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Tommy stares blankly down at the tub, white, sparkling, clean. And empty.
He isn’t quite sure what he had been expecting when Techno first asked him if he wanted to take a bath. Maybe a spray down with a cold hose, like Dream used to do, or having to wash himself using the sink faucet and a rag when he was still at the orphanage, before being turned.
More memories of that brief timeframe was popping up, as time goes on. It’s only been a week and a half since he first was delivered to the Syndicate coven, and now he can recall much more of his past than he had before.
Puffy says it’s because he’s in a safe place now, so his brain, having previously pushed away the bad or “traumatic” memories, is letting them come back. He doesn’t like most of the ones that do come back.
“You ready?” Techno asks, startling him away from his staring at the tub.
“‘ts big,” Tommy mumbles, because the tub is huge. It’s like a fountain, it’s so large. It’s shallow enough that Tommy can stand and have his head above the water, but he’s pretty sure if he sat down, he’d be completely submerged if it filled up all the way.
Techno laughs, not unkindly, and rests a gentle hand on Tommy’s greasy hair. “Yeah, much bigger than you’re used to I bet.”
Tommy hums an agreement.
“You don’t have to do this yet if you don’t want to.”
“I want to,” he rasps, even though he’s still trying to wrap his head around about being allowed to want anything. He’s been trying to wrap his around several things in this past week.
Techno smiles again, reassuring, gentle. Wilbur always complains that Techno hardly ever smiled before Tommy got here, and that it isn’t fair that he can pull one from the pink-haired vampire so easily. Tommy had actually been worried that Wilbur was upset with him for several hours until Tubbo explained that it was just a joke.
Tommy scoots out of the way as Techno leans over the edge of the tub, turning the faucet until water started flow out of it. Not just any water, but clear and steaming water. Not the cloudy stuff that always came out of the faucets of the safe houses that the hunters stayed at.
He stares at it, blinking dumbly as the massive tub slowly begins to fill. Techno sticks his hand under the stream for a moment, before nodding and wiping the water from his hand onto his pants.
“I have some clothes over here that might fit you for when you’re done,” he gestures to the nearby counter, where the two sinks lay. “They were Ranboo’s that he grew out of last year. If they don’t fit, we can get you something else, this is just until we can order some stuff online for you.”
Tommy stares at him before nodding.
“Shampoo,” Techno points at a pale blue bottle with a dark cap. “Conditioner,” a dark blue bottle with a pale cap. “And soap, of course,” he points at a small white box, unopened. “If the water gets too cloudy, just get out and refill the tub. Sound good?”
Tommy nods again.
“There’s a towel for you here, and a washcloth if you want it,” Techno gestures at the hanging up on a bar next to the tub. “I might come to the door to check on you every now and then, just to make sure everything’s all right. I won’t come in, I’ll just knock and ask how you’re doing. You don’t have to say anything, just knock on the edge of the tub with your hand so I know you’re okay.”
Another nod.
“Alright,” Techno turns off the water, the tub having filled up at a near-alarming speed. “I’m going to be in the other room, right through the door. If you need anything, you can call out or you can knock a few times on the tub.”
Tommy can do nothing but stare as his sire leaves the room, giving him one last reassuring smile before he closes the door. He has to shove down the quickly rising panic at the fact his sire isn’t in the room anymore.
Techno’s just in the other room, it’s fine, it’s fine. Tommy doesn’t need him to be around every second of every day, and he certainly doesn’t need him to take a bath.
Tommy takes a shaky breath and turns to the tub, shoving the panic down and away as far as he can. It settles into a familiar pit in his chest, gnawing at the inside of his rib cage, but he can ignore it when it’s there. Or, at least, he can try to.
It takes him a while to strip out of his filthy clothes. The fabric sticks to him in spots with suspiciously dark stains, even though it isn’t wet. The cloth is stiff and tight and hard to peel off of himself. He can’t remember the last time he was actually allowed to change, but it must have been a few weeks before coming to the coven at the least.
Finally he manages it, and he shivers. Goosebumps appear up his arms, even though it isn’t that cold in here. Reluctantly, he steps closer to the tub, and up the two steps to the edge of it.
It takes another moment, with the fear and anxiety crawling up his throat from not having his sire in the room. He doesn’t need Techno near him all the time, he can take a bath on his own, for gods’ sake. If he’s allowed to take a bath, then he can do it on his own.
Tommy finally, cautiously, steps into the water. It’s warm, nearly too warm, but warm all the same. He shivers again, and lowers himself down until he’s sitting at the bottom, having to tilt his head up to keep it above the water, the tub is that deep.
It feels good though, even though the water is already turning pale gray from Tommy just sitting in it. He hasn’t even begun washing himself yet.
Is he really that dirty?
Tommy doesn’t know.
The warm water feels good though, like sitting in the sun used to. Now the sun just burns him, but this is similar enough, if he doesn’t think on the circumstances of it.
It takes him several minutes to even force himself to get up and reach for the shampoo bottle. He flicks the cap open and squeezes a generous amount of it into his palm. He’s flicking the cap closed and putting it back on the edge when a gentle knock sounds at the door of the bathroom. Even so, his head snaps around to it violently, muscles stiff.
They’re going to make him get out, make him leave. They’re going to laugh and say that he isn’t deserving of a bath, that this is another test that he failed, because he always fails.
“Tommy?” Techno calls, and instantly Tommy’s muscles relax, the building fear subsiding into the manageable hole in his chest. “Everything alright in there? You’ve been pretty quiet.”
Tommy hums for a moment. Words are too far away right now, but he isn’t sure if grunting or humming is too quiet to be heard over everything else. He settles on a chirp, making it as loud as he can, which still isn’t very loud.
His sire seems to have heard it though, because a faint chuckle comes from the other side of the door. “Alright, I’ll leave you be.”
Tommy waits for a few moments after he hears Techno leave before he slaps the mound of shampoo into his hair. His hair isn’t wet yet, but he doesn’t care, scrubbing the suds into his scalp vigorously, covering every inch of his hair in the stuff. His head is a foamy mess, but he doesn’t particularly care.
He slumps downward again, letting himself completely submerge in the water and scrubbing the suds out of his hair. When he comes back up for air that he doesn’t need, his head feels ten times lighter.
Tommy wipes the water from his eyes and glances down, wrinkling his nose at how dark the water got from just him washing his hair. It’s grayish-brown, cloudy.
He grabs for the shampoo again, pouring another mound into his palm and scrubbing it into his scalp, repeating the process. When he comes back up out of the water for the second time, his head feels even lighter than before.
He takes the conditioner next, another mound of it into his palm, and lathering it through his hair, avoiding his roots, and then dunking himself back in the water to rinse it out.
Through this process, Techno checks in again, and Tommy just chirps to answer him. His hair is smooth now, weighed down by the water, yet his fingers pass through it easily. He can’t remember the last time he had the ability to that.
He goes for the soap next, prying open the box it was in and pulling out the white bar inside.
This is the part he actually dreads, though, with the amount of grime covering him. He feels like this is going to take forever.
To his surprise, the layer of dirt and who knows what else comes away easily with only a bit of scrubbing. Techno only checks in two more times while Tommy’s trying to get all the dirt off of himself.
The water is absolutely filthy by the time he’s done, dark grayish, but it’s still warm, and Tommy doesn’t want to leave the bath yet. His arms are pale, much paler than he thought they were, with all the dirt off of them.
“Hey Tommy?” there’s another gentle knock at the door. “You doing alright in there?”
Tommy chirps, leaning back and resting his head at the edge of the tub with a sigh. The water’s gross, but he’s had much worse. He’s going to stay here until the water is too cold for him to stand, or until they order him out.
“You’ve been in there for a while, are you sure everything’s okay?” Techno asks. “Do you need help with anything?”
Tommy made a grumpy noise without meaning to, halfway between a growl and a whine, louder than he would have wanted it to be. It makes Techno laugh though, a quiet thing that Tommy could only barely make out.
“Alright then,” his sire says, sounding amused, but in a lighthearted way, not in the way that Dream always was when he hit him. “You sure you don’t need anything?”
Tommy makes another grumpy noise without trying to, but this time it’s more whiny. His instincts make him want his sire, even though he’s perfectly capable of taking a bath on his own, especially since they let him do it. If he’s too needy, they won’t let him have a bath again. He wants to keep having baths, it feels good in here.
His brain doesn’t seem to care what he wants, though, because shortly after the whine, he’s chirping. Strangled in his attempts to wrestle them down, but there, needy, and steadily growing louder.
Techno chuckles from outside the door. “Alright, I’m coming in. Just get out of the bath first and wrap yourself up with the towel, let me know when you’re done.”
Tommy doesn’t want to get out. Techno and Wilbur and Phil and— well, pretty much everyone that lives in the coven keep telling him that he’s allowed to and should do the things that he wants to do. And right now, Tommy wants to stay right where he is in the bath, where it’s warm, even though the water is gross.
But he also doesn’t want Techno to be mad at him for not getting out like he told him to do. Tommy’s seen Techno mad before, and he is terrifying when he’s like that, even though that anger has never been directed at him, only at Dream and the rest of the hunters that had kept Tommy.
He doesn’t ever want to see that kind of anger directed at him, ever. His brain seems to agree with him for once about that. Plus, Techno had told him to do something, not asked him to. That means it’s an order. Tommy’s supposed to follow orders, even though everyone in the coven have been telling him he doesn’t have to do that anymore.
Tommy forces himself to stand, instantly shivering as the warmth of the water leaves his body where he’d surfaced. It wasn’t even that drastic of a temperature change. The bathroom was still rather warm, but there was just something about leaving the water that made everything so much colder.
He only keeps shivering, finding goosebumps on his thin arms again, now significantly paler than they were before due to the absence of dirt on them. He wants to go back to the water and sit for a while longer, feeling warm, but Techno told him to get out and wrap the towel around himself so he could come in. So Tommy does just that.
The tile flooring feels even colder than the air when Tommy steps onto it, but he tries to ignore it the best he can, grabbing the fluffy gray towel that Techno had left behind for him and pulling it over his shoulders and around himself like a blanket, or a cape. The towel makes him slightly warmer, so he buries himself into it, wrapping it tightly and huddling into it, trying to mimic the warmth of the bath. It doesn’t work as well as he wishes it would.
He feels his throat working, and Tommy manages to let out a croaky: “‘M done.”
The door creaked open, only an inch, just a crack. Then, after a moment of silence, it opens fully, his sire stepping into the room. Techno glances at him and smiles.
“Knew you’d be seven shades paler without all that grime,” Techno says, coming over to the tub and wrinkling his nose at the state of the water. “Yuck. Let’s drain this out.” Without asking Tommy to come do anything, like Tommy had expected, Techno just rolls up his sleeve and puts his hand straight into the water, yanking something back up and out.
The tub gurgled and began to drain as Techno put the drain clog on the counter nearby.
“Alright,” Techno wipes his arm off on a nearby towel hanging on the wall, next to where the one that Tommy had grabbed used to be. “You still need to get dressed, so I can step out for a second—”
An unreasonable amount of fear and anxiety surges up from where Tommy had shoved it away the moment Techno mentions leaving the room, and a sharper, louder chirp than he’s used to making cuts his sire off. It makes Techno stiffen and puff up protectively, which might be funny to see if Tommy hadn’t been so embarrassed. He’s honestly surprised that he isn’t bright red from the realization that he had essentially peeped like a baby bird.
Techno calms down after a second though, and glances at Tommy, amused. “Instincts?”
Sheepish, Tommy nods, looking away and pulling the towel tighter over himself as if it would hide him.
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Techno says. “Honestly, I’m still surprised they let you be in a different room than me for as long as you were. Here, I’ll turn around and face the wall while you get dressed instead, how about that? That way your instincts won’t be affecting you. After that, we can get you something to eat and watch a movie.”
Tommy hesitates. Watching a movie sounds fun, he likes the movies that they keep showing him, but he doesn’t want to eat. Don’t get him wrong, his instincts want him to eat, and logically he should, considering how thirsty he is, but he doesn’t want to. Drinking regular, human, blood is something that he doesn’t ever think he’s going to get used to, no matter how much the coven tells him it’s okay.
Techno seems to catch this, like he always does, and the smile on his face falters, softens. “You need to eat, Tommy,” he says. “You should be drinking at least twice a day to help build your strength back up, and you barely drink once a day.”
Tommy knows, he knows that. They keep telling him that, but it still feels wrong, bad, like a trick. He doesn’t like it. It tastes good, amazing, but he can’t get it out of his head that he’s going to be punished for drinking it, that it makes him feral when he’s supposed to be tame.
“How about this,” Techno says, catching Tommy’s attention again and disturbing him out of his thoughts. “If you eat after you get dressed, then we can watch Up again. Deal?”
Tommy brightens at the thought, even though he shouldn’t. He likes Up, it’s one of the first movies they showed him, and whenever they ask him what he wants to watch, he always chooses it.
He doesn’t want to drink, or eat, or whatever the proper term was, but he does like Up. That shouldn’t be a good enough reason to agree to drink blood that he shouldn’t be drinking, or should be, whatever the truth is anymore. It shouldn’t be a good enough reason, but he really likes Up.
He hums and nods. Only slightly reluctantly. “Deal,” he rasps.
Techno grins. “Alright, you need to get dressed first, though.” Tommy nods in agreement, and tries not to burst out laughing as Techno makes a show of closing his eyes, putting a hand over them, and turning around so he was facing the wall. Laughing is too loud. He can’t laugh, Dream always said he has an obnoxious laugh.
His sire doesn’t move from there, though, keeping his eyes covered and face mere inches from the wall, turned away from Tommy to give him a semblance of privacy when his instincts apparently wanted him to not have any.
He doesn’t know how long Techno being turned away will last, though. A quiet, fearful, familiar part of himself tells him that it won’t be for long, that Techno will soon grow impatient with Tommy and turn around before he’s finished. Even though he doubts that’ll actually happen, the anxiety is enough to make him dress quickly.
The clothes are soft, and clean, and though they’re slightly worn, they’re not falling into rags like the clothes he’s used to are. The shirt reminds Tommy of Wilbur’s sweaters, the really really soft ones that, as Wilbur likes to put it, “earn extra cuddle time” since Tommy likes touching them.
The pants are too long on him, he knows that he’ll definitely be tripping over these a lot, but the fabric is soft and cozy. It feels like he’s wearing one giant blanket, and Tommy likes that. Maybe a bit too much, but he does like it.
The shirt is far too small to be one of Wilbur’s—hadn’t Techno said it used to be Ranboo’s? It smells like Ranboo, like snow, crisp and clean and wet. It smells good, because Ranboo is coven, but at the same time it only makes Tommy more thirsty, since Ranboo’s a human and therefore smells like a human.
Tommy whines slightly, his instincts at war with themselves because can’thurtcovenbad but also thirstythirstyhungryneed. Ranboo’s not even here, it’s just his shirt, and Tommy can’t handle himself.
He really has gone feral. He could deal with Dream touching him without lunging for him when he was thirsty before. Yet now he can’t even deal with Ranboo’s scent without struggling.
“Are you done?” Techno asks, and he sounds concerned, so Tommy mumbles something that might have resembled a “yes” if you listen closely enough.
So his sire turns around to find Tommy with his nostrils pinched shut and lips sealed so that way he doesn’t have to smell the human part of Ranboo’s scent on the clothes. That doesn’t make him any less thirsty, though.
“Oh,” is all Techno says. His eyes soften at Tommy’s obvious predicament, before he crosses the room and lays a gentle hand on the top of Tommy's head, combing through the wet strands. “That’s another reason you should be drinking more too. We need to work on your control if you ever want to be allowed alone with humans like Puffy or Ranboo. For their sake.”
Tommy nods, but he keeps his nose firmly clamped shut and his jaw clenched.
“You ready?” his sire asks, and Tommy just nods again. Techno’s hand slips off of Tommy’s head, and the blond immediately latches onto it with his own, non-preoccupied one. Techno doesn’t seem too bothered by this, even holding his hand back as they go back to the nest room.
The nest room is the room that Techno had taken him to after they went to go see Dream in the dungeons. It’s where the whole coven is supposed to sleep, even though they have their own rooms elsewhere in the house. Phil, Wilbur, Techno, and him all sleep there, and Tubbo sometimes too, but Tubbo sleeps with Ranboo most of the time.
Techno’s told him that Puffy, Fundy, Niki, and Ranboo all sleep in the nest together with them sometimes too, but until Techno and Phil are sure that Tommy’s got a good control on his thirst, they’re going to wait on letting that happen again.
Tommy doesn’t want to be a burden on the others, he doesn’t want to be the one that stops them from doing the things they want to do. That’s why he has to get control over himself when it comes to eating. That’s why he has to eat more often, Techno says, so that way he has more experience with control.
Techno leads him into the nest, settles him into it in the mound of fabrics, before letting go of his hand and stepping back.
It takes everything in Tommy to not lunge forward and yank Techno back into the nest with him, whimpering and pleading and purring. It takes everything in him, and somehow it works, and Tommy doesn’t move, even as Techno steps outside of the nest room and closes the door.
Logically, Tommy knows that he’s just going to get blood from one of the many coolers around the mansion so Tommy can eat, but illogically his brain immediately starts whimpering and whining and making soft little peeps, all noises that Tommy repeat against his will. Their quiet, pitiful, needy, and no attempt he makes to smother them actually works.
You win some, you lose some.
Techno doesn’t take long to come back though. Realistically, he’s gone for only a couple of minutes, but Tommy’s stupid brain thinks it’s more akin to hours. The peeping only stops when Techno steps back into the room.
He’s holding another metal cup, a bigger one than the one he normally grabs when it’s time for Tommy to eat. It’s still got that clear plastic lid, the one that’s supposed to help him keep from spilling the blood all over the nest on accident. That’s what Techno told him it was for a few days ago. That’s also apparently why Tommy's not allowed to hold the cup when he’s drinking, in fear he’ll get too eager and accidentally spill it everywhere.
“Sorry about that, didn’t mean to leave you here for that long,” Techno says, closing the door to the nest room behind him. Tommy chirps quietly, a bit accusingly, but just stares at his own hands, absentmindedly pushing around a blanket. Doing it is soothing, somehow, in a way that Tommy can’t really explain.
Techno warbles something soft and apologetic, and Tommy trills forgiveness without really thinking about it. It isn’t Techno’s fault that Tommy’s instincts are going nuts.
A weight settles into the nest beside him, and Tommy looks up, tilting his head and keeping still as Techno bumps their foreheads together, another apology, this one silent. Tommy huffs, but he isn’t upset, not really. His instincts are, but Tommy isn’t.
He can smell the blood in the cup now that Techno’s sitting next to him, no matter how muffled it is due to the the metal. It’s scent is thick in the air, sweet and metallic and Tommy wants it, but he’s also trying to be as controlled as possible.
Tommy keeps himself tense, jaw tight, he barely notices that his fingers aren’t pinching his nose shut anymore. The combined scent of Ranboo and the blood is sending his head into overdrive, even more so than it was before. His instincts scream, whine, snarl, eateathungryfeednownownow.
But Tommy refuses to be a slave to his instincts, refuses to dig his fangs in and gulp down the sweet-smelling liquid. He has to work on his control, has to be better, that way he’s not inconveniencing anyone.
“Tommy,” Techno says with a sigh, and Tommy’s still heart drops in his chest. He’s disappointed his sire somehow. He hadn’t wanted that, he’s just trying to be better than his instincts, he’s just trying to be good—
Dream’s voice, slimy, grating, rancid, slithers along Tommy’s brain and digs its claws in. Don’t you want to be good, my little monster?
Tommy shudders, and his hands fly up to fist his hair, to tug on the strands. He’s not there, he’s not there, Dream is in the dungeon, he isn’t in the nest room. It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real. Its not real it’s not real it’snotrealitsnotrealitsnotrealitsnot—
A rumbling shakes his whole body, and it’s only then that he realizes he’s been pulled into Techno, his sire’s hand pressing Tommy’s head to a silky smooth shirt. Techno’s purring, his other hand gently stroking down the length of Tommy’s spine, and it makes him shiver and whimper.
Old, dewy forests and the cracking spines of ancient leather books. The scent fills his nostrils and settles his brain. If Tommy’s heart still beat, he’s sure it would be racing, if he still needed air, he’s sure he would be hyperventilating. His sire purrs, vibrating through Tommy’s very bones and calms his churning thoughts, but it doesn’t get rid of the sticky residue of Dream’s voice, doesn’t get rid of the whispers of “good little monster” that Tommy can still hear echoing in his ears.
“Shh, Tommy,” Techno murmurs, his voice cutting through the whispers effortlessly. The use of his name makes him relax, if only slightly, it makes him feel more grounded in reality. He likes it when they use his name. “You’re alright. You’re okay. I’m right here, Tommy. I’m right here.”
Tommy inhales shakily, even if he doesn’t need it. His fingers dig into the nearest thing he can grab, trying to keep himself on the ground. He doesn’t want to float off in the whispers, he hates when that happens. He hates the whispers.
When he feels slightly more solid, slightly less like a cloud that could be blown apart with a single gust of wind, Tommy opens his eyes, unsure of when he closed them. He can feel tear streaks down his cheeks.
“‘M sorry,” he mumbles.
“It’s okay,” Techno says, gently pulling Tommy’s hands out of his hair. “You’re okay, Tommy. You don’t have anything to be sorry for, I promise.”
Tommy takes a deep breath, listening to Techno purr for a few moments longer, but he pulls back eventually. He’s still thirsty, his instincts kicking back up now that he’s calmer, now that the whispering in the back of his head has faded.
“We’re not working on your control today, that’s for much, much later down the line,” Techno says, letting Tommy pull backwards, loosening his grip but still keeping a hand on him. “Just drink for now, then we can watch Up.”
Tommy bites his lip and looks away as Techno reaches for the metal cup again. He can see it, out of the corner of his eye, as his sire holds it out for him. Offers it for him.
His instincts are snarling again, and he wants it. It smells good. He knows it tastes good, and he wants it, his instincts want it.
Tommy takes a deep breath, and calmly, calmly he turns back to the cup, tilts forward and let’s Techno press it to his lips. The blood hits his tongue and his instincts explode, growling and making his hands fly up to snatch at the cup. Techno doesn’t let him have it, but he doesn’t take it away either, doesn’t make Tommy let go.
He gulps the blood down eagerly, greedily, and Tommy closes his eyes, purring.
Techno purrs back, and Tommy distantly wonders how this has become his normal. How living with the hunters had turned into this.
Life, or rather, death, is funny like that, he thinks. In just a matter of days, he’s gone from spending time in a cage feeding off of slabs of raw meat, to sitting here in the nest room, in the lap of his sire, drinking human blood.
Every habit that’s still left over from his time with Dream screams at him to stop, screams at him to be still and be quiet until he’s told what to do.
But everything that his sire has told him contradicts that, everything that his coven has told him contradicts that. His instincts make him lean more to what his sire says, what this coven says, even despite years of what Puffy likes to call “conditioning”, whatever that means.
So Tommy drinks, and purrs, and let’s himself be held. He’s comfortable, he’s safe, he’s warm, and Dream can’t touch him here. The coven keeps saying that Dream can’t touch him here.
He’s still having trouble with wrapping his head around the fact that Dream isn’t coming back to take him back, even though he knows Dream’s in the dungeon. He’s still trying to wrap his head around a lot of things, though.
Puffy says he’ll understand eventually, though. She says it’ll take a while, and that that’s okay. Techno keeps saying he should listen to Puffy about that stuff.
So maybe Tommy doesn’t understand a lot of things, but Puffy and Phil and Techno always say that’s okay.