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Tommy isn't exactly sure when the depressive spiral started.
'Depressive' - well, if you'd even call it that. (That seemed a little extreme, didn't it?)
He's honestly not certain what it is, really. Maybe it's just pure laziness. Maybe it's just him being slothful and sluggish, torpid and dull, acting more like an unwashed pile of musty laundry than a functioning human being. Maybe he was just acting out for attention again.
Not that he actually was acting out as he had used to this time.
It wasn't like he was skipping class to hang out with his friends, Tubbo and Jack, so they'd inevitably get in trouble, and the school would call Phil; it wasn't like he was purposefully stealing Wilbur's cigarettes from his jacket pockets when he wasn't looking, in a weak attempt to have the brunette notice him; it wasn't like he was intentionally acting loud at daft hours in the morning so Techno would get annoyed and chastise him with that harsh tone of his.
(He didn't want to anymore; he didn't want to be that person. He wanted to be different, somebody that his father could be proud of and his brothers could adore. He wanted to be the perfect son, the perfect sibling, the perfect friend. He- Tommy just wanted to be good. He wanted to be good and good and-)
It wasn't like Tommy was doing any of those things this time around, none of them at all if you think about it.
So why-
No, this time- this time, in his 'spiral' (as he'd briefly stated before), or whatever you'd call it, whatever it truly was, he just felt... quiet.
Slow, in a sense. He felt as if each step he took had him pushing through gurgling quicksand and reaching tar; as if each moment spent awake was weighed down by tiresome thoughts and the leaden sense of reality; as if the world was moving around him, steady and turning, but he was stuck at a standstill.
A halt and a pause.
A falter in his onward quest and a wrap of chains curling around his thin ankles, lurching up and digging into his dainty wrists and tugging him back, back, back.
Back, away from the opportunities and events that would often pop up and attempt to lure him to them – back, away from the family outings and the invitations to hang out with his friends after dinner or the occasional class that they would actually attempt to show up to.
Back, away from everything that he helplessly wanted to reach out for.
Tommy was left strapped to his bed, held down by forceful, heavy rocks and an overwhelming sense of impertinence that left him whimpering and rotting underneath his own misery and distaste.
He was restrained and tied up, unable to add a simple curl to his toes or a slight shift to his goosebump-ridden form.
Decomposing, mouldering, dying-
Alright, well, that was all more of a metaphorical thing, actually. Tommy supposed he only felt as if he was completely hopeless in his efforts, and he only felt as if he'd never again be able to drag himself from the messy, dirty pit that he'd - over time – let himself sink into. (God, if only he could completely disappear under his sheets-)
It was just a mental block, right? A psychological effect where his brain was only telling him that he couldn't do this certain thing, that he couldn't begin looking after himself and even attempting to pull his crumbling life together, where in fact he actually could.
But-
But still.
Tommy didn't know how to get rid of it, see. He didn't know when it had started or where it was coming from, but this slump he'd found himself stuck within was awful, and it wasn't going away.
(A permanent fixture, one that was taking over his life and leaving nothing to remain.)
No matter how much he tossed and turned, no matter how much he tried to force himself to let his fingers glide over certain social media apps or flick over his unanswered messages – nothing seemed to be working. His mind would just go back to that bleak state of... nothing.
That state of a simple white, of padded walls and a bleeding emptiness that seemed to hum with his failures and sing praises for each time he'd rejected something that could help.
Even now, as Tommy lay curled on his side, the curtains drawn, the lights off, and the only sounds being the slight murmuring coming from downstairs, he couldn't fix whatever was going wrong with him or whatever was happening.
A sigh.
(Aching, burning, aching.)
Tommy's fingers curled around the edge of his blue sheets, nails digging into the soft material for a brief moment before retracting away.
He should get out of bed. He should. He should. He should; he was well aware of that.
But in the same thought, in the same breath, his head felt so... heavy, all congested and filled with a vibrating lead. His eyes were drooping, too, and... it surely had to be the evening anyway, right? So, it made sense for him to be in bed still, right? Right? People had naps during the evening, didn't they?
Tommy wasn't- he wasn't acting strange. Or abnormal. He was just a little downtrodden, just stuck in a bit of a crash he couldn't crawl out of and a spiral that was sure to diminish eventually.
Everyone had these sorts of days. It was typical for teenagers to act like this; that's what Phil had always told him. Teenagers got tired more easily; they got snappy and cruel and slammed doors when they didn't get their way.
They ran rampant around the house, protested at certain bedtimes and wanted to stay up late finishing just 'one more quest' on their new videogame.
(Or, in Tommy's case, they threw bottles through windows and lit fires in the woods just to see that burning spark; they smoked weed late into the night and scratched out pages of unfinished homework; they acted out, and they were mean.)
Teenagers changed, to say the least. There was nothing 'depressive' about it. It was normal; it was normal and right and something that would happen to everyone and all. It was a part of growing up, these sorts of feelings. It was puberty, it was-
Another sigh, though this one was just a tad heavier than the last.
Tommy just needed to stare at his wall a little longer, to keep curled up and warm underneath his copious amounts of blankets and remind himself that he'd get up in a minute. Just another minute.
He just needed a little bit more time, that was all. Just a-
"Tommy?"
Just a-
Just.
Oh.
Wait.
Brows furrowed together, a slight groan and a barely conscious shift. Tommy found himself attempting to look towards his door, although his muscles felt far achier than usual, and his body appeared as if it was doing its best not to cooperate with him.
Fuck, did everything hurt.
Hurting, hurting, hurting-
"Tommy?" There was the voice again, thick and timbre, deep around some syllables but light next to most. It was as smooth as a fresh lick of salted butter and as calming as mother nature's lulling touch. It was familiar. "You awake?"
Wilbur.
Wilbur, Wilbur, Wilbur.
Tommy didn't know whether he wanted to laugh or cry. Maybe both at once, just to make himself even more of a mess. "I'm-" Oh, yeah, his own voice was absolutely ruined. It was croaky and raw, breaking up and repetitively scratching like dragging chalk on a board. Just breathe. In and out. "I'm awake!"
A pause.
"Right. Good, well, dinner's ready. Dad and Techno are waiting for you downstairs, alright?"
Could Tommy make it down there? Could he sit at the dining table with a family that had essentially broken into varying, different shards? Could he-
"I'm- I'm not hungry! Sorry, I'm probably just gonna, uh, stay up here, thanks."
Well, at least it was the truth - sort of. Tommy was hungry, really hungry, actually. His stomach was groaning and grumbling and begging for some sort of nutrients, but... but Tommy didn't think he had it in him to actually chew and swallow, nor could he force himself all the way downstairs.
Not in this present moment, and certainly not in the next.
And now that Wilbur had (presumably) left, given the fact that there were no more shouts piercing through his door, Tommy could return to his... wallowing? If that's what you'd call it, at least.
He could get back to shoving his face into his pillow, to staring tiredly at a blank wall and letting his fingertips trace over mattress stains and the likes. He could get back to pretending as if his brain knew what it was doing even a tad, and like he didn't have hundreds of missed texts and calls on his phone.
He could-
"C'mon, child, scooch over."
Ah.
Ah. Tommy's brain was playing tricks on him again, making up random noises and voices and tones to mess with him because surely he would have realised if Wilbur had entered his room. He would have heard the door open and the footsteps and that slight announcement that the brunette always liked to give.
Tommy would have been well aware of it, so-
"If you don't move, I'm gonna lay on top of you, and I'm pretty sure you're not going to like that."
Oh.
The blonde's body was practically moving in autopilot at that point, even despite the aches and the increasingly sore muscles, he stretched inch by tiny inch over to the side, right up until he'd left just enough space for his older brother.
A satisfied hum, a slight tug at the blankets and then a weight was settling against Tommy's side. There was a mild amount of shuffling and grumbling too, and just a hint of somebody very obviously trying to find a comfortable position before it all settled out.
Well, the moving had settled out, at least. The talking apparently hadn't.
"How come you aren't coming down for dinner?"
Really? Hadn't Tommy just-
"'M not hungry."
"Yeah? You haven't been down for dinner in a while, Tommy. You can't play the whole 'I'm not hungry, I'm full' card with me at this point."
Wilbur's hand was gentle in its movements as it slowly smoothed over the younger teen's side, careful and light and sincerely reassuring in so many complex ways. Tommy shivered.
"I'm just not," the blonde attempted around a swallow, feeling just a little stiff and unsure of himself. He was hungry, but he... wasn't. "I'm tired."
"We all get tired sometimes."
Tommy knew that. He knew that. He did, but. But. “But this is different.”
A thoughtful hum. "How so?"
The younger's lips parted, contemplative and paired with a tongue flicking just a little before snapping back shut. He didn't- he didn't like this. He didn't like this at all.
It was odd, to say the least.
See, Tommy and Wilbur's relationship had always been a little... rocky, if that was how you could describe it. It wasn't perfect in the slightest, with Wilbur acting as the sturdy, relentless boulders that lined a towering, uncaring shore, and Tommy taking up the role as the battering, raging sea that seemed to never give up with what he was doing.
They clashed, they argued, and they fought. They were opposites in the wildest of senses and found themselves clawing at one another more often than not. Brothers, adopted into the same family and the same lifestyle, and yet still so venomous towards one another.
(Tommy, just wanting to be noticed, to be seen and heard and have his big brother love him.)
(Wilbur, unable to handle having somebody so close, somebody so likeable and kind and everything to him, so near.)
All in all, they weren't exactly great for one another, no matter how hard Phil had tried to even everything out, to smooth out jagged lines and broken shards.
But now, but now, but now.
So, why was Wilbur doing this now? Why was he acting so... understanding? So ready to listen and so caring?
"I don't want to talk about it."
Bitter, stinging like the soured taste of a squeezed lemon and so much more, but truthful. Tommy didn't want to talk about it, and nobody could force him to. Not even Wilbur, right?
Right?
"Huh. Well, that's okay," the brunette shrugged, shifting a hand up slightly. "We don't have to yet."
And-
Oh.
Oh?
"...We don't?"
"Nah." Immediate and sure of himself, Wilbur was being sincere. He wasn't going to force anything out of his younger brother, even despite his brewing curiosity and that need to help him (the need that he skillfully hid underneath sneers, glares and increasingly cold words.)
"Oh." Tommy blinked; he frowned lightly, fingers gripping onto his bedsheets once more. They didn't dig in this time, though. "Are you sure?"
Wilbur laughed, though it was a tad subdued. "One hundred percent. How about we have a nap instead? You said you were tired."
"But-"
But they were in Tommy's room. But they had dinner waiting for them downstairs. But they weren't close, and they hated each other, and they were rude and callous and just wanted-
"Just a short nap." Wilbur hummed, moving his hand even further up so he could gently card his fingers through greasy, blonde curls – letting his digits gingerly pull at the slight knots and attempt to smooth out the birds' nest that Tommy had acquired. "And then maybe we can talk about some stuff after."
Well...
Well.
Well, this was still a pretty confusing situation.
Tommy still didn't really know what was going on with his brain, whether it was just typical teenage angst or if it truly was something more, something worse. He still didn't really know how to act around the brother he'd craved attention from or how to word his stuttered sentences.
Tommy still didn't know if he could pull himself out of this; he still didn't have a tight grasp around what was going on with his body, nor did he ever want to leave his bed again (even now), but.
But perhaps this could, in an oddly similar sense, be good; perhaps this could be the start of something better, and perhaps Wilbur could help make Tommy's brain stop throbbing so loudly at a constant, seemingly unrelenting pace.
Plus, a nap really did sound quite nice.
(Wilbur's body was warm against his, it was a pillar of protection and a reminder that somebody was there. Even despite their differences, even despite the fact that they struggled and spat harsh words towards one another at every given moment, Wilbur was Tommy's safety.)
...Yeah, yeah, it did.