Work Text:
"Good morning," Tubbo greets, popping his head round Tommy's door.
Tommy is laying on the floor instead of on his bed, wrists covering his ears and elbows pointing upwards, eyes squeezed shut and legs tucked in close to him. He doesn't move when his friend speaks, nor does he reply. This is not completely unusual to Tubbo. However, he usually has someone else around him to help when Tommy inevitably gets angry at him and tells him to fuck off, but today he's alone and there is a storm raging outside the mansion. There's a reason that Tommy's still here at all.
Tubbo frowns, concerned,, taking another step further into the room. "Are you ok?"
The younger boy whines, dropping his arms over his eyes. "Everything hurts."
Oh. It's another one of those days.
Tubbo slips into the room and silently sits at Tommy's side, cross legged. Upon closer inspection, he is shaking and is biting his lip hard to keep from making noise. Tubbo hums softly, deciding on what to do. "Is it bad?" he whispers, trying not to startle him. "Scale from one to ten."
There is a short pause before he receives an answer, and when he does, it's very quiet. "I dunno, like a five," Tommy mumbles, turning his face away from view. "'M not exactly good at... registering discomfort in a way that would be seen as normal."
Tubbo takes this pause to inspect Tommy's room. He has one of the guest bedrooms of the mansion all to himself, and he wasted no time in decorating and making it his own. The bed is covered in pillows and a yellow duvet, and there are clothes scattered across the floor, discarded hoodies and socks thrown into the corners. A jukebox is placed neatly on the desk where Tommy's laptop and drawing materials are. His bookcases take up half of one wall next to the cracked open windows through which rain can be seen pouring down in grey sheets. Post-it notes and sheets of coloured paper cover the yellow walls, with scribbled reminders and doodles and lists. Tommy's always loved making lists.
"Why are you on the floor?" Tubbo asks after the silence goes on for too long.
"The bed was annoying me," Tommy mumbles. "Too much - too much. Blankets and pillows and things all over my skin. The floor's cool."
"Sensory overload?" Tubbo diagnoses, having suspected that to be the problem anyway.
Tommy pauses before humming in quiet agreement. Tubbo shuffles closer to the boy, heart suddenly full of the desperate need to make him feel safe, to hold Tommy close like they had when they were kids. "Here, do you want me to lie down with you and you can put your head on my chest? You don't look comfortable like that, bossman."
Tommy snorts. "I'm never comfortable," he mutters, but when Tubbo lies down and nudges him gently, Tommy turns and rests his head on him just as he'd ask. His eyes flutter closed immediately. "'M always in a state of... permanent pain and agony and suffering."
"Of course, of course," Tubbo mumbles. The position Tommy's chosen is slightly painful, crushing half his arm, but he doesn't say that. "You should sleep. I know you don't do that much."
"Sleep is difficult," Tommy whispers. He's still shaking a little, small tremors running through his body. "I don't like it. It makes me dream weird shit and then I wake up and I don't know what's real and what's not." He goes silent, sounding embarrassed. "Yeah, I wake up thinking I am surrounded by just so many girls who want me and then I have to go "oh, that was just a dream, Tom, but one day they'll be real and you will marry all of the women who like you and -""
"Yes, I got it," Tubbo laughs. His left hand drifts and is suddenly on the back of Tommy's head. The younger boy shudders at the touch, and Tubbo moves, not wanting to hurt him. "You ok?"
Tommy nods, and tilts his head back to signal for Tubbo to put his hand back where it was. He does so, and begins to drag his fingers through his curls across his scalp, lips curling at the way the boy relaxes against him with a peaceful expression. He decides against making fun of Tommy for being like a cat like he wants to. Instead, he stares at the ceiling and listens to the rain fall.
It smells like petrichor in Tommy's room. He always has his windows open, always, even at night, so there's always fresh air in here and it's always mildly cold, except in rarer hot weather. Tubbo's listened to rambling explanations as to why - spiels about obsidian boxes and lava and icy voids and hot fire and explosions underneath him and snow that bites at his burns. Tubbo doesn't question anything Tommy does anyway, but hearing the way his mind works is intriguing. And he knows things have been more difficult for Tommy lately, that he doesn't understand himself some days and needs someone to be around.
The floor isn't comfortable. But Tubbo will do anything for Tommy, so he lays there even after his friend drifts off, clutching the front of Tubbo's hoodie. There are moments where he finds himself falling asleep too. Despite the cold of the floor seeping through his shirt to his skin and his bones rubbing against the wood, he closes his eyes, and eventually the rhythmic pattering of the rain outside lulls him off.
The air smells of rain when he stirs. Tommy's eyes are open.
"You ok?" he asks softly.
Tommy nods. He still looks exhausted.
"Feel weird," he mumbles. "My body doesn't sit right."
"Am I ok to hug you?" Tubbo asks. Just another thing he will only do for Tommy.
The other nods, and rolls over onto Tubbo's chest. Tubbo awkwardly wraps his arms around him and holds back a laugh as Tommy melts, going completely limp. "Hey. I've, uh… I've got you. Uh. Yeah. I've got you."
"Tell me something about myself," Tommy says, muffled against Tubbo's chest. "Please."
Tubbo thinks. It is still raining outside. That is something he's always enjoyed, something they've both always enjoyed. They used to make castles out of mud and catch raindrops on their tongues and see how far their boots could sink into swamps before pulling each other out.
"Your name is Tommyinnit," Tubbo begins. "You're seventeen, and you're my best friend in the entire world. You're basically like my little brother, and you often call yourself that when you're doing a bit. You've got another brother, one by blood, who was dead up until very recently. You… have been through some hard times, and sometimes you find it difficult to tell what's real and what's not, and sometimes you imagine things that aren't there or become convinced that things are going to happen that aren't. Which is ok, because you're also going to therapy. You… really like animals. All of them, except cats, a ridiculous amount. Your favourite colour is blue. You like sugary hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream, and you love music, and you love people and are very good at speaking to them when they click with you."
Tommy is quiet. His eyes are open, though, and he's blinking rapidly to fight back the wetness that's building up in front of them. "Ok," he mumbles. "Thanks."
Later they do get up and Tubbo makes warm drinks and cheese toasties while Tommy sits dizzily in a chair near the window, and then they play music - Old World music, not Cat or Mellohi or Blocks or Chirp, not now - and they watch the rain come down until Tommy comes back to himself enough to embarrassedly call Tubbo a prick for babying him so much. And when the rain stops, petrichor still hanging in the foggy air, chilling their skin icily, they go for a walk, and they breathe in and out and in and out, and it's not the recovery either of them pictured, because recovery is never displayed as falling asleep in each other's arms in the early afternoon and eating a warm meal in the dregs of a rainstorm, but it's something. It feels like puzzle pieces slotting together again after so long of feeling like they'd never fit together.
It feels like home again.