Chapter Text
Tommy was known to the audience of smosh as a funny, overly tired, and slightly on edge cast member. While all of those words could be applied (and are very much applied) to Tommy he was also hardworking, dedicated and extremely hard on himself (hence the slight edge he always seemed to be on). It was also becoming less known that he worked two jobs within smosh as a cast member and a social media manager.
This general summary of himself rings very true when he wakes up on that crisp Monday morning with a pounding headache and a throat that felt as if it was on fire and still makes the decision to not call out of work.
As Tommy stares up at the ceiling of his bedroom, he starts to question his life decisions seriously. Obviously the thought of staying home crosses his mind, in fact it sticks itself there prodding as the soft center of Tommy’s brain begging to be listened to too, but as he must he pushes it back because he knows he can’t call out and leave smosh hanging. He knows he's got content to film today, and he's in a family feud shoot today. It would be one thing to let the team down on a normal day, but letting them down on such a busy day would break Tommy’s heart. Tommy assesses his body to locate where all his pain is. It’s mainly his throat and his head, but he can’t deny a sense of discomfort lingering behind his eyes and in his nose
When he moves to stand on his shaky two feet, he is overwhelmed with a sense of dizziness that mutes the rest of his senses for a solid second. Tommy hates feeling dizzy. It's one of his least favourite symptoms of being sick (not that he particularly likes any of them). The feeling of your body being out of your control for those few short seconds is his personal hell, and the way his body sways with a weirdly indescribable pain almost makes Tommy religious because that feeling alone must prove the existence of some sort of devil. When he regains his sense of balance, he stands still for a few moments to properly prepare himself for getting through the day. Logically, Tommy knows this is just a cold, a strong one at that, but just a cold nonetheless, and he knows he can deal with that.
Tommy would usually start his day with breakfast but nothing in his body screams hunger and he worries that if another dizzy spell took over that breakfast would end up all over the floor and God knows Tommy wouldn’t want to clean that up so he opts for skipping breakfast today and instead just moves onto showering and getting himself dressed. Of course this action in itself takes him much longer than it usually wood but given his lack of breakfast he has time to spare on taking a painfully slow shower and fumbling about with his own buttons for a very disrespectfully long time. As he fumbles about his apartment, he forgets to gather up his usual belongings, such as his water bottle and office keys. He doesn't remember them until he's situated in his car and by that point the effort it would take to go back in is too much as he knows he's gonna need that for work so he figures he’ll just go without and get somebody to manually let him into the office today.
On the drive into work, he keeps his volume down on extremely low, not like him at all given his dire love of music, but he just doesn't know if his head will cope with it today. The soft rumble of his car makes his skull slightly rattle within the tight confinement of his skin. The ride is a short one, and as much as the ride over annoyed him, he knows it's the quietest he's getting for the day, considering where he works and what he's up to today. He allows himself to take a moment as the car pulls to a stop as Tommy knows it's the last moments of peace he's getting until 5 pm. He treasures his last moments of openly admitting his sickness before pulling himself from the safe area of his car. The walk up to his work is one he does very begrudgingly, not because he doesn't love his work and coworkers but because they're so high energy and this cold is leaving him irritable and a type of tiredness that curls deep down into his achy bones.
He quickly bumps into a coworker in the parking lot and she so very kindly lets Tommy into the office as he makes a horrendous attempt at small talk that won't hurt him to come up with. He makes it into his section of the office quickly and looks over his tasks for the day. He knows he's got the shoot in the afternoon and has got some editing and tiktok filming to do before and after that so he decides to start with a bit of his editing. He doesn't intend to get it all done but Tommy hopes that the burning light of his computer screen and watching clips of his friends will get him prepared to deal with the real thing.
After burning through a quarter of his editing he decides to film that tiktok he had been meaning to do, he knows he won't have the energy later and thinks it's better to just get it over with. So, off on a hunt he goes. It doesn't take him very long to gather all the people he needs and soon enough he has Shayne, Courtney, Spencer and Angela. He only needed them to film a funny bit about the chosen and is relying on the fact it will be so short he won't have to stick around for long. Once he's got everyone all together and the plan is laid out they obviously start goofing around with the bit as they always do and Tommy wishes that today he could enjoy it, but as much as he loves these people the way they're talking right now makes him wish he'd chosen a different career. The volume of which they talked was making him long to be deaf and his throat was really making him regret forgetting his water.
Tommy could feel Spencer's eyes on him as they worked through the video and once it was finally done he pounced on Tommy before he had the chance to run off.
“Hey man” Spencer called, his eyes critical of Tommy
“Are you feeling okay you seem a bit off” he asks
Tommy clips back “I’m fine” probably a bit harsher than he needed
Tommy can’t find it in himself to care about the aggressive nature of his tone as he speaks, he really just wants to sit down and get back to isolating himself in his office before his next big task. Just as Spencer goes to start speaking to Tommy once again he gets cut off.
“I’m going back to my office” Tommy tells Spencer before quickly running off
He can hear Spencer shout after him but he can’t probably hear what he’s saying over the loud thrum of pain in his body. He practically runs through the halls of Smosh getting weird looks from all his coworkers but he doesn't really pick up on who exactly is looking. The second he is in his office he lets out a violent body shaking cough, he hadn’t even realised that he had a cough as well until it knocked the absolute wind out of him. Thank God he was in private when that came out. He quickly takes a seat on his office chair suddenly feeling incredibly tired. When Tommy looks over at his clock he realises he's got an hour until he goes over to hair and makeup. Tommy comes to the very unproductive opinion that he’s gonna have a very quick shut eye and then hide in here for his break. Just before he leans back in his chair he grabs a blanket that he keeps in the corner of his room and turns up the heating in the room. He quickly grabs his phone to set a 10 minute time to get him before settling down.
The next thing he knows he’s waking up to a soft voice and a gentle shaking of his shoulder.
“Toms”
“Tommy”
When Tommy can force his heavy eyes open he sees the concerned face of Spencer. He feels Spencer's eyes scan him over and then scan the room before falling back onto Tommy. Tommy wonders why Spencer was in his office, their departments weren’t meant to cross today and even if they do visit each other's office for a conversation he would have never entered if the door was closed. As Tommy ponders he becomes acutely aware of his symptoms only getting worse. His chest becomes tight and his head remains constantly thrumming. He doesn't even want to think about how sore his throat is going to be after talking if this is how it feels now, but he knows he's got to.
“Spence”
“Yeah” Spencer practically whispers
“What are you doing here” Tommy asks wiping his eyes
“I came to get you for your shoot you’re ten minutes late to makeup” Spencer says, his voice questioning.
That statement causes Tommy’s heart to stammer and for him to jump. Late. He couldn’t be late; he had a timer set and everything. He quickly grabs his phone to see a missed alarm notification on the screen. He slept through the alarm.
“SHIT” Tommy exclaims as he throws himself onto his feet
Tommy is very quickly overwhelmed by a dizzy spell and rocks backwards on his feet. Spencer sees this all play out and he throws his arms out to steady Tommy with a look of fear. Once Tommy is finally settled and balanced on his feet he quickly starts walking towards the door of his office. However, Spencer quickly grabs his arm to stop him
“Woah there” Spence says as he holds Tommy
“You aren’t going to that shoot bro, you’re clearly too unwell” Spencer says in that stern voice he sometimes gets
Usually it’s a voice Tommy would listen to, but not right now. He was late and had places to be Spencer's fussing and tone is not enough to get him to stay put right now.
“No Spencer I need to go i’m late” Tommy matches Spencers tone but alas Spencer doubles down
“No you’re sick, you’re going home” Spencer tells Tommy who is now starting to get very annoyed by the situation
“Spencer I’m fine and going to this shoot” Tommy says more forcibly as he pushes Spencers arm away
“No. You’re not” Spencer says in the same angry way Tommy had started speaking
By this point Tommy was raging. He knew it was stupid to be mad at his friend who just wanted to look after him but Tommy was in no mood right now. Everything in his body was hurt and tired and he was late to a video which was beyond embarrassing and frankly he was in a horrific mood. So without thinking he raises his voice at Spencer.
“Jesus Christ Spencer just drop it”
And then Tommy throws his office door open with far much more force than necessary and storms out leaving an angry Spencer alone.
He moves quickly to hair and makeup and once he arrives he is extremely apologetic and offers to buy them all a coffee when they're done which the crew quickly accept and forgive him. As he sits in the chair he starts to really regret shouting at Spencer. He knows that Spencer was only trying to look after him and the shouting only made the raw pain in his throat ten times worse. He figures he could apologise tomorrow because as of this moment he can still feel anger bubbling under his surface. As he gets into his suit and moves himself through to the set he sees Spencer out of the corner of his eye next to the cameras and his brain short circuits for a second. He forgot Spencer would be working on this video and he feels prickles of embarrassment all along his skin, but he was already late to the shoot so has to play it off as he takes his usual position on set. Of course his fellow cast mates all start to make little jokes at his timekeeping but that was to be expected given the time he did turn up. He brushes them all off before giving the thumbs up to the crew to tell them they could start. As he looks towards the crew he can see Spencer staring at him from the corner of his eye. Tommy can’t tell if it’s a stare of concern or hate.
The first 20 minutes of the shoot go fine. The dynamics between the cast members are going great and the questions themselves are hitting well even if Tommy knows he’s falling a little flat. He forgets how worked up everyone gets about this game until they're all practically screaming at each other across the room with jokey team threats. He also forgets how warm it gets in this room when everyone is all in it together. He lightly tugs at the collar of his suit while politely clearing his throat, he wishes he could let out the violent cough building up in his chest but he doesn't think that would go over too well.
It’s not until the half hour mark where Tommy realises he really shouldn’t have come in today. Everything in the room is causing him pain, he's thirsty and tired and sick and he knows his demeanour is starting to become increasingly more noticeable as everyone in the room is getting quieter and looking at him a little more intensely than usual. He clears his throat again before continuing to host the game.
“Trevor what’s your answer” The words fall out of Tommy’s mouth weakly and he knows it.
But just as Trevor starts to speak he is hit with the worst dizzy spell he’s gone through yet and his world hits black.