Chapter Text
Even before he threw up, Tommy’s night wasn’t going very well.
The back of his cupboard, by now a usual sight, looked blankly back at him as he sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. This time, he probably had money to buy groceries (he usually put off looking at his bank balance, because just the thought brought his anxiety through the roof), but he lacked the energy. He was freshly back from a ten-hour shift, and even just standing in front of the cupboard made his legs shake.
The closest supermarket was only down the block, but it was closed at this hour. The closest convenience store might as well have been on the moon, with how much Tommy didn’t feel like walking all the way there, and back, carrying heavy bags. Even if he tried, he’d probably end up collapsing on the pavement somewhere. Maybe he’d get murdered.
He sighed a second time and closed the cabinet door. He had an old, smushed granola bar that he’d been hoping to save for an emergency, but with the way hunger tore at him, he simply didn’t have the willpower to leave it alone.
He let his legs give out, collapsing on the sofa in a move that squeezed a bit more stuffing out of it. The old fabric was covered in stains that he never bothered to clean, and his landlord always frowned at it in disgust when she inspected the apartment, but he simply curled up on the cleanest part and munched on his dinner.
Back when he had applied at ship.co, seeing the work hours he had imagined that, even with the chores that came with living on his own, he would have at least a few hours per day of free time. Sure, he didn’t have a TV and the ancient computer one of his ex-foster families had let him keep didn’t support any game more advanced than minesweepers, but there was a park down the street, and a canal a little way away, and he could always buy some cheap paper and try to learn how to draw, or something. Tommy was a champion at finding low-budget ways to entertain himself.
Fast forward a few months, and he was putting off enough chores that just thinking about it made him want to cry. His clothes were dirty, the apartment was dirty, he had to replace his stolen bike tire, and go pick up his high school diploma because they didn’t have an address for him, and buy curtains so that the sun would stop waking him up at five am, and throw away the moldy vegetables he paid so much money for only to forget, and then the groceries…
“I know you’ll handle this well,” his old social worker had said, with a hand on his shoulder that had him tensing up. “You don’t need someone holding your hand, you’re a resourceful kid, Tommy. Or, should I say, adult! Happy birthday, by the way.”
Tommy had spent months in shame, thinking at least he won’t see me like this. At least he still thinks I’m capable. Now he almost wished he could.
And it wasn’t his fault! He meant to do all those things, he really did! He wasn’t procrastinating because he was lazy or irresponsible, he was just…
Just tired.
He spent hours a day at the warehouse, running around and assembling orders as correctly and as fast as he could, and when his commute home was done, he barely had the energy to go buy food or cook before collapsing on his mattress.
Maybe tonight, he thought idly, he could at least catch a bit more shut-eye. If he managed to fall asleep before his stomach realized that no more food was coming.
And, oh. Oh no.
His sentimental, starved, idiotic brain had decided that what he really needed on this evening, sitting in the dark on his stained couch, eating a stale granola bar, was to think about Phil’s cooking.
His mind conjured a perfect image of Phil’s parmigiana chicken, golden and crispy underneath the cheese, with pasta covered in tomato sauce and those tiny plump mushrooms, and he could almost feel it on his tongue when he realized what he was doing and abruptly closed the lid on the blossoming thought.
He grinded his teeth and forced himself to think about something else, like birds, or music, like… No, not Wilbur’s songs.
He didn’t have a right to enjoy Wilbur’s song, or to think about Phil’s cooking. Not after what he did.
Tommy stood up abruptly. The empty wrapper fluttered from his lap to the floor, and Tommy felt terrible – he really needed to clean up, the room was disgusting – but he just… Couldn’t get himself to lean down and pick it up. His brain refused.
His lip wobbled. His eyes clouded. How fucking pathetic was he, standing there alone and crying because of a wrapper? He brought a hand to his mouth and sobbed into it, faint and muffled in the empty room.
The first few symptoms, Tommy wrote down as anxiety.
He knew he had it, the foster system’s in-house therapist – an overworked, underpaid woman with a tired smile and split-dyed hair – had written it in his file and gave him advice on how to keep it down to manageable levels. She had also said that sometimes, the only thing that really worked was acting on the source of the stress.
So much for that.
So, hands shaky as he washed them? Anxiety.
Shivers, sudden need to put on a jacket or five? Tired.
Headache? He was dehydrated.
Stomach rolling? Yeah, nausea was a common symptom of hunger. Make it make sense…
It was only when he was lifting a toothbrush to his mouth that he realized something was off. More specifically him.
Why was his mouth filling up with saliva?
His stomach rolled, and he barely had time to fall to his knees in front of the toilet before throwing up.
The retches shook painfully through him, and a sob came with the second one. The bile burned his throat, and the tiles were so unbearably cold under his knees, and he just wanted it all to stop-
Tommy stayed hunched over the toilet, shaking in a mix of gagging and sobbing, for what felt like hours. He sat there, his dumb little heart wishing so desperately that someone could be there to rub his back and bring him water, enough to make him sob harder. He didn’t need help but he just…
His old social worker used to have a lot to say about natural selection.
“I know sometimes it’s tempting to envy those other kids,” he said, one time he went to pick Tommy up at school. Next to them, a woman stepped out of her car, opening her arms as her children raced to her, yelling something about a grade. “But you’re better than them. You’re stronger. You know why?”
“Because I can take care of myself,” he answered mechanically.
“That’s real strength, right there. If it was natural selection, you’d outdo them all. Because you don’t need someone holding your hand.”
Which was partly why, pulling out his phone, he felt particularly pathetic.
Now, he still had a few sick days, because even though his immune system was abysmal and his apartment always cold and humid, he was careful with them, pushing himself to his limits. This one called for missing work, though, he could feel the fever radiating through him and distorting his gaze like a stream of hot air.
But trying to call or text his supervisor would not end up well. With the phone all blurry, his hands shaking, and his voice wobbling and teary, he’d die from the humiliation.
No, he would have to embarrass himself either way, but he’d rather it be to Techno.
His work buddy had terrified him at the beginning, because he was tall, fit, and constantly looked like someone had ruined his day and it might’ve been you. Tommy had given him a wide berth, up until he dropped a box of marbles.
They both stood in silence as hundreds of small, glass marbles bounced and rolled around their feet in a glorious splash of color of the gray warehouse floor.
“I need to lie down,” Techno said.
And he did. He sat on the floor, then laid down among the marbles. His eyes were closed, but he talked immediately when Tommy attempted to move closer, to start picking them up. “You’re gonna slip and hurt yourself kid, sit down.”
Tommy sat down. His legs were achy.
Their supervisor was furious. Techno showed him that the bag of marbles had a gaping hole in the side (the bag didn’t have a hole a minute ago) and argued that it was an unfortunate yet inevitable mishap.
“We’re lucky to have caught that here, instead of sending subpar products to some of our precious clients,” he had said in a perfectly monotone voice, still lying on the floor.
They had both gotten out scot-free, and some of their coworkers helped pick up the slack during the hour they spend sitting on the ground, picking up marbles.
A task that just so happened to require a lot less brainpower that juggling five different orders, shipping time and boxes. They got to talking, the ice broke quickly, and Tommy and Techno became friends.
Techno wasn’t the same kind of friend as Wilbur had been. Wilbur had been a brother. They never saw each other outside of work. He talked sometimes, about ancient Greek philosophy, and listened well, but mostly he worked in silence next to Tommy, only bumping a shoulder against his, or commenting on an order occasionally. It still meant the world to Tommy.
One thing that he could’ve done without, though, was how Techno always worried about him. Not matter how many times Tommy told him that he was independent, he was doing okay (wrong) and didn’t need help, Techno kept giving him the look. He especially didn’t like when Tommy went to work sick.
Well, he was gonna be glad to hear this one.
Leaning down against the toilet seat, Tommy scrolled down his contact list, wincing at the sweat on his fingers. Techno’s contact name was saved as ‘Plato,’ because he kept talking about ancient Greece shit, he was very smart, and Plato had been a professional wrestler so probably quite fit, too. Also because ‘pato’ was Spanish for duck and that was funny.
It didn’t feel very funny at the moment.
He blinked to clear the tears from his eyes and clicked on the contact name before he could change his mind.
Tommy laid his head back down as the phone rang, weak and shaky in the aftershock of throwing up. His mind was cloudy, and his body felt far away, like he was floating over it. He wanted it to stop…
“Hi?”
Oh, right.
“Hi,” Tommy croaked.
There was a bit of silence. It was kinda nice. Tommy closed his eyes again.
“Tommy, is that you?” Techno asked, choked up. He sounded different on the phone.
“M’yeah.”
The phone speaker spewed out a few distant curses, then the voice came back clearer. “Tommy, mate, are you alright? What’s going on?”
“Sick,” Tommy admitted mournfully.
“Okay, tell me where you are, I’m coming.”
Wait, no, he was supposed to be asking something. “Can’you tell Mark… That I won’t be there t’morrow?”
Footsteps sounds were coming from the phone. “Who’s Mark, Tommy?”
“You need to tell him,” he insisted, “or he’ll be angry. Please, Tech…”
“It’s… It’ll be fine, Tommy, don’t worry about it." His voice really did sound weird. But that was okay. Tommy wouldn't tell him. "Just tell me where you are, tell me the address.”
Satisfied, Tommy did. Now that tomorrow was taken care of, he could drag himself somewhere more comfortable and sleep off his illness.
…
Anytime now.
Suddenly, his name was called out from the phone, and Tommy jumped, startled awake.
“Okay, you’re not too far, I’ll be there in fifteen, okay?”
What?
“I love you, Tommy, I’ll be there soon.”
He didn’t quite know why. But these words made the tears come back.