Work Text:
On Monday, the air is foggy.
The final bell rang, announcing the end of sixth period—-maths, luckily—-and his entire class was bustling in their seats and around the room, packing their bags or collecting their things. His teacher said something about homework but in all honesty, Tommy wasn’t listening. He tuned her out the second he could.
She was a real prick, always angry and demanding. Once, she had sent a letter home to his parents because he asked to use the toilet four times that month, and to her, apparently, that was far too much.
Just remembering it had Tommy resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He wouldn’t, obviously, out of respect and not wanting to be expelled, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do it in his head, at least.
Tommy stuffed his notebook and half-finished worksheet into his backpack and grimaced at the way it crumpled in on itself, fitted between a textbook and the front of his bag. He didn’t try to rearrange it or straighten it out before zipping his bag shut and slinging it over his shoulder, shuffling out the door as quickly as he could.
His last period was good for one thing only: Wilbur’s class was just next door.
“Hey,” Wilbur called, a smile apparent in his voice. Tommy looked up to see him leaning against the wall to his own classroom patiently.
Where he always waited for Tommy. Where he always would.
“Hi,” Tommy breathed and his eyes squinted slightly with an unforced smile.
It was nice to be remembered, to be thought of without having to tell someone to think of him. In the ways Wilbur would pack an extra bag of fruit snacks each day just to throw at Tommy when he forgot his lunch, or the way he pressed his thumb into the indent on Tommy’s forehead when he was too deep in thought of something not worth worrying over. That made Tommy smile.
“How was your exam?” Tommy was quickly pulled into Wilbur’s side, an arm wrapping around his shoulder.
“It was fine, I think I got an A as usual. Big man stuff, y’know how it is.”
Wilbur rolled his eyes. “Of course, of course, how could I forget,” he placed a hand on his heart dramatically and Tommy resisted the urge to groan. “How was school beside that though?”
The bustling crowd of people pushing through the gates to leave their school’s campus was tight and, as always, Wilbur’s grip tightened around Tommy’s shoulder as they went.
“Fine. Tubbo almost threw a pencil sharpener at our teacher.”
Tubbo was just like that, so Tommy saw no issue with this statement. Wilbur, on the other hand, clearly did.
“…Why?” he concerned, scrunching his eyebrows together as he looked over to Tommy.
“I don’t know actually, I think she was mad that he didn’t do his homework so he decided to revolt,” Tommy shrugged, leaning a little further into Wilbur’s side. “But you know me, world renowned hero, I stopped him before he actually threw it.”
Wilbur hummed amusingly, leading the two of them out the school gates and into the field across from it.
This was their routine, every day Tommy would go to school, be greeted by his friends, go to classes all day, and then get willingly kidnapped by Wilbur to sit in the open field of tall grass and flowers on the other side of the road. They had done this for over a year, almost as long as he had even been going to that school, yet he looked forward to it each morning.
It took them a minute to trek through the grass that reached their knees, but eventually they got to their spot that had been permanently indented into the ground.
Wilbur sat down first, patting the spot beside him as he pulled his phone out from his back pocket. This was routine as well, Tommy only sitting down after Wilbur had first. Maybe it was stupid, but snakes and bugs were real things—-and creepy things at that—-and Wilbur just… made him feel safe.
Sure, Wilbur was tall and scary when he needed to be, but he was also Tommy’s brother. He kept him safe because that was every big brother’s job.
Tommy dropped his backpack to the ground and settled into the grass, leaning back to lie his head on Wilbur’s lap and look at the sky.
It was these moments, Wilbur scrolling through his phone completely unbothered by the teenage kid laying in his lap, that made Tommy wish they had always been brothers.
Maybe, in another universe, he got to have Wilbur as a brother, not just in the ways that mattered but in blood as well.
The two of them stayed like that for a while, Wilbur doing whatever on his phone—-sometimes leaning it down to show Tommy something funny—-and Tommy focusing on existing.
Eventually, however, Techno came trudging through the grass to the spot that he and Wilbur had deemed their own. They waited here every day for Techno to finish up whatever he was doing and then they’d all go home, Techno and Wilbur together and Tommy by himself.
The thought didn’t bother him nearly as much as it used to.
“Technoblade!” Tommy shot up, just barely missing a collision between his forehead and Wilbur’s phone.
“Why do you always full government name me?” Techno barely managed to keep himself upright when Tommy bolted into him at full-speed for a hug.
From Wilbur’s spot on the floor, he frowned and huffed out a puff of air. “He’s never this excited to see me!”
“Maybe you should just get better,” Tommy’s voice came out muffled from Techno’s shirt.
“You suck, you know that?”
“Like brother like… other brother.”
Wilbur flipped him off and then raised his hand to flip his actual brother off.
Once Tommy was done clinging to Techno like a lost raccoon, he lifted his (what felt like) 50 pound backpack and hauled it over his shoulders.
He did not understand why every single teacher wanted their own binder and notebook for their class.
“You sure you don’t want us to stay with you ‘til your parents get here? I really don’t mind,” Wilbur urged once he had pulled himself back to his feet. “And they never usually come.”
Tommy waved his hand dismissively. “Yeah, I’m sure. I don’t mind walking home if they don’t show, but my mom told me that they’d have time before they left to come get me.”
He wouldn’t normally believe his parents. They had fallen through with promises one too many times to keep track of and Phil or Wilbur had been left to drive him home in the dark that many times as well. But this time, his mom had pinky promised, and pinky promising was probably more important than taking an oath on your life.
At least, that’s what Tommy thought.
Techno looked at him strangely, as if trying to convince himself that this time would be different, before sighing. “If you’re sure.”
Like any other day, Tommy waved goodbye and watched as Techno and Wilbur descended around the corner at the end of the street.
And, like any other day, his parents weren’t there to pick him up. The thought didn’t surprise him nearly as much as it should have.
On Tuesday, the rain pours a little harder.
Like most days in that weird in-between of fall and winter, the sky was covered with a shade of grey and the clouds matched it in colour–it made everything seem gloomy and limp. Tommy sighed to himself and picked up his pace in an attempt at avoiding the rain that just had to pick up as soon as he got off the train.
Today had been a great day; a squirrel bolted in front of him as he walked through his school gates—-making him lose his footing and crash face first into the ground—-but it was a squirrel… squirrels were cute. He had gotten caught up finishing a science test and didn’t make it to lunch until the line for food had already closed, but Tubbo had managed to grab a tray of food for him anyway. And his favourite teacher had been replaced with a sub for the day, but thankfully, it was her first day on the job so she let tommy’s class play on their phones the whole period.
These—-what Tommy would call them—-catastrophic events had all had their positive outcomes. Like an equal and opposite reaction working feverishly to throw Tommy off track
Usually, nothing threw him off track. Sometimes he would have a few bumps in his week but he always got back up, he was resilient like that. He was usually brave.
…Usually.
And considering all this, Tommy assumed the downpour currently soaking his favourite coat and turning his white shoes brown with mud would be for a reason.
Maybe that’s why he was caught off guard when his mind jumped down the gutter and into the negatives immediately. Romanticizing the small things in his day made him happy, and even if he had to try real hard, he always found something to love.
Today, he frowned at the weather. Today, he felt a weird sense of grief.
That was what confused him so much, because he hadn’t lost anything to prompt any grief and the rain didn’t usually bother him. (Though, he didn’t think the sun coming out would make him feel much better.)
He didn’t have much time to dwindle on that, however, because before Tommy knew it, he was home. Today’s walk felt quick, but he couldn’t tell if that was because he was weirdly spaced out half of the time or because he just walked faster than usual.
Tommy reached around himself awkwardly to grab his keys from the front pocket of his backpack without having to take it off. Once the door was unlocked and he was inside, he kicked his soaking wet shoes and socks off, leaving them by the front door in a little puddle.
As if on queue, the rain picked up outside and began sloshing down in waves against the living room window.
There! That’s what the positive of walking home in the rain was: he didn’t have to walk home in the pouring rain.
It sounded forced, even to himself, but he ignored that, opting to drop his backpack off his shoulders and onto the floor instead. Which- fuck. Water had completely soaked through the fabric and onto his binders and textbooks.
“Shit,” Tommy mumbled to himself, bringing his arm up to wipe the water dripping from his hair off of his face. This had been completely counterintuitive because his coat was equally wet.
Any other day, he might’ve brushed this off and found an easy solution. But then again, any other day he didn’t have this small—-yet still apparent—-empty feeling in his gut.
Tommy found himself holding back tears at this whole ordeal, but a tear dropped down his cheek and onto his chin before he could notice.
He was just frustrated. That’s all this was.
It didn’t take him long to regain his composure and only a few seconds later he was standing back up and shaking out his hands, taking a deep breath as he did so.
And then, like clockwork, he hauled himself and his bag over to the kitchen and dumped the contents of it onto the table to dry. He had a physics final first thing tomorrow and an essay due at the end of the week. Nothing could get in his way, he couldn’t afford it at least.
The itching in his gut told him that something was wrong, so he reached for his phone (thanking every god out there that it was water resistant) and did what he always did when he was subtly losing his mind; he called Techno.
For a handful of seconds there was nothing but that piercing ringing sound, but then:
“Hullo?”
“Techno!” Tommy cheered, putting his phone on speaker as he set it on the counter. “How are you, big man?”
Techno huffed out a laugh. “What do you mean how am I, we saw each other two hours ago.”
There was a clear joking tone in Techno’s voice, Tommy knew that, but he couldn’t stop his mind from racing around the thought of possibly being an annoyance to one of his best friends.
Which- that was really fucking weird. Tommy never got anxious or too worried that his friends were annoyed by him, especially not the Craft’s. It was how he became Phil’s “third son” and how he saw Phil, Wilbur, and Techno as family in every way except blood. His persistence, his annoying charm, that was what made him… well, him.
So of course, when he started contemplating whether to tell Techno he had just butt dialed the guy and decided to roll with it, he was pretty thrown off.
“Tommy?” Techno pulled Tommy out of his head, concern lacing his voice ever so slightly.
Tommy hated making people concerned about him. He hated making them worry.
“Sorry, I got distracted. Can’t a guy just call his best friend?”
“I mean… yeah? I wasn’t doing anything so…”
“Great!” Tommy grinned, taking a pot out of the cupboard and slamming it onto the stove. “We’re making soup.”
He wandered off to the pantry and dug through the shelf of cans his parents kept stocked up on. They were rarely home long enough to make a family meal and Tommy loved soup, so it worked out great on both ends.
“What’s your favourite soup, Techno?” Tommy shouted with his head still in the pantry.
Techno hummed like he was deep in thought, barely audible from the 3 walls encasing Tommy’s head at the moment. “Potato soup.”
“I really wish you would tell me what’s up with you and potatoes, it’s getting pretty weird.” Rummaging through cans, Tommy landed on chicken noodle soup.
Like the bastard he was, Techno didn’t respond, which Tommy sort of liked more than talking. Normally he loved to talk and there wasn’t enough money in the world you could give him to get him to shut up. Right now, however, he just felt… distant.
Maybe he was getting sick.
Tommy popped the can open and poured its contents into the pot, grimacing when a glob of cooked carrots and peas fell out with it.
“You feeling okay?” Techno asked. And, okay, this was Tommy’s hero, his role model, he didn’t want to lie to the man!
…So he just didn’t tell the truth. Those were completely different things.
“Yeah, why?” Tommy nodded as if Techno could see him.
Techno, however, wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t buy this like Wilbur would. “Yeah, sure kid. You’re being quiet, it’s actually calming being on the phone with you right now.”
Fuck. Tommy needed a lie and he needed one quick.
That’s when it hit him, he was still in his rain soaked clothes from his walk home.
“You know what? I completely forgot to change after I got home, I’m soaking wet still,” Tommy technically didn’t lie. “I’m gonna go so I don’t get sick.”
Thankfully, Techno believed that was the only issue, or he just didn’t say anything else. Either way, he dropped the subject altogether and hummed in agreement.
“Ah, that makes sense.”
“Yep! Love you Tech!” Tommy shouted, making sure to force his personality a little more. Again, he hated worrying people.
Techno huffed in a way Tommy had been around enough to know was full of fondness. “Love you too.”
The call ended before Tommy had the chance to think twice about asking him to stay.
On Wednesday, the wind rattles windows.
“You okay?” Tubbo snapped his fingers in front of Tommy’s face a few times.
Tommy aggressively shook his head, looking back up at his two best friends sitting across from him in the cafeteria. He must’ve zoned out because as he glanced at both of their faces, they both looked concerned.
Ranboo especially looked concerned, which freaked him out the most. They were the therapist friend out of the three of them, meaning Ranboo automatically had psychoanalyzing powers that Tommy couldn’t even begin to understand.
He had learned that the hard way last semester, when he swore he wasn’t upset and then Ranboo stared at him weird for a few seconds before mentioning his parents. Almost immediately, Tommy had begun uncontrollably sobbing.
Like, a scary amount of tears.
Ever since then, he learned to never hide his feelings from them.
Not that he usually hid his emotions, he had always been a pretty open person with not much of a filter. If he was happy then everyone knew and if he was sad then the people who loved him also knew. He didn’t purposely hide things from anyone who cared.
Except, well, this time.
“Were you listening to anything I was saying?” Tubbo quirked an eyebrow as he bit into one of his baby carrots, making an obnoxiously loud snapping noise.
Immediately, Tommy felt bad. He hadn’t been listening. If he was being completely honest, he hadn’t heard or comprehended most of the things told to him today, including the Physics exam he had stayed up so late worrying about.
It weirded him out how little he cared about failing that exam. Just the night before he had been anxiously flipping pages in his notebook and cramming all the memory he could into one night’s studying. Maybe he had changed his mind when he woke up feeling clammy and still.
If yesterday there was a pit in his chest, today there was a black hole consuming his everything. It wasn’t even a sickly feeling either, he just felt… wrong. Out of place.
Whatever the reason was for how awful he felt, he ignored it and pushed it off for a later time.
“I was,” Tommy lied through his teeth, “I just didn’t sleep well last night. I’m sorry Tubbs.”
Tubbo opened his mouth to say something, probably call him out on his obvious bullshit, but Ranboo uttered a quiet, “Tubbo,” instead. They looked at each other for less than a second, Ranboo clearly giving off a weird message with their eyes, before Tubbo’s shoulders dropped with a sigh.
“Fine.” The conversation was dropped.
The three of them said nothing for the rest of lunch and Tommy went right back to spacing out again.
He couldn’t tell if he was grateful for whatever Ranboo had just done or not, because on one hand, it was quiet—-as quiet as it could get in a cafeteria full of 16 year olds, at least—-and he didn’t have to worry about Tubbo getting down his back about why he wasn’t as talkative today. On the other hand, they both definitely knew something was up now.
Tommy didn’t want to hide this weird feeling he was suddenly obsessing over from the people who mattered most to him. He felt the opposite, actually, like talking about it would make him feel a little better (and he had a weird feeling that at least one of his friends would understand), but he couldn’t.
It was like there was some invisible wall holding his words in. That and the fact that he didn’t understanding how he was feeling in the slightest.
Not once had he felt like everything was too loud and too quiet at the same time.
And for the first time in what felt like ever, Tommy knew he was the smallest and quietest thing in that room.
He hated how vulnerable that made him.
Math had been deemed Tommy’s favourite class since the first day of school. Not only did it have his two best friends, but he got to sit next to one of them as well.
Him and Tubbo were always throwing crumpled up notes at each other behind their teacher’s back, nearly giving Ranboo a heart attack every time.
One time, he had been caught mid-throw by his teacher and instead of laughing it off or taking it light heartedly, she—-like the evil old lady she was—-had given him the sternest talking to in front of his whole class.
Yeah. Talk about embarassing.
She had ended up sending home a paper for his parents to sign explaining that if she ever caught him acting up in class again, she would have no other choice than to fail him.
Tommy was a lot of things but an idiot wasn’t one of them, so he just took the note to Phil instead who happily signed it and sent a personal email to her.
He still had no idea what that man did for a living but he assumed it had something to do with the law because she stopped bothering him after that.
Anyway, Tommy didn’t stop communicating with his other best friend via note throwing just because some cranky teacher told him not to. Of course not. Instead, he was just sneakier about it, making sure to carefully calculate the distance between his and Tubbo’s desks on opposite sides of the classroom.
There was a pretty good chance he spent more time figuring out what angle to place his arm at in order to perfectly throw Tubbo’s notes than he did actually doing math.
Technically they were both math, so he was doing something right.
On most days, he got excited for whatever stupid drawing he was going to make Tubbo that day, but today, he completely forgot that they even did that.
That was, however, until Tommy felt something soft hit his head and bounce into his desk.
A crumpled up note.
Tommy blinked up at Tubbo—-who was watching him anticipatingly—-before unwrapping the paper as quietly as he could.
In Tubbo’s handwriting read: what’s wrong with you prick. don’t tell ran i asked.
Which- that was very on brand.
He glanced over at Ranboo and sure enough, they were far too deep into pythagorean theorems or the digits of pi or whatever they were learning to notice. Even on a good day Tommy didn’t pay attention in this class so it was honestly a miracle he was even passing.
And even though Tommy was out of it, this was an opportunity to make fun of Tubbo. He would never pass that down.
Tommy flipped the note to the other side and began scribbling out a large “NOTHING’S WRONG. EAT SHIT AND DIE” in block letters. It took him a few minutes to finish writing it—-because they were such big letters or because he kept zoning out, Tommy didn’t know—-but once he had, he crumpled it back up and chucked it across the room.
Watching as Tubbo unfolded the note and read it, Tommy saw the exact moment he looked up and stared him in the eye knowingly.
It was a little scary, honestly.
“You’re lying,” Tubbo mouthed, coming out as a small whisper that Tommy could barely hear.
Thankfully, the bell rang before he had to explain himself, saving him from the absolute shackles that existing had around his ankles right now.
He shoved his things into his bag and left without sparing a glance or a word in Tubbo or Ranboo’s direction.
On Thursday, it floods.
Tommy woke up to a room basked in darkness.
He wasn’t sweaty or cold like he would’ve been if he was sick, he didn’t have to go to the bathroom, he wasn’t hungry or thirsty, he just… woke up.
It took him a few minutes to gather his surroundings: it was dark outside, he didn’t feel tired, and suddenly, moving an inch was the same as running a mile in his brain.
Thankfully, he had woken up on his side, so he didn’t have to worry about gaining enough strength to roll over and check the time. One look at the alarm clock sat on his side table showed that it was 4:26 AM. Early as fuck.
He couldn’t tell why he was awake; it was too early to be naturally, he had finally managed to fall asleep around two in the morning, and he didn't have anything to stress him out.
There wasn’t an answer he could think of right away, and he didn’t feel like trying to come up with a reason either. Instead, he ignored it all together and focused on something else.
Well, focused on the only thing he could focus on.
For some reason, there was a chasm in his chest and a deep set hollow feeling in his bones. Something akin to carelessness in a terrifying way.
It only took him a few minutes to clock what exactly that feeling was—-he was numb.
It wasn’t the good numb either, it didn’t make him feel resilient or like he could conquer anything, not in the way he felt after finally telling a bully off or working up the courage to ask his parents to stay home. No, he didn’t feel a sense of pride at all, he felt wrong.
Some part of him, a small and almost unintelligible part, told him that he should call someone. Phil, Wilbur, Techno. He would even settle for Ranboo or Tubbo, despite knowing they had big exams in the morning.
That’s how he knew something was wrong, he didn’t even care that asking for help would hurt his friends and make them way too worried about him.
Or, he had convinced himself it would hurt them. A part of him knew that wasn’t true, but he pushed it to the back of his mind.
Still, even if he wanted to ask for help, if he wanted someone to explain why he felt empty all of the sudden, he couldn’t. It was like his body was on autopilot and had decided to crash land for the day.
Tommy, without doubt, felt broken.
He was asleep before he could register his eyes shutting.
When Tommy woke up the second time he was far less afraid. Instead of his brain running in circles trying to find an explanation of why and how he felt so wrong, he just accepted it.
He had always been stubborn and refused to ever go down without a fight, so accepting defeat so quickly was new to him. Not bad, just… strange.
In a way, it felt like some switch had been set off overnight in his brain and left him to deal with the consequences, no matter how upsetting that was.
Tommy woke slowly this time, not snapping his eyes open like he had previously or getting anxious the moment he came to his senses. Instead, he let the lull of silence drifting through his room keep him full.
It was strangely peaceful—-in an end of the world kind of way—-how unbothered he felt. For once, there was nothing plaguing his mind, good nor bad, just complete silence.
Maybe he had jinxed it though, because it took him twelve breaths after to realize how terrible this was.
In one breath, he was fine with this emptiness, and in the next, he was staring at his ceiling with tears burning the outer corners of his eyes. He managed to blink them back, thankfully, because he was fairly certain that crying wouldn’t do anything but make him feel worse.
It was like there was this knot stuck in his throat reminding him that he couldn’t be loved, that he didn’t work hard enough for it. And maybe that feeling had been there all along, but he had never looked it straight in the eyes and watched as it crushed him from the inside out.
Yeah. Scratch that. He didn’t want help anymore.
Tommy took his time wriggling his arm out of the blankets wrapped around him and watched as it shook when he finally pulled it out, not even questioning once why it was shaking so much.
Then, he reached his trembling hand over to his nightstand, aiming for his phone but having to re-route multiple times before it was in his grip.
The first thing he noticed was the time—-6:48 PM. On any other day, this might’ve made him panic, maybe even make his heart skip a beat at the fact that he was still here, in bed, two hours after school had ended.
Clearly, this wasn’t any other day.
The second thing he noticed was the mass amount of missed calls and texts drowning his lockscreen. He scrolled once with his thumb and saw that the calls and texts had only gotten more frantic.
Although he lacked the energy to read any of the texts, let open reply to anyone, he found himself drifting towards the most recent notification on his screen: Wilbur.
He clicked on it without hesitation.
OLD MAN BITCH!!!! (wilby)
morning child
(7:15 AM)
running late or something? where are u
(7:30 AM)
tommyyyyy
(7:37 AM)
tommy?
(9:02 AM)
tubbo and ranboo said you weren’t at lunch, where are you?
(12:20 PM)
are you sick?
(12:54 PM)
call me when you get this please, i’m worried
(1:16 PM)
phil said answer his calls
(1:32 PM)
tommy please
(2:57 PM)
you’re parents aren’t home are you okay
(4:21 PM)
tom, please call me back.
(6:30 PM)
In any other circumstance he would’ve felt guilty for worrying one of the most important people in his life, but considering he could hardly count to ten without wanting to give up from how much effort it took, he cut himself some slack.
The third and final thing he noticed was how his phone was on 2% battery and his charger was on the floor.
Naturally, that meant he wouldn’t be charging it.
And as soon as he built up the strength to text Wilbur something telling him that he was okay, his screen went dark and a loading cog popped up to let him know his phone had died.
Tommy set it back on the table without hesitation.
Everything was in slow motion. Even as he laid there doing nothing but blinking at the ceiling, the world felt slow.
The air around him was stifling, cutting into his breath and leaving his chest to feel heavy, and maybe this was his new way of life. Maybe this was his normal now, having to carefully calculate each movement made. Maybe this was what growing up was like. Maybe he should stop worrying himself so much over nothing.
Yeah, that last idea sounded good to him.
Eventually, he had half the mind to realize he definitely needed to get up and go to the bathroom, despite how exhausted he suddenly felt again. So, he took a deep breath, used all his strength he could muster, and swung his legs over the edge of his bed.
Getting up was the easy part, despite the way he wobbled and nearly collapsed a few times. It was walking that sucked.
Each step felt like a mile and without the support of something to lean on, he could tell this would be the worst ten feet to the bathroom that he had ever walked.
“I’m fine,” Tommy whispered, knowing damn well he was lying to himself. “I’m okay.”
It might’ve been stupid, but he couldn’t bring himself to understand why, of all people, he had to feel like this.
On Friday, there is quiet.
“You’re gonna wake him up, shut the fuck up!”
“I’m just trying to see if he’s okay.”
“Could you be a little quieter then?”
Someone- no, multiple people were talking around him in stressed whispers. He tried to ignore it and fall back asleep but to no avail, the people kept whispering to each other. Pretty fucking rude if you asked him.
If it weren’t for the whole… well, he wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with him, but if it weren’t for that, he wouldn’t be so opposed to turning over and covering his face with a pillow.
Honestly, sleeping forever—-a temporary hibernation of some sort—-sounded amazing to Tommy.
“Guys, guys, you’re crowding him,” another voice, someone new, suddenly spoke. “Doesn’t matter what’s the matter with him, he’s probably not gonna like waking up to a circle of people in his face.”
Tommy appreciated that new voice a lot, and as he came to his senses a bit more, he began to realize he recognized these people.
Without thinking, he scrunched his nose up in discomfort and sighed, trying to get all this new noise out of his room.
Clearly, this worked in his favour. Someone snapped their fingers and the voices silenced immediately, followed by their footsteps leaving his room.
Once Tommy was sure he was safe to sleep again, a weight was added onto the side of his bed by what felt like a person. Opening his eyes seemed like too much of a hassle, so he settled on hoping the unknown person wasn’t a total stranger.
And then, out of nowhere, a hand was on his forehead. Checking his temperature, deciding he was probably fine, and carding their fingers through his knotted hair.
It was a little comedic how easily his hair tangled.
Tommy relaxed into the person's hand, focusing on his breathing and the feeling of someone being there with him. Focusing on just those things kept him from the panic that had begun to settle between his ribs the moment he woke up.
He didn’t really have a reason to be panicky, it wasn’t someone touching his hair that stressed him (though a complete stranger messing with his hair was enough to worry him, this person felt… familiar) or the amount of people swarming him the second he could hear again. It wasn’t because of a specific thing at all, it was just… there. Like some kind of pest.
The thought just made Tommy feel ten times worse.
“You’re not running a fever,” the voice whispered lowly. And oh, oh. It was Wilbur. The person next to him had been Wilbur.
He wasn’t all that surprised, just kind of confused. Unless he had slept through the entire day again—-which he didn’t put past himself—-he was almost positive it was a school day. Meaning Wilbur should definitely be at school and not in his room.
Tommy opened his eyes to check the time and quickly realized his mistake.
“Tommy?” Wilbur noticed, because of course he did. “Oh, thank god. You’ve had me so worried, I thought something happened on your walk home yesterday and then you wouldn’t respond to my calls and-“
That burning from yesterday was back again. He blinked once, then twice to rid the feeling. It only got stronger.
“I’m sorry, it’s not- this isn’t your fault. Did you get sick?”
That lump in his throat was growing by the second, a sob building and waiting to burst at any given chance. Of course, he was miserable. This was a type of sadness Tommy had never felt in his life, a type of grief that confused him more than anything. Still, he had the capability of being embarrassed.
He probably had enough strength to muster one sentence and be done for the day, so, in typical himself fashion, he spent it apologizing for something out of his control.
“I‘m sorry,” Tommy mumbled, voice coming out scratchy and hoarse from just waking up and the amount of force he had to use to hold down that sob.
Wilbur looked horrified, to say the very least. “No, Toms, you don’t need to apologize to me. Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
A tidal wave of guilt crashed over Tommy’s body, still weakly clutching his blankets and staring just past Wilbur. It felt consuming and suffocating and he suddenly felt like he owed so much to the man. Sure, it was unrealistic—-Wilbur had never asked for anything from him—-but he still felt gutted and the ball in his throat wasn’t helping any.
“You- uh… water, yeah. Do you want water?” Wilbur sputtered, looking around himself for a glass before realizing there hadn’t been any in Tommy’s room. “I’ll go ask someone to bring you some.”
Before Tommy could tell him that he didn’t want him to go, that he was perfectly fine with just staying here next to Wilbur for the rest of eternity (even if it meant his brain wouldn’t stop running circles around him), Wilbur was up and moving faster than Tommy had ever seen him move before.
“Can someone bring him a glass of water?” He shouted, barely stepping out the door to do so. For that, Tommy was grateful.
Then, Wilbur was back and in the same spot beside him before he had the chance to blink. Well, maybe his blinks were just prolonged shutting his eyes.
Either way, Wilbur doing the smallest thing for him, getting him a glass of water, had been enough to burst him at the seams.
In one breath, Tommy was focusing on the burning at the back of his throat. In the next, he was letting out the loudest sob he had ever heard. And once he started, he couldn’t stop.
Hot tears fell down the sides of his face, uncomfortably wetting his ears from the way he was laying. He didn’t even care that whoever was here—-now that he was more awake, presumably his other friends—-could most definitely hear him, he didn’t care that Wilbur looked worried out of his mind, he didn’t care when Ranboo, Phil, Techno, and Tubbo all crowded by his door with concern etched in their brows.
Tommy didn’t care. He felt miserable and he couldn’t understand why, and no one was explaining it to him, and he was in a deeper hole than he even knew possible.
He had half the mind to bring his fist to his mouth and roll onto his side, biting down to hopefully silence his sobs, but they just turned into muffled cries instead.
This, Tommy assumed, was what it felt like to be completely and utterly hopeless.
Suddenly, and without warning, there were hands hauling him up and into someone’s arms. He was quick to register it as Wilbur and sunk into his chest immediately.
Wilbur didn’t seem to mind when Tommy gripped the front of his shirt in a death grip, balling the fabric up in his fists. He didn’t seem bothered when Tommy kept crying, sobs turning to borderline screams at some point, so he didn’t move. It wasn’t like he could move if he wanted.
Maybe this was his new forever. A deeper part of him knew he was being unrealistic; people loved him and Wilbur was holding him with so much care, but he was sulking now and that was all he could focus on.
“You’re okay, you’re gonna be okay,” Wilbur whispered, brushing the back of the kid’s hair down with his palm.
And for some reason, Tommy believed him.
It took ten minutes for him to slightly calm down, tears still falling down his face but his sobs being replaced with occasional hiccups. If nothing else, he just felt far more exhausted.
His bones ached with a familiarity he knew like a brother.
After a few minutes of silence, he realized how dry his throat was and sat up to ask for the water that Wilbur had demanded be brought up for him. Before he had the chance though, Wilbur must’ve read his mind, because he waved his hand and suddenly Ranboo was running into the room, glass of water in hand.
Tommy refused to look up from Wilbur’s lap, even as the glass was placed in his hands and he downed its contents in five seconds. He refused to face Wilbur or any of his other friends after all… that.
He wasn’t embarrassed, he didn’t think he even had the brain capacity to be embarrassed, he was just there. Even surrounded by all the people he loved so much, Tommy felt alone.
It was only after five minutes of silence and tears dropping down his cheeks without a sob on the other end that he managed, “Why?” He was meek and quiet. Something he had never been.
Wilbur, of course, like the brother he was, understood what Tommy meant without another word. “Because we love you, I love you.”
Tommy shut his eyes and took a deep, shaky breath.
“Why do I feel like this?”
It was hard to tell if Wilbur had even heard him, with the way he whispered that question so quietly. Like he knew it was a stupid question to ask. Some part of him prayed that Wilbur would have the answer, and he knew it was unrealistic because the man couldn’t actually read his thoughts, but he still held onto that hope that he could fix this like he did Tommy’s math homework.
This was much harder than any math problem he would ever do. Tommy knew that loud and clear.
But, eventually, Wilbur responded. “I don’t know, Toms. I think you know, but you don’t want to admit it,” a breeze from the open window in the corner of his room hushed through the air. “And that’s okay too. We’re not in a rush, you’re not gonna do this alone.”
Something akin to sorrow settled over him, and that was fine. He was okay, his life would be alright. Not now, of course, but the little things that sounded impossible like washing the dishes and making his bed, cooking dinner and eating it too, he knew he wouldn’t be doing alone. Not now, at least.
Tommy looked up from his pinpoint stare on Wilbur’s lap and saw all of his friends huddled around the doorway. Yeah, he would be okay.