One More Step Out of the Pit

chapter 17

Tommy listened to them talking idly without tracking a lot of it. Something cold brushed his forehead and he peaked open his eyes to see Ghostbur hovering over him with a smile.

"Will no," Phil said, his voice a bit louder than it had been before. "You have to let those fade at some point."

"Never," was the response.

Tommy gave a confused hum, peering up at him.

"It's nothing," Ghostbur promised. He reached out and the cool non-pressure stroked across his brow.

"Will," Phil said, exasperated.

Ghostbur quirked a smile. "See you later, Tommy!"

Tommy looked over at Phil once Ghostbur blinked out of existence. "Wha?" he asked.

"You may have a bit more blue on your face this morning, Mate," Phil explained.

Tommy's hand immediately touched his own eyebrow where Ghostbur had touched him a moment before. His mind caught up with what must have happened. "That bastard!"

Phil did not seem insulted on his child's behalf. Instead, he just chuckled. "He can be that sometimes, yeah." He sat down on the edge of the bed. "How'd you sleep?"

Tommy crossed his arms. "Well, you all drugged me, so I slept really 'well.'"

"It was Tylenol PM, Mate."

"You're all wrongins."

Phil patted him on the knee. "You needed sleep to recover anyway."

"Wrongins," Tommy hissed out. The hand on his knee squeezed lightly and Tommy was unsure if it was a warning or just a thing Phil does. He decided to back off the complaining just to be safe. "So, what're the plans for today, Big Man."

"You'll be spending most of the morning with me," he said. "Techno's cooking breakfast already and Wilbur's waking up now, obviously. I can bring you down some books or you can watch more movies if you'd like."

"Movies would be cool," Tommy said. "Might be too tired to read." He winced when he realized his excuse ended up being him complaining again, but Phil didn't react, and Tommy relaxed again after a moment.

"Fair enough," Phil answered simply. "Now or do you want to sleep more?"

Tommy thought about it for a moment. "Now?"

Phil nodded, and removed his hand to turn on the television and fetch the remote. Tommy spent a bit of time today actually exploring how Netflix worked, since he'd never gotten a chance to use the app before his kidnapping. He quickly figured out that each member of the household had their own subaccounts, that Tommy could easily get into any of their accounts by simply selecting the one he wanted with the remote, and that he could add movies and television shows to their watch lists with the click of a button. He was going to use these facts for evil. In fact, he did not start any movie or television show at all. Instead, he just added selections such as Veggietales, Boss Baby, and every movie that came up when he searched 'ghost' to Wilbur's watch list. He eventually figured out how to reorder said watch list and gleefully intermixed his additions into the ones that had already been on the list. He was pretty sure Phil knew what he was doing, but he hadn't said to stop.

He'd just added a fifth Scooby Doo movie when the door beeped. Tommy quickly pressed the back button as Wilbur entered the room.

"That was fast," Phil commented with a raised eyebrow.

"I can get ready fast," Wilbur replied. He sounded a bit testy.

"You really can't, Will."

Wilbur pursed his lips. "Techno finished your breakfast. I'm here to check the child's stitches."