Ink Stains (MCYT Oneshots)

[R] A Sudden Attack (Tommy-centric)

(A/N: request as a pic. if i portray tourette's in any sort of wrong or offensive way, please let me know!)

Tommy had a secret: he had Tourette's Syndrome. It had appeared just a few months ago, and while his parents were hoping that it was transient tics — tics that go away after less than a year — it was looking like it would become a permanent fixture in their home.

Somehow, he'd gotten incredibly lucky, and so far, none of his viewers knew, as his tics were often just brushed off as anxious reactions or habits. In fact, nobody outside of his immediate family knew. Well, he thought that some of his friends suspected that something was off or wrong about him, and while Tommy would tell them, he just... couldn't.

It wasn't like he was scared of their reactions or anything. He knew he'd gotten lucky to have such an open and welcoming friend group, and they would never make fun of him for something like this. It was just... he was just afraid.

Still, for all of his luck, it was bound to fail eventually. And it just so happened that his luck failed him on a shitty college day.

Tommy had been half tempted to just skip the stream in itself, that day. His college classes hadn't been... good, and at one point, he'd been called out on one of his tics. And that was only just the tip of the iceberg. He knew that tics were sometimes triggered through stress, and had almost given up on the stream.

But he'd promised his viewers that he would have a stream with the rest of the Sleepy Boys today. And they had cool things planned for today too; who knew when else they would get a chance like this? Besides, college may have been really, really shitty today, but surely it would be fine.

So, Tommy booted up his computer, readied his streaming persona, and started the stream.

He cracked open his can of coke, and grinned brightly at the camera. "Welcome to the stream, boys!"

The stream started off well. He got into a Discord call with the rest of the Sleepy Boys, and they were able to play a proper Monopoly stream this time. Tommy was at a comfortable second place, and he was hoping that Phil, in first place, would land on one of his hotels and make Tommy shoot straight up to first place.

Of course, that was when it all started going wrong. Prior to that, he'd been feeling tense and fidgety, but he made the stupid decision to dismiss it in favour of cursing out Wilbur, getting a little more stressed at falling from first place to fourth from a botched dice roll.

And just after that moment, he started having a tic attack.

First, it was the blinking that tipped him off. Then, he started sniffing. And then, with no warning whatsoever, his head started jerking, moving in a rapid, twitchy way.

Tommy, who was not only live, but live to an audience of hundreds of thousands and his friends, started panicking. To the point where his friends could hear him over the Discord call, and definitely from the users that had probably headed to their chats to tell them.

The burst of noise that followed quickly didn't help matters. In fact, it only made him panic more, and he curled into himself, breathing harshly, still clicking his fingers and twitching jerkily. It was painful.

Tommy's eyes blurred, and oh, that blinking tic started up again.

Just as suddenly as the noise started, it all went quiet. Tommy breathed harshly, even as his tics continued. Despite his attempts to focus on anything but his body's sensations, he wasn't able to turn his attention away. For a moment, he worried that his friends in the call had left.

Then, he heard soft guitar playing. It wasn't much, but it was enough for him to latch onto and focus with all his might. Eventually, his tics slowly settled, until he was left slumped on his chair, with his head laying on his table and his keyboard pushed away.

He didn't want to see his chat's reactions right now. He just... didn't want to face the reality of what all of his stream viewers had just seen.

"Tommy?" Phil. That was Phil's voice. "Can you talk? Or give an indicator?"

Slowly, Tommy lifted his head and nodded. He couldn't bring himself to speak yet, though. Nor could he bring himself to look at the chat.

"Alright," Phil's voice was gentle. Soothing. "Can you turn off the stream? You don't have to look at chat, just press the keys. Would you be able to do that?"

Tommy moved to close the stream. Then, he closed his Discord camera as well.

"How are you feeling?" Techno spoke up softly. "Do you need to, like, call your parents or anything?"

Tommy thought about it, but shook his head. "Hurts."

"Where?" Phil asked. Tommy listened to the continuous guitar strumming in the background, before his brain caught up to him.

"Eyes. Body. Dunno. I'll be fine."

"Are you sure you won't need your parents?"

"No."

"That's fine," Phil said. "Do you want to tell us what happened today, then?"

Tommy thought back, briefly, to the day's earlier events, and shook his head again. "No. 'M tired."

"That's alright. Do you want us to stay on the call?"

"Yeah," Tommy murmured. "Stay. Talk?"

"We'll be quiet," Techno promised, before the call slowly started up with low chatter and murmur.

Slowly, listening to his friends' voices, Tommy drifted off to sleep.