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Tommy was insanely excited. It was flying day!
That’s what Wilbur and Techno had been telling him the past day. They promised him that when he woke up from his nap, his big brothers would let him go out and try to fly! The child was ecstatic!
He wasn’t entirely sure why… But Dad hadn’t let him try flying yet… Which made him just a teensy bit sad. He was a big boy! He’d had wings for… Definitely for a long time! So it was stupid for him not to be flying! That’s what they were for, so he thought his dad was silly.
Right now it was 9:35 PM! Woah, he was never allowed up this late! He questioned why to his fellow winged brothers.
“Well, Toms… We have something secret to tell you okay?”
The child enthusiastically nodded along to what his big brother Wilbur was saying
“Tomorrow, you’re going to be the bravest bird ever, yeah? You need to get a good sleep before we leave. Me and Tech are gonna wake you up early. And we’ll teach you to fly, just like us!” The brown-haired boy fluttered his wings in excitement at the idea.
The child excitedly scampered off to his bedroom (The largest out of all of theirs) and quickly hopped into his bed, hyped up for the morning that would follow.
Techno and Wilbur had a plan.
They knew how to fly, thanks to Phil. But Phil had the same method that most parents used when say… Teaching kids to swim.
Throwing them and letting them figure it out themselves.
They weren’t going to tell Tommy this, of course. Since they themselves had no idea until the inevitable happened.
Tommy would probably be a little angry, but no doubt excited to be able to fly! Plus they were all just a little bit tired of the constant questions of when he’d finally be ready.
The kid certainly looked ready. His wings were really fluffy, but they didn’t have any bald patches like most new-ish wings had.
“You think this is gonna work?” TechnoBlade asked, thinking silently as he thought over the plan.
“Well it worked for us, didn’t it?”
“Mm, you’re right. Anyway, bye loser. I’m off to bed.” As the pink-haired twin left, Wilbur sighed, knowing he wouldn’t see his twin for hours.
Oh God, that meant he’d have to wake Techno-
The night passed quickly, with everyone falling asleep fast.
Wilbur had awoken first, at the beautifully early time of… 4:45 AM.
It was really dark outside now, but Wilbur knew that by the time they arrived at the cliff where Phil had taught them, it would probably be light enough for them to have their lesson.
Wilbur had then gone into Techno’s room, where he spent 7 minutes attempting to wake the heavy sleeper. Magically only waking up when he whispered that they had to teach Tommy to fly.
That was when the youngest Twin realized that Techno had probably been awake for most of that, and just enjoyed annoying him.
But they soon got changed out of their pajamas and into something flexible for flying in. Something comfy. As the brothers finished brushing their hair, they realized that it was time to wake the youngest.
Sneaking quietly down the hall, to avoid waking Phil, the two twins stepped through the open door to see their baby brother snoring softly.
He looked so peaceful… And so asleep, they both awed at the way his little wings fluttered with each snore.
Techno did the honors of waking him by lightly shaking his shoulders. Tommy bounced up instantly realizing what was going to happen today. The twins barely had time to react before the kid zoomed out of his bed to get ready.
Wilbur just laughed at the enthusiasm, wondering where that energy was when he had to do chores.
They’d say that this was the fastest the youngest got ready ever, they just quietly watched, ever so often reminding him to be quiet. Which the kid tried, as best as he could at least.
Wilbur and Techno just guessed that Phil was pretending to be asleep not to deal with whatever was going on outside his door.
And they were thankful.
The kid practically bounced his way through the forest, Wilbur lightly telling him to stay close, and Techno telling him to slow down. The Twins had thrown together a crappy lunch, a sandwich for each of them.
And Techno was pretty concerned that Tommy would choke if he kept spinning around like that with food in his mouth.
But hey, that’s just a special ability of children, as the blonde kid, did in fact not choke.
Wilbur was right about it being lighter when they arrived, none of them had brought any devices with them, so they weren’t too sure of what the time was. But if they had to guess, with the time it took them to get ready… Get Tommy ready, make food and leave?
They’d say it was about 5:40 AM. Which meant they had to hurry.
Right, they were probably not meant to be doing this?
They knew that Phil wanted to teach Tommy, and they practically had the words of Phil engraved into their minds right now. The same spiel about not letting their brother fly yet, how it was too soon… Not safe…
But it had been a good month! Heck, regular birds usually began to learn to fly after twelve days. This was almost three times that amount!
Oh, he was ready ready.
Techno noticed the way that Tommy clang to his leg as they edged closer to the ledge.
“... So what do I do?” The boy questioned, sounding really unsure about the massive drop.
The cliff was in the middle of the forest, so the only thing below them that they could see was trees very far down. But it was also quite dark, so they just assumed it to be trees.
They hadn’t focused too much on what was below them when they first got pushed, so it didn’t matter too much.
Wilbur beamed as he got his brother's attention, making him look him in the eyes. “Well Tom’s, you need to stretch your wings out like you’re reaching for the stars!” Techno rolled his eyes, remembering Phil say a similar thing to them.
Techno lightly removed the child’s cling from his leg, no use pushing him off if he went down with the kid.
Tommy did not like that he wasn’t near anything to grab. He did not like how close the edge was. This wasn’t like the times Phil showed him a ravine, this time he didn’t have Phil’s hand to hold…
The kid froze, not wanting to move.
“I don’t think I wanna do this.” As he moved his little feet in reverse, stepping back quietly.
Too bad he didn’t notice the way that Techno and Wilbur were silently creeping up behind him.
Techno and Wilbur heard the scream the entire time the boy was falling, it was a high drop. Their brother would have around 25 seconds of pure falling before he’d be in any real danger.
So why wasn’t he flying yet?
Why wasn’t he flying!?
They quickly prepared to jump after their baby brother, spreading their wings.
Too bad that they couldn’t get started as they forcefully got knocked to the ground, not having time to see who or what it was. As they peeked over the edge, all they could see was a black blur shrinking as it went down.
Shit, Philza!
They couldn’t hear the screaming anymore.
Phil did not fucking expect this to be his wake-up call.
He was barely awake by the sounds of small feet running up and down the hall, no doubt his youngest. He sleepily looked over at the alarm clock. 5:01 AM. Too early to deal with that…
He rolled over, wanting to get some more sleep, at least another thirty minutes…
When the noises stopped, instead of falling back into his already-half asleep state… He became alarmed and sat up, quietness was usually a blessing. But not when your kid has just woken up, that usually meant they were doing something stupid or extremely messy.
It took him about fifteen minutes to finally leave his room, spending that time getting changed into proper clothes he could wear for the day. Something nice and flexible, tons of wing-room.
The hall was eerily quiet, and Phil started to think something was up when he saw that Techno’s door was open. Especially this early.
Was it daylights saving or something stupid? Did he read the time wrong…? No, he knew he checked that clock multiple times. Maybe it was broken…? Maybe … Alright, he had no excuses.
He thought he heard something coming from downstairs, but as he arrived, it was empty. The only sign that someone has been there was the random miniature lego bricks that were oddly scattered around the kitchen.
A death trap for those not wearing any shoes.
The other sign of life was the remains of a sandwich on the counter. Strawberry Jam, Tommy's favorite.
Oh, Crap.
One head turn towards the door confirmed his suspicions, all pairs of shoes by the door beside his, were gone.
Call it a parent-sense. But Phil just knew what his boys were up to, the way that he’d overheard Techno and Wilbur speaking of flying.
The way they asked each other when they thought he would fly.
Of course, they’d fucking left without him.
And he had a pretty good idea on how they’d teach their baby brother how to fly…
‘Hang in there boys, Philza’s coming…’
That was how they ended up where they were now.
His youngest was absolutely terrified , sobbing and shaking as hard as his little body could handle. Phil saw the way his boy's feathers were so ruffled up. He was a baby bird, their feathers shouldn’t look this bad when stressed.
Phil could only soothe the boy with light hushing and stroking his son’s feathers in an attempt to calm him, he was holding Tommy so tightly, that if either of them had cared, the boy would probably be telling him it was too tight.
Phil knew he had to fly back up the cliff, walking while carrying a kid would take too long. He didn’t have to carry his boy, but he certainly didn’t want to put him down at all.
With a big force of his wings, he ran and launched them back to flying, making sure that the travel upwards would be really quick. He didn’t mind at all, the way that his shirt was getting absolutely drenched with tears. He didn’t comment on the pain his chest felt when Tommy tried so desperately to bury himself in it.
He could see Wilbur and Techno running towards him.
“What in the ever-loving fuck did you expect to happen?”
“We thought he would-”
“You thought he would what? Fall to his death? Because if that’s what you were going for, good job. Because you nearly succeeded.”
“I-”
“ No, Boys, that was the most reckless thing I’ve seen you do yet. You are so God damn lucky that I noticed you leave when you did. You were just getting into the launching position for fly when I was already halfway down. And I , an adult, almost didn’t grab him. What made you think you would?”
The silence was nerve-wracking.
Philza just pinched his nose and sighed, bringing his hand back down from his face to continue stroking a hand through Tommy's hair.
Tommy almost died because of them.
Phil would’ve been holding the corpse of their brother if he hadn’t been there.
What the fuck had they done?
It had taken over two hours for Tommy to cry himself to exhaustion. The poor kid had been crying so hard that they were afraid he was going to throw up. Phil sat with his youngest every moment in the boys bedroom.
Techno and Wilbur still hadn’t been allowed in.
They had been crying, silently crying, but still. They weren’t crying because Phil yelled at them, they were crying because Phil was right.
Phil finally opened the door, their little brother was asleep on his shoulder, clinging the way a newborn baby bird would to their parents.
Phil still looked a little bit pissed off, understandably… But he did feel remorse seeing the redness in his Twin's eyes. He saw the way their wings were droopy, a sign they were upset.
He sighed, gently lowering himself and his baby bird onto the kid's bed. He patted the small spots beside him, signaling Techno and Wilbur to join him.
They did, reluctantly.
They were nervous, not because Phil was mad. But because they felt that if they got near Tommy, he’d be ripped away from them, forever.
Phil breathed out and shifted his eyes to look at them from where he was laying.
“You know I’m pretty disappointed in you boys…”
Fuck, there were the tears again.
“I know you want Tommy to be able to join you and fly. I know you were doing the same thing I did to you but…” He broke eye contact, thinking about how to word it. “It’s… Different.”
The boys weren’t sure how it hadn’t worked for the blonde boy.
“He’s… Tommy’s wings are still… Far too small to try anything like that… Boys, I know I pushed you when you were little… But you’d had your wings for a good few months… He’d only just broken the one-month mark…”
He had to pause again.
“I know some birds can fly earlier than that, but that’s not always the case, okay? I’m still really upset at you for doing that, but don’t think I’m going to be mad forever, alright?” His older boys nodded.
Wilbur and Techno both apologize repetitively, the wobble in their voice from trying not to burst into sobs were clear.
Hell, Phil was tearing up a bit… The thought of losing any of your baby birds was scary.
But he didn’t need to worry, his Baby birds were right there, in his arms.
He’d keep them safe forever.