Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A knock woke Tommy up. He went to unlock the door and opened it. Phil stood there and smiled at him. He had a plate with pizza in his hands, which explained the smell.

"Hey mate, thought you might like something to eat. I wasn't sure what you like, so I just ordered pizza. You were asleep for a few hours, I hope it's okay that I woke you up." He was really good at putting on this facade of a caring, loving father. But Tommy wouldn't fall for that, he wasn't so naive anymore.

"Pizza sounds nice and it's totally fine that you woke me up, I still have homework to do" Tommy was really behind on that, he didn't have any motivation for school.

"I actually wanted to talk with you for a bit, we didn't really have the chance earlier." Phil was probably going to tell him about his chores and what he wasn't allowed to do. "We just have a few rules and boundaries, when I'm done you can tell me your boundaries too and I'll let the boys know." Huh, that was something new.

"First of all, please knock and wait for an answer before you just go into the room of anyone here. Especially for Techno, he has problems with things like that, but I'm sure he already told you this. Your curfew is at ten and if something takes you longer, just send me a message." Everything sounded a bit too good right now to Tommy.

"I don't think that'll work because I have no phone." Tommy's curfew would stay ten then, even if something happened, he couldn't text anyone. He only had discord on his laptop, but he couldn't always take it with him.

"Not a problem, tomorrow after school we're gonna go shopping, we can buy you a phone then." Phil said that as if it wasn't a big thing.

"Wait, actually? I never had a phone, that'd be so cool! I could text Ranboo... oh no he doesn't have a phone himself. But I could text my other friends like Dream and Sapnap." Even he could tell that he started rambling about it.

Phil laughed. "Woah, calm down. One thing at a time. You'll get a phone tomorrow, I promise. By the way, you don't need an alarm for the morning. I already stand up at 5 am for work and before I leave, I usually wake everyone up. Techno drives you and I'm gonna pick you up for shopping, Techno and Will have places to be, so they're not going with us. Now that we got that, you wanna tell me your boundaries?" He really wanted to know those for some reason.

"I'm not quite sure 'cause nobody ever asked for them, you know? But I sometimes have panic attacks, so be warned. I don't even know what triggers them, they just come every now and then. I don't really like loud noises like yelling and stuff, but I think that's it. Thanks for asking though." Tommy even tried smiling at him and it was kinda genuine.

"Okay, good. If you find something else, let me know. I'll now leave you to your pizza, just come down and put the plate in the kitchen sink when you're done, Wilbur usually makes the dishes. Good night, Tommy." Maybe Phil wasn't that bad, he seemed so kind.

"Good night." Then Phil was gone and Tommy was left to stare at the food in his hands. He couldn't even remember the last time he had pizza, so he didn't know if this tasted good, but everyone always said that it was their favourite food, so it should be alright.

It was really good, Tommy was kinda sad when the plate was empty. When he made his way to the door, of course he had to trip. He already cursed himself and was ready to go again because a broken plate is never good, especially not on your first day.

But then the wooden floor just bended a bit, so the plate and Tommy only fell a few centrimetres. After that, the floor got back to his original place and it was like nothing ever happened. Except that Tommy and the plate were now on the floor and he wanted to cry.

Why did he believe that it wouldn't happen here too? Tommy just wanted a normal life, where such strange things never happened. He didn't have an explanation for them, it kinda just was like this sometimes.

If his foster family found out, he'd be so screwed. They would send him away again, because who wanted to do something with a freak like him?

Tommy had already forgotten about the empty plate and decided to do his homework now to distract his brain.

After maybe two hours of work, he found it late enough to go to sleep. He was surprisingly tired again, although he slept for like four hours before Phil woke him up.

He didn't mind the extra sleep, but he still needed to dm Ranboo through discord, so he could tell him what happened and because he didn't want his friend to be concerned.

Tommy convinced Ranboo that everything was alright, but that he was still wary of the new people. When they finally wished each other a good night, Tommy could barely keep his eyes open and immediately went to sleep.