Chapter Text
So, Tommy did not want to die.
He’d decided that at some point and was trying to live by it, literally. Problem was, he didn’t… actively want to live, either. The thought of the future, of continuing to exist in his small empty apartment, barely able to support himself, made him want to curl into a ball and never come back out.
Nevertheless, when he heard a potential axe-murderer sneak through the front door, his survival instincts kicked in.
Not that it did him any good, since he was still a miserable little puddle of germs on the floor, but at least he tried to shuffle away from the door. The effort was there.
Only, maybe his condition was much more severe than he had assumed. Because suddenly, there was a person standing in front of him. And though he flinched back on instinct, hiding his face between his arms, he still had time to see them. And it couldn’t be, it just…
But it was, because Phil, as in, his old foster dad Phil, stepped into the room, looking frazzled.
“Oh, Toms,” he said, so soft, like Tommy was still his kid. Like he didn’t hate him.
Tommy whined in fear. Was he hallucinating? His heart was pounding twice as fast as his head, and a pressure behind his eyes made keeping focus difficult. He just closed them.
It couldn’t have been a dream. The bathroom tiles were much too cold.
“Shhh, it’s gonna be okay. Can you hear me?”
Tommy… Tommy had things to say to Phil. Whether he was real or not.
“Phil?”
“Yes, it’s me Toms. You called me, remember? I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see me, but you sounded very out of it, and-”
Tommy had, somewhere in his drawer, two letters. Written with his neatest handwriting on paper crinkled from being handled over and over. It didn’t matter, though, because he never intended to send them. They were just there so that he wouldn’t forget.
Tommy had never felt like more of a coward, then when he blocked Phil and Wilbur’s numbers. They deserved an apology, an explanation, or a chance to yell at him, whichever they’d prefer. But Tommy… just couldn’t handle that. He thought, maybe it would break him. (They wouldn’t want anything to do with him, now, anyway.)
So, he’d written it all out. Everything he did wrong, so that even if he was too much of a coward to own up to it in person, he would have confronted it.
With how slow and sluggish his mind felt, Tommy wished he had the letter right now.
He folded his knees into his chest, his gaze fixated on the floor because Phil had very intense eyes. He still had to scoot closer to catch Tommy’s meek whisper.
“M’sorry.”
“Oh,” Phil breathed. “Tommy, you don’t have to be sorry, at all. I promise.”
“But I am,” Tommy swallowed around the lump in his throat.
In the silence that followed, he made the mistake of looking up. Afraid to see hatred or disdain in those eyes that used to hold only love.
He shouldn’t have. Phil was looking at him, with the same pain he had shown back then. Back when Tommy hadn’t been able to see it.
“It was no one’s fault,” he said, once again.
“DON’T YOU LIE TO ME!”
Tommy was seething. The pounding of his heart resonated within his temples like a war drum, every muscle strung as he grabbed his backpack and threw the bedroom door open. Phil flinched back, clearly not expecting this reaction after ten minutes of talking to a wall.
“You did this!”
“I tried everything, Tommy,” Phil pleaded. Even the tears in his eyes, so wrong when Phil had only ever been strong, couldn’t penetrate the wall of ire that Tommy had surrounded himself with. “It’s out of my hands…”
And wouldn’t that be a tragedy? Losing his best house and only home, through no fault of his own? Anger was so much easier.
“You were just waiting for an excuse to throw me out!” he claimed, breathing on the fire in his chest.
“I’d do anything to keep you, Tommy, but I’m just not allowed, until my financial situation gets-”
“I don’t care if you lost your stupid job!”
“Toms…” Wilbur said, approaching cautiously. His eyes were red, too. Great, join the club. Misery loves company. “I get that you’re hurt, but dad can’t-”
“Shut UP! You’re the one who gets to stay!”
Tommy’s breaths echoed loudly in the silence that followed. His mind buzzed with a dozen emotions, barely leaving any place for thought. When he caught movement, he reacted on instinct.
And hit Phil’s arm as hard as he could.
Tears prickled at his eyes, as his mountain of rage crumbled like a house of cards, burying him deep in the rubble. Trembling, he grabbed his backpack and surged forward. Viciously, like a twisting of the knife, he convinced himself that Phil moving out of his way was a flinch. He’d deserve it.
He was almost at the front door when a voice stopped him.
“Tommy, I love you, no matter what.” He was turned away. They didn’t see when his lips wobbled.
“If you really cared, you wouldn’t be sending me back.”
The door closed with an echo of finality.
He never got to know whether Phil got “acts of verbal and physical violence” added to his file. He refused to get placed again, even if it meant an overcrowded room in the group home and never talking to anyone. Any foster parents would feel like torture, now. Because they weren’t Phil and Wilbur.
No one would ever be.
⋅ ⋅ ✧ ⋅ ⋅
Tommy was sobbing in earnest now.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, again and again, in a litany. “I shouldn’t have hit you, I shouldn’t have yelled…”
“Shhh…”
Phil was crouching a little way away, as if trying not to spook a small wild animal (the comparison didn’t feel completely off). At the same time, he was leaning forward, his eyes taking Tommy in like he’d never seen him before, like nothing could’ve got him to pull away.
Slow and careful, he raised his arms in a question. And there wasn’t an illness in this world, terrible enough to keep Tommy from surging forward.
Phil caught him, just as easily as he always had. Gently enough not to jostle Tommy’s shaky stomach or his achy head, he pulled the boy closer to his lap, until blond curls were resting against his collarbone. His sweater was soft where his arms wrapped around Tommy’s shoulders, and he reached carefully around the man’s sides to fist his hands in it.
His weight supported, lying comfortably for the first time since he stood up from the couch, Tommy let himself hang against his ex-foster dad. When a careful hand rubbed at his back, he only cried harder.
Time passed like this. Tommy couldn’t have known how much. His head was clearing slowly, but he wasn’t eager to make use of any of that newfound consciousness. Everything was scary and complicated, everything but being buried in Phil’s arms like a little kid.
When Phil eventually spoke up, it was softly, even with how close his mouth was to Tommy’s ear.
“Tommy, can you look at me?”
Slowly, reluctantly, he moved to oblige. Every inch of space between them felt like a chasm, even with his hands still buried in the soft old coat, as he raised guilty, wet eyes toward Phil.
Who looked just as bad, though. He cupped Tommy’s cheek.
“I don’t care about any of that, okay? I was never angry at you, even for one second.”
“But…”
Phil waited, but words were failing Tommy. After a bit of silence, he pushed on. “You had every right to be scared, and sad, and yes, angry. Of course you did, what happened was unfair and hurt you.”
“But I didn’t mean it,” Tommy choked. Now that he had apologized, it was the most important thing. Phil had to know. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Or yours,” Phil said, firmly.
The sobs had subsided by then, even though Tommy’s breathing remained sharp and quick. Feeling more exhausted than he’d ever been in his life, he rested his head against Phil’s heart again.
“I love you too,” he whispered.
The embrace tightened in response.
Despite his headache and various muscle pains, Tommy was perfectly fine with staying like this for at least a few more hours. Unfortunately, Phil seemed to have other plans in mind.
Tommy scrunched up his nose when a palm settled on his forehead.
“You definitely have a fever… Did you throw up?” Tommy nodded. “Okay, I’m going to get you some water now, is that alright?”
“You don’t have to,” he mumbled. Phil had been generous enough to forgive him, and now he had to take care of Tommy because he was so useless.
“I always want to help you, Tommy,” he said, because making the teenager cry was apparently on today’s agenda. He uncurled his fingers from Phil’s coat, as he was guided to lean against the wall. Before leaving, Phil removed said coat and draped it around his shoulders. Once he’d left the room, Tommy hiccupped and snuggled into it.
Phil was efficient when he wanted to be, and barely a few seconds later, a glass of water and a bucket were being held up to him. Getting the taste of vomit out of his mouth felt heavenly, and when he was done, he took a few careful sips. Feeling like a baby but too exhausted to mind, he let Phil wipe his face. Being picked up was a bit much, though.
“I can walk,” he protested, wiggling in the hold.
“Why?” Phil asked, a smile evident in his voice.
“Bi’ch,” Tommy mumbled, prompting a laugh.
The walk through Tommy’s apartment was quick, which was consistent with the size of it. Tommy still found the time to duck his reddened face into Phil’s shoulder, mortified at how messy and dirty the place was. He was supposed to be an adult, and yet he couldn’t keep a 2 ½ clean, for fuck’s sake. Phil wouldn’t say anything, he was too nice for that, but god, he must be judging Tommy.
“Kid, you’re skin and bones…”
He was deposited carefully on his bed, a box spring set on the floor. The bedding was cold, and even with the coat, he was shivering pretty much as soon as Phil’s arms released him to wrap him up. It seemed he was back in the cold phase of his fever.
Seeing Phil bring a familiar blue repurposed lunch box in the room made his heart twist once again. He really thought he’d never get to see the Craft’s med kit again.
“How did you get here?” he asked, nose barely poking out of the blanket. He phoned Techno, didn’t he?
“You called me, but you were pretty out of it,” Phil explained, taking a thermometer out of the box. “You thought I was someone named ‘Tech.’”
“Shit,” Tommy cursed. “I still haven’t called off work.”
“I can text your friend for you,” Phil assured. “Here.”
When it became obvious that Tommy’s fever wasn’t mild by any means (as if him accidentally calling his ex-foster dad wasn’t already a confirmation) he was fed two extra strength tylenols and a spoonful of cough syrup, after which Tommy made a quick and tactical retreat under the bedsheet.
“Do you have any more blankets?” Phil asked, taking in the room. When Tommy shook his head, he grabbed a bunch of clothes from a drawer and set on laying them on the bed.
From under his pile of coats, blankets, and clothes, he watched Phil pull out his phone to type something, then do the same with Tommy’s. The relief of lying on something soft, mixed with the emotional fatigue of the last half hour made quick work of what was left of Tommy’s awareness.
⋅ ⋅ ✧ ⋅ ⋅
Tommy’s neighbors were talking again.
…
“No, I’m asking you-”
Okay, the apartment walls were thin, but not that much.
Tommy pushed his face from his pillow, rubbing the sleep off of his eyes. A ray of light came from his bedroom door, left ajar, and in an instant he remembered.
There was a whole ass ex-foster parent in his house!
Tommy fought off the mound of clothes on his bed, attempting to stand up, but the sharp movements immediately proved to be a bad idea, when nausea came back in full force.
He grabbed the bucket sitting next to the bed (Phil must’ve brought it when he was asleep) and promptly threw up again.
Fuck, he forgot how awful this felt. Hunched over, he shivered violently, throat spasming.
“Tommy!”
The conversation had stopped abruptly, and the door opened to reveal Phil rushing to his side.
“Oh no… Are you okay?”
Tommy threw up again before he could answer, and felt more than he saw Phil kneel next to him, rubbing his back. The feeling sent tears to his eyes.
Until Phil said, “Oh, and your friend is here!” and Tommy promptly forgot about his heartaches.
“My who?”
“Hullo.”
And, okay, maybe Tommy was still. Slightly fever-delirious.
“Phil,” he whispered. “Why is there an entire Technoblade standing in my room?”
“Your full name is ‘Technoblade’?” Phil asked, turning around.
“Maybe,” Technoblade said evasively.
In fact, between his narrowed eyes and the stiff way he was carrying himself, he seemed on guard. Which was not something Tommy ever wanted to have to deal with. Especially not now.
“How’d you get here? I thought I didn’t call you?”
“When I texted him that you were gonna have to miss work, he insisted on coming,” Phil explained, handing Tommy another glass of water.
“And you gave him my address?” Tommy felt disgusting, but not enough to not raise his eyebrows and make a face at Techno.
“No, he just said he was coming.”
“Techno, you don’t have my address.”
“Don’t worry about it.” And wouldn’t that be nice? Lying back down without a care in the world… “Tommy, how do you know this guy?” There it was.
“Phil is… uh… He used to foster me.” That didn’t even begin to cover it, but Tommy wasn’t about to unroll the whole tragic backstory.
“I see,” Techno said, his eyes narrowing even further, if possible. He moved to place himself between Tommy and Phil, with absolutely no kind of subtlety, because he was a tall fucker, and very little success since Phil was already sitting as close as possible to the teen. Phil still managed not to notice anything going on, he was busy looking at Tommy all misty-eyed. What did get his attention were Techno’s next words.
“Well, very nice of you to stop by, but I’ve got him now.”
“Excuse me?”
“I also called off work, so I’ll be free tomorrow to-”
“But your attendance!” Tommy worried.
“Fuck the attendance,” Techno said with enough contempt to make Tommy shiver, “and fuck this job. You’re more important.”
“I will not be leaving,” Phil said indignantly, one arm wrapping protectively around Tommy.
“Listen, I don’t know everything that happened, because Tommy’s more guarded than a clam…”
“I still don’t know how the hell you managed to find this place.”
“... But since you used to foster him, and he’s been on his own for months now, clearly you did leave him, at some point.”
Tommy’s mouth gaped. Phil was turned away from him, but he could feel him tensing up. Techno looked on, unflinching. Fuck, he must be assuming the worst. Tommy knew opening up about some of his ‘less good’ fosters was a bad idea, but it wasn’t like he could’ve anticipated that.
For better or for worse, though, the tension was broken by the sound of Tommy’s front door opening yet again, and Tommy’s night officially graduated from ‘fucking weird’ to ‘unbelievable’, because now Wilburwas rushing in his bedroom.
“TOMMY!”
He slid across the room, almost tripped on the first aid kit, and barreled in the middle of Phil and Techno’s staring contest. As soon as he was in front of Tommy, his hast turned into worry, hands fluttering in the air around him almost as fast as his words.
“Tommy, oh god, I’m so sorry about everything, we wanted to get you back so bad but your social worker kept going on about how it ‘wouldn’t be good’ for you – are you okay, you look pale? – and your phone number didn’t work but we- Umph.”
Tommy’s head was still very much hurting, even after two tylenols, but that sure as hell wasn’t enough to keep him from butting it into Wilbur’s shoulder, several times.
“What,” bonk, “the fuck,” bonk, “are you also doing-”
“Well, what are you doing here?!” Wilbur rudely interrupted him. “We looked everywhere; you were supposed to come back!”
“Says who? I hit Phil, Wilbur!”
“It’s just Phil, he can take it,” he brushed off, like it was that easy. Maybe it was.
“Do they often fight while also hugging?” Techno asked awkwardly. Tommy couldn’t see him from where Wilbur was folded around him like a particularly persistent octopus, but he seemed to have stopped glaring.
“Well, yeah,” Phil answered. “They get sad when they fight.”
“Oh, hey Techno,” Wilbur extracted his face from Tommy’s curls (good move, they were greasy) to say. Tommy went to bonk him again, for stopping from giving him attention, but then he caught on.
“You two know each other?” he asked.
“So, his name really is Techno?” Phil said at the same time.
“Yeah, we played in the same orchestra! Techno was first chair violin!”
“You play the violin?” Tommy asked again, wiggling in Wilbur’s hold to look at Techno.
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Classic Techno!”
“Don’t say that.”
“Wilbur,” Phil interrupted, despite the smile in his voice, “did you bring what I asked you to?”
“Of course I did, d’you think I’m incompetent?”
“I mean…”
“Shut up, ‘the Blade.’”
“That’s an old nickname, that is not current!”
Lulled by the sweet sound of bickering, Tommy started nodding off on Wilbur’s shoulder, and would’ve certainly fell into unconsciousness for the third time is it hadn’t been for Phil coming back in the room, hauling a worryingly huge box.
“Alright, you two, break it off,” he called out. “Since we will be staying,” (he sent a pointed look to Techno) “Wilbur, you can find somewhere to plug the electric blanket, and I’ll go heat up some broth for when you feel okay to eat again, Tommy. In the meantime, I have some pedialyte here…”
“Wait,” Tommy said, starting to feel overwhelmed.
“I’ll go get a glass,” Techno offered.
Wilbur was standing over his bed, the ugliest, most beige blanket Tommy had ever seen in his hands. “Okay, Toms, I’m gonna remove the clothes just long enough to get the heated blanket in there. It’s gonna get toasty!”
“But-”
“I brought your favorite,” Phil said, showing him a contained of frozen broth.
Tommy’s heartbeat was climbing back up. He wasn’t sure why, his emotions had been jumbled and confused for hours now, but looking at the three of them moving around in his apartment made anxiety bubble up in his chest.
It was Wilbur who eventually noticed his wide eyes and trembling hand gripping Phil’s coat where it lay over his shoulder. “Tommy, are you okay?” he asked, kneeling at his bedside.
And Tommy didn’t want him to be asking, not with that soft voice and deep worry. And the more he tried to rationalize what he was feeling, the dumber and more emotive he felt. Because he didn’t want Phil, Techno and Wilbur to be here, doing everything for him. Just looking at all the stuff they had brought him (there was a stuffed moth poking out of Phil’s bag that looked suspiciously like his old toy Clementine) made his heart twist painfully in guilt. But at the same time, just the thought of still being sat in his bathroom, feverish, nauseous and shivering in the cold, with no one to hear him sob, was enough to make his lips wobble.
“Oh, Toms,” Wilbur said, reaching forward. Despite his reluctance, Tommy couldn’t resist falling into his arms once again. He wasn’t strong enough.
“I’m so- sorry,” he hiccupped.
“I’ll say it as many times as I need to,” Wilbur said, rubbing circles into his back. “You never needed to be forgiven. There wasn’t a single second where we were angry at you. Just sad.”
“It’s not that,” Tommy mumbled.
“What is it, then?” Techno asked, pouring neon blue pedialyte into one of Tommy’s scratched up plastic glass. Because he was a dumb little kid that couldn’t handle real glass, he thought miserably.
Wilbur moved away to allow him to drink, but his hand was still warm on Tommy’s back. At Techno’s suggestion, he only took a few little sips, in case his stomach decided to rebel once again.
“We’re here to help you,” Wilbur reminded. “Whatever’s the matter, we’ll try to help.”
“I know, that’s the problem,” Tommy admitted.
“What do you mean?” Techno asked. It was kind of weird, seeing him hunched over like that, every shred of his attention on Tommy, instead of talking over the noise of the warehouse, eyes on some packaging. “If we’re doing something you don’t like, you can tell us.”
“I just feel bad…” he whined into Wilbur’s chest.
“Well, yeah,” Techno said, “you’re pretty sick. Ouch!”
“Please disregard the sack of potatoes.” Wilbur had to move out of the way of Techno retaliating in punching his shoulder. “You don’t have to feel bad.”
“He’s right,” Phil said, re-entering the tiny room. He sat in front of the three, looking like less of a mess than when he had arrived. Seeing him, calm and reliable old Phil, soothed a part of Tommy he wasn’t even aware of. Phil would take care of it, a childish voice said in his mind. Whatever the problem was, he could just ask Phil.
He shook his head, tears springing up to his eyes again. Crying would only make his throat, head and eyes hurt more, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“But you shouldn’t have to help me,” he said lamely. “I’m capable, I don’t need someone holding my hand!”
“We all do, Tommy,” Phil said, “it’s part of being human.” But once Tommy started talking, the words fell freely.
“I was supposed to be self-sufficient, my social worker k- kept saying that I was strong, because I could take care of myself, but, but I never have time to buy groceries and my apartment’s disgusting and I’m just a fuck-up and so tired, all the time…”
There was a chorus of protests and objections, albeit soft and well intended, but it didn’t matter, because Techno cut right through it. “Tommy. I need you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that your old social worker sounds like the dumbest, most brain-dead excuse for a man I have ever had the misfortune of fucking hearing about.”
Tommy blinked up in surprise, because Techno never swore, only to cross the man’s gaze and get stuck in its intensity.
“Humans, support each other. That’s what we do. That’s our whole thing! We evolved to be social, help one another, watch over each other. Babies are born completely helpless, and the fact that they need help developing isn’t a bug, it’s a feature!”
“I’m not a baby, though,” Tommy muttered.
While Phil mumbled something that sounded a suspicious amount to a tearful, “You’ll always be my baby…” Wilbur was adding on:
“He’s not just talking about young children… You’re never too old for deserving help.”
Techno was nodding on, and he was now fully in Technorant mode.
“Humans have evolved for over ten thousand years, to make societies and collaborate, to watch each other’s back. The strongest people are never the ones who can do everything alone, and never need, or give, help. Because, as cheesy as it sounds, we’re always stronger together.”
A small silence followed this tirade. Thankfully, Tommy has stopped crying now, and he narrowed his puffy eyes.
“… You’re basically a hermit, Techno.”
Wilbur giggled, and Phil smiled. It helped make the moment feel less intense, and Tommy could even muster a small smile when Techno mumbled: “My point still stands.”
“They’re right, darling,” Phil agreed. “I know your old social worker had… specific… views of society, and I guess some people live by them. But you are not, and will never be weak for needing our support. You can still be a strong, brave teenager while relying on some help.”
Tommy fidgeted. Immediately accepting that they were correct felt wrong, even now, but he wasn’t stubborn enough to straight up deny it.
“I guess, living alone is… A lot of work. And it makes more sense to split it. But you’re all busy, and knowing me, I’ll be sick all week…”
Phil was already opening his mouth, that soft expression on his face, but Wilbur was faster.
“Youshould movebackin!”
“Wah-”
“Wilbur, don’t rush him,” Phil chided.
“Dad’s not fostering anyone right now, and your room is still there! And you could keep working from our house, and Dad will make your favorite food, and-”
“How about,” Phil interrupted, smiling, “just so we can take care of you, and when you’re feeling better, we’ll see what’s next?”
“You’d be okay with that?” Tommy asked faintly, a tiny flame of hope in his heart quickly and brightly filling his whole chest with warmth.
And Wilbur said, we missed you.
And Techno said, you don’t have to face anything alone.
And Phil said, come back to us.
And he did.