Home is not a house

Chapter 16

Tw for this chapter: Past Suicide, Past Abuse

"Please do." Wilbur spoke softly and Tommy nodded, he had explained to Phil and Ranboo, now it was time to explain to Techno and Wilbur.

"Years ago, I was staying with this really nice woman. I can't remember her name now, and she passed a while back, but she was so nice. She was the one good home before this one where I felt safe and felt like I was being taken care of." Tommy started to explain.

"Wait before you continue, give me a moment." Wilbur spoke, ducking back into the house through his window, before coming back out with something in his hand. He passed one thing to Techno before passing a box to Tommy.

The box itself was a disposable vape, in a strawberry cake flavor. It was unopened and unused.

"Are you sure?" Tommy asks carefully, knowing how addiction has affected Wilbur.

"Yeah I'm sure. I'm willing to get you one when it runs out if you stay clean. It's bad for you but at least you won't bleed out and die on us." Wilbur explains and Tommy nods carefully, noticing that he had passed Techno another actual vape rather than a disposable.

"Yeah that seems pretty fair." Techno mumbles in agreement. "Here, I'll open it for you while you talk." Techno offers and Tommy nods, handing the box to him.

"So I was living in this house with this lady. She was super sweet and her husband was living somewhere else and he came back to the house one day. He was only there before he left for another two weeks. When he came back he kicked me out, and I was just thrown out. But I wasn't alone." Tommy explains and Techno passes him the unwrapped vape.

"Wilbur picked a good flavor for you." Techno mumbles softly, smiling. Tommy nodded and put it to his lips, sucking in and tasting the sweet strawberry flavor.

"I wasn't alone because the whole time I was there, Liam was there. We lived there together and we became close. When we were kicked out, we went together until we were able to contact our case workers. We tried to convince them to let us go to a new home together, but they didn't let us. I never got to talk to him, and I didn't know what happened to him for a long time. The last time I had heard from him was few years back, when the foster mom passed. Puffy let me call him to talk to him, we talked for a moment, I tried asking him how he was doing but he said he couldn't say. Then I didn't hear about him until last night." Tommy explains.

"How do you know it was the same Liam? If you can't remember the mom's name how can you remember him?" Wilbur asks, trying to believe that this was true, that what was being said was true.

"Wilbur why can't you just-" Techno started but for what feels like the millionth time he was cut off.

"You know how he had that scar across his nose? It ran from just under his left eye down to his right cheek?" Tommy asked and Wilbur paused, Liam did have that scar. "It was from the time we went to the park, we kicked a soccer ball over some sort of fence and it had wiring at the top. He decided he would climb over it to get our ball and he sliced across his nose." Tommy explains.

"He did talk about that, he said he got it hopping a fence." Techno says and Wilbur nods in agreement.

"I didn't realize he was dead. He was the one kid who I thought would do well. Like not to sound fucking rude but all the other kids, the ones I protected from getting hit and all the other shit, I don't think they'll do too well. Not to have the pot call the kettle black but they'd probably kill themselves at some point. I know that sounds crude and I know that's harsh but I protected them from so much but then I couldn't anymore. They'd have to go through shit like I went through, and I don't think they're strong enough. I thought Liam was strong enough." Tommy explains as the others listen. They then sat there for a moment, the world being filled with quiet nothingness.