~Manipulation~

26 // Ranboo's Arrival

Tw:
Abuse
Manipulation (literally the title of the book)

~~~~

"I TOLD YOU I'M SORRY!" Tommy screeched as Wilbur threw him across the floor. The brunette marched over to him and lifted up his head, forcing eye contact.

"And I thought I told you not to be so loud. I'm not done with your punishment."

"What did I even do?" Tommy's  voice came out scratchy and muffled in Wilbur's grip.

"Hmm, let's think," Wilbur paused for a moment. "You fumbled an excuse as to why I had your phone. You made both of us look bad in front of the others. You then refused to leave Phil's side so I couldn't get you alone. You tried to run from me as I dragged you up here. You're now making too much noise. Shall I continue?"

Tommy deflated, "no."

"I'm glad you've finally come to your senses. It must be so brave of you to do that," Wilbur crouched down to Tommy's height, maintaining the forced eye contact, "takes a lot of guts to admit you're wrong. I'm glad you realised it."

A sharp slap reverberated around the room as Tommy clutched his throbbing cheek.

"HE-"

"Shhhhhh," Wilbur cupped Tommy's cheek gently, completely covering Tommy's trembling hand which doing the same. "Not so loud, Toms."

"I hate you!" Tommy's voice wobbled slightly.

Wilbur scoffed, "and here I was thinking I'd feel sorry for what I'm about to do."

"No! No no no wait-"

——

An hour later, Tommy was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling in pained bemusement. Was it always that fuzzy in the edges? Maybe - he couldn't really remember.

"Tommy!" He heard a muffled call for him through the floorboards. "Phil, he's not in there, keep looking." Tubbo's voice?

Before Tommy could ponder it too much, his door creaked open. A concerned-looking Wilbur leaned against the frame.

"Toms, we're going to stream together. We're playing that Minecraft mod the programmer Phil was talking to made." Tommy didn't have the brain space to work out what that meant.

Wilbur lazily pushed himself off the frame and held the door open expectantly.

Tommy silently rose, pausing for a moment to let the world stop spinning, then walked out of his room, out of Wilbur's room, and into the hallway.

He barely had a moment to adjust to the change in scenery before he felt someone quite literally breathing down his neck.

"Tommy, you good?" Techno.

"Yup, just had a little nap. You know, big men like me need a power nap part way through the day because of all the amazing stuff we do." Tommy stretched, trying to avoid showing how much it hurt his muscles.

"Of course, of course. Well, Ranboo's arriving in about five minutes. We're planning to let him jump into the background of our stream. That's how we're going to reveal that we're all living together. Sound good?"

"Mhm!"

Techno looked Tommy over for a moment, pausing slightly, before calling out, "I found him!"

There was a rush of footsteps as Phil and Tubbo ran up to Tommy.

"Mate! Where were you?" Phil reached out to ruffle Tommy's hair but paused when Tommy took a small step back.

"Just power napping. You know big men like me need that memory storage to keep track of how pog we are!"