Work Text:
Laying On his bed, the window shines into his bedroom soft sunrays. Tommy could see the early sunrise, pink clouds passing prettily, and he heard his alarm going off.
Swinging himself off his bed, he is careful not to step on any toys sketches sprawled onto his floor. Tommy keeps it in the back of his mind to clean this up and put them somewhere safe.
He can't step on his friends, that would be mean!
Searching between the sprawled papers he finds the one with two totally amazingly drawn figures, and Tommy beams.
"Good morning Tubbo! Good morning Ranboo!" He held the drawing firmly in his palms as he let it face him. A drawing of two stick figures smiling, one comically taller than the other, the shorter one has angry eyebrows with his smile. Yup, that is Tubbo. And the other has a worry crease to his eyebrows.
The taller in a suit, Ranboo, moved his arm slightly as a gesture of response, while Tubbo may as well be trying to imitate the flaps of a bee's wings from how enthusiastic he seems, smacking ranboo's stick figure multiple times in the process.
Tommy smiles, "Tubbo you're gonna make Ranboo trip!" He laughs out when Ranboo does fall like a toothpick. "I'm so happy to see you guys too! Wait I should probably draw you guys some food…"
Tommy scrambles in search of his crayons jumbled on his messy floor. He remembers putting them in his pencil case before going to bed, but where is it…
He bends to look under his bed
"Found you!"
Going back to Tubbo and Ranboo he decides to draw them some sandwiches. He remembers from last time not to draw it whole, it just seemed like a weird box to them.
So he does his best to draw lettuce, some turkeys that look like discs. A bread loaf and a tomato. He also drew them a table to be on!
Ranboo and Tubbo just stand by the sides of the table. Not touching anything.
"What's wrong?"
">:0"
Tubbo seems to be trying to say something, but Tommy doesn't understand him-
Tubbo starts patting the bread.
Oh
Ooo-
"-ooh. You need a knife to slice the bread?"
">:)"
Tommy notes that Ranboo is creating an 'X' with his arms, his face is a sad frown. Maybe fearful if they could show more expressions.
"Well..how about I draw them sliced instead?" Tommy tries, it'll be a lot harder, and he kiiiinda wanted to see Tubbo to mess around with Ranboo more.
But seeing Ranboo smile again is nice.
">:("
Seeing Tubbo angry isn't.
The two begin putting sandwiches together awkwardly, Tommy doesn't understand why they can't bend their arms, or legs, they almost move like sticks. Tommy doesn't really know why, but tries his best to make their days easier!
Tommy zones back into his friends, they keep making an 'o' shape before biting their food. It makes him giggle slightly.
"Hm?"
Ranboo keeps looking towards Tommy, gesturing his sandwich towards the boy.
"Do-" Tommy smiles sheepishly. "Do you want me to have that?"
":) !"
Ranboo stretches the sandwich closer towards where he could see Tommy. While Tubbo is making himself another one. Happily he smiles towards Tommy.
Now instead of seeing Ranboo and Tubbo, there is a sandwich covering the whole page. Tommy could see Ranboo's stick-fingers holding its sides. It looks a bit funny.
"Um-" Tommy tries to hold the sandwich. "I can't take it." Of course he can't grab it, it's drawn! Tommy sometimes wonders why his mind doesn't think of the most obvious stuff.
His stomach growls.
Before he could focus on it, the drawn sandwich on the paper began to move slightly. "Ranboo?" He could still see his friend's hand. "Um- What're you doing?" Tommy is now placing the paper on the fluffy small carpet in the middle of his tiny room, that is tiny, because he is tiny.
Huh. Isn't that a realisation!
Suddenly the sandwich starts rapidly moving, towards and farther, above view and under-
"Ranboo are you trying to shove the sandwich through?! "
":("
He doesn't succeed in doing so, unfortunately.
Ranboo slides to sit in defeat, no joints bend. Oof.
Tubbo stares at him, now he stares at Tommy, now he frowns, then-
"I'll go downstairs and ask uh- I'll ask him to make me a sandwich, we then could eat together!" Tommy suggests, suddenly a chaotic smile grows on his face. "Hold on- you haven't met my dad yet right? This is a good chance! I think you guys would like him."
This picks their whole attention. No one knows about Ranboo and Tubbo. Well, no oneTommy doesn't want to know, okay? It's just that- he doesn't know many people..
Tommy wears his socks and dresses himself up, pyjamas are for sleep! As much as Tommy likes the yellow crescent and stars on them, he should get ready for school. Bummer, he's not sure if Tubbo or Ranboo know what a school is.
Could they come if they knew? Would they want to come with him?
Tommy is now walking in his blue and black spiderman themed socks in the corridor. He's in a blue shirt and in a good mood; holding onto the paper, holding his friends, in his hands. Wow, that wording was difficult to think about. Ow.
To his left is the kitchen's door.
Walking in, Tommy can already notice the plate of food placed by his seat on the table. From the smell alone his stomach growls once more, making him giggle.
Tommy checks up on the two, they aren't moving much. Ranboo and Tubbo's stick figures sit side by side. Dot eyes looking downwards.
Tommy brings his friends closed to his chin and whispers, "My dad is nice! please don't be scared ok?" He softly smiles for the two.
Tommy places his friends on the table, Tubbo and Ranboo could see the ceiling, there isn't much besides a light bulb. It's a short ceiling. They could also see the top edge of a fridge, a really tall and big wooden statue..? What?
Is that a-
"Good morning dad!"
A mannequin.
Tommy's dad is a mannequin.
Neither Tubbo nor Ranboo comment on it, concealing whatever fear they felt away from Tommy.
The mannequin is wearing a kitchen apron, standing at the end of the small kitchen counter.
The two look down
In front of them now, there is, aside from Tommy's plate, a plate of food for them too.
"Dad, they can't eat like us, you goof." Tommy stuffs his mouth with fried hot dogs and scrambled eggs.
The two hear nothing from the mannequin.
Tommy finishes his serving, he brings his plate to the sink yet he can't reach high enough to place it without tip-toeing. "I'll head to school now! Make sure to eat too okay?" Tommy was about to get Ranboo and Tubbo but stopped, he turned and hugged the mannequin, happily smiling.
Walking to school is nice, Tommy gets to see orange trees fluttering by the gentle breeze of wind, He gets to see the elderly neighbour watering his plants, he's a nice man, sometimes Tommy helps him with the little flower garden he has and just talks to him about anything and everything. The ladybug on the soil, the weird neighbourhood crow, school…
The old man listens intently each time. Sometimes, he tells Tommy stories of his own, about his job at the nearby gas Station or about his son studying abroad, sometimes he finds the man strumming a tune on his porch. On weekends he would come and listen, he would bring his sketchbook too, draw everything in his sight and the man would prepare for him a cup of hot chocolate, placing it by his side before sitting back down and holding his guitar. Safe to say, Tommy enjoys hanging out with him.
He wonders if the old man and his dad would have fun hanging out together.
Tommy wears his backpack so it's in front of him, stopping his walk and opening it. "Hello," he softly whispered to his friends, his scarf covering half his face except his eyes, so Tommy's smile is only shown by their squint "Are you okay in there?"
Tubbo and Ranboo are smiling, Tommy hopes they are. He doesn't know if they could feel cold or if they need air to breathe.
"I'd like to show you something" He pulls them out and make them face the front of his school gate. It doesn't have any trees, there's a tired guard by the entrance and kids from older grades enter with hunched backs, but Tommy doesn't notice any of that. He sees how pretty the clouds are across the sky and how the windows of his school are tinted blue. "This is where I come to study," He whispered to them.
Tubbo and Ranboo don't really know how to react. Tommy seems like the only happy thing in this place, is this normal?
He mistook their confusion into something else, "I'm sorry I brought you with me without asking. I-" He laughed awkwardly, scratching the side of his head. "I thought it would be nice to uh- spend recess with you.." He sounded too small saying those words. It makes him wanna hide in his scarf.
Tommy didn't mind spending time alone, most of it spent doodling or drawing shapes with chalk on playground concrete before other kids stomped on them by accident. He would always smile at his drawings, even before Tubbo and Ranboo, he would tell them their own tales he created for them; the stray cat rummaging the garbage bins is now a runaway prince in his sketchbook looking for a home.
Tommy loved art, and wanted to keep the memory of things that could be forgotten through his art.
He doesn't see the eyes trailing him as he tucked his friends back into his sketchbook, and walked into school.
…
"What're you doing?"
Tommy stops. He was trying to place Tubbo and Ranboo next to a drawing of the playground he did. The three of them wanted to see if it would be possible to jump between sketches. Imagining the places he could create for his friends made Tommy want to draw so many things he would run out of paper.
He almost forgot he was being talked to before an annoying double nudge to his head was made.
"Can you like, hear me?"
Tommy looks at him and frowns, "Yes." He doesn't notice his instinctive movement to cover his friends and drawings.
"What do you want?"
"I was asking what you were doing, you're always sitting alone like a loser." He said, a couple of snorts followed from behind her. Why are they laughing? "What's that?" He peers over him, over to the drawings he shoved behind his back, Tommy's scared and the kid could see it.
"They're my drawings.." He doesn't understand why he suddenly wanted to hide, or why he wished tubbo and Ranboo could be here by his side. He doesn't understand why being alone is so scary now.
"Oh." The kid says blankly, pinning down Tommy with his gaze even though his focus is on his sketchbook. "Give them to me."
What?
"Huh?"
"I said I want your drawings, give them to me-" The kid tries to lunge for them but Tommy quickly pushes him away.
"No! You can't just- take my things away from me." He doesn't like this. He doesn't like the way suddenly the whole playground is looking at him. He doesn't like the suffocating quiet that came after he pushed the kid. And how everyone is expecting a response from the mean kid in front of him.
Without a thought he quickly grabbed his things and got up to make a run for it, tucking his sketchbook between his arms as tightly as possible, but the kid snatched the back of his jacket and the reality of it being bigger than him should not have made Tommy as scared. He hunched into himself trying to stop the bully from taking them away. He could see the frowns on Tubbo and Ranboo as he held onto them along his sketches for dear life, they're scared.
And Tommy is too. He's scared when his sketchbook slips off of him like a fallen leaf. He's scared when it's stomped on and crushed like one "stop!-" and he's scared when all he could do is watch the things he adored get destroyed in front of him. "You're hurting them! Please I'm sorry-"
"Shut up!" His bottom lip trembles, "I wanted you to have a friend and this is the thanks I get? And for what?" The kid looks down at the now crumbled papers "some stupid doodles? No wonder you're always alone. You're a freak that talks to stupid scribbles on paper!" He kicks the sketchbook towards Tommy's directions and Tommy hurriedly grabs it. The kid storms off and the crowd after that is no longer looking at him. Avoiding him even.
Tommy slowly looks at the crumble his drawings have become, dusty boot prints are on almost every drawing he made.
Snivelling he unfolds the one with Tubbo and Ranboo in it. His tears fall on the two seemingly unstoppable.
":("
"<:("
"I-" It hurts, it hurts so much and it's so scary and hard to breathe. "I- I love you.." he held his drawings closely to himself, in a tremble he whispered to them "I'm sorry it's just me to do so.." He hugs them all, he hugs his creations and cries into their hold. He doesn't know if they could feel pain. His tears start rolling off his cheeks more at the thought and his soft cries turn into whimpers. Tommy did not hear the bell ring, he did not hear the teacher gently try to calm him down. Tommy didn't feel like walking home behind his upperclassmen today. Tightly hugging his artworks Tommy had gone home on his own.
He quietly took off his shoes as he entered. Walking through the hallway he saw his dad by the stove with a boiling pot in the kitchen. From the smell Tommy assumes he was making spaghetti for lunch. His stomach makes a funny sound, but Tommy doesn't have enough energy to eat, and his eyes hurt. He walks towards his dad and gives him a hug, it's not reciprocated. Later in the day he would find a tray of food by his bedroom. A small cupcake came with it.
"Tubbo? Ranboo?"
Tommy called them, he placed their sheet to his side as he tried to fix his sketchbook, an empty food tray by his side. "Do you- do you think he was right?" He continues to try and unfold one of his drawings. "I never thought much about why I'm alone at school." He just thought it's because he never approached anyone. Do people find him weird? He just likes drawing. "Do you think I should stop?"
It's quiet, Tommy peers at his friends-
He can't see them.
Tommy panics
"Guys?!" He frantically began scanning the paper that held his friends, he looks and searches but can't find them in it. A cry begins or form in his throat and his eyes glisten with what's about to be tears before he looks down and-
It's Tubbo and Ranboo, in a drawing he did of the old man's garden. They're smiling at him..huh?
They walk away and disappear again! An alarmed sound comes out of him before he looks at another drawing and finds them in it. It's one he did when he saw prettily shaped clouds, tubbo and ranboo are hiding behind them now and they wave at him.
"Hey!" He laughs at the funny cloud moustache Tubbo now got, Ranboo seems to be trying to hold in a laugh as well but failing miserably
They keep on doing that, passing from one drawing to another and changing style from one drawing to another until every one of his art pieces is now spread around him. Tommy never realised how much he's drawn over time, he almost had forgotten the happiness it brought him. He almost let one bad thing ruin him and that joy he found through art. As Tommy looks at Tubbo and Ranboo, and every world he'd created with paper sheets and crayons smiles back at him, today doesn't hurt as much as it did.
Maybe it's not so bad to be alone, if it meant he would get to enjoy the thing he loves the most, ' you're not alone' he could almost imagine two voices muttering through a barrier of paper, ' We'll be here' and it's a promise by his arts he witnessed be kept as he grew, through portraits decorating a gallery and a coal sketch framed next to a gravestone and a guitar. And when his final piece is of two figures like stars in the universe, Tommy finds himself smiling one last time before he turns off the lights of his studio, placing his apron in the hands of a mannequin wearing a hat, and he heads out.