Tommyinnit Oneshots

They Told Me Blue Would Make Me Happy (They lied)

The moon is still high in the sky when his eyes flutter open. Tommy breathes out slowly, his grip loosening around the blanket he clung tight to in his sleep. The cloth falls from his hands, landing softly against the sheet. He looks around the dark room. Everything is bathed in a silver shine, making it look ethereal and otherworldly as the night birds sing soft lullabies outside the high barred window. His roommate, Jordan, is asleep in the bed pressed right up against Tommy's bed, lying on his back with his hands folded over his covered stomach. Tommy reaches out for him, but his fingers hesitate when they feel one of the creases of Jordan's nightshirt. The material is soft and warm, but it makes Tommy recoil sharply, bringing his hand back to his chest as if holding onto a burn wound.

He sits up in his bed, turning his back to Jordan. His legs fall off the side of the bed, barely touching the freezing ground. His blanket falls off his shoulders, pooling around his waist and inviting the cold draft to bundle him up in its place. He shivers, wrapping his arms around himself in some vain attempt to warm himself up as he takes a step off the bed. The metal screeches against the wooden floor. Tommy looks over his shoulder, but Jordan has barely moved besides tilting his head toward the wall. Tommy continues out of the room once he's made certain that his roommate wasn't going to catch him.

Tommy certainly likes his roommate. Jordan is kind and understanding. After being roommates for a few days, Jordan didn't refuse Tommy's request to put their beds together. He didn't even ask for Tommy's reasoning; not like Tommy was going to tell him, anyway. It was embarrassing to admit that the dark room made him feel both claustrophobic and unbearably lonely. The plain walls and depressing ambiance of the room reminded him of his home, and it was so much easier to ground himself back to reality if his roommate was right there, across from him, someone who was not part of his home.

He just didn't want Jordan to wake up right now. Jordan would be concerned. He would wonder, with patient eyes and caring hands, why Tommy was up at that late hour. He would probably drag Tommy back to bed, if not physically with his limbs than by his somber words. Tommy would drift back to sleep under Jordan's careful eye and promise that the morning would be much better than the previous day. It was a lie, but it was a comfortable one that he didn't mind foolishly believing.

He wandered toward the faded green door in the corner of the room. The next room over was dark, but he could catch glimpses of light reflected in the mirror and pointed at the wall. He walked past the bathroom, scrambling in the dark for the glinting doorknob that would lead him into the next room. The door creaked open slowly, and Tommy poked his head into the neighboring room that shared a bathroom with him and Jordan. There was a singular twin-sized bed sat in one of the corners, a rather messy desk right beside it, and a window situated near the roof letting in soft moonlight. The window is open and the bed is empty, so it didn't take a genius to figure out where the inhabitant of that single room was.

Tommy used the chair to stand on top of the desk, grabbing the edges of the windowsill. He pulled himself up, kicking one of his legs up to help him slide outside of the dormitory. The cold wind hits him immediately as he lowers his body down onto the manicured dead grass of the courtyard. His shivering grows even worse as he pads around the side of the wall to hide in the shadow of the schoolhouse. There, in the darkness, he finds a small alcove where one person takes refuge from the wind and moonlight.

"What are you doing?" Tommy asks, his voice heavy with sleep. He's been tired for a long time now, so he doesn't feel embarrassed about it or try to fix his voice. He's been exhausted in so many ways, from the achy way of not getting enough sleep to the surreal way of getting too much to the one that settles heavily in one's bones until they feel as if they can't pick themselves up from the ground. It comes with being a child from a broken family who was sent to the academy for problematic children.