Chapter Text
The sun greets them as they set out on their daily patrol. They’re out earlier than usual, the full moon still clinging to the forest like water after a heavy rain. It soaks in, magic, and it buzzes under Technoblade’s skin, so they’re up with the sun.
More often than not, there’s nothing to be found—trespassers rarely wander so deep in the forest. The most they ever get crossing their borders is the neighboring pack chasing prey across the creek that divides their territories.
Still, Techno’s instincts drive him to check the borders, to protect his claim, so Phil rises with him and together, they walk.
Eventually, Techno catches a scent and tracks it to a clearing at the edge of their territory and Phil swears quietly when he steps through the trees.
The ground is covered in last night’s fresh powder, glittering white in the early sun. It would be pretty if it weren’t for all the crimson. In the center of the scene lies the remains of the neighboring pack’s kill. Carnage is strewn everywhere, entrails dragged away half eaten and half left as payment for the trespass into Phil and Techno’s territory. From the tree line, he can see ribs exposed, pried open and jutting up like teeth.
He steps closer. The throat was ripped out, an arm pulled clean off and stripped down to the bone. Another step, and there are brown eyes staring blankly up at the sky. The wolves left the face alone—a sign of respect not usually extended to a human on their land, in their trees, and it strikes Philza as odd. The boy is young, probably close to Techno’s age, and that settles a weight sick and cold in his stomach.
Death didn’t used to bother him—not when he was just him, just Philza, the witch of the pines, and nothing more. And then Technoblade had been under his porch, all snapping teeth and exposed ribs, and Philza became a father in the span of a single breath. Something shifted after that day, and for the first time in a very, very long time, Philza remembered to mourn the brief flicker of light when it burned out.
He takes a third step, but a tiny warning growl stops him. Horror and devastation washes over him, violent and unforgiving, stuttering his heart in his chest and knocking the breath out of him.
Curled up against the body’s side is a ball of shivering golden fur. Blue eyes are locked on Phil, teeth bared and ears pinned back, growling an unmistakable threat. The pup is still protecting the dead boy and suddenly Philza understands the signs of respect the wolves showed. He doesn’t need Technoblade’s nose to tell him these two are pack and he doesn’t need the silent yellow eyes watching from the branches to tell him the boy died trying to protect the pup.
“Christ,” he breathes, and Techno makes a sound of agreement beside him. Phil looks down at him and Techno meets his gaze with something so young in his expression, something helpless and pleading, like somehow Phil can just fix it, can put the world right again so that stories always have happy endings and lost boys are always found. “Alright, you go get the sled and I’ll see if I can calm the kid down enough to get him home.”
Techno pushes against his leg and licks his hand before turning and taking off in the direction of the house. Phil watches him go for a moment, overwhelmed briefly, and a little jealous Techno gets the easy job, but judging by the carnage, the pup isn’t going to respond well to a wolf right now.
Slowly, Phil kneels down, ignoring the way the knees of his pants immediately start to soak through. He doesn’t want to loom over the pup, so he crawls across the snow on his belly, chattering on about nothing the whole distance. It’s only once he gets almost within arms reach that the cub starts growling again, like he remembered he’s supposed to be the scary one.
Phil quiets, and reaches out carefully, fingers brushing against soft fur before pulling back sharply to avoid snapping teeth.
“You’re okay, sweetheart,” he says softly, reaching out again and letting the puppy sniff him. It growls a bit, but the threatening edge is gone, and it doesn’t try to bite him when he tries again, fingers scratching lightly through matted fur. His stomach twists a bit at the dried blood smeared over the cub, but a wet nose bumps the side of his hand, whining softly when he stills. “Yeah, hey, you’re alright, I’ve got you.”
They stay like that for a while, Phil stroking and cooing comforting nonsense to the trembling pup until it finally starts to calm and with a little nudge curls up into his lap. It isn’t long before Techno makes his way back, sled dragging near silent in the snow behind him. The cub rouses from the little half doze he’d fallen into to growl a warning at Techno who huffs and takes an obliging step back.
The pup relaxes after that, but his blue eyes track the older wolf carefully. He doesn’t protest when Phil stands, but he whines when he steps towards Techno.
“Easy,” Phil soothes, “I need you to sit with Tech for a bit so I can help your brother, alright?”
He gets a whine in response, but the little thing settles down in the snow, shivering and watching Phil with wide eyes. Techno shifts a little closer, sniffing carefully at the puppy and drawing an angry little growl from him. Despite the show, the cub doesn’t actually protest much when Techno moves to lay down beside him, instead wiggling closer to the source of warmth.
Phil aches a little, but he has a job to do and the sooner he gets the boy onto the sled the sooner he can get the puppy in front of a fire to start warming up. Blue eyes slide closed and the little one sleeps while Techno keeps his gaze on Phil, worry shining through, but they’ve had this conversation before and Techno is too young to be sorting through magic like this.
So Phil resigns himself to a ruined shirt and moves to lift the far too light teenager out of the snow. He does his best to be gentle, trying not to jostle him too much or damage anything more than it already is. Once the boy’s body is settled safely on the sled, Phil goes about picking up the rest—the arm, the entrails. There’s not much he can do for a lot of what’s missing, but there’s enough left the reconstruction shouldn’t be too daunting.
The pup cracks open his eyes, whimpering, but not reacting past that pitiful anguish. Gods, he’s so young.
Once the clearing has been, well, cleared again, Phil takes the little one up in his arms and Techno pulls the boy back to the house.
It is a quiet journey.
Techno gets barked at sharply when he shakes melted snow off onto the still drowsy pup. Phil snorts, putting away the harness in the shed before ruffling Techno’s fur and then his hair when he shifts and presses his face into Phil’s shoulder.
“Can you heal him?” Techno mumbles, low enough that their guest can’t hear. He sounds tired, and Phil is inclined to agree. It’s hours still to noon and yet he feels as though he has been on his feet for days without respite. Finding a tragedy such as these two boys is… it drains, and Phil has forgotten how peaceful his life in the woods has become since finding Technoblade. He had forgotten how to carry the weight of a life lost in his arms, forgotten how to ignore the mourning whispers of a soul lost on the wind rustling through the leaves.
There is a faint ripple in the air around the young pup that Phil recognizes from battlefields and hospitals and streets ravaged by hunger and disease. The boy on the sled lingers with his brother, teeth bared as he tries desperately to protect him still.
It’s good the boy has stayed, makes the next part a little easier.
Once the little one is soundly sleeping, Phil returns to the other boy, currently laying on his workbench in the cellar. It’s more than cold enough outside to keep time at bay even before Phil could drape his magic over him.
For a moment, Phil allows himself the bone deep exhaustion that tragedy whispers to him. It’s clear the death was quick, but it was a long chase, soaked with terror, and the boy reeks with it. He’s seen worse, stitched it back together without a moment of hesitation, but he was younger then. A sword and healer for hire, chasing the thrill of battle, paid handsomely by kings and conquerors to raise their fallen soldiers to fall again like fodder, kindling to a wildfire. He had remade men from scraps, splintered bone and spilt blood and magic to fill the cracks and keep them whole.
But he was younger then, and now he stands over the body of a boy who watches him warily from the edge of the room, and he feels the weight of every one of the years that have passed. He was young, but now he is a father, and this is a child, chased down and ripped open for the sins of men he’s never met.
whatareyoudoing
“Helping you,” Phil answers to an empty room, and then he begins.
Necromancy is a tedious art, best suited for those practiced in patience and detail. It is for this reason that most of history’s greatest necromancers were women, taught by their matriarchs to mend with steady hands and the utmost care given to every stitch of both magic and string. The popular image of necromancy as a dark, unnatural practice comes from the rash and careless resurrections at the hands of men.
Philza is one of the few exceptions, taught by his grandmother when he was very young and taking pride in his careful work, in dead men living again with their souls and minds intact. He had lost the art of mourning, once, but never of this.
For hours, he works, stitching together skin and fusing bone. There’s enough left of the boy that he hardly needs replacements beyond a handful of organs Phil pulls from his store of spare parts. It’s been a long while since he had any need or means to harvest from humans, so he makes do with deer and boar, pouring magic in to make things fit. Fatigue drags at him by the time he’s tying off the final stitch to close the boy’s chest, but there’s a shadow looking down at his own face across the table and his work is not yet done.
He dutifully repaints faded runes and lights a circle of candles before pulling from the well inside his chest and reaching past the light and into the shadows as he invokes the goddess once again.
The veil thins and the world goes still as a warmth presses barely there against his back. His eyes remain closed, choosing to pretend she’s really there, whole and solid, for just a moment.
“My love,” she breathes and he smells only the must of decaying leaves. “It has been far too long.”
“Lady,” he says, the only words he is allowed lest the spell unravel, “I seek your blessing for the safe return of a soul from beyond the night.”
She laughs, a soft distant thunder of a thing. “Yes, yes, of course, my dearest. He is a bright one. Reminds me of you.”
And then the pressure breaks. The world surges back into motion. The warmth is gone and there is a boy on the workbench taking a wheezing gasping breath as he shoots awake.
Phil reaches out, only just stopping him from trying to get to his feet. “Slow,” he says, a little stern and a lot surprised. “Never seen someone so eager to jump right back into the grave,” he jokes to wide eyes. It’s the truth, though, he’s never seen anyone so determined, so focused on something (someone) else that they recovered so quickly from death. Even the mildest of reconstructions take a few minutes to breathe.
The boy isn’t interested in Phil, though, or in lying back down. “Tommy,” he says, as urgent as desperate. “Tommy, my little brother, where--”
“Easy, he’s alright, he’s upstairs, warm and fed and safe. You both need rest, it’s been a long couple days.”
“No, no, I need to see him now. I- we- please-” he stutters, as if he’s only just remembering the existence of manners and Phil has to hide a smile as he watches the boy scramble. “Thank- Thank you, sir, for the assistance. We greatly appreciate your hospitality, however, we really ought to be on our way. If- If you could just, just show me to where my brother is--”
“Wilbur,” Phil says gently and the boy freezes before forcing himself to relax, “slow down a minute, mate. You can’t leave- hold on, you can’t leave because my magic is currently holding you together and, at the earliest, it will be a few weeks before you can safely be on your own. Even then, you’re likely to walk back into a pack’s territory and we’ll be right back where we started. You’re safe here,” he promises, “the both of you.”
“Magic,” he echoes weakly, and Phil nods.
“I’m a witch and my son is a wolf, same as your Tommy. No hunters can reach us this deep in the forest and any that do are either caught by me or another pack. It’s safe, I swear it.”
The vow settles heavy over them, but Wilbur doesn’t notice.
“Please,” he asks again, soft and begging, “please, may I just see Tommy?”
×
The witch sighs. “Yes,” he says, and it sounds like salvation, “yes, of course, mate.”
The journey up the creaking cellar stairs is a difficult one, but, step by agonizing, impatient step, they make it to the landing. Standing at the heavy wooden doors, the cold seeps in, winter winds whistling beyond them.
Wilbur’s breath is a stuttered, wheezing thing, the soft whistle of damaged lungs, the same that damned him once before, now the sure reminder that life, however impossible, fills his chest. The stairs were unforgiving, and he shakes, as well, sweat beading and dampening his curls. The picture of brutal exertion, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t whine or cry or even hesitate as he reaches, fumbling, for the latch with numb fingers. His baby brother—his heart—breathes and beats somewhere beyond this and he cannot wait, cannot stop to think of witches and wolves and cellar spells.
The witch reaches out, settling a steady hand over Wilbur’s, and together they push open the doors to a world of quiet existence and glittering snow illuminated by lantern light.
There should be some change, it seems, some monumental shift as a boy once dead crosses back into the living world, but there isn’t. There is only Wilbur, half lunging across the threshold, barely paying attention to it as anything more than one more step between him and where he belongs.
The snow hardly chills him, he cannot waste the attention it would take to feel it, cannot summon himself into any semblance of whole long enough to shiver at the unforgiving bite of it. Winter has teeth, but so do brothers, and Wilbur will not be kept from his.
They have to circle around to the front of the house and it takes the witch to keep him upright as he stumbles, desperate, forward. Inside, there is Tommy and that’s all that matters, that’s the only thing. Wilbur presses forward, ignoring the witch’s warnings to slow down, to be careful, that he’ll tear his sutures if he falls and then where will they be.
Even with all of his worrying, the witch keeps him upright and helps him up the stairs to the front door, and then it’s opening and there are voices down the hallway and--
The den is warm when they reach it, a fire crackling in the hearth and the low rumble of the voice of a boy about Wilbur’s age as he reads aloud to Tommy, currently wrapped in his fur and a blanket and a sleepy haze.
The sight tears a near silent choking noise from the back of Wilbur’s throat and Tommy’s ear flicks up before his head turns and he freezes. Wilbur takes an unsteady, desperate step forward, the witch only barely catching his weight, and then Tommy shifts like a whirlwind into a tiny golden boy clinging to the quilt around his shoulders as he launches himself at his brother. Wilbur tears away from the supporting hands and meets him.
Together, they crumble to the floor in a sobbing, trembling pile of limbs and heartbreak mending.
“You’re here,” Tommy says, broken and gasping, and Wilbur holds him tighter. “You’re here, you’re alright- Are you alright? Are you- Can you stay? Please, Wil, please stay, please don’t go.”
“I’m here, I’m right here, I’m not leaving, I’m not ever leaving again.”