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It all started with an innocent little Discord call.
Or, well, it was as innocent as it could be for a Discord call with the Sleepy Bois. They were just…well, they were something. And it didn’t help that Tommy just was generally a fair bit tired? Because things hurt. A little bit. Not much. Just…a bit, honestly. But that was normal. Things always hurt. Some part of everyone always hurt all the time. It was normal. Totally, completely normal.
“Ugh.” He mumbled, slumping down into his gaming chair. Throwing his head back, Tommy sucked in a loud breath. Then, he groaned even louder.
“You alright, Tommy?” Wilbur asked. Nodding, Tommy ran his hands into his hair. “You seem a bit tired today. You sure about that?”
“Yeah. Me bones just woke up and chose violence today.” He did actually say the phrase “me bones”. When he did, Techno snorted, Phil smiled. Wilbur just looked at him like he’d told the world’s worst pun. “The usual, innit?” He mumbled, eyes closed. The call suddenly went to silence. Which was not normal, considering it was all of the Sleepy Bois in the same call. Blinking, Tommy sat up and looked around. “Uhm…you guys alright? Internet go down?”
“Tommy, what do you mean by ‘the usual, innt’?” Wilbur asked, leaning forwards in his camera. Looking at him, Tommy blinked.
“You know. The bone hurting juice?” Looking from one side to the other, Tommy turned. Shifted his leg. Today it was his left leg that had chosen violence, pain radiating down from his hip to his ankle. It was basically a daily thing. Honestly, Tommy didn’t even remember the last time that he wasn’t in some amount of pain or other. His neck, shoulders. Back. Hips. Knees. Ankles. Wrists. Sometimes his ribs would subluxate. Not dislocate. Subluxate. Which was…like…a half-dislocation? Maybe? It hurt like a bitch either way. “Everyone gets it.”
Phil did this thing where he kind of tipped his head to the side. Blinked slightly. Then, he bit his lip. Paused. “Mate, that’s not normal! ”
“What do you mean? It’s just growing pains. It’s nothing.” Tommy said, waving a hand and then shifting. “Sometimes you just can’t get out of bed during a growth spurt.”
“That’s not how growth spurts work! Those are more of a dull ache, not—how long has this been going on?” Tommy paused. Looking at him, Phil said, “Tommy. How long?”
“Uh…since I lived in my first house?” Pausing, Tommy thought for a second. “So…since I was five or six I think? I mean after a while you kind of just stop feeling it, you’re just bored of being in pain. You know?”
“That’s not growing pains.” Techno replied.
“No.” Wilbur and Phil replied at the same time.
“No, Tommy. We don’t know. Because that’s not normal.” Phil said. All of a sudden, Wilbur shot bolt upright in his seat.
“Hold on. Tommy, is this why it took you, like, two days to get back to editing after that meetup blog?” Tommy’s cheeks and nose flushed with heat. He could see his face starting to turn pink on the screen, too. Whelp, guess I’m already in trouble. Not like I can get into more of it. The sharp pain in his hip had spread down to his ankle, dull and steady. He’d have to get his mom’s heating pad later.
“Maybe?”
“Tommy, that sounds like chronic pain.” Techno pointed out. Snorting, Tommy waved him off.
“No way. It can’t be chronic pain.” They all waited. Scoffing, this time a little more weakly, Tommy added, “There’s no way it’s chronic pain. It’s not that bad.”
“Chronic pain doesn’t have to be bad , Tommy. Also if your version of ‘not that bad’ includes you groaning when you sit down in your gaming chair then I don’t want to know what your actual version of ‘bad’ is.” Techno fired back. “Chronic and time are connected? It means it comes back or it’s continuous? Long-lasting. This kind of thing has been happening since you were a kid, which means by your definition for sure it would be at least…a decade?” Tommy shrugged, ducking his head. “Why didn’t anyone help you with it?”
“They did! I can use my mom’s heating pad sometimes.” Poking his fingers together like he had sweater paws and was on Jack’s stream, Tommy continued in a bit of a mumble, “I just…thought it was normal? Or not important? Besides, I have this memory of…nevermind, it’s not important.” He looked away.
“Uh, if it stopped you from telling us about this? It’s important.” Phil pointed out. Swallowing, Tommy bit his lip. “What happened?”
“Uh…okay, so…the first memory I have about this kind of pain was when I was getting yelled at? For it?” Tommy swallowed. “I mean, one of the memories I have when I was younger was my legs were killing me. Like, crying on the floor and near-writhing kind of pain. And I just really wanted my mum, and I told my dad that and all he said was that she was gone and I needed to wait or whatever because it wasn’t that bad. So…yeah. Thought it was normal, I guess.”
“Yeah, no. It’s not normal.” Wilbur pointed out. “Tommy, pain is not a normal thing to feel. By any means. And it’s…do you have anything that you can take? Pain medication? Or is there anything that might be able to help you with it? There’s a heating pad. You mentioned a heating pad. Do you have it?”
Nodding, Tommy rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, yeah. But it’s in the other room and I really don’t feel like getting up right now.” He paused. Then, hurriedly, he started talking, “I-I mean, it’s not because I want to be lazy or anything it just feels like I’m being stabbed in the hip right now and it’s not fun and—“ He wasn’t kidding. It felt like someone had taken a knife and driven it right into his left hip, then started twisting it. He’d woken up that morning just from the pain and had to lie there on his phone because it hurt that bad, and then it spread down his leg to his ankle and it was back in that narrowed point again. Opening his mouth, Tommy tried to speak again.
“No, no.” Wilbur waved his hands. “No, you don’t need to apologize. But you have stuff to help you?” Tommy nodded mutely. “Okay, okay, that’s all I wanted to check. Uh…do you want a distraction? We could totally do Minecraft or something.”
“I don’t know,” Tommy mumbled, face still flushed with heat. Pulling his legs to his chest, he rested his chin on the top of his knees. Part of him wanted to grab the blankets off of his bed and go blankie mode like Ranboo. “I kind of just want to curl up if that’s alright and get some rest.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s totally alright.” Wilbur said.
“Get some rest.” Techno said. “You can’t be a Big Man if you’re also a Hurting Man.”
Smiling, Tommy ran a hand through his hair. “Hey, that’s my kind of line.” He pointed out. Shrugging, Techno started typing on his keyboard.
“Sure, sure. Get some rest, child. We’ll keep you company until you can get up.”
+++
Eventually, Tommy ended up moving to his bed, lying on his stomach with his phone out as he watched the others through Wilbur’s POV as they played Minecraft.
He had the heating pad under him. A bit weird, honestly. He was pretty sure lying on the heating pad rather than having it lying on him was some kind of fire risk. But he also didn’t exactly care. His leg hurt. Besides, he would be fine.
Arms crossed, he rested his chin on his forearms, eyes slowly starting to drift shut. In his ears, he could hear the others speaking softly. They were keeping it a little low energy for Tommy’s sake. Tipping his head to the side, Tommy took a slow breath. Started closing his eyes. He was close to falling asleep. Like, really, really close, too.
“Tommy. Toms. You alive? Mate?” Phil asked softly. Humming, Tommy buried his nose in the crook of his elbow. Opened his eyes slightly. "Hey, bud. Just checking in. You shouldn’t be falling asleep with a heating pad, it can burn you.”
Taking a deep breath, Tommy groaned. “No. Take the heating pad off, Tommy.” Wilbur said lightly. “You’re going to get burns. Those aren’t fun.” Tommy just groaned louder in response. “Tommy. Heating pad off.”
Sighing, Tommy slowly pushed himself up. Then, he turned the heating pad off, unplugged it, and then threw it to the side. Then, rolling to the side, he curled up on his side. Wrinkling his nose, Tommy adjusted his shoulders and shifted slightly. He felt his spine popping all of a sudden. Freezing, he stared at the screen, grabbed his earbuds’ microphone, and whispered, “Did you hear that?” In a very awed voice.
The others somehow managed to exchange looks with one another even through the Discord screen, and all of them were disappointed.