Chapter 9
Magic was stupid and hard and really really fucking dumb, or so Tommy said. Sirius listened as the blonde ranted despite being entirely immovable from the couch just minutes before; drained from a full day of learning and practising with his wand and books.
Tommy sighed, groaned loudly, rolled his eyes, made yet another disgruntled noise, and slumped into the couch. "I'm sleeping now, Sirius. Shoo." He flicked a hand toward the man and squeezed his eyes shut, folding his hands over his chest. After mere seconds of silence, he stretched and pushed his toes into the end of the couch- but the end of the couch was normally not that fleshy, and Tommy concluded with his superior genius that it was not indeed couch he was touching with his sock-covered toes, but somebody's leg. Tommy opened one eye to see Sirius, still sitting where he was before.
"Bitch," he whispered, sending a seething glare Sirius' way before shutting his eye again. He could almost feel the eye roll in the air. Sirius wasn't actually bothering him, and the couch was awfully comfortable. He sunk into it a little farther and sighed quietly. Maybe...
Aw, Tommy, you think you're safe?
Stupid Tommy.
His eyes opened slowly. Sirius was gone now, and the only light came from a flickering candle atop the fireplace. That weird candle that never seemed to melt down fully. The house was eerily quiet- and he pinched himself. He didn't know why, but it felt like something was... "Fuckin' hell, Kreacher," Tommy whisper-yelled. "Stop lurking around the house. You're remindin' me of someone."
There was a quiet skitter and it no longer felt like eyes were on Tommy. An involuntary shiver ran through his body and he snuggled further into the couch, pulling his blanket back...over...he threw the blanket onto the floor, breathing heavily. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.
He was getting too comfortable here. He would have noticed- should have noticed if someone just...draped a blanket over him. He hadn't fallen asleep with a cover. (gently touseled his hair with a fond smile) Like-
no shut up
He slowly pulled the blanket from the floor and folded it, staring dumbly at the candle as the soft fabric slowly sunk into his hands. He wasn't safe here (he wanted to be) and he needed to stop pretending like he was. Sirius had done nothing but try to gain his trust - and it was then that he decided that the kindness was all an act and Sirius was lying, because they always were - like Tubbo, Phil, Techno, Wilbur-
He removed his trembling hands from where they were digging into his hair, forcing himself to lie back down on the couch. Freight trains. His thoughts raced by like freight trains, something Drista had mentioned before, offhandedly, because he didn't want to believe that Sirius really was trying to hurt him...but everything in him was screaming to run, run away and never look back-
Was he being irrational?
Had he been irrational when...
Had he..?
He blinked, and the candle was out. Black emptiness filled the room, and he was no longer anywhere. One terrifying word made its way to him in the emptiness. Limbo.
Tightly pulled fabric fought against his fingers as he clung to the couch in a cold sweat; short, ragged breaths hardly making it into his lungs. He was violently disoriented, grasping around blindly for anything to help ground him. The candle flickered.
The candle still flickered.
He shot up and all but launched himself at it, carefully pulling it from the mantle and clenching his palm over its flame until pain seared through the fog in his mind and he was able to slowly release the candle, now extinguished.
The past week had been a blur. He'd been here a week. A brief thought that maybe this was something his mind had created to save him from the emptiness of limbo. Another brief thought flickered by and he placed the candle back onto the mantle, eyes moving as if through molasses. Down to the flames.
Delicate, scalding fingertips brushed against his and beckoned him; further, further-
He was back on the couch, frozen and staring at the blanket. He blinked; once, twice. His eyes stung with dryness. The blanket was soft. Huh.
Freight trains?
When had he been thinking about freight trains?
What a weird thing to think about.
Tommy had wanted to be a train conductor; once when he was little.
Not anymore.
"Freight trains" sucked.
Wil?
Wilbur? Are you there?
Tommy was exhausted, and he rubbed his eyes blearily, peering over at the grandfather clock to his left. 4:27- A.M., he finished internally. No one except maybe Kreacher would be up now. Kreacher was always up - creeping around and lurking like some Evoker's failed experiment. Tommy pushed himself off the couch, swaying slightly as he stood on the rug. Something forced him to get up and move and go look, go find somethi- someone.
He made his way up past his bedroom, stumbling awkwardly up the stairs - everything felt disgustingly heavy and he couldn't seem to regain his balance, no matter how hard he tried.
Now he was a scared child, clutching his blanket tightly after another nightmare, heaving his way up the stairs to his brother's room.
The creak of a heavy wooden door, and a groan.
The man sat up, patting the bed beside him silently, and Tommy shuffled to his side. The exchange was wordless. Thin fingers wrapped around soft pink hair and salty tears soaked through a cotton tunic, and Tommy cried into Techno's arms.
Tommy found himself at Sirius' door. He wasn't supposed to be here, he was supposed to be at...someone else's door. The faces in that distant memory blurred and warped, and they were replaced with blackened skulls and fireworks- so many fireworks- and blood and death and laughter and screaming,
his hand was knocking on the door before he could stop it.
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK.
Footsteps shuffled to the door, and it slowly creaked open, a dark-haired man peering through the crack.
Think.
"I'm, uh, sleeping in here. On the floor. I'll bite you if you don't let me." Tommy's ears burned. A calloused hand waved Tommy inside. "Right, get in here."
Tommy shuffled past the Animagus, fully aware that his entire face was beetroot red at this point and the only thing hiding that from Sirius was the total lack of lighting throughout the house.
The next morning at breakfast, neither of them mentioned what had happened. Of course, Tommy was awake before Sirius, and this meant that he bolted out of there as soon as he could. Mortified was the only word to describe his state of mind- and mortified he was for the entirety of breakfast until he was entirely sure that Sirius would not be discussing what had happened that night with Tommy. Morning, not night.
"Wand wiggling time," Tommy announced, standing up abruptly from the sofa. Sirius groaned, looking over at Lupin. Lupin gave him a look back and Sirius whined - a loud, dog-like whine - before standing up and stomping up the stairs to Tommy's room. Tommy gave two thumbs up to Lupin.
"Fuck this shit, this fucking sucks. Fuck you, Sirius, for being a stupid wizard, and fucking hell and all curses to this wand. It hates me, Sirius, this wand hates me." Sirius smiled gently and slid his wand back into his pocket in silent defeat. Clementine shifted in her cage, feelers gently prodding at the wall nearest Tommy.
"Of course I don't hate you, Clementine, you're perfect." Tommy sighed, setting his wand gently on his nightstand and sinking into the bed. His head fell backwards and he stared up at the support boards of the top bunk. He found himself in that same position at least five times that day. Those boards were his reset point, he had decided. Again, something Puffy had told him to do.
Find a reset point in every room. That will be your lifeline.
And Tommy remembered a few old books he'd seen about the science of respawn points - how just being around them would calm you down. It sounded like utter bullshit to the blonde, but he had to admit that sitting on the bed felt as if someone was giving him a warm hug.
"Sorry for calling you a stupid wizard and cussing at you, Sirius," Tommy grumbled. He thought about it for a moment. "Not really though. I'm not sorry."
His heart skipped a beat.
Apologize now, Tommy.
Apologize now, or I'll finish the job this time.
You don't have any lives left, Toms. Remember?
Remember?
A heartbeat. "Sorry, did you say something?" Sirius asked, wand pointed loosely at the floor. Tommy only moved his eyes to look. "Huh?"
Sirius shook his head. "Ah, never mind," he muttered, turning back to the books.
Tommy groaned quietly.
The next three weeks were a blur. Every day, he'd wake up (often from a nightmare), have breakfast, study until he wanted to jump out a window, then clean until lunch. Lunch would come around and he'd repeat the whole process until dinner; probably sit on the couch or in front of the fire and talk to Sirius and Lupin afterwards until he finally managed to drag himself upstairs to his room.
Routines were nice. At least, he thought he liked them. Tommy didn't know what he liked anymore. He knew all too well who he could thank for that. Days passed by in a heartbeat until one day that Tommy fell asleep in one of the spare rooms, head tucked into the pages of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore.
In his defense, he'd been reading about the magical properties behind screaming turnips. They had a name, but Tommy couldn't be bothered to remember it. He was too busy dreaming about Clementine. He would die for Clementine. Or so he had decided in his dream, because he woke up in a cold sweat, flying out of his chair with a yelp and a thud, heart racing.
It took him at least a minute to calm down and by the time he had, he'd lost all recollection of how he sacrificed himself for Clementine. Something valiant and very worthy of his greatness, he was sure.
Tommy groaned and pulled himself up, resigning himself to the call of his bed. He'd still read through the book, but somewhere he was even more likely to fall asleep. Plus, he needed to piss.
He sighed quietly as hot water ran over his hands, letting his head slump forward. He focused on the way the heat travelled from his fingers to his arms, slowly warming his ever-shaking digits. It was comforting.
Tommy slowly became aware of the fact that he had not bathed once since he'd been here. Sure, he'd run his hair under the sink, scrubbing a small amount of whatever soap he could get his hands on into his scalp. He hated having greasy hair, so he washed it as often as he could. That was the extent of him cleaning himself, though.
Puffy had scolded him once when he told her about the habit. She said it wasn't healthy to neglect his body and that self-care was one of the most important steps towards healing. Tommy groaned, peeking over his shoulder at the innocent-looking bathtub.
He didn't know why he didn't take care of himself. It had been a month since he got here, and he hadn't showered once when he was in Pandora's Vault. That meant it had been a month and a half. The longest he'd gone was seven months. And then Dream had decided to waterboard him and his streak had, regrettably, been crushed.
Tommy decided that he'd shower after dinner. The tap fizzled out with the turn of a handle and he dried his hands sluggishly, drawing out the moment for no apparent reason. Excited chatter erupted downstairs and he quickly drowned it out. His head turned slightly to the side, doing a quick sweep of his surroundings.
For some reason, he'd expected to see a flash of green in the corner of his vision.
He pulled down the collar of his shirt, dipping his shoulder forward. Marred skin marked where lightning had hit and spread over his body, and his lower lip trembled as he continued to stare at the scars.
Disgusting.
Tommy checked that the door was locked, slowly peeling off his shirt and letting it fall to the ground. The pad of his thumb pressed into a small, disfigured crater near his heart.
His vision blurred with tears. He let his hand fall, tipping his head back to stop them from falling. Something caught in his throat and heat rose to his ears, teardrops once again prickling and burning in his eyes.
No, no. I will not cry, Tommy scolded himself.
Crybaby.
A quiet whimper escaped his lips and he fumbled blindly for the tap, leaning forward and splashing cold water over his face. He let his tears fall freely into the sink as he leaned over it, grateful that the laughter below him overtook the sound of his quiet sniffles.
It didn't take but a minute for his eyes to stop leaking and he pressed a towel to his cheeks, dabbing at his undereyes. He allowed his eyes to return to the mirror and rake over the rest of his abdomen. Some wounds had run so deep that he could poke around inside of the healed areas with a finger. Most of his scars were flat discolourations, webs of lighter skin tracing the edges. A few around his palms had healed in strange mounds, bubbling up above the surface of his skin - those were the ones that liked to bother him the most. There was only so much a healing potion could do, no matter how potent.
He traced a long, winding scar with his fingers, jumping to the next and racing down its path. Tommy knew the tracks well. His eyes glossed over as the movement became subconscious, mind beginning to drift.
No.
He froze, fist just inches from the mirror.
When had he moved?
The reflection held his gaze for an eternity. It took more willpower than he would have liked to tear his eyes from his battered skin. Tommy turned his back to the mirror reluctantly, pulling his shirt back over his head. Puffy had said this wasn't healthy. But...
Tommy blinked and he was descending the stairs towards his bedroom, carefully levitating the stupid plant book with his wand. The stairs levelled off into a banister and he let the book fall, catching it with his free hand. Two unfamiliar heads - a redhead with short hair and a brunette with long curls that reminded him of Puffy - had just pushed open the door to his bedroom and were hesitating in the entrance, both seemingly unaware of his presence.
He stared at them for a moment, conflicted. The redhead piped up. "This room smells ghastly." The brunette's hand flew up to cover her nose.
Tommy decided he would not be waiting for these two to get out of his way and he brushed by them, turning back and cocking his head to the side. "It gets better once you get used to it."
Tommy quickly realized he was taller than both of them. His chest swelled with concealed satisfaction.
The redhead gave him a look. "And who are you?"
Tommy shot him a look back, tossing the stupid plant book onto his bed. "Who are you?"
The redhead looked a little irritated now, crossing his arms. "I asked first," he grumbled.
Something on Tommy's face twitched, but the brunette elbowed the redhead before he could think of a snarky reply.
"Ron, stop being a child," she chided. "I'm Hermione Granger, and he's Ron Weasley. Sirius didn't tell us about anyone else living here." She seemed suspicious and Tommy didn't blame her. He remembered how his first interaction with someone other than Sirius went. Ron gave Hermione a dirty look. If she noticed, she didn't care.
Tommy wasn't expecting their immediate response. He wanted at least a little more retaliation before he'd hand over his name. "Tommy Careful Danger Kraken Innit," he said, ignoring the looks he got from both of them. "Tommy is fine, though."
He shuffled over to his bed, sinking into it as he sat down. "I've been living here with Sirius for a month now. He's got a nasty habit of not telling people about visitors."
Hermione seemed satisfied with this explanation and dropped the suspicious face, walking into the room and tossing her bag onto the top bunk opposite Tommy's bed. "This one's mine," she declared. The ladder creaked as she climbed up to her bunk, lying across it with a quiet sigh.
Ron threw his bag onto the bottom bunk with a little more gusto, muttering something under his breath as he, too, laid down on the bed. "Hermione, when does school start?"
She huffed quietly, poking her head over the railing. "Really, Ron, you should know-"
Ron rolled over and covered his head with a pillow, letting out a muffled scream. Hermione rolled her eyes dramatically. "It starts in two months." The redhead rolled again - onto his back this time - and kicked at the baseboards of her bed in response, earning an irritated shout from the brunette.
Tommy drowned the two out and laid against his pillow, book levitating shakily above his face. He watched Hermione move down to Ron's bunk as he reached the page about a tumbleweed that would bloom if fed chocolate cake - the flowers could be used for certain kinds of medicinal teas - and the two whispered back and forth as if he wasn't there. Something about scars was thrown around enough that he sunk into himself, drawing his shoulders up to cover his neck. His ears burned.
He didn't even know what a tumbleweed was.