Duchenne (DSMP Superhero AU)

Chapter 46

The syndicate got a lot of visitors the day Dream declared war. They all came with the same message; Dream wants to take down the Syndicate and the President is on his side. Of course, not all the heroes wanted to attack the syndicate. BadBoyHalo was the first to knock on Phil's door, fiddling with his hood.

"Hey Icarus uh... So Dream declared war on the syndicate and the president is helping him so I left the hero association and came here."

Phil stared at him, bewildered. Techno popped out from behind Phil, waving.

"Hey Daryl. Quackity put you through to our address, right?"

BadBoyHalo nodded, dropping his hero form. Now he looked rather human, it was kinda weird to be able to see his facial expressions properly. Crystalize popped out from behind Daryl, looking between him and the bewildered Phil standing at the door.

"When you said you knew where to find the Syndicate, this isn't what I thought you meant."

He dropped his hero form too, growing a bit taller and losing the crystals that decorated his body.

"Can we come in?"

Caduceus followed soon after, introducing himself as Ponk. He was a healer, so he'd be pretty useful for the coming conflict. Plus, Wilbur hoped that he could fix Tommy. Captain P followed, introducing herself as Puffy. Wilbur looked her up on the internet and found out she was a certified therapist. TOmmy could definitely benefit from talking to her. And Finally,the last person to knock on the door was Spore, Dream's old friend. He introduced himself as George and tried to show that he was friendly, but Techno still kept watch over him 24/7.

They were all individually driven to the Syndicate base, with a different route each time so that they couldn't trace the way after the battle was finished. They all had their own room in the ship, and were given a map of the inside. All the doors were blocked so they couldn't go out and explore, but apparently they played games together in an appointed common room every night so Phil assumed they were having fun.

They didn't let anyone interact with Tommy. Phil said that he might get overwhelmed, but Wilbur was 90% sure that he actually didn't want the heroes to know that they had a "weak spot." That wasn't going to stop Wilbur though. First thing he did was go to Puffy in the ship with Tommy tagging along.

He knocked on the door, dancing from one foot to the other. Puffy opened the door, staring at him.

"Seirin? What's up?"

He stepped to the side, gently guiding Tommy to stand next to him. Tommy locked eyes with her, who gasped. She was looking at Tommy's white hair, then at Wilbur's white streak. She stepped to the side, motioning them in.

"Thanks Puffy, I just want to know if there's a way we can help him be normal again."

If Tommy had been "normal" as Wilbur put it, he would have flinched.

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"It seems to me that Tommy is experiencing an extremely severe case of Alexithymia, mixed with facial paralysis. The Alexithymia was probably caused by the stress of being thrown in and out of limbo, while the facial paralysis was due to something in the revive book not completely healing his spine."

Wilbur nodded slowly, furrowing his brow. Puffy watched him, fiddling with her clipboard.

"Is there anything you can do to fix him?"

Puffy sighed, looking back over to the expressionless boy sitting on the bed. His eyes met hers, and she shuddered and looked back to Wilbur.

"I've never seen a case this serious, plus the revive book has never been used more than once on anyone before. These are the surface issues, but he could have even more issues if we bring back his emotions. It would be... less cruel... to let him stay the way he is now."

Wilbur shook his head. He needed Tommy back, he needed his happy Tommy. Puffy sighed and gripped his shoulder, forcing him to look at her. He did.

"Don't try to fix him, Seirin. It will only be more pain for both of you."

Wilbur walked home with Tommy that night with a solid stone of guilt in the bottom of his stomach.

Tommy, however, was thinking faster than he had in a while. Did Wilbur not want him anymore because he didn't have emotions? Why? Wasn't it so much easier now? Was... Was Tommy hurting his friends by allowing himself to be this way?

He tried to force himself to smile. He just wanted to smile. Smile once for Wilbur. Just to show that he was still the same Tommy. His hands moved up to his cheeks, patting them to try and move them. When that didn't work, he tried to move his mouth manually. It hurt, but he managed to make himself kinda smile. He turned to WIlbur, holding his mouth in a smile, but Wilbur wasn't paying attention. He let go of his mouth, letting it go back to its usual state.

Oh well. He could always carve a permanent smile onto his face later.