take this compass, follow it home

self fulfilling prophecy

CW: mentions of past self harm, self-sabotaging, panic attack, antidepressant med withdrawal, threats, self-worth issues, general shittiness of the foster system, mentions of dead parents, mentions of alcoholism and Not Great Parents, frustrations, safety risks/issues, mentions of bugs and spiders, manipulation

Sunday morning- the next day- there's a knock on his door.

"Tommy?" Wilbur calls.

Tommy brightens instantly, grabbing the orange bottle from the first drawer in his desk. He places it on top, making sure it's on clear display from the door, and then opens the door.

"Yeah?" he asks.

"Have you seen..." Wilbur trails off, eyes going to Tommy's desk. Perfect.

"Are those my meds?" Wilbur asks.

"Yeah," Tommy says.

"Tommy I need those."

Tommy shrugs, "You're not going to die. I looked 'em up."

He did no such thing, but if Wilbur really did need them that bad, Tommy thinks it would be pretty obvious.

"Seriously Tommy?" Wilbur says, "Do I need to go grab Phil?"

"Tell Phil and I'll tell him you didn't submit any of your college apps."

Wilbur's face drains of all colors.

"How did you know that?" he asks.

"You're a shit liar," Tommy says. Wilbur doesn't need to know about his eavesdropping.

Wilbur looks to the pill bottle, to Tommy, to the pill bottle before huffing and storming back to his room.

Success.

Honestly, Tommy's not exactly sure where this is going to go. But it's going nowhere good and the longer that Phil doesn't know, the worse his reaction will be when he finds out. And then Tommy will be booted for sure.

He takes the time to hide the pill bottle, just in case Wilbur breaks one of the house rules and goes looking for it. He wonders what Prozac's for anyways.

So he plays the waiting game. He set his end game move, now he has to hang on until it goes into play.

He sits in his room, knowing that all of this won't be much longer. He's half playing on his beat up DS, stuck more in his thoughts as he loses focus on the actual gameplay.

He catches a flash of pink out of the corner of his eye and looks up from where he's slouched at his desk. Techno stands at his door, hair pulled up in a ponytail and running shoes already on. The two of them stare at each other for a minute. Tommy's frozen and Techno stays, hovering in his door frame.

Tommy takes a small breath. After he took Techno's book, there's no way he'd still want Tommy to go running with him, right? There's... he's not going to ask. Tommy doesn't deserve the kindness, the care.

Techno continues to stand there for a moment longer, tense air between them. Tommy feels it sharply and he knows while Techno's often oblivious to emotions, he has to be feeling the tension as well.

"Never mind," Techno practically spits out, and then disappears from Tommy's door.

Tommy immediately feels like what little energy he has left has been completely sucked from him. He slouches even further. He knows now, he knows. He doesn't belong here. Any doubt that he had that this time things would be different completely disappears from his mind.

He considers the pill bottle he took from Wil.

It sucks, that it has to be this way. Tommy thinks he might even miss this family. He will genuinely miss Tubbo.