#fun fact: the draft is this is just titled YOUCH

[freezethebeez]

c!tommy post-prison-revival drabble that doesn't actually have a proper ending it just kinda cuts off

i don't have a preview for this that'll make sense out of context but basically: tommy dies, gets revived, tubbo takes care of him for a bit, tommy hates himself, tommy also develops POTS because of the head trauma ^_^

-> just putting it out there now: i do not suffer from POTS or any disability similar to it. i did a bit of research about it before writing this, but if anything is inaccurate, that's on me. it's not a massive component of the story, but it is prevalent enough for me to issue this warning.

additional info: brief mention of nudity (nothing weird dw), c!clingy being clingy, angst i guess, a bit of fluff depending on how you look at it

drabble below the break :]

-

Nobody told Tommy that being revived was like being born again.

Nearly seventeen to just three months old again, all in an instant. A three month old is what he is— a three month old with head trauma, all the pent up emotion of a teenager, and a mouth that curses like a sailor—

A mouth that curses because that's all it knows how to do. Tommy's stuck in a body that doesn't know what to do— a body that's gone into fight-or-flight because it's trapped in an obsidian cell with the very thing that killed it and left it to rot for months surrounded by these voices and aggravating sounds in its head.

This fight-or-flight phase doesn't end, even when he's being assisted— no, dragged out of the prison by its warden, knees buckled, legs unable to hold the scarred skin and bag of broken bones placed on top of it.

It only ends when Tommy's eyes meet Tubbo's.

It's raining. It's foggy and it's raining and Tommy can hardly make out Tubbo's silhouette in the distance with his blurry eyes— still adjusting to the world— but somehow he knows. Somehow his brain remembers that this person is important and this one won't hurt you.

Somehow his brain is right.

His head aches.

Tommy's head really aches.

It doesn't stop aching— not in the next hour or the next day or the next week— it never stops aching. He feels dizzy and nauseous and his legs still don't fucking work as Tubbo guides him through the walls of Snowchester.

Snowchester is white— sky-blue and slate-grey and spruce-brown and snow-white— but suddenly it turns black and Tommy's gone again, body laid to rest in the snow where it should be— maybe buried beneath the dirt for good measure— but it doesn't stay there long. His eyes are open again and it's snowing. He feels cold. He can't really feel his hands anymore, much less any other parts of his corpse.

Thank Prime Tubbo's strong.

Tubbo carries him inside— into the warmth of his cottage. "Ranboo is out," he says, "he won't be back for a bit, I don't think. Man's too busy mining." Tubbo sets him down by the fireplace, draping a blanket over him and pulling up a chair, letting his head rest on the seat.

He gets him food. Tommy doesn't eat it. He's too tired and too sick and his head aches too much for him to eat it.

It's embarrassing being born again. It's embarrassing to be three months old with the mind of a seventeen year old. It's embarrassing to have to be taken care of like an infant— to watch a toddler run around with more independence than him.

It doesn't last long, thankfully.

It's only for a few days— nearly a week, but Tubbo takes good care of him.

Tommy doesn't think he'd have it any other way— doesn't think he could bear having anyone else be here for him.

He doesn't think he'd let anyone else bathe him. He doesn't think anyone else would keep a hand on the back of his neck while his head is lowered into the water, no one besides Tubbo.

He doesn't think he'd let anyone else towel him off and dress him. He doesn't think anyone else would dress him in their husband's clothing because their own doesn't fit— he doesn't think anyone else would wash the blood out of his clothes and leave them to dry in front of the furnaces in the basement, returning them while they're still warm, no one else besides Tubbo.

He doesn't think he'd let anyone else spoon-feed him homemade soup and hold his hair back when his body can't take anymore— he doesn't think anyone else would do that for him besides Tubbo.

Nights are long when you're three months old, because three-month-olds cry and cry and cry and they just don't shut up— and Tommy does the same. He feels awful about it, but the tears start and they don't stop and of course Tubbo takes it upon himself to dry them, wiping them away with cold hands that Tommy doesn't entirely mind because he seems to be so feverish all the time anyway.

Eventually, the nights get shorter and the headache goes away and it gets a bit easier to move and stomach food and things are kind of looking up.

Things are looking up until they're not, though. They're looking up until Tommy's finally confident enough to walk to the kitchen by himself and faints halfway.

Tubbo runs a few tests. He doesn't tell Tommy what the diagnosis is, just hands him a wooden cane and tells him that when the episodes stop, he can stop using it.

Tommy figures out what an "episode" is quite quickly.

Summer comes and Tommy moves back home. Home isn't a fantastic place to be in his opinion, especially because it's more of a glorified tomb now that a home. He prefers to go out for walks— revisit some nostalgic sites and relive the memories, walking through the actions of shooting a bow and arrow from the top of a tower, looking over at the crater that was L'Manberg— but these walks become less and less frequent under the summer sun because the sun hates him and his body hates him and everything and everyone hates him and wants him dead.

His body hates him, and he knows it does because every time the sun shines bright enough for the cicadas to play their song, it gives up. It just gives up. It gets dizzy and gets nauseous and it gets shaky and cold and clammy and it gives up. It sends him plummeting to the ground as if it's trying to bury itself— trying to go to where it should be— and then it reboots and carries on as if nothing happened and it makes Tommy hate it all the same.

So Tommy tries to move back to Snowchester— but the snow doesn't help, it just makes him feel colder, and he almost gets hypothermia once— gets frostbite twice cause he's just laying in the snow, which is such a bitch to take care of, honestly, but it's not his fault it's still snowing in the summertime.

#my bad ideas #everyone ​feel free to make up an ending for this because i literally do not have one #i was just going through my drafts and thought the writing was pretty #so on this catalyst-less saturday. i shall give it to you #c!tommy #c!clingyduo #c!tubbo #tags 4 the Lads #fun fact: the draft is this is just titled YOUCH