A Mockingbird In The Crows Nest

Bittersweet

"..What do you mean 'You can't fix it'?? This is your fault! You should be able to fix it!" A familiar voice whisper-shouts as Tommy starts dragging himself back to reality. His head feels like it was smashed in with a hammer, which is his first sign he overslept. His eyes sting, too, which is his second sign. But probably the biggest sign is that his throat hurts. It feels like he hasn't had a drink in days; which is not a good sign.

Fuck, how long has he been asleep?

And probably a more pressing question is; how did he sleep long enough for his body to ache like this? He had a nightmare the night before, didn't he? What happened that made him relaxed enough to oversleep.

He went to a park, didn't he? He went out of the tower and went to a park and fed the birds with someone..And didn't they get food too? And..And then they came back to the tower and-

And Hypnos knocked him out.

Fuck, how long has he been out??

"Well you need to figure it out, because this isn't normal!" Oh, that- That's Erebus. Erebus was the one he left the tower with. And he sounds pissed. "You said he'd be awake in a few hours! It's been 20!!"

Oh.

Ok, well that-

Yeah that was actually a bit of a problem.

He needs to get up.

Moving slowly so he doesn't agitate his aching limbs, Tommy took a deep breath and winced at the sting in his throat. Yeah, that definitely didn't feel good. But it didn't feel nearly as bad as he expected, either. Especially not if he slept for a whole day thanks to Hypnos's powers.

"Oh- shut up, I think he's waking up." The hero said. There's a pause, then an almost irritated huff. "Yeah, no thanks to you. I'll talk to you later, George." Then soft footsteps approach him as Tommy rolls his head to the side. There's a hesitant, but gentle graze of fingertips on his shoulder from a cold hand, and Erebus sounds much closer now. "Tommy? Hey, you waking up?"

He groaned, dragging his hands up to rub at his face. He needs to think. His head is killing him, and he swipes a pasty feeling tongue over dry lips. Then he tried to open his eyes to try and figure out where he was- because if Erebus is in his room he needs to get him out -only to realize there's some gunk on his eyes that're keeping them glued shut. He groaned out a questioning noise, and the hero chuckled.

"Yeah, you're gonna get shit in your eyes when you sleep for a whole day, man." He commented, sounding sympathetic. "But, how do you feel?"

He groaned again and shoved his hands into his eyes, rubbing and picking at the crust keeping them stuck together until he could peel his eyes open. He blinked a few times before he was able to really see anything, but he frowned when he realized he wasn't in his bedroom. In fact, he doesn't recognize the room he's in at all. It looks vaguely like a living room, with shelves along a wall and pictures and paintings hanging up- but he doesn't know whose living room he's in. He couldn't even make out enough details to be able to figure it out with context clues thanks to a blurry film he's struggling to blink away.