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His entire life, Tommy had issues with food. It started off as picky eating, which was soon explained by his ADHD and subsequent aversion to certain textures. It then moved on to what his parents liked to call his “stubborn phase,” where he refused to eat anything but his safe foods [macaroni and cheese, crackers, vanilla yogurt, and the occasional half-serving of baby carrots]. That wasn’t a fun time in his life to think back on- the fights he had with his parents at dinnertime over eating foods that he just couldn’t stand were insurmountable. Tommy couldn't physically count the amount of times they'd threatened him to force him into hospital.
But it was all fine now- Tommy had expanded his palate, so to speak. He ate more than mac ‘n cheese and crackers. Sure, he had the typical junk food-based diet of any teenager, but his parents were there to keep him in line to make sure that he didn’t eat too much of it.
It was all okay, right?
.
.
.
“Ayyy! Haha!” Tommy ran up to the ledge, fumbling awkwardly with his camera. “It won’t let me zoom!”
“Yeah, good!”
“Oh, HA!” Tommy cackled, though his laughs tapered a little when he heard his dad chuckling alongside him.
His dad yelled something about them going around to meet Wilbur, but honestly it was all in one ear and out the other for Tommy. His nerves were too jumbled-up to properly form coherent thoughts, let alone process what was going on around him. All he could focus on was that he was gonna get to see Wilbur!
He and his dad went back and forth about something, Tommy couldn’t remember what. It was just a bit for the vlog, was Tommy really expected to remember? But then, as they made their way down the last flight of stairs, Tommy saw him, and all negative thoughts flew right out the window.
“Wil! Hello!”
“Hello, Tommy!”
He put the camera down on some random ledge, dropping his bag alongside it. They’d gotten the introduction they’d needed for the vlog. Tommy locked eyes with Wilbur- the man who, over the last few months, he’d come to see as more of a big brother than anything else- and his face split into what was perhaps the widest grin in the entire world.
All it took was Wilbur opening his arms in a silent invitation from across the fountain area, and he lost any semblance of control he had, his legs kicking off on their own in a desperate sprint to try and reach him as quickly as they could. Wilbur, despite his height [which, Tommy could concede, he was a little taller than him- but by a bit!], stumbled back a bit when Tommy flew into his arms. Tommy half expected him to be awkward about it like his dad was, or pull him into a suffocating embrace like his mum always did, but to his surprise, he did neither, instead carefully looping his arms around him and holding him to his chest like he was the most precious thing in the world.
Tommy absolutely melted into the embrace, sighing contentedly as he rested his chin on Wilbur’s shoulder. God, it’d been months since he’d been hugged by anyone other than his parents and the occasional awkward goodbye embrace from Tubbo. It felt nice.
“God, you’re like paper,” Wilbur muttered, “do your parents feed you?”
Normally, Tommy would have been shocked by the seemingly-insensitive comment, but he knew Wilbur enough to know that he wouldn’t have made it if he didn’t think that he could handle it. He glanced behind him, and, seeing that his dad had preoccupied himself in a conversation with a man who was seated on the edge of the fountain, turned back into Wilbur’s embrace.
“I mean, yeah,” he shrugged, “I’m not dead, am I?”
The comment was meant to bring a lighter mood to the atmosphere, but Wilbur pulled away, a frown painted on his features. “Tommy,” he said, “you know you have specific dietary needs. You don’t need to be on the brink of starvation for it to be harming you.”
Tommy sighed. A gust of wind blew past, and goosebumps ran up his arms. He shivered, a bit violently. Wilbur’s frown only deepened. “Are you up for filming today?” he asked, voice gentler than he’d ever heard it before, “I don’t want you to be cold all day.”
“I’m fine, Wilbur,” Tommy whined, rolling his eyes, “it’s just windy.”
“And you’re wearing a winter jacket.”
Tommy paused. Fuck.
“Exactly,” Wilbur crossed his arms, “Tommy, I just need to know if your parents are feeding you okay or not. You were already really thin before. Now you look like a strong gust of wind could knock you over.”
Tommy looked off to the side. “Yeah,” he admitted quietly.
“Pardon?”
“I checked my weight last week,” he said, a little louder despite the distinct tremor in his voice, “I’m, uh…” he cleared his throat, “I’m a little underweight.”
“Oh, shit,” Wilbur breathed, “how bad is it?”
“It’s not that bad,” he said, biting his lip a little, “but… y’know. I’m scared to tell my parents.”
“Why would you be scared to tell them?”
Tommy laughed weakly. “I mean, you try telling your guardians that you’re at a BMI now where they can put you in the hospital with a feeding tube. It’s fuckin’ terrifying.”
When Wilbur said nothing else, Tommy dared to glance up, confused to see that Wilbur was staring at him with nothing less than a horrified look on his face.
“That’s- Jesus Christ Tommy, that’s not even close to the truth,” he breathed, shoulders shuddering a little bit.
Tommy’s brow furrowed. “It… it’s not?”
“No,” he asserted, “unless you’re, like, severely anorexic, or refusing to eat at all, they can’t force you to get a feeding tube. That’s medical abuse and it’s highly illegal.”
“Oh,” he murmured, shoulders sinking down in relief, “that’s… that would have been nice to hear a while ago, I suppose.”
“What do you mean?”
He looked off to the side again, arms crossed defensively over his chest. “My parents would threaten to put me in the hospital with a feeding tube every time I didn’t eat my dinner as a kid. Said I would die if I didn’t start eating more than mac ‘n cheese. Which is fair I mean, I can see their reasoning, but like, it was really fucking terrifying to hear as a kid, y’know? I had a huge fear of hospitals and they kind of knew about it? And I guess they used it to make me eat more.”
Wilbur was silent for a moment before he spoke up again.
“Tommy. I want you to listen to me very closely, okay? No interrupting.”
“O...kay?”
Wilbur took him by the shoulders, staring him dead in the eyes. “What your parents did to you was manipulation and abuse. Knowing about a fear of yours and using it to get their way is basically the definition of manipulation. If they’re still doing this to you, on any level, even if it’s just occasional, I need you to tell me, okay?”
Tommy stared, wide-eyed, into the dead-serious eyes of his big brother. Wilbur definitely was not fucking around. This wasn’t a joke, this wasn’t some kind of game. This was real life. His… his parents had manipulated him. They’d taken his fear of hospitals and fear of food and used it against him to get him to eat healthier, and even though it worked… look where he was now.
Absolutely terrified of any and everything healthy, bordering on an eating disorder, underweight, and having a panic attack every time his parents so much as brought up the concept of dieting or the hospital.
God, he was really fucked up, wasn’t he.
“I was abused, wasn’t I?” he mumbled.
“You were.”
“Shit.”
Wetness pricked at the corners of his eyes, and before he could even register the feeling as tears, Wilbur was pulling him into another hug, this one much firmer than the first one. He rubbed a hand along his back, gently shushing his sobs. Wilbur swayed them side-to-side, and for just a minute, the world around them disappeared, leaving only Tommy in his brother’s arms, safe from everyone and everything that could harm him- safe from his parents, who he was just now processing had done so much to hurt him over the years.
“Tom, what’s wrong?”
One of which happened to be standing less than fifteen meters away from where the entire conversation was taking place.
Tommy half expected Wilbur to pull away, to push him out of his comforting embrace the second his dad's voice cut through the safe lite bubble that the two had been encased in before that point, but to his surprise, that didn’t happen.
Instead, Wilbur’s arms tightened around him, almost protectively, as his older brother hurried to respond.
“Nothing to be concerned about, Mr. Simons,” Wilbur laughed in that horribly fake, socially-acceptable laugh he did whenever he was trying to get out of an uncomfortable or unpleasant situation, “it’s been a little while since we’ve seen each other.”
“Ah. COVID, innit?”
“Mm. It’s been hard, not seeing my friends, isn’t that right, Toms?”
Tommy’s only response was to sniff and bury himself further into Wilbur’s embrace. His stomach grumbled, clenching almost painfully, and a pang of nausea shot up his throat as a reminder of how long it had been since he’d last eaten any substantial food.
Tommy’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment, wondering if anyone had heard. Evidently his father hadn’t, as there was no condescending comment from him about how “oh Tom, you’re always hungry, aren’t you? We’ve got to get you to start eating less!”
But Wilbur definitely had, seeing as a few moments later, he spoke up again. “Right, I think me and Toms are gonna go grab some lunch before we go meet George.”
“Good luck, mate!” his dad laughed as Tommy pulled away from the embrace, wiping any traces of tears from his cheeks, “this boy can eat like a horse, my word.”
“Is that so?” Wilbur looked unimpressed.
“He practically eats us out of the house,” his dad went on, seemingly unable to read how increasingly uncomfortable the atmosphere was becoming. God, could he ever learn to shut up?! “Rarely ate anything as a child, now I can’t get him to stop inhaling everything he sees!”
“Mhm. Well, it’s been nice talking with you, Mr. Simons,” Wilbur grimaced, taking Tommy’s arm not-so-subtly, “have a pleasant day!”
“You too, Wilbur!”
Tommy hurried after Wilbur like a baby duckling, shoulders hunched up to his ears as he hurried out of the plaza as fast as humanly possible.
“God that was a nightmare,” Wilbur groaned as soon as they were out of earshot.
“I forgot the camera.”
“We’ll go back for it later,” he reassured, clapping a hand on his shoulder, “now, we’re gonna go get you a nice, big lunch, and then we’re gonna get you some snacks that you can keep in your room.”
“But Wilbur-“
“Ah ah- no fighting me on this one, Toms.” Tommy grumbled. “It’s for your own good. If your parents won’t feed you.”
“I never said anything about my parents not feeding me.”
“I can infer. Your dad said you eat everything in sight, and yet you look like a breeze could knock you over? Something isn’t adding up.”
Tommy paused a little in his steps, Wilbur slowing his pace to match his.
His brother sighed. “Look, I know it’s hard to admit-“
“They’re not entirely wrong.”
“Huh?”
“My- I, um, my parents do buy me-“ he cleared his throat. “they do buy me food and shit. But, um, it’s not the food I need, exactly?”
Wilbur’s brow furrowed. “Do they just buy you junk food or something? I’m not following.”
Tommy shrugged. “I mean, I- I have dietary restrictions. You know about my low blood pressure, right? I’ve mentioned it before?”
“All the time, yeah.”
“I have a diet I’m supposed to be on for that. I also have this, erm, this… I can’t remember the name of it. Some genetic condition or some shit. Some intolerance to something. It’s like… that one town in Italy, Sicily? It’s like… that, but a disease.”
“Sicily- Tom, do you mean Celiac Disease??”
“It’s something like that! I don’t know, man!”
“How do you mix up Sicily with Celiac Disease?!”
Tommy wheezed, doubling over and pointedly ignoring the stares from the other pedestrians passing them on the pavement. “They sound similar!!”
“God, you’re absolutely fucked, aren’t you? There’s no way you’re getting into uni.”
“Jokes on you, moron, I don’t want to go to uni anyways.”
“Go to uni, dumb child.”
“Don’t call me dumb, you cunt!”
“Insult me all you’d like, I’m still taller than you in the end.”
“I am the biggest man here, Wilbur Soot! I am massive! I am six-three, you- you bastard!”
“You’re maybe six foot on a good day, Tommy.”
“On a good- what’s that supposed to mean?!”
Wilbur laughed, reaching down to ruffle his hair. Tommy jumped up and bit his hand.
“Ow! Feral child!”
“Ha!! Yeeeeah! That’s what you get, bitch!”
Wilbur shook his hand, hissing a little. “Your teeth are unnaturally sharp. I better not contract rabies, you raccoon dumpster child.”
“Is that like a Pokémon?”
“Where do you learn these things?”
“Gogy is the best teacher, I’ll have you know!”
“You and Gogy are banned from speaking to each other.”
“What?! No! No! No, you can’t ban me from seeing Gogy! What will I do without Gogs?!”
“Perish, I suppose.”
“...That’s fair. What were we even talking about?”
“I believe we were talking about your Celiac Disease, or rather, Sicily Disease, before you infected me with your other child diseases.”
“Oi! Fuck you, they’re perfectly big man diseases, thank you very much.”
Wilbur rolled his eyes. "Before we get off-topic again, mind telling me why- or rather, how- your parents don’t buy the food you need?”
With that question, Tommy finally sobered, and they continued walking, all traces of banter gone and the lighthearted atmosphere faded.
“Well, I can’t eat wheat and shit, and I have to make sure I’m eating salty and sugary foods that keep my blood pressure up, and I also have to make sure that my blood volume is high, so I always have to stay super hydrated. My doctor told all this to my parents back when I got diagnosed and shit, and they were good about following my diet back then, but now I guess they’ve just kind of forgotten.”
Wilbur stared, incredulous. “How- how do you even forget about your own child’s dietary needs?”
Tommy shrugged. “They have other things to worry about, big man. Bills and shit. They’ve been on this diet plan for like three months now. It’s not great for me because it cuts out sugars and salty food, which is what I need to eat a lot of, so… yeah.”
“Tommy… you need to talk to your doctor about this. This can seriously affect your health.”
“Can it, though?”
“Yes.” Tommy looked into Wilbur’s eyes and saw nothing but his cold, locked gaze. “Just in the last few months, you’ve nearly passed out from blood pressure drops several times on and off stream, and I’m sure there’s many more that I haven’t seen. I thought those were normal, but I’m starting to think they’re not. Am I right?”
Tommy looked down, cheeks tinted just the slightest hint of red. “Yeah.”
“Exactly. Please. Talk with your parents about it, and if they’re unwilling to listen, talk to your doctor. If need be, I will step in and help you buy the food that you need. You can even keep it at my house if you need it. Just- I care about you, okay? So much. More than anyone else. I’d be so, so heartbroken if anything were to happen to you because of something that I could help fix. So please. Talk to them. I can even help you if you need. But please. For my sake and for yours.”
Wilbur’s face blurred for half a second before it cleared, followed by the distinct sensation of a tear dripping down his cheek. He didn’t even notice that he was crying until now…
“Okay. I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask. Just try.”
Wilbur pulled him into a somewhat awkward side-hug, rubbing his shoulder. It held none of the intimacy that the earlier hug had come with, but the intent was all the same. Tommy felt the same amount of love nonetheless.
His stomach rumbled not a moment later, interrupting what would have been an otherwise somewhat-peaceful moment.
Wilbur chuckled wetly, wiping at his own face. Tommy hadn't noticed him crying either. God, he was shit at noticing things, wasn’t he?
“C’mon Toms, let’s go get some food in you.”
Tommy nodded, pulling away from the hug. He hesitated, then slipped his hand into Wilbur’s. His brother said nothing, only acknowledging the gesture by squeezing his hand in his.
“Yeah. I’m starving. Can we go get takeaway?”
”Good choice, Toms. Let’s go.”