Chapter Text
Kristin wakes up on the couch to the buzzing of her phone somewhere in the cushions, and some odd commercial ad on the TV trying to promote some random brand of vacuum cleaners.
She blinks in pure bewilderment for a solid few seconds, lifting her head up from where she’d been laying against the side of the couch, feeling a bad ache on her neck for the angle she was at. She winces, trying to stretch her neck the other way while digging her hand into the couch cushions, her eyes stuck on the ad for a bit before she’s then able to wake up a bit more and actually look around properly for her phone.
She doesn’t get to check what time it is before answering Phil’s call. She assumes it’s awfully late, considering how she fell asleep waiting for him, and she wonders if he’s calling her now to insist she just go to bed. He would do that. She’ll try staying up a bit longer all the same.
“Hm?” Is her mode of greeting upon putting the phone to her ear. It’s too late for proper words.
She hears Phil give a shaky breath of relief at her voice. It instantly raises some warning signal at the back of her head, an inkling of worry already digging in.
“Are you okay?” Phil asks.
Kristin blinks towards the screen of the TV, not really paying attention to the images now, just- staring for a moment of processing. He’s asked that in such a way that’s so genuinely concerned, so nearly afraid, that she’s woken up that much more, her legs shifting off the couch so she can sit up right.
“Phil?” She asks, in a need for explanation.
“Are you okay? Are you safe?” He asks again, the questions almost bleeding into each other with how quick he says them. Again, he’s almost scared with it. “Tell me you’re okay, please-”
“Phil, I’m okay.” Kristin reassures, although now she’s leaning up out of the couch and eyeing the locks on her doors, just for the frantic note of his voice. “What’s going on?”
“Are the doors locked?”
Kristin’s heart sinks in something like dread. She gets up from the couch.
“I’m going to lock them now.” She says, quickly going for the front door, and then the back one. “Hold on.” She says as she moves through the house, deciding that she’ll go after the windows too, just for good measure.
“Okay.” He replies, and there’s the slightest moment of pause before he’s talking again, as if he can’t help himself. “You’re alright? Nothing’s happened at home?”
“I just woke up on the couch, I was waiting for you to get back.” Kristin says as she locks up the backdoor, going through all the windows in the kitchen to make sure they’re closed up tight. “I’m alright. I’m safe, I’m okay. What’s happened?” She asks, expecting to hear that some serial killer got on the loose within the town or something.
“Kristin.” Phil breathes out. “I, uhm.” He hesitates, trying to keep his words slow. “I found some people on the road, on the way back. They got attacked by something in the forest, and we had to-” He cuts himself off, losing his words. “We’re at the hospital now.” He says plainly.
“Oh my god.” Kristin holds her other hand to her phone, cradling it to her ear as her shoulders hunch together in concern. “It was that bad?”
“It was-” Something shakes in his voice. “There’s blood everywhere. I’m fucking covered in it, I don’t even know if Wilbur is going to-” Kristin doesn’t know a Wilbur, and neither has Phil, but the he says the name, it’s like they’ve both known it all their lives, and as if this is something they can’t bear to lose. “I don’t know if he’s gonna be fine.”
Kristin presses his lips tight together, biting at the inside of her cheek. “Are you okay?” She can’t help but ask.
“I’m unhurt.” Phil replies, and the relief in her chest is enough to make her lean against the kitchen counter for a second. “I just- we had to get away, and it followed from the forest, so I just- I didn’t know if it could’ve gotten to you. I-” He takes in a sharp breath. “Fuck, you’re okay, right? The doors are locked?”
“Phil.”
“The gun is in the garage.” He tells her, completely serious. “It’s still in there, the bullets should be right next to it-”
“Phil, you’re scaring me.” Kristin confesses, glancing to the windows as if afraid of what she’ll see on the other side. “What did they get attacked by?”
Phil stops for a second. “I-”
He doesn’t go on.
Kristin waits for the reply, hears him take his breath, but it doesn’t seem to leave his mouth.
“It was-” He tries again. He hesitates, going back into silence, and Kristin’s fear sours out into a bone-deep worry, afraid for the fact he can’t even say it.
Is it just shock that’s making him second-guess it? Is it too soon? He said he’s covered in blood- why wouldn’t he be in shock? Kristin almost goes to take the question back, wanting to move on, but he manages a single quiet sentence before she can.
“...It was a bear.” He chokes out.
Fucking bullshit, Kristin thinks.
But what else can she insist?
There is something terrified in his voice. It’s not something she’s ever heard. She doesn’t want to pull answers from him. She wants him to be calm. She wants him to be okay.
When he gets home, maybe she’ll press the subject, but for now, she’ll take the excuse as is. She’ll let it be.
“I’m gonna keep the doors locked. And the windows.” She tells him, hoping that’ll soothe the worst of his fears, at least for a time.
“Get the gun inside the house.”
Kristin takes in a breath. “Phil-”
“Please.” He begs. “Please, I need you safe, and maybe you won’t even need it, but if you do- I want you to have it.”
What was it that he even saw, she wonders. He sounds too desperate, wanting for her to have a fighting chance against something.
“...Okay.” Kristin agrees. If it’ll help- if it’ll let him breathe, then she can do that. “How long do you think you’ll be over there?” She asks.
“I don’t know. I haven’t gotten any news on Wilbur yet. Techno got admitted too, but- he didn’t seem as bad. I’ll wait on them until- I don’t know. Until I hear something, I guess.” Phil tells her, suddenly sounding so exhausted.
Kristin’s heart hurts for him.
“Alright.” He goes on. “I’m- gonna go check on the kid.”
Kristin furrows her brows together. “The kid?”
“We picked up some teenager off the road. His name is Tommy.” Phil explains. “I wasn’t really hoping to put him in the truck, considering how bad it was, but- it was either that, or leave him in the street with the- the, uhm. Bear.”
“Of course.” Kristin whispers. The bear.
“Yeah, I’m just- he’s-” Phil clears his throat. “He’s just some kid, I didn’t mean to- I thought-”
“Just go check on him.” Kristin tells him. “I’m sure he’s really scared right now. Could use some company.”
“Yeah.” Phil agrees. He sounds upset about needing to leave, though. “I’m gonna go. Keep the doors locked. Keep the gun with you.”
“I will.” Kristin promises.
“I love you so much.”
Kristin feels loved, past the sinking dread soaking into her veins. “I love you too.”
The call goes dead.
Kristin stares at the phone for a moment too long, afraid of what’s happened tonight. Of the state Phil will be in when he comes back to her.
She cannot do anything except for what he asked.
She goes to retrieve the gun.
---
Phil takes a second to gather his nerves again. He holds the phone tightly to his chest, as if he’s able to cradle a piece of Kristin to him by doing that.
That thing came into the town. He doesn't know how far it followed them in, but it did come into the streets, for a moment. It left them alone now, but- he has no way to be sure it’ll be forever gone. He has no way to know if it’ll come back. He can only assume that steering clear of the forest will keep them safe for the time being, but until he can find any proof of it- he hopes Kristin will be okay. Their house is decently far from the forest. She should be alright.
If not- the gun should help. She’ll shoot if needed, he knows that much.
He takes a steadying breath to ease the way his heart won’t settle in his chest. He lowers his phone down, and gives a quick glance towards Tommy.
The kid is just sitting on the curb, eyes kept warily out towards the streets. The lights overheard and the light pouring from the hospital keeps the entire area mostly bright, but it’s still night time, and it’s still dark.
Phil wonders if he’s going to be jumping at shadows for a long while. The idea of the dark makes his stomach turn a little.
He goes to walk up towards Tommy, hoping to sit at his side. To give the comfort of some company, he thinks. Tommy turns his head up towards him as he approaches, and instantly curls his lip into a frown, his arms crossed over the top of his knees.
“You hit my fucking bike with your dumbass truck.” He says, Phil instantly finding himself annoyed. He replies without thinking.
“Yeah, and that dumbass truck saved your life, you little shit.”
“Fuck you!” Tommy snaps, one hand coming down against the curb, knuckles pressed into the concrete. “You- you almost hit me!”
“You were in the middle of the road! At like- two am!” Phil argues, throwing his hands forward. And that’s a valid point to have! What kid goes riding around his bike in the middle of the street at this time of the night?
Tommy doesn’t seem to care about all that. “And?” He asks, jerking his chin forward, all his hostility bright and sharp. “It’s my god-given right to be in the middle of the road. The road is a public space. It’s fucking- it’s a road. It’s meant to have the people on it!”
“It’s meant for cars.” Phil deadpans.
“Yeah, well, you don’t have a car, you have a dumbass truck!”
Phil feels tempted to yell back again that the truck got them here alive, but all his anger is quickly fizzling out with seeing the way the fury on the kid’s face doesn’t quite match the look in his eyes. He’s baring his teeth as if he’s pissed off beyond belief, but he looks scared, in his eyes.
He looks as scared as Phil feels.
“Are you alright?” Phil asks, his tone considerably more calm.
“What the fuck do you think?” Tommy asks, resting one his elbow onto his knee, putting his head into his palm. It leaves slight smears of blood on his cheek. He doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t seem very focused, honestly, his gaze staring off into the street again.
This is a teenager, Phil thinks again. For all the way he’s giving his outburst- he still went through the same thing they all did. And he’s only a kid. He’s taking it hard.
“How’s your knee?” Phil asks, feeling a twinge of guilt for the way it still looked scraped raw, roughed up by the road from where he fell earlier.
“Bad. Because you hit me with your truck. And you broke my bike.” Tommy mutters, not looking at Phil.
“I’ll buy you another bike.” Phil says. He’s not entirely joking with the statement. He is kinda responsible for his previous bike getting fucked up. “Are you okay, really?”
Tommy looks at him, brows furrowed together, lip still twisted in a scowl. When he sees Phil staring back, no mirroring annoyance given- his anger dies out. It melts into fear, the terror rising back up, suddenly so vivid.
“...what was that?” The kid asks in a whisper, genuine and afraid. “What just happened?”
“I don’t know.” Phil gives as his answer. He wishes he could have a better reply, but really, he’s- he doesn’t want to think about it, in all honesty. “It was, uhm. A bear.”
“That wasn’t a fucking bear.” Tommy hisses.
“I know.” Phil agrees, and that’s all he says. Tommy turns his head back towards the street.
He stays staring straight ahead, his face turning pinched as his eyes start to water, tears welling up on the edges of his eyes. Phil’s hand twitches in an urge to reach out, give some comforting gesture of a palm on his shoulder.
“Sir?” Someone from the hospital calls out, standing beside the open door. Both Phil and Tommy whip their heads around, Tommy quickly blinking back his tears. “You and your son can come sit in the waiting room, rather than wait out here.”
“Uh, he’s not-” Phil goes to deny, Tommy looking at him with wide eyes, and instantly, in his head, Phil can see what will happen if he finishes his sentence. A round of questioning and some unneeded suspicion, and a high probable chance of Tommy getting put in some other room, on his own, until his actual parents get here.
A bit of an unnecessary fuss. They’ve had enough for now. Phil knows he should let the kid see his actual parents, and he will, but he doesn’t want Tommy out of his sight. Just- not for now.
“Okay.” He agrees simply, Tommy giving him a look as if his head has turned into a toaster. “Thank you.” He tells the worker, watching them return back inside, and then he nods at Tommy, stepping towards the door. “C’mon, son.”
Tommy’s face screws up into something sour, as if wanting to make an insult for that move, but he says nothing of the white lie, and he says nothing as they go in. He stays with Phil, the two of them heading into the waiting room. It’s pretty much empty, considering the time. Although, now in the complete light, Phil can see how dirty both him and Tommy are, covered in Wilbur’s blood from earlier.
“You want to wash up, first?” Phil offers, pointing over towards the restrooms. “Might as well clean your hands.”
“I wanna sit down.” Tommy says stubbornly, eyes towards the chairs around them.
“You’ve still got blood on you.” Phil points out.
“Yeah, it’s all fucking over.” Tommy retorts. He huffs, and then gives a short nod. “I know.”
Phil gives a slight hum. “Just come wash your hands with me.”
The bathroom is as decently lit as the waiting room. It’s clean, modern, and the sink water is a little cold as both Phil and Tommy scrub at their hands and arms, trying to get the worst of the red off from their skin.
The smell of the soap is a bit too strong. Phil wrinkles his nose at it. He shakes off the residual water on his hands and goes for the paper towels, while Tommy stays washing his hands, trying to get under his nails.
“Do you want me to call your parents?” Phil asks quietly, his words having a faint echo across the stalls.
Tommy’s eyes narrow as he scrubs harder in the sink. Some of the soap and water lands on the counter from how vigorously he’s scrubbing. “No.”
“They’ll be worried about you.” Phil insists. He supposes he understands why the kid wouldn't want his parents to find out, but for the sake of his safety and well-being, it’s got to happen. If he were a father, he’d want to know. “With you sneaking out-”
“I didn’t sneak out.” Tommy grits through his teeth, running his fingers through the water, and then going back for another round of soap.
“You were riding your bike around in the middle of the night with their full permission, then?”
Tommy huffs. “They don’t care where I go. Or what I do.” He says, almost bitterly, and Phil pauses.
Well.
That explains why some random teenager would be out on the street that late.
“I’m gonna stay until we get some news on Wilbur.” Phil says, grabbing some more paper towels from the dispenser on the wall. “I can- maybe figure out a way to get you home? If you want.”
“Can you shut up and wash your hands?”
“They’re clean.” Phil says, for both his hands, and Tommy’s. He turns off the water and gives the paper towels to the kid, and he snatches them out of Phil’s grip as if upset by being cut off from one last rinse. He dries his hands, and then wipes the paper across his face, to get rid of that red smear from earlier.
Phil leads them back to the waiting room. Tommy’s almost eager to get into a seat, ready to collapse into the cushion with a great heaving sigh. Phil stays on his feet, standing in front of Tommy with a pointed look to his leg.
“You should probably get your knee looked at.”
“It’s a scraped knee. I’m not gonna die.” Tommy insists, his head tipped back over the edge of the back of the chair, his face pointed towards the roof.
“We’re in a hospital. You might as well take advantage of that.” Phil argues back.
Tommy lifts his head, and makes a thoughtful look. “Do you think they’d give me drugs?”
“Okay.” Nevermind. Phil immediately decides against letting Tommy seek some help on his own. “Stay here. I’m just gonna get bandages for you.”
Tommy clicks his tongue in something disappointed, and also doesn’t stay sitting down, choosing to just follow Phil to the front desk, limping slightly for the fact that his wound is starting to hurt, now that it’s been properly acknowledged, and the adrenaline rush has started to fade.
The people at the desk offer a room for them. Phil declines, wanting for them to stay in the main lobby. It’ll be easier for them to get information on Wilbur and Techno like that. Plus, the room is more open right here, not so closed in.
Phil takes care of Tommy’s injury there in the waiting room, wiping it down the best he can, and then wrapping it up with the bigger type of band-aids they were able to give him.
“Is he gonna be okay?” Tommy asks, sitting very still in his seat, being miraculously well behaved. “Wilbur?”
Phil’s heart twists his chest for a moment. He tries to not let it show on his face. “They said they’ll tell us when they know more.”
“Do they just say that to avoid saying he’s gonna die?” Tommy asks. His words shake a little. “Was he dead when he-?”
“He was alive.” Phil cuts him off. “He's alive. He’s going to be okay.”
“And…Techno?” Tommy then asks, the name a little dragged out, as if he’s not sure of it.
“We’ll probably be able to visit him a bit sooner.” Phil assures. “He was a bit better off.” He finishes up with Tommy’s scrape, deeming it decently covered for now. He gets up on his feet. “Sit tight for a minute. I’ll be back.”
“Wait.” Tommy instantly goes to get up with him, eyes going panicked. “I can-”
“Just sit still.” Phil holds his hands out. “Let your leg rest.”
“Where are you going?” Tommy asks instantly. It’s a vulnerable thing.
“I was gonna get water.” Phil says, looking down to the hallway nearby. “Maybe something from the vending machine.” He says, and Tommy looks down the hallway with him, a brow raised. “...Do you want to come pick something?”
“From a vending machine?” Tommy asks.
“Consider it as payment for your bike.”
Tommy gives a sputtering breath, rolling his eyes. “You’d have to buy the whole fucking machine for that to be even.” He says, and Phil rolls his eyes back, hardly surprised on that reply.
“Well, I’ll let you pick whatever you want.” He offers. His wallet can probably take it.
Tommy smiles a little, more in an evil intent than anything truly joyful. It’s something, at least. Phil can breathe, knowing he can do this, here, rather than be left helpless to wait.
They go to buy out half of an entire vending machine.