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Tommy is not avoiding everyone.
Tommy isn’t avoiding anyone! It wasn’t his fault he just so happened to turn his sleep schedule upside down specifically so he would be asleep anytime anyone ever tried to visit his hole-in-the-wall dirt house. He just so happened to have been tired that day, and every day after that. He was not oversleeping at all. In fact, they should be happy he was finally sleeping! It was better than him staying up all the time. If they wanted to see him, they should’ve tried harder to catch him while he was awake. If that just so happened to be almost never, well, it wasn’t his fault! If they want to get on his back for getting sleep, then they can… not that they’d be able to catch him quick enough in order to rag on him for it, that is.
Tommy was not avoiding people.
He was just… very antisocial lately. Always. Not a new thing, of course. It was not a new thing that he specifically went out of his way to avoid conversations with Tubbo or Wilbur and it was not a new thing that he jumped into rivers to avoid Ranboo whenever the endermen hybrid spotted him.
It had always been a thing, and if they thought otherwise, well…
They were wrong.
Tommy wasn’t avoiding anyone. Tommy just didn’t want to talk to anyone! Was that so much to ask?
(Maybe it was a little too much to ask when his record was a week without any social interaction. Maybe it was a little too much to ask when he felt his mind reeling at the thought of stepping through his doorway. Maybe it was a little too much to ask when his heart and stomach grew heavy at even the mere idea of saying hello to Wilbur. Maybe it was a little much to ask when he shut his door almost permanently a few weeks ago.)
He wasn’t avoiding anyone, he wasn’t just not talking to them, he was good.
They asked him how he was on the off chance they could find him; that was enough, right? Right.
And maybe it wasn’t totally an accident when Tommy went out of his way to hide from Wilbur, or disappear from Ranboo’s daily routine, or completely fly under Tubbo’s radar.
(Maybe it wasn’t totally an accident when he said he would have a two minute conversation with Tubbo, max, and ended up staying in his house for two days instead.)
What was he supposed to do, really? He couldn’t help the way his hands trembled when his friends decided to talk to him. He couldn’t help the way his gut felt ill and his head went all spinny when he thought about conversation starters. He couldn’t help the way his jaw felt like lead, sealed and glued shut to the rest of his face so that he couldn’t open it. He couldn’t help the way his tongue struggled to form words anymore, or the way his brain won’t even mention it anymore.
He couldn’t help the way he wanted his friends back so badly, but he just couldn’t.
Not now, not later…
…not ever.
Maybe it was unfair, maybe he should be talking to his friends, maybe, maybe, maybe—
Who gave a shit?
Tommy didn’t.
And neither should anyone else.
(About him.)