MCYT oneshots

And You Call Me Up Again Just to Break Me Like a Promise

T/W - Broken bones?

When Wilbur helped Tommy buy his first binder, there was one primary condition. Don't wear it for longer than 8 hours. Now, Tommy was pretty good at following said rule, not wearing it for longer than 8 hours, not wearing it if he were to do any form of exercise, making sure he took it off before he went to bed or if he was feeling tired so he couldn't accidentally fall asleep in it and making sure to take it off if he was ever in any pain. Having a steady daily routine was something that always helped keep things in line. Living by himself made him a little self-destructive, even if it wasn't necessarily on purpose so Phil and Wilbur had really picked up their roles as dad and big brother when it came to checking in on the youngest. However, it was easy to miss things or overlook them and Tommy had gotten a little too used to making excuses.

It was difficult.

Tommy hadn't slept in just over 48 hours and had been wearing his binder for almost 24. He had done three separate streams in a row. First, he was a guest on Quackity's Jackbox stream, then he sat in a call with Dream, George and Sapnap while Dream speedrunning and finally, he was doing a stream with Phil and Wilbur, Phil playing on his hardcore world while Wilbur and Tommy messed around and distracted him. It was calm. Peaceful. To begin with anyway. It was an hour into that third stream when Tommy began to realise how badly his chest hurt. A deep set ache dug through his skin into his ribs and sternum. Every time he moved, it felt like something in his chest was shifting alongside it. Still, he decided that he was going to ignore it because...well, why not? It was Tommy. If something bad was happening, he was going to internalize or ignore it until the last minute or until he physically couldn't anymore. He'd been working on it, okay?

Either way, the pain only began to increase as the stream dragged on. Every time he breathed and his chest expanded against the tight fabric, pain would shoot out from the centre of his sternum, down through his ribs and settle in the top of his spine. Chat was beginning to notice his lack of movement and that he wasn't talking so much, leaning back in his chair, shoulders slightly curled in as he tried to relieve some of the pain. It didn't help that Wilbur kept making him laugh.

The quieter Tommy became, the more Wilbur spoke and tried to make him laugh, thinking of his silence only as him being bored, tired or uncomfortable. He didn't realise how much pain his pseudo-little brother was in.

That wasn't the worst of it though as Tommy twisted quickly in his chair, to look behind him where the sheet he had been using to cover his window was starting to fall down and an audible crack resounded through the room. Tommy gasped, hand pulling straight to his chest and grabbing the front of his shirt as an indescribable burning spread through his torso. He couldn't breathe, fire spreading through his lungs and curling up the inside of his throat. There was no fucking way that he had just broken his ribs. No. He hadn't been wearing his binder for that long, right? The pain radiating from his chest as he tried to move back to a normal sitting position suggested otherwise.

"Tommy?" Phil said, "Everything okay?" He had heard Tommy gasp and then fall silent, worried that he may have hurt himself somehow.

"Yeah, sorry, just moved funny," Tommy said quietly, his voice sounding strained, forced even.

"Okay," Phil replied, seemingly buying it.

Tommy couldn't breathe. Every breath felt like his last, which, while it sounded overdramatic, was exactly the truth. He leaned forwards slightly, resting his arms against his desk so he could curl his shoulders in alleviate the pain a little.

He knew it was bad. He knew it was really, really bad to break your ribs, especially through binding and then to keep the binder on anyway but he was in the middle of a stream with no way to sneak away and remove the offending piece of clothing or attempt to help himself. So he sat, quietly, curled in on himself, trying not to burst into tears.