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Tommy never thought that he’d be here.
When he said that, he was usually talking about the fact that he had nearly 9 MILLION subscribers, and that he was on the fast track to 10 million. That he was talking with people like Dream and Wilbur and Technoblade, his literal idols.
And more than that, people liked him. They actually liked him! They stuck around and commented nice things and left likes and said he was a good streamer! Of course, there were the people who left dislikes, or not nice comments, or said that he was the worst streamer and just a child seeking fame.
But when that happened, Phil or Wilbur or Tubbo would call and they would cheer him up by watching Up or some other Disney movie. Sometimes, he even looked forward to those comments because that meant he got to have a nice night.
But also because he appreciated someone telling him the truth. That he was an annoying, spoiled brat who needed to learn some common sense. Even for a moment, he felt some sort of bliss that someone told him the truth. So when he sarcastically thanked them and brushed it off, there was a tiny, tiny bit of sincerity in that thank you.
Which brought him back to: Tommy never thought he’d be here.
‘Here’ being at least half a mile from his house, in the cold, in the rain, at 4:20 in the morning. He gave a despondent chuckle at the time, then went back to freezing his arse off and cursing whatever god decided that tonight would be the night his home town got record breaking amounts of rain.
His memories rushed back to him, and fresh tears mixed with the icy rain. Broken plates. Everyone screaming. Blood, not a lot but enough. A door, slamming as his tired body hit the freezing pavement. A whisper from his father as he turned his back on his only son.
“Good riddance.”
Tommy gasped for breath. It felt like he was drowning, but whether it was because of the water or the- well, the everything else in his fucked go life, he wasn’t sure.
Tommy resorted to the thing that had gotten him through sleepless nights and screaming matches, new scars and black eyes and broken noses, tears and pain and hurt; his family. Not blood family, but his found family.
He grabbed his phone and AirPods, thanking the high heavens that he had grabbed both of them before his father had shoved him out. Squinting against the water soaked screen, he clumsily managed to join the Sleepy Boi’s Inc. voice chat.
For a moment, he let the normalcy of everything wash over him. Right now, he didn’t have to be Tommyinnit, the loud, British YouTuber that everyone secretly hated but couldn’t get rid of. Nor was he Thomas, the loud kid at school who had a definitely questionable home life. No, he was just Tommy. And that was enough. It had always been enough.
But everything in his life fell apart eventually, and his short-lived peace was no exception. “Hey, Tommy!” Wilbur greeted loudly, cutting off his rant about anteaters and sand. Phil made a frustrated noise at whatever Wilbur had been saying before, but said a quick, “Hey mate!” to Tommy. Technoblade grunted, but you couldn’t read into that much because no matter the day or his mood, that was Techno’s usual greeting.
“Hey, isn’t it raining where you are?” Wilbur hummed, his keyboard making the obnoxiously loud click-clack noises it always did. “I think it was on the news.” Tommy looked around. He could confirm that yes, there was rain. A lot of it.
“Yeah,” he replied, ducking under a tree to try and escape the rain a little. “It’s raining a shit ton. Freezing, too,” he added because god damn it was freezing.
“Well, it’d be cold outside, but you’re not outside because you have at least half a brain cell, right?” Techno deadpanned. Technoblade mixed sarcasm and dry humor with concern and insult at the same time. Tommy didn’t think anyone else could do it. “Right?”
“I- is it just me or does the rain sound, well, awfully loud on Tommy’s end?” Phil interjected.
The call went silent. Tommy had frozen, ready to run, though how he’d run from people that he was calling he wasn’t sure. Maybe he would smash it. Change his number, maybe his name, too. Move somewhere exotic. Did the Bahamas get this much rain?
“Tommy. Please tell me you aren’t outside,” Wilbur asked, his body tensing up at the prospect of the person he had come to view as his little brother getting hurt in any way. A weak chuckle came from Tommy’s end.
“Sorry to disappoint, Big Man,” he said, and a loud crash of thunder boomed through his headphones, as well as panicked, muffled swears. “Fuck, shit, uh...”
Tommy stared at the fallen tree branch. It had given his a nasty scrape on the side of his face. Damn. And on the same side of the black eye, too. With the scrape, he also had the aforementioned black eye, bruises blossoming up and down his body, and a pounding headache.
“Are you okay?!” Oh right, he was still in call. We would sleep on call together, his brain helpfully supplied him. “TOMMY?” He jumped.
“Fine. Just a tree, innit?” He said, trying to slow his racing heart. “I’m fine, hey, did you find a mod for the next ‘funniest Minecraft mod video’?” Tommy knew his deflection wouldn’t work, but he had to try.
“Tommy, send me your location.” At Wilbur’s firm voice, he did the only thing he could think of: he ran. He kept the phone, too. He just took off sprinting, his feet sending up small splashes. “Tommy, where are you going?”
“I *huff* don’t know *huff* exactly,” Tommy managed through heavy breaths. If he was being reasonable, he knew that running was useless. For one, he was on the phone and two?
WHY THE FUCK DID HE NOT JUST HANG UP?
Tommy was known for being unreasonable, though, so really, was it a surprise that he didn’t just hang up? He ran past buildings he had been in many times before, but the normalcy of them seemed out of another life. A barber. A bakery. An arcade. A Tesco.
He could hear the other Sleepy Bois on their ends, asking a bunch of questions, but they didn’t register in his head. Right now, he wasn’t sad. Or mad. Or anything at all, really.
He had been numb like this for a while if he thought about it. He had laughed and he had felt happy, but the feelings never stayed. They didn’t do anything to him. They were there and then they weren’t and it was like they were never there.
“Tommy. Send your location now.” He froze at that voice. It was the tone and it was who said it. It was the tone that his parents used when they hated him and when they wished he was never there, never born. But to hear Wilbur, the guy who had promised to be there for him, the guy who had always said they were brothers, the guy Tommy thought of as his brother, to hear Wilbur using that voice?
“Okay,” he said shakily, quickly sending it in the Discord. He let the rain beat down on him. He needed to move. But Wilbur was coming. Wasn’t he? He wasn’t talking - nobody was - and he had asked for Tommy’s address.
He settled for walking in front of this building, pacing back and forth. He carefully walked around the spots of light from the old school lanterns placed around the door. This was a hotel, if he remembered correctly. He and his parents had visiting relatives stay there once.
It was silent except for the constant pounding of rain. The other members had been silent for far, far too long. He pulled his phone away from his ear to see his phone dead. When had that happened?
He stowed his phone in his pocket carefully. He knew it wouldn’t be water damaged, but his gamer instincts that told him to always be careful when tech and liquid are within 2 meters of each other cancelled out whatever reason he still had left.
There was no moon out, so Tommy didn’t know how much time had passed before Wilbur’s dark blue car came barreling around a corner and pulled to a hasty halt outside the hotel. Tommy froze once again. He was under the striped awning of the hotel so he wasn’t getting wet, but the freezing wind didn’t help him shivers, especially considering that Tommy was only in light sweatpants and one of his classic ‘Tommyinnit’ shirts, both of which were soaked.
“Tommy!” He watched as Wilbur stepped out of his car, slamming the door behind him. Wilbur was more prepared for this weather, a Philza merch hoodie just visible under a thick black parka. “Oh my God, Tommy!”
Wilbur was sprinting towards him and it was like Tommy’s brain was ripping in two. Part of him told him that someone running towards him was most certainly not a good thing and that he should be running, goddammit.
But the other part of him registered that this wasn’t just ‘someone’, this was Wilbur. His older brother. But the memory of Wilbur’s biting tone was still rooted in his mind.
It didn’t matter anyway. Tommy had spent too long deliberating, because Wilbur’s arms were already wrapped around him tightly. All rational (and irrational) thoughts went flying out the window as Tommy practically collapsed into Wilbur. When you were 6’3”, it was hard to find anyone taller than you. And sometimes, didn’t you just need a hug from someone who was taller than you to make it feel like it’ll be okay?
Maybe it was the cold, or maybe it was the shock of having someone actually care about him enough to come get him (wasn’t Brighton like a 45 minute drive?), but Tommy couldn’t remember exactly what happened next. He knew the gist - Wilbur had wrestled Tommy into his car and drove him to his flat, to which Tommy promptly passed out. Or he assumed he did, because it was then that his memory cut to black, and now he was waking up in Wilbur’s guest room.
If he was being honest, his first thought was, Oh shit, that is not my roof, why is that not my roof? Then everything came rushing back, only amplifying the headache that had stuck around from last night. He became hyper aware of every single bruise and cut on his body, not because they hurt, but because they didn’t.
He couldn’t help but let out a groan. His injuries didn’t hurt, not exactly, but his whole body ached. It was like someone threw him in a woodchipper, then yanked him out before he could have the pleasure of dying.
Almost immediately the door was flung open, caught before it slammed. By the look of the beat up plaster, the door slammed pretty hard and pretty loud.
Tommy met eyes with Wilbur. There was a long, tense pause. Tommy couldn’t say anything. Wilbur’s face looked worried and kind, but his eyes were the real puzzle. There was the same warm light as always, but hidden under it was something darker. Angry, or sad, or hateful, or maybe all three?
Wilbur was the kind of person to explode in anger. That was part of the reason they had chosen to have him blow up L’Manberg as opposed to, say, him partnering with Technoblade and unleashing withers on the whole place. Because Wilbur exploded. He rarely did, instead choosing to bottle everything up, but every once in a while, everything came pouring out. Wilbur had always had a way with words, and in the same way he could make beautiful songs and inspiring speeches, he could also level devastating verbal blows that pierced through every defense you had built up.
Tommy spoke from semi-experience. The last stream came to mind, where Wilbur had said, “I never cared about L’Manberg.” Even though they were just playing, those were just characters and they were reading off a script, Wilbur had wrote that line and he had known that character Tommy would be destroyed. That was why he had written it. Wilbur was a flame; nice and warm, but in an instant it could be rampant and out of control, burning everything in its path.
So Tommy couldn’t help but feel a little wary as Wilbur just silently stared at him. He heard shuffling from behind him and tried to peek past Wilbur into the hallway. He couldn’t see anything except the corner of what might have been a couch.
Tommy blinked as Wilbur practically threw himself onto him, his lanky arms wrapping all the way around Tommy. Tommy let his own arms snake around Wilbur after a moment. Their breaths evened out. Tommy couldn’t see anything, vision blocked due to the massive cluster of brown curls Wilbur dared to call hair. Wilbur’s glasses poked him in the cheek. Tommy was caught in a very uncomfortable position, and he could feel one of his legs falling asleep.
There was nowhere else he’d rather be.