SBI Fanfics of the Week (week 74)
If I Lie (Maybe I'll Believe It) by weepingvirtue
At sixteen years old, Tommy knew so many things.
He knew that people were predictable and selfish. He knew not to trust, not to take, and not to get comfortable for too long. He knew that the concept of family was as fake as the highlights in his foster mother's hair.
Tommy had known for years that life was painful and had no extra love for some ratty foster kid like him. He knew that it was him and his copy of The Odyssey against the whole world. He knew that he only had to survive long enough to make it to his eighteenth birthday before he could escape.
But when Tommy ends up fostered in the Watson household completely by chance, he finds that maybe he never knew anything in the first place.
or, the one in which Tommy Innit has never really experienced love, family, or belonging, and is suddenly surrounded by it all at once.
with a heavy heart by qar
Tommy doesn't pause. His hand fists into his sweatshirt, and he twists the fabric tightly. "Yeah," he says. "Promise."
He's lying. He knows that Wilbur probably knows that he's lying. He thinks back to a few months ago, when he could talk about his feelings openly, because Wilbur loved him and his friends all loved him. And they still do.
"Okay," Wilbur says slowly.
They talk for a while. When Wilbur finally hangs up, Tommy stares at his phone for a minute. Taps absently on the screen. And then he throws it, as hard as he can, at his bed.
He's lying to you. He doesn't need to be bothered by your stupid fucking issues. He's not your brother, no matter how many times he says he is. He's indulging you.
It bounces once, twice, and then comes to rest at his pillow. It doesn't really make him feel any better. He'd never been particularly violent anyways.
there is no looking-glass here and I don't know who I am by plantform
"You're not what others think of you," Wilbur tells him, and it should be comforting but it just isn’t.
"But who am I then? I don't know who I am- I've never known. Having an identity that others place onto me is comforting because I can't figure out who I am otherwise."
It’s both true and not; Tommy was someone before, and maybe instead of his self disintegrating, it’s a maze and he just has to collect all his pieces and he’ll be made real again. But also what if that’s just not true; what if he’s just gone? What if, as scary as it is, he’ll never find himself again—not his real self; what if he’s simply destined to be the caricature they picture him as forever?
Wilbur brings his knees to his chest and tilts his head at Tommy and doesn’t smile or frown or reach out to remind Tommy they’re both real. "Identity isn't a concrete material thing to hold and view; it's abstract, you don't need to feel it to be a person."
Or: Tommy and his search for his lost identity.
