Chapter Text
He took the sharpener blade to his arm yet again, the pencil sharpener and screw that held it together lay long forgotten on the floor. The cuts weren’t deep, but the sting still grounded him. He relished the pain while it lasted. It was tangible, he knew it was real, unlike his stupid sad emotions. He was faking those. When he was done the blade was stained reddish brown. Who knows how many sharpeners he had ruined like this, he’d lost count. The blades would inevitably rust or get lost in his whirlwind of a room. He couldn’t afford for his family to find out, so he chose a new hiding place each time he put the blade down, but he didn’t always remember where he stashed the last blade.
As he was sitting on his floor, arm bleeding, he realized he had said he would stream at 11 pm today. Shit. What time was it? With a glance at his alarm clock, he saw it was 11:05. He usually started stream a bit late, but he still had to bandage his arm… Oh well, he supposed that just getting the blood off with some toilet paper would be fine for now. His arms would be covered by a hoodie like always, anyway.
A few minutes later, he was at his PC, greeting chat and booting up minecraft. His signature upbeat Animal Crossing music played, a solemn contrast from what he was doing just moments ago. He streamed for a good bit, actually enjoying playing on his smp with Tubbo and Beau. Then, partway through some random bit they were doing, his chat started going faster than usual. Tommy looked closer and realized they were spamming lots of “BLOOD” and “U OK??”s. One look at his hoodie told him all he needed. He had bled through his sweatshirt. On stream. Shitshitshit. How would he play this off? Thinking on his feet, he unplugged his camera, acting confused as if it had died. He wrapped up his stream as quickly as possible, claiming he was going to ask his dad to help fix the camera. He pulled that excuse out of his ass, hell he didn’t even have a dad anymore.
He spiraled pretty quickly after that. After a few minutes of trying to get his breath under control, he sucked in gasping breaths one by one until they were sort of even again. His cheeks were wet, and so was his sleeve. Right. His sleeve. There were rust colored spots on the blue hoodie, in several places that couldn’t be easily explained away. How would he get out of this one?
He didn’t have much time to think, as he saw an incoming video call on discord from Wilbur Soot. He scrambled to position himself so the bloody sleeve wasn’t visible. As much as Tommy did not want to talk right now, he knew it would probably be worse if he ignored Wil. He racked his brain for believable lies to tell Wil. His best bet was probably saying he fell and scraped his arm.
“Heyyy big man, what’s up?”
“Tommy, don’t act like you don’t know why I’m calling.” Wilbur knew Tommy well enough to see through his facade.
There was silence on Tommy’s end as he tried to come up with a retort to that.
“The fucking blood Tommy! Are you ok? What happened?” Wilbur had an idea of what might have happened. His sleeves were once stained red in the same pattern. Some days he got close to them being stained like that again. Far too close for comfort. But that was his problem, and he was focusing on Tommy right now. Tommy, who might be silently struggling.
“Oh yeah don’t worry, I just fell earlier and scraped up my arm, real nasty.”
Wilbur breathed a minuscule sigh of relief. Maybe he was overthinking? Maybe Tommy freaked out about the blood because of Twitch TOS? There was only one way to confirm, though.
“Toms, could I see? Just, you know, to make sure you don’t need stitches or something, must have been a bad fall.”
Tommy’s face flashed with fear before rearranging into a casual smirk. “You can just say if you’re worried about me, Wilby. It’s ok my dad checked it out and it’s fine, just forgot to put bandaids on that’s all.”
The break in the nearly perfectly composed facade Tommy was hiding behind didn’t go unnoticed by Wilbur. That confirmed his fears. His face fell, and Tommy noticed and watched with an anxious expression. How could Wilbur calmly confront Tommy without scaring him off? He just wanted the teen to open up a bit, damnit, he was clearly struggling but pretending he was fine.
“ You know, it’s ok if it wasn’t from falling, Toms. I wouldn’t be mad or disappointed or anything. I just want you to be safe. Are you safe?”
Tommy’s facade broke and he started sobbing on call, shaking his head no. He wasn’t safe, how could he be safe from himself?
“Hey, Tommy. It’s ok. You’ll be ok. I’ve been there and I’m ok, because I have you and Phil and Techno, and we’ll be here for you.” He paused. “Can I ask you some questions? You can nod or shake your head if that’s easier.” Tommy nodded. “Was this the first time you hurt yourself?” He shook his head no. Shit . “Do you still have the thing you used near you?” A nod. Also shit. “Can you get rid of it right now?” A shake. “Okay, that’s okay, we can do that another time. If I hung up, would you go hurt yourself?” Tommy shrugged. He looked close to crying again. Wilbur winced. “Oh Tommy, you can come to me anytime you feel like doing this, please. I won’t be disappointed in you, promise. I’ve been there. Hell, sometimes I’m still there.”
Tommy looked up, surprised to hear that Wil still struggled with self-harm sometimes. He considered what Wilbur had said. He certainly couldn’t make any promises, calling someone as you’re about to reach for a blade is near impossible, but he could try.
“I… I can try to…”
“That’s great, that’s all I ask.”
“Wilbur, are… are you okay?”
That took Wilbur by surprise. “Don’t worry Toms, I’m doing okay, I’ve been clean for 4 months. It does get better, I promise,” he said with a small smile. This was all true, he has been clean for 4 months, and he is doing better, just not the best.
Tommy just nodded, not quite sure he believed that it could ever get better. Maybe for Wilbur it did, but Tommy didn’t deserve to get better. Wilbur deserved everything, he was a great friend and streamer and he worked so hard on his streams and his music. Tommy was just some kid who happened to get famous. He didn’t deserve any of this, the fame, the support, the money. He was just some kid.
This self deprecating pondering wasn’t lost on Wilbur, he knew something was up from the look on Tommy’s face.
“Hey Toms, mind telling me what’s going on in your head right now?”
Tommy looked up, pulled out of his thoughts. “I dunno… guess ‘m just thinking about how I don’t really deserve… any of this.”
Wilbur’s heart sank at that. “Tommy, if you mean your success, of course you deserve this, you’ve worked so hard for all of it. And if you mean not hurting yourself… Tommy no one deserves that, especially you. You’re an amazing, sweet, and funny kid, and the best brother I could ask for.”
Tommy smiled a little at that. Even if Wilbur was just saying it to make him feel better, it was working. He looked up to Wilbur, so that meant a lot.
“Thanks Wil… you’re a great brother too, you know.”
Wilbur smiled. “I wish I could give you a hug right now, man.”
“That’d be nice.”
“You know what, why not? I’ll take a train down early tomorrow, how does that sound?”
“No it’s ok Wil you don’t have to do that just for me-”
“Well I’m going to, because I want to, and you can’t stop me.”
Stupid stubborn Wilbur, wasting his time on him. Though Tommy would be lying if he said he wasn’t dying to see Wilbur in person. He even manages to go to sleep without cutting for once.