifies with any of them, each new label makes him feel a little less alone, a little less broken.
aromantic people can apparently have different feelings about romance, and it’s when they come across the term “romance-repulsed” that things click. he has a visceral moment of oh, but only shrugs when tubbo asks if he thinks that’s him.
there’s so much more out there for tommy than he ever thought—like queerplatonic relationships. he isn’t sure if he’d ever want one himself, but they sound cool, if kind of confusing. there’s lots of types of attraction, too, like sensual, aesthetic, alterous, and it’s once they get into that, and something called a “split attraction model,” that things begin to become overwhelming.
tubbo, understanding, clicks off the aromantic page, and onto one about neopronouns, skimming through a list of them to remark on how cool they are. “do you think there are bee pronouns?” they ask. “people with bee pronouns have got to be the coolest people alive.”
“you could have bee pronouns if you want,” tommy points out, but they only hum dispassionately before moving on to look at different non-binary genders.
tubbo stays on the “genderqueer” and “demiboy” pages a little too long, and, quietly, says they think that might be them.
“i’m not sure. they fit me, but not… enough. i think i like just non-binary for now.”
tommy gets it. not completely, but enough. there isn’t a point in identifying as apothiromantic, or aroace, or whatever fits him better, when just aromantic makes him most comfortable. maybe that’ll change when he has time to think about it, and feels more secure in himself.
he’s still not sure how he feels about the whole thing—isn’t sure of much, when it comes to this—but there isn’t time to debate with himself about the validity of his identity when tubbo has already moved on. it’s interesting to hear them work out their gender and what they're comfortable with, and how they're okay with being called a boy, but not a man. tommy might not understand where the distinction lies, but it doesn't matter as long as it makes them comfortable.
he falls asleep at 8 am, lulled to sleep by his best friend's voice.
maybe he'll be alright. maybe there's nothing so wrong with him, after all.