Chapter Text
Tommy sits at the cold police station waiting for his case worker to show up, he's been here for over an hour and the flickering light across the room is starting to give him a headache.
He had run from his last placement because they thought hitting children was the only way to make them listen. They wouldn’t stop talking about how hybrids were freaks of nature, and that they don’t deserve to live amongst humans. Tommy couldn't handle it any longer so he packed his backpack with the few things he had and crawled out the window in his room.
Hybrids and other magical beings only recently became known in the human world about 50 or so years ago. They lived in hiding up until they started getting caught. As a whole they started to reveal themselves as humans became more used to seeing them everywhere, hybrids, magic users, the rare divinity here and there.
Hybrids can fully shift into their animal side, so Tommy can turn into a raccoon, but he normally doesn’t in fear of getting caught.
Hybrids are typically smaller animals like cats, birds, dogs, raccoons (which is the best in Tommy's opinion). There are sometimes bigger animal hybrids like a bison or cow, typically the bigger ones happen to be herbivores which humans are normally thankful for since they are still scared of them.
Humans being humans though, there is still a big chunk of people that hate hybrids, calling them names, purposefully trying to harm them and get away with it. It's all bullshit, Tommy gets fuming when he thinks about it and he can’t stand being around people that think that way.
He gets pulled out of his thoughts when he smells the familiar perfume his case worker Lisa wears. He looks up and she is talking with the officer that found him. After escaping, the officer found him on the side of the road and already knew Tommy was the missing kid. They have gone through this before
She comes over to Tommy with a forced smile, she still has sleep in her eyes and she looks tired, there isn't a clock in Tommy’s view so he has no idea what time it is other than late. She sits down next to him and Tommy looks to the floor.
“I found an emergency placement, it's a bit of a drive but they already have a room set up for you.”
Tommy doesn't look up, the suspicious stain at his feet suddenly much more interesting. He hates getting moved around a bunch but it's not like he has a choice when a placement decides he's too difficult to care for. He nods his head slightly and grabs his bag, they head to her car and they are on their way.
It's about a 40 minute drive from the station to the house, Tommy dozes for a bit before Lisa starts talking to him about the people he's going to.
“The man's name is Phil Gold, he has two sons that he adopted years ago, they are both 18…”
Tommy zones out looking out the window into the dark forest, he isn't too excited to hear about two dudes who are a few years older than him.
He comes back to his senses when they start to drive on a gravel road, heading deeper into the forest. Tommy looks over at the GPS and it says there is about 5 minutes till they arrive. His anxiety starts to go up as he realizes he isn't quite ready. What if he slips up? What if they decide they hate him and cast him aside? Or worse, find out he's a hybrid. A raccoon hybrid at that, a rodent, a pest to get rid of.
No one knows he is a hybrid, he's just waiting to age out of the system and go off on his own so he keeps it to himself, it's easier to find homes willing to take him if they don't know he's a hybrid.
He keeps that fact to himself after his parents were taken by hunters when he was 6, his mother was also a hybrid and his dad used magic. This made both of them targets, when they were taken Tommy hadn't shown any signs of being anything but human so they left him to die on his own.
He starts to bounce his leg rapidly to release some of the anxiety but it isn’t helping much, maybe he just needs a good night's sleep. The pounding behind his eyes gets worse as he starts to think of all the ways he could mess up at this house.
“I want you to know that me and Phil have been in touch for years, I trust him a lot and he's a very good guy. Don’t be worried and don’t be afraid to ask him questions. I’m sure you will love it here.”
Tommy sighs and gives a quiet okay.
They finally pull up to the house, the lights downstairs are still on, surprised they are still up this late Tommy glances at the clock 2:33.
Tommy hops out of the car and walks behind Lisa as they walk up the porch steps. She knocks twice and after about a minute there is a muffled shout and someone walking to the door. It suddenly swings open, the light blinding Tommy for a second, he looks down squeezing his eyes shut, his headache reminding him of its presence.
Tommy looks back up and looks at the figure in front of him. It’s a very tall man with curly brown hair that clings to the frames of round glasses, he's wearing a sweater with some band Tommy has never heard of. Despite it being 2 in the morning he looks energetic and ready to start the day. He looks at Tommy for a moment and Tommy looks to the ground. There's a good 3 or 4 inch height difference between the two and Tommy doesn't want to look up to someone he just met.
The tall man introduces himself as Wilbur and stands to the side gesturing for them to come in, Lisa says hello while Tommy looks around. Standing where he's at he can see the living room and kitchen, ahead of him is a staircase that goes upstairs. Two people emerge from a room and start to walk down the stairs.
There's a shorter man with blond hair and blue eyes, he smiles at Tommy with a warm, welcoming look. Tommy gives a half smile in return as his gaze is shifted to the other man, he’s taller than Tommy and who Tommy assumes is Phil but shorter than Wilbur(?). He has bright pink hair that falls over his shoulders, Tommy thinks of Geralt from the Witcher but with pink hair, yet he has his striking yellow eyes. They make eye contact and Tommy gets a chill down his spine, he feels like a deer in headlights.
Phil breaks the silence, and clears his throat before speaking up.
“Hey mate, I’m Phil you've met Wilbur and this is Techno”
Phil gestures to the man behind him and Techno gives him a small wave. If Tommy was any less tired and anxious he would have noticed the light stripes above his eyes.
“I’m guessing you're pretty tired so we can wait till tomorrow for the tour and rules. Techno, Will, can you two show Tommy to his room, I still need to talk with Lisa about a couple things”
Wilbur and Techno look at Tommy and Tommy looks down, it feels like they can see right through him. Like if he thinks too hard they would hear it. They make their way upstairs with Tommy following behind. They walk up the stairs and pass by a closed bedroom door which he is told is Techno’s room, they pass the bathroom and get to a turn in the hall, Tommy's room is at the very end of the hall and past the turn is Wilbur's room. Tommy assumes Phil's room is somewhere downstairs but doesn’t think too much about it.
Although he's super tired now, Tommy normally stays up pretty late. At the last house he was at, they all liked to wake up at 5am so he was forced to sacrifice sleep to have his own time at night. It was the only time he could ever have his hybrid features out and it would hurt if he kept them away for long periods of time. He was aching to let his tail and ears out and just wanted this all to be over with.
Tommy walks into his room with Wilbur in the doorway, Techno seems to have disappeared. Looking around, he has more space than at his other placement. There's a twin size bed, a dresser, a small table next to the bed, and a closet diagonal from the bed.
“Alrighty then, in the morning we will have breakfast at around 10. One of us will knock on your door to tell you when it's done. Uhhh have a good night”
“Night”
And with that his door is closed and he's alone. There is a mirror on the back of the door he didn't see until now. Tommy sits on the edge of his bed and pulls out his makeup remover. Having makeup around his eyes all day makes them start to itch. He wipes it off and looks at himself in the mirror, he has the same black strip over his eyes that adult raccoons have, it goes from temple to temple, across his nose and down his cheeks a bit. When he was younger it was only around his eyes, as he aged they got bigger, which made it harder to cover.
It gets annoying having to do this every night, along with putting the makeup around his eyes every morning but hybrids can’t hide patterns they have on their skin. Although it looks like he royally messed up some eye shadow, He is luckier than other hybrids, you can’t hide horns like rams have and if you are a cat hybrid your eyes are always slitted. Teeth are also something you can't hide, Tommy has sharper teeth but if he doesn’t open his mouth all the way when talking other people don’t notice.
The aching in his back reminds him of its presents. Tommy puffs out his tail and ears and gets a good long stretch. He scratches at his ears and fluffs up his tail a bit before grabbing his hoodie. Sleeping at a new place always makes him anxious, his hoodie was given to him by an old friend, he has a beanie from them as well but he doesn't wear it often because it has slots on the top for his ears and he doesn’t want to explain it to humans.
Sleep starts to tug at the back of his brain and he lays on top of the covers, he doesn't want to sleep just yet but it's tempting him with every second he's awake. He can’t sleep with his hybrid features out or they will still be there when he wakes up and doesn't want to risk them seeing. He rests his eyes for just a minute.