I'm Not Tired (Please Let Me Sleep)

Chapter fifteen

"What the fuck is this?"

Tommy was already a little annoyed, they had woken him up after he apparently had not let go of Wilbur in his sleep and forced them to stay on the sofa for much longer. Now, that it had been well past midnight, Phil apparently decided it would be time for all of them to clock out, despite the phantom's very obvious protests.

It had apparently taken the three of them multiple attempts to get him into a somewhat coherent state to tell him that they really needed to move now and when that didn't work, Phil chirped at him like a maniac until he was awake enough for them to transfer him to one of the many guest rooms.

The room itself was massive, for starters. Like, genuinely massive and could easily house three children at once, including three proper-sized beds for said children and Tommy was just wondering what their own rooms must look like if this was their guest room. It was easily the size of Tommy's entire apartment and probably around the same size as his old two-bedroom apartment that got raided by the police and Dream.

Despite its size, there wasn't too much furniture inside. A simple wooden closet and drawer (and Tommy did not dwell on the wood for too long or thought about how it looked like literal mahogany wood) were pushed against one side of the wall. A fuzzy white and green round carpet lay in the middle of the room, right next to the four-poster bed which already had grey sheets on it and was enough to fit at least three people. Above the bed were a couple of white shelves with a bunch of decorative vases and artificial flowers and on the opposite side stood a small two-seat sofa with a small side table.

Tommy had blinked at the room a couple of times, the lights (which were some fancy motion sensor kind of ceiling lights) had been dimmed by Phil with a small remote when they walked in, painting the room in a soft orange light. The curtains of the window were drawn shut already but he didn't need to look outside to know that the sun was probably already rising again. He'd looked at the bed longingly and then immediately frowned when he realised that he'd have to sleep and checked his hands, finding that all of this was still reality.

Phil must've noticed his sudden change from extremely tired and grumbly to being rather nervous. It took a single look for him and then he'd walked over to the closet to pull out an ungodly amount of blankets and pillows which he dumped on the bed before turning to face him again and smiling. The gesture had confused Tommy a lot and he had voiced as much.

Which left them where they were right now, the older avian blinking at him in confusion while Tommy's eyes were focused on the pile of (rather expensive-looking) blankets and pillows.

"Your nesting material."

"My what now?"

The avian's expression dropped completely and he let out a concerned chirp to which Tommy couldn't help but respond with a chirp of his own. He grimaced at that, swallowing to get the itch in his throat to vanish. Phil had explained briefly that they were natural reactions and that he'd probably make a lot of these noises. He didn't like that, not one bit and while he had understood that it was apparently not good for fledglings to suppress instinctual noises, Tommy simply didn't feel comfortable with them just yet and thus promptly ignored the older avian's advice.

"The materials you need to build yourself a nest," Phil explained slowly, then, when Tommy didn't react other than arch one eyebrow he asked, "Do you know what a nest is?"

The teen snorted, "Duh, the place where birds lay their eggs in."

"That's true but do you know what they mean for avians?"

That answer should've been obvious, honestly. He'd been human up until like an hour ago. "No?"

If possible, Phil's expression dropped even further, "You've never built a nest before then?"