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English
Series:
Part 8 of Chronic Pain, Innit?
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Published:
2022-09-21
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2,103
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1/1
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25
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It’s a Broken System and It’s Not Built for You

Summary:

Tommy’s class attendance has suddenly taken a hit. So, Phil and Wilbur talk to him about it, and end up finding out a bit about how different college is for someone like them versus someone like Tommy.

Notes:

TWs in tags. Respect the CCs or kindly leave. If this violates a CC’s boundaries, it will be removed.
I’m in the library instead of class because a storm is causing a whole lot of rain. So I can’t get to class. I did email my teacher and let her know, so technically I shouldn’t be on campus, but my parents don’t think I’m disabled (or don’t think I should “let [my disability] hold me back” from classes) and I can’t just tell them that I’m “skipping class”. So you all get another Chronic Pain, Innit update! Whoo!
I’ll also probably (read: most likely) write something for DNF soon, since George got his VISA! (I would apologize but nah, MCYT was there for me when the doctors didn’t know what was wrong with me and I lost twenty pounds over two months without trying to, so it holds a special place in my heart).
Anyways, let’s do this!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

 

       “Tommy, we need to talk.”

 

       Grimacing and heart dropping, Tommy paused his game. Stardew Valley. (Look, it was a fine game. A lovely game, even. He blamed Kristin and Phil for getting him into it. The game—it had just looked so comfy. So, when it was on sale while his back and leg also happened to keep him up all night, Tommy had decided to buy the game. Thankfully, he could take playing at his own place. He could just buy gifts and spend his time slowly accruing money and resources for what he could do in the future. He could provide for the community center at his own pace, too. Hmmm, “accrue”. Such a funny word. Wilbur had been the one to teach him what it meant, late on another night when Wilbur had been reading Dickens’ Tale of Two Towns while Tommy struggled through Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street for the sake of not reading The Handmaid’s Tale or Madam Boviary. They just weren’t books he wanted to read, while the story of some happy-go-lucky seeming girl heading off into the middle of the American Midwest gave him the vibes of something that would happen on the Dream SMP if someone got bored enough. Really, The Handmaid’s Tale type of story? Definitely wouldn’t happen on the SMP. As for Madam Boviary, Kristin had suggested against it, it wasn’t like it mattered much more. After all, Tommy had the choice between which book he was reading for the class in the first place.) Of course, playing Stardew Valley as a distraction couldn’t last forever. It also couldn’t last when Phil and Wilbur were looking at him like that.

 

       “Am I in trouble?” He asked. Try as he might to not sound like a twelve-year-old caught playing on their phone or their 3DS at ungodly hours of the night, he did. His voice came out pitiful. Crackly and tight. To be fair, his hip and knee were throbbing in pain.

      

       Phil and Wilbur exchanged a glance. Then, softly, Phil sighed. Sat down by Tommy on the Rosales-Watsons’ couch. Huh, Watson. Tommy had never thought about it but Phil’s surname matched the one of that one dude in Sherlock. John Watson. Did that make Kristin Holmes, then? Wait, no. Holmes and Watson weren’t married. Were they? Maybe Kristin was Mary, then, Watson’s wife (although a whole lot cooler than Mary was). Maybe then Wilbur was Holmes—both of them were smart and a fair bit eccentric. Holmes had his detective work, while Wilbur had his music. And his Lovejoy. And Minecraft. Hmmm. Maybe Holmes was the Wilbur to Watson’s Phil. Yeah, that sounded better.

 

       “You left your phone charging on the counter. I saw an alert from your email about attending classes?” Wincing, Tommy looked away. Still, Phil’s gaze stayed on him. Not judgmental, not angry, especially not pitiful. More just…confused. “Tommy, have you not been going to classes? I thought you liked your schedule this semester.”

 

       “I do!” Tommy turned a bit too fast. The room spun a bit. Still, shrugging off that and ignoring the in his hip and knee (and the one in his shoulder), Tommy held Phil’s gaze. Blue stared into blue. Swallowing, Tommy leaned into the couch. Pulled his knees to his chest. “I do like my schedule. And my classes.”

 

       “Then why are you skipping them?” Wilbur asked, sitting on the couch arm by Phil. Sighing, Tommy tipped his head back. Stared up at the ceiling. Studied the little bumps and dips in it, even though it was smooth and not a popcorn style ceiling. “Tommy. We can’t help if we don’t know what’s going on.”

 

       “I know.” Tommy mumbled. Closing his eyes, he added. “It’s stupid.”

 

       “It’s not stupid if it’s keeping you from class, mate.” A hand touched his arm. Looking over, Tommy met Phil’s gaze again. There was a soft, gentle smile on the man’s face. Oddly reassuring, actually. Sighing again, Tommy looked back to the ceiling.

 

       “It’s been raining lately.”

 

       “Tommy—” Wilbur stopped. Phil had probably motioned for him to. Rubbing his arms, Tommy swallowed. Started speaking again.

 

       “My classes are mostly in the middle of campus. Inside, sure, but—a lot of the campus isn’t. There’s not much cover, either.” He explained. “No trees or walkway—things. Arbors. I don’t know what they’re called. Doesn’t really matter what kind of shoes I’m wearing, either.” His hand found Clementine. Settled on the smooth black handle. Trying to soothe himself, he rubbed his thumb over the little rough scrapes on one end, where he had dropped her on concrete by accident a couple times. Not often, not enough to cause any actual damage. Still, the “battle scars”, as he had nicknamed them, were just…weirdly comforting to feel. They didn’t affect how Clementine worked, they just made her more Tommy’s, if that made any sense. “It hurts just when it’s cold. Don’t get me wrong, I love rain, but—” shaking his head, Tommy mumbled, “I get tired more easily than I used to. Even with Clementine. Then there’s the pain—” He stopped talking.

 

       “Is there someone you can tell?” Phil asked. Shrugging, Tommy rolled to the side. Even just that move, even just turning to face the empty couch arm and Clementine instead of Phil and Wilbur, ached something fierce. It wasn’t even really normal pain, like if he had burnt or cut himself on something sharp or when he walked into a doorframe or anything like that. This was deeper, settled into his bone marrow and angrily making its presence known. Lying on his bad leg hurt. Lying on his good leg hurt. It was the pressure of one and the gravity of the other. The gravity keeping him to the ground hurt, whether it was the weight of his own body or the tug of what was keeping him from spiraling off into space (sometimes Tommy wondered if he should just be an astronaut, but there was no way that could happen. Even if he could find out if a lack of gravity made his joints hurt less, there was no way he could pass the physicals to get into training, let alone get to the stars. Were there even any disabled astronauts? He’d never heard of them). And even if Tommy wanted to, even if he had the chance and didn’t have this conversation with Wilbur and Phil going on, getting comfortable? Out of the question.

 

       “Tommy, you need to talk to someone.” Wilbur pointed out. “If you don’t do anything about it, then it’s just going to—ignoring the problem won’t make it go away. It’ll just make it worse.”

 

       “I know, Wilbur.”

 

       “I mean, maybe there’s a counsellor or—or someone who works with, like, a local—someone who works with a learning assistance program.” Scowling at Clementine, Tommy curled in on himself. Of course, Wilbur kept talking. And then Tommy had had it.

 

       Turning and glaring over his shoulder, Tommy fired off. “And how am I meant to get to them, Wil? Walk?” The words came out as a whole lot more of a sneer than he meant them to. “Extra time getting to class doesn’t do shit if I can’t get to class in the first place. Do you know what one of my last classes on the way to get there, right outside of it?” He paused. “Stairs, Wilbur. That class had two feet of random stairs and chairs stacked in the dumbest way that even people with two hands and normal strength had trouble pulling down. They had a wheelchair lift in this tiny-ass room off to the side of those stairs and I couldn’t use it because I don’t have a wheelchair, I have a cane. They did not have a ramp. Just stairs and a lift that was hard to get into in the first place because of a bunch of lockers in the hallway. And the worst part?” Laughing bitterly, Tommy said, “I’m in the arts program. Which, good news, new building. Bad news, it’s even further away than my current classes are on a rough asphalt path and it’s two stories tall at least.” Maybe all the emphasis didn’t help. “The computer labs are on the opposite side of campus from the new building and the old one is barely farther away. It doesn’t matter what I think or what I tell anyone. What happens when I go to the next place, huh? If I want to continue my degree and go to a university? Do you think they’ll change for me? Oxford was founded in, what, 1096? How long did it take for them just to have someone who wasn’t a white man? Nine centuries. Just for them to accept someone who wasn’t one particular way with full memberships for the ability to get actual degrees there.” He paused a moment. Caught his breath. “There isn’t any point, Wilbur. College and universities aren’t built for people like me, and I’m tired of pretending that I can just go to classes like someone like you can.”

 

       Closing his laptop carefully, Tommy grabbed Clementine, hauled himself up, and limped off.

 

+++

 

       Thankfully, Wilbur and Phil didn’t bother him.

 

       Actually, Tommy pulled a chair over to the dining room window. Plopped down and stared at the rain puttering down in the garden. Tiny silver drops raced one another down the windowpanes. Chin resting on crossed arms rested on the windowsill, Tommy sighed. Blinked slowly.

 

       Behind him, gentle footsteps padded on the kitchen floor. Raising his head, Tommy glanced over. Watched Kristin as she used her ankle to pull a chair over to Tommy. “Mind if I sit?” She asked, nodding over at the chair in a gesture. In her hands were two mugs. One of them said “World’s Best Mumza” with a black and dark purple crow painted on it. The other was pale blue with a Minecraft cow and some chickens in a bit of plains grass.

 

       “’s your house.” Tommy replied. Still, Kristin waited. “I don’t mind,” he turned back to the window and rain. Sitting down, she offered him the pale blue mug. He took it. Hot chocolate. “Thanks.”

 

       “Mhmm.” Neither of them spoke. Instead, they looked out at the rain. Shifting, Tommy hooked his right ankle under his left knee. “Do you have a chiropractor?”

 

       “No.” Sighing again (he had been doing a lot of that today), Tommy admitted. “I started looking into some stuff. The random weight loss. The bone aches. The subluxating ribs and legs…” He set the mug down on the table, just under the windowsill. Ran his hands over his face. “I still don’t know what’s wrong with me. Things that aren’t meant to hurt, they just do, and I don’t know why this is happening.” Gently, she settled a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. No wonder she and Phil worked so well together, they showed love the same way. Looking over, Tommy tugged at his hair. “I just—it’s not that I don’t want to go to a doctor. Or a chiropractor. But I’m not even really diagnosed with chronic pain, I was too—I didn’t go, and I had to figure that out by myself. I just—what if I’m wrong? What if I’m just being dramatic?” He dropped his tone. “What if they don’t believe me?”

 

       She looked at him. “Have you had doctors not believe you before?” Mouth drawn into a thin line, Tommy looked away. To the hot chocolate in his hands. Apparently, no answer was plenty of one. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Tommy. Your doctor was wrong. They’re not meant to make you feel like you can’t trust someone who’s meant to help you, that should never happen.”

 

       Aiming for a change in subject, Tommy asked in a whisper, “Are Phil and Wilbur angry with me? Because I snapped at Wilbur?”

 

       “I think they might have been a little hurt, sure. An apology would help if you’re worried about that. But, in all honesty, Tommy, I highly doubt that they blame you. You lashed out from physical pain and emotional pain, which wasn’t right. It happened because you’re only human. We all are.” Kristin replied. Nodding, Tommy chugged the hot chocolate. It was the perfect temperature, comfortably warm but not burning his throat. When he was done and had set the cup down, Kristin (who had clearly been waiting) casually remarked, “Actually, right now they’re on hold with your school. They want to make sure that the school officials know about accommodating for disabled students’ needs.”

 

       “They’re what?!”

 

Notes:

Lol it’s time for me to go home. Felt like the right place to end, anyways. Excuse some of the ranting about, like, doctors and schools, and for Tommy being a bit hopeless, but unfortunately it is something that needs to be discussed. College and university (and the education system in general) has a ways to go about actually being accessible for people and it’s something we need to make accessible because an educated population benefits everyone.
This is going to have an eventual continuation with Dream and Tommy talking about the college system because I love Disc Duo (or Prime Boys, as they’re apparently also nicknamed, which I didn’t know). However, it might not be anytime soon. I had the WORST chronic pain episode I’ve had in a while and so I’ll probably just be posting older gift fics that I’ve had sitting in my drafts for no reason other than ADHD dysfunction says I won’t post them. (No worries, y’all, I’m alright. I was just taken a bit off guard by the episode.)
As for this current chapter, that’s about it. Thanks for reading. Y’all are loved and appreciated and awesome and amazing, I hope I have a lovely day, and I hope to see you in the next one!

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