Chapter Text
For this chapter there's a trigger warning for a dissociative attack so please read with caution. TWs will be at the start of each chapter.
-----------------
Phil initially thought this would be an alright house for a change. The last one wasn’t too accommodating and the parents weren’t the most patient in the field by any means, but regardless this new home seemed pretty alright (so far).
There was a quaint little garden filled with what looked like poppies and daisies in the front yard and the walls were coloured a soothing blue. The whole place looked like a perfect, quintessential home straight out of a magazine.
He wasn’t quite sure why he’d been moved again. He wasn’t quite sure about much of anything lately, Phil just knew that his old fosters despised him for some reason or another and now he was being dropped off here by his social worker and he was expected to be a good ward under a pair of complete strangers.
Seemed easy enough (it didn't).
He walked through the garden and porch towards the white-coloured door, but before he could even knock, the door flung open to reveal a boy that looked a bit younger than himself, yet was somehow the same height. “Hi!” The boy chirped. “You’re my new brother, right? My name’s Tommy, what’s your's?”
Philza blinked in surprise before responding to the boy who was apparently to be his new sibling. “H-hello. I’m Philza, can you, um, call your parents out?” Despite his awkwardness, the boy, apparently named Tommy, seemed to light up. He grabbed Phil’s wrist and dragged him through a short hallway into a large, open living room that connected to a dining area and another hallway.
Continuing to man-handle him, Tommy dragged him towards said dining area where a woman with long brown locks and a man with glasses sat, seemingly waiting for the two of them.
The woman spoke up first. “Welcome, Philza, I hope Tommy hasn’t been too rough with you. My name’s Mary, and this is Liam.” Her smile was kind and serene, but Phil still struggled to pay attention to her words through the haze. What was her name again?
He was thoroughly lost on what she’d said, and wasn't that a good sign, he was disassociating again in the first five minutes at his new home. Great.
He felt something warm grip his palm before he closed his eyes and dove into a pool of darkness. Did his old fosters tell them about his weird memory thing? He wondered what they would say about Tommy? They never liked young children very much. That’s why they took him in when he was older (it’s why they took him in at all).
It was like he was floating and being tugged by an invisible force to some other place. (It was probably another person but he couldn't recall who.) Where was he again? He tried his best to recall what he was just doing but it felt like half of his memories were stuffed in a box tucked away under his old bed, far from his reach.
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a pair of vivid blue eyes staring straight at him. Blinking furiously to adjust to the lighting, Philza stepped back from Tommy (so that was his name!) and took in his new surroundings. (Tommy was looking at him weirdly, but he was used to that, did it really matter?)
Two twin-sized beds were tucked in the right side of the room. On the left side, a closet was built into part of the wall and a television was perched on a dresser in the corner.
Turning back towards Tommy (who was still staring at him, which was a bit rude in his opinion,) he asked, “Tommy? Which bed is mine?”
The boy stared at him for a moment longer before responding. “The green one. The blue one's mine. I already took the dresser so the closet's yours.” Tommy seemed to debate whether to continue talking, but Phil already knew what he wanted to ask.
"The doctors said I have dissociative disorder. Sometimes I just feel like I'm not really all there in the moment and I forget what's happening a lot. It's pretty random and happens frequently." Tommy's eyes were wide and he seemed to understand what Philza was talking about to some extent at the very least.
His hands were fidgeting as he tried to conjure back the ability to speak. "Oh! I- uh didn't know about that, sorry mate. Deo, my, uh- older brother, said he'd had a friend with that too. But erm- earlier Mrs Gold was saying that you'll need to do a couple of chores while she and Mr Gold are away. Oh! And you can help yourself to whatever's in the fridge." Tommy took in a deep breath after his mess of words and he smiled shyly at the floor.
"Sorry if I'm a bit annoying, I know I shouldn't talk so much but I kinda get carried away 'cause it's fun to talk to new people, and I forget not everyone likes my rambling." The boy turned his head towards Philza and smiled so bright it could rival the sun.
"But, welcome home, Phil!"
Maybe this place wasn't going to be so bad.
-----------------
In the end, it indeed wasn't as terrible as he had feared. Mrs and Mr Gold (he couldn't remember their real names to save his life) were patient fosters and did their best to make their house his new home (they were rarely around). They both cooked dinner together every other weekend and all four of them would sit at the dining table and eat their fill. Weekdays consisted of him trying to cook whatever recipes he could find online (it was a gamble whether or not the damn meal was edible or not).
If you asked Phil though, Tommy was most certainly the highlight of his new residence. The boy was young, only twelve, and he was full of a sort of radiant life Phil hadn't seen in a long time.
He constantly demanded attention and Philza acknowledged that anyone else would have been irritated by him, but it was a nice change of pace if he was being honest. Phil was always preoccupied with the boy and he hadn't disassociated with Tommy around after the first day, it was like some sort of bloody fuckin’ miracle.
The child was a sweetheart, despite what everyone else said, and personally, Philza thought Tommy just wanted validation from the people he loved. With his mother-henning, Tommy rarely complained about being bored or bothered him to play, as he was doing that already.
He had been transferred during the summertime so the two of them would spend mornings lounging around in the living room playing on the Switch connected to the TV. It was everything he'd imagined doing with a little brother.
A month into his stay, they told him and Tommy the news.
“So, well- two new children will be coming here soon. They’ll be staying in the room next to yours. I know both of you are very well-behaved kids but,” Mr Gold paused before continuing, “the two of them might be, well, less than accommodating housemates. See, the older one, Wilbur, is a bit of a troublemaker and the other one, Techno, hasn’t been in the system for very long at all.”
The poor man looked lost on what to say next, so Mrs Gold cut in, “To put it frankly, we aren’t around as much as we’d like to be, so you both will need to help the two adjust before the school year starts.” She looked at them (really just at Phil) imploringly, “Do you think you can handle it?”
Phil gave her a shaky smile. “Seems easy enough.” (It didn't.)