Work Text:
Tommy blinks and the wind is in his hair. He’d been pushing Phil for a beach trip all week and now that Saturday was finally here, he was fucking ecstatic.
They were racing down the road, or as fast as Phil was willing to go despite the copious amounts of peer pressure Tommy was putting on them.
It was fantastic. Techno was meant to be joining them once he got off of work, but Tommy was enjoying the time he did have with Phil. With the sun heating his face as it beamed down on them, one of the only sunny days they’d had in weeks, the wind ramming into his hair to the point where it was swept back and he was cackling with laughter just trying to open his eyes.
Phil laughs, a hand on Tommy’s shoulder and a hand on the steering wheel. “Get back in the car, gremlin! You’re going to fall out.”
“Phil, the sun feels so good on my face. I encourage everyone to stick their head out of the car at least once in their life.”
Phil wheezes, rolling his eyes affectionately. “You’re like a dog.”
Tommy stretches one hand out of the car, hand dancing against the wind, fingers pressing against the force of it and laughs. Big and loud, deep from his stomach.
The car shudders, just slightly, and Tommy’s eyes go wide and he slips back into the car fully, a hand grabbing his seatbelt.
“You alright, mate?” Phil asks, risking a worried glance over at Tommy.
“Yeah, what the fuck was that?”
Phil’s eyes flick to the mirror. “Pothole, I think.”
Tommy whips around in his seat, eyeing the road and frowns in confusion. He doesn’t think much about it as they start to slow down and arrive at their destination.
The beach was always a treat. Tommy has loved going for as long as he could remember. If the beach only had one fan, it would be Tommy.
He loves the feeling of sand, of the salt spray of the ocean, of collecting seashells and making Phil carry them for him so they could take them home (only for Tommy to immediately forget they exist or realise his seashell collection is already far too large to accommodate any more shells.)
“Right, grab your shit.” Phil grins as he parks up the car and Tommy’s out of the car in a heartbeat, grabbing his bag and towel. Phil struggled with the umbrella, turning to Tommy for help but Tommy was already sprinting onto the boardwalk and running for the sand.
Phil trails after him and they claim a spot by the sea.
Tommy blinks and he’s in the water. The salt is burning his eyes and he breathes without thinking. Water fills his lungs and his chest spasms, protesting immediately. He breaks the surface and coughs, splashing madly and Phil grabs him.
“Bloody hell,” Phil mutters as Tommy practically tackles him with lanky limbs and splutters water back out of his body and into the ocean.
“Oh fuck.” Tommy coughs. “Fuck I just— I just took a big mouthful.”
Phil laughs and shakes his head, kicking furiously at the water to stay afloat.
“Idiot.” Phil says affectionately.
“Bitch.” Tommy retorts with no real malice. He unclings from Phil and keeps swimming. Diving under and twirling. Dunking his head and enjoying the way it feels when he’s completely underwater.
Tommy blinks and keeps his eyes shut. The world moves fast around him. He feels buried underneath the ocean. Water runs over him in a dull wash, the sound muffled of children yelling and screaming in joy. The water is frozen cold but the sun is a blanket against his skin, heating his face despite the chill of the ocean.
He thinks he can hear Phil telling him to resurface at some point.
He abandons swimming once Phil has to damn near force him to come back to shore and they get started on building a sandcastle.
They didn’t bring any of the classic terrible plastic buckets or shovels or shitty little molding plates that shape the sand to look like crabs or some other random, terrible sea-related shape.
The seashell hunt has never gone as smoothly. He finds so many perfect ones and a few broken ones that Phil encourages him to use anyways. Tommy blinks and for a second, just a small second, when he looks into his hand and stares at the little shards of white and pink shells he sees glass instead.
Tommy makes Phil be the honorary holder of the seashells to carry back to the umbrella and they set out on making the best sand castle imaginable.
Tommy uses seashells as the windows and all around the base. He hunts out a stick to triumphantly plant smack in the middle of his beautiful creation. This is the Tommy Innit Empire.
Phil creates a moat going around the sand castle and there is sand absolutely everywhere. There is sand in places no sand should be.
Tommy makes the fatal mistake of digging into the sand with his hands, crusting it underneath his nails, and then promptly runs a hand through his hair without thinking about it.
Fuck.
Phil laughs at him, so Tommy lobs a ball of wet sand and hits him in the middle of his chest.
Tommy blinks and Phil is on the phone, a frown on his face. Are they back in the car? No. No, they’re still on the beach. They’re on the beach and Phil is on the phone arguing with someone. Tommy bites the inside of his cheek and plunges his hand into the wet sand, taking a handful and molding it into a sand castle.
It looks more like a sand pile than anything else if he’s being honest with himself. But today was a good day so today, it’s a sand castle.
Today they are on the beach, laughing and swimming. Throwing sand at each other and finding seashells.
“Techno can’t come.” Phil sighs and Tommy’s jaw drops.
“What? That mother fucker! Why not?”
“He’s caught up at work.”
“That dickhead promised!” Tommy complains and Phil bites the inside of his cheek, nodding understandingly.
“Yeah, I know mate.” Phil looks off towards the road “He’ll be another hour. We can kill time by getting some ice cream, though?”
Tommy’s face lights up.
Tommy blinks and there is an ice cream in his hand, melting faster than he can eat it and a coke in the other hand.
“Cookies and cream is the only correct choice.” Tommy declares and Phil scrunches his nose up.
“Mint chocolate chips is far superior.” Phil lies and Tommy gags mockingly. Phil laughs, throwing his head back and they make their way back towards their spot, sitting down and watching the sunset.
Techno never shows up, which is a dampener on Tommy’s mood, but otherwise the day was good. He loved spending time with Phil and now that things were winding down, now the heat was disappearing and his stomach was happy with the ice cream he’d absolutely demolished.
Tommy holds the coke in his hand, just as cold as when he’d first bought it.
“Did you enjoy your day?” Phil asks, looking out at the sky like he’s watching the seagulls. There are no seagulls, Tommy notes quietly.
“Yeah.” Tommy grins, “Wish Techno was here though.”
“It’s a good thing he wasn’t.” Phil says and why does that sound so strange? Tommy glances over at Phil and stares at him. He’s the picture perfect version of Phil, watching the sunset happily. But his tone was off. His tone was shaky. Worried.
Far away.
“Yeah,” Tommy responds and then he rests his head on Phil’s shoulder. “I don’t want to go back. I like it here.”
“I know.” Phil says. “But we’re waiting for you.”
“I wish we went to the beach more often.”
Phil laughs. “After this, you can have all the beach trips you want.”
A little piece of the sandcastle crumbles off and falls onto the ground. Tommy watches the sand fall into place.
“Maybe,” Phil adds with an air of hesitance. “Maybe just not for a while.”
“I could stay here forever.” Tommy comments numbly, fingers fiddling with the tab of the coke can.
“Me too, but you have to go back to reality, Tommy.”
“What?” Tommy asks and he pulls a blanket up a little bit higher over his legs.
“You have to go back. You can’t stay here.”
Tommy frowns and then looks down to where his coke was. He finally notices the IV drip going straight into his wrist. He sees the scratches and bandage marks on his hand from where glass dug into his palm.
Tommy blinks and he is in the car. It’s a beautiful day. The wind is in his hair. He’d been pushing Phil for a beach trip all week and now that Saturday was finally here, they could go. Techno was going to meet them at the beach. He didn’t have work, he had a fencing lesson.
“Can you speed up?” Tommy asks Phil.
Phil sped up just a little bit and then his phone started buzzing. He picks it up, cheerily going.
“Techno? How’s it going?”
Tommy has his head stuck out the window. With the sun heating his face as it beamed down on them, one of the only sunny days they’d had in weeks, and the wind ramming into his hair to the point where it was swept back and he was cackling with laughter just trying to open his eyes.
Phil grimaced, “We’ve been planning this all week, what do you mean you’re not coming?” Tommy felt the air with his fingers. “Tommy’s been so excited, this is the least you could do. You can study at home, you can spare an hour.” Pushed them against the force of the wind. “Techno, just meet us there. It’s not a big deal. It’ll just be for an hour.”
Tommy blinks and he is underneath a hospital blanket on the beach. Phil is next to him. He is covered in bruises. There’s a massive bandage that wraps around his leg. Tommy can still feel the speed of the car like they’re driving right now. Tommy can feel Phil's hand on his back as he's yanked back into the car.
“Phil?” Tommy asks, eyes trained on Phil’s face with a worried expression.
“Yeah, Toms?”
“Are you okay?”
Tommy blinks and feels the car shudder. Feels his stomach lurch and the raucous bang of a crash. Feels the car turn and glass shatter.
Tommy looks at the sand under his fingernails and sees blood instead. He runs a hand through his hair and glass comes out in place of it. The sand castle is a car wreck. Shells melt into glass crunching against his palms. Phil's on the side of the road, digging around for his phone. If he could just get his phone out.
Tommy's limbs feel heavy. There's liquid soaking his hair. It feels like he’s underwater. He can’t breathe properly. His chest is tight and his ears are ringing, like he’s drowning and can’t surface.
Phil smiles at him, an ugly scratch on his forehead. “Yeah, mate. I’m okay.”
He says it with sincerity. With meaning and an echo that Tommy thinks somewhere, in a hospital, Phil is saying those exact words and maybe Tommy’s out of place here.
Tommy stares out at the beach and suddenly he’s looking at a picture frame on a ghostly white wall. He’s still sat next to Phil on the sand. The umbrella next to them…
The heart monitor next to them is beeping mechanically.
"Tommy, are you okay? Holy shit." It's out of place. It's scared and shaky and when Tommy looks at Phil, Phil's mouth doesn't move at all. He just smiles with sad eyes.
Tommy clenches his jaw and Phil looks at him and moves a strand of hair out of Tommy’s face.
“Time to wake up, Tommy. We need you.”
"Okay, Phil." Tommy smiles and leans into Phil’s hand.
Tommy blinks.
“Oh thank god, Tommy!”