Mcyt -autistic- oneshots

Adopting the weird kid pt.8 (Tommy and SBI)

TW-mention of suicide (don't worry, not any main characters)

Tommy's POV:

Despite the first sleepover getting off to a bad start, the few that occurred after that went well. Very well. And just a few weeks, before I turned sixteen, Phil started fostering me full time. Normally I would need to be adopted to avoid going into the assisted living scheme, but because there was the possibility of Phil adopting me and I was only just getting used to them, Chris said he had managed to work something out. He didn't explain to me what that was something was.

Still, I was packing my bag, and putting everything away into cardboard boxes that Chris had gotten me. I didn't have all that much anyway. Well, there was an entire cardboard box filled with just my notebooks and sketchbooks, but clothes wise, it pretty much all fit into a single box. I looked around my small room; my new one at Phil's was bigger, and today we were going to start decorating it. I was kind of excited. Phil had said I could do whatever I liked with it. And he agreed that I could paint it myself.

Painting it myself meant that I was allowed to do a mural. And I had an amazing mural planned. One of my walls was covered in wardrobes so I couldn't paint on it, although, it did mean I had loads of storage for all my art stuff. And the wall opposite my wardrobes had a window in it, so I was going to have to work around that. But I was allowed to paint the ceiling too!

I was going to paint a forest. My door was going to be a massive tree, and then I was going to paint a tiny door on it, that was going to be meant for tree goblins or whoever decided they wanted to move in. And on my big wall, I was going to paint a lake with some animals around it. And by my window there was going to be fences painted, that were cracked, all with dangers signs on then. It was going to be the coolest bedroom ever. And Phil has offered for him to put all hooks in the ceiling so I could have the lights the same as Wilbur's room, but I wanted something different instead. The trees were going to go around the edge of the ceiling, just the tops of their leaves, and then the rest of it would be painted black, with glow in the dark stars stuck all over it.

When I went round for my sleepovers, Wilbur helped me plan it, and we've drawn it loads of times. I call them my brothers now, moustache and giant, well those are their nicknames. But they call me Picasso, so I don't mind. It feels nice to have brothers. Techno is busy with work a lot, but he always makes time for me and when I need help with homework, he said he'd help me. And Wilbur lets me sit in when his band practices. And Phil says when I do go back to school, Wilbur can walk out the bus stop with me, and get the bus there, and do the same in the way home. Wilbur has been telling me all about the school, and all the teachers to watch out for, and the best toilets to go in because they are cleaner.

Phil tells him to stop, because he is going to make me worry about it, but I'm kind of looking forward to the new start. I don't start for another couple of weeks, so Wilbur is going to drive me to my old school now that I'm going to live with them. Maybe by the time I go to my new school, I'll have a new surname too. Phil says I don't have to change it, but if he adopts me, I can. I think I've decided to go for a double surname, and just add Watson onto the end. That way I don't feel like I'm leaving Mum out of it all.

Chris knocked on my bedroom door, wouldn't my bedroom for much longer. "Can I start carrying those boxes downstairs for you Tom?" I nodded, as I finished clearing the very last bits out of the drawers in my bedroom. "Don't forget your get your posters of the walls." He added, struggling to carrying one of the boxes out my door.

I looked up and saw them all there. They were all posters I'd made, stupid ones for my history classes that I just stuck up with blu tac to make my room seem less boring. I wasn't going to have to do that at Phil's. I made sure that I had all my photos of mum, and put them safely in my backpack. Most of them were on my phone, but Phil said he would help me print some more off. There was lots of photos around their house of them all, and that women I mentioned before. I hadn't asked about her yet, but I guess that she was their mum, Wilbur's mum. But there were lots of pictures with Techno in too, so I guess that she had been his mum too. I wanted to ask, but I sort of felt bad for asking.

Anyway, Phil said that we'd get loads of photos together so that there were photos of me around the house too. And that I could put a few of me and Mum around the house too, just so it felt a bit more like home. He knew about my mum, he obviously did because he had read my file. I didn't know if Wilbur and Techno knew though. Wilbur knew she was dead, he didn't know why.

I missed Mum a lot, but she wasn't in that kid's home. Truth is, I wasn't moving from Mum's to Phil's. I had already moved from Mum's. And going to Phil's was going to be good. Mum would have liked Phil, he parents like she does. Sorry, did. And she would have liked Wilbur's music, she always liked music, that's why her favourite movie was Grease. And she would have liked Techno cause Techno was a bit like me, just with an added moustache.

The presents for Phil, Wilbur, Techno and Chris were resting on the top layer of things in my backpack. I would have to give Chris' to him early, because Phil was picking me up from here rather than Chris driving me. That was fine, Phil's car smelled alright. The sweet lemon smell.

I helped haul all my boxes into the entrance way, and stood awkwardly waiting for Phil to arrive. I heard a car engine pull up outside and excited knocks on the door. Of course Wilbur was the one knocking on it. He smiled at me, and I smiled back. I knew everything was about to change but for the first time in my entire life, I wanted it to change. I didn't want to be in a loud kid's home anymore, I wanted older brothers, movie nights and being taken to school.

Once everything was packed away in Phil's boot, Techno having done most of the heavy lifting, I said goodbye to Chris. "I'll see you in a few days Tom for a welfare check, and you've got my number, and if anything needs sorting you know you can talk to Phil. Phil is going to update me for the next month or so, and then we are going to assess it. The option of you being adopted is entirely on the table here Tom, so if at any time you make your decision, you just say it. Phil's going to wait for you." I nodded.

"I've got something for you?" I gently pulled the piece of paper from my backpack and presented it to him. He was a huge Manchester United fan, so I'd drawn him a landscape picture thingy of Old Trafford, their stadium.

"That's amazing Tom, thanks for this."

"Thank you for being there for me Chris. You saved me." He crouched down, not because I was short, just because he'd been brought to his knees with tears.

Chris' POV:

I watched Tom walk out the door, watched the car pull off the drive and see him leave. I'd see him in a few days, but I wasn't going to be knocking on the door of that box room anymore. I sat myself down, staring at the incredible drawing he'd done for me. And then I just let myself cry properly.

You never really know what someone is going through. And half the time I didn't have a clue what was running through Tom's head. Such an isolated kid, but I couldn't be happier to see him be going home with Phil's family. But hearing him say I'd saved him? It broke me.

On the day of Tommy's first 'sleepover' as he called it, I was late. And I was unexpectedly late. Because that night I'd been called by another foster family. The kid they were fostering, the kid I'd been in charge of since she'd been 4 months old, she'd killed herself. No number of therapy sessions and 3 am talks with hot chocolate had ever helped the fact that she blamed herself for her parents leaving. But I just couldn't save her. An ambulance had been called, and they managed to keep her alive for a few hours, so I visited the hospital. It was my legal responsibility at the very least, and I'd had known this girl so long she'd practically become a friend. Such an old soul, a lot of the foster kids tend to be. They're always immature or wildly mature, there seems to be no in between. And I said goodbye, and I told her it was okay and no one was angry.

But she still died, and I couldn't save her. So I guess just hearing that blond boy say it, well it made the world seem a little better. And you know the only other thing I can think to say right now is this:

Life sure is a rollercoaster. And I've never really been that fond of rollercoasters.

A/n Hey. Thanks so much for reading! I'm sorry for that angst right there but I just had this idea and wanted to write it. You never know what kind of day a person is having, so just make sure to be kind. And I hope that no matter what kind of day you had that you enjoyed this, and it brought you a bit of happiness. A bit of sun, even if your day was full of storms. :)

How are you today?