A Mockingbird In The Crows Nest

A Steady Beep Of A Heart Monitor

So, Tommy lets his world fall dark as gentle hands brush the tears from his cheeks.

A quiet, steady beeping noise is the first thing to greet Tommy when he pulls himself out of the haze of unconsciousness. His head feels like it's been stuffed with cotton, and his limbs feel like they were filled with lead. In fact, he doesn't think he can feel his fingertips. Which- that's probably not a good thing. Not being able to feel a part of your body probably means something's wrong.

He tries to crack an eye open to figure out where he is or why his fingers might be numb; but he's instantly blinded by a light in the room. He shuts his eyes again and lolls his head to the side; pressing his face into a weirdly itchy pillow and groaning quietly. His head hurts from the effort of moving, and his throat is scratchy for some reason. He coughs weakly, hoping that'll clear up some of the stickiness and make his throat hurt less- but nope fuck okay that just makes it hurt worse. It hurts to cough. Fuck it hurts to breathe, really. He licks his lips weakly and grimaces. He needs a drink.

"Tommy?" A voice says, followed by a quiet shuffle. "Hey..You waking up, mate?"

He groans as his answer, furrowing his eyebrows and trying to place the voice. It sounds familiar in a way that probably means the owner is important. But he can't seem to place it..Fuck, his head hurts. It hurts to think.

"Here, drink some of this, ok?" A straw pokes at his lips. "But go slowly. Lotus said you could throw up if you drink too fast."

Tommy grimaced, turning his head away slightly and trying to pry his eyes open again. The room is darker now, thankfully- so he's able to peer around with bleary eyes. Then his eyes land on a figure with a casual, feathered mask over his eyes sitting beside his bed in a dark green hoodie.

He blinks slowly at the figure, trying to pull his 2 brain cells together to comprehend who he's looking at.

Charon is sitting in a chair beside his bed- with a book set to the side like he was reading until Tommy woke up.

He blinked dumbly at the hero, trying to comprehend what was going on as Charon just smiled and held a cup towards him. Slowly, he dragged his eyes away from the hero's masked face to look at the drink. He expected it to just be water- but he was met with a shimmery pink liquid. Which..That was a health potion, wasn't it? That's what it looked like, anyways.

Apparently, he took a little too long to figure out what the drink was- because Charon gave him an encouraging smile. "C'mon, Tommy..You need to get some fluids in your system. And this'll help your throat."

Swallowing thickly, he parted his lips just enough to sip weakly from the straw. He tried to raise his hands to take the cup from him- but his limbs still felt too heavy to move. Like his bones were turned to rocks while he was asleep. He didn't really like that Charon had to hold the drink up for him; but thankfully it didn't seem like the hero minded.

Charon's hand was steady as he held the cup, and Tommy had to stop several times to cough when the tingling of the potion made his throat hurt. He got about a fourth of the way through the cup before Charon pulled it away. He's still pretty sore, but at least it doesn't hurt to breathe anymore. He licked his lips, and grimaced the way the potion lingering on his tongue prickled at the cracked skin on his lips.