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Tommy was pissed.
Pissed would be an understatement. He’s furious, he wants to punch whatever god is out there in the face for fucking him up like this. He can’t remember doing anything for this horrible fate.
Not only did he forget one of the big math tests which he has to score well on, but he also really has to pee. He knows she won’t let him go even if he asks. Even if they weren’t in the middle of a big test, they wouldn’t let him go. It’s been like that for 5 years and he’s slowly getting sick of it.
Okay, maybe he wasn’t the nicest person to the teachers and maybe he does start some fights, but that doesn’t stop him from needing to pee. He huffs at his blank paper, only his name written on it. He knows he won’t know any of the answers, no matter how long he looks at the questions. Still, he keeps staring.
He looks outside of the window, just to see some trees blocking the view. He looks back at his sheet, supporting his head with his hands. Only 5 minutes since they got the test had passed when he looks up at the clock. He has to sit there, trying to do the math he didn’t study for, for another hour. Tommy wants to kill himself at that point.
Maybe if he tries to search into the depths of his brain for whenever he learned this shit, he could at least get one answer correct.
A very loud ringing sound enters the room, louder than the normal bell. He recognizes it from all the fire exercises they had to do through the years. Tommy sighs in relief, this meant they’d skip the test. He and the rest of the class make a move to stand up, but the teacher interrupts them.
“It’s probably just an exercise, this is a test we can’t afford to miss. Sit back down and continue,” The teacher explains. Everyone sits back down in confusion. Just because it’s an exercise doesn’t mean they can just skip it. That’s not really how it works.
If Tommy’s right, she can lose her job because of it. Even though he doesn’t like her, he doesn’t want anyone to be fired if it can be avoided easily. Tommy sighs and sits back down, going back to mindlessly looking at the paper. Outside of the classroom, they can see students walking after their teacher to the exit. Some of the students look at them in confusion.
A student puts his hand up. “Mrs., the other classes are leaving. Are you sure we can stay here?”
“Again, it’s just an exercise. They won’t notice us not being there,”
This only made Tommy even more nervous, the fact that they wouldn’t notice a student, hell even a whole class missing is very concerning. Just imagine telling them, “everyone is here,” when there is a student who is still in the burning building.
What if it isn’t an exercise? The thought keeps swirling around Tommy’s head. The teacher didn’t seem so sure about it like she wasn’t informed. He grows more uncomfortable with the thought. All the students have left the building at this point. If he looks outside, he can see some of the students lining up through the trees.
He can faintly smell smoke, like when a person smokes in your face. Phil always got angry when other people did that, not caring how other people don’t want to smell their smoke.
“Could I go look at what’s going on?” A student asks “Just to be 100% sure,” The teacher sighs and nods. The student stands up and walks to the door. He opens the door and Tommy gets overwhelmed by the smell of smoke, even if he’s sitting all the way at the back of the class. That’s not a good sign.
“There is certainly a fire,” The boy in the doorway says, looking at the hallway. The tension in the class changes from confused and irritated to fear. A few students start panicking but the teacher is quick to calm them down.
“Everyone, leave your stuff here and walk behind me. The teacher commands. The whole class stands up and walks behind the teacher. She walks out the door, everyone following her. Tommy wants to follow them as the last person when he hears a quiet sob.
He looks back around to see a girl curled up in the corner of the class, obviously having a panic attack. Tommy turns around to call for the teacher but doesn’t see anyone. They left them in the building without looking if everyone was with them. It would be no use to go back to his classmates since he doesn’t know where they went.
He closes the door, hoping to stop the fire from coming into the classroom if he wasn’t able to get out of there on time.
Tommy walks back into the class and crouches in front of the girl. She doesn’t seem to notice him. Her face is buried in her knees, her whole body is shaking like a leaf. From time to time, he can hear a sob tearing its way out of her.
“Hey, Maya?” Tommy asks softly, trying to catch the attention of the teen. “Can you hear me, Maya? It’s Tommy,” He continues. He hopes to calm her down by letting her know she isn’t alone.
“Tommy from your class, the one who doesn’t listen to the teacher most of the time. You know me?” Tommy asks. Maya nods lightly, hugging her knees closer. “Good, can you do something for me?” She nods again. “Can you tell me 5 things you can see?”
She takes a shuddering breath “My hands,” She begins, her voice wavering. Unsure of what to say, looking up from her knees. “My hair, your t-shirt, the floor, and your hair,” She finishes quietly, burying her face back into her knees.
“Good, can you tell me 4 things you can feel?” Tommy continues.
“My hair, the ground, the desk, and the heat,” She says, still shaking slightly.
“You’re doing amazing Maya,” Tommy reassures her, looking back quickly at the door. No one has come for them yet. “Can you tell me three things you can hear?” He asks again, looking back at her.
“Your voice, my voice and the flames,”
“Okay, we’re almost done,” Tommy reassures her “Can you tell me two things you can smell?”
“My deodorant and the smoke,”
“Just one last thing alright? Can you tell me something you can taste?”
“The strawberries I ate,” Her breathing is back to normal, tears are still falling down but less quickly. Tommy sighs in relief. He didn’t know if that was going to work. He wants to take a deep breath but stops himself when a strong pain interrupted around his lungs.
“Can you stand up?” Tommy asks gently, trying not to push the girl. He’s still hoping someone would come for them. What if the teacher was right and they wouldn’t notice them missing. Maya nods, trying to support her body on her shaking arms. She falls down quickly, obviously not having enough strength.
Tommy asks if she’s alright with being touched, and puts his arm under her shoulder when she nods. He heaves her up on her feet. She leans against the wall, whispering how he can let her go now. He walks slowly to the door. He makes a move to open the door, but the hot metal handle burns his skin in a second.
He hisses and pulls back his hand on instinct, looking down at his hand, he can see a burn forming. Maya looks at him in concern. “What’s wrong?” She starts walking closer to him, looking at his slightly burnt hand. She gasps a bit before taking a deep breath.
“It’s too hot, I need something else to open the door with,” Maya sits down on one of the desks exhausted while Tommy takes his jacket from his chair. He wraps the jacket around his hand, hoping it would be thick enough so he could open the door without burning himself again.
He attempts for a second time to open the door. He pushes the handle without feeling any heat. He makes a small sound of victory.
When he opens the door, they can only see big flames covering the exit. Tommy doesn’t hesitate to close the door immediately. That’s not great.
“We can’t go through the fire, I don’t think we’d survive that,” Tommy says “Our best hope is to stay here and hope someone will find us,” He unwraps the jacket from his previously burnt hand. It stings too much with the pressure of the jacket.
“What if we open the windows, just to get us some fresh air so we don’t suffocate from the smoke,” Maya offers. He has to admit, that does seem like a good plan. Tommy nods and walks to one of the windows, looking for a handle to open the window. He frowns when he can’t seem to find one.
He checks all the windows, but everywhere is the same story. There is no way of opening them, except for breaking the glass.
“You can’t open the windows,” Tommy exclaims, looking back at Maya “Why the fuck did they make the windows so we can’t open it?” Maya stands back up and looks for a handle herself. She frowns when she also can’t seem a way to open them.
“What can we do?” Maya asks “We can’t leave, we can’t get proper oxygen and no one has come to save us yet,” Tommy paces around the room, getting more and more frustrated, he can’t seem to take a breath. He falls into a coughing fit, feeling like his throat is clawing out of his mouth.
Maya look at him, but she doesn’t try to help him. It seems like she lost hope.
“This school sucks so fucking hard. A test is apparently more important than a fucking fire, the teacher doesn’t notice two children left behind and they make unopenable windows,” Tommy says irritated, going through his curls with his hands with frustration. His voice is scratchy. The sentence alone hurts too much for it to be considered normal.
Tommy has to catch him from falling when he feels his head lighten suddenly. He slowly lowers himself to the ground, using the wall as support. His energy was seemingly lost. He can faintly feel Maya sitting down next to him.
Tommy feels dizzy, he feels it getting harder to take a breath. The smoke in his lungs seems to catch up on him. The two teenagers don’t say anything while sitting down next to each other. They know they don’t have any other way to survive than to hope someone could save them in time. They both accepted their fate.
He thinks about Phil, Wilbur, Techno, and Tubbo. How would they react? What would they do when they realize they’ll never be able to see their little gremlin child ever again. They would probably make sure the teacher never got a job anywhere. It was mainly her fault that they were in this situation in the first place.
He hopes he becomes a ghost, so he can haunt his friends forever. Maybe they would buy an Ouija board and he could let them know that he’s still with them. Whatever happens to him after his death, he hopes they won’t stop living because of him.
He hopes Tubbo will find a different best friend, just slightly worse than him.
He hopes Phil will continue being his happy, caring self.
He hopes Techno won’t lock himself up in his room again like he used to do all the time.
He hopes Wil will keep making music and singing in front of Phil and Techno.
He will miss Wil’s music. He enjoyed listening to him when Will didn’t think anyone was awake. He loved listening to his soft voice lulling him back asleep when he had a nightmare.
He’ll miss Philza’s laugh, how he would laugh at the most stupid things he said or did.
He’ll miss Techno’s booming voice, telling him he’s a child every single day.
He’ll miss the talks with Tubbo until 3 am, talking about nonsense. He’ll miss being able to make him smile and laugh.
With his last ounce of energy, he takes out his phone, still in his pocket. He quickly goes to discord, searching for Wil’s contact. He doesn’t know if the man will pick up, he doesn’t know if he’s busy or not. He’s willing to take that risk though.
He presses on Wil’s name, hearing the ringing tone. It doesn’t take long for Wil to pick up.
“Tommy? Aren’t you supposed to be in school right now?” Wil asks concerned. The soft voice calms Tommy down, Wil’s voice had that effect on people. He tries to take a breath, but it gets stuck halfway. He doesn’t know if Wil can hear the choking sound from the other side of the call.
It seems he does when he hears the man on the other side of the call take a deep breath. “Tommy?” His voice is even more concerned, scared even. “Tommy, are you okay?” Tommy can’t answer. He’s too tired. “What’s going on? Please talk to me,”
“Wil?” His voice is more fragile than he expected. His voice is small and rough. If it wasn’t for the dehydration, he’d be crying by now, not only emotionally, but also because his chest hurts. A dry cough escapes his mouth before Wil has time to process his brother figure so fragile.
“Tommy? Tommy, what the fuck is going on?” Wil is concerned, Tommy notices.
“Wil?” Tommy repeats. He wants to tell him so much. He wants to tell him how much he’ll miss him, and how much he was as a brother figure for him. How he couldn’t be where he was now if it wasn’t for him.
“Wil, I love you,” He can’t hear the other his response, he can’t hear Wil demanding what’s going on, begging even. He can’t breathe and he’s too tired.
With a tiny smile on his face, he lets the darkness consume him.
--------------------------------
Wil was freaking out, to put it lightly. Not only did he get a call from fucking Tommy when he’s supposed to be in the middle of class, but he also sounded like a dead person. There was a lot of background noise he couldn’t decipher what they were and he barely said anything.
When he did say something, his voice was small and rough, like he hasn’t drunk in days. He didn’t say anything but his name and ‘I love you.
Wil would normally be very honored if he would tell him that, but now he’s just freaking out. Tommy isn’t responding anymore, no matter what he says, not even if he threatened to never talk to him again. He started crying when Tommy doesn’t respond for two minutes.
He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know where Tommy is or what’s going on. He doesn’t know if he should call 999, if he should call Tommy’s parents or if Tommy’s just pranking him. He doesn’t want to leave the call, scared of missing something that could happen. He also didn’t know what to say if he called 999, a person who I don’t know where he is, or what’s wrong needs help I think.
He’s about to search for Tommy’s parents' contact in his phone when he hears commotion in the background. He can hear a grown man speak in the background, but he can’t hear what they’re saying. “Hello?” Wil tries, hoping to catch their attention. He can hear a crash from the other end before he can hear the voices more clearer, but still pretty far away.
“There are two kids in here,” A voice announces. Wil can hear the footsteps getting closer before stopping completely. Wil tries to shout again, hoping to catch their attention, but nothing seems to work. “Their pulses are very weak, both barely breathing,” The voice announces. Wil sucks in a breath. What happened?
“Put them both on a stretcher, they have to get out of here through the window-” The sound cuts of in an instant. Wil looks at his phone and sees the call has ended. Wil feels his breath quicken, he doesn’t know what’s going on. They said Tommy’s barely breathing.
He doesn’t want Tommy to die, he doesn’t think he could live with that. The background noises sounded like fire, he thinks in the back of his mind. He grips his hair in his hands, he feels like he can’t breathe. He can faintly hear someone enter his room, but he can’t focus on who it is. He feels like throwing up.
“Wil?” A tear falls from his eyes. He feels like he’s dying. Even after dozens of panic attacks, he never gets used to it. Wil can recognize the voice faintly over the ringing in his ears.
He can see Phil enter his vision.
He forgot about Phil and Techno, they decided to meet up a while ago. They decided to spend the night at Wil’s place so they could surprise Tommy with a sleepy bois meet-up. That whole plan is thrown into the water because they said that Tommy isn’t breathing, and he can’t handle that thought.
“Phil?” He whispers “Tommy i-, I n-need t-to help Tom-,” He tries to breathe again, but he just can’t. He doesn’t know how to.
Tommy was barely breathing.
“Wilbur, take a breath for me,” Phil demands “Breathe in with me alright?” Wil tries, but he can only think about Tommy. Tommy couldn’t breathe, his heart was barely beating. So why is his own heart beating so hard?
“Listen to me, Wilbur. You’re alright, but you need to take a breath, please,” Wil takes a shuddering breath in. “Good, now you need to breathe out for me, okay?” Wil complies, not having the energy to argue. He repeats the process again and again.
“Sorry,” He says after he calmed down enough to speak. “I didn’t mean to bother you,”
“You aren’t bothering me,” Phil reassures him “Can I hug you?” He asks unsure. He does need a hug, desperately. Wil nods slightly before he feels arms wrap around him. They don’t say anything afterward. None of them know really what to say.
“Wil?” Phil asks hesitantly “Do you know why you had a panic attack?” It’s obvious that Phil is scared to put him in another panic attack. Wil thinks back at Tommy’s fragile voice. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to explain, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to handle it.
“Tommy called me,” He begins quietly. “I was confused because he was supposed to be in class. He wasn’t responding to me, so I got scared. But then he did answer, and he just said my name. His voice was so small and rough. He sounded dead,” He can hear Phil breath in harshly.
“I tried asking what was going on but he just said ‘I love you’ before just saying nothing. I don’t know how long I sat there, begging him to respond,” Wil keeps going. “After a while, I heard some men. I don’t know who they were, but I heard them talk about how Tommy was barely breathing anymore. The call ended seconds after,”
None of them say anything. Phil doesn’t believe what he’s hearing. What must have happened that Tommy was barely breathing? From every possible thing to cross his mind on what’s going on, he surely didn’t think this.
“Oh my god,” Techno says. Wil didn’t realize Techno entered his room. Wil looks up at him with red eyes, he frowns and looks back at his feet. He feels the tears fall down quicker than before. His silent cries don’t go unnoticed by the other two in the room, but they’re both too much in shock to try to calm him down. A ringing fills the silent call. Wil recognizes the sound as Phil’s phone.
“Hello?” Phil says the moment he picks up. Wil can’t hear the conversation, his ears still ringing. He can see Phil’s face harden slightly.
“Where is he, I’ll go there immediately,” He announces. He stands up, nodding at the two other men in the room to come with him. They stand up quickly, wanting to know what is going on. Phil ends the call and walks into the car.
“He’s in the hospital right now,” Phil announces. “Their parents won’t be able to get there in time,” Wil gasps in relief. He’s going to be alright. Tommy will be okay. The car ride is silent. Wil can do nothing but remind himself that Tommy is alright. He’s not alright, because he almost stopped breathing, but he surely will be.
He’ll make sure of it.
Phil probably broke a few laws while driving, but he couldn’t care less. His little brother is in the hospital. Other cars can wait, Tommy can’t. He parks in a random spot, opening the door immediately. He runs to the entrance of the hospital, the others hot on his tail.
“I’m here for Tommy,” Phil explains after he walked up to the counter. The lady gives them a smile and types something on the computer.
“You can’t go see him yet, you’ll have to wait in the waiting room wing E,” she explains “You follow the E on the ground and you’ll have to go to the second floor,”
“Do you know what happened, no one is telling me anything,” Wil immediately asks from behind Phil. The lady hesitates but looks back at her computer.
“I can’t tell you a lot, but he got caught in a fire,” Wil takes a deep breath. His suspicion was right. This is bad. How did he even get into a fire in the first place? He had to be at school, but didn’t they have a fire alarm? And wouldn’t they have to have alerted the parents about this?
They’re quick to say thank you before turning around and follow the instructions the lady told him. It doesn’t take long for them to find the waiting room. The directions were clear, it was obvious where you had to go. If his brother wasn’t in the hospital, he would give the hospital a compliment. They sit down on the plastic chairs. Wil puts his head in his hands, tears falling down his face.
“Phil Watson?” Phil stands up in an instant, letting the doctor know that they were the people he was searching for. “You can see your son if you’d want to,” the doctor says.
Phil doesn’t comment on the fact that Tommy isn’t actually his son, hoping to see the boy as quickly as possible.
Wil doesn’t need to hear more, nodding urgently. He walks into the room the doctor leads him to and his eyes land on Tommy. He looks small with the nasal cannula that covers his mouth. His whole body seems to be covered with leftover ashes. He didn’t seem to have any major burns as Wil thought he was going to have, except for some minor ones on his arms and a slightly bigger one on his hand.
He sits down on one of the chairs, taking Tommy’s hand in his. Phil and Techno sit down on two chairs on the other side of the bed. The doctor walks in behind them, leaving them a little bit of space. Wil looks up at the doctor, hoping to get more information.
“Well, first of all, he’ll survive,” The doctor begins. Wil lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “He didn’t get any major burns. He breathed in too much smoke and his lungs are a bit damaged. The worst possible scenario is having pain when talking or some difficulty breathing from time to time,” No one says a word. It could be way worse, but they should’ve never let it come this far.
“What happened,” Techno asks, his voice less neutral than normal.
The doctor sighs, “I don’t know the whole story, but here’s what I do know,” He begins “There was a pretty big fire in his school. His class left them behind in the classroom,” The tension in the room grew even more. They all wanted nothing more but to kill this bitch.
“Them?” Techno asks eventually.
“We found him with a girl, she’s alright. We think she had a panic attack. Our best guess is that she had a panic attack and Tommy wanted to help her. No one noticed that they weren’t with the group and by the time she calmed down enough to leave, it was too late,” The doctor explains “They found them unconscious sitting next to each other,”
Wil looks at Tommy, of course, he would help that girl, even if that meant he couldn’t get out. He supposes he is always like that. Under all his rage, there was a caring boy who wouldn’t hesitate to help anyone in need.
“When he wakes up, you can press the button. I’ll leave you alone for now,” the doctor gives them a smile before leaving the four men alone in the room.
They don’t say anything. They’re all looking at Tommy.
“I’m going to kill the teacher who was supposed to lead them safely out of the building,” Techno murmurs. Phil looks up at him with a small smile. Of course, Techno would immediately turn to violence.
“We don’t know the whole story yet,” Phil argues, even if he agrees with him. What if they weren’t fast enough, what if Tommy died in his classroom, no one realizing he was there? “We don’t know what happened for it to turn out that way,”
“Are you serious? No excuse could help them, they left two children to die in a burning building,” Techno argues “Are we just not talking about the fact that the school didn’t alert his parents at all about the burning school, or the fact that Tommy is in the hospital,” He keeps going “That’s not supposed to happen, Phil,”
Phil sighs, putting his head in his hands. “I know, alright,”
“How are we ever supposed to be comfortable with letting Tommy go to school if we can’t trust his own safety there,” Techno keeps going “Isn’t school supposed to be a comfortable place to learn, how will he ever be comfortable again when he thinks about teachers who just forget about him,”
“Techno-” Phil’s voice breaks slightly.
“I’m serious, alright. We can’t just let this go-”
“We’ll figure it out later, alright,” Phil sighs. Techno huffs as he looks back to Tommy, dropping the argument. “We just have to be there for Tommy right now, that’s the most important thing,”
The two murmur some sort of agreement that Phil doesn’t understand. They all turn back to Tommy’s unconscious body. They’ll be alright in the end, they have to be.