Chapter Text
It's a cold day.
That is the first thing that he registers when he goes into the outside.
The second thing is that it shouldn't be when the entire building behind him is up in flames. It should be warm. Fire is warm.
He... doesn't know all that much.
Who even is he?
The signs around him are bright, and there are people in bright, strange clothes that are running over, and one of them, a man in clothes that are a color he's never seen before locks eyes with him.
He's never seen a lot of those colors, so it's incredibly confusing. The ceiling of outside is a color that he's seen in one of his handler's eyes. Now that he thinks about it, the floor is a color that he's seen in one of his handler's eyes too. The sticks that come up from the ground are also a color of his handler's eyes, but the things that come off of them are the color of his other handler's eyes. The ones with floor-eyes.
It doesn't seem tactical to put them at random. Who put those strange sticks there, anyways? Then again, he doesn't know the outside world. He's never seen the outside world. He doesn't know what's tactical out here.
They said it was dangerous, the outside.
He is dangerous.
Maybe he belongs?
The man in not-red tries to come closer, but the boy waves his hand and a portal opens behind him.
Phil's eyes widen as the winged boy covered in blood disappears.
Red is his favorite color.
It's the only one that he knows about, but he likes it. He likes the red. He doesn't like the screams, but when the red covers him, it is warm, and he is so, so cold.
It fills his belly with warmth when he eats it, and he knows it isn't good, but he is always so, very hungry. He used to throw it up when he first ate it, but now it stays firmly in there, trying to soak up any nutrients possible. The chunks that he bites off are the main component of his diet, making him feel strange, in a dangerous sort of way.
The boy overheard that because of his "meal selections" (he doesn't know what that means), he does not look or act the same as his kind. He does not know what his kind is.
Apparently, they do not have sharp teeth and skin that looks less pale and more sickly grey, they do not have reflective eyes or claws. He thinks they are at a tactical disadvantage and should start having more of those traits.
Why is so much of the outside world at a tactical disadvantage all of the time? It's ridiculous.
...He doesn't know what that means either, but he heard one of his handlers yelling it angrily to the High Handlers.
She only lasted a week. Pity, he was beginning to like her company. She scratched his head in a way that made him smile, and taught him all sorts of words, like "joy," and "freedom."
He never heard them before. He doesn't know if he'll ever hear them again.
Another thing is that he can't exactly remember why he's running. It was all a blur. They were going to do something and he got so, so afraid, and then he pulled a card from his deck and then-
And then he was in the outside, and the building was on fire.
He was outside with Mr. Not-Red, the tactically disadvantageous sticks, and the outside-celings that were the same color as Mr. Not-Red's eyes. He would come up with a better name, but Mr. Not-Red was a perfect descriptor. He was a Mr, and he wasn't red. That made sense. He didn't know if Mr. Not-Red was a High Handler of the other Not-Red people, but he looked very important. Maybe he was even Higher.
Wait, one person back there was wearing red. What did that make them? Red-Red? That was silly, no one could be Red-Red. Well, maybe someone could be Red-Red. Red-Red person was in red, and he was a person. He looked warm. The blonde distantly wondered if Red-Red man was warm or not.
He didn't want to find out.
All he wanted to find was his next meal, because they hadn't fed him in so long, and his long-gone roomate's unmoving body only gave so much before it was taken away from him.
Shame, they were delicious.
He frowned, and ignored the frightened looks he got as he walked down pathways. He probably didn't look good, covered in the warm red stuff, and strange papery gown that indicated a rather sinister origin. One of the people muttered something about a psyche ward, whatever that was. He didn't bother to find out.
He was cold.
He was hungry.
One of those things could be solved, at least.
"Hello!" The brunette said, smiling. "Please don't eat me."
The taller boy paused to ponder this. Was he allowed to, if they said no? He removed himself and tilted his head. The brunette giggled. "I like you, you're funny! I'm Tubbo. What's your name?"
"Toboum?" The younger tried to repeat it, but the words twisted around in his mouth, tying knots with his tounge and making him trip over each letter with all the grace of a flailing animal.
"Your name is Tom?" Tubbo grinned. "Wait... No... Thomas?"
The blonde hesitantly nodded. He had no idea what was going on, but it seemed that everyone had a name now. He used to have one but he'd lost it, and it was probably rusting away somewhere.
The small hybrid grinned like he'd just won the lottery. "Hello, Thomas! I'll call you Tommy for short! Do you wanna go talk to my dad?"
(Thomas? Tommy?) nodded and was pulled away from the alleyway he'd tried to eat Tubbo in.
"Come on, slowpoke! Let's go!"
"Mm."
"Yeah, I'm excited for you to meet him too!"
"Uh." Schlatt started eloquently. "Who's this?"
"This is Thomas, but he lets me call him Tommy! We're friends!" The older ram hybrid stared at the blood smeared everywhere on the boy, noticeably more around his mouth, and his buggy, bloodshot eyes that half-seemed like they were about to pop out of his skull.
They weren't even that open, he was pretty sure that they were simply naturally on the verge of popping out. Slightly morbid, slightly interesting.
Slightly terrifying.
"...How'd you meet?"
"He tried to eat me!"
Slightly terrifying.
"Really?"
"I have no idea where he came from! I also don't think he can talk properly."
As if to prove the other correct, Tommy made a small humming noise, eyes flickering to look at the floor. Schlatt watched this with all the fascination of an immortal who'd lived long enough and was attempting to speed run their death. "Huh."
"Can we keep him? Please?" Tommy made a strange sound at that and skittered back a few steps before baring his teeth- Jesus Christ what the fuck no one should have that many teeth why are they all sharp avians are fucking bound to being vegetarian-
"We aren't keeping him, Tubbo, don't treat the poor guy like an animal." He pat his son on the head. "How about this, if he's all fine with it, we'll let him come and go as he pleases." He was ninety percent sure that this was an Eldrich god compressed into the form of a tiny child, one who would probably set the entire casino on fire if Schlatt so much as mildly upset him. Avians weren't supposed to eat meat, but avians also didn't have naturally sharp teeth, so that had to mean something.
Tommy was the strangest thing he'd come across.
He decided that it was endearing, and smiled at the kid. "How would you like something to eat?"
"Huh?"
"Maybe a good clean too." The kid made an unpleased noise, and a few other, hissing ones. Schlatt held his hands up. "Alright, alright, bath later, then. What do you want to eat?"
The small blonde seemed to step back and think intensely about this question, eventually settling on pointing directly at his leg.
"Let me phrase it again, what do you want to eat that isn't a person?"
It took a concerningly longer amount of time for the younger to decide, before he evidently settled on something, nodding. "Meat." His voice was hoarse, even from the one syllable word. The horned man nodded. "Alright. What kind?"
"Raw."
"You can't have raw meat, that's gonna make you sick. You can't even have any meat, actually. You're a bird hybrid."
"Raw." Tommy insisted. "Raw."
"...Don't blame me when you puke."
The meat wasn't warm, but he'd take it.
It felt more filling than the people-meat, so it seemed like he'd be eating this from now on. Schlatt said it was called beef. The beef-meat was tasty. He ate all of it and smiled at the older.
Schlatt discreetly inched away. The kid's smile was tinged by blood, and he smiled with far too many teeth. His hands were stained with blood, and Tubbo whispered to him to wipe it off on his hospital gown.
Oh yeah, he was also wearing a hospital gown. It was torn at the bottom, and he was pretty sure there were pieces being held on purely because of the dried blood on it.
Ominous wounded children in ripped hospital gowns covered in blood usually do not bode well for the general population, nevermind the apparent cannibalistic tendencies of said children.
Especially ones that, you know, physically aren't supposed to eat meat. Except they can, for some reason.
The ram hybrid wisely decided to ignore all of this and act like it was any other kid. "Eat slower."
Tommy was currently shovelling raw beef in his mouth like it was his last day alive, not bothering with silly things like silverware, or napkins. Tubbo was absolutely delighted, and proclaimed to his father that if his new best friend didn't use those, he wouldn't either.
Cut to him eating his salad with his hands, ranch making his hooved hands sticky. "Dad, look! I'm copying Tommy now, look!"
"You sure are." The other said, an exhausted smile on his face. "Now, how about when you're done, you get in your shower? You smell like you haven't taken one in days."
"I haven't!"
"Of course you haven't." He huffed. "I'm sure your new best friend wants to take a shower. Why don't you show him to them?"
"Okay! Come on, Tommy! I'm going to show you our bathrooms! The tub is huge!"
The blonde clicked his tounge and tilted his head. Tubbo hummed. "A bath is where you get clean, and all the bad stuff gets washed off! I feel super fresh after one."
The avian's tail feathers ruffled in irritation, but he made a reluctant huff and followed the other. Schlatt watched them go before turning back and trying to mentally calculate how much it would cost to get the bloodstains off of the chair, and the clawmarks where Tommy repeatedly dug his talons into.
After a good five minutes, he completely gave up and just placed an order for a new chair in.
"Okay, Tommy. This is very important." Tubbo instructed. "There is a certain way to make the best bubble baths, and- don't eat the bubbles."
Tommy paused in his vicarious attempts to consume the suds to focus back into what Tubbo was saying. "Mm?"
"Okay the bath looks almost full, here's what you do." Tubbo gestured to the bath. "We have a really big one, so you can fit your wings in here. You take off your clothes and get in the tub, and then you put soap on your body."
He turned and heard a large plonk in the porcelain. Tommy had slipped in while he was talking, tattered gown on the floor. Tubbo nodded. "Alright! Start washing yourself off, I'm gonna get you some clothes." The blonde grinned pleasantly, taking in the warmth of the tub.
Tubbo rushed to his room, ignoring the small yelps of the housekeepers around him and pulling out a fuzzy pullover and shorts. Tommy was shivering a lot, so hopefully, the pullover would keep him warm. On his way out, the ram hybrid snatched a small pair of scissors before knocking halphhazardly on the door. "Tommy, I'm comin' in!"
The ram entered and quickly placed everything onto his counter, grinning. Tommy was his first friend, probably ever, so almost all of it was a new experience. He turned his head back around. "Okay, let's-" He cut himself off. "Let's... Tommy?"
The younger was squeezing the bottle of shampoo into his mouth.
"Tommy, don't eat the soap!"