Home is not a house

Chapter 21

Tw for this chapter: past death, past abuse, drugs, drinking, past rape, self harm, little blood mention

"Or you could not die?" Ranboo offers, and Tommy chuckles softly. "I'm serious. You could stay alive, you could have a family, you could be loved and you could feel like you belong." Ranboo informs and Tommy shrugs.

"Is that what happened to you?" Tommy asks and Ranboo nods. "Then why did you try to kill yourself at the party?" Tommy asks. That was something Ranboo mentioned in therapy at one point. "I'm sorry I shouldn't have asked you just mentioned that in therapy and I'm sorry." Tommy quickly adds, feeling bad almost immediately at what he said.

"No it's fine Tommy, I'm not mad. I dunno. I was drunk and I remembered everything I felt hurt on, and I remembered how I felt. And for a long time I wanted to die so I felt like that again." Ranboo explains and Tommy nods. "But being adopted, feeling loved by a family, that's something I wouldn't trade for the world. I feel like life is worth living like this."

"What if I never feel like life is worth living?" Tommy asks and Ranboo nods for a moment while thinking.

"Then you keep trying to find a reason." and Tommy nods. Tommy doesn't respond but lays down, was a family truly the thing that would make him feel better?

Techno laid there, eyes still closed. Was Tommy really questioning if he meant something to them? He meant so much to all of them, was that not obvious? Techno, Wilbur and Phil had all done so much for him because he meant so much to him.

At first Techno worried that Tommy was just an attempt at replacing Liam, but he knew that Tommy was more than that. Tommy had to be more than that.

~~~

A day later Tommy walked into the house, walked up the stairs and straight to his room. Wilbur who was in the kitchen heard the upstairs door slam before Phil walked into the kitchen.

"Hey Wil." Phil gives a soft smile, Wilbur looks at him with a slightly concerned look.

"Should we be worried about Tommy?" Wilbur asks and Phil shakes his head.

"No we just got back from the doctor, and the doctor was kinda rude to Tommy." Phil sighs, sitting down on a bar stool next to Wilbur. Wilbur pushed a bowl of chips towards Phil and Phil shook his head.

"What happened? Is everything okay?" Wilbur questioned, more concerned but Phil sighed again and shrugged.

"We told the doctor about what was sad about Tommy not having autism according to the test he took almost three weeks ago. This doctor however didn't want to listen to that. He kept being a true asshole and treating Tommy like he was 6 or something. At one point Tommy tried to explain something and the doctor literally said 'The adults are talking'. By then I became furious and we walked out." Phil explains, unhappy.

"Jesus. That's really bad. What doctor was it?" Wilbur questioned and Phil shrugged.

"Some doctor the foster system pays for." Phil says, reaching over to the bowl and grabbing a chip, despite him saying moments before that he didn't want any.

"How much would it cost to get him in to our doctor?" Wilbur questioned again and Phil gave him a weak smile.

"Not too much, it's just if I keep taking him to out of system doctors and therapists, they're not going to pay for anything and stop giving the monthly money." Phil sighs and Wilbur gave him another confusing look. Wilbur vaguely knew about the monthly money, but not too much.

"Why is that important? I thought you had more than enough money." Wilbur commented and Phil nodded, standing up again.

"I do, I have way too much money. I'm not keeping it for me. Tommy isn't like you guys, he's not sure if he wants to be adopted. And if he doesn't, and he ages out of here and wants to leave, I'm saving the money so he has something. Of course if he ages out I'm not kicking him out, but he if he doesn't want to be here than I can't stop him once he's 18." Phil explains, walking to the stove, grabbing the kettle and walking to the sink to fill it with water.