aftermath | for thomas accounts

[butfortheirvirtue]

[It had all happened in a rush, so fast that in his exhausted state he had barely registered what was happening until it was over. One minute Thomas was leaning over him, guarding him, and the next the door was being thrown open and their father was in the room, pulling Thomas away, throwing him to the ground so he could rush Chris out of the room and bolt the door behind them.

(He remembers vaguely wondering, in past weeks, why there had been a lock installed on the outside of Thomas' door.)

He slept for two days, only ever waking to use the bathroom and to eat (and even for meals he didn't leave his bed). It's dangerous, evidently, to feed an incubus during the days after his first meal from a conscious human. He's lucky (according to the internet, at least) that he was only out for two days.

He'd have preferred to sleep longer, honestly. Because being awake for the third day meant he heard everything that happened in the room next to his. He heard the scratching at the walls, the body thrown against the door, the constant chorus of please Chris please let me out feed me Chris please I can't stand it please Chris I'm going to die.

(it was hard, not to let him, when he heard that)

(even if he knew what would happen if he did)

Today is the fourth day, and the noises have stopped. It's safe, Chris has read (and Byron has confirmed), to open the door.

So he unlatches the door now, bearing a lunch tray (he figures that Thomas will appreciate food that isn't pushed under the door), and steps inside.]

Comments

[fiveiv321]

[ Inside, the room is a mess. The bed, particularly, sheets and pillows and mattress torn up and stained with the liquid that comes from the bulge (and with what looks like blood, here and there) and the wooden frame clawed up. The rest of the room has hardly gotten off unscathed, though, not with the clawmarks up the walls and door, or the way the carpet near the door has been ripped up entirely, or the spots of blood that dot the rest of it.

(there's more besides, enough to make the room look like it's been housing a caged lion rather than Chris's brother)

And in the center of it is Thomas. A lump under the torn and stained and bloodied sheets, with his tail jutting out of them and the tip twitching wildly as he watches Chris's entry. And he is watching - the glint of eyes from a gap in the sheets is evidence enough of that, the pupils dilating rapidly from slits to something more like they were before.

He doesn't move, though.

(he's himself enough to know, now, that he needs to hang back, that something was wrong)

(but he's not himself enough to understand yet)

(he doesn't know what happened; why Chris was taken from him, why Byron threw him down and hurt him like that)

(why he was locked in here all alone and why it hurt so much)

He doesn't understand and so he only watches from under the sheets, eyes narrowed.

(suspicious)

(he's hungry - in both ways - but he doesn't want to move from here)

(like a frightened animal once hurt, not wanting to emerge from the safety of its lair for fear of further pain) ]