It's Okay, It's a Strategy (to ensure I remain)

Chapter 19: Mending Bonds

Double update B)
Eat up friends

Darkness. That's all he could see. It was all he could feel. Just- dark.

Tommy remembered how he was afraid of the dark when he was younger, constantly spending his nights awake and at the edge of his bed, watching as his imagination played tricks on him with the shadows in his room. To him, it felt like the shadows danced and paraded around him, mocking him every time one of them drew closer to his bed. He tried to go to his foster parents, but they brushed him off, calling his fear irrational.

He was six at the time. Now, he's sixteen.

Despite being scared of the dark before, this darkness felt comforting. Like being wrapped in a warm hug, the kind of hug that makes your mind go in a haze of warm bliss.

Despite Tommy's limbs feeling like they're being pinned down, his mind felt like he was wrapped in the warmest hug. He didn't want to wake up.

Wake up?

..wasn't he supposed to be dead?

Tommy startled, and the haze disappeared. His mind was lifted from the warm fog, and he could feel things now.

Something itchy was on his legs, and he couldn't move them. Something was in his arm- something he knew probably shouldn't be there but it felt nice-

He was covered in a blanket. There was a mattress underneath him, not the same creaky one he had back at the apartment. This one was.. weird.

Alright, he's had enough of this. Now how the fuck does he open his eyes?

His eyelids felt impossibly heavy- almost as if they were glued shut, keeping him stuck in the eternal darkness. Once he gathered enough strength, he was able to open them the tiniest bit.

Tommy immediately shut them. White- it was everywhere, nearly blinding him from going to the pitch black to the pure white. Words were being garbled at him- he couldn't tell who it was, he could only process that it was loud.

A small whimper broke out of his throat.

Why did his head hurt so much?

After another painstaking few minutes, Tommy tried to open his eyes again, this time prepared for the blinding white.

"Took you long enough to wake up, Theseus."

Tommy fully peeled open his eyes. White walls, white bed, white curtains-

Smiling doctor staring back at him, white coat-

Oh-

Oh gods-

He's in a hospital. He can't be in a hospital- they can't afford it-

No no no-

Tommy tried to scramble out of the hospital bed before realizing his legs were wrapped up.

"Hey- don't go yet, you're not done healing! Gods, I'm not even a real doctor and I know not to move when I break both my legs."

That voice-

Tommy whipped his head to look at the doctor, ignoring the spike of pain that flared up with the fast movement. The doctor was leaning over the bed in case Tommy were to leap up again.

"Big Q??"

The doctor paused for a moment before grinning, their face shifted until a familiar scarred face was staring back at him.

"You didn't tell me you're an actual child, Theseus." Quackity grinned.

Tommy blinked.

"Wha- Quackity?! What the hell are you doing here??" Tommy did a double take. "What the hell am I doing here??"