Chapter Text
Those three days pass like a flash. Tommy sleeps most of the days away and Wilbur lies awake almost all the time. Like he’s watching something.
Dad is sympathetic. He obviously saw the two teens breaking down and he offers dessert each night and as many hugs and kisses as either of them need. Anything to make them feel better. He even had a chat with Tommy to ask about what he was scared of, to see if he could fix it.
He’d done his best to sympathize when the teen had explained that he still didn’t know Dad that well and he didn’t want to leave behind his family and friends, especially if Dad ever ended up just as violent as Phil.
But Dad apparently has friends that he’s sharing the house with. They could keep an eye on Dad. One even has a kid. Not ‘adopted’ like Tommy is, a biological son. Dad said he and Tommy could be friends.
Tommy goes along with it.
But, now it’s time to say goodbye to Wilbur.
And Tommy doesn’t know how to go along with it.
The two teens are in the kitchen, standing awkwardly near the island as Dad gets the car started.
It won’t take long. They don’t have much time.
Tommy launches himself into Wil’s arms and hugs him tighter than he’s ever hugged him before, trying his best not to cry as Wilbur hugs him back.
“I’ll miss you,” the younger says, choking up despite his efforts.
“I’ll miss you, too. And I’ll talk to your mom and friends. They’ll know you love them,” the older replies, still guilty.
“You tried your best for me. You were there for me. Thank you,” Tommy musters, breathing in deep through his nose. His tears clear.
“And you did the same for me. I’ll always remember you,” Wilbur replies, patting the blond boy’s back.
“Car’s ready!” Dad calls from the garage door. “Meet me when you’re ready.”
Wil looks back at the pink-haired man and then to Tommy again. His face is still pained and guilt-ridden. But he knows it’s not his fault.
“Whenever you’re ready, Toms,” he says.
They both give one last squeeze before backing out of the hug.
“I’m ready,” Tommy replies with a nod.
“ Maybe I’ll be back for you one day, ” Wilbur whispers. He smiles before turning away and hurrying off to the garage.
There, Dad lets him out and looks back up at the blond.
“I’ll be back soon, sweetheart!” He calls before shutting the door behind him.
And Tommy, for the first time in weeks, is actually. fully.
Alone.
----
The first thing Tommy does is search for an escape. A loose window or a wobbly door maybe. It couldn’t hurt . And it’s not like Dad is going to beat him if he finds out.
But this is probably his last chance to find a way out.
So he checks every single door in the house, even checking to see if there are any doors in the basement. He doesn’t spend much time in there.
He checks each window, pulls each lock, peeks under every door in the house until he sits himself down in the living room to think of another plan.
Hold on….are there knives in the kitchen?
Tommy hurries to the kitchen(not too fast to make sure he doesn’t hurt his head), and pulls open the first drawer he sees. Empty. The next one. Empty. Then the next three. Empty
He rummages through each one until he realizes that the whole room has been emptied. He even checks all the cupboards and there’s nothing in those either.
Tommy knows that Phil and Dad pulled stuff out of the cupboards and drawers to make food, he saw them do it. But now, everything is empty. Did Dad already pack everything up? What about upstairs?
The teen goes upstairs and looks through the hall closet. It’s empty, too. Wilbur’s room is empty, Tommy’s never really had anything besides Henry and some notebooks, and even the bathroom is empty of everything but toilet paper. Same with the downstairs bathroom.
Tommy doesn’t even bother checking the basement. There were no closets down there. It was just an empty space with a single light in the center of the room. Creepy.
So, with practically nothing else to do…..the boy goes for a chair.
He takes a deep breath, backs up, and launches the chair at the large window beside the kitchen table. The wood crashes and slaps back against the tile floor, the window wobbling. He’d been too nervous to throw too hard and chickened out at the last second.
Tommy takes the chair back up in his arms and decides to take a different approach. He takes a few steps back before holding the seat against his chest and facing the legs to the window. After a few deep breaths, the teen races for the glass and rams into it as hard as he can.
But it bounces right back at him and the blond only has a second to realize his mistake before the chair is over him and shoving him down to where his head smacks into the tile and the world zaps into darkness.
----
Tommy’s eyes snap open and his body immediately tries to jump up as his head explodes in pain. He gasps as it floods his skull.
Dad pushes him down to rest his head back against the man’s arm and cradles his face. His expression is twisted with worry and relief.
“Easy there, Toms. It’s okay,” Dad says softly. He holds Tommy closer and presses their heads close. “It’s okay.”
“Sorry—”
“No, no, that’s alright. It’s alright,” the pink-haired man says, still holding the boy up in a hug.
“But I was trying to—”
“I know what you were tryin’ to do, I know. I get it, you’re scared. You don’t know what’s gonna happen, you still don’t know if you can trust me. I’m not mad,” Dad insists, leaning back to look at Tommy’s face now. “I was just scared that you wouldn’t wake up.”
The blond stares at him, so utterly confused.
He’s not even angry . He is only concerned that Tommy could have hurt himself. Not that he was trying to escape. Not that he wanted to get away. No.
All Dad is worried about is that Tommy may have gotten killed.
Tommy just stares up in shock at the blue eyes that stare back with more love than any other eyes that have ever landed on the boy.
Tears poke at the corners of his eyes and he sucks in air through his gritted teeth.
“ Why? ” The boy manages, his voice pained and just so confused. “ Why do you have to be like this? ”
“Like what, baby?” Dad questions, brushing blond curls from Tommy’s face.
“ Nice! And loving! And sympathetic! You kidnapped me! You’re not supposed to be—” Tommy barely manages to breath past the tears. “I’m not supposed to love you too! ”
Dad shifts to fully hold the teen in his lap, pressing the side of Tommy’s head to his chest.
Tommy’s crying turns to small sobs as he tries to keep quiet. He’s sure of what Dad’ll say next. He’ll be excited. He’ll be so happy to know his ‘son’ loves him.
“Tommy…..” Dad starts. He sighs, sadness clinging to his face. “If I loved you as much as I said I did, I wouldn’t be doin’ this.”
The teen sniffles and freezes.
“What?” Tommy says on reflex.
“If I loved you as much as I always say I do, then I would bring you back to your mom. Where I know you’d be happier.” The hug loosens. “I know you felt unloved with her, with how she ignored you. I thought, knowin’ she didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t feel as bad about takin’ you.”
Dad laughs, cold and bitter. “You should see the messages she sent to your phone. The amount of times she tried to call. She wants you back so badly . The threats, the attempts at negotiations, tryin’ to offer money, all the beggin’ and pleadin’…..”
The man sniffs and he mindlessly holds Tommy closer.
“She loves you— so much.”
The blond stares up at Dad in shock. He sounds….regretful.
Is he really…..? Did he change his mind? Is Tommy going home?
Dad sighs before nodding slowly to himself and straightening.
“So, it really is such a shame that you’ll never see her again.” The man’s expression morphs into a wide grin, crazed and wide and directed right at Tommy.
The small inkling of hope vanishes from the teen’s expression as he looks up in horror at blue eyes that wish to swallow him whole.
“Aw, you really thought you’d get to go home?” Dad coos with mocking sweetness, tapping the tip of the boy’s nose. “You didn’t even notice that I tied your wrists and ankles!” Tommy looks down and, sure enough, his wrists are bound with a zip tie and his ankles match.
Dad cradles his cheek and tilts his head up to make eye contact again. He puts on an expression of fake sympathy. It doesn’t fit with Tommy’s face of pure terror.
“Oh, don’t cry, baby. I’m not gonna hurt’cha,” he says, planting a kiss on the boy’s cheek. He hums. “You’re so cute. Even when you’re scared.”
Tommy jerks in the opposite direction, shoving his hands into Dad’s chest and pulling his knees up to try and kick away. To where? ……Anywhere but here.
Dad just laughs and kisses Tommy’s forehead, keeping him close.
“Where are you gonna go, sweetheart? The floor?” He chuckles to himself. “But I see you want to get going. Why don’t we go to the car, hm?” The man kisses Tommy on the cheek again before getting up from the couch.
The teen writhes in his bonds, fighting and fighting to get away. But, really, all he can go to is the floor. No one’s coming for him. He’s not stalling for time.
He’s already f*****.
So he doesn’t fight as they go to the car, or as he’s set in the back seat and fastned under a seatbelt. He doesn’t fight the peck left on his temple before his door shuts.
He glares at the floor as Dad gets in the driver’s seat and opens the garage door, backing out slowly.
He barely even acknowledges the outside. But it’s just as he had expected. No neighbors, just fields around a small house in the middle of nowhere.
Dad seems to find Tommy’s glaring funny, because he laughs again.
“What’d the floor do to you? ” He jokes, still with a smile on his face.
“Wilbur’ll tell the cops what you look like. He’ll tell them what your name is and what your car looks like,” Tommy replies bitterly, directing his glare up to the blue eyes in the rearview mirror. It’s all the power he has. All the hope.
*But Dad just laughs . He laughs for a minute, a long minute. He might even wipe a tear from his eyes as he looks back up at the mirror to see Tommy in the backseat.
“Oh, sweetheart . You really are so naive. ” Dad grins through the reflection. “Wilbur’s not at the hospital, Toms. He’s at the bottom of a lake a few miles from here. It’s kinda fitting actually. He died the same way his b****** father did.”
“With my hands wrapped around his throat.”
Tommy’s entire body goes rigid . His heart skips, his breath catches, and his eyes flood immediately. His stomach plummets so quickly that fruit-filled pink vomit spews all over the floor beneath the boy’s feet and a sob follows it.
*“Ah, well. I guess we were replacing the car anyway,” Dad says, uncaring entirely.
Tommy breathes rapidly, tears flowing abundantly from his eyes as he mourns.
It aches in his chest so much that he passes out from the agony of it all.
----
“Finally, our room is ready,” Dad says as he opens Tommy’s door.
The boy unbuckles himself and pulls on the new shoes Dad got him on the way. Apparently his old ones ‘held too many memories’. Jealous b****.
The man takes Tommy’s hand and leads him towards their motel room, locking the car behind them. There’s like three other cars parked outside and Tommy is almost completely sure it’s the employee’s cars. That’s just how it goes on the backroad-iest of backroad-y backroads. Which also makes every store and motel trashy and cheap.
But Dad insists that the new house they’re going to will make up for a few nights in a crappy motel.
When they get inside, the door is immediately locked tight by Dad as Tommy takes a look at the state of their room.
It’s just one bedroom and a bathroom to the right with a queen in the center of the room and a TV on the wall. Not actually half bad. Even the bathroom looks okay from here.
“Why don’t you shower quick, hm?” Dad suggests, placing a hand on Tommy’s shoulder as he holds out a bundle of clothes.
“Mk,” Tommy replies with a shrug, refusing to react to the kiss to his forehead before heading off.
It’s one of those combined shower-tubs with a removable head and all that. And the tile doesn’t look rotten, just dark in a few corners and spots. It could be way worse.
Though, honestly, maybe this place seems so clean because no one ever uses the rooms. He doesn’t really care that much.
Tommy gets in the shower, using the soap Dad had brought and put in for him. The water is nice and warm and relaxing. And he can almost pretend that he’s not in a stupid motel with a stupid murderer on his way to a stupid house. Almost.
Quite a while of soaking in the heat passes until Dad comes knocking.
“Are ya almost done in there? I’m ready to go to sleep,” he calls through the wood.
“Yeah! The water’s just nice,” Tommy calls back, finally shutting off said water.
“That’s okay, just lettin’ you know.”
The teen gets dressed in clean clothes after drying off, lingering on his hair a while longer. Cause it’s….hair. And takes a while to dry. Why is he explaining himself.
Tommy exits the bathroom finally and spots Dad in bed already, comfortable under the covers.
It’s at this moment that he realizes he doesn’t have Henry to hug tonight. Which is fine. It’s whatever. He doesn’t need to care as much as he does. It’s fine.
But, when he sits down on his own side of the bed, Dad holds out a plush to him. It’s a fluffy black spider with red bead eyes.
Tommy takes the plush and looks into its little eyes. It’s kind of cute.
“Do you like it?” Dad says hopefully, a smile on his face once again.
“Yeah, he’s cute,” the boy replies with a nod, petting the spider’s fur.
“What are you gonna name him?”
Tommy hums as he shifts to get under the covers and lie his head on his pillow. It’s oddly comfy.
“Shroud,” he finally decides, nodding to himself before hugging the plush to his chest. “Thanks, Dad.”
“You’re welcome, baby,” Dad replies, kissing Tommy’s cheek once again. “Now get some rest, we’ve got a long trip ahead of us.”
The man lies back down on his side and shuts his eyes, the teen facing away from him on his side as well.
He holds Shroud close and stares at the wall.
He wonders if Shroud feels like a hostage, too. He was also stolen from his home and given a new one without his permission. Plus, he was taken by the same person as Tommy.
Maybe, one day, they’ll both finally be able to go home.
….
Or maybe Shroud is just a stupid stuffed spider that doesn’t have feelings.