They Rely On Hope. What Do I Rely On? - Tommyinnit Adoption AU

Chapter 49

Tw: mentions of abuse

After about a minute, Tommy forced his body up and over to the desk in the corner, knowing he needed to do anything he could to understand today's lessons of which he had taken nothing in. He was pretty sure that English was mostly working on the assignment, so that wasn't too bad. Ok, so, Maths first, he vaguely remembered them discussing parabolas... that wasn't too hard, he had learnt about those a few months back, three houses ago. It had been a shit house but he had been getting enough sleep to exist and learn for once. He knew the parabola formula already and just had to practise a few questions to get it fully back in his mind.

Tommy didn't hate maths the way some kids do, don't take that to mean he liked it though. He certainly didn't enjoy it, but he did appreciate it. He appreciated school in general, or well the learning aspect of it, the other people, not so much. Learning stuff made him feel less shit about life sometimes. Like how if he didn't really understand parabolas that meant that maybe he didn't really understand other things, but he had learnt parabolas, and he could learn other things. Maybe one day he'd learn how to stop people hurting him. Of course those thoughts often got cut off quite quickly, veering to close to hope for Tommy's comfort. He still did appreciate learning new things, he just had to be weary of where his thoughts led him.

Tommy wanted to believe hope was a good thing the way it was so often advertised, but he really didn't know if it was. It was so often painful. The actual hope was nice, it was a good break from life and the pain. At first glance Tommy could easily understand why hope was a thing seen so much as a positive emotion, and maybe it was. The real issue was coming face to face with the lack of it being reality. He had hoped for better house after better house. He had hoped for Tubbo and him to stay together forever. He had hoped for love from a parent. He had hoped that Puffy would be right when she said it'd get better. He had hoped for a hell of a lot of things that had never come true. There had never been good houses. Tubbo was gone and Tommy was alone. He had never gotten a loving parent. It had never gotten better.

Tommy forced down the audible groan he knew would escape if he wasn't careful. He let his head collapse onto the desk in front of him for a second. Parabolas. He was supposed to be thinking about parabolas. He couldn't deal with the stupid fucking pain right now. He couldn't.

Tommy picked his head back and forced his mind back to the math problems that lay before him. After what felt like an endless time, that according to the clock was 30 minutes, Tommy moved on to Physics, then another half hour later it was chemistry. History lasted more then an hour as Tommy tried to force the names and dates to stay in his mind, but they all jumbled together and somehow his brain insisted that the Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on the 11 of November in 1914, and that they signed the Armistice on that date, which was illogical because those were supposed to be the starting and ending events of World War One which he knew lasted 4 years, but if Tommy was honest he didn't know which came first. Eventually he managed to sort most of it out in his head, but by that point he was so exhausted he knew he wouldn't be able to work out the rest.

He dragged his exhausted body over to his bed, collapsing onto it and pleading for sleep, which didn't come. Of course not, that would be too easy wouldn't it?

Tommy rolled over, pressing his face into his pillow, suppressing the groan of exhaustion and frustration. It took him a few restless hours of changing positioning and trying to drain his mind of thoughts for Tommy to finally fall asleep and even then it was fitful, with him awoken constantly. The sleep wasn't great but it was better then nothing, and all in all, it was pretty solid in comparison with last night.

He didn't dream, which was something at least. He imagined it was probably because he wasn't asleep long enough to dream, but it didn't make it any less relieving when Tommy got up in the morning without the added pain of dreams still looming over him. Of course thinking of this didn't help much, but it was still better then if he had dreamt it.

Tommy pulled himself through the house, doing the tasks that Dream had set him, exhausting as they may be. By the time he was ready for school he had drained his energy from the night's sleep, and was now working at a level he was accustomed to. Not so much energy, but not so little he couldn't do his work. It wasn't perfect but it was ok. So, with that vague sense of energy, Tommy headed to school.

When he arrived, Ranboo and Eret were waiting by the gates, talking to each other casually. Ranboo seemed to be keeping an eye out for someone, while Eret was watching Ranboo protectively, gaging the younger's happiness. She seemed satisfied that Ranboo was happy enough, so she looked, scanning the jumble of people scattered outside the gates, some moving ms others standing in clumps.

Eventually Ranboo made eye contact with Tommy and yelled, waving him over happily. Tommy glanced to Eret, who seemed happy, why, Tommy didn't quite know, but she joined Ranboo in waving him over, so Tommy walked up to them, not sure what else he could do. Had they been looking for him? No- no that couldn't be right...

Words: 1000

A/N: the people who enjoy history are going to be disappointed when I say I had to google the dates to find out how to mix them together, and honestly Tommy is probably doing better then I am at history- anywaysssss that's an issue for another day-