i want to learn to fly // tommyinnit & timedeo

are you scared that nobody will love you?

Tommy's parents did not know that he smoked, and he planned to keep it that way. He had been smoking for over fourteen months by the time he got close to moving out, carefully waiting for the day he'd move away, the day he'd finally be free.

The day he could be in pain and peace. His parents didn't like anything he did. He doubted they'd take well to the concept of him smoking– just like the concept of him losing weight, streaming, and meeting his friends. None of it went over well. Maybe they were right about certain things, but Tommy didn't trust them. Not after the childhood they gave him.

He moved out at seventeen. It was a decently expensive apartment, good for his first home, all things considered. His first home, because the house he grew up in was not a home. It would never be a home. Not when his mother expected perfection, not when he spoke to his father once a week. Not when he was always far too tired to think.

He wasn't sure what he expected. He felt himself slip away from sanity a little faster than usual. He felt his world drift away no matter how far he leapt towards it. His friends worried, but he claimed that he was merely settling in. Settling in, to him, was attempting to heal. All on his own. He needed to do it himself.

When days became weeks they doubted his claims. He started doubting his claims, too. When he only appeared briefly to record videos or stream to keep his viewers satiated. They wanted to help. He did not want help. Last time he asked for help he regretted it.

Nobody really knew Tommy, he knew, because they didn't know the fresh hell he lived through day by day. They didn't know that he wobbled when he stood or that he woke at night from severe stomach pain, a deep emptiness that could nearly make him smile. They didn't know that he'd smoked since sixteen to satisfy it all briefly. They had no idea that he spent every day with his bedroom door locked, begging the world to spare him from whatever was on the other side.

Nobody but a few. Freddie had seen him smoke once. Freddie, the health-buff, the guy who ate practically exclusively vegetables. He expressed a disliking for it, mostly because Tommy wasn't of age, and Tommy promised to stop, but he didn't. Freddie didn't realize, assuming that Tommy had managed to drop the habit.

Eryn had noticed his constant stumbling and the growing frailness– clever guy, Tommy thought, considering he pieced it together easily. Or perhaps he knew someone like Tommy in the past. It didn't matter. There was nothing Eryn could do– Tommy began avoiding him once he found out.

Wilbur knew that something was off. He noticed a few months too late. Tommy got the urge to push him away, too.

Tommy told someone– once. He told them everything. Down to the perfectionism he lived with for years, to the parental love he lived without, to the malnutrition, to the smoking, to the insistent urge to slit his skin, to the rest. To every little thing that Tommy lived with every day.

He only told them because they asked.

And they were everything to him.

Tommy could not bear to face them after he spilled his internal struggles. Tommy left the call. Tommy blocked them on every conceivable social media he could think of. People had contacted him after noticing the fact that he was avoiding them, asking if he was okay, asking if they had done something to hurt him. God, Tommy hated that question. They could never do anything to hurt him.

The questions were insistent, but they just wanted to help him, and he knew that. He didn't think he'd know even that if it wasn't for them. Tommy refused to answer, simply saying that he'd rather not. He ignored questions for months. He brushed things off. He lied.

"Seriously, Tommy. Are you okay? You know that I'm here for you, right? It's not– it's not hard to tell that something's up."

"I don't— I don't think I can do this much longer, man."

"And that's okay. We can– you just– you can work through it, whatever it is. But it's easier if you aren't trying to do it alone."

"I... I just don't want to bother you, really. It's not a big–" Tommy's speech was interrupted by a sharp inhale. It was clear that he was holding back tears. "It's not a big deal, I promise."

"If you don't want to talk about it, that's okay. But– it– it seems daunting to talk about it, to give it time of day. It'll probably be– very– very difficult to explain or talk about at first, but I'm here to listen. I always am. I promise you, you won't regret talking about it once you get the hard part over with." He was never one to hold his emotions out for anyone else to see– he was a hypocrite, definitely, because he never spoke a word about his own problems. But he was not going to let his brother– friend– whatever the fuck Tommy was to him– he wasn't going to let him suffer.

The person he cared for so dearly was wrong. Tommy regretted it with every meticulously sculpted bone in his body. Every single spot where whatever was below his skin had long been carved away was almost a memory of what he had done. The way he'd messed everything up for himself and the person he admired most, admired for the strength and patience he always seemed to hold. Tommy wished he had the same qualities.