Out Of Place {𝕞𝕔𝕪𝕥 𝕩 𝕓𝕟𝕙𝕒} || DISCONTINUED ||

22 || White Beds

     Tommy felt painfully uncomfortable.

     That was his first observation when he finally woke up. Already, his nightmares started to fade and shrink away from his mind, but the core premise of it stuck with him. Thinking about the field of soft grass, and specifically the spot around the explosion, being constantly obstructed, only to be re-done and re-obstructed- it made him choke on his own air.

     He remembered that every time the grass came back and the nightmare-the memory- looped back around, the grass got dimmer, then dimmer, then dimmer. The grass was grey by the end of his sleep, and it was rough and scarred and ended in jagged edges.

     By his own surprise, what scared him the most about the memory wasn't the bright flash of the dynamite- or the cruel, echo of a cackle from the masked man he'd only just fully pieced together as his own friend, it was the grass. It was watching its gradient into a painful, dull grey. Its transition into an un-salvageable scene.

     Still, he found the details beyond the grass to be fleeting. He knew there had been a tent- or was there two? And which side of him had it been on? The sea, what did it sound like?

     It was a reminder that those memories weren't his to remember.

     Shaking his head lightly, Tommy opened his eyes with a groan. White light blinded him again and he squinted at the room around him. He looked down at himself and away from the ceiling lights.

     A thin white blanket was tucked neatly over him into the sides of the hard mattress he'd been laying on. He was sure this was even more uncomfortable than the sleeping bag. 

     Still, it clicked, as he laid a scarred hand- vaguely reminiscent of his own from a few months ago- on a grey rail next to his torso, that he was in a hospital bed.

     His eyes drifted to a chair and another bed, identical to his own. Two people occupied them separately, both sound asleep and illuminated by the sunrise peeking into the open window.

     In the bed, Tubbo shifted uncomfortably in the plain white sheets, his face contorted into confusion and hurt. His ears lay flat against his head as he cowered away from a mysterious force.

     In the chair, Ranboo slept in an awkward position. His head lay on top of the back of the chair, propped up by his arms. He seemed to have had a much calmer time. Tommy concluded, by the red markings pushed into his black and white skin, that he'd been sleeping at their bedsides for hours. Most likely since the night before.

     Tommy quietly got to his feet, his legs shaking under the sudden weight. He walked to the bathroom in the room, marked by a 'unisex bathroom' sign. 

     He opened the door and immediately looked around. He found the mirror and stood in front of it.

     Staring back at him was himself, but while he was still the same in years, he looked and felt aged. A month ago, he didn't have the scars he did now. And he didn't earn them. He wasn't the one who fought in those wars, neither was he the one who watched his belongings get torn apart by flames and explosions.

     He was stealing someone's mind and body, and there came no good sides with it. He was just prying into this other person's life and feelings.

     Tommy noticed marks down his face, glossed with tears he didn't remember shedding. He must have cried when he slept. He surely did inside the dream. The memory. He wasn't sure which to call it anymore.

     A door opened, pulling Tommy out of his upset thoughts. He glanced over and wiped the train of long passed tears away.

     Techno stood in the doorway, staring quietly at Tubbo and Ranboo. He turned to Tommy's vacant bed and immediately stepped forward to look over to Tommy, as though he had seen where he was through the door.

     Tommy nodded to him, "Hey, big man." He spoke half-heartedly. Tommy went back to his bed, turning off the light in the bathroom and shelving his troubles for another time.

     "Hey, Tommy." He said, sitting down in a chair by the wall, "Just came by here to get my steps in." 

     The teen laughed dryly, leaning against the pillows. The two sat in total silence for a moment.

     "What happened?" Techno eventually asked. Tommy looked at his hands but quickly looked away as he caught sight of the stranger's scars.

     He shrugged, looking at the railing instead, "Guess I really did get second-hand trauma. Had a nightmare." He said simply.

     "What kind-..." Techno trailed off, and he paused. He looked off, "Right, you probably don't want to talk about it."

     Tommy smiled slightly, "Did the voices tell you that one?"

     The boar-masked man held up his hands, "I will not confirm nor deny whether that is the case." He joked.

     A shifting from Tommy's side made him look over. Tubbo sat up in his bed, groaning a bit. 

     He first looked to the bed, then at the window, then, finally, to the other three in the room.

     Tubbo's eyes looked over Tommy and Ranboo, quietly observing. He looked at Techno, but not for more than a second. He looked away and stared solely at Tommy.

     Tommy was sure he saw a glistening of lingering tears and frustration in his eyes. Then, Tommy realized why Tubbo was also there, then he realized what Tubbo must have seen. Techno's head twitched as he listened to what Tommy heard as silence.

     "Right, well," He said, standing up and adjusting his braid, "I've got to go get the other steps in." He walked to the door. 

     Before he left, he turned around and addressed Tommy, visibly not comfortable with addressing Tubbo, "Right, uh, 'Recovery Girl' is directly across the hall. They said when you feel like going back to the dorms, she'll lead the way." 

     With that, he left. Tommy looked back at Tubbo, who stared vacantly at Tommy's shirt.

     Tubbo noticed that Techno was gone, and he finally snapped back into reality. He looked at Tommy directly, and there was a flicker in his eyes of a flame that wasn't in the room. 

     "I don't get it." He said, his voice cracking with tears he hadn't let fall.

     Tommy nodded solemnly.

     "And I feel sick." He added, leaving a hand lightly on his stomach. 

     Tommy nodded again, and the two had no more to talk about. There was so much going on in their minds, but- for Tommy, at least- it wasn't theirs to share.

     Tubbo pointed to Ranboo, "Do we wake him up?"

     Tommy looked over that the split teen. He shook his head, "Let him sleep a little. We'll leave when he wakes up on his own. He looks like he's been here for ages, and I don't know how much of that was sleep."

     And the two went silent again. 

teehee alexa play fallen down 

{|1163 words|}