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Ranboo worried about Tommy sometimes.
Well, more like all of the time, but when you were diagnosed with a literal anxiety disorder, that sort of made statistics like that a moot point.
And it wasn't like he didn't trust him - Tommy was one of his best friends! They'd met in middle school, suffered through high school, and had applied to the same colleges precisely so they could do this. Ranboo wouldn't have survived having a stranger for a roommate, and Tommy was… an acquired taste. Ranboo liked him, but Ranboo had also had years to acclimatise.
Everything had seemed fine at first - sure, Tommy spent more nights out than in, but he'd always been a social butterfly. Parties were his thing, and he got plenty of invitations. Ranboo came along sometimes too, tailed Tommy and tried to pretend he was having a good time, but mostly he stayed out of those things. The sight of red solo cups was enough to make his paranoia spiral, and he knew well what else went on in dark corners of those parties.
Getting drunk was sort of expected, in college. Underaged or not, house parties didn't check IDs and there was always someone with a decent fake one to top up the supplies. The first few times Tommy had stumbled in shitfaced to their dorm, barely coherent, Ranboo had bolted upright and dragged him to the bathroom, had held his hair back and pat his back while Tommy hurled up his guts.
He'd hoped that the lesson would be taught, and that would be that, but apparently not.
Tommy didn't get any less drunk, he just got better at hiding it. At holding his own hair back, at showering more often to hide the scent of beer that seemed to seep from him somedays.
He didn't make a single 8am all first semester, but his course wasn't reliant on attendance anyway, and his grades never seemed to slip.
So even then, he hadn't been worried.
But then Tommy started coming home on nights when Ranboo was sure he hadn't been to a party. There was a certain aura he got after being around people for a while, a brightness in his soul that alcohol seemed to enhance. On those nights, there was none of that senseless elation. He just seemed… sad. Drunk out of his mind and desperately sad.
The first time he'd crawled into Ranboo's bed and begged him to hold him, begged him not to leave, he'd just let it happen. He stunk, of cheap spirit and sweat, but he was warm and solid, and Ranboo could sleep easy knowing he wasn't out there stumbling in the darkness.
He'd suspected then, what he almost certainly knew now.
The day drinking was next. 'Pre-gaming', Tommy had called it - and it seemed reasonable! His alcohol tolerance had gone up since September, it made sense to have a few beers before he left. It wasn't even like he was shotgunning them: they sat on his desk, innocently gleaming in the desk-light, and Tommy would sip from one, two, three, as he did his homework before the night started properly.
But it continued to creep. Seven pm became six, six might as well have been five, and four - well, always happy hour somewhere, right? The first time Ranboo had seen Tommy roll out of bed and take a sip from the half-drunk can on his nightstand…
He'd talked with him.
Sat him down, told him that he was worried Tommy might have… a problem. He'd been careful, frightened to say the words that would tell the reality of what was going down. Didn't want to scare him with accusations.
Tommy had laughed - a proper full-body cackle, the kind Ranboo had thought was his genuine laugh, the one he couldn't fake. Told him that he was fine, that he'd woken up with an awful taste in his mouth and that beer was better than that. Told him it was only there from the night before, it wasn't like he was day drinking. Told him that he never called Ranboo out on leaving half finished Doctor Peppers everywhere.
Ranboo had laughed too. Had shifted to try and soothe the writhing mass of worry in his stomach. Had pretended to believe him, like he pretended to believe his laugh.
The beer disappeared, then.
He should've known something was wrong.
You didn't just go from a six-pack before thinking about leaving the house to nothing in a day. Even regular alcohol drinkers couldn't go cold turkey from that. Tommy was way too chipper to be going through even the most minor withdrawal, but Ranboo… Ranboo had wanted to believe him so badly.
Living in the same world as Tommy, the world where everything was fine and his friend with the anxiety disorder was, you guessed it, being anxious… would've been such a nice world to live in.
He'd tried, for a while. The beer cans disappeared, and Tommy never came home worse than tipsy. It wasn't until later Ranboo realised he'd been performing, with his careful displays of motor skills, spinning on his desk chair to prove he wasn't nauseous, discussing homework to prove he was coherent.
Wasn't until later, when he grabbed Tommy's water bottle to wash it out with his own, and was bombarded by the stench of vodka, that he realised.
The slow sips through the day. The way Tommy never seemed more than tipsy at best. The way he got agitated if it left his side, or if Ranboo offered to fill it up.
Of course he never seemed drunk, he hadn't been sober in… months?
Except maybe he was wrong.
Staring down at the empty bottle in his hands, the seed of doubt still niggled the back of his mind.
Maybe this was a one off. Maybe Tommy had two bottles, and he'd forgotten this one from his party days. Maybe someone else had filled it up.
Because eighteen year olds weren't alcoholics. College students, freshman, weren't alcoholics. Tommy wasn't an alcoholic.
Alcoholics were depressed people in their thirties with no family, no friends, no prospects in life. Alcoholics were retired old men who sat at the bar and complained all day. Alcoholics were homeless, destitute, spending their days in shelters and begging for money for just another beer.
Alcoholics weren't young, otherwise healthy, vibrant teenagers.
Alcoholics weren't Tommy.
Except maybe they were, and Ranboo had just never seen it before. Had never wanted to see it before.
He… should tell someone. Someone who knew how to handle this, how to tell what was really going on. But who? Res-life would have to call the cops, since they could turn a blind eye to a lot, but an alc- but an underaged student drinking on campus didn't fit. Anyone who worked for the university would be under the same obligation. They wouldn't understand, wouldn't understand that he wasn't just some flagrant ruffian, he was Tommy.
Ranboo set the bottle carefully back where he found it, and retreated to his bed. Curled up in the blankets and stared at the list of contacts on his phone.
Stared at the only option that was right, even if Tommy would hate him for the rest of their lives.
He didn't have another choice, though, did he? Hate or not, at least Tommy would be here. At least he'd be alive. At least he wouldn't be… that.
Ranboo swallowed. And he dialled Phil's number.