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innittowinit · 3 years

Text

Tommyinnit is going to be okay

summary: With lockdown, expectations and grades constantly seeming to be lower than desired, Tommy starts to give up on school. Luckily he has his makeshift family to help him out.

word count: 1778

notes: hhh im super sorry to those of you who were waiting for me to finish the next chapter to my amusement park fic, i was working on it but i'm feeling kinda :/ so i wrote this instead to get da feelings out. Updates should be back to normal next friday. also my birthday is soon!!! 22nd pog!!!!!!!!!! i'm gonna be 16 and i am :D about that

AO3

If you asked him, he’d say he didn’t care. He’d joke about how bad he was doing, call himself stupid, play into the grades and act like they were all he was capable of.

Truth is, he knew he could be better, he knew he was expected to be better, so when he was given his report card and saw that he was scoring mediocre in most subject and even failing a few, he swallowed the lump in his throat and laughed, telling his friends that he didn’t know what he expected.

School was tough but he was expected to be tougher, when he had pages upon pages of chemistry homework so hard that it made him cry, he didn’t tell anyone because that wasn’t what was expected of him. He stayed up for nights on end just trying to grasp at a passing grade but most of the time was spent panicking anyway, so why was anyone surprised when he started to give up?

When he stopped handing in assignments, when he stopped revising, when he stopped turning up to class, why were they all so surprised? They had watched his downfall with front row seats and now were gasping as they saw him drowning in the pool they put him in without teaching him to swim.

So here he was, locked in his bedroom, the shadows of the overly optimistic boy he painted himself as lingered as he looked around. It made him sick to his stomach, to lie to everyone like that. He knew for a fact if anyone from school watched his content they’d know he was lying. It was hard to differentiate himself sometimes, from the boy who just wanted to make his parents proud to the boy who roleplayed on minecraft servers. Now don’t get me wrong, they were both very much him, he just wished he could let his followers know that he wasn’t that happy all the time. It was only when he wasn’t being suffocated by his own academic failures.

Giving up was a stupid idea, it only made his grades worse but he justified it by saying that at least he was failing on purpose now. There could be no disappointment or shame if he didn’t try, if he told everyone that he just didn't care about grades and he could get better ones if he wanted he would be so much less pathetic than if he said that he had put in everything and still done badly. It didn’t work though, he was self-sabotaging. With every failing grade his self esteem fell further and further until he was sure it was gone completely. He didn’t feel stupid, he just felt like everyone else was smarter than him. He thought that maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could get himself out of this funk, but then again that required showing people that he was working hard and if he still failed after that he was sure he’d feel far worse than he already did.

Talking about this to someone was out of the picture too. Aside from the fact that he’d rather eat a live slug than make someone worry about him, he knew he’d just seem lazy and pathetic if he brought it up to anyone anyway. He just didn’t know how to explain that he’d got so overwhelmed that it broke him, it felt like his whole life he wished that people would stop overestimating him.

He just wasn’t good enough.

A knock on his bedroom door brought him out of his self-deprecating spiral, causing him to only curl in on himself, under the blankets, even further. No doubt it was his parents here to nag him about school again.

“Go away mum I don’t care! It doesn’t even matter” he huffed as he pulled his phone out,with the intention to ignore his family through looking at instagram.

“Tommy it’s not your mum” He heard a man’s voice speak from behind the door. “Look it’s me, Wilbur, Phil and Techno are here too. Your parents said you’ve been feeling pretty down lately so we just wanted to hang out. If talking is too much we can just play a game”

Silence.

Tommy took a moment to mull the words over, it stung that his parents had told them about what was going on but he could help but feel a little special that they had traveled so far to come cheer up him specifically. Especially Techno, he wasn’t sure if he should feel honoured or guilty that he had to fly out, deciding that both was probably the best option, he made a metal note to pay him back for the plane ticket.

“Listen Tommy” He heard another man’s voice as he silently walked towards the door “It’ll be okay in the end, I don’t know what you’re going through right now, and you only need to tell us if you want to, but I promise it’ll be okay. Life has a way of making things fit into place in the end”

Biting his lip,Tommy twisted the key to the left, taking a deep breath before opening the door. He knew he looked terrible, his hair was greasy and all over the place, he had a pepsi stain on the shirt he had been wearing for three days straight, and he knew for a fact he smelled unpleasant. Despite all these less than ideal features, the three men all gave him a hug as soon as they saw him. Each one of them had sincere smiles on their faces, they didn’t look like they were here to pity him at least.

Still without saying a word, Tommy stepped to the side to invite them into his messy room, before going to sit on his bed again. Coke and Pepsi cans were overflowing from his bin and he knew the plates of half eaten dinners were starting to smell, still though, they weren’t judging him. Techno and Phil sat either side of him and Wilbur sprawled himself out at the foot of the bed, as much as he wanted to keep up the silence and grumpiness, he couldn’t help but gasp a little, feeling his throat go tight and his eyes heat up with fresh tears, when Techno wrapped an arm around him.

How long had it been since he was hugged like this? It wasn’t like the greeting hug he had just gotten, it was so much more sincere and heartfelt. A ghost of a smile hinted at his lips.

As more silent tears dripped down his cheek, Techno rubbing his arm soothingly, he finally realised that he just wanted someone to genuinely care about him. He didn’t mind high expectations if they came from a good place; whenever Wilbur spoke about how Tommy would be so much bigger than he already was, he didn’t feel pressured, he felt motivated. He knew Wilbur genuinely believed in him and more importantly would still care about him if he didn’t live up to what he expected, in contrast to his parents who he honestly wasn’t sure if he had unconditional love from or not.

That’s what the problem was. Finally, he had Techno, Phil and Wil all here because they loved him, and he knew they wouldn’t judge him. They wouldn’t hate him for failing an exam, they wouldn’t mock him for getting overwhelmed, they certainly would love him no matter how bad he messed up.

Right in that moment, he stopped caring about whether or not he’d make people worry, he stopped caring about any possibly negative opinions of him because he knew he was safe, and he leant his head against Techno’s shoulder, crying out all the stress and insecurities that had lead to his spiral in the first place. It wasn't long before Phil joined in, wrapping an arm around him from the other side, and then came Wilbur, who was practically laying against all three of them as he tried to hug him from where he had been sat.

“It’s a lot of work and it’s a lot of expectations…..y’know I’m just not smart enough to live up to what they want me to do”

The blonde choked out his words, it felt great not to have to hold back his feelings for once, to finally have people who would listen. Really though, they had been there all along, his judgement had just been too clouded that he hadn’t realised.

“Listen Toms”

He heard Phil sigh sympathetically,

“You’re a smart boy, if school is making you feel like this, maybe the way you’re learning is the problem, I know it’s super generic advice but if you can find a teacher you trust you should be able to talk about what alternatives there are. As for expectations, fuck ‘em. You’re doing your own thing and you’re doing it well. You’ve already surpassed everyone's expectations.”

He felt Phil move over so Wilbur could sit with them properly, with pretty much 4 men all sitting on the same section of the bed, it was a squish but they made it work.

“Tommy man, I was a massive nerd in school. I was such a perfectionist that I’d panic about any grade lower than like 95%, I didn’t even have any expectations I was trying to live up to, I just wanted to be the best at everything. Anyway I’ve had more ruts like what you’re going through than I can count so I’m speaking from experience when I say, I promise you it’s gonna be fine. Tommy you’ll be okay”

Tommy didn’t bother replying, he was too choked up from the sheer vulnerability and love that he didn’t want to open his mouth and risk any noise coming out.

“Big T,” Wilbur chuckled as he practically climbed over Phil to see him properly, “I failed half my GCSE’s and I’m doing great. Try your hardest but if things go tits up just know that you’re life won't just be over”

Tommy just nodded, wiping at his eyes as he leant his head against Techno. For the first time in a long time he felt loved.

“We actually had a plan.” Wilbur had taken Phil’s spot, on the bed, completely now, and the man was left to crouch next to it. “We’ll clean up in here while you go take a shower and then we can watch Up. We made Techno bring some of those American sweets over and we also got a load from Tesco on our way here. How’s that sound?”

Again, Tommy nodded his head. He was going to be okay.

#tommyinnit #wilbur soot #Philza #technoblade #sleepy bois inc #sbi #fanfic #Emotional Hurt/ Comfort #school

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