Pain - A TommyInnit Angst

Chapter 34

Tommy felt as if his eyes were being burned with a blowtorch. He flinched as he tried to open them, and eventually they adjusted to the harsh lights. Where was he? He tried to use his hands to push himself up into a sitting position, and that's when he realised. He was... tied up? Surely not. His breathing began to accelerate as he tugged on the restraints around his wrists and he closed his eyes, reminding himself that Derick was in police custody, he wasn't coming back, he couldn't hurt him, he couldn't-

'Don't pull on those, hun.' The voice made Tommy jump violently and he looked over in the direction that it was coming from but his vision was still blurry. He was so vulnerable, anybody could hurt him right now.

'Wil?' He called out tentatively, shocking himself when he heard how raw and raspy his voice sounded. 'Wilbur?' He felt a hand on his shoulder and flinched away, tugging more on the restraints. He continued calling out for Wilbur, becoming more and more frantic when nobody answered.

He couldn't breathe.

It felt as if one of his lungs had been replaced with tarmac.

'WILBUR!'

Nothing.

Tommy began to cry out desperately, flinching away from the unfamiliar voices that surrounded him. His eyes were now tightly closed, tears squeezing out of them and running down his face.

He frantically tried to think about where he was, and for some reason the image of a bridge came into his mind. And then it clicked. His heart dropped, and he realised what must have happened. Wilbur must have been angry at him and sent him here so that these strange people who swarmed around him could hurt him. Where else could he be?

And so he stopped screaming for Wilbur and began screaming to nobody in particular, praying that someone would come and help him.

But nobody did.

• • •

'He tried to kill himself again, Tubbo.' Wilbur sobbed down the phone.

'W-what? Is he okay?'

'Yeah. The doctors have sedated him, he wouldn't stop screaming when he woke up and realised he had restraints on and... and I begged them to take them off but apparently it's against protocol or some shit. He thinks he's been taken away again, he's so goddamn scared.'

Tubbo was stunned. 'Why... why do you think he wanted to... you know?'

'I haven't been keeping you updated as well as I should, I'm sorry Tubbo. His PTSD has got ten times worse, he has constant panic attacks and flashbacks and I think he just couldn't cope with the constant terror anymore. He left me a note.'

'W-what did it say?' Tubbo enquired.

'Some bullshit about how we would be better off without him, and just basically apologising for existing. The note didn't really make a lot of sense, it wasn't written in full sentences or anything. And there was a whole part that was just the word "help" written over and over again.' Wilbur took a deep breath. 'It's killing me seeing him like this, Tubbo. He's so scared all the time. It's horrific.'

The pair continued to talk for around half an hour before Wilbur was called by a doctor to help input on the next steps of Tommy's treatment. He obliged and walked through into Tommy's hospital room where the boy lay, unconscious, his face covered in bright red self-inflicted scratches from last night.

A man walked towards Wilbur and shook his hand. 'I'm Dr Weller, but you can call me John.' He began, 'I'm a specialist in complex PTSD, specifically developmental trauma disorder, which is what we believe Thomas is suffering with.'

Wilbur looked confused. 'Uh, I'm sorry, I don't really know what that is.'

John smiled slightly. 'No worries. DTD is what we call PTSD within children and teenagers who have experienced repeated traumatic events. It appears that Thomas's DTD lay dormant after everything he went through with his parents, but may have been set off by the severe physical assault he experienced when he was abducted.'

Wilbur became increasingly nervous; this sounded far more complicated than he was anticipating. 'Is there... is there anything you can do to help him?'

'Take a seat.' John indicated to a chair that stood behind Wilbur and he sat down nervously.

'We've put him on new meds, but they will take at least 24 hours to fully kick in so we can see how effective they are for him. After that, we believe that the best form of treatment would be CBT, which is a type of therapy that is normally useful for trauma patients.'

'Please, just do whatever you think would be best for him.' Wilbur replied, looking over at the ashen boy in the hospital bed. John nodded sympathetically. 'He'll get through this.' He said softly, 'This condition is my speciality and I swear I'll do everything I can to help him.'