TWs: mentions of abuse, mentions of death, mentions of neglect(?)

-Wilbur's POV-

"Hey Tommy?" I asked one day when we were both just chilling in our room.

"Yeah, Will?"

"I was wondering, did I ever tell you what my life was like before I got here?"

"...No."

"Actually, now that I think about it, do you know about Philza or Will either?"

"No, I really don't. Do you want to share?"

"That would be a good idea, but I'm not going to share for Philza or Will, they should do that themselves. What if we call a meeting (1.) and discuss it there?"

"Ok."

-Tommy's POV-

That sounds cool, I'd love to get to know them better. Wait, Does that mean I'll have to share about myself? I'm not sure if I'm ready to live through those memories yet. Phil sort of already knows, but not fully, and no one else does.

I mean, they probably won't make me share if I don't want to. I ignore that and decide to worry about it later.

Later

Wilbur and I headed to the meeting and find Phil and Techno already in the room.

"Hey mate, why'd you call a meeting?" Phil asked Will.

"Well, I just realized that we haven't all shared our stories for how we got here. I know you two shared with each other, and if you aren't comfortable sharing again that's fine, same for you Tommy, but at the very least I can tell you all what I went through and if you want to add on with your stories you can. This isn't a contest of who's life sucks the most, but now you'll be able to see where I'm coming from and vice versa." Will explained. I was relieved that I wouldn't have to share.

"So, I guess I'll start, since it was my idea. (2.) My mom was not a very nice person, and soon after I was born, my parents got a divorce. Since at that time, my mom was just a jerk and not actually abusive, and because my dad initiated the divorce, all custody of me went to my mom. (3.) My dad still had to pay child support or whatever it's called and legally that money had to be spent on me specifically. My mom spent it on getting me a babysitter so she had less work to do, and my babysitter, Mikey, was the one nice person in my life, since everyone at school treated me indifferently. They were kind of jerks. Anyway, my mom started to get more and more abusive after the divorce, so I just lived with that for the majority of my life. Eventually, Mikey began to suspect that something was going on, and she reported it. They did the investigation, and after doing many things to try to help my mom, which all failed because she honestly didn't care, I was taken here. And the rest is history."

"Oh wow, I'm sorry mate." He moves between me and Tommy and hugs me, and I hug him back.

"But I'm fine now, hanging out with you guys as part of an actual family: well, emotionally anyway, has been slowly healing me."

"Don't you love it when you get thanked for things you didn't even know you were doing? Techno commented.

"I guess that explains the comment you made the day you met Fundy." Phil added.

I remember that, because I was scared it would make everyone concerned, but I'd assumed they'd all forgotten.

"You remember that?" I asked.

Phil replied, "Yeah, but I didn't want to say anything about it until you were ready."

"... Thanks."

"What are you guys talking about?" Tommy asked.

"You and Techno weren't there, it was a while ago and Techno was studying. Does anyone else want to share, or should we end the meeting?"

"I guess I'll share" Techno spoke up. "Phil already knows this, but basically, my life was pretty normal,, I was an only child and lived with both of my parents, and we were doing great, when my parents were murdered. I lived with some random neighbor during the investigation, where I found out that the murderers were orphans who, like, dealt with their trauma by becoming serial killers. Anyway, I was less than pleased to find out I had to then live with a whole bunch of orphans here, and was kind of a jerk.

Phil laughed. "You can say that again," he joked.

"To be honest, I'm not sure why Phil still decided to be nice to me."

"I'm not completely sure why either, you were pretty annoying at times, but I'm so glad I was because it was, and you are, so, so worth it."

Techno looked away slightly and muttered a gruff "Thanks", but we could all tell he was touched.

But now, if we go around the circle, it's my turn. I decided I'll share a brief explanation of what happened.

"For me, my parents died in a car crash. My— My life went from normal, to having lost everything, to you guys, in just one week." Even though it had been a month or so since it had happened, I still struggled to keep myself together. I could feel Phil, then Wilbur, and finally Techno form a group hug around me, and I hugged them back tightly as I broke, cried, and let myself slowly start to heal.

They didn't let go until I was completely done crying and I let go first. Wiping my eyes, I was ready to change the subject.

"Phil? Do you want to share too?" I asked, looking over at him.

-Phil's POV-

"Oh, uh, sure, I can share." I have the least trauma out of everyone here, but I guess I'll tell my story anyway. It probably will sound kind of lame next to theirs. But as Will said, it's not a trauma contest. "Basically, my parents fought a lot. It was during that time that I got interested in psychology, by the way. Anyway, eventually they got a divorce. Neither of them could/would take care of me, so I was sent here." I wait for them to do the "Oh, I'm sorry that happened" thing and move on.

"...Phil, that's terrible. I mean, maybe not as bad as Wilbur's, but still horrible." Tommy said.

"Huh?" I was honestly confused. I wasn't abused, nor did I have to go through the pain of having a parent die.

"Phil, your parents abandoned you. At least my parents didn't have a choice in leaving me, and when they died I still know that they loved me wholeheartedly." Tommy continued, looking straight at me.

Before I could respond, a worker yelled into the hallway "Kids! Dinner time!" I don't know what I would've said anyway.

"We should go now, if we're late we might not be able to sit together." Techno pointed out, and we all went downstairs, the conversation forgotten.

But I couldn't stop thinking about what Tommy had said. And that night, I stayed awake for a while, thinking about that. I suppose Tommys' right. I might not have had one big traumatic moment, like my life turning upside down after my parents died, and I might not have been abused per say, but I did spend my whole life without my parents really loving me. That was the norm, so when they decided that I was too inconvenient to take care of, I wasn't really all that surprised. I was sad, obviously, to leave the people that I knew at school, but I wasn't all that sad about leaving my parents.

My past problems weren't as noticeable, they didn't cause me nightmares or tears, but they led to a change in the way I think. I take care of others because I don't want them to end up in the same predicament, or a much worse one, than I was in, but also because I'm used to playing the "responsible" role, looking out for others. I tried to do that even with my parents, trying to solve their marriage problems. But it's hard for me to believe that others would actively look out for me.

And it took Tommy (4.) commenting on my life to notice it.

A/Ns:

1. Not an Among Us reference! Though they do have a meeting room...

2. I said this in the intro but I'll say it again. These backstories are made up/borrowed from another book series, and do not in any way mean that something similar happened to the actual irl people. Also I know I kind of already shared Wilbur's backstory in previous chapters, but you get to hear it again. Lucky you.

3. I'm not pretending to know anything about divorces and custody arrangements, the point of this is the outcome.

4. Now, this doesn't exactly mean that I'll actually do character development with Phil or that this topic presented here will ever show up again, because my forgetful brain is more powerful than the obligations of Chekhov's gun.

4 (part 2). Just to give credit where credit's due, the reason I made Tommy have that insightful moment right there, even though it made slightly less sense for him to say it because he just had a problem of his own he still would likely be thinking about, is because of scatteredarkmatter's book New Plans where Tommy is really good at that kind of thing. Check it out by the way, the book's really good (like seriously, it's in my top 2 favorite books on Wattpad, the other one being GFrisk's book Together We Can, Alone We Will), much better than mine. It's SBI-centered, but there are a lot of other DSMP characters in it. You can search for it, or if you'd prefer, you can comment asking me for the link to the story and I can give it to you that way.

Chapter word count: 1383

Total word count: 1616