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It’s a quiet afternoon.
Phil sits at the kitchen table with a container of strawberries in front of him. One by one, he separates the leafy stems from the fruits, before dropping them in a bowl. Techno is on the other side of the table, reading a thick literary book that he hasn’t put down since he came home from university. Occasionally Techno reaches over to grab a strawberry, unbothered by the fruit juice he’s smearing all over the book whenever he turns a page. The library is going fine him again, isn’t it? If they haven’t given up at this point.
The sound of the front door opening breaks Phil out of his reverie. Is it four already?
“Tommy, is that you?” he calls out.
An affirmative yell bounces back. One which sounds like it’s coming from halfway up the stairs already.
“Come here for a sec, will you?”
A few seconds later Tommy enters the kitchen, one hand shoved in his hoodie’s front pocket and the other holding onto the strap of his backpack. Holding on a little too tightly.
“Good to see you,” Phil says, and hopes it doesn’t sound too passive-aggressive. It’s really not Tommy’s fault that he feels safest holed up in his room with the door locked. “Do you want some strawberries? I got them fresh this morning. We have blackberries as well, in the fridge.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You can take them upstairs for later, if you want,” Phil offers. Tommy makes no move for the fruit. He doesn’t even look in Phil’s general direction.
“How was school?” Phil tries.
“Fine. Boring. Can I go?”
Phil suppresses a sigh. “Yeah mate, if you want.”
Tommy turns on his heels, only to be stopped by Techno physically blocking the doorway.
Phil had almost forgotten Techno was in the kitchen there with them, what with how quietly he’d been reading. Or not reading. It’s clear he must’ve been paying attention.
“Not so fast,” Techno says.
Tommy had clearly forgotten as well, as he jumps back as if he's just dodged a passing train by a hair. The fright switches over to anger within the second—Phil watches it happen in real time, as he has so often over these past few months.
“What’s your problem?” Tommy spits out. “Move it along, you big lump.” He tries to shimmy his way through the door past Techno, but whenever he moves to one side, Techno moves with him. Phil is about to intervene—he feels the frustration too, but Techno should know not to rile up Tommy unnecessarily—when Techno speaks up.
“Show me your right arm.”
Tommy stops his scurrying for a second. “What?”
“You're hiding an injury,” Techno says calmly.
“Am not.”
“If you're not, I'm sure you wouldn't mind showing us your arm.”
“Fuck off,” Tommy says, now actively pushing at Techno's shoulder to be let through. With only his left hand. Phil sees it now too, the way his right hand does not leave the front pocket of his hoodie. The way he angles that side of his body backwards protectively, away from Techno.
Phil stands up from his seat in alarm.
“Tommy,” he says slowly. “Do as Techno says.”
Tommy's eyes flick between where Phil has stood up from the table, to Techno in the doorway, to the back door. Which, thankfully, he doesn't immediately go for. Tommy's inclination run out at the first sign of trouble had caused Phil more than enough near heart attacks during Tommy’s first few weeks here.
“You're not in trouble,” Phil says, to be sure. “I just want to see.” Tommy shuffles in place, nervous as if he's been caught stealing. And for a moment Phil thinks Techno must have misjudged, that Tommy isn’t wounded at all, just hiding a joint or a cigarette or something similar. He wouldn’t be the first; Wilbur never bothered to hide the weed but with the ecstasy he certainly tried.
Then Tommy lifts the sleeve of his hoodie to reveal a bloody sight many a weaker-stomached individual would faint at.
A gash runs from the crook of his elbow halfway down his arm. Dried rivulets of blood travel down his wrist and between his fingers, speaking of the fact that this cut happened a while ago. The cut itself is still bleeding, albeit slowly. It must’ve reopened at some point.
“Bloody hell,” Phil swears.
Techno whistles. He steps closer and, before Tommy can yank it back, grabs him by the wrist.
Tommy swears, extensively, loudly. Looks for a way to kick Techno in the shins, fails, and only then resigns himself to his fate.
For all his bluntness, Techno carefully avoids touching the wound itself as he holds up the arm for closer inspection. “Looks like a knife cut to me,” he concludes. Then, more pragmatically: “And you need to clean out the dirt before bandaging, or you can count on an infection as well.”
Tommy has gone quiet.
Phil steps closer and puts a light hand on Techno’s shoulder. Techno complies with his silent request and lets go, only for Tommy to immediately hide the injury behind his back. As if either of them could unsee it now.
“Tommy… What happened?”
Tommy shrugs.
“Tommy…” Phil lets an authoritative tone slip into his voice. He’s been letting Tommy off easily so far, has respected the boy’s boundaries in the hopes that Tommy would stop pre-emptively lashing out due to assuming, from experience, anyone would walk right over them anyway. But he can’t ignore Tommy coming home bleeding either.
Tommy, predictably, bristles. His voice is harsh. “I didn't do it myself, if that's what you think.”
“I didn’t—” Phil starts, but Techno cuts him off.
“No shit you didn't.” He rolls his eyes. “Like you could make a cut that clean with your left hand.”
Phil worries about Techno’s desensitization to violence sometimes. But he stores that away for later—first things first. “Why didn't you say something?”
Tommy shrugs. “It's not that bad. Just a shallow cut.”
“That is still actively bleeding!”
“What? It's not an artery or something.”
Phil wants to shake Tommy for being so unconcerned with his own wellbeing. He wants to do more than shake whoever has raised Tommy to feel that way.
“You can still bleed to death slowly,” Techno suggests unhelpfully. Phil sends him a look, which Techno acknowledges by shutting up, but challenges by raising an eyebrow that clearly communicates a sassy ‘Just stating the facts, what’s your problem?’.
Parenting. Such an adventure.
Tommy scowls at Techno. “If you two hold me up any longer I just might. I was gonna take care of it, Jesus.” He eyes the doorway again, which Techno only half-blocks now.
“Tommy, why don’t you sit down,” Phil interjects, before Tommy can make up his mind to bolt. “Let me help you with that.”
Tommy tenses. “I can take care of it,” he repeats.
“It's your dominant hand, mate,” Phil says softly. “That's a pain to coordinate on your own, especially since you'll need tweezers to take out the dirt.”
“Yeah, well, I can manage.”
Phil hesitates. The 'as I have many times before' hangs strongly implied in the air. And at this point, letting Tommy dress his own wound, whatever shoddy of a job he would make of it with his left hand, would be better than continuing to argue about it ad infinitum while Tommy bleeds.
“I know you can. But you don't have to in this house.” Before Tommy can protest more, Phil holds up his hand. Time to be decisive. “Sit down, Tommy.”
“Right,” Tommy says, and resolutely sits down.
Phil hates being strict.
Phil leaves to retrieve the first-aid kit from the laundry room while Techno stays behind. At least Tommy won’t try anything. Unlike Phil, Techno can outrun Tommy any day, and Tommy has learned to respect that the hard way.
He makes a mental note to thank Techno for his help later, when Tommy is not around. And for his perceptiveness.
Phil shouldn’t have to rely on his own child to notice something like his other kid being wounded. It isn’t Techno’s responsibility. But Phil failed to notice. If it wasn’t for Techno, would Tommy just have quietly gone upstairs and dealt with whatever fallout himself? Would Phil have never found out?
(Can you neglect someone if they choose to actively hide an injury from you?)
On his way back, before stepping into the kitchen, he catches the tail end of a whisper-rant Tommy is subjecting Techno to (“—you snitching ass bitch!”). Even when Tommy whispers, his volume is comically loud.
It at least reassures Phil that he hadn’t freaked Tommy out too much, if he’s still able to lash out. As much as a headache loud Tommy could be at times, as much as he wishes Tommy would find healthier ways to express himself, it was still leagues above meek and obedient Tommy.
Techno, predictably, looks completely unbothered by the verbal abuse.
Of course, Tommy shuts up immediately when Phil walks in. The thud of the first-aid kit hitting the wood of the kitchen table sounds too loud in the small kitchen.
“Techno, why don’t you take your book to the living room, yeah?”
Techno shrugs and walks out of the room without complaint. Techno is not squeamish about seeing some blood, on the contrary, but Phil also intends to talk. He’s pretty sure Techno knows, and that this is why Techno gladly makes himself scarce.
Phil washes his hands with soap and sits down at an angle from Tommy. He instructs Tommy to put his arm on the table, palm-up. Despite acting so brave earlier, Tommy looks a little white in the face now that he's staring at the full mess that is his right arm.
Phil smiles sympathetically. “I’m going to clean up first and then and bandage it after, okay?”
“Like I have a choice,” Tommy mumbles. Again, his mumble is at a normal conversational decibel level, so Phil can hear him clear as day. He simply chooses not to answer.
He starts by cleaning off the dried blood on Tommy’s hand and arm, making sure not to wet the cut itself. Tommy’s fingers curl and twitch at the first touches with the wet rag, but he tolerates the treatment without any more fuss.
Next Phil disinfects the tweezers with some rubbing alcohol. Lint from the inside of Tommy’s hoodie has plastered the wound from where Tommy had been hiding the injury for god knows how long, and Phil starts on removing the miniscule pieces of fabric. He clears his throat.
“Who did this?”
“Just… someone in school.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. An upperclassman.”
I don’t know, my arse, Phil thinks. Tommy is clearly trying to protect someone by not naming names. Or trying to protect himself from further retribution. “What happened?”
Tommy shifts uncomfortably. “Just some prick, posturing and shit. ‘Cause me and—‘Cause I was sitting in his spot, or whatever.”
Goddamn high school politics. “So, what, he up and stabbed you in the hallway?”
“What? No, he was just threatening me and—”
“With a knife?!”
Tommy shrugs. “A lot of kids take knives to school.”
‘Do you?’ Phil wants to say, but keeps his tongue. Tommy is talking, as little as it is. He doesn’t want to ruin it by immediately putting Tommy on the defensive again.
And it’s the right choice, for fucking once in Phil’s time fostering Tommy, because Tommy continues without prompting. “I don’t think he actually meant to do it, you know. Looked kinda shaken up by it. Kind of a big pussy, if you— Yeah.” He cuts himself off, having seemingly forgotten who he was talking to, even if just for a moment. Tommy apprehensively eyes Phil, his hand twitching in his grip.
And yeah, Phil’s mind is reeling, but not because Tommy said a bad word, more because of the content of the story before that.
“Right, okay,” Phil says as he puts down the tweezers. He’s definitely not going to let this go—he sure as hell isn’t ready to breeze over the fact that someone straight up stabbed his kid, accident or no. At the very least, he’s going to bring up this apparent knife problem to the school council, if bringing a knife to school is apparently as normal as Tommy’s casual demeanor makes it out to be. But all of that can wait until later.
A gauze pad and adequate-but-decidedly-not-professional bandaging later and Tommy is all fixed up.
Phil finishes by putting down an aspirin and a glass of water on the table in front of Tommy. And by staring Tommy down until the boy pulls a face and gives in, swallowing the painkiller with a gulp of water and a spiteful expression.
Phil takes the glass from Tommy. “Let me know if it starts bleeding through. At any point, even if it’s five a.m., just wake me up. Same if you start feeling more pain, or any signs of numbness.”
“Sure, whatever.”
“I’m serious Tommy. I have to drive you to the ER if that happens, but I can’t do that if I don’t know.”
“Fine, fine, I get it.” Tommy is at the edge of his seat, already angled towards the door. He is itching for a dismissal at this point. Phil knows, but…
“You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tommy says. His tone continues to sound dismissive, placating even. Phil forces down the disappointment. For the utmost time he reminds himself that Tommy doesn't owe him trust. That trust is something that is freely given, not taken or demanded. That all he can do is keep inviting the boy to open up, to keep up a safe environment, to treat him right.
He only wishes that it wouldn't take this long. That, at the very least, Tommy would be at a point where he would consider mentioning that he's bleeding out in the goddamn kitchen whilst mid-conversation with Phil. It's been three months.
He tells Tommy he can go, and the boy is out the door within the second.