Chapter Text
The transversal theory is a “subfield of convex and discrete geometry that studies the intersection of classes of sets.” In Tommy terms, the transversal theory is a line that intersects two or more other lines.
Why are we talking about the transversal theory you may ask? Well, Tommy likes to think that due to the allowance of those intersecting lines with one common intersecting line that brings those two theories together, one common theory is evaluated.
In even more simpler terms, with every reaction there is an equal or opposite reaction.
Tommy finding his friends through the creation of the internet was an equal reaction, Tommy distancing himself through that very same internet, is the opposing reaction.
And as the discord call taunts him as he eases into his chair with a thud, almost missing the seat entirely, he wonders if he should join. It’s already midnight, but as per usual no one is asleep quite yet, the different time zones mean nothing when it comes to the equal friendships made. But, in a way, Tommy thinks that their opposing distance in real life was transcending mentally too.
When was the last time Phil and Tommy had spoken? Or Wilbur? Here they were, though, in a call with Tubbo and presumably Ranboo in the background. His mind races, and he isn’t thinking clearly, so with little care his fingers trace along and tap onto the connect button and there he is. His profile illuminates and pops up, gaining the attention of Will who immediately welcomes him with a surprised tone, “Tommy, how’ve you been?”
Offcam was such a different realm then their streaming personas, so it was always unsettling when the lot were without watching eyes, because it was much more personal and harder to lie. “Ello, I’m fine, moving has been a lot of work,” he chips in a reply, hoping they dont notice his offput stutter and slurred words.
Phil’s discord photo lights up, “You okay, you sound, well, tired? Have you been sleeping?” A worried dad on the other end puts a half grin on the blonde’s face and he gives the excuse that he’s slept but he’s not used to the new room. They’ll believe it as they always do, much too caught up in their own world to notice, or at least, that’s what Tommy’s mind had reasoned.
“I don’t know, you sound different than tired, are you? Tommy, are you doing that thing again?” Tubbo speaks, his heart rate picks up, “No, no!”
“Tommy, remember last time you said you weren’t and you almost ended up in the hospital,” Tubbo refutes, their concerning conversation gaining the attention of the others, “What do you mean?” He hears from a whispered Ranboo in the background.
“Where’d you get the carts from?” The chaotic silence grows with tension, “Fucking no one Toby!” He breathed out hopelessly, “I swear I’m not fucking smoking it again.” How many fucks could a fuck fuck cluck to get him out of this one? Apparently not enough.
It was such a lie, and when Tommy spoke his voice slurred a bit too much and without a second passing, suddenly everyone had connected the dots or dabs.
“Toms, you’re doing fucking, dabs?!” Wilbur, although his phone mic was poor quality, and the man sounded exhausted, spoke harshly and unrelentingly.
“I said I fucking wasn’t for the third fucking time, can you all just stop, please! I didn’t come here to be ridiculed and nagged at for some bullshit assumption,” Tommy grew annoyed and exited the VC as fast as he possibly could in his state, interrupting someone mid sentence and ignoring the multiple individual’s messages and failed calls that beamed red.
He grumbles out incoherent words that mainly sound like swears, and as ungracefully as possible staggers into his unmade bed. His heart rate pounds intensely into the silence and his hands feel disengaged from his body as he sweeps his hair away from his face and drifts into sleep.
Sleep came fast and easy, but waking up was long and very very hard. His body felt like a truck had hit him and his brain felt like a sludge had entered and made a nest inside. 11:34 am. How had he managed to sleep past 8?
Remembering his parents absence, he crumples into himself, shaking off the clouded feeling, he careens his way into the kitchen. Feeling detached to his body, he accidentally bangs his knee into the side of a table, watching as blood draws slowly before making a u-turn towards the bathroom. He only manages to find a huge plaster amongst the few remaining moving boxes and curses himself out for not heeding his mother’s words of wisdom when it came to helping unpack. “Whatever,” he voices, as he sticks the annoyingly gaumy brown latex on.
Walter and Betty started barking on que as knocks echoed in quick pace. Great. With his sluggish pace, he makes his way to the front door, fixing his wrinkled night shirt before opening the door to a bewildered and very unimpressed 6’5 sibling shaped silhouette.
“Tommy, you look like shit,” he speaks.
“Well that was a little blunt, yeah?” His raspy voice breaks through and he grins lopsidedly. From behind the man a 5’6 bench boy sticks out, joined by the other ⅓ of the bench trio.
“Come in?” He asked, he wasn’t quite sure if they even wanted to with the awkward way they hung back, but Wilbur took the initiative, dragging Tommy inside with him.
“Where the fuck is it?” Wilbur persisted, dead set on his mission. “Where the fuck is what?” He parroted similarly, trying to focus while also deflecting.
“How the hell do you keep getting dabs Tommy?” Tubbo asked from his newfound position standing behind wilbur. Tommy locked eyes with the other brunette and formed an “O” with his mouth. “Is cannabis illegal in the UK?” Ranboo chimes. Gaining an answer when Wilbur contributes angerly, “Ex-fucking-tremely unless it’s medicinal, and last I checked,” Wilbur locks onto Tommy harshly, “you’re one, not perscribed, and two, dabs are far from that prescription menu.”
“Listen guys, it’s not dabs, calm down,” he shakes his hands for emphasis, standing to move back towards the kitchen so he could both remove himself from confrontation and get himself something to eat. The others easily matched his pace, so easily that Wilbur had placed himself in front of the fridge right before he had reached for the handle, “Not cool,” he notes out loud.
“You know what’s not cool, you're lying to us!” Wilbur’s voice raises and he shoves his hands on top of his head, resting there as he continues to stare the younger man down. The blonde turns his head to see Tubbo’s grimacing face, and from what he could make out, Ranboo’s begrudging glare from behind the mask and glasses.
It felt like the length of a Twilight movie before anything happened, but when it did, Tommy was sure that he would have preferred sitting through that movie instead.
Wilbur was quick on his steps, navigating effortlessly in the new house to Tommy’s bedroom. Tommy followed closely, “What are you doing Wil?” He asks calmy before the worrisome silence strikes back, Wil?!” He disappears from view as he enters his destination point, much to the blonde’s dismay.
Wilbur, with his frizzy hair, overworn clothing, and dirtied trainers, rummages endlessly through the boy’s room. He finds a small baggie of gummies from behind a cluttered bookshelf. With a sneaking suspicion and a nose, he unzips it and immediately meets the harsh smell of skunks ass. Doing a 180, Wilbur shoves the bag towards Tommy’s face, “So you weren’t doing dabs but edibles?! How is this any fucking different?!”
Tubbo sees the scene play out meters away, “Edibles Tom? I thought you had promised?” Tubbo leaves instantaneously, in his absence Ranboo is left to pursue him. Now, with the only two figures in the room being Tommy and Wilbur, the suffocating tension has only dialed up tenfold.
Wilbur drops onto the bed, stuffing a hand into his face as the other hand clenched onto the baggie in his lap which is later discarded behind him. Tommy can’t continue to stand, so his rationally exhausted brain convinces him to drop to the floor and lay down horizontally to ease the burden off his recently lamed knee.
“What’s the big deal? Cannabis is legal in America for recreational use,” the silence overtakes them once more and the yearning for the Twilight movie returns.
“I know your cousin had issues with substances Wil, but I’m not them,” more silence, but Tommy knows he should have kept his mouth shut when the other gave a sad crossed sigh.
“He was just like you, with his whole life ahead of him,” Wil raises his head from his hand to look at the teen, “he thought that taking drugs was a test, and he lost Tom.” His lips shakily meet for a moment before opening again, “He failed because his body gave out, because it didn’t end with weed, it fucking started with it.”
The whole, “Cannabis is a gateway drug” talk was boring, but the teen’s heart twinged for his best friend, he had empathy and he understood what he was doing was unfair to his friends.
“Toms, have you taken any other drug recently besides Cannabis?”
Tommy sat up, stretching his legs further out and leaning back onto his hands, “Do you want the truth?” He asked as his head lolled backwards onto his shoulders. Wilbur’s dark and blank eyes plead with blue dilated ones.
“I had some pills,” he answers.
“Shit,” he muffles into the back of his hand as he slouches onto the support of his arm, “which one’s?”
“Alprazolam, then when they stopped working, Valium.”
“You have any left?”
“Nope,” he pops his p, “used em’ all up 3 weeks ago.”
Tommy straightens up, ignoring the elder’s turmoiled expression. He rises languidly, and sits parallel to Wilbur on the harsh blue comforter. With arms open wide, Tommy wraps them around his mentor’s shoulders, and subconsciously the other leans in. If anyone were to show up and see the scene displayed they would admit that Tommy looked like a mother comforting her saddened son, arms squeezed so hard that the others had caved in and wrapped inwards underneath.
“I can’t watch you turn into my cousin Toms. I was there, I’m phys-, I’m literally here right now! You could have reached out. I- just- please, reach out,” his voice is uneven and feels like it might shatter in the moment. Wilbur unlatches his arms from beneath and hooks them overhead on the shorter’s shoulders, changing their positions so that it now looks like Wilbur is the comforting mother.
“Tubbo, Ranboo, Phil,” he pleads as he goes on quieter and lower this time, “we’re here, Tommy. We’re not going to disappear. I know you have these moments in reality where you think we’re distancing ourselves for a reason.”
A dog, probably one of Tommy’s, barks in the background, but even though Wilbur stops coagulating sentences, they’re both focusing on their communication, finding the words with a poignant but vehement aura.
“I know you dissociate. I know that you can’t compartmentalize your emotions well. I know you pretend to be fine half the time,” Wil sputters, sagging into the young teen, “but I’m fucking here Thomas.”
“You’re all I have,” he finishes.
The realness of the situation, of the words , bites at Tommy’s haughty attitude, and breaks the first hurdle that holds back the floodgates as he gapes out a saddened scene. His snotty nose and misgiving tears leave trails on the worn sweater and Tommy thinks that had the other worn polyester instead of the insulating monotone cotton, then he would have started sneezing and breaking out in hives midway through his cry sesh.
Sometimes, it’s almost like Wilbur can sense the outcome of scenarios, and other times it’s like he just takes others into consideration without a second thought. And sometimes, it takes a lanky 25 year old to allow a dulling 17 year old to express himself. In transverse, sometimes it takes a dulling 17 year old to allow a lanky 25 year old to express himself.
“We’re going to be okay Toms,” he promises to Tommy, “everything is going to be okay,” he promises to himself.
And sometimes, it takes an unprecedented situation to allow for a different transverse theory to take place.