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Now, Tommy wouldn’t say that he was afraid , per say, of what his foster family would think of him trying to wash his clothes in an emptied drawer.
But, yes, he was absolutely terrified of Phil or Wil or Techno walking into his room and spotting him desperately attempting to clean some of his… underthings.
Phil had said that he did the laundry, he could wash Tommy’s clothes for him, ‘it’s no hassle mate’, and all that, but…
He tried to resoak his binder, like he was drowning it.
But he didn’t know how Phil would react to this.
He hadn’t come out to the family yet. He’d had bad experiences when all people had known of him was that he was a foster kid, he didn’t usually need to add the whole ‘Hey guess what I’m not a girl!’ thing into the mix.
So instead, Tommy tried not to cry about things that hadn’t even happened yet as he soaked his binder and underwear in a drawer from his dresser that he’d protected with a trashbag.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
What if he told Phil?
What would he do?
The Watsons’ was by far the best home he’d come to. They were kind, considerate…
But what would they do to Tommy if he told them he was trans?
Maybe they’d accept him. Maybe they wouldn’t. The thought of them rejecting him scared him more than telling them, honestly.
He’d become one of their family, one with them. They’d told him so many times, yet he was still so…scared.
He’d seen it happen before. He’d had that happen before. But he couldn’t help but think to himself that maybe, just maybe, he could tell them.
Tommy was so invested into his thoughts he didn’t even notice the door creaking open and someone’s head peeking through until it was too late.
Phil cleared his throat. “Well. Um.”
Tommy flinched, and stood up quickly, feeling rather like a deer in headlights as Phil stared slightly at him, then at the drawer, then back at him.
“Uh,” Tommy’s brain was frozen. “It’s not what you think it is?”
“Mate,” Phil said evenly, “Are you making soup in your dresser drawer?”
Tommy looked at Phil, then trailed his eyes back to the soap cloudy water sloshing in his emptied pants drawer.
“Um. No? That would be silly.” Phil raised a single eyebrow. “Well. I mean. I may be doing a little washing. A little cleaning. You know how it is.”
“Mate, you do realize that I can clean your clothes for you, right?
“Er. Yeah, but um. They’re kind of…different.” And Tommy knew his face was red, but was hoping against hope that Phil would take the bait, and just leave him alone with-
“Oh.” Phil blinked, and looked sort of sheepish. “Well, I can clean those things too, don’t worry. I’m not gonna be weirded out by any of…that.”
“Um. Okay.” Tommy’s heart was racing. “Alright.” Maybe he could hand off the things to him, and play it cool-
“Just because you’re the only girl in the house doesn’t mean that you should feel awkward about any of this and all that,” Phil went on, not noticing the way Tommy’s eyes flickered for a moment. “You know you can talk to me about any of those things, right-”
“Yes thank you Phil good night I have to finish cleaning these please leave.”
Phil gave a chuckle, and smiled at Tommy.
“Well, okay. But if you need anything, let me know.”
“...I will. I promise.”
“Good. Goodnight-” and a name that was never Tommy’s fell from Phil’s lips.
Tommy gave him a tight smile and shut the door again.
Because Tommy was probably the least lucky person alive, of course this wasn’t the last slip up that happened.
The next occurred when Tommy had just been minding his own business in a study hall with Techno.
They had originally scheduled his school days so that he was never alone, never without Tubbo or Wilbur or Techno, or even Ranboo. Now that he’d been here a while, there was no such need, but he still had a class or three with his friends and family .
So he was sitting there, quietly working on his computer when Tubbo came from around the corner of the hallway. Tubbo, not seeing Techno there, immediately called out to his best friend.
“TOMMY!” Tommy turned around in his seat, and made the stricken kind of stare that you can only give to your best friend when you’re terribly close to being outed. Tubbo, bless his soul, seemed to realize, and froze. He cleared his throat and looked wildly through the hall as Tommy stared in mild horror and Techno watched in bemusement. “UH. NEVERMIND. I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF A TOMMY. BUT THERE IS MY BEST FRIEND. IN THE LIBRARY. THERE THAT PERSON IS. GOODBYE.” And then, as Tommy watched on, Tubbo sprinted down the rest of the hallway.
“Weird kid,” Techno’s voice brought him back to the situation at hand.
“Um. Yeah.” For truly, what else can be said? Maybe Techno would ignore this and move on. Tubbo was plenty weird-
“Did he just call you Tommy?”
Ah shit ah fuck oh godprimedammit.
“Er. No? That’d be silly. Since that is. Not my name. At all.”
Techno stayed silent, not questioning it, but Tommy could feel his narrowed eyes on him for the rest of the period.
There wasn’t a day that went by that Tommy didn’t thank some unseen god that Wilbur wouldn’t notice Tommy’s gender if it sat on the corner wearing a cardboard “I’m Transgender” sign and nothing else.
However, it seemed that his luck was running out.
Wilbur had been sat on his bed, hanging out with Tommy (read: both of them were staring at their phones in the same room and occasionally showing each other the memes they found), when suddenly he spoke up.
“Your hair’s getting pretty long, y’know.”
“What?”
“Yeah, you know. You’re lookin’ all…shaggy and shit.”
“What do you mean, I look ‘shaggy’, bitch boy?!” Tommy’s not really outraged, but he is a little, so he’s going to play it up because Wilbur is not the only one in this family with a talent for the dramatic.
Woah, family? Yeesh. He oughta have a melt down over that later, but right now is ‘spite Wilbur’ time.
“Wha-I don’t know, I’ve just never seen you with long hair!” Wilbur’s hands are held up in front of him, in defense. “Most girls I know, I’ve seen with long hair at some point, but it’s just weird to see you with it, y’know?”
And that’s when Tommy’s world comes to a stop.
Of course he’s forgotten about the fact that he wasn’t out. Of course.
Wilbur, because he can notice everything but the obvious, immediately realizes he’s said something wrong. “Um. Did I…? What did I-”
“Nothing, Wil, you’re fine.” And Tommy gives him a tight-lipped smile.
Because he didn’t know.
And he won’t know.
Not if Tommy can help it.
If Tommy’s hair is unevenly cut the next day, then it’s only his business why.
###
Something changes after that night.
Something that Tommy can’t put his finger on shifts almost overnight, starting when Phil nearly drops the frying pan when he sees Tommy’s hair the next morning.
“Oh, hon, what’d you do to your hair?” Now, Tommy is a big man and he doesn’t flinch. And any evidence to the contrary is lies spread by his enemies to look weak.
But, it seems that Phil is a weekly subscriber to this outlet of fake news, because he controls his shocked tone immediately. “Sorry, sorry. Er. It doesn’t…it doesn’t look…bad?” Tommy Innit is also an expert in liars. Phil is a liar. Phil can probably see the disbelief written in angry crayon all over Tommy’s face, and sighs.
“Listen, mate, you know you can ask us to take you to go get haircuts, right? And we’ll take you?” Now, Tommy’s not entirely unfamiliar with this. It’s pretty normal. Dreaded, actually. But it’s his next sentence that sends him somewhat reeling: “...And you can choose whatever style you want.”
Tommy blinked.
“What?”
“Well, yeah. It’s your hair.” Phil shrugs easily, a smile alight on the corner of his lips. “Prime knows how many colors Techno put in his hair after coming here at first.”
“Oh.” Tommy’s stomach soars. “Okay.”
Tommy is sitting at the kitchen table, attempting to complete his math homework with Techno by his side when Techno’s phone lit up with an incoming call from Niki.
He sighs, picks it up, and does not even wait for her to say ‘hello’ before mumbling into the mic, “No, I haven’t given it to her yet. I don’t think she’ll like it. It was a nice thought, though.” and swiftly hangs up.
Well. It doesn’t take a lot for Tommy to get distracted from math homework, and this is an especially interesting reprieve from parabolas and spheres or whatever the fuck else he was supposed to be doing.
“What was that about?”
Techno didn’t quite answer him at first, his brow furrowing. “Uh. Niki.”
“Yeah, I know dickhead, but what were you talking about?”
“Uh.” Techno’s eyes widen.
Now. There is a very small amount of times that Tommy has seen Techno look spooked. Maybe, like, once, if he’s being honest. One time Wilbur had hidden high up in the hallway closet to jump out at Techno when he got a towel to take into the bathroom with him before his shower at 5am, and he had punched Wil, who’s nose had immediately started bleeding. Techno had looked pretty spooked then.
Techno kind of looks like that. Not really at all, though. But sort of. His eyes are wide, and he looks sort of like he’s been backed into a weird corner.
“Er. Well. She…she, um. She had…” Techno clears his throat and stares at the table. “She had this old dress of hers that didn’t fit anymore, and she wanted to know if you wanted it. I, uh, told her you probably wouldn’t be interested.”
Part of Tommy’s chest freezes when he says that. Does he know-?
But the other part, the one that hopes against hope that he’ll be accepted by his brother foster brother warms like the sun. Does he know-?
“Uh. How do you know I wouldn’t like it, big man?”
Techno practically scoffs. “Please. The only time I’ve seen you wear a dress was when you met us, and I’m pretty sure you burned it as soon as your social worker’s car left the driveway.”
If Tommy’s cheeks flush at that, then well…
Listen, Tubbo had convinced him it’d be a fun way to spend the afternoon, and he had been easily convinced. And now Ranboo’s lawn had a scorch mark in it.
“Oh.Okay.”
Techno snorts, and ruffles his hair. “Yeah. Oh. Now get back to the work, kid.”
Tommy groans.
Some envelope is very obviously being pushed, at a certain point. Or something. Tommy might be using that phrase wrong. He’ll put it on his list of things to ask Techno about.
Whatever. The point is, Tommy’s pretty certain that Wil’s trying to say something, but he isn’t quite sure what.
Because the morning after the whole ‘Niki’s dress’ thing, Wilbur comes flouncing downstairs in what can only be described as a pastel pink mini-monstrosity of tulle and shit. Phil only raises an eyebrow as his eldest son enters the room dressed in something that can only be described as a dress from Princess Peach’s earlier college whore days when she thought mini-skirts were far more ‘in’. Techno only snorted, and started silently taking photos.
“Um. What are you wearing?” Tommy is pretty sure he’s never seen this particular explosion of bubblegum pink in anyone’s closets, (ha,) and he’s sure as hell has never seen WIlbur attempt to wear this…dress. And he would have remembered being traumatized by this particular number if he had worn it before.
“Ah, so you remember how Niki was clearing out her closet a week ago or so?” Tommy didn’t trust himself to say yes without screaming in agony so he just nods. “Well, the person she wanted to give this to said no, so she gave it to me! It’s pretty cool, right?”
“It’s also pretty short,” Phil says, not looking up from his newspaper (who the fuck still reads-) “I’m not sure you really want to wear that to school on a windy day.”
Wilbur, for his part, mutters a silent curse with a sheepish eye roll, and Techno finally snorts out the water he’s been sipping across the table before turning his phone around to the rest of the table, where, lo and behold, Niki has sent a photo of her wearing the same dress, with the caption; “I wore it better xoxo tell wil to suck a dick”.
Wilbur lets out a shout of outrage, and the table devolves from that.
###
Tommy’s palms are sweating.
Phil had been trying to keep it a secret from him.
But Wilbur and Techno couldn’t keep a secret to save their damn lives.
So, he knew that Phil was going to give him a very important piece of paper somewhat soonish.
Phil had told him that morning that they should have ‘a talk’ after school that day, before practically pushing him out of the car in the drop off lane.
Oh prime. Oh prime, prime, prime.
Phil was going to attempt to adopt a daughter.
And he was just going to turn down another son.
He didn’t tell Tubbo and Ranboo at first. At least, he tried.
But Tubbo and Ranboo, (curse their ‘married’ language,) had noticed rather quickly that something was amiss.
They had dragged him to a hallway during lunch and made him spill his guts, which meant that now he was heading home with some half baked schemes and a conversation to be had weighing heavily on his mind. He’d even gotten a ride home from them to try and come up with some last minute ideas.
But none came.
As soon as he entered the house, Wilbur and Techno were sitting on the couch along with Phil in the armchair.
With both of his older brother’s extracurriculars, this was surely a sign that something big was supposed to happen.
Tommy’s stomach dropped like a book on the floor in the middle of the night when you’re supposed to be asleep and your parents are awake.
“Hey, mate, glad to see you home.” Phil smiled at Tommy, and his stomach flipped sluggishly. “Listen, would you mind sitting down? We have to talk about something.”
Tommy’s heart picked up steam as he nodded. Oh prime, this was it. Fight or flight. Do or die. Or something.Expressions meant nothing to him and words were a lie created by someone who didn’t feel emotions.
“So, hon, we wanted to know-”
“WE’RE ADOPTING YOU!!!” Wilbur didn’t let his father finish his sentence before interrupting like a tidal wave. “Isn’t that neat?”
“Wil, please, she can say-” Three voices exploded outwards.
“-Phil, it’s not like she’d-” Tommy had never heard three voices been so confused before.
“-it’s her choice-” And so loud.
“-she can-”
“-We should listen to her-”
“-Well, she-”
“I’M TRANS.” Tommy hadn’t meant to blurt it out, honest to prime, it was just too much, and oh prime prime prime of course they chose that moment to shut up and now and they’re all staring at him, and-
Hands are on his shoulders before he can even register his breath is abnormally fast and slowly turning into gasps.
Oh, prime, he fucked it up. He, Tommy Innit, fucked it up, and now-
“-ey, Sunshine, just listen to me, okay? You’re okay-.” Wilbur’s arm encircled Tommy tightly, just like he’d done for every panic attack he’d had here before. “Shhh. You’re doing great, okay?”
Tommy made a weird noise that supposed that he was trying to pass off as understanding, but it just kind of sounded like he was dying a little.
“Alrighty, just follow my breathing, okay? Just in and out…” Another hand finds its way onto his shoulder, and he numbly recognizes the circles it’s tracing into his skin.
When Wilbur finally pulls away, sensing that Tommy’s panic has faded, Techno and Phil are both sitting there, looking rather concerned.
No one said a word. A pin could drop and no one would hear it through the rush of blood in their ears and hearts. Also because it really depends on the pin, but usually they were nearly impossible to hear even in a void of sound. Huh. Maybe Tommy needed his ears checked, actually.
Techno cleared his throat. Oh prime. Right. Oh honey-flavored shit . There’s a dilemma at hand.
“So. Uh.” Techno’s cheeks were matching his hair as he drummed his fingers on his thigh. “You’re really bad at keeping secrets?”
As soon as the words had left Techno’s mouth, Phil elbowed him with a ‘Techno, mate-’ and a snort laugh that Wilbur barely concealed.
“Sorry?” Tommy’s heart began to scream against its confines like it wanted to escape again. “What do you mean, I’m-”
“What he means, is um, that we kind of figured that something along those lines might be the case.” Phil gave Tommy a sheepish smile and scratched the back of his neck. “We wanted you to come to us if our hunch was correct, but er. Yeah. We had thought of a…possibility that you may not be cishet.” The way that Phil phrases it is carefully arranged, like he had attempted to rehearse this speech so that it was as…awkwardly supportive as he could. He felt his chest fill with warmth at the thought of that, of Phil making an effort just in case-
“What dad’s trying to say is that we say a kid who looked like they were trying very hard not to be upset when their name was called, and at first we just assumed that it was a trauma thing-”
“-and then it was but not quite.” Techno pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and sighed. “And then we kind of thought you hadn’t realized or something, which was another whole bucket of worms-”
“Isn’t it a can of worms?” Tommy couldn’t help but interrupt Techno. “Like, I thought it was a can or worms, not a bucket. Seems like a bucket would be already opening and always spilling out the worms, y’know?” When Techno only answered with a blank stare, Tommy shrugged. “Dunno. Thought you were the one that was good at phrases and shit, big man.”
Another pause.
And then a quiet chuckling that quickly devolves into a howl.
Tommy can hardly believe his eyes as the great Techno Blade-Soot-Watson starts cackling like a witch on moonshine. Like. Manical, ‘oh Prime what the hell is this’ laughter. Laughter that turns Techno’s face red and spreads like herpes in a regularly scheduled orgy. It’s the sort of laugh that has him bent over and wheezing, which seems kind of stupid to Tommy, because really, it hadn’t been all that funny-
But soon he’s laughing too, and maybe it is kind of funny.
They talk. Eventually. Because that’s part of life.
The conversations you desperately avoid, the ones you tried to face, the ones that make your skin crawl, and all those other ones? They’re all ones you’re gonna have to have.
Unless you die. Because that’s also part of life and actually a much surer part. If you die, then no need for conversation. Until you get into one with a god or something. However the afterlife works.
But. Yeah. Tommy can’t escape it.
Phil’s already working out all the legal shit. He’s getting his name changed, jumping through all the hoops like a well-trained pageant dog, looking into when Tommy can get all the medication and surgeries and all that. Wilbur’s scheduled some hair appointments with his barber, and has already gone on several shopping trips to buy Tommy all the clothes and shit he could want. Plus a fuck-ton more. Techno and him go through all the word problems he was having, and both of them have an afternoon where they realize how little they really care about using words right.
Tommy is drowning in clothes, paperwork, and laughter. Which is probably as close as he’ll get to physically drowning in love.
Because they do love him. His brothers love him. Phil, his adopted father, his legal guardian according the the stack of papers Tommy signed that afternoon when he lived his truth (or whatever), loves him.
He cracks open one eye in the car. They’re driving to the mall a town away today. It’s Tommy’s legal obligation as Philza Minecraft-Soot-Blade-Innit’s newest son to pretend he doesn’t know that he’s looking into the hormonal therapy treatments they offer at the little place at the one end of the mall. It is also his obligation to pretend like Wilbur isn’t going to ditch him and Techno because “I think I saw something-” and then proceed to burn through the small amount of cash he has to get Tommy something that caught his eye.
Tommy smiles, closes his eyes, and continues resting his head on Techno’s shoulder.
Whatever. They’d live through another mall trip. Maybe Hot Topic would have some new pins to steal.
After all, it was his family now.