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Takotsubo syndrome

Summary:

Sam reveals something to Tommy, it’s a bit too much for him to handle on top of everyting else

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Tommy sits on the floor of Tubbo’s old house

He sits quietly and numb.

A contrast to earlier that day when he’d yelled and screamed in Sam’s face. The words echo in his ears still.

 

“HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?" his rage is almost blinding. 

“Tommy-

-RANBOO WAS MY FRIEND SAM.” His heart feels like it's shattered in his chest. 

“Tommy please just listen-

-HE WAS ON HIS LAST LIFE DID YOU KNOW THAT?” 

“Tommy please.”

“…What could you possibly say to justify that?”

 

“…Tommy it was Ranboo that set off the TNT.”

 

He’s shaking

He sits on Tubbo’s floor and stares at his communicator.

He stares at the question he’s typed out, ready to press send.

He feels like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff. Fear and adrenaline coursing through his veins.

 

Oh.

 

Oh.

 

He realizes; "This will kill me." He says out loud into the silence. “This is gonna kill me.”

 

He speaks to no one, “I can’t- I can’t take this can I? I won’t be able to bear it. How am I supposed to ask when I know the answer will kill me?”

 

But he needs to know anyways.

 

You sent a message to Ranboo:

- Do you remember setting off the TNT that trapped me in the prison?

He sits in silence, suspended over a deep dark chasm.

Any minute now.

Any minute Ranboo’s gonna deny it.

Sam was wrong, he got it wrong. Ranboo wouldn’t- he wouldn’t do that to him.

His communicator pings.

 

One (1) new message

He clicks on it.

Tommy reads. And re reads. And reads it again.

No no no no no no no no no

Nononononono no no no

This isn’t happening.

 

Ranboo has sent you a message!

- Yhea I remember that!

- Can’t remember why sorry :(

- Alive me was always doing so many weird things huh? Glad he’s gone.

 

He can feel it, physically, as something inside him breaks, he feels a hollow space grow in his chest. He can't breathe. 

 

His communicator slips from his hands, clattering onto the floor beside him. He sits silent and numb.

He pushes himself off the floor, stumbles into Tubbos old bedroom, it’s silent and cold. Like himself.

 

He must be cursed, he thinks.

What was it that he did to deserve this?

He’s spent so long desperately trying to find something to cling onto, a thread to pull himself up by, something to hold him back from falling of the edge of a cliff, crashing into the unforgiving dark ocean.  

The entire world doing everything in its power to push him off the edge.

What must he have done to be hated by life itself?

He’s almost given up so many times, but now it feels like the universe itself is trying to push him away, he’s not stepping off the cliff. The cliff is crumbling underneath him, and he has no choice but to fall.

Isn’t there anyone to help him pull himself up out of the dark?

Tubbo has moved into the arctic, where he isn’t welcome anymore, he didn’t even tell him, Tommy just ran into him one day when he was looking for Wilbur.

Wilbur who sings the praises of the man who shattered Tommy into a million pieces, every word a new knife in his heart.

Techno has sided with Dream. The man murdered Tommy and Techno walked into the prison and let him loose. He made Tommy's worst nightmare into reality. 

Techno has forgiven Tubbo, he's forgiven Wilbur, but Tommy's sins are much to great it seems.

Tommy's better left in the past, wondering why he's left behind broken and alone when people move on, wondering why there's never room for him in new beginnings. 

Phil will never choose Tommy. There’s a hundred things that come before him.

Jack was his friend once, Niki almost like a sister. They hate him. Eventually everyone grows to hate him. 

They all do. He tries to think of someone he knows he has on his side; someone he knows cares about him.

There must be someone.

There’s Sapnap. And there’s Quackity.

Both busy and compromised and hurt on their own.

Can he really trust them?

Will they really choose him? Over revenge, over their past with Dream, over the people they care about before they care about him?

He always falls to the bottom of the list, shoved into the back. Always chosen last.

There’s always something else that comes before him.

A country, and Ideology, another friend.

Isn’t there anyone on this server that cares about him just a little? Isn’t there anyone who will chose him back?

Won’t someone please…please?

Someone, anyone.

Isn’t there anyone?

Is he cursed? Is he cursed to be the fighter, never the fought for? Will it always be Tommy who cares too much for people who do not care about him? who cares so much for people, more than they will ever care about him?

He used to measure, he would, he’d-

He’d write it down, the things that happened to him, trying to be as objective as possible, and he’d ask himself if this happened to someone else, what would you have done?

He would have raged. He would have yelled and fought every self-proclaimed god on this server if they hurt someone else the way he was hurt.

So, he can allow himself to grieve for his pain, he won’t let his brain tell him his suffering wasn’t real.

But he always has to throw the list away, or he’ll start to think too much about how This didn’t happened to someone else, this happened to you, and no one said anything.

He has walked through all of it thinking,

 

I will endure and endure and endure

 

But he can’t do this alone anymore

Shouting into the void and hearing nothing back isn’t something someone can do forever.

 

He stares unseeing at the wall. His vision blurs, tears welling up and sliding down his cheeks. He holds his breath trying to keep the sobs in.

He knows deserves good things. He does.

Right?

Tommy bits at his lip until he tastes blood, curling in on himself. If he starts crying now he won’t be able to stop.

He just doesn’t understand what’s wrong with him, what makes him so unworthy?

He’s trying so hard. He’s trying to be better, he swears.

It’s slowly killing him.

Every time he shoves hurt feelings away, pushes angry words down, lets the lack of an apology hang in the air. It feels like an arrow shooting through him.

It's just the same shit every damn day. He gets up, no matter how difficult it is, and he tries. For nothing.

Everyone's leaving, all he can do is keep on trying to make them proud before they’re inevitably gone.

But can't someone help him?

Won’t someone please someone help him?

Doesn’t matter just anyone, anything.

Tommy is so sick of being so lonely.

He misses his family, his friends, like a part of him is gone.

He tries way too hard, and he still misses the mark.

The feelings swallow him hole, he’s drowning in his sadness.

He can’t stop the sobs from ripping out of him, he’s heaving, gasping for air. It’s like he can’t breathe.

It feels like he’s dying.

Just like the first time he sobs his pleas into empty air, no one comes to save him.

No one ever comes to save him. He always has to save himself. He can't do it anymore.

“Help me”

It’s all he can get out before he collapses.

He falls asleep like that, curled up on his best friend’s old bed, tear tracks drying on his cheeks.

 

He doesn’t wake up

 

Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy

Pronunciation /takəˌtsuːbəʊ ˌkɑːdɪəʊmʌɪˈɒpəθi/ 

NOUN

mass noun Medicine

  • A condition characterized by sudden dysfunction of the left ventricle of the heart, accompanied by symptoms resembling those of a heart attack but occurring in the absence of significant coronary artery disease. Typically attributed to stressful events, the condition is usually transient.

Also called broken heart syndrome

Broken heart syndrome can happen when an extremely emotional or traumatic event triggers a surge of stress hormones. These hormones can put you in short-term heart failure, which can be life-threatening.

Notes:

You might notice this is part of a series, that's because I have a different version based on the same concept that ends a little happier. I might also add another chapter to this that explores a happier ending.