Texas Summers [Thomas Hewitt x AFAB!Reader]
Part 6
Warnings: Blood, big ol’ booboos, canon typical violence
{Tried to make this one longer! Nope you like it babies!}
You were right. It did get easier. Luda Mae quickly started treating you like part of the family, rather than a last resort or maid. Monty and Hoyt are still crotchety old men, but you can tolerate them. And Hoyt doesn’t threaten you with his shotgun anymore. And then Tommy. Good god, Tommy.
You quickly realized that if you were going to be stuck in the house, you were going to have to like it at least somewhat, otherwise you’d go crazy. Tommy makes living there enjoyable. He’s so sweet to you, it makes your heart ache. He still doesn’t let you in the basement, but every so often you’ll find a gift at your door: jewelry, clothes from victims, wildflowers and weeds in pretty vases, and once he gave you a homemade jewelry box.
It’s been a month or so since you started officially living here. Honestly, it wasn’t so bad. Things were much better now, and you keep forgetting that most of your meals consist of people meat. Most of the time, it feels like you’re a part of a little family, which is so nice sometimes. Luda Mae is like the mother you never really had. She always tells you she wanted a little girl.
Speaking of Luda Mae, you have a feeling that she’s trying to set you up with her son. She sends your o get him for meals and insists you two should spend more time together. As if you two already don’t spend enough time together. You and Thomas spend every night on the back porch, just sitting in comfortable silence. You admitted your feelings about him to yourself a while ago, but you have yet to tell Thomas himself. It would be a little awkward if he turned you down, so you just ignore the fluttering in your stomach when he looks at you or the heat in your face when you find a new gift at your bedroom door.
Today’s been an easy day for you. Your only chore was to hang laundry up. You’ve been up in your room reading for a while. It was pretty quiet until about an hour or two ago when you heard Hoyt bring in dinner “guests”, and little after that the chainsaw in the basement started up. You figure you shouldn’t bother Tommy or Hoyt, so you decide to stay in your room.
Another hour passes or so passes before you decide that you’re too bored. You head downstairs to find that Thomas’ basement door is wide open, which is very unusual. You get a creeping feeling that something is very wrong. Hoyt and Monty must be out, so you have to check this out on your own. You take a few steps down the steps.
“Thomas?” You call out, hoping that he’ll come right up to you and shoo you away like he always does. There’s no response. You take a few more shuddering steps. The basement floor comes into view, and it’s covered in blood. Your heart pounds and you can immediately tell this is not good.
“Thomas! Tommy!” you say, sprinting down the steps. You’ve never fully seen the basement, and everything is foreign. You don’t know where he could possibly be down here. A low groan echoes from behind a sectioned off part of the basement, near the very back wall.
You go to step forward, but your foot hits something. You look down and your heart drops. It’s a girl, or what used to be a girl. Now all that’s left is a bloody corpse. Another pained grunt echoes before you realize it’s Thomas.
“Shit, Thomas I’m comin’!” You take off, stepping over the body before bounding off to the bloodied curtain in the back. You pull the curtain to the side to reveal Thomas, battered and bloodied, laying against a bed. He’s clutching at his arm and hissing in pain.
“Holy shit, what happened to you?” You kneel down in front of him and gently guide his face to meet your eyes. He doesn’t seem to know what’s happening, and his eyes look dulled. “Oh hun, we’re gonna get you fixed up… okay?” you say softly. Thomas gives a little nod before his head rolls back to lay against the bed.
You gently pry his hand away from his arm to assess the damage. He’s got a large gash running across his left bicep that needs to be taken care of quick. He’s lost a lot of blood from what you can tell. There was smears of it leading to this curtained off room, it was pooling under him, and his clothes were sticky with it. You look for more wounds and find a smaller gash across his left thigh, a few shallow cuts on his face through the mask, and a few other smaller cuts.
You stand up, and begin searching the room for any first aide supplies. Luckily, Thomas keeps a pretty hefty supply of first aide in the basement, in case of accidents. You manage to find it and bring it back to Thomas, who is no longer out of it. His eyes are wide, and he’s shaking just a little.
“Hey big guy, got yourself into trouble?” He raises his arm to reach for his notebook on the bedside table, but you quick stop him. “Hey, don’t worry. You can explain it later. I’m gonna get you cleaned up, okay?” you say softly. Thomas nods again.
You grab a bottle hydrogen peroxide and begin trying to clean out the bigger wounds. Thomas hisses when the liquid soaks over his arm and leg. You gently shush him, running your free hens over his other shoulder. After that, you grab some gauze and try to clean up as much of the bleeding as possible. You pull back pad after pad of gauze soaked in blood.
You try not to show it, but you’re terrified. You’ve never done any wound care like this, and you’re afraid you’ll hurt Thomas. You keep speaking to him, just random nonsense to keep him conscience and focused, but you can’t ignore the way your voice is trembling. This next part is what you’re most afraid of.
You pick up a needle and thread. Your eyes meet Thomas’. “This is gonna hurt just a little bit. Just tap me twice if it’s too much a you need a second, okay?” Your voice is wavering, and Thomas notices. He nods anyway. You smile softly and steady yourself, prepping the needle and thread.
Your stitches aren’t even and you mess up a few ends, but it holds. Thomas takes it like a champ, and you reward him with words of praise, keeping him grounded. You finish sewing up the slash on his arm before you realize your next problem.
“Uh, Tommy, I’m gonna need to cut a section of your pants off. You won’t have to take the whole thing off, I just need to clear the area around the cut…” you murmur. Thomas grunts, and motions for you to go ahead. You take the small scissors and gut out a large patch of the fabric from around the cut. The exposed skin is red and irritated, and you hope it’s not already infected.
You work quickly on the wound, and thankfully your stitches are bit more neat. You pat Thomas shoulder.
“Good job, big guy! The rest are just things we can bandage, right? Good. Before we do that, I’m gonna see if mamma or Hoyt are home. Try and relax for me…” you say, standing up. Thomas eyes are starting to focus better, and you can tell he’ll heal up quick. You quickly make it upstairs where Luda May is tidying up. She turns to greet you, but recoils with a gasp.
“Good lord! What happened?” You then realize that your hands are stained in Thomas’s blood. Luda sets her dish towel down as you answer.
“Thomas got hurt. Got the people, I think, but they got him good. Please come help?” you say, breathlessly. Your adrenaline and fear start to spike now that your brain isn’t fully occupied with fixing Thomas up.
Luda Mae doesn’t blink twice before making it down the steps to the basement, but recoils at the mushy body at the and of the steps. She side steps around the body, before heading back to the curtained off area, you follow closely behind.
Thomas perks up considerably when his mom comes in. She immediately starts to fuss at him, grabbing him and checking him over.
“He had some bad wounds on he left arm and thigh, I did my best to sew them up. Everything else can be bandaged up no problem, I think,” you reassure. Luda Mae sighs and relaxes a bit.
“Oh, I don’t know what we’d do without you dear. Let’s get the rest of him fixed up…” Luda Mae grabs the gauze and quickly gets to work, and you help right by her side.
A few hours later, Thomas is laying in the bed (which took a bit of effort from you and Luda) and trying his best to relax. You’ve been sitting there with, eating dinner with him. You figured that he shouldn’t be alone for dinner. You eat in relative silence before you finally say something.
“You really scared me today,” you say softly, getting Thomas’ attention. “I was really afraid you were hurt badly, and I wouldn’t be able to fix you.” You run your fingers over the necklace Thomas gave you, looking down at the half empty plate.
Thomas hand reaches for your knee, and he squeezes it gently in reassurance. “I know you’re strong and all… hell, I’ve seen what you do to these people. But I can’t help but worry about you when you’re down here sometimes. I haven’t been here long, but I admit I’ve grown a little too fond of you, huh?” You smile sheepishly as a blush grows across your cheeks.
Thomas’s hand tightens on your knee, and he grunts to get you to look at him. Your eyes meet and you swear there’s something in those blue eyes that seems almost… sad. You hope it’s not because of what you said. You quickly try to change the subject.
“You sleep down here?” Thomas nods. “Oh… I guess I must’ve taken your room when I came here.” Thomas shrugs and you feel a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry, you can always take it back. If you’d like too, anyway. I’d be more than happy to sleep on the couch,” you say, grinning at him. Thomas smiles a little and shakes his head. He then holds up two fingers? It takes you a second to realize what he’s saying, but the realization makes your face flush.
“The bed’s big enough for two?” Thomas nods again. Oh good lord, this man was going to kill you. And it wasn’t going to be with the chainsaw…
