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English
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Published:
2025-06-25
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2025-07-01
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Ashes that we leave behind

Chapter 4: You Fall Inside a Hole You Couldn't See.

Notes:

Posting this one a little earlier, because I'm going out and I don't wanna risk not posting it at all.

Have a good read!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

He stumbles down three crooked steps, nearly eats the floor on the last one. Hand out, fumbling through the dark, he finds a stack of old crates and slumps behind it.

His breath fogs the air. Shallow. Ragged. His side burns hot and wet, but the rest of him’s gone numb. Bone-deep exhaustion. Let it be the floor or the fever that takes me, he thinks. 

Just as his knees buckle fully, something thuds upstairs. Voice. Distant, muffled. Someone lives here.

Brilliant.

Tommy likely looks as poorly as he feels, because the man who comes downstairs takes one look at him and goes instantly from an angry expression into a pitiful sad one.

“My boy, who are you?” The old priest asks. 

Who should he be? 

Well, if it worked once, maybe it could work again. He put on his best posh accent and feigned distress.  

"Oh, father-" 

"Hush boy! You don't need to tell me if you don't want to, just don't tell lies in the house of the lord!"  The man quickly interrupts. Somehow he saw right through Tommy as soon as he opened his mouth.

Thank. Fuck. His head wasn’t apt to do much work right now.  

"There's a room upstairs, boy. You can spend the night. In the morning we'll sort you out."  The hagerty old man helps him up, making Tommy flush from even needing help from such a frail man, but even his pride wasn't enough to get him up anymore.  

They make their way upstairs, slowly and painfully, at least for Tommy. Then the father guides him to a chair and tells him to stay there.

He comes back with a small tin of biscuits and a water cup. Greedily, Tommy eats it all, not having even realized earlier how hungry he had been.
Once the “meal” was over, he was led to his promised lodging for the night.

The room offered was actually a cramped cubby underneath the stairs. It had a tiny door and no bed, just a thin mattress on the floor and a tossed off candle to the side. He wanted to be pissed at the conditions the holy man left him with, but maybe the hit on the head did something to him, because instead of the anger he was brewing for days now, all he felt was this warm nostalgia. 

The walls close, the low ceiling. Smells of dust and old wood. For a split second, the edge in his chest settles. Not because he feels safe, but because it’s familiar in a way nothing in this town has felt so far. 

Feels like that little room, back when it was just him, Arthur, and Ada. John and Finn weren’t even born yet and mum used to get away with having all of her children piled into one tiny space. Arms and legs tangled, one thin blanket they had to share. No privacy, barely room to breathe.

But back then that’s where he felt safe. It was loud. Cramped. Uncomfortable.

Not like this, though

Not alone.

Once again he got this feeling of wanting to go home. Of wanting to be in his bed, with his siblings, with their noise and annoying habits.

When he woke up on the hospital bed, he really despised how much he had hoped it was their kitchen table. That it had been Aunt Polly who stitched him, that it was cheap whiskey lulling him to sleep, and that it was mum who wiped his fevered brow.

Never before he thought a church could bring him such peace and such nostalgia.

He shook the thoughts out of his head. Tommy wasn't a believer, no. His faith was burned down to ash years ago in a caravan alongside his mother.  

Still, it pays to know his way around a place of worship. 

As soon as he’s sure the father is out of earshot, Tommy leaves the nook and looks around the place, looking for anything of use.

He doesn't want any gold, silver or valuables, of course not. What's the point of that by now? Besides, he’s already packed with riches he can barely carry anymore.

Tommy’s not a medic, just stubborn and resourceful. All he needed was some supplies to mend himself up.

Gathering all he could think he could get some use out of, he made his way back to the cubby under the stairs. It was dim, cramped, and unclean. He lights up the candle, setting one he got from the altar near it, preparing for the first one to finish before he was done.

Right. He needs to see what he’s working with. Peeling back the dirty undershirt, he hisses as the fabric pulls at his skin, sticky with dried up blood.

He’s popped maybe four stitches. That’s not too bad. 

That’s all fine then. He has everything he needs to fix it to the best of his capabilities. Desperate and maybe delirious, he splashes water from the chapel font onto the wound.

It stings and does nothing helpful, but it’s what he had and what he knew to do. Clean it. 

Next, he tears the hospital’s undershirt to press against the wound. Make the bleed stop so he can stitch it back up.

He pulled out the small tin with needles and thread. It’s not ideal, but it’s not like he has anything better, so he sews himself up with a needle from the priest’s mending kit he found in a drawer. 

It's filthy, rusted. 

He does three shaky stitches before passing out from the pain.

When he wakes up in the middle of the night, sweaty and scared, he considers finishing the job, but knows he can’t. He settles on pressing it down again with the undershirt and ties it tightly to his body with his belt.

It bleeds through within minutes, but it slows the flow, so he decides to sleep it off. He ends up wrapping himself tight with the hospital’s bed sheets just to stop seeing blood and get some proper rest after all of this.

It could be worse. He's slept on way worse and here he is. Alive.

He'll make it out of this tiny room again.  

Notes:

You guys enjoying the story? So far it hasn't had much comfort, but I promisse it's coming.