I'm a Healer, But...

31

Tommy's curled up on the couch when he hears the front door open. He knew it was coming- Phil texted him that they were on their way back just like he promised- but he's still bracing himself a little. He's got news to tell them, after all.Techno is the first through the door, and Tommy is halfway off the couch to greet him when he realizes that he's carrying Fundy. He gets completely out of the way as Techno approaches, and sets Fundy down on the couch. Being out of the way doesn't last long, and Tommy immediately sidles up to Techno. "What- Phil didn't tell me something happened- ""It didn't," Techno says gruffly, and Fundy winces, squeezing his eyes even more shut. Techno lowers his voice to talk further. "His power is givin' him a migraine."Tommy immediately grabs Fundy's hand, and watches him relax as Tommy soothes the pain. It takes him a minute to really process what Techno said. "Wait- power? I didn't know he had one.""I didn't," Fundy huffs, eyes still closed. Tommy frowns a little, but- well, Fundy's actually the right age to get powers, if not a little old. Tommy is the odd one out, getting his powers so young, but... it still seems kind of weird that they just... showed up out of nowhere, apparently.Tommy doesn't stop healing him. It's strange- he keeps getting bursts of pain, like a new headache is developing every few seconds. What the hell is Fundy's power even doing? The time between bursts slows, and then stops just as the rest of the crew walk in, carrying their bags.Wilbur immediately drops his, hard enough that Tommy can hear something crack inside, and he rushes over to the couch. "How are you feeling, starlight?""...better," Fundy says, peeking his eyes open and then starting to sit up. "Thanks, Tommy."Tommy drops his hand, holding a bundle of cornflowers. "You, uh, want to talk about it?"Wilbur frowns. "Give him a minute, he's had these headaches for days now-""Dad," Fundy says, a little sharply, and Wilbur flinches. "Don't answer for me.""Right," Wilbur murmurs immediately, stepping back. "I'm sorry, Fundy." Oooh, someone's on Fundy's shitlist. Tommy was definitely, one hundred percent right about what 'eternity' costs, huh?And after what happened a few days ago, Tommy really needs someone else to have a problem for once, just to get his mind off his own, so he pokes at Fundy a bit. "Sooo, are you immortal now or whatever?"Wilbur narrows his eyes, about to interrupt again, but Fundy answers before he can. "I mean, yeah. It just came with the deaths of, oh, I don't know, hundreds of people on a fucking murder island?" he says, voice getting high-pitched. "You know, like you do! And as soon as I balked at the idea of casting some- some weird, Old Magic that kills everyone within a few miles- I started getting horrible visions about whatever they did for my dad to hand pick them to get murdered!""Starlight," Wilbur says, trying to be soothing, but Fundy steamrolls over him."I had to actually do it to make the visions stop, and then as soon as I asked Grandpa- I don't even remember what I asked, but I couldn't even hear the answer because of a new vision and- it turns out! I can't turn it off! So whenever I have a question, or want to know something enough, my brain just gives me the answer, no matter how fucked up it is or how horrible of a headache it gives me!""We can get our hands on a power suppressor for you," Wilbur promises him. "Tommy, you'll help him until then, right?" he asks, almost begging."...duh." But not for Wilbur's sake, obviously. Fundy lets out another wince, and Tommy reaches out again. "Quackity has some suppressors, I think, and he owes me.""He owes you?" Phil asks, his first words since walking into the house."Yeah." Tommy drops more flowers into the pile on the ground. This is going to be annoying- he doesn't even like cornflowers all that much, what is he supposed to do with them? "Long story short, Charlie got hurt enough for Big Q to ask for my help. Boo and Tubs popped over with me, I saved Charlie's life maybe, and now Big Q owes me a second life debt or something.""A second-?"Tommy perks up. "Oh, shit, wait- guess what?" He doesn't wait for them to guess. "Q actually got my discs back for me!"The room goes quiet for a moment, other than Fundy hissing as he's afflicted with another sharp pain. Oddly, he's still the first to speak. "His- wait, his- Sapnap-?"Oh. Fuck. Visions. "Yup! Sapnap had connections to help me get them back!" Tommy squeezes Fundy's hand hard enough to hurt, a silent shut-up. Fundy hears it, not saying any more. "I haven't listened to them yet, but they aren't scratched or anything, so they should be fine."Techno lets out a quiet, annoyed noise. "Right. Good for you."Tommy isn't going to question that- at least, not right now. Techno should be happy for him, but also it sounds like all four of them had a rough few days, so fine, he's in a bad mood, whatever. What really matters is- "So, you old fucks have to have a record player around somewhere, right?""Oh- right," Phil murmurs. "Wilbur, you have one in your room, don't you?""...yeah!" Wilbur smiles, and Tommy feels... disappointed, for some reason- which isn't right at all. He should be the opposite of disappointed, that's good fucking news, he wants to listen to his discs, so- oh. Is Wilbur disappointed, and just slinging his feelings around again? Fucking dickhead. "I'll go get it."He disappears down the hall, and Fundy sighs, getting to his feet. "I'm going to go to my room," he says, and tries to let go of Tommy's hand-Tommy holds on a little tighter. "Wait- can't you hang around a little longer? I wanted to- I mean, I can keep healing your headaches and shit, but I want to listen to my discs, so..."Fundy sighs. "Thanks, but I think I'm just going to take some ibuprofen and try not to think about anything at all for a few hours. You don't have to keep healing me.""I mean, okay, but- can you stick around for a song or two?" He knows it's a weird thing to ask- maybe even sort of fucked up, considering it's Fundy's dad's music, his dad who's kind of on his shit list right now, but...Okay, admitting out loud that he's afraid of the Syndicate changing really made him face it. He knows it's because of Dream, because of his own trauma, and that it's not even that likely- he's already offered to be their healer for his natural lifespan, there's no reason for them to claim that they see him as family if they didn't mean it. Not when there are a thousand other routes they could have taken- bribery, threats, blackmail... No one's first choice of trick is going to be 'offer to be family'- at least, no one except Dream trying to scam an elementary school student. No, his paranoia is just based around his own stupid fucking issues around family.Even knowing that, he can't trust them. It seems fucking crazy, after all- who the fuck would want Tommy? But he wants to trust them, and the first step is being... a little open, maybe. Letting himself be honest.Like admitting he wants to listen to his discs, the most important things in the world to him, with all of them.(Except maybe Wilbur, but even Tommy knows it'd be a dick move to kick only him out, especially if he's borrowing his record player.)Fundy falls back onto the couch and reaches up, clutching at his head so hard his claws dig into it. Tommy grabs him by the wrists, healing as he pulls them away- this is a bad one, painful and long , but when it's over Fundy looks at him blearily. "...yeah," he says weakly....man. Tommy really wants to ask what the fuck Fundy just saw. He probably doesn't want to know.Wilbur returns, hauling a record player that's clearly too heavy for him, and Phil goes to help carry it to the coffee table as Techno steps out of the room, holding his phone. He's probably calling Quackity about the suppressor, if Tommy had to guess, but that's barely even on his mind right now-Tommy drops Fundy's hands and the flowers between them. "I'll grab Tubbo and Ranboo! And- the discs, fucking obviously- I'll be right back!"He's out of the room before anyone can respond, bolting down the hall and up into the extension. Tommy doesn't hesitate to kick Tubbo's door open- it's left slightly ajar just for this reason, after all. "Tubs!""Hey," Tubbo greets him, not looking away from his laptop. Ranboo looks up from where he's reading on Tubbo's bed.Tommy grabs the back of Tubbo's chair, and starts rolling it towards the door, ignoring Tubbo's annoyed shout. "C'mon- everyone's back and we're listening to the discs!" Tommy waves at Ranboo, gesturing for him to follow, and he quickly sets his book aside to do so."I was in the middle of a project-""It'll wait! Come on, I haven't been able to actually listen to them in years," Tommy says, almost bouncing as Tubbo finally gets out of the chair. He shoves the chair aside and steps into the hall, stopping in his own room to grab the items of the hour.Ranboo hums. "Um, sorry, what are the discs again?""They're only the most important things in existence, Boo . "Tubbo sighs and links his arm with Ranboo's. "They're records. Back before I knew who my dad was, they were the only things I had of his, and then when Tommy left our foster home I gave them to him.""A sign of our undying friendship," Tommy says, letting out a happy chirp at the end. "Of course, it fucking turns out that Wilbur was Sootings, and so he's all happy that I like his music or whatever, but at the end of the day it's all about Tubbo, really.""Okay, pretend you didn't cry the first time you heard Jubilee Line .""Fuck off and die," Tommy says cheerfully as he leads them back to the living room.Wilbur, unfortunately, is beaming. "What was that about Jubilee Line ?""Fuck off and die," he repeats, less cheerfully, and he ignores Wilbur's face falling as he goes to put on Your City Gave Me Asthma.The living room is crowded, now- there's only so much space on the couch, just enough to fit an uncomfortable Fundy on one end and Tubbo and Ranboo on the other, and there are only two armchairs- quickly claimed by Phil and Techno. It leaves Wilbur complaining when he realizes he just lost musical chairs, but Tommy hisses at him the second the first song starts.Tommy immediately squeezes his way onto the couch as it plays, and he drops his head onto Tubbo's shoulder as they all listen.The last time he got to listen to the discs was all the way back at the farm. Tubbo hadn't had a way to play them, and an older girl had taken it on herself to save up to buy the cheapest, crappiest record player she could find. She liked music too, anyway, and she was happy to have an excuse to get one for herself. When she left, the record player went with her, but Tommy and Tubbo had already listened to the records enough times to have their favorite songs memorized.Then, at Dream's, there wasn't a record player. At first it was excuses- it wasn't safe for Dream to go out just to get Tommy a record player, they're hard to find, they're expensive- and then it was that Tommy wasn't good enough to earn a player. Then it was that his discs were made by a monster, a murderer, the thing that hurt Dream and made him come home with new wounds Tommy had to sew up, and Tommy was lucky that Dream even let him keep the discs.And soon, he didn't even have that.But he has them now. He has his discs, he has something to play them on, he has Tubbo - more than that, he has his flock.And the three others in the room. Kind of a mixed bag of emotions on those guys. Well, Fundy's fine- Fundy's good, actually. He didn't rat out Sapnap, even though he clearly found out something from whatever vision he had, and he's never actually done anything wrong- besides date Dream, but then Tommy would be wrong for letting himself get adopted by Dream, which wasn't his fault, so-Ugh. He hates thinking things through like this. Can't he just stop trying to blame himself for stupid shit so he can just move on with his day?Anyway, Fundy's great. Phil is... unsettling. Maybe it's just that he's an avian, but it's probably more about the whole... Phil wants Tommy to be his kid thing. Because that's- that's fucking weird. Or it's just his bird brain, which- okay, sure, he's a bird, Tommy's a bird, he wants to adopt the bird. Cool cool cool. But Phil doesn't have the fucked up instinct meld thing that Tommy has. When his instincts back off, his thing for adopting Tommy should too. But Phil wasn't in his instincts when they were having their whole secret midnight meeting about whether or not they'd offer Tommy eternity.So it's... something Tommy's struggling with. Because, as a kid, he was always a fucking nightmare to potential parents. They would take anyone over the loud kid who yelled and chirped and didn't have common sense. He knew how to swear and he knew how to cause problems and the only nice thing anyone could ever say about him was 'well, he takes good care of the animals'. Parents don't want him.(He should have guessed something was wrong when Dream showed up and liked him right away.)No, he shouldn't have. That's stupid. He's a kid who wanted to be loved, why would he have ever guessed what Dream was doing?Back on topic. It's unnatural to him to think that Phil would want him to be his... son, or whatever. But he knows that's just another facet of his fucked up childhood getting to him, and it shouldn't be unnatural- but knowing it's wrong doesn't make it easier to get past. So, Phil is another person that's just hard to handle.And Wilbur. Fucking Wilbur.Tommy peeks his eyes open, and for just a moment he catches Wilbur staring at him. Wilbur, with unrestrained joy on his face as he watches Tommy listen to his music. Almost as fast as he's been caught, Wilbur is looking in another direction, pretending to all the world that it never happened.Back when he first got here, after Wilbur stole his shit, Tommy tried to ignore him. Still, it was impossible to ignore the way Wilbur played his music with his bedroom door just a little cracked, enough for the music to make its way to the living room. Tommy would follow the trail of sound, standing in the hall to listen to it at its clearest, all the while coming up with excuses in his head in case someone caught him.It was familiar, even if he didn't know all the songs Wilbur played. The music reminded him of Tubbo, even if the memory of his lost friend hurt him at the time, and it filled him with a sense of longing he desperately tried to shove down. Still, he listened anyway.And he's listening now, because the music Wilbur makes- it's important to him. He doesn't want it to be, not now that he knows who Sootings is, not when Wilbur has betrayed him over and over-"I love you, sunflower. I promised you'd be safe and happy here, remember?"...it's not fair to call that a betrayal. Tommy just didn't want to hear it, and it hurt, after Wilbur swore he just wanted to make Tommy happy, that he'd still say something that scared him. But Wilbur didn't know. He didn't fucking get it. And it's not his fault, it's Tommy's, for being so fucked up. And if he wasn't-If he wasn't, wouldn't that have been nice?Wouldn't he have been happy? 'I love you's, from someone claiming to be like family, like brothers, wouldn't it be nice? It's not like Dream ever said it. Fuck, he's not even sure if Tubbo has ever said it so blatantly, even though he knows Tubbo loves him as much as Tommy loves him back.I love you. It's literally three words. Why is it terrifying to hear?How does he make it stop being terrifying?He wants- he's trying, isn't he? He's trying to accept what they've said to him. What Wilbur said, that's a part of it, so he has to accept it, so he has to stop being scared. He has to. He has to. It's just... easier said than done.It shouldn't be as hard as talking to Sapnap. It's definitely going to be harder.Tommy glances at him again. This time, when Wilbur looks away, Tommy doesn't, and their eyes meet again.He's going to have to do it.But later. After the last song has played out.