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There’s a knock at his window.
Micro lifts his head from the table and away from the algebra homework he’s fallen asleep on to turn to look up groggily.
One quick glance at the clock makes him question why anyone is even awake out of their house at three in the morning, much less knocking on his window.
Then he puts on his glasses and sees Thomas outside perched on his roof like some cat waiting to be let in.
Never mind, that explains it.
Micro sighs and gets up, walking over to the window and opening it up in one swift motion as he watches the boy climb in with practiced ease.
“You really need to stop climbing in through my window at ungodly hours, especially since room is on the top floor.” Micro half-complains as he shuts the window that Thomas has not bothered to close.
“I’ve done this like, twenty times, are you complaining about it now?” He says, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, you never kicked me out or anything.”
“Yeah just, you know we have a door right?”
“I’d rather not get jumped by your siblings at three in the morning thank you.”
Micro wants to respond to that but he supposes it’s fair. He’s pretty sure Saps would probably kill him.
“So… what are you doing here anyways? He asks, sitting down on his bed, the brunette deciding to do the same after a second.
“Oh yeah, can I stay the night?” Thomas says, “my parents are kinda drunk and mad at me getting a B and stuff. Then they started fighting.”
He winces. “And I don’t really want to get involved with that again. Anyways, nothing new.”
It’s true, though. This is nothing new, as pitying as it is. It’s not the first time he’s came up to knock on the window because of some shit going on with his parents. It happens every other week, and if it wasn’t literally borderline abusive it would have been pretty funny how comically often he’s knocked on Micro’s window just to say that.
“Won’t they notice you’re gone?” Micro asks. He wonders how Thomas has managed to pull this off so much, without his parents noticing. It’s impressive at this point.
“Nah they’ll probably be too hungover by the time I get home. It’s going to be Saturday tomorrow anyways.” Thomas explains casually.
“You’re awfully sure of that, I’m not sure if I should be worried or not.” Micro says, maybe in a joking manner, maybe not. It’s unclear to him too. “Seriously though, are you okay? This has happened a ton.”
Thomas doesn’t respond instantly, and that alone is too concerning for comfort. Micro could play it off as worry or paranoia, but he can swear Thomas is more alert now, more hunched in on himself, arms hugging his own torso tighter.
Micro despises how he has a rough idea of what happened at this point.
“Thomas give me your arm.”
“Why?”
“Stop deflecting.”
The brunette winces slightly and hesitates for a second before handing his arm over to him.
Micro doesn’t waste time and immediately shifts over to roll up Thomas’ sleeve and get a better look. He’s the second one to wince, this time at the sight.
Not that it would matter much how severe the injuries actually were he would have winced either way.
Bruises are scattered generously along his arm.
Even if Micro has seen Thomas being injured through abusive means before, he doesn’t really recall it being his bad.
“When did it get this bad?” He mutters, glancing up at Thomas again.
Micro kind of wishes he didn’t because the latter looks absolutely pathetic right now.
His gaze is directed at the ground, and through his hair mostly covering his face from Micro’s view.
Thomas has always been hard to read. He’s been like this since the day they met.
He looked like he knew what he was doing all the time, smart, cunning.
He didn’t actually act like that though.
Gone is the cunning, smooth talking and gifted teenager that was basically a walking gold medal in studies, all Micro is seeing right now is just a person who’s burnt out and abused.
It really is sad isn’t it?
“Stay here, I’ll get medical stuff.” Micro instructs, letting go of Thomas’ arm and getting up. “Don’t even think about leaving, by the way.”
Thomas doesn’t make an effort to look up at him.
——————
The bathroom light turns on with a click.
The blinding white light makes Micro squint for just a second, he’s somehow forgotten it’s 3 am. Again, Thomas really needs to stop practically scaling his house to get into Micro’s room.
But that’s a conversation topic for another day though.
Micro walks over to the cupboard and opens it in one swift motion. Truth be told, he has no idea what he’s doing.
He’s also halfway through debating just taking a bunch of stuff and winging it back upstairs before he hears a cough.
“Micro, it’s 3 in the morning, why are you looking through our medical supplies.” A deadpan voice says behind him.
He recognises that as Jophiel.
“Oh uh, hey, Joph. What are you doing up?” He says, turning around to face his older sister.
“I wanted to use the bathroom what the hell does it look like?” She scoffs lightly, pushing herself off the wall. “More important, are you hurt or something? I can help you.”
“Uh…” Micro does not know what he should answer.
‘Oh yeah, my boyfriend whom you don’t know exists climbed in through my window, and he’s hurt!”
…
You can tell how stupid that sounds, surely.
Jophiel stares at him and raises an eyebrow.
Micro says nothing and stares right back at her.
“So?”
“…no, no I’m not hurt.”
Jophiel sighs and walks towards the cupboard, pushing him aside. “What do you need?”
It takes Micro a good few seconds to form an answer.
“What-?”
“I asked what you needed,” Jophiel repeats, “since you seem pretty clueless on what you’re doing anyways.” She adds on as a jab.
“Hey, yes I do know what I’m doing-!”
“You’ve been staring at the medical supplies for the past 5 minutes.”
“Bruises.” Micro replies, shifting in his spot to look at jophiel better.
She just nods and takes out some ointments and bandages, handing them to him.
“I can’t get you to tell me what’s happening, and I won’t push. Oh and also, the bandages are for incase you need to hide anything.” She says, smiling.
Then she pushes him lightly out of the door.
“Okay now leave I need to use the bathroom.”
He smiles and speed walks back the way he came.
——————
When Micro gets back to his room, Thomas is still sat there on his bed, staring into space, arms wrapped around himself again.
He doesn’t even spare a glance at Micro when he sits down beside him. Okay, maybe Thomas’ mental health is decreasing by the minute, that’s fine.
“Give me your arm?” Micro asks, and Thomas doesn’t hesitate this time. The warm, dim lighting from his bedside light is not really the ideal condition of this, but Micro supposes he’ll have to make it work.
“Sit up on the bed, I need to get a better look.”
Thomas shifts to sit cross legged across Micro, arm still in the latter’s grasp. At least he’s still following instructions.
Micro opens the tube of ointment and squeezes some out to apply to Thomas’ arm.
It’s very prevalent that he’ll probably need a lot.
He could try to talk while he’s at it.
“Hey, stop trying to look at the floor, it’s not that interesting.” He says, still spreading ointment across Thomas’s arm.
To give Thomas some credit, he does actually look up.
“So… wanna tell me what’s happened?” Micro asks. Then he wants to slap himself because that’s stupid, he already knows what happened.
Thomas also probably thought so too, because he just raises an eyebrow.
He’s somewhat expressive now, that’s a start.
“Yeah okay- sorry, sorry.”
He eventually finishes with the ointment, and he swears the tube feels so much lighter than before. It’s concerning.
Micro just throws it aside, and Thomas stares at it as it clatters onto the floor somewhere.
“Shouldn’t you find it..? It belongs to your family.” Thomas asks, turning back to look at Micro.
“Nah it’s fineee. I’ll find it again tomorrow.” Micro responds nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders.
He looks beside him to see the bandages Jophiel gave him, and he looks back at Thomas. “Do you want these? I can help you put them on.”
“Yeah, that would be great actually.”
And so he does, he takes the bandages and wraps Thomas arm gently.
“Is your other arm okay?” Micro pipes up suddenly. He hasn’t checked the other arm-
“No it’s fine, my mom only targeted one arm.”
That’s good. Well, no, it’s not good but you get the point.
“We should go to sleep…” Thomas yawns and stretches before getting off the bed.
“Yeah, but where in Ish’s name are you going?”
“The floor?”
“Dude I’m not letting an injured person sleep on my bedroom floor.”
“Oh shut up I’m not that hurt.”
“You should eat more.”
“Huh-? AH-!”
That’s the last thing Thomas hears before he’s half-flipped half-yanked onto the bed by Micro.
“Keep quiet man, you’re gonna wake my family.” Micro snickers lightly, wrapping a wing and an arm around Thomas’ waist. “And I was serious, you’re unbelievably easy to carry.”
Thomas seemed like he was going to try to get out and make for a second, but he soon just buries himself into the crook of Micro’s neck.
He was out in around 3 minutes.
“Thomas you idiot.”
——————
Micro wakes up again, to somewhat heavy breathing and someone hugging him tightly.
What the- oh wait Thomas.
It again bothers him he knows what to do in this situation, it’s not the first time.
He raises a hand to run it through the other’s hair. “Thomas, Thomas wake up.”
Thomas in fact does actually wake up, but he wakes up so hard he practically pushes himself out of Micro’s grasp entirely. It takes him a hot minute to come back to his senses.
“Shit- sorry, did I wake you?” He frantically asks, sitting up.
“No, it’s fine, you couldn’t help it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.
There’s a moment of silence before anyone wants to speak up.
Micro breaks it, he should try to talk.
“Want to tell me what happened?” He says, pushing himself up to sit beside Thomas.
He shakes his head.
Micro nods.
Nothing new, it’s fine.
…
It’s not fine, actually. It’s bad definitely, but Micro won’t push.
“You should go back to sleep, it’s still five.” He remarks, absentmindedly looking at the clock and squinting his eyes. “Actually you don’t have a choice.”
He again, grabs Thomas and pulls him towards himself, giggling at Thomas’ surprised yelp. It’s concerningly easy to carry him despite him being taller, he should consult him another time. It’s too early for this.
Eventually the brunette gives in and just sprawls out.
“Dude you’re taking half the bed and me.”
“Deal with it.”
He does in fact deal with it, by running a hand through his hair.
“You’re cold.” Thomas notes in a daze.
“I’m 1/4 ghost, not my fault.”
“Why are you the only ghost hybrid in your family?”
“Thomas, it’s too early for this go back to sleep.”