What one can hide

Chapter three- Explanation

He quickly racked his brain for what this boy could be nearly having a panic attack about. Maybe something had happened on stream? He thought to himself. "Tommy?" he heard himself saying, a little louder this time, "Tommy is everything okay? Please talk to me, I'm worried." Wilbur could faintly hear the young boy stirring and letting out a string of curses. Eventually, Wilbur could tell Tommy had put his headset on and sat down.

Tommy's Pov

This can not be happening right now. Tommy thought to himself as he remembered Wilbur had never left the call and neither had he. He debated just hanging up and not calling Wil back until he forgot about the call altogether, but he figured it wouldn't be that easy and he didn't want to make the other worry.

He wondered how much of the call Wilbur had heard. He feels his heart start beating faster as he breath quickens. Oh my God, what if he heard dad, Tommy though, He's gonna think you're weak, he's gonna pity you and treat you like a kid. Before he knew it, he was starting to feel a little light headed from not breathing properly, tears freely flowing down his face. It definitely hadn't helped that he just had the shit beaten out of him by his father.

He's quickly brought back into reality when he hears Wilbur's voice through his headset, "Tommy, can you hear me? It's okay Tommy if right here." Wilbur's voice is quiet, he can barely hear it seeing as his headset is still resting on his keyboard. A tear slides down his already wet face, it has been so long since he has heard any comforting words.

Trying, but failing, to quickly calm himself down, Tommy takes a deep breath before finally putting his headset back on. "Hey Wil!" he shouts, trying his best to fake an enthusiastic voice, he knew Wilbur had heard him crying, but he didn't know how much he had heard, and he was hoping Wil would just move on.

"Is everything okay?" Wilbur asks, Tommy could practically hear the relief in Wilburs voice once he replied. 

Tommy contemplated telling Wilbur the truth, he was practically his older brother, but Tommy hadn't ever really talked to anyone about what was going on at home, let alone Wilbur. As much as he wanted to get everything off his chest, he didn't want to risk losing one of his best friends. What if Wilbur sided with his dad, or told the police about it. As much as Tommy feared his dad, he still cared for him. His father had depression and mainly depended on alcohol to cope, and he knew his father wouldn't do well in prison. And even if his dad did go to prison, where would Tommy go? He didn't really have any other family and he was sure his mom wouldn't take him back, and he didn't want to go into foster care. Sure he was 16 so he would only have to wait 2 years till he could be on his own but still, he heard some pretty awful stories from foster kids.

"Tommy?" He heard a voice ask again through his headset. He hadn't realized he had been zoned out until Wilbur's voice brought him back to Earth.

"Oh, sorry Wil!" Tommy said with a forced chuckle, "Yeah, I'm okay! Why wouldn't I be?" Tommy asked, trying his best to sound like he hadn't just been slapped and kicked, quite forcefully, minutes prior.

"I heard you crying Toms, I know something is up." Tommy only sighed as he contemplated what to say next. At least he only heard me crying and not my dad, Tommy thought, now I just have to think of an excuse why. Tommy was good at hiding things, like the bruises and bumps on his body from his father, but when people confronted him and didn't leave him much time to think of a good lie, well that's usually when the truth ended up coming out.

"You weren't supposed to hear that," Tommy replied quietly, his voice cracking as he did. He quickly dropped the 'everything is okay' act he was trying his best to fake, knowing Wilbur was too smart to buy into it.

"Oh Tommy," Wilbur said, sadness filled his voice. Tommy didn't like it when people felt bad for him, after all, he deserved everything his dad was doing to him! He was a bad kid after all, right? Sure, he paid most of the bills because his dad wasted his money on drinks at the bar, and went grocery shopping to make sure his dad could eat, and made sure his dad always took his meds for his depression, but he's still a bad kid, right? "What happened? You know you can talk to me right? I care about you a lot, kid," Wilbur said.

Tommy couldn't help but smile after hearing Wilbur say this, a real genuine smile. Does he really care about me? He hadn't felt that someone cared about him in a long while, and he didn't want to scare Wilbur off by telling him the truth.

"I know Will," Tommy says quietly because he doesn't want to wake his dad up and get another beating, although nothing could wake him up once he's drunk and passes out. "I just got in a little argument with my dad, it's nothing serious."

"Tommy, you were sobbing! That sounds like it was a pretty serious fight," Wilbur replies, "What was it about?" Tommy was sure the man wasn't trying to pry, he was probably just trying to help, but Tommy wasn't ready to open up quite yet.

"It's nothing man!" Tommy replied, a little harsher than he intended. Noticing his tone, he quickly added, "I'm sorry, I just don't really feel like talking about it, just a little disagreement," he said with a softer tone, trying to cover up how quick he was to defend himself. In all honesty, he hadn't meant to snap at Wilbur, he was just trying to stop himself from telling his friend too much.

"Okay, I get it," Wilbur said back to the clearly still upset boy. He understood that Tommy didn't want to talk about it, and that was okay. He figured he was still upset about whatever they were fighting about. "I have to head off and start cleaning for when Nikki gets home in a few days, don't hesitate to call me if you wanna talk though." Wilbur hadn't ever seen this side of Tommy before, so he didn't know how to comfort him best. Tommy was thankful that Wil was giving him space.

"Thanks Wil, I appreciate it big man," Tommy said trying to lighten the mood between the two. It worked as he heard a light chuckle from Wilbur before he left the discord call.

Tommy set his headset down and turned off his computer for the night. He let out a loud sign before leaning back into his chair. He winced as he moved. That's gonna hurt like a bitch in the morning, he thought to himself. He sat there for a while, just leaning back in his chair, replaying the night over again and again in his head.

Before he got too lost in his head, he got up, too lazy to even change into pajamas, and walked over to his bed and fell right in. It was as if all the night's fatigue hit him at once, suddenly too tired to even put himself under all the blankets before he passed out.

A/N

Hi! I hope you guys liked this chapter, a new one should be coming soon. Just wanted to make it clear that in this chapter, I am not shipping Nikki and Wilbur! Just wanted to bring that up before someone asked lol. As always, let me know if i missed any trigger warnings and feel free to comment!