Chapter Text
Tommy sleeps for several hours after that, though none of the others do, too riled up by his last bout of consciousness. They chat among themselves, careful to keep their voices low enough to not wake the human again. Even with his increased rate of healing as compared to the rest of his crew, he's going to be out of commission for a long while after this, and sleep is going to be his greatest asset.
Of course, Tommy never does what's best for himself, and wakes up again after only four hours of sleep. The crew is immediately nervous, all worried for more drugged-out admissions of terror, but though he remains dizzy and muttering, he seems much more cheerful. Wilbur is the first to find this out, standing near the bed when Tommy awakes and being dragged into a one-armed hug from behind, making the phantling shriek in terror. Tommy grumbles when Wilbur tries to struggle out of his grip, and he doesn't have the heart to pull out of the hug, not after he had feared for Tommy’s life the way he had.
"Are you awake, Tommy?" Tubbo asks after a chittering bout of laughter at Wilbur's predicament.
"Mm," Tommy confirms, squeezing Wilbur tighter. "I'm glad you're here."
A buzz of concern runs down Tubbo's back, remembering Tommy's ramblings when he had briefly woken up and thought that Phil was his dead cellmate. If the same thing is happening again then he doesn't know how Tommy is going to react when he finds out who they really are.
"Tommy, do you know who we are?" Phil asks gently, likely thinking the same thing as Tubbo.
"Yeah," Tommy murmurs, hiding his face in Wilbur's poncho. "Space family." He says in English. Tubbo lets out a relived breath, wings sinking as he relaxes. He at least is aware of who they are, and Tubbo is definitely going to hold being called his 'space family' over his head when he's back to normal.
"...Is this new?" Tommy mutters, muffled by Wilbur's poncho.
"Yeah," Wilbur says with an amused trill, watching as Tommy sleepily rolls the tassles in between his finger and thumb. "It's nice," Tommy sighs.
"Do you know where you are?" Techno asks, apparently unable to stand any sort of emotional tenderness.
"Mm, hospital," Tommy says. It's close enough that none of them correct him. "Come lay with me."
"We cant kiddo," Phil says, wings twitching with barely controlled restraint to drag Tommy into the nest. "We don't want to tear your stitches." Tommy scrunches his face up in distaste.
"But I don't feel good," Tommy complains. "All- all woozy and shit."
"I know," Wilbur sighs. "You lost a lot of blood, and it's not like we have an ample supply of humans to get blood from to replace it."
"Better than one of your organs exploding," Tubbo says, sitting on the edge of Tommy's bed, ignoring the disappointed chirp from Phil that the apisaid had left the nest. "Why in the world would that be how your body functions."
Tommy hums something that may have been 'I don't know' and reaches blindly for Tubbo, making grabbing motions. Tubbo slots a hand into Tommy's and the human hums in satisfaction, falling back against his pillow.
With one hand tangled in the fabric of Wilbur's new poncho and the other wrapped around Tubbo's hand, Tommy falls back into the gentle lull of sleep. Tubbo follows not long after, something anxious and ugly within him settled by the warmth of Tommy's hand in his. He's close enough to hear his breathing, no longer stuttering and tight with pain. Tubbo feels Ranboo wrap his tail around his arm, an eagerness to be involved in what may be the universe's most gentle cuddle pile.
With both his best friends healthy, safe, and by his side, Tubbo can finally rest easy.
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"I'm just saying, you already had me under, you could have at least given me a laser eye or something," Tommy grumbles from where he is propped up on a stack of pillows. There is a tray of food on his lap that will be gentle on his stomach. The combined nausea of both the painkillers, antibiotics, and the residual nausea of his appendicitis has made very little of what Tommy has eaten in the past three days stay eaten.
"If I knew how to do cybernetics I wouldn't be doing drug synthesis on a pirate ship," Wilbur says from where he lays on the floor, tail flicking lazily.
"Since when are we pirates?" Ranboo asks, looking up from his journal that he's been scribbling in for the past half hour. Phil clicks in nervous amusement.
"We're not pirates," Phil says, nudging Wilbur with the tip of his wing. "Stop lying to the kids to sound cool."
Techno chuffs in amusement before covering it up with a cough.
"Lame," Tubbo complains. "I'd love to be a space pirate."
"You watch too many movies," Phil chirps.
"You have movies in space?" Tommy gasps, sitting up so quickly he nearly knocks his tray to the floor. Tubbo steadies it with a muttered curse so Tommy doesn't spill leaf-water all over his lap.
"Yes, stop moving around you're gonna spill."
"Why did no one tell me this?" Tommy asks in mock rage. "It's like a sickness rite of passage to watch bad movies while you recover."
"That's what you said about your leaf-water too," Techno huffs.
"It's called tea , thank you very much," Tommy says, crossing his arms. "And it is a rite of passage. Everyone drinks tea when they're sick, it heals you."
"I really don't think spices and water is going to heal your removed organ any faster," Wilbur says.
"You're not a doctor," Tommy scoffs.
"I literally was the one who did the surgery you gremlin!" Wilbur says incredulously, flipping over onto his stomach to glare at Tommy.
" Okay , do you have your doctorate?" Tommy asks, putting his hands on his hips. Wilbur stays silent, lips pursing. "That's what I thought, bitch."
"Phil, go get a projector so Tommy can get his human recovery checklist done," Techno says, throwing a balled-up piece of paper at their captain. Phil whistles something that may be a curse and gets to his feet, stretching out his wings.
"People used to respect me, you know," Phil says with a pointed look.
"But aren’t you so much happier now?" Tubbo asks with a shit-eating grin, swinging his legs off the end of the bed. Phil hesitates for a moment in his stride to get the projector, his eyes scrunching up into little upturned crescents.
"Yeah," He says warmly. "I am."
A pillow hits him in the face almost immediately after he speaks.
"Ewww," Tommy yells. "Don’t get all sappy captain."
"I take it back," Phil chortles. "I'm quitting captaining to spend full time with my wife. Tubbo is in charge."
"You have a wife ?" Tommy asks at the same time Tubbo cheers.
"There's a lot of things you don't know about me," Phil says with a stilted wink, a gesture he's learned from Tommy but hasn't quite gotten down yet. The elytrian sweeps out of the room and the door slides shut behind him.
"I can’t believe Phil has a wife before I do," Tommy grumbles, taking an angry bite of his toast.
"He is like... nineteen times your age. He's had a lot more time to find someone." Wilbur points out.
"How fucking old is he?" Tommy shrieks.
"Like... three-hundred-something. I don't know- elytrians live a long time."
"Fuck me, he's an old bat." Tommy sighs, laying back against his pillows.
"Don’t call Phil an old bat," Techno says distractedly, still engrossed in the book he's reading.
"Who's an old bat?" Phil asks from the doorway, making Tommy jump.
"Oh nobody," Tommy says with a toothy grin. "Do you have the movies?"
"Yes, yes, but an old bat like me wouldn't be able to work the projector so I guess we'll have to skip movies," Phil says with a deep sigh.
"No, no!" Tommy says around a laugh, reaching his arms out to grab the projector out from Phil's arms. "I'm sorry, you're not old, you're a right spring chicken!"
"I'll choose to take that as a compliment," Phil says, setting the projector down on a counter. "What do you guys want to watch?"
"I get to pick since I was the one who had to have surgery," Tommy sings, stretching a hand out for the stack of thin sheets of plastic that held the movies' code.
"You won’t even know any of these movies," Ranboo points out, dodging a pillow thrown at him by Tommy.
"Are you saying I'm not cultured?" Tommy says with a mocking gasp.
"Have you ever seen a movie from anywhere but Earth?" Techno asks, flipping a page in his book.
"I'm not one for foreign films, too high-brow for my taste," Tommy says, taking the stack of movies from Phil's arms.
_________________________________________
After a brief synopsis of each film given by his begrudging crew, Tommy decides on a movie about a man of a species called a bellage falling in love with someone of a rivaling species, called the skildive. It is apparently based on a legend that is very popular in space, and though Tommy is not exactly privy to the urban legends of deep space, he's happy to learn.
Or, he would have been, had he not been so tired. He falls asleep against Wilbur's shoulder only ten minutes into the movie, before the two main characters have even met. None of them get up to turn the movie off, as dull as it is, and they all slip into sleep one after another until Wilbur remains the only one awake. Once he sees that the rest of his crew is asleep, the phantling nudges Tommy in the shoulder to wake him. Tommy stirs with a displeased murmmur.
"Hey, wake up," Wilbur whispers. "I want to show you something."
That gets Tommy's attention at least, and he raises his head and blinks blearily at Wilbur.
"What?"
In lieu of an answer, Wilbur rolls over and opens a drawer in the nightstand. He rummages around for a few seconds before pulling out a small jar that is sloshing with liquid. Tommy gasps before even fully seeing it, having a good idea of what the jar contains.
"Oh my God, you didn't ," Tommy says with a mischievous smile. Wilbur smiles back, sharp teeth glinting in the overhead lights.
"I did," He confirms. "Here, take it."
Wilbur hands him the jar of pure alcohol that contains his removed appendix, the small nub of tissue floating lazily in the liquid. It looks so innocent you would never have been able to guess the trouble it had caused.
"I'm gonna put this on my shelf and freak Tubbo out with it," Tommy says, shaking the jar up and down.
"Good luck," Wilbur says with an amused click. "Tubbo would think it was cool. You'd have a better chance of freaking out Ranboo."
"Mm, a good point," Tommy says around a yawn.
"Go back to bed, child," Wilbur says, ruffling Tommy's hair. "The sooner you’re better the sooner you can go back to terrorizing us all."
"That's my job," Tommy says distantly, already falling back asleep. Wilbur lays down next to him, not far behind.
"That it is, gremlin," Wilbur says, pulling Tommy’s blankets up around his shoulders. "That it is."
The movie carries on, drama and love triangles playing for no one in the room full of sleeping bodies, providing soothing background noise. A jar full of alcohol pure enough to kill all but one of them sits on a nightstand, and inside is an appendix that nearly tore apart the crew. They are alive, their bodies still warm and their chests still rising and falling.
Tomorrow will come for all of them. They will have breakfast and try Tommy’s leaf-water, and despite all of their complaining, they will all sneak into the kitchen to have some when no one is watching. They will live, they will keep living.
The woman drifting in everything and nothing will make sure of that. She wants her husband happy, after all.