Home is not a house

Chapter 36

Tw for this chapter: Suicide attempts, talk of disassociation, talk of abuse, abandonment, panic attack, physical fighting

The next few hours in the house were tense. Techno and Wilbur both were doing separate projects to set up for Christmas Eve, since they had people coming over.

Phil and Techno were cleaning up Phil's office yet again, since Phil isn't the best at keeping it tidy. And Wilbur was with Tommy, cleaning the bathroom.

"So." Tommy spoke timidly. Wilbur looked up from the tub, which he was trying to scrub away pink hair dye, and looked to Tommy, who was cleaning the sink.

"I don't want to talk about what happened with Techno." Wilbur said grimly and he looked back up at the tub.

"I wasn't going to ask that. I was gonna ask why you have a hot pink streak of hair." Tommy said softly, glancing down at the floor. He knew Wilbur wasn't mad at him, knew that Wilbur wasn't about to attack him like he did Techno, but he was still scared.

"Oh." Wilbur mumbled, glancing at the hair dye stain he was scrubbing. "I guess you don't really remember. How you looked in the mirror like at all?" Wilbur asks and Tommy shook his head, he tried to avoid it as much as possible.

But now that Tommy did he saw what Wilbur meant. Tommy had a streak of hot pink hair as well, he hadn't spotted it sooner because the lack of looking in the mirror and the layers of his hair hid it from his initial eyesight.

"Oh." Tommy mumbled, not upset just surprised. He touched the small streak as he stared in the mirror. Wilbur chuckled softly.

"The night of Thanksgiving, like really late at night, we were talking about how Kristen's parents had come to dinner. When they did come to dinner they were really rude and said a bunch of stupid things." Wilbur begins to explain.

"I remember that part. I just remember going upstairs to change and nothing after that." Tommy mumbles softly, going back to scrubbing the sink.

"Right. Well since the lady had said that we shouldn't be dyeing our hair, it kinda pissed us off. And that's when Techno remembered that he still had an unused bottle of pink hair dye, since that's what he always does. So at like 1am we all dyed part of our hair hot pink." Wilbur explains, chuckling fondly at the memory.

"Oh." Tommy says again and they fall back into a silence.

"Can I ask a question?" Wilbur asks and Tommy nodded. "What do you remember? Like how does it connect?" Wilbur asks as he goes back to scrubbing the tub. Tommy took a deep breath in.

"Well I remember dinner, and Kristen's parents yelling at Phil. I remember you saying that I was family, and I was gonna be family legally soon. I remember going back into the living room and talking about Marvel as you guys got them to leave. I remember you offering to make apple cider, and deciding that my clothes felt weird." Tommy explains.

What happened next? Even now Tommy's brain was starting to fall him at the few memories he had from the past month.

"Then I went to change, but my head was hurting. So I laid down on my bed. It felt like I was laying there for twenty minutes or so. Then I got up, and I changed in the dark and walking downstairs it wasn't Thanksgiving anymore." Tommy recalls. The bathroom is filled with silence as Tommy finished wiping down the sink and went to clean the mirror.

"Was it scary?" Wilbur questions softly and Tommy pauses.

In all honesty Tommy would rather face physical abuse, be locked in a closet and starved, and then live through another suicide attempt then face that again.