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It was a humid night. A little dark out to be alone, but nonetheless Tommy was out. He was on his way to the train, his room got a bit cramped after he spent all day working in it then sleeping in it at night. He was planning on riding it until his head was cleared again, he got that mushy feeling when you're on your devices inside for too long. He was walking from street to street, the empty feeling of the night calming him. He had a long day between streaming and college work, being a celebrity at his age was extremely stressful. Oh, the light was red. He started to cross the road and walk to the train station. He grated his feet over the cracked sidewalks of Nottingham, each crack had a story. Maybe this one came from a child falling off of its scooter, or a construction company putting down something too hard. The sound of leaves swaying due to a sudden breeze snapped Tommy out of his thoughts. He looked around. A light green apartment building and a small chinese restaurant at the intersection of where he was. He didn’t particularly recognize the area, but he could use google maps to head home. Another street crossed, another block walked.
His headphones were in his ears playing some random song from his daily mix. Walking around, he spotted a few people, nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing strange about tonight was the fact he was outside. He didn’t do that much anymore. He was at another street corner. Red light, street crossed. He fell into a rhythm of walking, waiting, and crossing. He hoped he wasn’t too far from home, walking back this late and this dark would be a pain. He heard his discord notifications going off, but he didn’t mind. The dinging sound was comforting with how much he heard it.
Step, wait, cross.
His parents were on a business trip anyways, it not like they would notice he wasn’t home. Something about an “unbelievable opportunity” that they couldn’t miss or their workload would be larger at their actual offices. Tommy couldn’t be upset at them, though. He was smart enough to realize that it was helpful in longer terms. When they were home they would be at their office less, therefore more time would be able to be spent with him. They did start going on these abroad trips more often, which made Tommy feel a bit neglected, but it was whatever, he was 17, he could take care of himself.
He was starting to pass by a darker area, there weren’t as many street lamps and there certainly weren't as many people. He walked down the sidewalk seeing dumpsters and discarded furniture. This town seemed like a dump, and Tommy quite enjoyed the eerie atmosphere of the abandoned buildings. He walked a bit more before he heard screaming. He was immediately on edge. Two figures were running towards him, fast at that. His flight or fight instincts set in. He stayed in place, waiting to see if these people were gonna run past him or approach him.
Well, they definitely approached him.
The first one dragged him into an alleyway, they must’ve been pretty strong considering they withstood all of Tommy’s thrashing.
The second one pulled out a knife. Tommy’s heart was pounding, his eyes were scanning the alleyway, seeing if he could find any way out. He heard about British knife crimes in school, or how Wilbur would tell him to be careful going out because “There could be some wrongun with a knife who wants to stab children,” but he never actually expected for it to happen to him. He tried to recall in his brain any tips for what to do, but it was blank. Tommy silently cursed himself for going out when it was this dark.
“I don’t want to hurt you kid, give me your wallet and we won’t have any problems.” A gruff voice snapped Tommy out of his stupor.
“I- uh- I don’t have my wallet on me right now.” Tommy squeaked.
“Bullshit. Jaime, sort this kid out, then we gotta run.” The voice said to who he assumed was Jaime.
“Yeah okay.” Jaime put up his knife before talking “This is your last chance, kid, either give it, or this thing will be in your stomach.” Tommy grit his teeth and decided, screw it, he tried to punch this guy in the face. Keyword tried, Jaime dodged.
“You wanna play that game? Fine.” Jaime raised his blade.
It felt like his stomach was eaten up by a massive inferno. It was sharp and hot and he could feel the warmth of the blood dripping down his stomach.
There was absolutely no way that just happened, sure, he heard stories of people getting stabbed, but there was no way it could actually happen to him.
He fell to his knees as his hearing went staticy. He distantly heard footsteps running away from him, but it was distant and why should he care?
His head felt full of cotton, and the hard surface he was on was starting to make his body ache. When did he start laying down? Tommy didn’t know. A distant part of his brain was telling him to get his phone and call someone, anyone. Tommy didn’t know why, but considering that part of his brain was the only one functioning, he listened to it. He quickly pulled up his contact list. All the words felt like too much, so he pressed on someone random. He hoped he didn’t wake anyone up, that would bother them. He heard the vibrations of his phone before he heard a voice.
“Tommy, I told you not to use my number unless it’s an emergency. We’re not friends, we’re work acquaintances. You don’t get money from using my number, so don’t. So what’s so important that you had to call me using my real number.” A familiar voice said. There was certainly something behind it, but Tommy was too out of it to discern emotion.
“S’meth’ng b’d h’ppened.” Huh, that was strange, his words weren’t coming out right. It was kind of funny. “It h’rts.”
“Tommy? What hurts? Why are you slurring your words?” That voice sounded awfully familiar.
“Ph’l, is th’t you?” Tommy asked.
“No Toms, it’s Wilbur. What happened and where are you?”
Wilbur certainly sounded stressed, was Tommy the one causing it? He hoped not, Tommy quite liked Wilbur and wouldn’t want to upset him.
“I d’nt kn’w where I am, I’m t’red W’l.”
“No Tommy, don’t fall asleep. Where are you? Do you see a restaurant? A sign, maybe?”
Tommy pondered his head for a moment. That Chinese restaurant before, what was it called? He racked his head for a moment before responding to Wilbur.
“Cho-Sen ‘sland.” Tommy slurred. “W’lbur ‘m t’red.”
“Toms you can sleep in a moment. Let’s have a discussion, what’s your favorite song in Hamilton?” Wilbur asked.
Tommy was getting awfully tired. He couldn’t help his eyelids drooping and the promise of an unconscious state with no pain sounded nice. Plus it was late, and he was tired.
“Toms? Toms, you awake? Toms?”
“‘M s’rry W’lbur.” Is the last thing that Tommy said before leaving into the wonderful realm of sleep.
He woke up in a shaky vehicle. He was laying down on an uncomfortable bed. Hope tried to move his arms but his arms felt weighted with lead.
“He’s awake, give him more.” An anonymous voice said.
Tommy fell back asleep.
The next… however long was a blur.
Tommy woke up periodically only to go back under again, but he heard different voices each time he woke up for several seconds at most. He wasn’t sure when he woke up more lucid than other times, but it had to have been after a while considering the number of people he felt in his room was more than one, to be fair, it could be his parents and doctors. There were a few familiar voices, but he couldn’t muster up enough energy to open his eyes.
“…hypothermia, a concussion, and of course the lacerations themselves…”
“…he lost a lot of blood, way more than we’re comfortable with. We’re gonna need a transfusion…”
“…if one of you guys could donate blood, that would be wonderful. We’re running low on his blood type…”
A different voice broke through the medical drabble, “None of us are his blood type though! What will happen if he doesn’t get it in time?”
“The friend on the phone, what blood type are they?” The original voice said.
“I’m O negative, that might help?” A tinny voice said, almost as if on a phone call, despite the rattle Tommy could tell it was a deep and monotone voice. It sounded vaguely familiar…
And he was back off in dreamland.
The next time he woke up he was much more in tune with his body and surroundings. Holy shit did his chest hurt. He tried to sit up but the burning feeling in his chest gave him too much issues so he just settled on laying down. There was someone in the chair beside his bed. They had light brown hair, more of the wavy type. Rectangle framed glasses were crookedly set on their face, covering their red rimmed eyes. Their eyes were closed, so Tommy assumed they were asleep.
It took Tommy a minute to understand who this was, once he did he almost squealed in delight. This had to be Technoblade. He was probably on the phone with Wilbur when Tommy was lucid. That was the voice that Tommy heard on the phone.
Tommy tried talking to wake Techno up. “Hey Technoblade, fancy seeing you here.”
Techno’s sleeping body jerked at the mention of his name. His eyelids fluttered and his brown irises shined in the artificial hospital light. Tommy couldn’t help but notice how similar he and Wilbur looked.
Techno’s eyes squinted before widening an amount that should not be possible.
“Tommy?” Techno stated, although it was phrased as a question.
“Yeah big man?” Tommy said with a raspy voice. His throat was dry as if he ate a bag of sand, some water would do him good.
Somehow Techno’s eyes got even larger “Are- are you awake?”
“No, I’m talking in my sleep.” He sarcastically said. He attempted to roll over to get the pitcher of water before yelping. “Fuck, my chest.”
Techno stood up and sticky walked over as if he was a robot with no joints. He grabbed the pitcher and poured water with shaking hands. He marched back over to Tommy and gave him the cup.
Tommy downed the water like it was the only thing saving him from dying of dehydration. After he set down the cup he noticed how jittery Technoblade was. His fingers were tapping on his thigh and his leg was bouncing. Tommy wasn’t used to seeing him so uncertain.
“Big man, you alright? You seem kinda…” Tommy waved his hand. “anxious, if you will. Anything causing you trouble?”
Techno looked startled after Tommy’s realization. “Well uhm-“ Techno cleared his throat. “Well you know it’s kinda scary when Wil calls you, panicking, saying Tommy just got stabbed. He said he called an ambulance and that he was driving to the hospital. Naturally I kinda panicked and hung up. I started looking up tickets here right away and took the closest flight here. I was terrified that I-“ Techno paused and cleared his throat before looking around and speaking quieter. “I was terrified I would be too late. I was on the plane when Wil called me saying they needed a blood transfusion and they were running low on your blood type. I almost had a panic attack right there in my plane seat. When I came and they said you were stable I pretty much melted in relief. I’ve been in a hotel around a block away for the past few days.”
Tommy had no clue how much his friends suffered because of his stupidity. He felt that the guilt was eating up his insides.
“Techno I’m so sorry-“
“Toms you have no reason to apologize, it's not your fault that you got stabbed.” Tommy winced. “It would be unfair of me to blame you. You- you just had us worried.”
Tommy still felt guilty, but not to the same degree. Wait… us?
“What do you mean ‘us’?” Tommy furrowed his eyebrows.
“I forgot to mention, Wilbur and Phil are here. They’re eating lunch in the cafeteria. I said I’d wait by you while they eat. I don’t mind. They’ll probably come back in around 30 minutes if I had to guess. We could watch something while we wait for them.” Techno offered.
Tommy agreed and they watched Bo Burnham’s “Inside” for the next 30 minutes. Techno was sitting on Tommy’s bed, back against the headboard. He had an arm slung over Tommy’s shoulder as a subtle show of affection.
The doors of the room slung open and Tommy could hear gentle chatter following the figures that walked into the room. Wil turned his head towards Techno and Tommy before dropping what he was holding, causing liquid to spill everywhere, and running toward Tommy. Wil hugged him as hard as he could and mumbled in Tommy’s ear too fast for him to pick up everything except for a few phrases.
“…we were so scared Toms, never scare us like that again or I’ll stab you myself…”
“…I missed talking with you, it was way too quiet in the room…”
“…I called Techno and even he was scared so you know this was big…”
And last of all “…we love you Toms, don’t forget that.”
Wilbur stopped harassing Tommy and turned to Techno.
“You! You traitor. I told you to call me if he woke up. Instead you pull this. I can’t believe you.” Wilbur feigned offense.
Phil chuckled before joining in. “Mate, chill. We all know you needed the break from watching over Tommy. Plus you needed to call his parents, you couldn’t just hang up on them.”
His parents. He just noticed they weren’t there.
“Speaking of my parents, where are they? I got stabbed and considering it's apparently been a few days I feel like they would come.”
Phil looked sheepish, Wilbur looked sad.
“Well you see-“ Wilbur started before breaking eye contact with Tommy to look at the ground. “They said they were ‘too busy to deal with you’. They were… they didn’t exactly speak about you in a positive manner.”
Of course. Of fucking course. Because it was an important business trip, and why would they leave because their son got stabbed? That would be insane.
“You’re gonna come home with us to Wilbur’s house. We’re gonna stay there for a bit after you get discharged. After that… we’ll figure it out when we get there.” Phil said.
Phil approached the chair next to Tommy and ran his fingers through his hair. Wil sat down on the other side of his bed and held his hand. And Techno kept his arm on his shoulders and unpaused Inside. It was a domestic scene, Tommy with his two (real) brothers and his dad.
Even if his biological parents cared more about their work than him, his real family put him over their work and even their living situation. It felt nice to be cared about. Even if he wasn’t sure what the future was going to ensue, the present was a guarantee. He melted into Techno’s arms and drifted off.
The intercoms went off.
“Code blue in room 136!”
Wilbur and Techno sobbed into Phil’s shoulder as Tommy’s lifeless body was hauled away on a stretcher. Wilbur looked into his dull eyes for a final time before tearing away his gaze in favor to clench the back of Phil’s shirt harder.