What one can hide

Chapter ten- If only

Trigger Warnings- effects of child abuse, description of injury, mentions of blood,

Tommy felt his eyes start to open before shutting them quickly once the bright light flooded in. The lights in his room made his headhurt, but he figured he should open them anyways. Once he opened his eyes, he realized it wasn't the lights that were making his head hurt, but it was something else.

The first thing Tommy noticed was the blood on his sweater and on the floor. Jumping quickly at the sight, Tommy felt more pain rush to his head. He shot his hand up to the source of the pain. Still in a daze, Tommy looked over to the mirror he had leaning up against the wall to see what was hurting him so bad.

He saw himself still sitting on the floor, covered in blood, with a deep red gash directly above his right eyebrow. He had no idea how it got there, but it hurt like hell. A wild guess told him that he was in some sort of encounter with his father.

Moving closer to the mirror, still feeling too weak to stand up, Tommy inspected the wound on his forehead. While staring into the mirror, deep in thought, Tommy heard a quiet voice from across his room, calling his name. "The fuck?" He spoke aloud, out of pure confusion. He quickly looked around, trying to see if anybody else was in his room. Making him jump, he heard his name getting called again. Following the noise, his eyes landed on the headset that was laying in the middle of his room on the floor. Oh.

Tommy reached out to where his headphones were, letting his trembling fingers wrap around them and slip them over his ears, being cautious to avoid the cut. He pulled himself onto his gaming chair, proving to be much more difficult than he thought, and leaned into his mic once he was situated.

He didn't remember getting on a call, but Tommy assumed whoever he was on with knew what just happened. "Hello?" Tommy asked. He glanced to see who was all in the call, noticing it was just Techno, Dream, and Wilbur. Tommy was pleased to see it was only the three of them in the call and no one else.

Although there were two other people in the call, Tommy only heard Wilbur respond. "Tommy, oh my God, are you okay?" The worry was evident in his voice.

"I mean, I feel fine," he lied, "But what the fuck just happened?" He asked Wilbur, curiosity itching at him as he waited for an answer as to why his father knocked him out on the floor. Tommy hadn't yet had time to fully come to the realization that other close friends had now found out about everything he worked so hard to hide.

Wilbur only sighed as he thought of what to respond. Wilbur wondered how the boy had already forgotten, he figured that he was probably pretty injured right now. "Tommy, you're dad came barging in complaining about the cold, and then he-" Wilbur cut himself off, not wanting to have to explain it any further, but Tommy remembered now what happened.

The memories from just a few minutes ago hit him like a truck, and suddenly he remembered every little detail. He remembered the stinging of the belt on his back, he remembered the angered fist coming towards his face, he remembers falling onto his floor, his whole world fading to black. Tommy tensed up as soon as he realized that his friends had heard the whole encounter. Heard him crying and begging for his dad to stop.

"Shit," He started, not really knowing what to say, "you weren't- I didn't- I-" He stuttered out, his brain moving too quick for his mouth to follow. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, "he wasn't supposed to be home this early." Tommys blue eyes began to fill with tears as he hung his head in shame, waiting to hear what his friends would say. He felt the panic slowly bubble inside of him, but he tried his best to push it down.

"Tommy, you need to go to the hospital," a very concerned Dream answered. Dream figured he would wait until he was sure the boy was okay to bombard him with questions. Tommy knew he was probably right, but that would only cause him more problems with his dad, and he figured he would heal fine, he always did.