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“daaaaddd” tommy whines, protesting as his father recited to him what the doctor had said.
“i know bud, but you’re gonna fuck up your ribs even more if you do”
in his dads defense, wilbur did seem genuinely sympathetic around the topic.
“i can’t just- not wear my binder for two fucking months!” tommy yells.
to say he’s pissed would be an understatement. he’s so fucking mad. two months.
two.
months.
that’s so long. he’s gonna have to keep it off and deal with his chest for two fucking months.
his dad winces at the yelling, recoiling into himself a bit.
tommy realizes his mistake later than he would like to admit.
“shit- sorry- i didn’t mean-“
wilbur shushes him, and he falls silent, wincing.
“tommy, it’s fine. i get it, but you can’t wear it.”
the boy groans, turning around and storming back to his room.
and while he’s tempted, he doesn’t slam the door. he knows what loud noises do to wilbur.
~~~
“lily- look lily im sorry-“
a younger tommy stands in front of his father, looking up at the man. he’s about age 9 right now, if he could guess.
he’s mad that he can’t go to the movies with ranboo and tubbo. both of his friends are going! to get slushies and do fun stuff that kids do, tommy doesn’t remember their exact plan now, years in the future.
wilbur’s busy the day that it’s planned, his music having not taken off yet and working three jobs. he can’t drive tommy, and he had already asked if anyone else could.
tommy’s crying, he remembers. he didn’t want to miss something with his friends. in his mind, of a small child, it would simply be the end of the world if he had.
tommy’s eyes scan the room, and in his anger he settles on the first thing that he sees, a kitchen chair.
he pushes on the chair, running off to his room and slamming the door. he isn’t there to watch the chair fall, but as he’s running off he hears it crash to the ground.
when he looks back on it now he thinks he can hear wilbur’s sharp intake of breath, and the step back that he takes, but in the moment tommy had been blinded by a small child’s rage.
when he exits his room a few hours later wilbur is nowhere in sight, and the chair is still fallen over on the ground.
he failed to find his dad when checking through the entire house, excluding the bathroom, door locked.
he calls his uncle, technoblade, crying yet again. blubbering on about how he pushed the chair, and made his daddy mad, and now he can’t find him.
technoblade had picked up the situation quickly, driving to the house and staying with tommy for a few days while he helped wilbur get back to…normal.
~~~
tommy doesn’t remember much after that, but he definitely got his first “wilbur had a bit of a fucked up childhood so no loud noises like, ever.” talk from technoblade. he still hasn’t gotten elaboration on that, but he can infer.
so, in short, he doesn’t slam the door. but he does slam himself into his bed face first and groan.
the thing is that wilbur doesn’t get it. wilbur isn’t trans, he doesn’t know how it feels.
tommy knows that his dad tries of course. but the man doesn’t know how it feels, and he never will. that’s something tommy accepted a long time ago, unfortunately.
he considers calling his aunt kristen, since she’s trans. he’s sure that she’d understand his struggle.
alas, he doesn’t have it in himself to talk to people right now.
so he turns on an alex g album (his favorite, rules.) and he cries.
getting your ass beat in the halls, apparently, doesn’t do great on your reputation.
tommy has been out of school for the past two weeks, as that’s the most the doctor could give him a note for.
in his humble opinion, that is complete bullshit. but his opinion isn’t exactly the most humble of them.
but now he has to go back to the absolute hell that is called school, and he is not feeling very fucking whimsical about it.
all day he’s been getting sneers in the hall, shoulder checks with an added “hey, lily.”
when ranboo and tubbo have the same class as him they’ll usually surround him in a protective way, but that’s far and few between.
safe to say, tommy’s having a shit time. he doesn’t even know how everyone found out about all the stupid lily shit- even the kids that beat him up! there shouldn’t even be a legal document left with that shit. how do a bunch of 14 year olds get a hold of this??
tommy will never know. and if he’s quite honest he isn’t sure he wants to.
he scowls when he gets a “tranny” murmured as he walks by. what is this? a 90s high school movie?
he adjusts his backpack, pulling the straps taught against his shoulders, and continues walking. he can deal with some not-so-subtle transphobia. Wilbur didn’t raise no bitch.
he’s at his last class of the day anyways, he only has an hour and a half left of math before he can get the fuck out of this building.
he pushes the classroom door open, shuffling to the back of the classroom. he sets his things down at his desk and pulls a pencil out of his bag.
unfortunately this is yet another class without tubbo and ranboo to accompany him.
if there is a god, tommy is convinced they’re targeting him.
the class is easy enough, hes never been too good at math but it could always be worse he supposes, there’s no tests or quizzes today and no one has fucked with him mid class.
math isn’t when his day goes wrong.
it’s when he goes home that the news is broken.
tommy, if he’s honest, was - is - horrified of what happened to the bullies. the fate that they suffered. they had been murdered.
they had been murdered, in cold blood. only a few hours after the whole ordeal. from what the news said, it hadn’t even been a peaceful death. the injuries were countless, honestly. a broken ankle on one kid, a bashed in face, a missing eye, broken ribs, scalps torn off.
the photos were fucking vile.
a part of tommy, one of the parts he chooses to ignore most of the time, roars up at the news. they had gotten what they deserved. they had felt the pain that he had. vile, yes, but it isn’t like they didn’t deserve it.
he’s too tired to reason with himself.
tommy came to his dad after seeing it. he didn’t know what to do, and he doubted wilbur would as well, but…he didn’t know where else to go. his was was the only person he could trust to understand.
so, here he is. knocking on his fathers bedroom door at 9:28pm, in an oversized red hoodie and pajama pants.
it of course doesn’t take wilbur more than a moment to open the door, hair looking a little frazzled and sticking up in front of his face.
he looks really confused, honestly - but his face changes when he takes in tommy’s appearance.
“toms?” he questions, soft as ever.
tommy doesn’t know where to begin. so, he starts blunt. a decision he makes quite often.
“have you seen the news?”
wilbur pauses, an expression crossing over his face, akin to near anger. it’s only there for a moment, and then his face shifts to a somber look.
“yes, yes i have.” he replies.
tommy says nothing.
wilbur doesn’t continue.
they stare at each other, not for long, before tommy’s tipping forwards and letting himself fall into wilbur’s chest.
his dad wraps his arms around him, pulling him closer.
the man shuffles them further into the room and takes one of his arms off of tommy to pus the door closed.
his arm returns momentarily, and he leads tommy to the bed, pushing his son to sit down.
tommy wraps his arms around himself, self soothing. those images were horrrifying- how was it even legal to show those on tv? it couldn’t be within law. there had to be something against the amount of gore that that was.
what if someone took reference from it?
wilbur kneels down in front of tommy on the bed, resting his hands on his sons knees.
“that was probably a lot to see, huh bud?”
tommy nods, holding himself tighter. he shouldn’t…be feeling like this. he shouldn’t like that people died. it’s disgusting what happened but…
they deserved it.
he can’t bring himself to be upset, and gods he wishes he could.
wilbur sighs, mumbling something under his breath that tommy doesn’t bother to decipher.
the man sits on the bed next to him, before tugging tommy down with him to rest on his chest.
tommy yelps, hitting wilbur in the face in the process. wilbur screams.
——————————————————
“technoblade” wilbur hisses as his brother picks up the phone.
a few things shuffle on the other side.
“what, wilbur.” the voice comes out annoyed, but wilbur knows better than to believe the tone.
probably.
tommy stirs on his chest, so he waits a moment before replying to his brother.
he’s pissed off.
“tommy saw the news” he says, and the shuffling noise stops.
techno breathes in, the phone picking it up.
wilbur relates. what are they supposed to do about this?
“like…the news news?” he asks
wilbur ignores the urge to groan. it would only wake tommy up, and this is the literal last conversation his son needs to hear.
“yes the fucking ‘news news’” wilbur replies. what other news?? he thinks. the fucking presidential elections that won’t take place for another three years??
techno curses.
they’re both silent for a moment.
wilbur wonders what tommy felt - the boy fell asleep before he was really able to question him about it. his son honestly couldn’t hurt a fly, how horrified was the boy? did he wonder if he could’ve stopped it? or was he remorseful? did he blame himself. oh god. if so wilbur would have to talk to him about that.
he knows that they showed the full footage, uncensored gore on tv.
wilbur wishes they wouldn’t have shown that. it definitely could affect sound a young teenagers mind, wilbur would know, and he doesn’t want tommy to have that burned into his mind.
he sighs. he will be filing a complaint to the news stations.
“well…what did he say?” techno asks.
“not much. just kinda came to me and had a mini mental breakdown and fell asleep.”
wilbur snorted.
“i’d say he’s adorable like this, but he might just resurrect from sleep to yell at me.”
techno laughs on the other side of the line, an agreement in itself.
when the man is done, wilbur begins his questioning.
“so, they haven’t found you did it yet.”
techno confirms wirh a grunt.
“and they won’t trail it back to tommy?”
it’s a genuine concern of his. the kids were fairly linked towards tommy, and the murder was literally the same day of the incident. it wouldn’t take a genius to add up something wrong.
“i mean…”
his twin begins.
“they shouldn’t. while it would be easy to trail back to him, he has literally no charges ever. he’s a great kid and it wouldn’t take much to show them that.”
wilbur snorts.
“he’s so much different from us when we were his age.”
techno chuckles.
“you tell me. but we also had a kill count that would make even the government go pale, so.”
“…good point”
they both talk for a little longer, before saying their goodbyes and hanging up.
wilbur falls asleep soon after, lulled by tommy’s breathing.
he hadn’t noticed tommy’s fluttering eyes, or the listening ear he had on the conversation.
he hadn’t noticed tommy wake up, or hear technoblades voice.
he hadn’t noticed tommy’s wide eyes when he had closed his own.