Chapter Text
Tommy was sitting in a park.
Late at night. With the moon rising high.
His mind getting darker.
The eerie creak of the swing nearby kept him grounded.
But for how long?
How long until the chains holding up the weight snapped?
It was dark, Tommy basked in the night light while holding onto what he had stolen; a thin white joint. He twirled it in his fingers and leaned back, his other hand going through his pockets, slender fingers wrapping around the pale blue lighter.
Nerves sparked as the lighter clicked, and he pressed the flame to the
bud, sparking it to life. The smell slowly
Ever since Tommy was young, it was drilled into his brain and heart the negative impacts of drugs. By nearly everyone around him, he had been exposed to it when he first came to highschool and it nearly sent him into a panic attack, fearful for his life every day since then. He refused to go near the kids that would stumble around the halls, red eyed and grinning to themselves.
It was an accident that Tommy found Will’s stash, he had snuck into his room to grab one of the old textbooks Wilbur had for a class Tommy was currently doing, and he had stumbled across a small box full of cigarettes, he pulled one out to look at it, it was pure white and pretty poorly wrapped. It hadn’t looked like one of the cigarettes people normally bought and smoked. He had taken a sniff and pulled his head back away in disgust, the thought of those boys, with their red eyes and dopy smiles had crossed his mind in a flash, a sudden sickness ran down his spine.
The thought of; “Wilbur would never smoke weed” never crossed his mind.
Tommy blamed himself for a while for thinking, “this is all he probably
does.”
Tommy forgot to grab his textbook when he left that night.
༺❀༻
Tommy knew, it was never supposed to get this bad. He knew the risks of falling down this rabbit hole would lead him yet he still dove as quickly as Alice did down the rabbit hole to wonderland.
One joint a day turned to two a day, then to three a day and soon staying sober was the worst idea that had ever been created, Tommy had fallen into that wonderland. It was like a switch had occurred from the silent prune Tommy to a Tommy that grabbed anything and everything that would stop him from thinking, feeling and seeing.
He stopped caring, he was going crazy, lusting for that high that gave his mind the silence he desired. Most days, instead of being locked inside his room or on the ground doing homework, he now went outside, the nearby park was his favourite spot to light up and let his mind wander.
Suddenly Tommy was itching, he was itching from the tips of his ears to the wiggles in his toes, his fingers throbbed to hold onto joints, to suckle on cigarettes and to drown in bottles and bottles of liquor, everything, all of the attempts were to create a sense of white noise, a silence for the chaotic world Tommy had grown accustomed too in his seventeen years of living. He needed to be kept at bat, he needed control, he needed silence. So desperately did he require calmness, a sense of peace for the life he was given.
But even with the escape so near to him, barriers blocked his path to freedom, to serenity. He had come with a list for barriers and his ways of knocking each one down. Getting it? He started talking to people that sold, stashing it? He had hidden places in a room no one entered that he hid, sometimes he’d lay them out and see how long someone took to notice. No one ever did, until he came up to the final road block, money.
Money had been hard to come by, Phil had stopped giving him allowances many years ago, when he started forgetting birthdays, Christmas’ and every other special day of the year. So getting his hands on money was hard, but not too difficult. Tommy was able to list himself up on websites for volunteer work, walking animals, shelter work, anything that paid a pretty little dime for him. Odd jobs and volunteering became his afternoons, he stopped coming home, he started entering when the moon was well past the midnight peak, he would creep up his wall to his window and tuck his money away under his bed, packed with his drugs and booze, all the things he bought with that volunteer money, all to keep himself sane within the household he was cursed with.
Different jobs paid different amounts, sometimes he wouldn’t even go home, house sitting kept him staying the night, exploring the houses where love was blossoming and children were treated like children, were loved and cared for unlike Tommy in his own home. He spent hours on weekends walking dogs and caring for them, eager to dart from the walls that constricted him from his wings of gold and freedom.
Days had melted into weeks, weeks into months and Tommy had soon lost track of time, months had soon passed by, and still, after so many months, freedom still tasted so damn sweet. Home had long been forgotten, now the house was just that, a house, a building he occupied, barely, but his bed lay there, his closet full of clothes and shoes stood in the house. The nights he did return home, he’d step upstairs, a hand on the pale painted walls, ones that never held the warmth of love, never held the warmth of kindness. The purity held the sinful, the neglect, the abuse. The anger.
There were nights that he skipped out eating, filling his stomach up with drugs rather than food, it was a force of habit at this point, a prayer that some day his body would forget its desire to fill with food and be happy with the drugs that Tommy provided for him. He was used to not eating by this point, his stomach was still too large to look at.
Despite the bones that were showing through every shirt, he never pointed it out to himself, too afraid of the consequences of his actions.
Underneath the headboards and sheets, lay the comfort of his anguished self, his drugs, his money, his packets of pretty white serenity, all of it. It was the only way he was getting through the day, soberness was something he lacked, soberness was something he despised, it made his mind too loud, it was too real, it was too fast, too slow for Tommy to keep up with.
Dealers knew him by name soon after he fell to wonderland, the Cheshire cat and the mad hatter were his best friends, he wandered over into their land of money and smoke. He knew what he wanted and they knew how to get his hands on it. They didn’t speak much anymore, just quick sentences with Cheshire grins before they were again separated. Nothing but school kids to each other.
Money overcame him, greed and a need to constantly be on top of it all, it became a part of him he couldn’t let go. Every day he was counting bills, he would watch himself with money, he’d count down everything he spent, crazing over it all, hyper-fixating on things he needed and didn’t need. He had limits, he wasn’t going to kill his bank account for the sake of a few extra lines of coke or a few more rollies that he’d burn through in seconds. Money was all his eyes were set on, and he’d never change, why would he?
༺❀༻
It was inevitable that the weed stopped working, it stopped lighting his brain up with white noise and it stopped filling his brain with images of a better life. He could only stare at the flame that burned the joint and he watched as his life in front of him fell apart at the seams. The perfect little white lie life he was living for the past few months was gone, only replaced with the dark lake of his mind, his bare feet touching the rippling surface as he choked on his tears.
That night, he came to a realisation, only- a little too late. Thirteen more pretty red lines adorned his flesh, slowly Tommy counted each line, wondering what they'd look like as pretty white lines instead. And he sat there, bleeding by himself, sobbing out as he was surrounded by money, useless pieces of paper that got him nowhere and burnt out joints and unrolled shreds of weed that amounted to nothing but the memory of the hurt, of the pain and the anger.
Tommy didn’t know when the weed turned to coke, he didn’t know when the pretty white lines turned to tablets that laid about his room. Days moulded into one, memories faded in and out of his mind. Most nights Tommy laid in bed with a tablet fizzing in his mouth, eyes closed and body melting into the sheets as he faded away into the depths of his perfect white lie.
Voices filled his empty ears and plagued his dull mind, touches that pin pricked goosebumps across his skin, suddenly the loneliness he felt during the nights, masked by the lack of souls, was gone, replaced by emerald stained glass with dangling rubies that seemed to surround him in gentle embraces and with loving and soft voices.
It drove him mad. The familiarity was taunting the blonde, leaving his void full of tears, dancing on the idea of giving him the lips, the throat and the face of the voice, only for him to awake that morning, no knowledge of who.
Tommy never noticed how he had changed.
Who can see ones self through another's gaze?
༺❀༻
The morning winds swayed the blinds. There was a shuffling sound as muscles tensed like a sudden jolt of morning energy, a long forgotten heartbeat stirred alive once more, coaxing the universe up to open its voids and the mysteries that stirred beneath the pale blue voids of the other. Flesh shivered as the paleness of it eased itself to life, moving more like a robot with it’s slender mentally detached figure then that of a human. Voids scanned the world around it, watching as the world tipped and turned, spinning around with the body at its epicentre, watching, seeing, witnessing as the Earth, the sun and the mood twirled and danced around him.
The bile crept up his throat, burning his skin and forcing tears to stain his eyes. Stained glass mirrors that seemed to shatter at the appearance of water.
The voids dissipated as a grimace shaped the robot's face, suddenly the robotic features became human, eyes opened and he was shaking, violent quakes that echoed throughout his body, nausea creeping across his throat, bile built up and he gagged slowly. His pale and gnawed fingers trembled as they reached out, he sought something to grasp onto, he sought something to ground him, struggling to find that focus. He clutched at the sheets, desperation growing. He gulped his saliva, blocking the growing nausea, praying for it to calm down.
He pushed his lungs to work, deep breaths growing, even as his lungs protested, screaming against the lingering remains of whatever had hung in the air, that previous night.
Shame bubbled and swirled in Tommy’s stomach like a snake coiling around stones, he looked around at the mess of sheets that surrounded him, the pillows that were tossed carelessly around his room. Regret ate at him like maggots to a corpse, angry at the acceptance of the alcohol from Josh, he squeezed his eyes shut, the sight of the empty bottles from the nights before only seemed to deepen that shame, that disappointment in himself.
He threw his feet over the side of the bed, his vision clouded, dizziness and exhaustion. He stumbled towards the closet, by his feet he passed by empty liquor bottles and scattered dollar bills, some rolled up, some not, some were coated with the residue of the saccharine white power that made his brain happy and his body fidgety.
Tommy felt his weak body almost crash into the closet door. Every part of his body screamed to turn around, call in sick and go back to bed and he considered it, for a split second he really considered going back to bed, maybe then this headache that screamed at him would leave and he’d be free to sleep forevermore.
Yet again, Tommy’s stomach churned and he let a deep groan escape his dry lips, another wave of nausea and pain overcame him and he sighed, anger and despair, all these emotions filled his heart, not at anything around him, but at himself.
Slowly, he pushed himself up, off his closet and stood back, sliding open the doors and taking a gander at the way lay inside, hoping to find something clean, something to cover himself up.
He had to cover up, he wanted to hide away under thick hoodies and larger pants, after his little stunt at the start of the week, people had been staring at him, their eyes like crazed fans stalking celebrities, but Tommy was no celebrity, he was a broken man, with a broken gaze. He had several panic attacks since that day, each one forcing his brain to turn off, for his eyes to stare forward, not seeing, not hearing, not- anything . He couldn’t handle being the centre of attention, so many eyes on him, hanging stained glasses of hate that watched him and stared on as his panic grew and his fear flushed itself out into manic anxiety.
He pulled out a large hoodie he had stolen from Techno when they had been younger. The fabric was still soft and warm, it reached his mid-thighs and covered everything he hated about himself. Pulling on a pair of baggy ripped jeans Tommy finally felt complete, he couldn’t handle seeing himself, not now, not ever.
༺❀༻
Tommy moved downstairs, his bag on his shoulders as he moved into the kitchen to grab his water bottle and an apple. The house was quiet as he moved, Tommy silently wondered if everyone had left already, he kinda hoped they were gone, leaving him to bask in the silence and serenity by himself.
However, life was never on his side. As he turned the corner, Technoblade came crashing into him. The man was 6”3 and built like a brick wall, and Tommy was six on the dot and built like a thin tree branch, so he broke first. He fell to the floor, a heavy groan slipped past his lips as he looked up through his dizzy spell, the hangover coming back to punch him in between the eyes.
Techno just stared down at him, before he leaned over, and held his hand out. “Sorry.” He mumbled, looking embarrassed and uncomfortable. Tommy mirrored his emotions, flushing pink and grabbing his hand.
“It’s whatever.” He shrugged and grabbed his bag from where it had landed. “Not at school?” He quietly asked, shuffling to grab his bottle. Fingers itching to dig into his skin, anxiety starting to really spike up now.
He couldn’t remember the last time he and Techno had a normal, civil, brotherly conversation. The man was built like a wall, physically and mentally. He rarely expressed any emotion, and when he stared you down it was like a stare from a god. Tommy had never really connected to him, despite having the same love of Greek mythology. Tommy remembered when he dove into it, wanting to talk all about it to Techno, and he was denied the first time he tried. Called an annoying brat and to go fuck off somewhere else.
Tommy still couldn’t get over that.
“No, I have school, but you weren’t awake.” And Tommy stilled, eyes looking over to Techno, his brain was still trying desperately to catch up with this morning already, but- what?
“Huh?” He muttered, half-ass listening now.
Techno wasn’t one to miss school for anyone, it was already a nightmare to Tommy to know that he skipped classes to go get Tommy from his severe panic attack and take him home, but now he was staying home because Tommy wasn’t awake?
“I would’ve just walked? Don’t gotta get in the car with you guys.” He grabbed an apple, needing something to touch, to focus on, instead of the piercing crimson eyes that bore into him.
“I know, but I wanted to drop you off.” Tommy watched from the reflection of the microwave the way Techno’s shoulders shrugged, as if that simple sentence didn’t throw Tommy’s entire world in for a loop.
No one wanted to drop Tommy off, no one cared enough about him for that, no one showed an interest in his life, no one cared about the awards he won, no one cared for the jobs he scored, no one cared .
So why was he pretending to care now?
༺❀༻
The car was bigger than Will’s, an old ute that rumbled to life better than the corolla ever had. Tommy was sitting in the front seat, staring at his intertwined fingers. Techno drove quietly, unlike Will who filled spaces with his presence, he was loud, as loud as Tommy used to be.
Techno had a gentle grip on the wheel as he turned and drove, his eyes unmoving as he turned into different streets and rolled on. Tommy looked up after a few moments, thinking they were close enough where he could focus on the school and not the thick tension laying between them.
Yet, he didn’t expect to see a McDonalds drive through and about four cars lined up before them, he looked to Techno who was looking at the menu with a curious glaze in his ruby gems.
Tommy’s stomach churned, realising how similar they were to Ranboo’s gaze.
“Did you want a coffee or something?”
Tommy shoved his heart down to his stomach and looked, “uh, sure. Caramel, please” He whispered quietly, shifting in his seat slowly. Techno hummed out and nodded, pulling up to the speaker box. Tommy just watched him as he spoke calmly, what the fuck was happening?
Techno didn’t buy shit for anyone like this, he never offered to get Will coffee or even dad, Techno hoarded his money like it was pure gold, worth more than it really was. He was a tight ass who shopped at thrift stores and op shops rather than going to an actual shopping centre to buy clothes that would actually fit his large frame.
But here he was, actually buying Tommy, Tommy of all people a coffee and paying- eight bucks?
Techno was doing something, he wanted something back from this, there wasn’t any other reason that he was ordering coffee for them both unless he wanted something.
As they started to drive away, Tommy looked down at his coffee, before he looked back to his brother, “what do you want?” Techno grunted as he turned, not into the streets that carried the school-grounds, but a fucking park, Tommy was going to pass away. Like- he was shrivelling up and passing away, what was this man fucking doing?
“Nothing.” He shrugged and parked the car, “come here.” He crawled out of the driver's seat, leaving the key in the ignition. Tommy watched him before he slowly slipped out from his seat and moved to go where Techno was. The man was sitting under a tree, a lit cigarette between his lips. Tommy blinked, when did he start smoking?
He walked closer and settled down next to him, confusion laced in black voids. “What are we doing here Techno?” He mumbled, now starting to grow irritated, why was he so uncaring? School started like- nearly half an hour ago and Techno had grabbed fucking coffee then gone to a park?
“I know about the drugs.” He hummed, and Tommy- well he froze up. Staring at Techno who looked as though he had just answered a simple maths question, his eyes more focused on the small line of smoke slipping from his lips into the air, he took another small suck and leaned back in his chair. “I know what you’re doing Tommy, Alexis tells me everything.”
Quietly, Tommy shat on Alexis, the guy was his best friend and best dealer, a favourite of his. The boy knew Tommy more than anyone else, and knew what oils his gears and loosens him up. He knew when Tommy’s mind was too loud, when it needed to turned off and when he needed to shut up and smoke.
He never charged Tommy for the smokes, he never charged Tommy for anything he sold to the blonde. Alexis was more than happy to just sit down in the back of the school grounds and get high with Tommy, talk shit about everyone and everything. Tommy trusted him with his life.
He had a few choice words for the Hispanic boy.
“He’s worried, so am I.” The pink haired male flicked the ash away and leaned back.
Tommy stared, unable to process this information, “you...Worried?” He stares, a flame of anger licking at his stomach.
Techno looked to him, “I know what you’re thinking. I’m a shitty brother, first.” He held a hand up as Tommy snickered, “I struggle with my own emotions. I’m going to therapy to understand my emotions.” And Tommy paused.
How similar were they really? Were there that many differences? Tommy looked at his elder brother, and suddenly, he saw himself, he saw what he would have been, he saw who he was becoming, a shell of himself. His eyes fell to the ground, tears welling in his eyes, desperately he started to claw at his wrists, trying to ground himself down.
He and Techno weren’t so different after all, and Tommy didn’t know if that hurt him, or made him feel- better.
All he knew was that he was scared, he was filled with fear and just sat there, staring at his brother, scratching at his arm roughly, fearing.
“Please. Can- Can we go home?” He whispered, shaking violently as he tugged at the hoodie that once held comfort and warmth, was now becoming a painful reminder of today, of the eyes his brother had given him, the pain he was going through. He was gonna throw up.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to claw at something, anything, to ground him. Near sobs escaped his lips as he gripped at his hoodie. Emeralds and rubies surrounded him, and gently, his hand moved to trace along the stars that were drawn, faded now, but they were there, they were rough and large, each one covering the flesh around his wrist and up his arm, he tried to focus on the strokes, tried to remember the cold brush tip across his skin, the smiles they shared.
Techno’s fingers tangled into Tommy’s, and their eyes met.
Tommy watched him, Techno didn’t look anger, or hurt, he looked concerned, worried for him, and Tommy just suddenly couldn’t stop, he moved and hugged him, burying his face into the other’s chest, and he sobbed.
And it was comforting, feeling strong arms wrap around him, holding him close. It was everything he wanted and more from a hug. Techno’s scent was warm and strong. He melted into the scent, and he let himself fall down.
He felt safe, for once. Tommy quietly hoped that it never ended.
Tommy didn’t go to school that day.