I'm Not Tired (Please Let Me Sleep)

Chapter eighteen

Pain.

That was perhaps the first thing he felt after coming back to awareness.

His head was fucking throbbing, instincts being quiet for once and not whispering about stupid things like the nest or a bloody caretaker or whatever it had been that they'd been doing before. No, it was just pain.

And nausea.

Tommy moved his head slightly and immediately regretted it as the movement sent a giant spark of pain through his head. A piercing pain, as if someone had decided to just impale him with a pencil right through the temples. It was less than pleasing and he would've groaned in pain if it wasn't for the fact that no noise wanted to make its way out of his mouth.

Or, well, it did. But not as he intended it. Instead of a groan, it was a warble which had his throat itch in an incredibly weird way and the sheer volume of it made him squeeze his still-shut eyes.

The warble was met with a calming coo immediately and some of the tension that had priorly been built up in his shoulders melted away.

Okay, so someone was definitely with him, that's nice. And since the pain was definitely (unfortunately) not dull, this was also reality.

Which just begged the question of where the fuck he was.

What was the last thing he could remember before coming back to awareness in...where the hell he was currently. From the coo, he assumed it was either Wilbur or Phil that was with him, which would mean he was most likely back at the Craft's. But how did he get there?

He tried to think back to what he'd been doing before maybe falling asleep at the Craft's.

Let's see, there was a faint memory of wrestling with Wilbur and shouting the brunette over a Mario Cart and then meeting Phil and imprinting on him but that seems like it was quite some time ago. Then there was this whole issue at breakfast of him not being able to eat bacon because his newly developed avian physiology apparently hated him and wouldn't let him eat meat. And Phil freaked out and made him drink potions after being told he had meat two times before which made him throw up.

He'd avoided the questions about his nightmare as best as he could and hadn't mentioned Dream-

Dream.

Oh no.

Immediately his heart rate picked up. Fuck, that was right. He had run from Dream after a shift at the coffee shop. The man had found him and he'd given himself away by running from the hero immediately instead of trying to play it off and act oblivious. Fuck. Shit. Piss and balls. That's exactly what he had tried to avoid.

Okay, that was. Definitely less than ideal. But he could work with that.

It just still didn't explain how he got from running from Dream to the Craft's house.

Tommy furrowed his brows and moved his head again, chirping at the pain that spiked in his head which was once again met with a gentle coo. It unfortunately didn't ease the pain but it did ease a bit of the lingering panic from the memory of running from the green bastard.

The surface he was laying on was quite soft. No, scratch that, incredibly soft. Almost as if he'd been laying on clouds but less cold and wet. No, this was soft and warm and he could feel himself melting into it, the priorly quiet instincts whispering of warmth, safety and comfort. And he found himself agreeing. It must have been safe, especially if either provider or caretaker was with him, yes.

Tommy took a second to actually think about where his thoughts had just gone and then scrunched his nose in confusion. What in the world was a caretaker or provider? And why did the instincts call either Wilbur or Phil that?